Chapter 2 - Birth of the Blackrose goblin

　　The first thing he heard was wailing—a crass and infantile sound, beating at the sanctity of the walled-off something in which he was nestled. It took the prince a second to realize: it was him, wailing like a new-born in a voice that was not his own.

　　Dreams had always found him. Hellish, broken dreams that tore him life from limb and made him whole again... only to break him down anew.

　　Still, this was a nightmare like no other.

　　Dark. Everything was dark.

　　He remembered it all—how he had been humbled and broken and slain. Wrathful stabs cracking straight through the bone and heart of him. Gael. How he longed for her now—her breath against his breath. Forevermore that, and that alone.

　　He had but to awaken and it could all be his. So why... why was it all so dark? With his death the dream should have ended—it always had before.

　　But interminable as the night it went on.

　　The prince tried to move, but his body defied his will. Captive as though in weightless embrace, his limbs felt light and at the same time leaden. Like a thick liquid had looped and wrapped itself around him, and now there was nothing he could do. The dream operates by dream rules, and even in full lucidity... he had only to abide.

　　In dream logic he played along, tried cleverly to source out some path of final extraction. A thing so jarring or impossible that it could not maintain the nightmare, its inner order. Such a thing, if it could be found... might be enough. It might awaken him. Then he would be Cedric, prince of Lothrian once more. Now, here, he was the dreamer.

　　The dreamer drew a deep breath, bolstering the mind and heart with lessons from the warroom. Mental training—Cedric`s sessions with grand-uncle Gustave, the warrior-poet.

　　`What is a warrior who is lost in a strange land?`

　　"A warrior still."

　　`But he knows not the lay of that land.`

　　"But he knows the lay of his heart."

　　And if Cedric knew one thing, it was that he was a warrior.

　　The outside is there, he thought, and I let it be; for in my mind, I am. Tranquil but ready.

　　The dreamer gathered his strength, a rush of energy coursing through his veins. Clenching fists, feeling muscles flex and bunch. Envisioning through the darkness how one might twist and writhe as the dreamer would.

　　There came then a great ripping and tearing—the brittle cage surrounding the dreamer giving way, causing the liquid to flow out. Relief was a tangible thing—so real, thought Cedric, was the blood-spotted nightmare that had befallen him.

　　Unencumbered now... but still the dreamer stood in a stupor, entranced by hazy spots of luminescence dancing at the edge of vision. The light filtering in.

　　And though the darkness receded, what replaced it was worse.

　　Cedric and the dreamer joined in one-ness—the stimuli of vision and the tactile everything proved too strong to retain the concept of division.

　　It was a sight to behold—here was a vast and cavernous space, lit by the eerie glow of phosphorescent moss that clung to the damp walls. From the ceiling down, a multitude of eggs hung in suspension, tethered in the embrace of an organic webbing—a pulsing and living thing that splayed apart in countless rivulets. The eggs it held were large... the size of a strider ostrich`s, but dark and uneven, with thick ridges of a deep hell-green. Some had a faint glow, exuding an earthy sheen that seemed to waver in the faint light.

　　The chamber itself was a hive of activity... filled with the wailing of hatchling goblins and the cracking of eggshells that meant more siblings and more howls and cries and whimpers. Cedric hated them—the hatchlings were no different from the adults Cedric had faced, had brutalized with a sick sense of satisfaction time and again. They were vermin, lower than vermin. Pests and blights. Their life was a sacrilege, and all were to be exterminated. Now these newborns, they were smaller, sure, but still every bit as misshapen and foul; their skin the same toxic green, their burgeoning fangs bared. Put it to the flame, this nest, this dream. Let it all end.

　　But it did not end.

　　So Cedric sighed and Cedric played along with the deathly dream, its merciless rules.

　　He bid his body move, but his legs quavered, came collapsing under him. Recovering, he caught himself in a sprawl of trembling green arms and...

　　Green. By the gods above and by the devil below—what a cursed state of sickness must his mind be under for its subconscious part to lay him now so low. All the war and death, it had got to him... piling up over his vanguard years. Prince of the rose and prince of blood. A psyche-mender is what he needed, and he would meet with one. Controversial though their brand of magic is.

　　He looked down again. Green. His arms were stubby and green still, with claw-like appendages raking deep into the damp, waste-ridden soil.

　　The prince gagged in revulsion, spitting bile between each ragged gasp of air.

　　The nightmare went ever on.

　　He would go and look upon himself in some dream mirror, shock himself to wakefulness.

　　Unsightly steps were all he could muster. Cedric stumbled forward, a mix of stuttering half-steps... then falling, and resorting to tumbling and crawling to make way. His knees were scraped raw and bloody as he flailed his neonate body across sharp eggshell remnants. The remains of the casing he had moments before broken free from. Egg. Of course... he had just been born. A goblin. From a goblin egg.

　　In dishonour he crawled on. His foul goblin eyes were glued to a murky puddle of what he hoped was water, dead-centre in the room. Here he would look upon himself, and here he would denounce what he saw. The shock of the moment would break the spell that kept him dreambound. It would have to.

　　Disgust roiled like a rotten brew in the prince`s stomach. He staggered past a handful of straggling brethren and sistren, imaginary forces of a dream too real for reckoning. Cedric pushed or pulled the vile hatchlings out of his path with as much force as he could summon forth. He wanted badly to destroy them as he had their ancestors—carving their innards with royal-grade steel. But that would have to wait.The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

　　When at last he had floundered to his destination, Cedric crouched down low, taking a deep, hopeful breath. This would do it—he pinned everything on the shock awakening him. He swallowed hard as he leaned in.

　　Shimmering amidst the ripples, he caught glimpses of his reflected self—a new-spawned greenskin with beady yellowish eyes and a snarling mouth.

　　He blinked once, twice. Thrice. But this rotten world, this hellscape of a land... it did not fade. It should have faded. And it did not.

　　Had the time come then, to embrace this as the new real? Sickening.

　　Here he was, the prince of Lothrian. A goblin hatchling. Enduring the cacophony of screeches and yowls as his new kin emerged into a savage new existence.

　　A sudden call came then—not the mewling of new mouths but a great voice, a master voice, booming with high authority.

　　"Fall in line you maggots!"

　　Cedric was drawn—no, compelled—to obey. His mind went dim, relinquishing in an instant the grip he had over his own thoughts. Marching, marching, marching, in quickstep toward the speaker, gait unsteady but resolved.

　　There were more who had heard the sacred call—the prince joined path with a smattering of his newfound siblings, all of them enthralled by the compelling voice. Side by side they trod as best they could, in a broken run or crawl or body-drag. A nascent warband falling in step.

　　"Pick up the pace—ours is but to do or die!" the fell voice boomed once more.

　　A slave to his goblin instincts, Cedric barged ahead at breakneck speed, as swift as his unhardened frame would allow. He advanced past the pack, leaving his brethren and sistren in the dust.

　　Peering through slitted pupils, he could just make out a large shadow in the dimly lit back-end of the birthing chamber. Darkness amassed around the speaker`s hefty frame, aggrandizing him further, enhancing the allure of his call.

　　A shallow trench in the ground marked the spot—here is where the troops would line up. Cloth overalls were scattered about the floor in a nondescript heap of uniform brown. Starting gear for the hatchling lot.

　　Cedric would be first to arrive there. A final sprint would assure his victory. And his status as first among peers. That`s how it should have played out.

　　Instead, he crashed to the ground. A gnarled root had risen from the threadbare soil, gripping tight around his lower leg and anchoring him down.

　　A girl goblin hurtled past the downed prince, twisting her neck to make a face at him, adding insult to injury. She pulled her eyelid back with one finger, her tongue tauntingly outthrust. Cedric`s eyes were drawn to the runic symbol on his sister`s ridged forehead—it spelled `Ruin` ()), with the kanji glowing a deep purple. She had an innate aptitude for spellcasting it seemed, for the prince gathered that the vine encircling his calf had spawned at her behest. He cursed his own weakness; a low-level `root` spell like this would never have sent him toppling—not his true form.

　　Cedric felt his green skin redden, his royal blood coming to a boil. The anger made him come into his own again, albeit briefly: he went stark raving mad at the thought of blushing on account of a failed goblin race. At the thought of being submitted to such lowly things. And for caring so deeply.

　　Though he tried hard to deny the reality of it all, here he was. Unable to awaken from this gauntlet of embarrassment. The nightmare of nightmares, it went on.

　　"Trickle in, rookies—final call!" broke in the ironclad voice from the shadowy end of the room.

　　Entranced by its power and appeal, Cedric snapped back into his goblin frame of mind. He tore free his hindered leg and staggered upright, resuming the final sprint.

　　A swathe of goblins funnelled in behind him as Cedric merged with the party waiting in line—four of his kin had made it before he had. The girl goblin was at the very front, smirking back at him.

　　Cedric snarled in response, weighing his further options as he slid his emaciated torso in the drab brown overall laying at his feet. Retaliation should be swift. He would disembowel her on the spot, had he access to his full princely might. But at present, caution was the only answer. She had outwitted him once, and that was enough. He would bide his time, bury his grudge just below the surface of an appropriately goblin-like demeanor... whatever that meant. He supposed he would come to find out, though he did not relish the prospect.

　　His ruminations were cut short as the light of an oil lamp flickered to life, illuminating the speaker`s imposing presence just a yard or four away. Ensconced behind a grand desk sat the tallest goblin Cedric had ever seen—a lithely muscled specimen with the bearing of a wizened clerk, dignified in the age-old duty of scholarly recordkeeping. If it weren`t for the yellow-green skin and protrusive fangs, Cedric might have mistaken the goblin for a high-ranking mage tower employee. The prince had spent many a summer in his youth scouring ancient lorebooks in the domed royal libraries. But that time had gone for good.

　　"A meagre lot," the goblin clerk declared, looking over the hatchling yield. "Time perhaps to retire the old broodmother." His voice took on wistful tones as he dipped a feathered quill in the ink jar. Cedric was amazed at the goblin`s deft handling as he jotted a note in the leathered journal to his left, one of five books sprawled open on the desk. And it was not just for show, Cedric intuited in a stab of amazement. If this foul species could learn to speak, to read and write... how different were they really, goblins from humans? No, the prince quickly decided, thinking back on all he had known right up to the bitter end. These were animals. Nothing more.

　　"May the father have imparted quality where quantity lacks," the goblin clerk muttered to himself in half-prayer as he shifted his gaze down on the line, scanning, then homing in on the wily goblin girl. Cedric shrank back from the clerk`s assessing stare, noting the man`s mechanical eye glinting with steely resolve; it sat juxtaposed against its natural counterpart, partly obscured by thick-rimmed engineering glasses perched precariously on his bulbous nose.

　　"Approach, young ones, and do not dally—the years have eroded this one`s patience. Gorkon is the name, but to you I am taskmaster. And I hold destiny in a writerly hand."

　　Gorkon beckoned the girl come forth, and without a hint of wavering she did.

　　"First in line, runic symbol on forehead, mage-born talent... hardly a challenge," the taskmaster proclaimed, a knowing glint flashing in his singular mechanical lens. "You are henceforth as I say. I bestow on you the rank of elite and the class of mage." With that, Gorkon waved the girl past, and unabashedly she strutted off, like it was all an everyday thing to her. She exited the birthing chamber through a narrow unlit corridor, disappearing from view.

　　The second hatchling in line was up—a wiry male shuffling toward the desk, encumbered by a club foot and humpback posture. How this one had placed runner-up in the footrace was beyond Cedric`s comprehension.

　　Gorkon took his time with this one, the mechanical eye buzzing and whirring as he contemplated the runner-up`s place in goblin society. "Two paths but one excludes the other," he said finally as he fumbled for some undeclared object amidst the piles of disarray gracing his desk—a chaotic symphony of tools, machinery parts, wrenches, and screwdrivers, all sprawled amidst a mountain of scrap metal.

　　He grabbed a hammer in one hand and a dusty tome in the other, presenting both options to the hunchbacked runner-up. The young goblin`s eyes lit up at the sight of the hammer, and he reached out eagerly to grab hold of it.

　　"So be it. I bestow on you the rank of elite and the class of builder," said Gorkon. Happily, the hunchback trotted off into the dark corridor, his clubfoot in half-drag behind him.

　　And so it went on. The third and fourth in line, a male and a female, were scrutinized by the taskmaster`s discerning eye. Both were branded elites, with the respective class designations of scout and huntress.

　　Then they left, and it was Cedric`s turn to be judged.

　　Faintly, his mind could recall rebelling against the reality of this dream that seemed a dream no longer. He swallowed and stepped forward, feeling small under the taskmaster`s imperious gaze.

　　"Ah, what peculiar symbol adorns this one`s forehead—I do wonder," Gorkon declared in seemingly genuine puzzlement. "It oozes with the taint of a darkblood rune, though its true power is unknown to this learned master of tasks. But as for the symbol itself..." frantically, the taskmaster riffled through the manifold stacks of mechanical rubble. He pulled out a clothbound tome laced with layers of dust accrued from years or decades of disuse.

　　Cedric gasped at the sight—the intricate calligraphy on the spine, the faded but familiar cover. This was a copy of Ancient Blood, a benchmark textbook on the history of the royal and lower noble lineage in the Lothrian kingdom. It was one of his favourites growing up, and he knew it back to front still—he would bet anything on that.

　　"Here," said the wizened taskmaster, tapping the cover with his lip up-curled—a smile almost. The old man regaling in the breadth and force of his scholarly recollection. "This is it—the symbol engraved in the skin of your forehead. It`s a crude rendition of course, but there can be no doubt."

　　Cedric`s eyes followed Gorkon`s arthritic finger. It pointed at the old crest of the Blackrose line, prior to their ascension as a royal house, when they were but vassals to the throne.

　　The image was of a wilting rose, dark as the night.

　　"Now what do you suppose this means—come now, any thoughts you wish to share?" Gorkon inquired, his gaze electric, the gears whirring frenetically as the mechanical eye dilated.