“Thanks for comin’ in early, Nagoun.”

“No sweat, boss. Specially since you always make it worth my while. And speaking of…”

“Yeah, yeah. There’s a whole pot of tea ready. Strong-brewed, in that spicy Fflyr blend you like, ya freak.”

“Hey, I’m not gonna take that from somebody who likes that damn sour wine,” Nagoun retorted, grinning as he made his way toward the steaming kettle set up in the kitchen corner of the cluttered office.

“Excuse me,” Maugro said with deep dignity, “I like free wine. Sufficiently that I’ll take the sour kind if it’s on offer. Sides, it ain’t all that bad. Least it doesn’t blow out the sinuses like that shit.”

Nagoun was already pouring himself a fragrant cup of that shit. “You best hustle, or you’re gonna miss the tram, boss.”

Maugro pointed at the bodyguard as he backed up out of the front door. “And that’s a surrender. I won this round!”

“Oh, up yours!” his employee’s voice rang out after him as he stepped out, still chuckling to himself.

Often, on his rounds, he liked to pause an admire the exterior of his office space, whose akorthist brickwork was made to resemble the exterior of a surface fortress, set into the carved tunnel wall. Today Maugro was on a schedule, but he did indulge himself in savoring the scenery even while putting one foot as expeditiously as possible in front of the other. He’d made sure to cultivate dlinroots in the alcoves made for that purpose everywhere along the stretch of tunnel from which his front door was visible, just so all the murals could be seen and enjoyed. The dlinroots’ bluish glow washed out some of the colors, but he wasn’t running a Fallencourt operation out here; Maugro wasn’t about to spring for asauthec lamps just out of vanity. He’d exercised favors and influence to get artists up here to paint the walls in color schemes that were enhanced by the particular illumination, which they had been glad to do because he hadn’t given them any other instructions concerning what to paint.

Maugro knew how artists thought; he knew how everybody thought. Besides, he didn’t particularly care what was painted on the tunnel walls outside his office, just that it was fresh and current. Art was nice, he enjoyed art as much as the next goblin, but status led directly to profit, as long as you knew how to leverage it.

Status wasn’t the only thing, of course. He’d sacrificed some of that by buying an office out here on the periphery of Kzidnak, when he could’ve afforded a smaller space not far from Fallencourt itself. Maugro’s chosen office was on the rim of goblin society on Dount, and hell and gone from human society—an inconvenient location in some respects, given his chosen profession and area of focus. But he didn’t mind taking Sneppit’s trams to get around, even at what they cost, and his place did have that convenient tunnel straight into North Watch. At the time, he’d thought that might prove a real ace in the hole.

Lately, he was starting to think he’d critically underestimated just how important it would become.

Maugro’s steps carried him quickly out of the light; some of his neighbors also illuminated their exteriors, similarly for reasons of vanity and status, but in this part of town just as many goblins either couldn’t spare the resources or just didn’t consider light a worthwhile expense. Goblins didn’t need light to navigate, only to differentiate colors; light was useful for reading, writing, and a variety of other such professional tasks. In public tunnels its only purpose was to make the omnipresent murals and graffiti visible. Now, he was walking into a stretch where that artwork had probably not been seen since its creators had come here with their own lamps to splash it on the walls.

In fact, in a dark stretch uncomfortably close to his own door, he found more at exactly that. Goblins painting the tunnel walls weren’t an uncommon sight, but this particular scene was off. It wasn’t a single goblin applying paint alone, but one surrounded by three who were clearly standing guard. As if that weren’t ominous enough, they hadn’t brought a lamp.

That, plus his own familiarity with current events in Kzidnak, told him what they were up to. It would be really impressive to draw or paint in the dark, but it wasn’t too hard to scrawl slogans if you weren’t overly concerned about penmanship.

At his approach, the three lookouts swiveled to face him, as did the artist a second later. Maugro and the four could see each other clearly in the pitch blackness, even if none were able to make out what they were actually writing on the wall. Drawing closer, he discerned that they were adolescents—well, mostly, one of the guys lurking over the artist looked older. So far, so typical; it was always the kids who got into stuff like this.

“Morning, gentlemen!” he called out cheerily, waving. In his line of work, defusing tension was a necessary skill, and they’d been visibly brimming with it since the second they’d noticed his approach. He didn’t think things had progressed to the point that they’d actually attack him, or he’d have brought Nagoun or Radzo, but still. You never knew.

“Oh, I know you,” said one of the lookouts. “Maugro, you’re that info broker.”

“A professional lurker,” said the artist with open scorn, brandishing a blackchalk stick at him. “What’s it going to be, broker? Will you declare for the Goblin King?”

Whoah. Maugro, of course, kept his flash of alarm well clear of his face; if people were out making statements like this to strangers, things were moving faster and farther than he’d anticipated. He allowed himself a look of more muted surprise, raising his eyebrows.

“Say what, now? There’s a Goblin King? Well, this is professionally embarrassing, but I confess I haven’t heard anybody’d proclaimed himself King. Did he make the announcement this morning?”

All of them looked abashed, and the older fellow nudged the speaker with an elbow.

“Well…he hasn’t yet,” admitted another, “but it’s only a matter of time.”

“Goblin King Jadrak!” shouted the first speaker, pumping a fist into the air.

“Freedom for goblins!”

“Revenge on the Fflyr!”

“Dount should be ours!”

Maugro let them shout themselves out; he knew it would be smarter to just walk away, but they might get aggressive at a perceived rejection…and dammit, he hated to see kids set themselves up for this kind of trouble.

“I think you lads should be careful,” he advised.

“So you are against Jadrak!” sneered the guy who’d been scrawling on the wall in a mix of triumph and malice. “When the—”

“Okay, whoah,” Maugro said soothingly, holding up both hands. “Careful of Jadrak, not me. If Jadrak hasn’t proclaimed himself yet, then he either will or he won’t. If he doesn’t, you kids are sending a lot of trouble his way. And if he does, it’ll be with a plan, on his own timetable. Guy’s way too smart to half-ass something like that. In which case, you’re out here fucking up his strategy. I dunno how…gracious he’s gonna be with anybody who bungles something as important as his proclamation. Get me?”

That brought them all up short; the older guy frowned in sudden concern, while the rest looked openly nervous.

“Did Jadrak tell you guys, specifically and in person, to be out here doing this?”

The silence was sufficient answer.

“Right. Going forward, I’d advise you at least clear it with his organization before you start taking action on his behalf. You dunno what he’s planning; you might fuck with his agenda by accident.”

“C’mon,” urged the older fellow, beginning to shepherd them off up the tunnel.

“It will happen, though,” the artist declared stridently. “You’d better be ready, broker! There’ll be no lurking in holes when there’s a real Goblin King taking back what’s ours!”

“Damn right,” Maugro agreed with a grin. “Just respect the plan, boys. Don’t blow your loads too soon.”

He sauntered off on his way while they retreated.

Then, after he was sure they were gone, Maugro quickly and quietly backtracked to where they’d been, fished out his pocket sparker and ignited a brief glow. Just a couple of seconds, to see what they were writing on the wall. There it was, a coarse scrawl of blackchalk over somebody’s much more intricate mural.

Drawing in a breath, the broker turned and headed off again, lengthening his stride to make up for lost time.

----------------------------------------

He reached the tram landing in time, but just barely. At least the crowd was light enough today that he didn’t have to jostle for a place on the tram.

Warm wind blew through the landing as always, thanks to the clever shafts which harnessed updrafts from the core to propel the trams. This brought the usual round of complaints from goblins having to readjust their hair or clothes, but Maugro had always found it rather refreshing. He paid his coin to the overseer, noting that there were twice the usual number of armed guards looming over the cash box and the tram itself. Sneppit was as aware of the fractious tension rising in Kzidnak as anybody, and she wasn’t one to take chances.

A frequent traveler, he hopped lightly into the tram, unlike the more ginger steps of the other goblins who were less familiar and not as sanguine about riding in a swaying cage which hung by its wheel mounts from the single rail lining the roof of the tunnel above. Maugro simply picked a pole to grip and hung on as the tram loaded, watching the landing’s hourglass.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Right on time, landing attendants untied the tram’s moorings; the engineer up front began cranking levers (Maugro always picked a cage close to the front so he could watch this). The wheel brakes were released and the cages shuddered slightly along the rail, prompting gasps from the less experienced passengers, and then the sails began to unfold from the sides of the lead cage with its engineer’s compartment. They filled immediately with the warm breeze, and the vehicle began to move.

Maugro just hung on, lost in thought. The ride to the Underloft landing was all of half an hour, one he’d taken countless times, and by this point he’d given up worrying about the creaking and swaying that so clearly terrified some of his fellow riders. There hadn’t been a tram crash in years; Sneppit’s engineers were meticulous. The cages probably wouldn’t fall, and if they did, what could you do? He didn’t even bother to look down during the segments of the journey wherein the bottom dropped out of the tunnel, leaving them racing along suspended above titanic walls of stone extending countless limns straight downward, or the flickering mists of the core itself. That never failed to make some newbie scream.

It took a while to decelerate from the speeds at which that thing got going at its peak. The engineer folded back the sails about halfway through the journey, and began applying the brakes near the halfway point of the remainder. The akorshil roofs of the cages shielded the passengers from most of the sparks, and the few which made it through almost never ignited anything.

Maugro politely let the more desperate to escape get off first once they were tied up on the landing at Underloft. He wasn’t traumatized by the tram; it seemed the decent thing to do.

The outpost of goblin civilization closest to Gwyllthean would have been a stone’s throw from the outskirts of the Gutters, had it been on the surface. Nobody lived on the Underloft and very little actual business was done, just a couple of hawkers taking advantage of the passing goblins to sell various wares. Nobody would set up anything of value here; it was always the first place attacked when humans decided to raid the tunnels. For the most part, it was just a long stretch of subterranean clifftop, deliberately lacking either lighting or the artwork goblins liked to put up everywhere else. There wasn’t even a safety rail shielding the edge which overlooked an endless plummet into an underground chasm which, though it wasn’t obvious from up here, took a few turns far below that would dump anything which fell down there straight into the core. The only thing of value attached to the Underloft was the tram landing, which was behind its own small tunnel which could be collapsed and buried under rubble at the pull of a switch.

This had been done, multiple times. Humans never bothered to dig it out and see what the goblins thought was so important to hide. The silly lumbering things were just terrified of digging, especially once they were already on edge from being underground.

Tunnels branched off all along the cave wall, leading to various surreptitious exits in and around Gwyllthean, and a few to other outposts of goblin civilization. You could get back to Kzidnak on foot from here, if you knew the route and had all damn day to spend at it.

Mindzi was waiting right at the expected tunnel entrance, sitting on the ground with her back against the wall; her eyes were open, but by her posture she could have been dozing. At Maugro’s approach, she looked up and gave him a weary but genuine smile beneath her disheveled bangs.

“Damn, hon,” he said, offering a hand to help her up. “That bad?”

“I think I got…maybe three more sessions with this one,” Mindzi admitted, leaning on him and limping slightly as they made their way back toward the landing. “Thanks for coming, Mau. I coulda made it home okay, but…”

“Yeah, don’t you worry, I gotcha,” he said, patting her back. “You think Lord Dirn is gonna try to…get rid of you?”

“Not on purpose, that ain’t my concern,” she grimaced. “It’s the standard highborn problem. He’s bored and got too much imagination. It just keeps fuckin’ escalating with this guy; he’s working up to a level of kinky that’s gonna leave me a lot worse than sore. We didn’t even use the bed the last two visits. Problem is there’s no real limits, cos to him a goblin is an exotic plaything, not an actual person. Way his serfs live, I’m not sure ‘person’ is a concept Dirn understands. If I break, oh well, he’ll just have to get another one. It’s a damn shame,” she added with a sigh. “He’s just about the most loose-lipped of the fuckers, and connected enough to make it well worth the while. The notes I got from last night alone are a treasure.”

“Fine work as always, love, but there’s no intel that’s a more valuable asset than you. I want you to be a bit more conservative in your threat assessments with this guy, kay? Cut it off before something severe happens to you, and I don’t care what news you miss out on.” He hesitated, then lowered his voice. “We may be scaling back operations soon anyhow.”

Mindzi gave him an inquisitive look, but Maugro had turned his attention to the ticket handler.

“Two for Kzidnak main landing. Private compartment, please.”

“Maugro!” Mindzi protested. “I’m fine, you don’t gotta throw money around like—”

“Hush,” he said, planting a kiss atop her tousled head. “In the small cage I can hold onto you and the bar so you can relax. You deserve a break. Anyway, I wanna chat without bein’ in a crowd. Thanks,” he added, accepting a ticket.

“Something up?” Mindzi asked as they began climbing the footbridge which extended over the tunnel and rail from which hung the tram. The one which had brought him was still parked, the engineers clambering about double-checking everything; there would be a wait on the next tunnel rail over for the tram heading back to Kzidnak.

“The…usual business that’s on everybody’s lips is escalating,” he said quietly. “This morning I met some kids proclaiming Jadrak the Goblin King. They were writing it over the murals in our own tunnel.”

“Shit,” she whispered. “Just kids, right? He hasn’t…”

“Not yet, but we’ve all thought for a long time this was where it was leading. Whether he’s planning to proclaim himself shortly or has entirely lost control of his little cult of personality…end result’s the same. We’re gonna have a decision to make.”

----------------------------------------

The rest of that conversation waited until they were safely back at their residence and office. Nagoun, thoughtful soul that he was, had prepared a breakfast of porridge and some of the less spicy but still strong tea that Mindzi preferred, which she had worked through while writing down her memorized observations from her night with Lord Dirn.

It would take a proper rest to bring Mindzi back up to full strength, but she had perked up considerably after being off her feet and getting some nutrition down, so they had repaired to the secure room where they would not be overheard.

“Okay,” Maugro said, once both were settled into the little office’s comfortable overstuffed chairs, “I’m pretty sure I’ve done the calculations myself, but you’re better at it. I wanna hear it laid straight out, Mindz. Chances that Lord Seiji of North Watch is the Champion of Virya?”

Mindzi drew in a slow breath through pursed lips and let it out equally slowly while her eyes took on a keen focus, her whole face falling into a cold, analytical expression. She deliberately did not do this kind of code-switching in public; her job would be a great deal harder if anybody realized exactly how smart she was.

“Points in favor of the theory,” she said in a flat tone, staring at nothing behind the far wall. “One of his subordinates claimed he was the Dark Lord, once, when unsupervised. His ability to read Khazid strongly suggests he is Blessed with Wisdom; we haven’t seen a familiar, but the clever ones usually hide theirs anyway. Given that he was interested enough in acquiring both spell scrolls and artifacts to spend money to learn how, that at least suggests multiple Blessings. And there is the matter of the other boy with similar features—both of them of apparently the same ethnic extraction, but from a country no one can identify, their respective situations being classic placements for early Dark Lord and Hero starting positions. Conclusive evidence: none. All of it is circumstantial. Alternate explanations exist for every point in favor.” She paused, narrowing her eyes. “What sticks out is the lack of compelling alternate explanations. Every one of those things could be the result of something else, but the something else in no case is easier to believe. Some are less so, like the fact that a Fflyr bandit is quite unlikely to announce his boss is the Dark Lord unless he’s very certain of it. Fflyr know what tends to happen to people who falsely claim things like that.”

Mindzi stopped talking, but she continued staring into space with the same expression. Maugro knew that meant she was mentally collecting another statement and just waited patiently for it to come.

“And…there is no single point convincingly counter-indicating the theory.”

“Okay,” Maugro said quietly when she shifted her focus back to his face. “So, what do you think?”

“Those are the facts as I see ‘em,” she said with a reproachful frown.

“Yeah, I know. I’m asking for your opinion, Min. I know you prefer facts and pure reason when possible, but I have a lot more faith in your instincts than you do.”

“That’s exactly why I don’t like expressing my instincts!” she said, exasperated. “Only facts can be trusted! If I spew an instinct and you act on it and it’s wrong, then I’m responsible!”

“No, you aren’t,” he said gently. “Sole responsibility is mine, love. You’ve made your objections plain. I’m sorry to put you on the spot like this, but this time… I need to hear it. Please, Mindzi.”

She heaved an irritated sigh and blew it out so hard it set her bangs fluttering. But then she met his eyes dead on and spoke without hesitation.

“I think we got a brand new baby Dark Lord on our doorstep.”

Maugro nodded slowly. “Yeah. Yeah, I was leaning toward that conclusion myself. And I know Sneppit is at least humoring the theory, or she wouldn’t have had Gizmit test him like that. They don’t know as much as we do, though.”

“We know little enough,” Mindzi grumbled. “Okay then, bossman, what’re you planning to do with this…educated guess, now that it’s on the record? And why’s it now a concern, after we’ve been sitting on all these tidbits for weeks with no developments? I thought we agreed to just watch Seiji to see what he does, like Sneppit’s doing.”

“Answer to both questions,” he said, settling back into his chair, “is I’m gonna reach out to Miss Sneppit and tell her everything we know about Lord Seiji, on the house.”

Mindzi’s breath caught. “Maugro…that’s playing politics. We don’t take sides, remember? That’s the first rule of our business: we’re neutral.”

“I’ve been over it and over it in my head.” Maugro surged out of his chair and began to pace up and down the cramped little room, making only a few steps per rotation. “Jadrak is gonna proclaim himself a Goblin King. It’s a question of when, at this point, not if. I don’t honestly know whether he’s acting according to a long-term strategy or just riding a wave he kicked off without knowing where it would lead, but practically speaking that’s not what matters. A Goblin King inevitably means a goblin uprising. I know better than anybody the relative strength of Kzidnak and Fflyr Dlemathlys, and we have no fucking chance.”

“The Clans are kinda famously divided against each other, the central government is ineffectual, the Radiant Convocation is messing with local politics, there’s foreign agents from every state in the archipelago pulling strings in both Gwyllthean and Fflyrdylle…”

“Yeah, and you’re just playin’ devil’s advocate. We don’t have the straight up numbers, Min, not to mention that the goblins of Kzidnak are not any kind of army. The Kingsguard and Clansguards may be sad excuses for armies by international standards, but they do qualify. A mob of angry goblin scavengers and tradesmen doesn’t. Which isn’t even the most important thing: the Fflyr being divided and fractious mostly creates opportunities for other Fflyr. Any outside force attacking them will make them unify, especially if it’s somebody like us who they’re used to feeling better than. If I’m wrong, call me out at any point.”

Mindzi stared at him in silence for a moment, then lowered her eyes.

“It’ll be the end of us, Min,” he said almost plaintively. “Even if we survive the initial fighting, and that’s a big fat if, goblin/Fflyr relations will be in the shitter for at least a generation, even compared to how they usually are. Our entire business will become impossible. If a Goblin King rises and tries to attack Dount, our best case scenario will be to end up homeless and starving. The likelier one is we’re just butchered along with all the rest of the fodder. We’re not taking a side, Mindzi. We have been put on one, whether we like it or not.”

“Okay,” she said in a small voice. “And that leads how to you making sure Sneppit knows Seiji is—probably—the Dark Lord?”

“The bigger business concerns always play their cards close to their chests—I haven’t been able to tell where they stand on the Jadrak issue,” he admitted. “Some will oppose him, some’ll bend the knee. But we have a special insight in one case. The Kzidnak potions market is completely unchanged. We know Sneppit is getting a big influx of high-quality slimes for her in-house alchemist to work with, but they’re not selling any high-quality potions. She is stockpiling. Sneppit sees an internal struggle coming and is planning to take a stand against Jadrak.”

“Or bribe him with a stockpile of high-quality potions…”

“She’s got no need to do that. Her engineers are the only ones who know how to run and maintain the trams; her monopoly on underground travel around Dount is the only asset she’d need to bring to be guaranteed a tall seat at the table.”

“So you wanna team up with Sneppit and throw Seiji at Jadrak,” Mindzi said slowly. “One problem, Mau: Seiji’s entire army right now is six unusually pathetic bandits. Well, and Sakin.”

“An army invading Kzidnak is specifically what we don’t want,” he reminded her. “Besides, it wouldn’t be necessary. Even just starting out, a Dark Lord is triple-Blessed, which makes him an absolute terror in any one-on-one confrontation. Between us and Sneppit’s organization, we can find or make an opportunity for him to have a shot at Jadrak. And if the Dark Lord takes out the Goblin King, he will walk away with a lot of goblin loyalists.”

“I wouldn’t mind getting in on the first wave of a new Dark Lord’s empire,” she admitted. “Sneppit will definitely see the advantages in that. But…what if Jadrak sees the advantages? Keep in mind, Seiji and Sneppit may be in business, but they’re not close. He likes Youda, but he’s been personally antagonized by Zui, Gizmit, and Sneppit herself.”

Maugro flopped back down into his chair, then slumped downward in it until he was in danger of sliding right out. “That, too, can be arranged. Whether he’s truly in control or not, Jadrak’s moves have been aggressive. Won’t be hard to set him up to royally piss off the Dark Lord without knowing who he’s dealing with.”

She stared at him in silence for a moment.

“That,” Mindzi said finally, “is playing a dangerous game, Maugro.”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “Yeah. I just wish we had the option not to fuckin’ play it. But…here we are.”

“Here we are,” she agreed in a whisper. “Nightlady take my little green ass, here we are.”