The Goblin War (27 page)
Only there seemed to be more piles of tumbled boulders than there had been before, and the woods had moved closer.
The spirits came forth, shambling, slithering, drifting on the breeze, made of tree or stone or wind-tangled grass. So many spirits pulled themselves from the stream that Makenna expected the water level to sink, but it never did.
A creature she might have taken for a pile of rock, if not for the glittering eyes, opened its jagged mouth and rumbled, “You say we can kill the death wielders? How?”
“With your permission,” said Makenna, “with your help, we think we can open a portal between the worlds large enough for their whole army to ride through. If we close it up behind them . . .” She shrugged. “I know you can’t directly attack anyone who wears one of these.” She thumped the stone gently on the ground. They knew what was in it—every spirit who’d approached had eyed the innocent-looking rock with loathing. “And I know that their shamans can trap and kill you. But I also know that you control this world in ways their shamans can’t even imagine. And death doesn’t have to be direct, now does it?”
The rock spirit’s quartzlike eyes were so hungry, it made Makenna shiver.
One of the tree spirits stepped forward, a white-barked sapling who moved with lithe grace. It still had too many limbs to suit Makenna.
“Why should we let them in?” The leafy whisper sounded feminine, but the body was so much more tree than human that Makenna couldn’t be sure. “We live safe here. They can kill us. We might be able to slay most of them, to hide, to run as we once did. But the humans are bound to kill some of us.”
A boy who looked to be made of twisting grass and flowers said, “If it gives me a chance to get my roots around their throats, I don’t care.” His voice was pure hate.
Makenna listened to the debate for a time. Quite a long time, for the spirits seemed willing to rehash the same ground endlessly. Some didn’t want to risk losing the sanctuary they’d created, but others hated the wielders of death so much, they wouldn’t mind dying if they could take their enemies with them.
Makenna understood both sides. The fiery seduction of vengeance was something she had once succumbed to herself. But in the end life had called her back to the living, and she wasn’t sorry to have left hatred behind.
She’d made up her mind more quickly than these spirits, too! They really weren’t very bright. So maybe she’d best help them along. Because the whole Realm could get conquered before they made a decision.
“Look here.” Makenna broke into a rock spirit’s plea to be left to sit in the sun and snow and rain in peace. “Some of you want to fight and some don’t. Right?”
“Have you no ears?” The question came from a tree spirit who hardly had a face. Snickers bubbled and knocked and grated through the clearing.
“Then why not let both sides do what they want?” Makenna continued. “Let those who want to stay here and fight do that. For those who don’t want to fight, we’ll hold the gate open a bit longer and you can come back to the real world. If the bar—the death-wielding humans are all in here, you’ll be safe there. Or do you like this world better?”
She wouldn’t care for it herself.
“We yearn for the living world, for real streams, real earth, with every beat of our hearts.” The spirit who spoke seemed to be made entirely of water, with no heart at all. “But when we went to war with the death wielders, they burned the meadows and groves to force the spirits who lived there to come out and defend their soul homes. And when we left . . . we had learned from them. The stream spirits flooded the meadow and drowned the grass. The grass spirits choked off the roots of the trees. The earth spirits poisoned the streams so that everything in or around them died. We left the killers with nothing—but they left us nothing as well. Between us we drained the land so badly that only rock spirits can live there, and they’re too vulnerable to the hunters. The rest of us cannot live in a desert.”
Had their war with the spirits created the drought that had driven the barbarians to cross the great desert and conquer the Realm? It sounded like it, which meant that these spirits might not make comfortable neighbors. But the Realm humans wouldn’t know how to kill them, so perhaps her idea would work out. And they couldn’t be worse than the barbarians. She hoped.
“The Realm’s not a desert,” Makenna said. “Indeed, half the Midlands are a swamp! Even the Southlands, where the gate would open, isn’t a desert. And you can spread out from there.”
Her heart beat fast with hope.
The contemptuous snort of a rock spirit was an awesome thing. “It’s not a matter of your feeble gate. We can pass from this world to the true one at will. And we
could
live there, but we cannot. The ancient binding forbids us to dwell in the Bright Gods’ Realm unless we are invited to do so.”
Whose binding? The priests’? The Bright Gods’ themselves? Makenna was meddling in matters far beyond the scope of a girl her age—but there wasn’t much new in that, and only one question really mattered.
“Who has to issue this invitation?”
If the Bright Gods had to do it, she was foxed, but if it was just the priests . . .
“It must be issued by the humans who live there,” one of the tree spirits said. “We never understood why they cast us out in the first place, for we did no harm. Well, not much harm.”
“That sounds like the priests to me.” And Makenna had no qualms about thwarting them. “I’m human.” For the first time in years, she was glad of it. “And I live in the Realm. Can I invite you back?”
The fact that the Hierarch and landholders who ruled the Realm might not approve of her actions didn’t matter to Makenna—and she didn’t think it would matter to whatever magic kept the spirits out, either. The Realm’s government wasn’t the
Realm
, and magic would recognize that truth—even if the government didn’t.
The spirits were all staring now. “Yes,” a rock spirit replied. “Any human of the Realm can permit our return. But you have to
invite
us.”
And just saying “come in” wasn’t enough. Makenna thought quickly. “I invite you to return to the Realm of the Seven Bright Gods. I invite you to take up your homes in meadow and stream, rock and tree, wherever a spirit might choose to dwell. I invite you to share that land with the humans and goblins and gods who dwell there, in peace and friendship, giving up your hatred of humans as long as they offer no hatred to you. Welcome home.”
There. With luck, that should keep the spirits who chose to return from starting a new little war with the humans of the Realm—humans who had no reason to hate the spirits, for as far as Makenna knew, most of the Realm had no idea these creatures existed.
An excited babble sprang up among the spirits. Most were jubilant at the prospect of returning to the living world. A few grumbled about having to tolerate humans to do it. But these aren’t the death wielders, others replied. These were other humans. How do we know that?
A sudden silence fell, and a tree spirit, dark barked and gnarled, pushed his way to the front of the crowd. “How do we know this isn’t some death wielders’ trick, to bring us back into the living world where they can slay us? Why should we trust this human, who’s already broken one promise by returning here? Wearing death magic on her own body! If you want to kill humans, there
is
one human we can kill right now.”
“You need me to open the gate for the death wielders,” Makenna said swiftly. “And bring them to the gate. And convince them to ride through. Why settle for killing me, when you could kill thousands?” Her heart was pounding, but she had to keep calm, keep them focused on the main point—these spirits were too cursed distractible!
“She speaks the truth,” said a creature made of pale, dusty stone. “You must smell it on her as clearly as I do.”
Did that mean they could sense . . . smell it if she lied? Makenna was suddenly very glad she’d never tried to lie to a spirit.
“Yes,” the tree spirit said. “The truth, as this Tobin human tells it. A human who, by her account, has been living among the death wielders for months! Suppose he’s become one of them? Suppose he seeks to bring us back in order to obtain the death that will give him their power?”
“If you’ll remember back to my original request,” said Makenna, “I asked that you allow us to open a gate so we could send the barbarians into this world. You can stay and fight them, or return to the Realm and leave them here. It doesn’t matter to me.”
According to Tobin’s letter, the barbarian shamans had no idea how to make a gate, or they’d have invaded the Spiritworld long ago. If they hated the spirits as much as the spirits hated them, they’d probably be willing to take any risk to come to grips with their enemy. She had no desire to see anyone die—but if two enemies wanted to fight to the death, that was no problem of hers. As long as they didn’t destroy the world where her goblins lived in the process.
“So what it comes to,” said the tree creature, “is whether we trust this Tobin human. And we have no way to know if he tells the truth or not. I don’t trust any human. I think the promise breaker deserves to die.”
“I can tell you that Tobin would never take power from the death of others,” said Makenna. The real-world moon would reverse its direction across the sky before that happened. If they could scent the truth, they’d be smelling it now. Even those bloodthirsty trees!
“But can you swear that
he
is not deceived?” a grass woman asked. “I didn’t think so. All we know is that you believe he wouldn’t betray us. Can you tell us your judgment has never been at fault?”
Makenna frowned, for of course she couldn’t. “Look, I know Tobin well. Betraying anyone to their death, he just wouldn’t!”
“So you
believe
,” the tree spirit growled, waving a number of limbs for emphasis. “Suppose you’re wrong? Suppose when we go out, their spells are laid to trap us? Why should we trust this Tobin, who none of us knows?”
A silence followed. Makenna was losing them, but she had no way to prove Tobin’s honesty. And her life was slipping away with their trust.
Then a new spirit welled out of the stream before her. It looked tired and tattered, barely able to hold the shape of a human youth.
“This Tobin.” The bubbling voice was ragged too. “He is now among the death wielders, in the dry lands at the desert’s edge?”
“Aye,” Makenna said cautiously. “As far as I know.”
The left side of the spirit’s face crumpled and reformed as he held out his hands, and a globe of water began to grow between them.
The other spirits were silent, and Makenna sensed pity for this exhausted stranger—if a spirit could be wounded, he surely was. But the globe between his hands became rounder and firm, and light flickered in its center.
“Is this Tobin?” the spirit asked.
The light in the water began to shift and move, and Makenna gasped when an image of Tobin appeared.
He was still too thin, and his hair was longer and a dark brown—had he dyed it, to resemble the barbarians? He looked better than when she’d seen him last, but his shoulders were tense, his face set with determination. He was moving around in the sandy bed of a stream, kicking at things she couldn’t see and scuffing the dirt. It was night there too.
“Is this where he is now?” Makenna asked. It would be nice to know that the barbarians weren’t on to him yet. “What’s he doing?”
The spirits exchanged a look she couldn’t read.
“Is this the human Tobin?” the water spirit repeated.
“It is. But what he’s doing I don’t know,” Makenna admitted. The image was crouching now, making marks in the damp earth.
The spirit pulled his hands apart and the globe collapsed, splashing into the stream.
“We can trust him,” the ragged voice said.
C
OGSWHALLOP CAME AT DUSK, WHEN
Tobin led the mules down to drink. And it took Tobin far too long to realize that the small green scraps floating past on the current were birch leaves and not some plant that grew in the dry Southlands.
Even when he noticed, he’d had to wade out into the stream to pick one up and examine it—and then stagger back out, with his sandals and the bottom of his loose britches wet. He cursed the goblin’s blithe assertion that “You’ll recognize the signal when you see it.” But he had recognized it . . . or had he? Maybe this was their third, or fourth, or eighth attempt to get his attention.
However, they must have seen him wade out to pick up the leaf, so they’d be waiting tonight.
Tobin fought down a surge of dread so intense, his stomach began to churn. There was no other way. Living among the barbarians had taught him that there were worse things than taking a few blows.
He could do this. He had to.
He let the mules drink their fill before starting back to camp, then curried and tethered them for the night, acting just as usual.
He thought he looked normal too, but Vruud took one look at him and said, “Tonight, eh?”
Tobin had been forced to let the storyteller in on his plans. And then he spent the better part of a night convincing the man that fleeing to the Realm wouldn’t do him any good if the Duri immediately conquered it. Eventually the storyteller had to admit that Tobin was right, and Vruud had spent the last few weeks making a round of all the Duri camps. Ostensibly he went to convey the sad news that the spirit had fled, and that everyone should keep an eye out for it in their own territory. But he’d then gone on to sit beside other clans’ campfires, to entertain in their men’s gathering tents, spinning tale after tale of the glory and power that existed in the Spiritworld. Theirs for the taking, if only they could reach it.