Chapter 1 -- For Fun

Knock entered the clearing, head grazing the lowest branches while his tough hairy feet clumped and clomped through the underbrush. He wore well-mended slacks and a thin cotton shirt across his broad chest. Mountain hobs like him were usually dark with skin tones ranging among shades of gray and dull bronze though there were families with chalky white or inky black skin.

Knock had always favored his unassuming gray skin, marking him as average among hobs when he was anything but. Even a whisper of his past would set him above all other hobs aside from Grand Shield SplitLog. Not by his own estimation. Hobs were nothing if not humble.

He paused on seeing the clearing’s other occupant, wondering if it wasn’t too late to turn back. The woman from his dream sat upon a stool before a sturdy wooden table. She wore the same white dress and canary cloak from his dream. Her quill scribbled across parchment without pause, filling the page with flowing angular text. Despite her speed, she never seemed to make a mistake. Nor did she stop to ink her quill.

That was a new trick for the druí. He could only assume she ranked among them. The only question was to which school she belonged. It wasn’t inconceivable for a druí Speaker to have learned the secrets of dream walking from the lycanthropes. A druí Balancer might have made more sense, but she didn’t look like a cold-blooded killer.

Unused to being ignored, Knock shifted from foot to foot. Whether it was an advantage or not, and he usually considered it not to be, others tended to notice him. The woman was lost in concentration. Her black hair was kept from her face in a neat bun, and her eyes shone with obvious excitement. The hob had seldom seen such a satisfied grin.

He thought about turning and going back to the den at Tailso. He never stayed too long at any one den, lest his kin grow too comfortable with his presence and ask about his past. However, the thought of returning to Tailso wasn’t entirely unpleasant. They produced some of the finest stone shaping he had seen outside of Core.

He cleared his throat, determined to hear the human woman’s offer. The woman increased her scribblings but made no other sign she had noticed his presence.

“Are you the dream walker?” he asked in a rumble like a heavy cart over uneven ground. Without thinking about it, he had spoken hobbish. It had been too long since he’d interacted with any but his own kind.

Before he could repeat his question in the common tongue, the woman spoke.

“Call me Gailinn. Take a seat, please,” she said. Her voice brooked no argument, as unrelenting as time. Knock doubted any queen commanded with such confidence. On top of that, she spoke the hob tongue. No human spoke hobbish, though a few of the druí Speakers tried. It was a language of grinding rocks and ocean waves crashing against cliffs.

The seat in question was carved stone with a low back and thick armrests. Another product of magic? he wondered. Midday light dappled the clearing as he settled into the chair.

“Your name?” Gailinn asked. A new parchment waited before her, pristine as freshly fallen snow in the mountains he had left behind so long ago. Her quill hovered steadily above the page, and for the first time, she looked into his eyes. He experienced a new sensation, one he had never expected. He felt small--as if she were towering over him, looking down upon him and through him with eyes the color of sun-kissed summer leaves.

“EchoingKnock,” he said, wondering if she recognized him. Though his answer was short, Gailinn’s quill danced across the page, filling it with far too many notes for such a curt answer. The quill’s movement hypnotized Knock. He had never seen each of his gravelly syllables transformed into such elegant swirls.

“Age?” She bent her head back to the parchment.

She seemed the sort who might appreciate a playful nature. If he kept his answers short and cryptic, then his past would not be a problem.

“Older than some, younger than others,” he said.

Sure enough, he caught the barest hint of a smile on her face. Was this a game to her, this farce of an interview? Had she entered the dreams of so many hobs she couldn’t tell them apart?

“Have you ever murdered a humanoid for sport or because it looked at you funny?” she asked.

“Not yet,” Knock said. Between each question and answer, the clearing filled with Knock’s deep breaths, the soft scratch of Gailinn’s quill, and something even quieter.

“Great! Do you like to drink copi–” She stopped midword and perked her ears.

Knock clearly heard the noise now, a soft chittering. A trio of grocklins entered the clearing, stopping every few paces to sit back on their haunches, bushy tails dancing. They were thin, brown-furred rodents with amber fur and big glassy eyes. All wore heart pouches high on their chests, attached to a vine which looped over one shoulder then around their midsections. A tiny knife in a scabbard hung lower on the vine. The two males were as large as a human’s boot, and the female was only slightly smaller.

Between them they rolled a black stone half as large as themselves. Imperfectly round, it wobbled throughout each revolution and required the grocklins to constantly adjust course. Knock knew the texture, color, and voice of every kind of stone in Severia, but at first glance, he couldn’t place the strange rock.

“Lan-tenth’s tail,” she said. It sounded like a curse but not one Knock was familiar with. “I’m almost finished, and here you are.” Not turning to face the creatures, she met Knock’s eyes, rolled hers, and smiled. “All day I feared interruption by your kind. When this interview began and I’d not seen any of you meddlesome lot, I breathed a sigh of relief, truly believing you’d not make an appearance.”

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When Gailinn turned her gaze on the creatures, they bowed their heads then quickly continued rolling the stone.

“What have you brought me this time?” she asked with an exasperated sigh. The smile still hung on her lips like the sign above an inn’s door, hinting at the character within.

The grocklins chittered at her as they rolled the stone past her table.

“Oh!” she said. With a gentle wave of her hand, she bid them to continue. “By all means.”

If she could truly understand the creatures, Knock decided she was definitely a druí Speaker. He doubted a Balancer would bother learning to communicate with grocklins. Then again, the rodents were notorious for slipping into buildings and houses undetected and making away with knick knacks or trash. They also weren’t above stealing any food they could lay their paws on. A Balancer might find use for a grocklin spy.

A loud squeal drew his attention away from such thoughts. The stone had stopped at his feet where the female patted it while looking up at him. Her male counterparts had retreated to Gailinn’s table. One was pulling at her slippered foot, holding too high an opinion of himself if he thought to steal the slipper while Gailinn wore it. The other male climbed atop the table and was halfway to the stack of papers before Gailinn narrowed her eyes at him. He froze mid step then slowly backed away until he reached the table’s edge.

“You should take it,” Gailinn said, pointing her quill at the rock. “A grocklin’s gift brings good fortune.”

Curious about the stone, Knock bent down to pick it up then pulled back in surprise. The stone radiated a gentle heat. Pinching it between thumb and forefinger, he held it up for closer scrutiny. No cracks or imperfections marred its bulbous surface. Entirely black, it reminded him of a potato he’d burnt in his youth during an unsuccessful try at cooking.

Pressing a single finger against the stone, he tried to shape it. And failed. Any stone should have yielded easily beneath his touch.

“Thank you,” he said to the female grocklin. To Gailinn he asked, “What is it?”

As the grocklins scurried back into the forest, Gailinn seemed to get her first good look at the object. Eyes narrowed and mouth twisted to one side, she studied it as she had Knock.

“I don’t know,” she said, voice serious, as if ignorance were foreign to her. The next moment, she shrugged and in a peppy voice asked, “Now, where was I?”

“Something about drinking,” he said, wondering why she didn’t check her notes. It led further credence to his earlier theory that she was playing some kind of game. While Gailinn gathered her thoughts, he placed the stone into one of his pants’ pockets. It barely fit.

“Yes,” Gailinn said, eyes bright with recollection. “Do you like to drink copious amounts of alcohol and rampage through the countryside tossing boulders at buildings, livestock, or sinister shadows? Recently, one of your kinsmen, name of PebbleSwallow, was relieved of his position after some incidents.”

The question was obviously designed to test his patience. Very few hobs were violent. Rather than rise to the bait, Knock answered, “Never.”

“Any experience guarding and maintaining bridges?” she asked, eyes locking onto him. He felt exposed and shifted in the chair.

“I’m a hob.”

“Rightly so. Well said!” Gailinn chuckled, a sound reminiscent of his mother’s stew simmering over a cookfire. Something about her posture, so light upon her chair, suggested she might leap to her feet in the blink of an eye to join in some good-natured trickery.

“Why didn’t you destroy Shrivemount Bridge before Sineck arrived?” she asked. Her glee had vanished in an instant, replaced by the overwhelming authority he had felt earlier.

Despite his reclusive nature and no matter how often he moved about, Knock couldn’t avoid recognition altogether. For years he had feared the question, “Why did you destroy the bridge?” Those who knew him and what he’d done always asked that same question. He explained how difficult the decision had been and lamented the lives lost. Few then dared ask about the golem, or if they did, he refused to answer.

But Knock had always regretted not demolishing the bridge at the start. It had been his decision, and the Shields had convinced him they could hold the bridge and win a decisive victory against Sineck.

Gailinn had asked him the same question he had been asking himself for nearly two decades.

“I…” Knock stammered, unable to find the words. He tensed his shoulders and gripped the stone armrests. They melted, his thick fingers sinking into the stone like a stamp into hot wax.

“We don’t have to talk about it, but others will want to,” she said. Another's eyes might have offered pity, a balm to soothe the pain their words caused. Not her. She threatened to consume him with the intensity of her gaze, to cleanse him with simple truths. “You’re a hero whether you want to be or not. It’s a heavy mantle to bear.”

Gailinn released him from her gaze, her quill a sudden blur upon the page. Knock leaned back in his chair and noticed his hands had sunk into the stone. A few quick brushes with his fingertips, a smoothing caress here and there, then the chair was unblemished.

“When did you recognize me?” he asked. “Immediately?”

“Yes.” She stopped writing midword, a wicked smile blossoming. “Humanoid races often assume hobs to be slow-witted because of their unusual size. You would think SplitLog’s appointment as Grand Shield would have proven them wrong. Sadly, the old prejudices prevail, no doubt aided by unsavory hobs such as PebbleSwallow. I’ve always found your kind to be sharper than most. Especially you, Knock. Your dreams don’t do you justice.”

“Nightmares,” he corrected. “You know, some might take offense at another entering their private moments.”

She nodded and said, “A convenient way to spread news over a vast distance. Nothing more. Rest assured, I have not influenced your actions in any way. I hoped you would come, but I did not force you. Neither would I share what I saw in your dreams.”

Knock detected no lie in Gailinn’s words. She seemed a creature beyond such base tactics.

“Might I ask how you feel about your legacy?” she asked.

“You might,” Knock sighed. “If you didn’t already know.”

She looked at him with a mischievous smile, as if she could see deep into him and understand matters he would rather she not.

“I have the perfect position for you, Knock.” She punctuated her words by sweeping her quill across the bottom of the parchment, elongating the final letter stroke with an extravagant series of swirls and flourishes like a sword fighter at a festival. “Just one more question. Do you like games?”