Chapter Five

Back to Bobbit!

"You want mud?!"

"You really do have wax in your ears, eh?" Arnold tugged on his beard, snorted, and spat. "Mud, dirt, clay! I want crumbs of the earth, lass!"

Grace's face had regained some of its color. Unfortunately, the color was red with frustration. Arnold had not forgotten how the woman had tried to throttle him earlier. She seemed ready to try it again.

"Do you mean to bury the King?!" The female knight threw back her head the same way her mother would. Laughter filled the King's otherwise empty bedroom. "Crumbs of the earth!"

"Useless oaf!" Arnold said as his cheeks reddened. The only mockery he was used to came from his wife.

He looked around the extravagantly decorated room. Every surface seemed to shine with gold, which made it a little hard to find the potted plants tucked away beside the tall windows. The flowers had probably been majestic before they had withered and died. From what Grace understood, nobody had entered the High Keep in months.

"Find more of these, lass." Arnold waddled over and upturned two potted plants into a small pile of earthy crumbs. "Make your jokes after brunch."

"You're serious..." Grace muttered unhelpfully. Arnold did not deign to reply.

An awful hour may have passed. Arnold's stomach cried out in neglect as Grace hurried in and out of the King's bedroom with wilted flower pot after wilted flower pot. It was not long before a great mound of soil filled the King's bedroom with a pleasant aroma.

"That should do, eh?" Arnold said, slapping the mound of crumbly earth. "Finish this up quick and then sit down for some cake and tea."

"Finish up... what?" Grace asked, not for the first time. She must have asked that same question each time she had reentered the King's bedroom with more soil.

"A little bit of sculpting, lass," Arnold said, and the flicker of a smile touched his lips. As a gnome, he had an innate love for the earth, but Marge always complained about the mess. It had been too long since he had last made a golem!

Magick fluttered down into his fingertips as he started to shape the soil. His toes began to tingle with magickal energy, so he hopped atop the crumbly muck. [Earthen Manipulation] was so very different from other skills. You could feel it like a physical thing rather than some invisible electricity.

"That has a good heft to it," Arnold muttered to himself as his hands continued to roam the mound of dirt. He spit on one of his hands and scooped up a clod of dirt. He plopped the soil into his mouth, and magickal energy needled uncomfortably into his tongue. He rolled the ball of dirt around and around with his tongue until it became as hard as steel, creating the [Golem Core].

"Certainly need some tea after this," Arnold said as he spat out the shiny [Golem Core]. The distinct shape of a human had started to appear out from the dirt, and he jammed the [Golem Core] into its muddy chest. "Shove his skeleton in there, too, lass!"

"You want me to do what?!" Grace recoiled in shock, and Arnold rolled his eyes. "You would desecrate- "

A tentacle of flaky brown fell onto the King's bed as Arnold manipulated the mound of dirt. The muddy tentacle reached out and swallowed the King's skeleton. The white bones were swept into the earthen mound and then up into the mud doll. Bits of white bone poked out here and there, but that did not matter.

"My hand, lass." Arnold's left hand remained wrapped around the [Golem Core]. He stretched out his right hand to Grace. She looked down at him as if he was a venomous snake.

"This all feels like a dream..." Grace mumbled as she reluctantly took hold of Arnold's hand. The strength seemed to go out of her shoulders as she looked between Arnold and the incomplete golem.

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"Just think about the King, lass," Arnold said with a ruddy smile. Golems were such a delight to make. As he squeezed Grace's hand, he could not help but remember some of the golems he had made with his own children.

"What do you mean?" Grace asked.

"Hmm? Oh, just think about him," Arnold said as he gently channeled Grace's thoughts into the [Golem Core]. "Watch the golem, lass. Think about the King, but watch the golem. If somethin' doesn't look right, you need to fix it."

Grace said something, but Arnold shut off his thoughts. At that moment he became simply a conduit between Grace and the incomplete doll. He could not risk interfering. It would be too much work to do all this a second time.

Arnold could see, but he did not really see. He could hear, but he did not really hear. All he could do was feel the golem slowly taking shape as Grace poured her memories into the doll's vessel. Arnold forgot a little bit of his gnawing hunger at the simple pleasure. He had done this with his sons at least a hundred times before they had grown tired of a cozy life in the woods.

And then the channel was broken. Arnold blinked, and a naked man stood in the middle of the room. He was sickly in appearance, and his expression was slack and dimwitted. Messy golden hair fell down to his shoulders as he stared listlessly at the wall.

"This is your King, eh?" Arnold's eyes flittered innocently down to the doll's crotch. Marge would have slapped him across the head, but Arnold snickered mischievously as he noted the golem was a eunuch. It seemed Grace was quite the maiden!

"I... I have heard about such magicks," Grace said with awe in her voice. She hesitantly reached out and poked the King. The female knight's eyes grew wide with horror as the King turned and frowned at her.

"He's just a clump of mud, lass!" Arnold shouted with a laugh as Grace immediately knelt before her fake king. He could not remember the last time he had felt such lightning tickle his belly.

Grace looked up nervously at the King.

"He won't speak. Can't speak," Arnold said. He slapped the golem's naked rear end. "That'd be too much work. He'll do whatever you want, though. Just tell him what to do. You're his mother, after all!"

Making the golem had filled him with good cheer, but Grace's dark expression quickly sapped away some of that warmth.

"What's that look, eh?" Arnold grumbled. Grace's face seemed to be slowly losing color. "Your King is back. Everything is solved. Time for brunch!"

Grace simply shook her head. She swallowed, opened her mouth, and continued to shake her head.

"What? What is it?" Arnold rumbled. He tugged on his white beard angrily.

"Tell him what to do...?" Grace shook her head as she stared at the fake king. "That's my lord... That's not my lord... Master Grubbly! This is wrong!"

The last of Arnold's good cheer evaporated. He jabbed Grace in the chest with his thumb.

"It's just a golem!" he roared, confused by his own frustration. "We gnomes have made them for centuries! Show some grat- "

And Arnold noticed that Grace was on the floor. The female knight was writhing on the ground because he had not poked her in the chest... he had punched her. Daring Dyan's daughter struggled to breathe.

"Lass..." Arnold knelt beside the sputtering knight. He rubbed her on the back, though that did not help much with the armor she wore. "That was... an accident."

His face burned with a new kind of frustration as she continued to sputter breathlessly.

"I shouldn't even be here," Arnold muttered darkly as magick fluttered down into his fingertips. He spread wide the doors of Grace's memories...

...and there was Daring Dyan. She did not look as Arnold remembered her. This was a mother, a grandmother, and then a corpse. Grace had been the one to find the body, slashed up like a piece of raw meat. Arnold listened as Daring Dyan shared bedtime tales with her infant daughter. He watched as Grace cradled Daring Dyan's dead body.

Arnold plucked the memory out from Grace's head. Daring Dyan had died peacefully in her bed. It was not hard to find a memory of Grace waking her elderly mother. It was not hard to dress it up as one final farewell. Grace did not need to remember all the blood.

She did not need to remember Arnold either.

He plucked himself out of her memories. He plucked out the flash of betrayal as a sledgehammer fist shattered her ribs. He plucked out all this cultist business. He plucked out all the bad. It took a little work, but he fashioned several new memories of how Grace had become the King's sole advisor and nurse.

And then he noticed the flicker of black hair. As Grace entered the woods in search of a fairytale, a hairy lout stomped out.

"Bobbit!" Arnold cried, and remembrance struck him like a thunderbolt.

Grace lay asleep on the floor, but he quickly hefted her onto the King's luxurious bed. She would be confused when she awoke, but he had wasted enough time here!

"You naughty little boy," Arnold said as he replayed Bobbit stomping out of the woods over and over again. "On a little adventure, eh? Where are you headed?"

Arnold's thoughts were full of mangy black hair as he marched into the hallway outside the King's bedroom. And then he remembered the stairs.

"Forget that!" Arnold said with disgust. He marched back inside the King's bedroom and beckoned the remaining dirt near with a wave of his hand.

[Earthen Manipulation] shaped the mound of dirt around him like a suit of armor. He hardened the earthen shell with magick as he waddled towards the closest window at full speed.

"Brunch will have to wait!" Arnold shouted as he smaashed through the window several hundred feet up in the air. "I'm comin' for ya, Bobbit!"