We stood at the entrance to an amphitheater full from ceiling to floor with goblins. The door we’d walked through was akin to the performer’s entrance, putting us face to face with hundreds, possibly thousands of goblins.
I had expected drums, what else could account for the impossible mass of sound the goblins produced? Hosts of goblins wore masks over their mouths, others wore fine suits of mail or even plate. And hundreds of them held bows in hand. Weapons. Each one of the goblins slammed the butt of spears, clubs, staves, or some other weapon either against the ground or against the wall behind them. More than the shear volume of goblins, the way they’d managed to coordinate their drumming impressed.
A dozen different shaman and ogres stood at the base of the amphitheater, the ogres with their arms crossed over their chests and the shaman already weaving magics over their heads. Nothing stood out that would account for the goblin noble though. I’d expected some hulking, powerful beast and no such creature presented itself.
My eyes locked on the left flank of the goblin army, our right. A series of massive cages stood off to the side which held a great sea of humans, dwarves and other non-goblin races. Many of them were shackled, but many more stood across from us, dead eyed and holding weapons ready. I was so distracted by the natures of the assorted people, it took me a second to realize that their cages were opened and they waited at the ready… for something.
Pain warped through my body when I spotted a figure made of sand, wavering in the darkness. The cage could not hold her and unless I missed my guess, she would be among the most dangerous creatures arrayed against us: a Djinn. I prayed it was Malia, but a part of me hoped that she’d escaped capture by the goblins.
A small goblin strode out from a door across from us. He wore a purple cloak and a fine set of gilded ring mail. He was short, as short as his fellows and otherwise unremarkable, though he held a staff that flickered in and out of reality as he raised his bulbous nose to the air and spoke in Elven. “Interlopers! Welcome to the Den of A Thousand Shadows!” Cheers erupted from the assembled goblins, who’d continued their syncopated beat. “Tonight, you shall add your number to our slave cages, those of you who survive!”
Without further preamble, the little goblin flickered like the staff he held and a dozen images shot out from his form, six to his left and six to his right. They shimmered a moment and all thirteen figures grew solid and indistinct. The drumming around us sped up, reached a crescendo, and then stopped as suddenly as it started. Then the thirteen goblin duplicates charged.
Arrows enough to block out the walls of goblins whistled through the air overhead and fell among us. Spinning in midair as they came onward, the arrows struck my barrier and bounced off. They arrived seconds after the goblin noble thirteen hit our group.
Swords flashed and four of them fell, dissipating into mist as the whole cavern roared and shook. Our phalanx of elves and humans faced off with the leader of the goblins as ogres and shaman entered the fray.
Yellow showers rained down from the ceiling of the cavern, striking my barrier with enough force to bring me to my knees. As two more of the noble duplicates fell to swishing blades, an ogre thundered into the gap.
His club whizzed over my head, deflect off course by a swift motion from One’s sword, who’d moved to intercept at the last second. Grains of sand filtered in amongst us as a gun fired from the cages off to the left.
The whole of the goblin force concentrated on us and for a brief moment, we held. Half of the goblin noble’s duplicates had been destroyed by then, but the army arrayed against us could crush us with sheer numbers.
Three dropped first, taken in the side by a dual dagger strike from one of the noble’s blades. She cried out, but I could see that she still breathed. For a moment I almost slipped into the void, but I waited, confident that Garaghan and the others could stand against the onslaught. As the sands at our feet rose, and Two fell under a club blow from an ogre, my confidence faltered. But again, she continued to breathe as she dropped to the ground.
When the sands solidified at our calves and Yierie screamed, I lost my control. Pain wrapped itself around my skull and I shouted myself hoarse as I fell into the void. A grinning figure, larger in the void than he’d been in the real world, found me there.
Agony suffused my being as lights flickered and waved like an aurora in the void. A voice reached out and its harsh tones drive new pin pricks into my mind to join the burning pain of the dragon mark threatened to drive me into unconsciousness.
“Ahaha, you are marked by something even greater than I, pathetic little human.” The goblin noble’s voice was louder and fuller here in the void. “I will take you as I have these other humans…”
Before he could continue, I struck out at him with the only magic I’d truly mastered. Runes spread out from my hands as I improvised a goblin ward. It’s magic was unique and something I’d not tried before, but the ring spread out from me as it had before. The goblin roared at me as the pins of flame dug themselves deeper into my mind. Respite from the goblin noble’s magical assault gave me a chance to look down at my feet.
Malia spread herself out around me, hooks pulling at her flesh that resembled those in my own mind in some vague way. The violation filled me with rage, a pure fury I’d not felt in the entirety of my life gave my magic power.
I wove a new rune, something I’d never tried until then. I attempted to banish the magic hooking itself into Malia’s mind while we both had a break from the goblin’s power. At the same time, Roo had hooked itself into Yierie and Two, the most injured of the three elves and was already stitching their injuries together.
The goblins could not approach our group for the power of my wards. But as the noble and its incredible mental force slammed against my magic, I knew I only had moments to act. Malia shook and cried out under the magic I used to free her, but the hooks set in her body did not budge.
As Yierie righted herself I redirected Roo to Two and Three. I formed my hands into hooks of my own and ripped at the coils in Malia’s thoughts. Sand loosened at our feet and the goblin slammed back into my wards. Cracks appeared in the golden ring around us and my vision wavered like heat rising from an engine block. Something would give the next time he came at me.
I screamed in the void and tore as the hooks in Malia’s psyche, praying to Gods familiar only to my past life as I made the dual effort of freeing Malia’s mind and healing my two friends. Something tore in my center and I fell out of the void and back onto the white mountain of my vision.
Time hung still, as if where I walked now I moved faster than I could have ever moved in real life. A white clad woman with my new face hovered in front of me. Roo gathered itself about her and I realized that Roo belonged to her, not me.
As the thought passed through my mind, the woman’s frowned. “You still believe yourself separate from Us.” She clicked her tongue and shook her head. “Would you give your own life for your friends? Sacrifice your fate and future for…”
“Without a doubt, as long as someone is willing to take care of Tia.”
Yeshe Tsogyal laughed. “You would relinquish and die so quickly?”
“I said yes. Anything for Malia and Yeirie.” I loved them both, understanding it only then, when the stranger from my soul’s own past forced it on me.
“You would die. You might never return from this.”
“I said yes, do I really have to say it again?”
Yeshe floated toward me, glowing golden as she did. “No, you do not. You’ve agreed three times and that is what the formula requires…”
She laid a kiss on my cheek and white light framed with golden edges burst from the contact. Pain and agony reasserted itself for a moment as I flashed back to the cavern, flickering between the white mountain of my personal past and the dark goblin cave of my present. I could feel Malia’s mind as the void slide-showed through my consciousness.
Experience born from a thousand years of healing the sick flowed from my mind and down through my fingers. I plucked out not just the hooks from Malia’s mind, but from the hundreds of minds surrounding us in the cavern. Even the goblins had hooks planted in them and I extricated them with the care and precision of a surgeon operating on the brain.
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One, Three, and Yierie were simple to heal. They required less effort and attention than extracting a single hook. Forming the words in the Tibetan script, I formed new wards about my companions, driving an adamant barrier of magic between the goblin noble and the people I loved. The barrier expanded and warded off the minds of the prisoners and even the rest of the goblins from the noble.
Power issued forth from my hands in bright glowing steamers. My perception shrank and dulled as more and more of my magic flowed through my hands into the caves and the creatures therein. On some level I knew I didn’t need to protect and save the goblins, but they were as much victims of the noble’s depredations as my friends, as the people the noble had mind controlled.
I felt myself floating away and knew I had to make my farewells. Touching each of the elves with tiny ephemeral hands, I whispered to them of my concern for them, of the way I hoped they would prosper and grow as I died.
My void body began to fade and a piercing shout echoed through the void. A blond girl in pigtails rose up taller than the goblin noble and wore a fierce aspect on her face. Her hair shown out like strands of solar energy floating in space and her head spun, revealing a second face behind the first. Tears flowed from one of the figure’s eyes as blackness swirled in the other. The new face opened her mouth and a scorpion emerged, jade green with poison dripping from its tail.
Tibetan words mixed with a dozen voices in what I knew in my core as the Glossolalia. “YOU MAY NOT LEAVE ME! WE HAVE TO STAY TOGETHER!”
Tia’s voice echoed with a dozen others as the scorpion stung me right between the eyes. Light and fire consumed me then, ripping me from the void as Yeshe appeared next to me. Her smile lit her face and she clapped me on the cheek. “Thank you, Harriet. Well done.”
She merged with me and a hundred different memories flooded into my mind. I not only spoke Tibetan, but could read the script with ease.
I opened my eyes to find myself staring up into the goblin cave at the ceiling. One and Two surrounded me with Malia and Yierie huddled over my body. Tears from both of them fell across my bare chest as they cradled me in their arms.
Around us, a cacophony of goblin shouts and violence roared through the cave. Dwarves, delicate winged fairies, and even a serpentine woman with a bare chest and green hair tore over the goblin ranks. The noble had lost the balance of his duplicates and fought a battle on every possible front. Garaghan danced around him as goblins, fairies and the naga battered the goblin noble between them.
“Are you okay?” Malia shouted to me, her human form wore the same clothes I’d last seen her in when we’d been separated during the giant and demon fight.
Yierie laid a hand on Malia’s shoulder and grinned at me. She said, “she’s fine. I can see it.”
Though they had never met, somehow the two women shared a moment between them, Malia nodding at Yierie’s reassurance and sighing as she stroked my hair.
Roo fluttered up around me, drying the shed tears and warming my body as it did. Tia advanced on me with her hands on her hips. “You’re not allowed to leave me! I told you!”
I stared at her, expecting the mysterious being from earlier to reappear. The moment I turned my thoughts to it, I knew its name: Vajrapani, the Diamond Hand and vanquisher of demons. One and Alaric protected our flanks, though my wards held firm and none of the goblins managed to advance on us.
“What happened?” Still stroking my hair, Malia asked as she scanned the room. “One minute the goblin lord controlled my mind and the next, everything went strange and I could think clearly again.”
I pointed at Tia, but before I could answer, the cavern shook and bits of stone and debris showered down on us from the ceiling. I sat up with help from Malia to see Garaghan standing over the goblin lord with his swore buried in the goblin’s chest. It shuddered and my eyes automatically entered the void. Power, green and mottled with yellow, trailed out of the goblin’s chest as it mewled and tore at Garaghan’s blade in the void. Despite its best efforts, Garaghan held firm and the goblin shuddered and fell still.
The shaking in the caverns grew still worse as larger pieces of rock began to fall around us. Creatures I’d freed from the goblin lord’s mind control huddled around us as Garaghan pulled his blade and ran toward me. As he did, a dome of blue light formed over my head and deflected the rocks as a rent appeared in the ceiling.
A massive claw as big as a car ripped away the stone, a second and then a third joined it and the people huddling with us screamed. The elves began to reassure everyone when Balminazer’s face burst through the opening.
When he caught sight of us, he shrank down and the collapsing ended as he and Olerandera joined us in their elven forms, floating down from the gap in the roof together. Many of the creatures we saved fled into the goblin tunnels behind us as the ceiling started to fall. Many more had stayed behind with us.
Balminazer and Olerandera aided in our evacuation efforts as we ferried people and monsters out of the caves and into the light. Outside, the sun shone bright overhead proclaiming our freedom and the hour. None of the humans from the ruined village troubled us as we wove our way through the hilly wilderness back and forth several times to free refugees from the goblins.
On the third trip through the caves, I flew on Olerandera’s back with Malia and Yierie next to me. Tia sat in my lap and refused to leave my arms. A small opening in a distant hill caught my sight and I asked the dragon to set us down gently in the area. She did so without complaint. I’d see this place before, though I didn’t know where at first. I walked along a small game trail toward the opening and realized where I’d seen it: this was the cave from my dreams. It felt as though years had passed since that dream, though I thought only months had gone by in terms of personal time.
“What is this?” Yierie grabbed my hand as Malia clutched the other.
“I think…”
Tia flew forward, arms and hair flailing wildly as she did. “There’s treasure in this her cave! Come on!” She waved to us and we hustled to follow her.
A short, winding tunnel led to a low chamber in the back. Lying there in rags we found a skeleton. She — I knew this was a she — wore a simple orange robe rotted through with a pristine white shawl about it.
Tia scrambled forward and laid her hand on the shawl. It wound itself around her like a constrictor and covered her in much the same way Roo covered me. The shawl’s departure revealed a series of silver scroll cases in the skeleton’s arms.
Dancing away and giggling, Tia waved at the scroll as if she knew it. “That stuff’s totally boring. You can have the papers, I want this!” She patted the shawl and spun in little circles.
I looked back at Yierie, who shrugged and said, “do you know what this is?”
“I… I think I left this here in a past life.”
Malia gasped, “It’s a terma. A treasure text.”
As soon as she spoke, I knew the word. “That makes me a terton, doesn’t it?”
Malia shrugged and raised her hands. “This is all… myths and legends for me.”
We’d barely spoken since we left the cave. Saving people had kept us all busy, but at her shrug, she fell into my chest and began to softly weep. Tia hugged her leg as Yierie enveloped us all in her embrace. Time passed and we remained huddled together as Olerandera watched over us.
Balminazer’s great roar brought us out of our reverie and the cave. I’d picked up the silver scroll case and hung a leather strap over my should. Somehow, the scroll case and strap showed no sign of age. They looked polished and oiled as if freshly made.
We climbed onto Olerandera’s back and she found Balminazer near the sight where we’d dropped off refugees.
A thin dwarf woman — no beard — tapped her foot as we landed. She bowed to us as Olerandera bent her wing and helped us descend. “My name is Felag Moonforge. Thank you all for saving us, but what are your plans now?”
The naga next to Felag rose up and hissed. “Now, we murder the townspeople who traded our lives to the goblins…”
“No!” I raised my voice in reply. “Do what you want, but the elves and I will be leaving. I…” glancing at Yierie, I hoped I wasn’t overstepping my bounds, “I can offer you sanctuary with the elves, but that offer ends if you descend on the humans with violence.”
The nage hissed her displeasure, but lowered herself back to the ground. Felag narrowed her eyes at me. “What kind of sanctuary can you really offer?”
Garaghan raised himself from a rock where he’d been resting. “The Elven ship the Crystal Orchid is anchored in the sky over this continent. We have more than enough room for everyone here, but we will respect Harriet’s requirements. Abandon your need for vengeance.”
Felag sighed. “I could use a year’s rest, I don’t know about the others.”
Heads bobbed in response to Felag’s words, even the naga conceded her point.
Almost all of the rescued creatures accepted sanctuary with the Elven People, so the dragons carried them up in batches to the Orchid. My worries over the ship having moved too far while we were gone proved unfounded.
We did lose several months to the time slips in the area, which caused us new problems. Garaghan smoothed the way over my duel with Lord Elerren, rescheduling it for later that year. The change clearly upset the lord, which was a kind of payment in itself.
Malia came with me back to Yierie’s room. After my insistence, Tia received her own private room near Yierie’s. She was moving her sparse possessions into the her room while Mali, Yierie and I spoke.
“I’m really sorry it took me so long to find you, Malia.” I’d told her most of what happened since we’d been separated, leaving out only the nature of my relationship with Yierie. I felt guilty over the omission, but I wasn’t ready to explain myself just yet.
Malia hugged me and buried her face in the cork of my neck. “Thank you for coming for me.”
“I’m just glad we found you. I wasn’t sure what we’d do if we didn’t pick up another lead.”
I patted her back and pulled away. As I did, Malia raised her face to mine and kissed me on the lips. Surprise and repressed desire kept me from pushing her away. When she did part, she glanced at Yierie and held her hand to her mouth. “I am so sorry, I didn’t mean to…”
“There is nothing to apologize for.” Yierie brought her hand up and gently stroked Malia’s cheek. “I do not own Harriet, nor does she own me.”
I glanced between them, my mouth opened. “What’s going on here?”
Yierie shrugged and favored me with her grin. “Malia and I have spoken. We both intend to pursue you, in our own fashion.” She pointed to Malia and back out the door. “Though I should warn you both that the Maidens Three have their own designs for Harriet.”
I groaned, pleasure warming my belly and belied my sorrow.
Malia smile and grabbed my hand. “Is that okay?”
Swallowing down my nerves, I said, “of course it is.’
“Good.” Yieire and Malia spoke in unison and giggled together, the elf covering her face as she did.
Yierie laid her hand on my free one and added, “Because neither of us is willing to give you up.”