6. Tall Tales

“I have heard some strange stories of late of goblin heroes from far afield.

Legends of great warriors are common enough, but what made it peculiar was that the goblins—unintelligent runts for the most part—were speaking of regions which certainly do exist, but which the story tellers have never visited. There is also no way that a visitor from those regions has come here and spread the tall tales through our ranks.

I have long known that our people share an almost ancestral memory, given to us by the Pool, doled out most often sparsely and other times amply. But I now suspect that the minds of our people remain somehow interlinked even after we are birthed into hatchlings.

Is that why all goblins know the name Small King?”

It had only taken one day for Astrid to grow entirely tired of Fragor’s constant questions. Of his impatience. Of his stomping. Of his humming. Of his piping, childlike words. And then, just as she was sure that she could bear no more, she had begun to feel glad instead.

She had gone to sleep hoping he might have simply abandoned her in the night, or else eaten her while she rested, but he had remained by her side. He had nudged her gently to waking each time she slipped into terrible nightmares, and had kept the fire burning so that she did not go cold. And when she woke he had even brought a wild boar, wild and squealing, which soon died—admittedly horrifically—in his acidic embrace as it tried to thrash free of waxy green skin and only managed to free fresh and burning liquid instead.

Astrid had managed to eat some meat that wasn’t ruined by the wax, which helped to sate her terribly empty stomach. And while Fragor sat silently watching her as if she were some wondrous thing, she began to remember all the times when she had been full of questions. When she had been impatience, and childlike, and would whistle and sing. All to the ever growing annoyance of her older siblings, who tried their best to evade her.

Ironic it was, then, that she was the one without patience, while her sister would no doubt be trying to track her. But she had asked Fragor to stomp over her tracks, so she hoped that Dagny would head towards Timilir instead. Or else guess that Astrid was dead. Eaten by the troll who had been running back and forth through the Blackwood Forest.

“What are you telling me, Acid?” Fragor then asked, his featureless wax face creased into what could be generously interpreted at a curious smile.

“I did not speak,” she answered. They had been sat silently around a forest clearing, where a clan of goblins had set a camp not long ago, evidenced by their corpses still strewn about the thorny bushes, long grasses, and blood stained tree trunks.

Fragor had been studiously plucking up the corpses, and consuming them, but he now seemed to have had his fill. “Oh…. yes! But…” He studiously hummed.

“You would like me to speak?” Astrid ventured.

“Ah.” His wax smile widened, and fresh green liquid pooled out from cracks. “Yes!”

“What about…?”

“Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm—”

“Please, stop,” Astrid kindly requested.

“Oh. I was… thinking. I thinking… Fragor live in cave. For longest time. Three holes. Too small. No go. Agak and Ogog come. Agak and Ogog go. Long time. Speak not long.”

“Then Hjorvarth and Engli arrived?”

“Yes. Much fighting. Very exciting!” he exclaimed. “So strong is that one. Very much stronger than the other mans! And small one. Also… not weak?”

“You have fought with other men?” Astrid asked, slightly worried despite herself.

“Oh. Yes!” Fragor emitted a sharp, high humming sound, which she had begun to think meant that he was overjoyed. “I have fought them all. Man. Draw. Elm. And then… other things. Yeti — also very strong! Dracon — very not taste. Have to spit it out!”

“You’ve eaten a dragon…?”

“Hm?” Fragor made a shrill laughing sound. “Not drag on! Dracon! Is follow drag on. Yes? Like gob gob gobins follow Agak.”

“Oh,” said Astrid. “I’ve never heard of those. And you fought with elves and dwarves?”

“Yes! Draw… also strong. Elm… hm. Fast. But… catch and—snap. Very tasty! But, also… strange that Elm and gobin tasting very same. But elm is best. Sad they go is Fragor.”

“You must have been alive a terribly long time to eat them. Edda said the elder races all died out scores upon scores of years ago.”

“Long time in cave,” Fragor happily agreed. He made a discordant and disagreeable humming sound, and what sounded like a sigh. “Long time in cave,” he slowly repeated.

“But you are free now. Out in the blue sky cave, as you called it.”

“Very true!” the giant troll declared. “You are good friend, Acid. I must protect you.” His face creased. “Though… I think not cave at all! Yore yar says, ‘widing world.’ Is this?”

Astrid frowned for a moment, unsure sure of who he was speaking of, but then remembered his conversation with Hjorvarth in the ruins of Fenkirk. “It is, yes. The blue above us is not a cavern ceiling at all, but a great shield of air called the sky. Though Yore yar would no doubt say it is the outer limits of one of Ouro’s great eyes.”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Or oh…?”

“He was—or perhaps, is—The World Wyrm. Long ago, he tried to eat all of the planets, and all the people, until Joyto the Trickster cajoled Ouro into eating his own tail. And he opened his jaw so wide that he could not pull himself free.”

“So greedy!” Fragor chided.

“Then the Eleven Elders cut out his great eyes, and replaced them with the two worlds that remained. This world, Chordus, and another, Primus. Though most Tymirians have different names. And they believe that a fighting god, called Brikorhaan, waits in the stomach of Ouro where all great fighters will go in death, and then begin a glorious conquest down down from gullet to tail, until they reach their hated goddess, Pandor.”

“Oh. Why hating…?”

“She spawned… well, that isn’t quite right. They blame her for Ouro. For hatching him. She was given a mystical egg by Broknar, her father, told not to let it get close to heat, and then left alone for a great stretch of time—a very long time—on a planet full of rivers of magma and lava. Because her father reasoned it as the last place any enemies might suspect he’d hide it. But time wore on. And on. And on. And on. And the girl, who had been promised of her father’s return, dropped the egg into a volcano herself. Which hatched into Ouro, a slithering worm of black scales, and grew into The World Wyrm.”

Astrid found she was scowling. She’d always hated the story, and always despised Broknar for it as well, who had so clearly forced his daughter onto that path. What else would a person do after being abandoned for eons with no company or hope of escape.

“Hm.” Fragor hummed quietly for a long while. “I am thinking… Broknar is bad. Not want fire. But… fire. Say back… but not back. Who is joy toe?”

Astrid pushed up to her feet, brushing off her black dress. “He was a minor god,” she said, pulling her grey cloak about her shoulders. “So much so he wasn’t even invited to fight in the first stand against Ouro. But then nearly all of the gods were eaten, and they had no other choice. The World Wyrm had lost one eye, and Joyto decided that all they need do is blind him in the other. Then, if they were to cover the great serpent’s tail in all the food that remained in the worlds, they could trick him into eating himself.”

“Oh. Clever! It working…?”

“Yes. Although, none of that ever actually happened.”

“Oh. Why not?”

“It is just one of many creation myths, Fragor. The very existence of The Old Enemy, who is a God of Chance from a completely different pantheon, discounts the tale. There are many, many stories just like that all giving different reasons for how we came to be.”

“Hm…”

“It isn’t important.”

“Hm…”

“Let’s set off now,” Astrid suggested. “Edda warned that I needed to be swift.”

“Hm…” said Fragor for a third time. “I am thinking, I am thinking. Yes, yes. We go!”

***

Astrid had been surprised when half the day had passed in near silence.

Fragor had not rushed ahead, smashing through branches and crushing bushes underfoot, but had instead walked slowly beside her, often trailing behind. He had still, at least, walked headlong into the occasional towering trunk.

By the bark on the trees, more often pale or dark brown than black, she thought they would soon leave the Blackwood behind them. They would then need to cross by a wide, inhospitable plain of stone and snow that bridged the forest and the Midderlands Pass.

The Midderlands Pass itself was more like a swamp. Edda had said that The Small King had done all that. Long ago, he’d tried to make an island where many disparate peoples could leave in peace. And he had used one of the Ten Tomes of Divine Magic to split The Quiet Isles into different regions with contrasting climates and varied fauna. But Astrid was not sure if that were true or not. Her grandmother had been born with the gift of speaking with ghosts. And their home, which was once an old dwarven trading post, had been full of those. Long lost, terribly lonely, souls who would tell as tall a tale as they could to keep Edda’s ear and attention. Though Astrid supposed that they’d have no reason to fabricate such a thing about The Small King. He had been their greatest foe.

Unless you counted pride, according to Edda.

“What is Agrak like, Fragor?” Astrid then asked, stepping over a jutting root.

“Hm?” Fragor’s rounded featureless face scrunched, sheeting over with fresh green wax. “Long time… very happy. Much fun. Best friend! Then… very sad,” he added with disappointment. “Not visit Fragor. Keep in cave. Long time… very long time.”

“I see. How did you meet?”

“Meet?” he ponderously asked. “I also in cave. Stuck again!” He made a shrill hum. “Foolish. But… Agak comes. Digs me out. Very kind,” he added fondly. “Then I protect.”

“How did you end up in the cave?”

“Hm… I am thinking, I am thinking. I… am… thinking—oh! Arelon,” he said as if he were just remembering. “I am thinking, Arelon has put me in a cave. How strange!”

“Arelon…?”

“Yes. First friend!”

“He was a human?” Astrid ventured. “A man?”

“He was a man,” Fragor happily agreed. “How know you this?”

“Did he have magic? Powers? Like Agrak does?”

“He was having magic. That is very true. He had so much magic!” Fragor declared. He then ponderously hummed. “How knowing this, Acid? You and Arelon is friends?”

“Arelon is the name of the God of Wisdom in the same pantheon of Lucius Chance,” answered. “Edda believed that they were the deities of Primus. But Chance, or The Old Enemy, has had oversize influence on this world. Whereas Arelon is hardly mentioned at all,” she added. “Did you ever see him again after he put you in the cave?”

“Fragor did see him,” he declared as if surprised. “He was…”

“He was…?”

“Dead. I ate him.”

“Oh. But you can’t eat a god, Fragor. Not a divine god.”

“Oh. But I did, Acid. Not very tasty. Arelon was very, very old.”

“Did you kill him…?”

“No,” Fragor refuted, as if baffled by the notion. “He had been… arrowed. Dead. Bleeding too much blood. I needed more wax. And this way, I carry friend with me.”

“I see,” said Astrid, more worriedly than she had before. “Do not do that to me.”

“I do not need to, Acid,” he kindly dismissed. “I ate so many gob gob gobins,” he declared. “I am very full of wax.”

“But we will be traveling over barren ground,” said Astrid. “There will be no food for a long while. What will you do if you run short of wax?”

“Hm.” He slowed to a stop, looking at Astrid for a long while, then began trudging forward again. “I am thinking… I am thinking… I am thinking.”