To Kill a God

Cogs

Mara crossed her arms before her chest and glared. "Cogs, we had a deal."

The diminutive goblin before her cringed back, raising both ink-stained hands in surrender. "I-I know, love. Please, you've got to understand, I will pay you. I just need to use it first."

Between them, placed almost carelessly on an old rickety table, was the soul orb. Mara had walked into the tiny apartment that Cogs called his home and had dropped the orb where it now lay. She turned away from him, looking at the room.

It was sparsely furnished, with one row of tables along one wall and a bed against the other. The nearby kitchen was filled with broken gnomish appliances, their scratches and dents made clear under the light of the exposed soul orb. There wasn't much to see; just a pitiful bachelor pad in one of the less reputable corners of the city. Nothing she could reliably fence.

"You promised gold," she said. This whole situation was a nightmare, and Cogs' unwillingness to pay was only making it worse. Mara pulled out one of the throwing knives she had tucked away in her sleeves and began trimming the long, wicked nails of her forepaw.

Cogs stared at the knife as he answered. "Sweetheart, you've got to understand. I'm not a rich goblin. I make do with what magic I know, selling my services to the guild, but I have to work hard to make ends meet."

"You said you would pay."

"And I will. Just as soon as I'm done using the orb." He reached out for it, his eyes slipping to the ball and filling with something akin to lust.

Mara stabbed her knife down into the table. "Half."

The goblin's gulp was audible across the room. "Half? Half of what, love?"

"You'll make something with the orb? Something magical?" she asked, glaring at him. "I could take it. Sell it to someone else."

"That would be breaking your contract."

"Contract said you'd pay."

"Ah, yes," he said. "I suppose it did at that." The goblin ran fingers through his thinning hair. "Alright. Half. But you need to know what I was going to do, first."

Cogs turned and walked over to one of his tables. It was covered with strange instruments of glass and steel. Books lay open, notes scribbled across the pages, and lines of text crossed out. "You see, I'm a bit of a genious when it comes to finding spells. It's how I make money with the Guild. And there's the sort of spell that allows you to teleport an object as long as you have a fixed location." He began moving things around, making the mess worse. "Now, that second spell is a doozy. See, you can't just grab the thing you want. You need to grab a bubble of space around it. That means it needs a sharp edge that has to be defined."

Mara just stared at him.

He saw her lack of response and blanched. "Well, I figured out a way to grab an object from very, very far away. Specifically, texts. The third part of the spell is a translation matrix. Quite common in some places, mostly safe."

Mara frowned. "You're going to teleport something to here?"

"Yes! " he exclaimed. "Specifically, texts that contain certain pieces of information. Books on tactics and warfare and the likes. But by adjusting the parameters of the spell, I can grab at many things in a wide circumference around the text."

She just blinked at him, watching as he began setting metal holders on the ground, each with a sizable crystal in it. "The problem is," he said as he worked. "That this spell, experimental as it is, is not very efficient. I mean, you'd need an eight tier arcanist to cast it."

Mara took a half-step back, her hair bristling in surprise. "Eight," she repeated.

"Yes, I know. There're are maybe two in the entire city. One under the employ of the governance. The other is a high priest with the Reckoners. But see, that beauty right there," he said as he pointed at the soul orb in an offhand way. "Can fake it for me."

With a flourish, Cogs tore a carpet from off the floor, revealing an intricate set of three magic circles precisely carved into the ground. "And here it is," he said, beaming at the markings. "Two years of hard research, small scale testing, and sleepless nights. Shall we start?"

She raised a hand. "Why not gold? Why books?"

"Ah, well, you see, I thought of that. But the spell likes to grab from the nearest source. In this case, I'd probably just steal a few coins from some nearby shop. Not nearly worth the effort. And if I make it go for something with large quantities... well, most vaults have tracking spells. The banking clan wouldn't be... pleased with me if the contents of their vault were suddenly here. Stealing books from faraway kingdoms is much safer."

"Expensive books?" Mara asked. She was uncertain. On the one hand, she could still just sell the orb for a few dozen gold coins. On the other, Cogs might owe her a favour after this, and she might make more if she took half of what he managed to grab. That, and the soul orb would still be useful afterwards.

"Most likely! And I'll let you take half. You can even have first picks." He smiled ingratiatingly at her.

Mara looked down, then back at him. She nodded.

Like a child offered a puppy, Cogs leaped forwards and grabbed the orb. Reverently, he brought it over to one of the metal contraptions surrounding the magic circles and began muttering to himself. Then, he went to one knee and started making adjustments to how everything was placed, looking through his notes as he did so.

"Will this be long?" she asked.

"Only a few hours, love. Only a few more hours. Less if you help me!"

Mara groaned.