The Forest King

Something in the shadowed ceiling corner moved. Mathi’s first thought was that a monstrous spider clung to the ceiling there, but the something was far too big. It crept into the wider circle of light from the oil lamp, and she saw that it was Rufe, her liberator.

“Can’t you use the door?” Mathi hissed. “Great E’li, you get around like a cockroach!”

The little man dropped lightly onto the footboard of the bed. “Cockroaches don’t get around that easily if you ask me. Back in jail, are ya?”

“No,” she answered. “Go away.” She was so tired, eyes burning and limbs trembling with fatigue, and even though she was very curious about the little man, Mathi really didn’t want to bandy words with him just then.

Rufe hopped down and ambled to the door. Curiosity got the better of Mathi. She called out, “Wait!”

The little man froze in mid step. “Eh?”

“Are you the only one here? The only one of your kind, I mean?”

“Yep. Don’t tell the pointy-ears that, will you?”

“Why not?”

“It would spoil my fun. Besides, I might have to tell them about you.”

Mathi slowly sat up. With deadly coldness she said, “What do you mean?”

“You’re not one of them, are you? Not really, I mean.”

“Why do you say that?”

He inhaled deeply through his prominent nose. “You don’t smell like them. You see different from them too. Better somehow. I don’t know what you are exactly, but you’re not just a pointy-ear girl.”

She weighed her chances of catching and silencing him before he got out the door. Given Rufe’s agility, her chance of success was poor. “I’ll keep your secret if you keep mine.”

Rufe made an odd gesture with his left hand: he held it up, fingers wiggling, and said, “Finger break and I stay at home if I tell,” he said. He made it sound like a serious oath.

He went out quite casually, pushing the door open with the heel of one hand. Only after Mathi extinguished the lamp and tried to find sleep in the darkness did she realize Rufe had pushed open a door that only swung into the room. How was that possible? It bothered Mathi so much, she had to get up and inspect the door to be sure. She was right. The door opened only into the room. No amount of her pushing would make the door move the other way.

Puzzling over the little man’s baffling tricks, it took a long time for Mathi to fall asleep.

Spawn of Hiddukel indeed!

CHAPTER 8

Players

In the morning Balif set Treskan to work writing the phony survey of the country between Silvanost and Free Winds. Treskan worked with a will. He had much catching up to do, and writing was a welcome relief from brawling and riding a bony-backed pony for endless miles. He compiled a very detailed description of the terrain, flora, and fauna of the land between Silvanost and Free Winds. Balif looked over his shoulder now and then and complimented him on his thoroughness.

“Your hand is unusual. Is it the style of your school?” he asked.

Treskan rubbed his writing hand self-consciously. “Yes, this is a type of record-hand taught by my school.”

“What school was it?”

Treskan plainly struggled for a moment then said, “Eyes of Matheri, in Woodbec.”

Balif assumed an opaque expression. “I do not know that one.”

In spite of their unfriendly reception at Free Winds, Balif was in good spirits. All morning he bought maps from local traders and quizzed them about likely locations to build new settlements. To an elf the traders thought Balif was mad. One memorably claimed that building towns or starting farms in the area was like trying to plow the sea. The land was too wild to settle. In another hundred years, perhaps, the blades of the Speaker’s warriors would tame the land. But not in the foreseeable future.

By midday Balif was done pretending to be a surveyor. He dismissed the traders, giving them liberal amounts of gold for their trouble, and dispatched Lofotan and the cook on special missions of their own. Lofotan was to talk to any soldiers he could find off duty and get a military view of the local situation. Artyrith was to restock their provisions for the next leg of their journey.

“What will you do, my lord?” Lofotan asked. They were alone in their room in the fortress, so the honorific was safe to say.

“I have tasks of my own.” Mathi was surprised Lofotan did not press him on the matter. When the general didn’t want to be questioned, no one questioned him.

Mathi was to stay behind and clean the party’s kit. Basically that meant laundering clothes and mending whatever tears and splits they had acquired since leaving Silvanost. She did not object to the menial work. It was part of her role as the surveyor’s daughter. As for Treskan, Balif instructed him to find the fortress’s archives and compare what was written there to what Dolanath told them about the invasion of the little folk.

Waiting a good long time after the others left, Mathi got up quietly and went to the room’s sole door. The corridor was empty. She was about to steal out and follow Balif when she felt a tug on the hem of her gown-the back hem. Quick as a cat, Mathi leaped away from the strange touch.

Rufe was standing there, munching on a rather dirty carrot.

“Nervous neighbor, aren’t you?” said the little man, chomping. “Good reflexes, though.” Every so often he spit drops of mud on the floor.

“Who wouldn’t be nervous with people sneaking up behind them?” Mathi snatched the carrot from Rufe’s hand and poured fresh water over it, washing away the dirt. She held it out to the little man, who was no longer interested in it.

“Everybody gone?” he said, sauntering around the beds and piles of baggage.

“All but me.”

Rufe drew a finger across Treskan’s writing board. “You a scribe?”

She was about to snap, “Don’t touch that!” but decided the expression was wasted on the little man. She picked up the instrument and tucked it into Treskan’s bag.

“I’m not the scribe. His name is Treskan,” she said.

“He’s not a pointy-ear either. What a funny company you have! No one is what they seem.”

“What do you mean? What is Treskan, if not an elf?” Mathi said.

Rufe grinned. “A human in disguise.”

Mathi quickly shut the door. Her voice dropped to a whisper.

“Human? Treskan?”

“No doubt about it.” Rufe tapped the side of his plow-shaped nose. “This beak never lies.”

To no one in particular, Mathi said, “By E’li, what does that mean? A human masquerading as the general’s scribe?”

“General, eh? That’s interesting.”

The two words Mathi never wanted to hear from Rufe were that’s interesting. Only trouble would follow, she knew intuitively-catastrophe, cataclysm, the end of the civilization were not far off when a character such as Rufe gets interested in something.

“You must keep all this a secret between us,” she said.

He stuck out his tongue. It was a startlingly dark hue, almost purple.

“More secrets, bah. Why should I keep ’em?”

Not having any leverage with the little man, Mathi had a sanity-saving notion. “Are you good at following people?” she asked. “I mean, without them knowing it?”

Rufe grinned. “I could trail the gods into the Land of Eternal Light and never be seen or sniffed!”

“Could you follow someone for me? I’ll pay you gold.”