Chapter 10 - Trek to the forest (Rookie Games arc)

　　"You thought it a one and done deal, the goblin death?" the artisan gave a worn laugh; his eyes didn`t.

　　The prince had pressed the man for information, but found it akin to holding court, a mirthless duel in dialogue. Each query fenced away or parried with another.

　　They had pressed out at the artisan`s insistence, a move from shore to wooded thicket, treading now toward the leaf-crusted threshold of the forest. Two sets of extra eyes travelled with them—the first belonged to the huntress they had left behind or tried; she had proven too persistent a follower, limping steadfast in their wake. When it dawned clear she would not be turned away, Cedric had taken pity on her, had removed the caltrop sitting like a blood-gorged tick on her injured leg. She had calmed, seemed to the prince subdued somehow, and he noted here and there a doting glance. Part and parcel, no doubt, of his new-earned status as champion of the sands. The artisan had objected to her presence, but relented with a choked-off grin when he saw what Cedric had. Demure as she was now, she posed no threat. Still, her hands remained bound.

　　The second set of eyes bore the blood of a dead man still on them. In life, they had been Vol`krin`s. Now they rattled from a hip-slung pouch at the artisan`s side. The eyes of a leximancer had some untold worth, so the artisan had with his word and his dagger insisted—each as incisive as the other.

　　Cedric let the man`s words hang unanswered, bloating the ensuing quiet like a sea-swallowed corpse. You thought it a one and done deal, the goblin death?

　　"I had misjudged the potency in these," the prince tried, peering down at the locket hanging from his neck.

　　"Because you are a naif taught by greater naifs. The magetower edicts are as crooked as the spire itself. But you will learn it now, the old truth. The goblin truth."

　　"The merits of the magi have long dwindled," the prince said in response, feeling his way into the artisan`s mind. Probing with a statement and not a question. "Not since Calidor III have the encyclicals of the archmage held sway in the court of Lothrian."

　　The artisan hawked up a gob of phlegm, releasing it to the earth where the sand turned soil. They were upon the forest entrance now. "Pray he bore not the folly of his forebear—I sat the rites with Calidor II, and the man was more lech than magus. Why he..." falling silent, the artisan cast a knowing eye at Cedric. "Prying with fact over query? Fine, you got me, champion of the sands. I will indulge. You are burdened, it seems, with every bit the wile of Alaric the interloper. Your great-grandfather, was he not? If my mastery over great house lore holds firm—I admit it has been some time since last I scoured the tomes on Ancient Blood."

　　"Your word is as your gait," countered the prince. "Twisted and malformed. Not a glimmer of the golden truth I glimpsed buried in the soul of you—deeper down, it seems, than initially I had hoped."

　　"You wound me, lord prince—is that what I ought now to say? That your word is sharper than your dagger still? You would be a fool to trust in this goblin`s tongue... but a greater fool still to dismiss half-truths for falsehoods. Did I not know that you would come, like every Blackrose before you, hurtling like a desert scorpion through the sands? The dagger and buckler like all men of your name. And the fragile heart, too—the one-track train of thought that sees all things as deliberate... like wrenches thrown in the wheel of your greatness. Everything`s a slight to you purebreds. But nobility obliges, little whelpling—take it from this old stray. Here beats the heart of a living death. I who have roamed in the skin of man with Thanell of the Celestials, the last lady-sovereign, leader to the wildkin and wolf in the west; I who have seen her broken form fall to the wastes... I who have harkened to the lost king`s call—Feldirk of the mire, in the age before the first Blackrose forged a throne and then a crown, made the two lands one—Lothunc and Rhianmere. His was the hallowed name of Rodrich, king of the Blackrose, father to Alaric the interloper, Alaric the stripped... Alaric the redeemed. And was it not he who begot Byron, king-father to the incumbent lord of the Blackrose—Bartold of Lothrian, Bartold the heirless... for here walks his son in the path of doom. Noble Cedric, captive to the goblin death. Champion of the sands."Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

　　Tainted with derision, the artisan spat the final words, slandering the prince and his blood-earned triumph.

　　Cedric kept the pace and Cedric kept silent. The lineage rang true and so did the rest—the history at least, the fragments of fact in a long-drawn soliloquy. The prince had not thought to hear what he had. If accurate, it would make the artisan... two hundred years old. At the least.

　　It was absurd, but it was all absurd—the entire world come crumbling around the crestfallen prince.

　　What stock could he place in the artisan`s words... this tapestry of half-woven threads, each point fraying into further uncertainty.

　　"Why does the locket affect me so?" asked Cedric, charting course more toward the practical.

　　"Stats." The artisan said, drawing out the word. Giving it weight and meaning. "Statistics to the uninitiated."

　　Cedric bit his tongue, letting quiet reign. Better that than the scornful reply he had almost let slip. Statistics... a long cast-out branch of the wildkin tree. Magic in the form of equations, a foolhardy clambering for axioms and formulae... Nothing more than a failed foray into the realm of mathematical rigour. Or so it was said in the hallways of the magetower he had known as a prince and heir. But had they not been wrong before, discounting theories on the order of goblins and their class system?

　　"As hatchlings, we`re as weak as they come," continued the artisan. "Constitution and intelligence—that`s the domain of the green magestone. The locket gives you five and three, respectively. 5 CON, 3 INT. My ring here does the same, albeit to a lesser extent. 3 CON, 3 INT."

　　"Granting this... why then did I need both ring and locket to hoist the buckler? You seem to handle it fine with only the ring." Cedric inclined his head toward the buckler strapped fastidiously to the artisan`s back.

　　"Blame the gods for that one. We are all born weak—in that we are alike. But we are not all the same. Look at our new friend here. The huntress." The artisan shifted his gaze from thicket to thickest, eyeing the huntress who seemed barely to notice that the talks had taken a turn. "She`s what we call a natural. A true goblin. Never been nothing else besides... as blank and as bland as a soul can be. Most don`t learn to talk, not properly. Three syllables or more, and she has no clue what the hell we`re saying. Physical force is her birthright—look at the muscles on her, straight from the egg. You and I, we have different endowments. Speech and reason. The intellect is our domain. Our head start if you will. We have the minds of men, and so does the mage of course, your new nemesis stamped with the kanji for ruin." The artisan chuckled. "She had quite the station in life—headmistress of a side-order... ranked not far below the archmage in some circles. But now it is vengeance alone that keeps her going. Like you and I, she was spurned and brought low before death—the first, true death in the realm and skin of man... or woman if you prefer. This is nothing but the vicious thereafter. Snarling and low things are we... with vengeance as our sole sustenance, here in the goblin death. Like yours, her appetite is fresh. Mine has faded from the failures I have been made to endure." Motioning at his forehead, the artisan shook in anger. "My mark has gone and so has the heart of me."

　　It was a lot to take in, and the prince had to weigh the words first... balance it all on the scale of his belief and disbelief.

　　"At least some things remain in place—right where I left it." The artisan gestured at his hammer, standing face-side up against a tree.

　　"You made straight for the forest?" Cedric inquired.

　　"Always," said the artisan. "From start to plains, clean through to the forest outcrop. Hobbling with the hammer as my staff. Here is where I hide the caltrops, the leather, the pouch at my hip." He gestured at a recently dug-up spot of soil. "Then it`s straight to the beach for the magestone coffer. How many times I`ve done this? Thirty at the least. Maybe more. You lose count when you lose your way." Again the artisan grabbed at his forehead. At the missing mark. "So don`t go thinking it`s a sport, fighting and dying and fight again like some hero everlasting. You die and you come back, aye. But you don`t come back the same—not quite. Part of you stays dead and it`s a bigger part each time. Madness is what it gets you. And make no mistake. It gets us all in the end."

　　Cedric stood in sullen silence. It was not a strategy this time. It was the silence of profound despair.