“No, I left it in Hrad Spein.”
“Will you tell me what happened there?”
“Not now. Some time later, maybe.”
“I understand,” Kli-Kli sighed, and stopped pestering me with questions.
“Did you have a hard time?” Hallas asked sympathetically.
“Yes.”
“But you still did what the king told you to do. Well done. I’m glad I was wrong about you,” the captain of the royal guard put in unexpectedly.
“Thank you, Milord Alistan.”
I pulled my hood off and raised my face to the streaming rain, which had grown stronger again. Kli-Kli gave a quiet gasp.
“What happened to your hair?” asked Eel.
“What’s wrong with it?”
Kli-Kli hastily fished a little mirror out of one of his pockets and handed it to me. In the mirror I saw that my temples were completely gray.
15
The Shaman And The Jester
Fortunately, no one bombarded me with questions and I hung about beside the stream for about ten minutes completely on my own. I needed to settle my nerves a bit and have a think. A touch of gray at the temples was nothing to worry about; the important thing was that my head was still on my shoulders. Then, when the idea that had been eluding me all this time finally took shape, I walked away from the stream, straight toward Glo-Glo, who was sitting under a tree. Hallas watched me go, but he didn’t say anything; neither did any of the others. I walked up to the goblin and squatted down beside him. The old shaman didn’t even open his eyes. Was he asleep?
“Was there something you wanted to ask, my boy?” Glo-Glo said suddenly.
“Yes.”
“I’m listening.”
“I was wondering how, with spells as powerful as that, the goblins perished under the swords of men and the yataghans of the orcs.”
“Surely you do not think your historians would tell you the truth?” the goblin asked with a crooked smile. “We are not sheep, Harold. We died, but we took many of our enemies with us.”
“You mean…”
“I mean, do not believe all those tales about the goblins being a defenseless race. Yes, we are short in stature, but our shamanism is much closer to the Kronk-a-Mor, and we sold our lives for a high price. Do you know why men started hunting us all of a sudden?”
“Well…,” I started, and hesitated.
“No, not because we have ugly faces—I won’t even mention what kind of faces you have. And not because you thought we were allies of the orcs. We possess a magic that is almost primordial, and from early times your Order was obsessed with our magic, or to be more precise, our battle magic, and so they went to any lengths to get their hands on our shamanism and our books. Naturally, we did not wish to share—this knowledge is not for men—but the Order pursued us until it almost exterminated us. Or, to be more precise, until more than a hundred thousand men were lost in our forests. Do not be surprised that you have never heard about any of this. Nobody has. It happened in times long past, and the Order will never speak of its defeats.”
The goblin chuckled again and opened his eyes.
“But…”
“But this is no secret to the goblins. We are always glad of a chance to remind you of how we gave your magicians and soldiers a bloody nose. No one bothers us any longer, and we have no great wish to leave our forests. We have our work to do, and you have yours. Have I answered your question?”
“Arising out of what you just told me, I have another one.”
“Ask.”
“I’ll never believe that a shaman with such great power as you have could have fallen into Bagard’s hands so easily.”
“You’re a smart one, Dancer,” the goblin chuckled, and I started in surprise.
“How do you—”
“I just know. Didn’t I just tell you that the goblins have their purpose in this world? I won’t bore you with a long lecture on the balance and the Great Houses, I think you know quite a lot about that already. In recent times my greatest concern has been, just as it was my father’s and my father’s father’s—”
“I understand,” I said, interrupting the goblin hastily. I suspected the listing of all the old shaman’s ancestors could go on for so long that I’d forget what my question was.
“He understands…,” Glo-Glo said, peering at me in annoyance. “Did no one ever tell you that it’s rude to interrupt your elders? Now, where was I? Ah, yes … The primary concern of my ancestors, who trace their line back to great insane shaman Tre-Tre, has always been waiting for the Dancer in the Shadows. That is, for you.”
“Nice to meet you,” I chuckled skeptically.
“Don’t try to be clever. We had to wait until a Dancer came to our world, as Tre-Tre foretold in his great book, the
“Oh!” That was all I could think of to say.
“But I can see you’ve managed all that without any help from me,” the goblin declared in a disappointed voice. “Don’t try to deny it, I can see the glitter of the primordial flame in your eyes, and that hoarfrost on your temples.… It speaks volumes to one who knows.”
“You still haven’t answered my question.”
“Haven’t I?” Glo-Glo asked, putting on a surprised face. “I have been unlucky. I am the last of the male line in Tre-Tre’s clan, and you appeared too late. When the stars pointed to you, I was already too old, and the responsibilities I bore were too great for me to leave Zagraba. I had to find other ways to act, hoping that others would be able to do what I could not. You bear a mark, my boy, a mark that any goblin of my line can see. Not even see, but sense a hundred leagues away. So I knew when you escaped from Hrad Spein, I knew what was going to happen next, and I didn’t like it one little bit. I had to improvise, and after that all I could do was wait until you fell into their hands and play the role of a half-witted shaman. So that is what I did.”
“But things didn’t turn out the way you wanted, did they?”
“No, indeed. I hadn’t anticipated that there would be a shaman in the detachment, that I would be identified and deprived of my powers. If I hadn’t been wearing those mittens, we would have escaped the first night we met.”
“Wouldn’t it have been easier not to get yourself captured by the orcs, but simply to warn me not to go near the orcs?”
“No, it wouldn’t!” the old shaman snapped. “I knew what was going to happen, but I didn’t know where to find you. You Dancers are tricky lads. Hard to locate using search magic. I had to make use of the orcs.”
“And were you really in the Labyrinth before?”
“Yes. Everything I said about the Labyrinth is absolutely true. But I hadn’t been counting on going back there again after thirty years.”
“You took a risk.”
“The risk was entirely justified. If your friends hadn’t come, I would have used the aces I had up my sleeve.”
“And what are they?”
“That’s not important now. Well then, it’s time to be going, before the Firstborn can gather their wits.”
“One more question.”
“Ah! You really are quite excessively curious. What else?”
