“Well, Fuzzy,” Magrat looked at me as she set her mare to walking again, “What do you think of our city?”
*It’s amazing,* I stated my honest feeling. *I will add one regret. I would like to see it from the inner wall at night. I think it would be wonderful all lit up in the dark.*
“It is wonderful to see it at night from the inner wall,” she smiled, “but I confess, I might be biased since I believe that Kizdangengar is the greatest thing goblins have ever made.”
*How many live in the city?*
“Roughly 200,000. There’s room for 50,000 more, but we’ve never needed to use that extra capacity.”
*Is the dome at the top of the palace?*
“That’s the Temple of the God Weasilli, the only thing on the top ring. The palace and the government offices are one ring down from the temple, and two rings down are the support offices, kitchens, laundry, pantries, barracks, stables, and government housing for those who work on the palace ring.”
“So, Lady Magrat,” Wren rode up level with the cart, “if we were asked to visit by the Queen, it is customary to stay at the palace. I do know the way to the palace though my colleagues don’t.”
“I was sure you knew the way, Princess, but I confess, I conveniently overlooked that fact since I wanted the chance to spend time with Lady Fuzzy. I’ve never met a spirit beast before.” Magrat didn’t look up but paid attention to her reining on the steepest part of the downhill out of the inner gate.
“Do you know if we might be housed close to the human party from Nordvek?” Wren’s voice was still light and conversational. What a clever girl. I should have thought to ask about this. Thank goodness she was more on the ball than I was.
“Most likely,” Magrat remarked. “If I remember correctly, the Queen wanted to send both parties out hunting together. The Nordvek party delayed in leaving so your party could catch up.”
“Who would we speak to about this at the palace when we arrive?” Wren sounded worried. “We have some concerns about staying close to those from Nordvek. Would it be taken as impolite if we found an inn somewhere in the city for the evening?”
Magrat looked up in surprise, “I thought the elves and the humans were getting along much better these days.”
Wren’s grimace was obvious despite the mask on her face, “Maybe on a kingdom level, we are no longer shooting arrows at each other over the escarpment, but the King of the Green Elves has given refuge to those whose lives are in danger from Nordvek.”
Magrat’s round green head turned to Cat Rider, who she now studied with a guarded expression. “So you really are the missing Prince,” she nodded and then returned to her careful reining on the downhill. So far, she had not once needed to use the hand brake, which suggested she was quite skilled at driving a cart.
“This is quite the unforeseen problem,” Magrat frowned in thought. “You folks aren’t packing any court clothes, are you? No, of course not. You’re out adventuring for two years. Who would have thought you’d land at a royal court, even if it with us humble goblins who lack high culture, as the humans would put it?”
“I would never think such a thing,” Wren was appalled. My estimation of her climbed up a couple of notches. Maybe there was a deeper reason her father kept using her as a courier.
“Thank you for that, Princess,” Magrat smiled, “but even some elves think we are simple and slow-minded just because we prefer simple things, bright colors, and silly songs.”
“No slow-minded people could have built Kizdangengar,” Wren pronounced forcefully.
“Regardless,” Magrat continued in her calm and methodical voice, “you’re not prepared for any grand banquets or receptions since you are dressed for hunting, so you can probably dodge that sort of thing for now. The Queen is quite understanding. Receiving you at court can probably be arranged with no humans in attendance. As for avoiding the humans, I think you can come home with me tonight and stay at my place. We can sort out the rest of your stay in the morning when I have time to connect with my colleagues at the palace. What good is it to be a senior bureaucrat if I can’t throw my weight around when needed?”
“You can do that?” Cloud Eye was nervous about Magrat’s proposal.
“The Queen and I go way back,” Magrat remarked. “She will appreciate avoiding a potential diplomatic incident. Trust me on this. Now, let’s see. Roaming Wren can use my daughter’s old room. Are you boys fine with sharing a room? My place isn’t very big. It’s just Gragoy and me. We have two extra rooms now that the children have moved out. We should move to a smaller place, but no one has pressured us to do so because I am rather senior in the government. To be truthful, I don’t know what I’d do if I had to move. Where would I put all our stuff? We’ve been in our house for almost 30 years now. That’s a lot of stuff.”
“We three are fine sharing a room, Lady Magrat,” Cloud Eye replied. “We’ve slept in far worse places.”
I found Magrat fascinating as she seamlessly switched between her roles of confident government official and family matron. She was a character I had never envisioned among goblins. Then again, I found many of my preconceptions of goblins to be utterly wrong, so maybe I shouldn’t be surprised to find a goblin as complex as Magrat.
“I’ll need to stop when we get to the souk to send a message to Gragoy to pick something up for dinner,” Magrat said, looking off into space. Then she turned and looked at me, “so what do you like to have for dinner, Lady Fuzzy? I’ve never entertained a mountain cat before.”
*Uncooked fresh meat is what I usually eat, with a preference for venison.*
“We should be able to find something. Are you fine with beef or mutton if deer isn’t available?”
I nodded my agreement since I was getting a headache, indicating I had overdone the magic usage. I had already dropped the mind-talking spell. I felt someone’s hand scratch behind my ears.
“Head starting to hurt, Fuzz?” Cat Rider asked. I nodded.
“Just take it easy for the rest of the afternoon and go to sleep early,” he scratched some more, looking down at me from the saddle. “Transformation magic is a lot of work, isn’t it?”
I didn’t answer. I just leaned into his scratching hand, closed my eyes, and purred. I dozed for most of the ride across the crater and didn’t open my eyes until I felt a bump in the cart’s wheels. What greeted my sight was a huge arch that we passed under. The road ahead was spacious, at least ten wagons wide, plus walking lanes for pedestrians.
Magrat pulled over just after we cleared the arch and stopped at an official-looking office. “I’ll be just a moment. I need to message my bedmate so he can prepare dinner for seven instead of two. I will be right back.”
Magrat was just a moment. As she exited the office, a young-looking goblin in a yellow tunic was behind her. He strapped on a yellow cap and slung a leather letter bag over his shoulder. Picking up a staff with many bells on the end, he took off at an easy run for one of the many flights of stairs going up to the higher rings of the city.
Magrat got back into the cart and clicked her mare forward into the light traffic on the broad road leading into a giant underground bazaar.
“I’m sure the Princess has been here before,” Magrat was enjoying showing us around, “but for the rest of you, this is the Great Souk. The entire fifteenth ring of the city is one great shopping area. You can find anything you want to buy here. Before we do a little sightseeing, to give my Gragoy time to get ready for guests, is there anything you folks need to pick up?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I could use leather belt lengths and buckles,” Cloud Eye leaned forward in his saddle to catch Magrat’s eye. “I forgot to pack my spares when we left Elvenhome.”
“Then off to the leather workers we go,” Magrat nodded. “I will warn you now, and don’t turn your heads to look, but three humans are watching us from two block columns to our right. Let us hope we leave them behind us.”
I decided the warning applied to the two-footeds, and not to me. After all, no one expects a tame mountain lion to be a thinking person rather than a dumb beast. I looked down the lane to our right and spotted the round ears about 100 yards away, with two giant columns holding up the ceiling between them and us.
They were all male. Because round ears don’t expect their females to do things like hunting or fighting, that didn’t surprise me. What did surprise me was that one of those three was Prince Willam Nordvek, all grown up from when I saw the 11-year-old version three and a half years ago. He was a tall boy at 11.
I guessed the Prince was at least as tall as Cloud Eye. He still looked rather boyish, but I could see the outline of the man he would become already on his face. He’d be a real lady-killer in a year or two.
I was glad that both Cat and Owl were in the habit of keeping their hoods up. Wren had hers down, and her thick wheat-yellow braid of hair swung down her back. Even with her mask on, anyone looking at her knew she was a beauty. That usually wasn’t a problem, especially traveling in Gorgurak among goblins; however, if I was any judge, it looked to me that Prince Willam was staring at Wren like he had just discovered womankind and was smitten with what he saw.
Prince Willam began to close the distance as he followed us. His two young companions, who I guessed were guards, looked concerned as they increased their pace to catch up with the Prince.
All three were in dark green fur-lined knee-length houppelandes with oversized droopy sleeves and thigh-tall black boots. They wore jaunty flat-brimmed hats with feathered plumes. I guess that was the fashion these days in Tammerhof.
The contrast with my elves could not be more stark. My four wore brown loden wool hoods, elkskin tunics, and deerskin hosen. Cat had thigh-high boots to disguise that one of his legs was fake. The other three wore thick knee-high boots, mainly for protection from snake and scorpion bites. The elves carried backpacks with our two tents, cooking gear, bows, and quivers. Two things made the elves stand out: their height and the white wyvern-skin cloaks. Those two things made us easy to follow, even among goblins riding horses and driving wagons.
Even though my head hurt, I needed to do something to slow these Nordvekkian round ears down. *Μει εασιλλι jο φυοττεν φαν λεαδ jααν* I invoked the spell of giving one’s enemies metaphorical lead feet. Walking becomes slow and painful when your mind tells you that each foot suddenly weighs four times as much as usual.
I felt a force shred my spell and send a mental slap back at me. I yipped in pain and then growled in anger. Just what I wanted on top of a headache.
“I felt that, Fuzzy,” Cat looked down from his pony in concern. “Did you try to delay them?” I nodded.
*Σjεν* I closed my eyes and opened my mind’s eye. I saw the swirl of a magic amulet hanging as a pendant around the Prince’s neck under his clothes. So, the Prince was wearing protection from magic against his person. I felt like I would hurt myself if I cast any significant area effects like the fog of confusion or sticky air right now. Giving myself a worse headache from over-using magic struck me as a bad idea. I wouldn’t be much protection for my boy if I put myself in bed for several days with a backlash headache.
I did the only thing left to me as a viable option to stop this Prince from following us. I hopped out of the cart and started walking toward the three humans. I had never stopped wearing the riding pad that Cloud Eye made for me while we had been traveling. It was a visual sign that I wasn’t some wild beast out of the forest. Even if I could delay the round ears for five to ten minutes, it should be good enough for Magrat to get my friends off the main roadway through the souk.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“Fuzzy?” I heard Wren behind me. “What are you doing?”
“Wren,” Cat replied, “she going to slow them down. Fuzz tried a spell, and it got canceled. She’s got a bad magic-overuse headache, so she’s resorting to physical intimidation. She’ll catch up. You know she can.”
“Well, then,” Magrat interjected, “let’s break up for now. Make the next right turn and then take the second left. Meet up under the big red sign four columns down with the blue boots painted on it, next to the potted birch tree out in front of the bootmaker.”
Confident that my people would take care of themselves, I approached the three Nordvekkians at a slow, menacing walk. I started a low growl just to get myself in the right mood. The goblins around me noticed and moved away from me as fast as they could. Then the curious and the cautious stopped to watch.
All three youths stopped when they noticed me padding toward them.
“I thought that the hunting cat was under the control of the elves? Isn’t it trained to stay with them?” The shorter but well-muscled brown-haired youth remarked with worry all over his face. He unsheathed his poignard but held it down next to his side casually, looking unthreatening but ready to defend if needed.
“Maybe it is under their control,” said the tall red-haired boy with peach fuzz on his face. “Maybe they sent it to keep us from following.” His hand was hiding a throwing knife. He must have had a wrist sheath like those that Motley Owl liked to use.
“No,” the Prince studied me as I got close enough to see the blue of his eyes. “That’s not a trained hunting cat. That’s a spirit beast, and she’s probably the one who normally lives at the home of the King of the Green Elves.”
“A spirit beast?” the brown-haired youth gaped. “That isn’t just a peasant tale? They actually exist?”
I stopped ten yards from them, sat on my haunches, and glared at them.
“This is an amazing sight,” Prince Willam smiled thoughtfully. “I take it I am addressing the Lady Fuzzy?” he took off his cap and made a proper bow, the kind that one makes to a noblewoman.
I nodded. Willam was a very smart young man. This could be a problem.
“It seems like you do not approve of our following your companions,” he smiled a sincere and charming smile. Oh, yes, this boy was going to be a problem.
“I merely wanted to introduce myself since they are surely the elven hunting party with the young mage who felled a wyvern.” The charming smile was unwavering. This kid was good. His courtly charisma routine was flawless. “Surely that would not be a problem for you since it’s in our best interests to work together? Would you not take us to your friends so we can get acquainted?”
I tilted my head and gave them a half-lidded stare. I let the silence draw out a little more as the Prince looked at me with a friendly, hopeful expression. Then I straightened up and shook my head no.
“Certainly, it would not be polite of you to stop us from merely going on our way?” he asked brightly.
I wasn’t going to trust this con man’s smile one bit. I growled just loud enough that they could hear me. I saw the Prince whisper something to his two friends. They each ran in a different direction. I didn’t care one whit about the other two youths. I leapt to where I calculated the running Prince would be once my leap was over. In mid-air, I wrapped my forepaws around his torso and twisted so I landed on my side and rolled onto my back.
“Oof!” The Prince found himself in my embrace, looking at me with a startled expression. Once again, I wished I had an advanced case of halitosis. Oh well.
The Prince recovered his wits quickly and gave me a resigned look. “I see you are determined to keep me from meeting your friends. There are always proper diplomatic channels, and I will use them if I must,” he spoke in the tones of someone who knew exactly how the game was played. “Such a shame you can’t talk. I’m sure we could work something out.”
I knew I would pay a price for what I was about to do. I licked his face to get him to lift his chin. He obliged by raising his face away from my tongue. What a good Prince. I quickly shifted my tongue to stick it down his now-exposed neck and fished out the amulet. I got my fangs around it and pulled to snap the chain it was on.
“Ow!” Prince Willam cried in pain. “Hey! What are you doing? That’s my pendant. Give it back.”
Now that his mind was no longer shielded from me, I cast mind talking on myself. *Now that you no longer have this thing preventing me from speaking to you, you must learn a few things, young human.*
“You can mind talk? You’re a mage?” He looked surprised. His eyes were as round as silver pieces.
*Let me make one thing clear to you, princeling,* I growled softly for the sake of his education, *I saw the way you looked at my Princess, and that is something I will not tolerate. Were it not for the invitation of the Goblin Queen, I would make sure that we would leave this place and your adolescent-human hormone-driven lustful stares. Don’t think that I missed what was going on below your belt. Nobody looks at my girl like that and gets away with it.*
He had the good manners to blush. “Oh dear,” he looked appalled and probably was. Boys his age often lacked control. “I didn’t...I mean, I wasn’t going to...” He turned even redder. “Oh my, what a muddle.” He pulled his face back together, “Might I please stand up, Lady Fuzzy? If we embrace like this much longer, people might begin to talk.”
I pulled my paws off his back, *Please be careful with your boots when you get up.* We both got to our feet and composed ourselves.
I still had the pendant in my teeth, *Take your amulet. If you wear it on your belt, you will be able to hear me, but it will still give you protection from effect spells. Good luck with those diplomatic channels, and keep your naughty eyes off my Princess.*
He meekly took his pendant and tied the broken chain around his belt, “Say something, please, so I know it works.”
*Something.*
“My, the spirit beast is also a great wit.” He bowed politely, “Until we meet again, my lady.”
I watched him gather his two worried colleagues. They stood just a few yards away with poignards drawn and ready. I ignored them once I saw the Prince lead them away from the souk towards one of the stairways to the higher rings. I sniffed the air and hurried to follow the scent of elven soap before the traffic in the souk dissipated it.
I found my people in time to see Wren grab Cloud Eye to keep him from dismounting to check out a spice store. My head was pounding. I dragged myself up onto the floorboards of the cart and squeezed myself under the seat and Magrat’s feet so I could lie down.
“Owl, can I get a hand down,” Cat asked.
Crap. I didn’t want to upset Cat. Now he was going to check up on me.
“Are you not feeling well, Fuzzy?” Magrat asked, trying not to kick me with her heels.
“She probably has a horrible headache if she used more magic to dissuade our human pursuers,” Cat said. I heard his shuffling limp approach the cart and opened my eyes. His hand came down and scratched gently behind my ears. I didn’t hear him chant under his breath, but he had been getting better at chanting silently. I felt his hand caress my head. A welcome warmth spread down from his hand to take the edge off the growing pain.
Cat must have put me asleep after that because the next thing I knew, Owl was carrying me up some stairs.
Magrat’s townhouse was narrow but five stories high. I opened my eyes as we climbed past a sitting room and a library. The next floor was where we stopped. He put me down on a window seat in a dining room. I heard kitchen noises coming through a door. Two young goblin ladies bustled about, setting the table and putting out dishes.
“Oh, you’re awake,” Owl said when he saw me stretch after he put me down. “We’re at Magrat’s house.” He scratched the top of my head. “I need to help more with bringing our stuff upstairs.”
I got up and started exploring, wondering if I could get some water in the kitchen.
Two goblins were cooking at the hearth: a man with greying hair in a grey doublet and hose and a middle-aged woman in a brown dress. The man was turning a large roast of meat on a spit, and the woman was stirring something in a large pot. Fresh loaves of bread sat on cooling racks on the kitchen table. Wren was already helping in the kitchen, cutting up vegetables and tossing them into a huge wooden salad bowl.
“Fuzzy, you’re awake,” Wren smiled at me. “How does your head feel? Any better?”
That’s when I realized I didn’t have a headache anymore. My boy was getting better at healing all the time. I walked over and tugged on Wren’s hose.
“You want something, Fuzzy? Are you thirsty?”
I nodded at Wren.
“Alright, let me find a bowl and I will get you some water,” Wren got up and soon I heard the sound of pouring water in a sink. Wren reappeared, “Here you go, Fuzzy.” She placed it in the corner away from the press of people cooking.
I started to hear Cat’s thumping steps as he climbed the stairs. Then, from the dining room, I heard Magrat say, “Why don’t you get comfortable at the table, Cat Rider? Let me check the kitchen, and I’ll be right back.” She got as far as the kitchen door when she stopped and stared. Then she got a scolding look on her face, “Margo, what are you doing in my kitchen?”
“Helping with dinner, sister,” the goblin lady in the brown dress smiled. “I heard you had a small horde of elves as guests for the evening and thought I’d drop by to help out.”
“And she brought help, too,” said the goblin man, who I assumed was Gragoy.
“Yes, I see that,” Magrat gave her sister an annoyed look. “You could at least warn me when you want to misbehave, sister. I swear you’re out to drive me to an early grave.”
The two-footed ones had their dinner, and I had a nice nap on the window seat. The two young goblins that Margo brought cleared the table, left a few bottles of sweet dessert wines out, and retreated to the kitchen to do the dishes and clean up, closing the door behind them.
Margo sat back and waited as Gragoy poured her a glass of wine. Then he poured for Wren, my boy, and Magrat, in that order. I found that quite curious. It woke me up enough that I padded up to the table to see what happened next. Something was not quite right here.
He served Cloud Eye and Motley Owl, then himself. He looked at me, “Do divine beasts drink wine?” I nodded no.
“Is there anything you do want?” he asked. I shook my head again.
“My, look at your beautiful eyes,” Margo smiled at me. I noted that both her and Magrat’s dark green hair were greying at the temples. Magrat’s hat had hidden her grey hairs while we had traveled together.
“Well, I will start things off by introducing myself to Lady Fuzzy. I’ve never met a divine beast before, so I don’t know if there’s any protocol for doing so; but we’re here at a casual dinner at my sister’s house, so to hell with protocol for an evening. I’m Margo, Queen of Gorgurak, and I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Lady Fuzzy. I hope your headache has gotten better. I wish I could have seen your magic in action, yours and your young man’s.”
“Now, Wren and I have met before. I asked her not to blow my cover until dinner was over. I don’t get to escape the court often, and I enjoyed not having to behave myself for an entire meal. Quit scowling, sister.”
“Hmph,” Magrat continued to scowl. Margo laughed. “My younger sister is the more serious one, in case you couldn’t tell. And you, young man,” the Goblin Queen looked at my boy, “are the amazing young mage who invented a spell that can kill a wyvern. You are also Cat Rider, the adopted son of the Elf King and the missing Crown Prince Andray Nordvek. Therein lies a large problem for all of us, as my sister’s note to me this afternoon conveyed. I wish I had known your identity before I invited your brother and his squad of soldiers here. I treasure my relationship with the elves much higher than any relationship with humans.”
“Why did you invite the Nordvekkians here, Majesty?” my boy asked politely.
“Your brother is a very clever young man,” the Queen explained. “He invented a modification of a ballista that will throw and envelope a flying wyvern in a net, stopping it from flying. To date, his ballistae have brought down three wyverns in southern Nordvek, where they established a nest and terrorized the nearby inhabitants.”
“Yes, Willam was always clever with building things,” Cat conceded. “His presence here certainly complicates things. I have no way to judge if he’s a danger to me or not. By default, I can not trust him. His mother and her agents have attempted to murder me twice already, and it’s safest to assume that he’s his mother’s son.”
“Is there some way we could disguise you?” Magrat asked. “The three humans who saw you this afternoon never saw you with your hood down. Is there some way we could darken your skin, bleach your hair and enchant points onto the end of your ears?”
I added my input, *Changing the shape of any flesh is doable but also painful and permanent. It is also considered forbidden magic.*
“Did you know this?” Wren asked Cat. He nodded yes. Wren’s mouth said “oh” silently.
*It is possible to cast a glamour spell on the person you want to disguise. It is an active spell that lasts only as long as the mage can maintain it. The third way to change appearance is a general effect illusion spell cast on those who you want to fool into seeing someone else. It is effortless to cast an illusion on humans, and it’s much less work than a glamour spell. The problem here is Prince Willam has an amulet that protects him from magic.*
“You saw Prince Willam today?” the Queen asked.
“The Prince and two others saw us enter the souk from the outside,” Magrat explained. “Fuzzy delayed them while we lost ourselves in the souk.”
“What was your impression of Willam?” my boy asked. “Did he see me?”
*I don’t think he noticed you. What he noticed was Wren, and it was the wrong kind of notice, the kind that an infatuated young human male has when sighting someone attractive of the female variety. After I jumped him…*
“You what?!” Cat exploded in shock.
*...And had his complete and undivided attention, I explained that Wren was very off-limits and I was the chaperone, complete with teeth and an appetite for human youths.*
“Oh, Fuzzy,” Wren laughed, “I wish I could have seen that.”