Book 3: Sound And Fury
Ch: 2 A Man Can Die But Once*
Sitting around the comfortable and damnably real common room of the small inn; Ghnash settled back and enjoyed the feeling. These people were all family… and that felt good, nothing else really mattered. The goblin king shrugged and smiled at the kids’ dire promises that things would ‘get weird’ when their father woke... Which was another whole issue to address.
“Yeah, we aren’t really their children…” Harry agreed with a long sigh. “But only in the ways that don’t matter. Biology and genes are just bullshit, so whatever… You know the score, uncle.” The young man’s clipped speech suggested that he was treading on dangerous territory, so the king changed topics… slightly.
“We isekai can’t usually have children, you see…” He murmured. “I don’t like to let that fact linger in the shadows and some of us are seriously prudish about reproductive health matters.”
“Yeah, we know about that. I’m kinda curious how you got around that problem.” The studious young lad answered, sounding much less tense.
“Curses… My young friend, wicked blood curses and selective breeding over centuries by a cult of demon worshipping, power mad dirtbags.” The king sighed.
“The light cult got their filthy hands on the Goblin Dungeon a few dozen centuries ago and spent that time trying to make us into the perfect shock troops. They used all manner of dark magic and mundane cruelties to reduce us to what we have become. They wanted a fast breeding and disposable monster army, one they could unleash on worlds and then ‘swoop in to save the day’...”
Ghnash grinned and shook his head. “They were too effective at their workings, they made the goblin men so repulsively wicked and lustful that the species can barely sustain itself, never mind breeding up the hordes of obedient and bloodthirsty green savages they hoped to create.” He laughed darkly at the bitter irony of it all.
“We become an unmanageable scourge if taken through the veil; a rapacious horde of miserable little monsters with barely enough smarts to cause grief and misery, wherever we go.”
“So they screwed around with the gobos to create those nasty little assholes?” Larry demanded, sounding like he was ready to draw blood immediately, if a target for his wrath should appear.
“Yes indeed. All goblin men become little more than animals, once they pass through the veil, due to some unclean fiddling with our akashic record.” The compact and muscular green man smiled happily at his much taller relatives… and the dwarf.
“It’s been my life’s work to unwind those curses… and now I see the end of that long task on the horizon. My goblins will see a new dawn soon and I can’t wait to rejoin them with the good news.”
“The good news about SpiderBoobs, SmartyPants and SmileyFace?” Harry asked, with a smug grin on his face. “Ghnash the priest king? Are you writing a sacred text too?”
“Bahh! Separation of church and state! Stupid theocrats can eat my sweaty…” The little green dynamo hooted and began to fidget in his seat at the very idea. “I distrust most gods, boys… and for good reasons. Put your faith in your friends and families, not deities who see us as ephemeral and expendable tools.”
The king glared up at the heavens, as though he wished to lodge a formal complaint. “They use us as they wish, many gods and spirits do… Most immortals see us not even as individuals, but simply resources to be used up, or spent at their whims.” He snorted.
“Sounds like you have a grudge against the gods…” Harry mumbled with a sly smile. “You gonna start a war with the pantheon?”
“Bahh, silly children…” He scoffed and picked his teeth at them, to show how little he thought of the idea. “Only the very greatest of fools would declare a blood feud with the gods.”
For some reason, that perfectly reasonable declaration set the boys to giggling merrily and nudging each other with their elbows, as though he had made some great jest.
“Yeah… you’re absolutely right uncle…” Larry finally gasped through a wide, cheerful grin that looked exhausting. “Only the greatest Fool...”
“Hmm, you boys are very confusing… What do you think, Gandree?” Ghnash asked the dwarf; who had been listening much, while remaining silent. “It feels like they are waiting for some prank to come to fruition…”
“Your majesty… I have no idea what’s going on and I don’t think I can help here.” He answered flatly. “I’m gonna go find Daisybelle… and the wargs.”
“Yes… go find her, boy. Sadness is a burden to be shared among the members of her pack.” He chittered his teeth at the dwarf lad as he departed, leaving only the four boys and their weird uncle in the common room.
The king turned on Ward and snorted through his nose, while still idly playing the guitar on his lap, releasing soft, tinkling sprays of liquid music into the tense atmosphere.
“You kids are up to something… all five of you. What are you hiding?” He grunted finally.
“We’re hiding a great many things, king Ghnash… And frankly, it’s exhausting. But as you see, these young men are exactly what you suspected, but also they are still my brother’s children.” Ward smiled blandly at the goblin man and murmured quietly.
“Why don’t you tell them about the Tarots… and your war with the light cult?” He suggested.
“Yes yes…” Ghnash grumbled. “Remember my deck of cards analogy? A soul is an endless deck of unique cards that can never run out or be divided…? Souls are only dealt out for a mortal lifetime and then shuffled back together, for the next hand and the next table.” He paused and waited for any questions before he went on.
“Each soul has any number of faces, infinite variations on the cards to be dealt and never will any two souls be dealt the same hand… usually.”
“You said that before too, that no two identical souls can exist, usually.” Harry grinned at the goblin king, smugly annoying brat that he was. “You emphasised the ‘usually’ then, too.
Ghnash raised an eyebrow at the boys and shook his head. “Remember when I told you that some very naughty immortals had devised a way to divide the indivisible? Well, that unfortunate, divided sap was us.” He grunted.
“Poor Gary Ward’s soul got captured, broken apart and scattered across all creation, with single cards landing on so many worlds. Each one drawn from that same poor soul and re-made in his image on so very many worlds.”
The king sighed sadly at his silent young audience. “When a soul sheds fragments of itself normally, only tiny specs drift away, like shed hair or fingernail trimmings. Those fragments will find their way back to the soul from which they were parted, eventually. The universe itself demands that they be reunited, since souls are indivisible at their core.”
The oddly silent god of Death in the corner stirred and spoke up. “That’s why, despite the vastness of the universe and in defiance of all odds, the fragments of us must find each other.” Ward chimed in happily.
“No force can keep a soul divided permanently… And after what the Fool did, no immortal will be so mad as to try it, ever again.”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“True, that is…” Ghnash grumbled. “As he says, we began to find each other… as we must. When we did find each other, we couldn’t all be Gary Ward.” He shrugged and chuckled darkly at the grand joke the universe had played on them.
“Too too confusing by far, so one of us began to name the Garies, labeling us according to the tarot cards of earth tradition. The Magician is very wise…” The little green man sighed sadly.
“They call me Temperance, since my mojo and powers come from the restraints I place on myself. By restricting my goblin urges and mastering the chaos within my body, I learned to make magic from the dynamic tension between my goblin nature and human soul.”
He nodded and snorted a huge breath through his nose. “Accurate and clever as his names may be; I hate being called Temperance. The Chariot dislikes his name too, though he’s reluctant to admit it, that’s why he prefers to be called The Necromancer… He’s also a giant chuuni.”
“Uh huh…” The faceless, hooded priestess muttered from the doorway, startling the group with her stealthy appearance in the room. “The undead wizard who can transform into a skeletal dracolich and likes to be called The Necromancer is not just a chunni, he’s the jagged crowned king of the edgelords.”
“Bahh, priestess girly is going to ruin my story! I’m a goblin witch doctor and shadow mage… We are all a little bit of the chuuni edgelord.” Ghnash grumbled merrily, his eyes twinkling at the sight of the hooded and cowled figure. “Well, not The Hermit… or The Star, I suppose.” He murmured thoughtfully, while smiling a crooked, half mad grin that the boys all recognized from their father’s face.
“Wheel Of Fortune too, he’s a bit silly, that one.”
“We’d like to meet those others as well…” The priestess muttered eagerly. “As soon as my brother is well enough to meet his children.”
“Yes, I’m sure that your pet Gary is a very special boy… we all are. That doesn’t change the fact that I’ve been gobbing it up for nearly two centuries now.” He scoffed at the priestess. “We are all convinced that we are the original Gary… at first. It’s alright, we’re all family here.” The little man soothed in a patronising tone. “Once you meet with The Magician, you’ll understand.”
“This Magician of yours sounds like he knows the whole score…” The hooded priestess girl in the foyer mumbled eagerly. “We should meet him right away.”
“I really feel like I know you…” Ghnash muttered in wonder at the hooded and veiled figure lingering in the doorway.
“The feeling gets stronger every time I see you, girly… Show me your face! That’s a royal command!” He grunted with a broad wink and a comical grin.
“Yes, perhaps it’s time, king Ghnash… My brother is stirring and will wake soon. We should prepare you for what is to come and perhaps you’ve hit on the correct first step.” Her hidden gaze shifted to the doorway behind her. “Come in, husband. It’s time we greet our friend properly.”
#
Just outside the doorway of that familiar inn, a small, athletic young man waited for his summons, gazing out over the sea and thinking.
The young knight had a good deal of experience with goblins… and those experiences had taught him that they were irredeemable little shits, one hundred percent of the time. He’d heard much of the ‘Goblin King’ from the kids and Daisiybelle, her wargs and her dwarf were a rare treat, who had caused no trouble at all. With that in mind, he felt like he was prepared for the ordeal before him…
The reality of a goblin man, sitting on a stool playing one of Gary’s guitars was really difficult to accept at first, second or third glance.
“Your… majesty…” He said with a bow to the oddly handsome goblin man, who was dressed in brown robes of simple woollen homespun.
“I am Sir Kermal Singh, knight champion of the duchy of Port Clement, in service to his grace, duke Julius Rummel…”
Sir Kermal faltered, when the little green man locked eyes with him and gasped in a quiet voice that was all too familiar. “Kerms? Little bro…?” He whispered. “It’s… it’s me…Gary…” He sobbed, dashing into the young knight’s arms; after hanging his instrument on its stand in an instinctive movement, as he crushed himself against the knight in a desperate, gasping rush.
When he looked up, the priestess had lowered her enspelled hood, revealing the dark, pretty face of Becky Ward, his long lost little sister. “Becks…?” Ghnash asked weakly, as he stumbled and staggered to the floor in a dead faint.
“Oh, yeah…” Ward mumbled. “That’s really him in there. This is going to be so socially awkward…” The handsome divinity mumbled quietly over the passed out goblin.
“Yeah, like when you tried to hit on Shai, right after we pulled you back from the void?” Becky asked sweetly, her lips almost dripping with venomous insincerity and mockery.
“Hey, I didn’t know they were together then…” Ward grumbled weakly. “Just shows I have good taste.”
“So why didn’t he recognize you, uncle Ward?” Harry asked, while Larry and Perry lugged the surprisingly heavy, unconscious goblin to the sofa. “We were… born, after papa… you know… So it’s no surprise he didn’t recognize us…”
“Yeah, most of the Garies are pieces of him that were broken off by the experiments and rituals that caused this mess… They are almost all branches of the original Gary, like me.” He sighed deeply and sank down onto the goblin’s stool, taking up his abandoned guitar. “Our lives are super weird and janky, kids.”
The deity strummed a soothing chord and began ‘Brahms Lullaby’, played ever so softly into the cozy room.
“You guys all fractured from our Gary when he blew himself up… So you are branches of your father.” The divinity whispered. “You all arrived on this world as human babies and developed normally from there; so you only remember bits and scraps of your father’s life.” Ward sighed.
“Our green friend was born as a goblin man, with a very different life cycle… Ghnash remembers almost everything up to the detonation of the sexbomb, it’s just a little scrambled by his goblin biology and brain.”
“But why didn’t he recognise you? Or the others, when he showed up on the battlefield?” Harry insisted.
“In the heat of a late night battle, against hickory smoked and salt cured zombies…? He probably was too amped up on gobbo endorphins to see straight. As for me… I’m a god in the human pantheon, he was unable to perceive me in that way without help from a mortal agent…” The handsome and weirdly compelling divinity mumbled.
“It’s one of the rules. The universe doesn’t want gods hopping around all willy-nilly, looking for worshippers on other planes. That would be utter chaos.”
“So that’s why the Ragamuffins got sent off on messenger detail…” Harry complained at the older family members, scowling bitterly.
“Yes, little brothers… I suspected something was odd about this little fellow when he reacted to Shai that way. To his mind, he has been dead to us all this time, as we lived on without him.” Becky whispered, lest she wake the drooling gobbo on the couch. “We were left behind on our world, while certain temporal fluctuations in the veil hurled him into the past, to be reborn on a nearby dungeon world.”
“You always see so clearly, Becks…” Ward sighed happily, as though a terrible weight had been lifted from his shoulders. “To him, our Gary likely will be perceived as an interloper, who has stolen his woman away and taken his place… Goblin Gary will react very unpredictably to that information, I think.”
“Oh, shit yeah…” Barry mumbled angrily, shooting a worried look at the goblin who was peacefully drooling on the upholstery of Wilf’s couch, lost in his dreams. The young man turned his blazing anger on the tall, brown haired Death god in the corner of the room, trying to be inconspicuous.
“You knew all along… and left mom and Ghnash twisting in the wind like that? You suck, uncle Ward!”
“I can’t help it…” The divinity complained sourly. “Dana is being a total bitch about all of this and the pantheon has me bound up in so many rules that I can barely manage to murder the occasional demon!”
“Murdering demons?” Becky asked sharply, skewering the god with her angry stare of disapproval. “That’s not a power you should possess, oh mighty Ward, god of Death, Vengeance, Secrets and Golden Figs…”
“I… uh…” He stammered under that forceful gale of feminine anger. “I kinda found a way to cheat…” He sighed.
“You’ve been ‘borrowing’ a snake… according to the sleepy monarch over there…” She grumbled, pointing a thumb at Ghnash. “Does Wilf know what you’re doing with his familiar?”
“It was his idea… I take his cursed DeathAdder out walkies every now and then and he pretends not to notice when it comes back fat, shiny and sassy. The little guy really loves his work.” Ward sighed. “Though it was probably Amy who came up with the whole scheme.”
“Wilf doesn’t have a familiar…” Harry said loudly enough to remind the grownups that they were there, nearly waking the king.
“He does.” Becky whispered tersely, while blasting Ward with a glare of withering discontent. “Wilf’s cursed by a demonic snake familiar, bound to his soul. It’s been haunting him most of his life, constantly begging him to let it rampage and kill.” Her glower intensified, somehow, rocking Ward back on his heels.
“It’s a thing that should remain tightly sealed away, for everyone’s safety!”
“Becks…” Kermal murmured gently. “Wilf’s old enough to make decisions for himself, even dangerous ones… He’s kinda always been old enough.”
“They’re my babies!” She snapped at her husband, while grabbing him up in a hug at the same time. “Don’t you dare tell them I said that!” She mumbled from inside Kermal’s collar.
#
When Ghnash woke, he was laid out on a comfy sofa in the common room, rather than back in the cell. Only Daisybelle and Gandree were in the room with him, as he stirred and stretched. “Crazy dreams…” He mumbled. “Faces from the past.”
“Becky said you might be disoriented when you woke…” Gandree whispered, with Daisybelle’s head on his lap, snoring softly as the dwarf stroked her hair with his broad, hard calloused hand.
“She said to tell you to calm down and relax, because time is ‘All Fucked Up’ and ‘Shits Going To Get Weird’.” The lad shook his head and smiled.
“When you’re ready to meet the rest of the family, we’ll go over to the main house together.”
#
“Oh, wow…” Ivy whispered excitedly. “He’s really… And he remembers everything?”
“Yup…” Becky sighed sadly. “He has a very different personality and his magic and gifts are completely changed, but it’s him. It’s also been a long time for him… more than a hundred years, he claims.”
“Weird…” Tallum rumbled softly, staring down at Gary’s still, sleeping form. He was laid out on a cot in the common room with his family gathered around, oddly reminiscent of a wake... “Shai…?” The giant began awkwardly, before giving up. His sister’s life, and by extension, his own were just too awkward and bizarre.
“I thought I did know what I were in for, when I married this poor fool of mine…” She sighed, looking exhausted and wrung out. “Does this make me a bigamist? Fie, ‘tis a vexing and wracking thought in all!”
They all looked to the door, when Ward slipped into the room with Daisybelle and Gandree. A subtle chill ran through the house when Ghnash stepped inside, something shook the whole place, without rattling the dishes or making the lights flicker and sway.
“Honey, I’m home…” He grumbled, his small, green, but still all too familiar face wrought into an unreadable mask of conflicting emotions and thoughts.
#