'This is your secret?' smirked Toede. 'That you toil through the night writing naughty poetry? A minor sin at best, punishable by brief immersion in white-hot magma. Nothing to lose your grip over. The gnolls can't even read.'
'You don't understand.' Bunniswot, tears in his eyes, looked up. 'It's all like that. All of it.' He gestured around the tent walls.
Toede realized that the scholar meant the forest of stone beyond. 'You mean the pillars,' he said, now smiling broadly.
'Yes, the bloody pillars,' cursed Bunniswot. 'I've deciphered forty of them now.'
'And they're all…' prompted Toede.
'This!' He picked up a packet and threw it against the far wall. The pages fluttered like pigeons landing in the square. 'Love poems! Trysts! Revels! Rendezvous! Smut!'
'That's really, really interesting,' said Toede, edging
toward the tent entrance. 'And perhaps we can discuss it later, say, after you hurry up and save your life.'
Bunniswot ignored him. 'I put Renders up for this exploration, did you know that? I found references to this place in preCataclysmic texts, stressing its age, its beauty, its mysterious origins. There was supposed to have been a great battle here, where the local inhabitants, my ur-ogres, battled and caged a creature of the Abyss. I expected a lost city, a temple, or at least a monument. Something to justify the time and effort. Something worth publishing.'
Toede thought for a moment, then said, 'Perhaps later you could spruce it up a bit, clean up the smut. Sort of a vulgate version, for the masses.'
'This is the cleaned up version,' said the scholar, seeming ready to collapse again. 'Even the vulgate is vulgar,' he sighed.
'And you haven't told Renders because…'
'Oh, Gilean's book and bladder, I can't. He showed so much faith in this project, and all I have to show for it is…'
'Ogre pornography,' said Toede, shaking his head. 'Not that this should depress you any further, but there are bloodthirsty gnolls to worry about now.'
'What shall I do? What can I do?' moaned Bunniswot, staring at the debris in his tent.
'What you would do anyway?' said Toede, realizing that Bunniswot in his present condition was not high on the list of prospective survivors of the upcoming massacre. 'Pack as much as you can, particularly your… er, translations, while I wake the others. Then have them bury the chest, but not so deep that water can't get to it. Then you wait several years before coming back and discover your notes have been destroyed. You reconstruct as much as possible, but of course, the gist of it is lost. Your reputation is saved, not to mention your life.'
Bunniswot shook his head for a moment, then said quietly, 'That could work.'
'Goood,' purred Toede, edging to the opening of the tent. 'I'll wake Renders and get everyone else.'
Once outside in the cool autumn darkness, Toede fought the urge to double over in laughter. It was unbelievable what humans would worry about when faced with extinction. This experience made his third life worth living, regardless of whatever happened next. Maybe it would be worth saving these humans after all, just to watch Bunniswot go crazy trying to hide his little off-color secret from the others.
'Ogre love poems,' he chuckled, heading for Renders's tent.
'Ah. Quite impossible, you realize,' said Renders, stroking his beard. 'We couldn't pack sufficiently in darkness, even given a, ah, day or so. There is too much left to be done.'
It was ten minutes and one quick explanation after Toede left Bunniswot to his fate of 'publish and/or perish.' Renders was being more difficult than the hobgoblin had deemed possible. Once more, the hobgoblin was on the verge of abandoning the thick-headed humans to their fate.
Instead Toede argued, 'Lef s recapitulate. A huge horde of hundreds of gnolls is about to attack at dawn, maybe…' He made some mental calculations about Groag's ability to hold out. 'Thirty minutes afterward, tops. They will be screaming for blood since you're on land they think is sacred. They will kill first, ask monosyllabic questions later. I'm leaving now and strongly recommend you do the same.'
'Hmm,' said Renders, continuing to stroke his beard meditatively. 'No. No. We'd lose too much data, too many samples, too many pot shards. Why, ah, Bunniswof s material alone would take days to properly sort and pack.'
'Bunniswot is already packing the best of his material,' said Toede, imagining the fire-haired young scholar stuffing as much ogre erotica as possible into the leather trunk.
'Oh, dear,' said Renders. 'If he's rushed, something may be accidentally destroyed.'
He should be so lucky, thought Toede, while continuing aloud, 'I've done my duty. I've brought the warning, and if you're smart you'll withdraw to Flotsam.'
'Wait a tic,' said Renders. 'You said the gnolls were coming from the, ah, the north, down the path we've been using. Correct?'
'Right,' nodded Toede, rolling his eyes.
'And the marshes are to our south and east, and are also gnoll-inhabited, eh?'
'I have had a limited exposure to the extent of the gnolls' influence, but I think it's a given that they could find us easily there,' said Toede.
'So, ergo, you are trapped here with us,' finished Renders, as calmly as a merchant explaining the difference between a chicken egg and a goose egg.
'Beg to differ,' said Toede, already halfway to the opening of the tent. 'For there's a path from the road north that leads west. Good-bye.'
'Ah,' said Renders. 'Ah. So you don't know, then?'
At the tent opening, Toede turned again. I'm going to regret this, he thought. 'Don't know what, then?'
'About the necromancer,' said Renders as calmly as if he had said 'about the flower shop' or 'about the new maid.'
I was right, Toede thought, I'm already regretting it. He raised his eyebrows and asked, 'Necromancer?'
'Nasty sort,' said Renders. 'The first scouts we sent were returned as… ah… zombies, carrying a message that he didn't care what we did with the pillars, as long as we stayed out of his territory.' Renders thought a moment. 'Interesting chap-it seems he can speak through the zombies he creates, like puppets. Or marionettes. Or something like that. In any event, he rules the west.'
Toede came back in, leaving the tent flap open to the cool night air. He could feel time slipping away like a handful of mud. He sat down opposite the elder scholar. 'My horse wouldn't go that way,' he said dully.
'Your horse is, ah, smarter than you,' said Renders, not presuming to understand why Toede would have wanted to go in that direction in the first place.
'What you're saying is that we're trapped here,' said Toede, mentally cursing himself for not fleeing to Flotsam earlier, not coming up with a better story, not learning about the necromancer, not leaving Charka to die in the first place, not killing himself as soon as he realized he was alive again. Pretty much everything that had occurred in the past few days of his life, he cursed.
'Well,' said Renders, counting off the cardinal directions. 'Marshes. Marshes. Gnoll army. Necromancer.' He nodded. 'Seems you are right. Trapped, that is.'
A long silence fell between the two as Toede felt the mud of time in his fingers turn to water, and then to vapor. Finally, Renders said, 'Perhaps you could talk to them.' He ignored the cold look the highmaster gave him, which could have frozen water.
Renders continued. 'After all, they are a murderous nonhuman bunch of savages, and you, well…' He motioned toward the empty air as if to say the point was obvious.
'I've learned to chew with my mouth closed, thank you,' said Toede, keeping his voice in check and wondering if the gnolls would thank him if he started in on braining a few scholars now. Judging from Charka's earlier attitude toward gratitude, probably not.
'You could at least try. To talk to them,' added Renders.
Or talk my way through them, thought Toede, mentally adding another notch to Charka's intelligence for
