That’s right, you fools! I LIED. I DO know how to pronounce it.

For he was Ya-oon-tei-nan-oon-men, and in the ancient tongue of his foremothers, his name meant ‘him who makes them kneel.’

Rhode swallowed and looked down at his feet to make sure the floor was still under him. In that space, and in that company, he suddenly felt small.

“I, um. Sorry, Yan-Yon-Yanute…?

“On Sacred ground, it is custom We be addressed solely as ‘Your Grace’.”

“Right. Would it be easier if I just call you Prin–”

“Goodman Irving. You will not.”

“You can call me Rhode if you want.”

“Goodman Irving. We will not.”

“Yea. Okay, uh, Your Grace. It’s just that –“

“Subject Yagget. We are confident your preparations are sufficient. Tarry not. Procure the goat.”

Rhode’s mouth snapped shut: he had encountered a sentence he did not expect, and needed time to come to terms with it.

Across the room, and at the edge of the outermost ritual circle, Yagget froze. The goblin gulped. He shivered uncontrollably, and his eyes locked onto Rhodes.

Please, the eyes said.

Rhode opened his mouth and began to reach forward. But the old goblin’s wild hair swung. His head shook with urgency. Ah, Rhode realized.

Please. But, NO.

The Second Prince held his hands cupped loose behind his back. Rhode had seen his neck could turn, and the witnessed the deliberate tracking of his eyes. The Prince’s mouth would even open and shut when he spoke.

Nothing else about him moved.

Yagget scrambled to a small door at the wall, then his knee pitched and he caught himself. His pace became more careful, and more measured, then he reached its handle and stepped through.

“Your Grace,” Rhode murmured. “I wanted to talk to you about Yune.”

The three nameless figures stretched. They leaned. In particular, they shook out their fingers in limbering exercises that were rigorous and complex.

“I wanted to let you know, that I’m not angry about what happened the other day. I don’t blame her. I don’t even blame Tarrop, either. It was just an accident. A mistake. It was no big deal.”

Eyes.

“If it’s about the budget, or whatever, Your Grace. I’m sure we can pay it back. We’ll work something out. Make a deal. You know?”

“Goodman Irving,” The Prince replied. His attention drifted off the homunculus, and [bellows] gasped again. “Do you believe We are concerned with cost? Know that it has ever been Our will to conserve the secrecy of this work. Your minders forgot this, and grew lax. You are known to rabble, witnessed by gossips. It is inevitable, now, that the agents of Delight will learn of your birth. Our time is limited; our advantage is yielded to the enemy. We will prepare. And they will retaliate.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Shit,” Rhode whispered. That was different. That meant something different. “That’s not what they told me.”

The Prince let out a shadow of a sigh. “They are goblin, Goodman Irving, with goblin minds and goblin thoughts. Ever do We bear them Our patience. The knight remains gone. You will keep the scholar. He will be merely flogged instead.”

Yagget returned to the room wearing the same, light brown body-suit as his colleages. He carried his protective headdress under one arm, and held the lead to a harness in the other hand. Behind him followed a creature that was almost, but not quite goat. It had wide, splayed three-toed feet, and a rounded, protruding nasal bridge. It bleated mournfully once along its way, and shook its little beard.

Goat was good enough, Rhode decided. His mind ran hot and feverish, searching for a reason for the animal’s inclusion. He had preconceptions. He had suspicions. He didn’t want to think them.

Suddenly, there was a creaking noise that echoed through the air. There was a side, ancillary entrance to the ballroom on that wall. It had been so neat and flush at its seams that it had been invisible, an oversight until it opened.

“Oh, uh, hello? Who’s in here, dummies?” said an unfortunate page. His head popped through the door and looked about, and then fell positively grave. “Goodsirs? Lords? My apologies, gracious me! I was looking for the lesser inner south-south-east overflow storage C?

Five concentric arcane circles, looped around a mythic Hero corpse. Three Acolytes of Hornupant had raised up their hands, and murmured in their verse. An gentle looking grey-haired man, put his hand up to his throat, and there stood between them all a sorcerer, who was tying up a goat.

“Maybe I should come back?” Whimpered the young man.

“[Serve]”

“and”

“[Forget]”

Rhode felt a hideous chill. He turned back towards the Prince, and he barely heard the sound of the interloper as he left.

“Oh, how could I be so dumb! I missed the left back at the mummified nose exhibit. Don’t mind me, ye gobs! Ha! Ye mind your business, and I’ll mind mine.”

The door slammed shut.

“Perhaps we shall secure the room. [They Knew the Price of Crossing Us]. [The Shadows All Have Knives].”

Wait, what? Rhode inched away. His knees felt weak. Wait, what?

“Your Grace,” the Translocationist choked out. “We are prepared to proceed, at your leave.”

“It is granted. Fear not failure. You do Our will, [Like Clockwork].”

Rhode’s mouth went dry, and his tongue was thick in his throat. Wait, what?

Yagget began to pace the circle, and his voice began to rise. His motions snapped to regular, precision measured strides.

“[Potentialize]. [Tesselate]. [Inversion]. [Fractallize]. [Rejoinder]. [Temper]. [Resonate]. [Shift]. [Destabilize].”

“[Potentialize]. [Tesselate]. [Inversion]. [Fractallize]. [Rejoinder]. [Temper]. [Resonate]. [Shift]. [Destabilize].”

“[Potentialize]. [Tesselate]. [Inversion]. [Fractallize]. [Rejoinder]. [Temper]. [Resonate]. [Shift]. [Destabilize].”

“Um, Hey. Your Grace? This isn’t how you guys did me, was it? Like, this wasn’t how my summon went, right?”

The Translocationist disappeared beneath his podium, and lifted an intricate metal cylinder of interoperating parts. He, and it, and the animal shuffled to alignment with the head of a homunculus’ shell. “Alright, boys and girls. Round two. Helmets on. It’s go time.”

The chanting muffled eerily, as Yagget donned his gear. A chorus rose to join him, and it wriggled in the ear. A core of pure plutonium was emerging from its case. A man from earth was showing all his horror on his face.

A knife flashed out, and held up high. It gleamed under the light. It flashed so quick and suddenly, for silencing a life.

Rhode had never in his time on Earth, seen the inside of a throat. But now he was familiar with the trachea of goat.

“[Call of Sin]!” so screamed a Hornupant.

“[Beckon Soul]!” Did call the next.

“[Ectoplasmic Anchor]” wailed the last of them.

O’er the corpse set in its place.

The humble Translocationist, raised his arms up towards the sky. “[Phase]. [Pathfind].[Breach]”, he said.

And a hole was torn in space.

“We call beyond the void! Waylay the damned, deny them place in hell! Come, live again, we defy the gods, usurp the wheel of fate as well!“

Rhode’s eyes flashed in panic. To the body, to the ritualists.

“Fuck,” he said.

He looked to his side, and really, truly saw the Vodyonoi Prince besides him.

“Fuck,” he said again.

For those expressionless, perfectly round irises bored right back down into his soul.

Five voices keened as one, in a tumultous surge.

“[Hero Summon!]” They exhulted and -

“Fuck.” Rhode whispered.