Goblinopolis, The Tol Chronicles, Book 1 (41 page)

Aspet gave a Royal Banquet in Tol’s honor that evening. He had a new uniform designed for the Knights-Protector and Tol’s first command as a knight in fealty was to debut it at the banquet. Aspet expected him to squirm uncomfortably all night, like a rambunctious child forced to wear a fancy suit to a family gathering, but to the king’s surprise Tol took to it like a fish to water. He cut rather a dashing figure in the elegant silk and satin uniform of deep crimson, rich blue, and gold, Aspet had to admit. The garter rested in a custom-made harness of twisted woolen cords around his right arm, while the Medal of Royal Merit shone handsomely above the brilliantly-polished buttons on his chest. The splendid ensemble was a far cry from the tattered tactical fatigues he’d shown up in earlier in the day.

Tol spent the night in the Royal Guest Quarters, but early the next morning he insisted on returning to the Precinct. “I appreciate the glitz and glamor, really, but I’m still a working goblin and I got a job to do.”

Aspet smiled and hugged him. “That’s one of the reasons I elevated you, Tol. You don’t let anything get in the way of your duties. You’re Tragacanthan all the way to the bone.” Tol gave him a rare look of affection. “You turned out to be one smek of a kid brother, didn’t ya?” He picked up the custom suitcase containing his dress uniform (he was back in the fatigues, albeit freshly laundered) and headed for the door. As he reached it he turned around one last time. “Pet...
As
pet...I’m proud of you.” Aspet stopped cold and stared at him in shock. “I must take my leave now,” Tol continued, “But I am ever your goblin.” He paused for a moment to let the uncharacteristic language have its full effect, and then added, “Your Majesty,” with a small, adroit bow. With that he turned and marched off down the hallway.

Aspet watched him go until he disappeared around a corner, then shut the door and sat down in his drawing room throne. He shook his head at the marvel of it all and began to laugh. He laughed joyfully, from the heart, and so loud that his Chamberlain came rushing in to investigate. Aspet wiped the tears from his eyes at last. The Chamberlain cleared his throat and said, “Your Majesty, you have a meeting with the Disaster Response Committee in the Blue Council Room in ten minutes. We should be on our way.”

“Lead me then, good sir. I am well prepared for anything now.”

Tol went home, dropped off the fancy duds, and changed into his EE duty uniform before he made his way to the Precinct. He wondered what sort of reception he’d get there. The situation was rife for extreme taunting, he figured, so he marshaled his retorts for the expected onslaught. Best just to pretend nothing has happened if he wanted to avoid stirring the pot any more than necessary.

He walked in and headed for the duty desk to report. Sarge regarded him in a strange, almost friendly, way. That unnerved Tol a little, but he took it in stride. “Mornin,’ Sarge. Sorry I’m late, but I had to take care of some personal business. Smekkin’ family stuff, you know.”

“I heard. Cap told me not to dock you for it. We’re good.”

Tol fished some forms out of a column of wooden boxes attached to the wall. “I gotta get these reports done before I hit the streets.” “Yeah, you do that, Tol,” replied Sarge, going back to his own paperwork. Tol shrugged and headed for his desk. Sarge stared after him and his grizzled old countenance morphed into a surprisingly warm smile.

Tol had been working on the Pyfox arrest report for about ten minutes when he sensed someone was watching him. He looked up and saw the Captain standing there. He dropped his pen and stood hastily, almost knocking over his chair in the process. The Captain regarded him for a few moments then said, simply, “Follow me.”

Tol was accustomed to instant obedience to his EE superiors; he followed without hesitation. They wound around past the Captain’s office suite to the Command Situation Briefing Room, a room Tol had only been in once before, during a city-wide disaster preparedness exercise. There were a lot of cops in there, including some retired ones Tol hadn’t seen in years. The Captain led Tol to the lectern, where a very important-looking official of some sort was waiting for them. Tol suddenly recognized him from a portrait in the EE headquarters entryway as the High Commissioner for Edict Enforcement for all of Tragacanth.
Why am I suddenly a smekkin’ VIP magnet
?

The High Commissioner spoke. “Esteemed mem-bers of the Edict Enforcement community, today we are here to celebrate a very great honor bestowed upon our profession. One of our own, a career foot patrol officer, has been named the premier member of the newly-created rank of Knight-Protector of the Crimson Order. (Pause for energetic applause.) This reflects well not only upon the recipient himself, but upon the EE community at large. We have been recognized at the highest levels of Tragacanthan leadership as worthy of having a Knight in our ranks. The myriad benefits this will bring to our profession, and our budget, cannot be overestimated. We owe officer Tol-u-ol,
Sir
Tol-u-ol, a great debt of gratitude for both his service to the Precinct and his larger contribution to the advancement of Edict Enforcement in general.”

Tol was getting really uncomfortable with all this flowery language. He wished the Commissioner would just make his point so he could get back to work.

“In order that we make most effective use of Sir Tol-u-ol’s talents, I have decided to remove him from his post as patrol officer…”

Time froze for Tol at this point. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He’d been a patrol officer almost all his adult life. His entire existence was wrapped up in it. Without that anchor he had no idea what he would do. He was on the verge of panic before the Commissioner could even finish the sentence.

“…and appoint him to the office of Special Investigator. He will report directly to me and be responsible for high-profile cases that require complex investigative efforts. He will also act as a spokesgoblin for the EE community.”

Tol shifted from one form of panic to another as this information percolated down through the layers of his awareness.
Special Investigator
? What the smek sort of job was that for a beat cop? He hadn’t the first notion what a ‘special investigator’ did. He’d never even bothered to take the sergeant’s exam all these years. And spokesgoblin? For the love of Gammag. He suddenly realized that the Commissioner was expecting him to respond.

“I…I thank you for this unexpected honor, Commissioner. I only hope I can, um, live up to it.”

Whew. Tol found it really taxing to talk that way. The Commissioner seemed pleased at his response. Tol fervently hoped he wouldn’t be called upon to say anything further.

“This appointment is effective immediately. Sir Tol-u-ol, your office will be located in Justice Hall adjacent to the Royal Compound, down the corridor from my own. Movers will be at your old office to relocate you shortly. Congratulations from the entire Edict Enforcement family on your knighthood and promotion.”

Tol waited skittishly until the applause died down. Keeping himself from sprinting down the steps was, he would later reflect, possibly the hardest thing he’d ever done. He walked with as much dignity and restraint as he could muster down the aisle toward the exit. When freedom was a scant ten meters away, the applause started up again. This time panic got the better of him and he broke into an involuntary trot.

Outside he sprinted for about a block then leaned against a wall breathing heavily, trying to assimilate what had just transpired. His whole life had been turned on edge just because he decided to go after Pyfox. Smek, all he really did was hide behind a stalagmite, leap out, and smash a silly little statue. Compared with all the firefights he’d been in, criminals he’d nabbed at great personal risk, and street brawls he’d won in his long EE career, getting knighted and promoted for that seemed a little anticlimactic. Some small voice in the back of his head reminded him that glory was cumulative, but he wasn’t particularly receptive to that logic in his current frame of mind.

By the time he got back to the Precinct, his old office was already stripped bare. All of his personal belongings had been relocated to the new office. He stood there for a long while, gazing dolefully at the well-worn walls. The cracks, gouges, and peeling paint strips seemed like comfortable old friends now, friends he would be leaving behind forever. Suddenly afraid he would get caught being sentimental over something so absurd, he turned and walked away.

His erstwhile coworkers peered out their doors at him as he passed. He felt their eyes regarding him with…what? Envy? Disdain? Sympathy? Goblins could be inscrutable at times. He had never felt so out of place before. Better just to leave now, before anyone made it worse.

Tol ducked out a side door and walked to the Sebacea GRUC terminal. He had expected some sort of goodbye, but maybe they all felt betrayed or something…or they figured having to attend that smekkin’ ceremony was goodbye enough. Couldn’t really blame them. He shrugged and got on the Uptown Express, wondering about this unexpected path his life had taken without his consent.

His new office was swanky. It was paneled in some exotic hardwood with swirly grain. The desk was big enough to sleep on. His chair was equally expansive, with a high executive back and covered in soft, wine-red leather. There was a huge arched window that overlooked the busy central square of the Royal complex.

Directly across the public concourse were the distant spires and intricate stonework of the Loca Duber. Four thousand years of continuous occupation had lent each of the spaces in Goblinopolis its own unique, complex architectural contours. The vast expanse of Royal Square was lined with innumerable columns, towers, arches, monuments, and pergolas that formed a living chronicle of the rise and fall of styles and cultures over the ages. Many of the pivotal events of Tragacanthan history had taken place here. Staring out over the sea of people, Tol could almost see the more familiar ones in his mind’s eye: the coronation of Lodashim, who united the diverse Northern tribes under one shaky alliance; the fiery and defiant speech of the rebel leader Roj’nash before he was executed for crimes against the Crown; the splendid and magnificent wedding of King Qoplebarq (after whom the border city was named) and Princess Karelia of Galanga, ushering in an era of close relations between the two nations that lasted almost three centuries; and many more tableaus from the long and colorful journey of his native land through the twisting canyons of time.

Tol realized his reveries were waxing almost poetic and shook it off. He was determined not to let this new position turn him into yet another stuffy muckety-muck, which condition was somehow associated with waxing poetic via a connection he hadn’t fully worked out yet. He remembered a poem his brother Aspet had written during his annoying ‘literary’ phase. It made no sense whatever, but Aspet had been very proud of it and had it pinned to the door of his room for years. Tol had seen it so many times he had it memorized totally against his will. He knew what almost none of the words meant, if they meant anything at all. It was utter nonsense as far as Tol was concerned: a pretentious vocabulary list, worse for the fact that he was pretty sure some of the words were just made up. To add insult to injury, it had won some local poetry contest, where the judges had called it ‘daring’ and ‘cerebral.’ Tol wondered how many of his own brain cells were permanently devoted to retaining this rubbish. He sighed. “It’s not as though I got a lot to spare, either.”

After he’d explored his ample new digs and gotten them arranged in some semblance of comfortable he decided to take a walk and familiarize himself with the surroundings. There could be no reasonable doubt that Justice Hall was built to be intimidating. Everything about it was oversized, over-decorated, and, he suspected, over-budget. From the marble floors and columns to the vast expanses of exotic hardwood paneling to the enormous, intricately-wrought chandeliers to the seemingly infinite niches filled with marble, bronze, and gilded busts of people he’d never heard of, this structure desperately wanted to impress; to overawe. In Tol’s case it failed miserably.

A number of Very Important Entities were housed in this monument to institutional vanity, including the High Tribune, the High Courts of Civil and Criminal Appeals, the Adjutant General, and the Tragacanthan Council of Barristers. Tol strolled past each of their offices, which seemed to be vying among one another for the most conspicuously ostentatious elegance. Even the toilet paper had (biodegradable) gilt edges. He made his mind up there and then to have a little chat with his brother the king about responsible use of taxpayer money.

In contrast to inside of the Justice Hall, the surrounding grounds were literally and stylistically a breath of fresh air. There were tasteful granite fountains with benches encircled by shade trees, exquisitely well-maintained formal gardens with narrow cobblestone paths cutting through them, numerous topiaries, and some interesting statuary scattered here and there, mostly depicting scenes and personages from the various mythologies of the races which had inhabited Tragacanth for the past four millennia. Tol found it much more pleasant here than the interior of the premises. He fantasized about relocating his office to one of the little shady alcoves distributed seemingly at random along the many pathways.

He walked for a good couple of hours among the cool shrubbery and shaded cobblestone paths. At last Tol decided to head back to his office and see if they had any actual work for him to do. There was a single piece of paper on his desk. It said, simply: