The TwiceBorn

Every Devil in Its Den

"Even when I'm dead, I'll swim through the Earth, like a mermaid of the soil, just to be next to your bones."--Jeffrey McDaniel

The sun was now on the edge of the horizon and the breeze had sharpened with a chill that said summer no longer held any grasp and that the white was on its way. The trees had begun their mysterious rustling as the wind picked up and moved through. Night had already pooled in the corners of the town and Alora could see the churning darkness as the shadow traders eagerly waited for all the light to recede so they could come to her.

She was their home.

Somewhere, a whippoorwill began to trill. Alora lifted her eyes from the town to the sky and took in the red streaks, (like blood) and noticed how the sun was trumpeting its last blaze as it began to sink below the skyline.

Without turning her eyes from the sunset, Alora reached behind her and unfastened the side of her saddlebag that held the Tablet. She was dimly aware of Blixen dropping to the ground with a frightened squeak, and Rook commanding all his troops to assume some type of order.

She had never met an orderly goblin in her life. All they did was stumble about, play tricks on each other, and fuck. That was their basic existence and she'd never felt an urge to have one of her own. They'd been fun, of course, when she was younger. It was Cam Dayin who had taught her to catch a bunch of the little fat bog goblins, stuff them full of beans and eggs, then let them loose in the Tribe's camp, where they would stagger about, ripping obnoxious farts until chaos erupted.

Her hand paused.

Did she really want to do this?

She looked at the horde of goblins, all of them quiet and still as they stared down at the town and she suddenly saw them through the eyes of a farmer or villager. Here was the one thing the Brede followers never quite understood and, in turn, gave her her power. Evil was nothing but a cold, impersonal force, always blindly probing in the blackness and really wanting nothing more than to destroy and cause havoc. It had no yearning for a pat on the head from some god nor did it demand constant personal sacrifice to have what it wanted. Nothing but a great lumbering beast that moved where she commanded and left nothing but ashes in its wake.

And that was why, she concluded, Brede would never win. There was too much thought and preparation when it came to following a god with one gentle hand beckoning them forward while the other was curled in a fist and hidden behind his back. The goblins, row upon row of them, were nothing but plain and simple evil. They didn't care about celebrations for newborn babes or an abundant harvest that would make bellies full and breathing a little easier through a harsh winter. No. They simply wanted to torture, maim, and kill until they were too exhausted to raise their weapons or run about on their little paws or hooves.

She well knew she could send them down into Refuge and they would reduce the town to rubble and bring the raggedy boy, the drunk, and Islinn to her and dump them at her feet. She didn't need the Tablet. Maybe the wizened old goblin Rook, was right.

There was something more.

She took the tablet from her saddlebags and rested it against the pommel of her saddle. She looked down at it and felt how the old and ancient cover pulsed beneath her touch. It breathed, expanding, and receding, like some fever-rotten sore swollen with pus, and Alora could feel a strange ticking burn beneath the palm of her hand.