The Child

4085 FY | 85 AD

“Get back!”
“There’s too many of them!”
So many frantic voices pounded a little gnome’s ears. All she could see was dark folded cloth as she was jostled uncomfortably about on her mother’s breast.
Her mother released a painful cry. The gnome felt pulled into a rapid descent as mother and daughter both fell to the cold hard ground.
Cries of horror began to die out as thick bodies fell to the ground.
Mother and daughter both lay there for a moment as the little gnome squirmed in the cloth. The gnome finally freed herself and stumbled over her mother’s limp hand. She had only learned how to walk a few weeks ago, so she was far from sure-footed as she plopped down on the ground strewn with creepy crawling insects after a few wobbly steps. Undaunted, the little gnome pulled herself up and continued wandering around the jungle environment, dragging her purple blanket behind her the entire way.
Heavy footsteps fell on the dry leaves of the ground behind her. A deep voice rolled over the gnome-like thunder. “I found her!”
The gnome looked up just in time to see a huge gnarly green hand coming toward her. She clutched her blanket close to her in fear.
The huge hand drew near to her, clawing at the white linen dress over the gnome’s stocky little body.
Bright purple light suddenly burst out of the gnome.
The tall figure yelped as the huge hand left with the body and fell to the ground several feet away.
This wasn’t the first time purple light of this kind had sprung from the gnome. Judging by the reactions of big people around her, this was a bad thing. She didn’t mean to do it. Still, she couldn’t help feeling like she was about to be punished. She ran to her mother, who appeared to be sleeping, and huddled next to her body. The gnome’s mother always protected her. Mom would know exactly what to do.
“What were you yelling about?”
The gnome could hear another voice in the distance.
“She — it — I found her.”
“Where?”
“Back there. In the clearing.”
The gnome huddled closer to her mother, drawing the blanket over her.
Another set of heavy footfalls snapped twigs and crushed leaves as they walked over the area before declaring. “I don’t see anything.”
“Are you blind? She was right there.”
“It was probably a veli or an imp.”
“It was her.”
“Well, whatever it was, it’s gone now. We must have been tricked. The gnome is nowhere around here. Let’s head back to the fort. It’s almost nightfall.”
“But she was right there.”
“I don’t want to hear it, Kugnut. Let’s go.”
“Don’t you smell the gnome?”
“There’s a dead gnome right there; of course I smell her.”
“Just take a few more seconds to –”
“– I’m leaving. You can either choose to follow me and the caravan back to the fort or stay out here for the camazotz bats to tear you to shreds.”
The gnome shuddered as the chill of the night started to grip her. She listened to the footsteps of the fearsome people traipse off through the thick jungle. The gnome prodded her mother for a moment, trying to wake her. Finding that her mother could not be roused, the gnome snuggled close to her and drifted off to sleep.
*****
“Dad!”
Tristos swayed in place as he cracked open his beady goblin eyes. His five children could always be counted on to wake him up before dawn. Ralice, his wife, hovered beside him, doing her best to pretend to be asleep.
“Dad!”
“They’re calling for you,” said Ralice dryly.
Tristos groaned tiredly as he shook off the blanket over him, letting it fall to the floor below. Goblins like him could climb on walls and ceilings. The slept hanging upside down from the rafters wrapped in blankets. The second the fibers of his woolen blanket touched down upon the wood floor, Tristos knew it was time to start the day.
He swung himself up the ceiling and crawled down to meet his two youngest children. Five-year-old Agmatha with curly brown hair like her mother and four year old Eram smiled up at his father from behind a wild brown mane.
Trisots set his large gnarly green hands on his hips. “What’s so important?”
“Look what I can do!” shouted Eram as he blew a bubble with snot from his nose.
“I can blow a bigger bubble,” boasted Agmatha. “Wanna see?”
“Never.” Tistos was too tired to feign pleasure and amazement over his children’s gross talent. “Go back to sleep.”
The children scampered off to their bedrooms.
Tristos could see the sunlight kissing the Loosie Mountains in the distance. Two of his children had already gotten him up. Now was as good a time as any for him to wake up his oldest son so they could get a start on feeding the livestock and take advantage of all the daylight possible.
“Fenrick, time to get up,” ordered Tristos.
Ten-year-old Fenrick rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as he exited his room, stumbling about the household like he was blind.
Tristos made a good living as a blacksmith at Fort Runcasolis. The Fantasian Empire’s economy was heavily reliant on trade with the far east. Flying mounts and freight ships needed a place to rest midway through their journey. That place was the Island of Adele. This made Runcasolis a large and profitable trading post. All goods from the far east and west flowed through the fort; One little island successfully became a favorite destination for people all around the world. Tristos full advantage of this and business was very good.
Hunters and warriors from all around the world arrived at Tristos’ doorstep for his expertly custom handcrafted wares. Tristos’ green hands hammered away all day to create gleaming swords so polished he could see his reflection (more examples of smithery).
The Goblin Blacksmith Guild agreed to share their money and support each other. Goblins had a storied history of creating the best items and engaging in the trade business. They protected their own in ways that were lost on other races of people in Fabella. Especially the dwarves.
Dwarves were a major threat to the Goblin Blacksmith Guild. Their work was crude but cheap, taking away a lot of business from hardworking goblins. Dwarves displayed little appreciation and constant disregard for the art of smithery. They mass-produced copies of swords and daggers. There was nothing unique about their goods. They just cranked out weak armor and poorly made weaponry because they were geared toward quantity over quality.
To top it off, dwarves also started their own port called “Orthos,” taking away a large amount of business from the people of Runcasolis. This was Tristos’ home. He loved his fair fort with all his heart. To see it begin to decline all because of some good for nothing halflings drove him mad.
So the sudden appearance of two dwarves outside Tristos’ workshop was not a happy meeting.
“What do you two want?” Tristos green hand tightened around the handle of a sword whose blade was still red hot from the furnace at the sight of these two thickly built short bearded gentlemen invading his property. “Get off my land.”
One of the dwarfs narrowed their bushy brow. “We mean no disrespect, sir.”
“I don’t do business with halflings,” said Tristos vilely.
The dwarf who spoke up earlier stood firm. “People in town say that you are fairly tight with the Blacksmith Guild.”
Tristos only gave a low harumph in reply.
The dwarf continued. “I was hoping that you may know of any guild members engaged with violence toward my people.”
“I don’t take a blade to your kind, and I prefer the same from you.” Trstos thrust the red hot blade of the sword forward, just to scare the dwarf back.
The dwarf stumbled back out of fright and tripped over his boots.
Tristos laughed at the comical expression on the dwarf’s fat face.
“A group of my people was supposed to come here, but they haven’t arrived yet, and I’m starting to get worried. I don’t like dealing with your kind any more than you like me, but I need your help.”
“Leave,” hissed Tristos.
The dwarf glared back at him, chubby little hand already on the hilt of his crooked sword, poised to strike at any moment. “If you hear of anything, please –.”
“– Scram!” barked Tristos.
The dwarf backed away and hurried off with his mute partner as fast as he could with such stubby little legs.
Ralice sidled up to Tristos from the house stationed nearby, with Eram tugging on her dress the entire way. “What were those two ugly dwarves doing here?”
“Ugly dwarves!” repeated Eram.
“Something about their people. I wasn’t really listening,” admitted Tristos.
“You didn’t let them touch anything, did you?” Ralice let her beady eyes rake about their property. “We can’t let the children be exposed to such awfulness.”
Tristos continued working. “I handled it.”
“What’s a dwarf?” asked Eram. He was at that stage where all he did was copy everyone and ask questions.
Ralice turned to her son. “Dwarves are small diseased little pests not fit to walk this land.”
“I’m little,” said Eram fearfully. “Am I dwarf?”
Ralice gently stroked her son’s wild mane. “No, you’re little now, but someday you’ll grow up big and strong like your father.”
“Yeah! I’m gonna be big like daddy!” shouted Eram with joy.
Tristos continued working throughout the day until the sunset, signalling it was time to head inside. Ten-year-old Fenrick had just started his apprenticeship with his father and was still learning the nightly duties involved with work. Tristos had to follow his son around, correcting every bit of piece around the shop the youth left half-finished.
The tools weren’t properly put away.
Dirty rags weren’t where they were supposed to be.
The furnace in the fire still wasn’t out.
The cabinet doors were still wide open.
The pen for the Odette, the family catoblepas, wasn’t hinged properly.
“Boy!” barked Tristos into the night.
Fenrick tentatively poked his goblin head out from around the corner of the workshop.
Tristos almost threw his shoulder out with the amount of force he put into jabbing his finger down to the ground.
Fenrick looked every bit like a dog who peed on the carpet as he shuffled up to his father.
“You didn’t lock Odette’s pen.” Tristos hammered his dark green fist down on the wooden fence for emphasis.
Catoblepas were cattle with thick manes that fell over their eyes. They were incredibly skittish, so much so in fact that it was advisable to let the hair grow over their eyes to make them blind to the outside world. All catoblepas cows were female. The male bonnacons were another species altogether. Odette was the family’s primary source of milk and butter. Without her, the family wouldn’t have any milk to feed the younger children.
Tristos had no choice but to take Fenrick into the jungle after her. “Light a torch. We’re heading out.”
“At night?” protested Fenrick.
“Yes, at night,” said Tristos harshly. “Stay close to me; There’s a lot of monsters in the jungle. If we’re lucky, Odette will still be in one piece.”
Tristos loaded up his crossbow and stuck a sword in his scabbard before heading out into the deep dark rainforest bordering the family’s property. Odette’s tracks in the wet mud lead directly through the thick overgrown mass of towering trees, flowers, and fungi. Abnormally large mushrooms and begonias were the least of their problems because the jungle hid dangerous animals around every corner.
The light from Fenrick’s torch fell upon a snake slithering up the trunk; giant spiders flexed their legs as they lay waiting in the trees, little primate-like tree people ran away from the fire, and a growl rolled out from the darkness. Everywhere Tristos looked, he saw brilliant yellow eyes watching them from the darkness. It was as if all these predators were talking to each other and taking their time to decide whether to pounce.
Then the light of Fenrick’s torch lit up the terrifying sight of all. Decaying bodies of dwarves littered the ground. Tristos saw maggots climbing out of blank eye sockets, a colony of ant-lions ate away at the bodies, and many of them sported marks from animals gnawing at the corpses.
A cry echoed out through the dark rainforest.
Tristos followed the whimpering to a dead gnome. The crying came from a little baby whining to be fed.
“Oh God, it’s a baby dwarf!” exclaimed Fenrick.
“Gnome,” corrected Tristos. “Gnomes are female dwarves. This one can’t be any older than eighteen months.”
Tristos gazed upon the terrifying nightmare before him with trepidation. The bodies layering the rainforest floor all looked like rag dolls cast aside by their assaulters for sport. He suddenly recalled the discussion he had that afternoon with the dwarf. The dwarf thought members of the Goblin Blacksmith Guild were responsible for this bloodshed. Tristos imagined it had to be someone else. His people couldn’t possibly have been the ones to do this.
The fact this slaughter had occurred near his home and Fort Runcasolis was doubly frightening. The corpses of wild boars the dwarves traditionally rode also sported blade marks on their hides; The gnome had been fallen by an arrow to the back of the head. Her baby, apparently too young to understand death, shook her mother’s shoulder as if to try and wake her up.
Against his better judgement, Tristos stooped down to gently lift the baby off her mother. The baby started screaming bloody murder the second she has torn away from the dead matriarch. Her wails were so loud Tristos was rendered temporarily deaf. He pats her back the way he used to with his own children when they were this small. Surprisingly that seemed to put the baby at ease, and she muffled her small little whimpers against the fur hide draped over Tristos’ shoulder.
“What are you doing?” asked Fenrick.
“She’s just a baby, Fen. We can’t leave her out here,” argued Tristos. “Poor little thing. It’s a miracle she’s still alive.”
The child’s was warm to the touch. Tristos brushed the child’s blonde hair back from her face, revealing her watery blue eyes and little button nose. A sigh of relief escaped him when he realized that the child was not injured.
Tristos reached to his belt for his canteen. He uncorked it and poured a bit of water over his fingers to show the little one what the canteen held. Raising it to his lips, he took a wallow before offering the skin to the baby gnome. The little one accepted the canteen and took a cautious sip. Finding nothing amiss with the taste, she drank deeply. Water dribbled down her chin onto her white dress stained with blood.
“Hey, look at this.” Fenrick stooped down to pick up a strange blanket.
Tristos accepted the blanket from his son. He’d seen something like this once before. One side of this blanket was lined with fleece white as snow, but the other side magically created an illusion of the scenery behind it. Any object wrapped up by the blanket was effectively invisible.
“It’s an invisibility blanket.” Tytos marveled at the piece. “Definitely goblin made. These are rare. I wonder why this gnome would feel the need to cover her daughter in it.”
“I don’t know that there are any other survivors here, Dad,” said Fenrick.
Aurora from above shed light on the eerie nightmarish scene. Nothing moved. Not even the animals around them. Tristos got the unsettling sense that fear gripped the forest. Fear of what? He did not know.
The baby gnome shivered in Tristos’ arms. He tried caressing her back to calm her down. She squirmed around, fussing about and trying to free herself. Left with no alternative, Tristos swaddled her in the invisibility cloak. If he looked down, he could just see the top of her little blonde head. The rest of the baby’s body inside the blanket was completely invisible. Tristos looked like he was holding absolutely nothing against his chest.
“You look kind of weird, Dad,” quipped Fenrick.
“Shut up and pick up everything from the gnome you can carry,” directed Tristos. “Make sure you get the pack.”
“Yes, father,” said Fenrick begrudgingly as he commenced doing what he was told.
All thought of the lost catoblepas faded from their minds as the father and son set off back to their settlement. Tristos was convinced the animal was dead anyway, so there was no point in staying out in the jungle longer than was necessary. Fenrick lit the way with his torch back home while Tistros struggled to hold both the invisible baby and his crossbow. It was an awkward position to be found by Busord Grohart.
Busord Grohart was a member of the Goblin Blacksmith Guild, known to be a thick-headed smith specializing in making battle axes. At about a head taller than Tristos, the thickly built goblin hunter put up an intimidating front for someone so dimwitted. Busord’s business had been affected the most by the dwarves, and he took up a lot of guild meetings railing madly against the halflings. Tristos suspected he would still be in poor financial shape even without interference from the dwarves. Busord’s axe blades tended to slip off the handle because he was too careless to properly fix it on the weapon.
“Stop!” hollered Busord in the night. “What are you doing out here?”
“We were looking for our lost catoblepas,” responded Tristos. “What finds you out here on this auspicious night?”
Busord tried to work out in his head what the word “auspicious” meant.
Tristos and Fenrick pushed past the brutish goblin.
Busord reached out with his big green hand to seize Tristos by the neck. “I smell dwarf.”
“Well, we did find a bunch of dead dwarves back there,” said Fenrick.
Busord let go of Tristos. “Seems closer than that.”
“You wouldn’t know anything about those bodies, would you?” inquired Tristos.
“Can’t say I do,” replied Busord.
Tristos suspected this wasn’t the case, but he didn’t have enough time to waste speaking to Busord this deep in the forest, and he especially didn’t want the oafish goblin to know he had a baby goblin to his broad chest. “We really should be going.”
Busord eyed Tristos and Fenrick suspiciously for a moment but allowed them to continue on their path. He turned and walked off toward the site of the massacre.
Fenrick waited until they were a safe distance away before saying. “He did it.”
“I know.” Tristos looked behind him. He could only see the little light of Busord’s flickering torch in the distance. “I don’t think he was alone.”
“Who do you think helped him?” wondered Fenrick.
“I don’t know. I’ll have to head into the market tomorrow to ask around.” Tristos held back nothing to his son as he thought out loud. “Maybe those dwarfs who came by earlier today are still in town, and we can get rid of this rugrat.”
“Mom is going to hit the roof when she sees that kid,” noted Fenrick.
Tristos hadn’t given this much thought before. How would they hide the child? Ralice hated dwarves more than any person Tristos knew. She would never let a gnome in the house. Even if it was a helpless little baby.
“Listen to me. We are not going to tell your mother about the baby.”
“What the hell are you going to do with it?” wondered Fenrick.
“You are going to keep her in the workshop and out of sight,” decreed Tristos. “I’ll run interference with your mother. We’ll only have to keep this baby hidden for the night and maybe a little in the morning. A day tops. This will all blow over by tomorrow. It’ll be fine.”
Fenrick buried his face in his palm. “We’re in big trouble.”
They walked all the way back home in silence. The baby gnome calmed down enough so that she just cooed a little against Tristos’ chest. She seemed to be on the verge of falling off to sleep. Tristos felt confident she would slumber through the night and not be much fuss at all.
He handed off the baby to Fenrick when they reached the house with instructions to “Place her in a basket and stay with her until she falls asleep. I’ll be out to check on you after I meet with your mother. If she whines, give her a cracker and some water.”
Fenrick took the baby to the workshop while Tristos marched inside the house.
Ralice looked up with a smile as he entered. “Any luck?”
“No, we lost her.” Tristos had a habit of leaving the front door wide open whenever he entered the house. “I’ll head out to town tomorrow to get a new calf. It was time for a new one anyway; Odette was getting a bit old.”
“Where is Fenrick?” inquired Ralice.
Tristos did his best to formulate an excuse for Fenrick’s absence. “He’s out in the workshop finishing up his chores. I could be out there all night. I’ve got him polishing the blades. The smell is pretty bad. You don’t want to go out there. Keep the younger kids away too.”
Judging by the relaxed expression on Ralice’s face, this explanation was sufficient for her liking. “Did you find any trouble in the forest?”
“None really.” Tristos turned away from Ralice as he spoke so she couldn’t read his face. “It was a fairly uneventful journey.”
“Really?” Ralice arched her brow. “That’s impressive. I thought you would come back with stories about being attacked by a keythong or worse. It had me worried sick. I couldn’t sleep a wink.”
“Sorry about that,” apologized Tristos, intent on remaining on Ralice’s good side as much as possible.
“Well, you’re home now, that’s what — Oh good lord.”
Tristos spun around wildly. “What?”
“How many times do I have to tell you to close the door. You’re going to let in a giant spider one of these days.”
“Be realistic,” chastised Tristos as he headed to the hearth. “Giant spiders are way too big to get through the door. It’s more likely that a rainbow serpent will slither in.”
“Great leaping attercrops!” exclaimed Ralice.
This time when Tristos spun around, he was confronted with the sight of the little gnome standing duck-footed in the threshold with her little thumb in her mouth.
Fenrick appeared seconds too late to recover the child who had escaped his watch. The goblin boy froze still as a statue in the face of his mother’s expression of horror.
“Where did this baby come from?” demanded Ralice.
Tristos slid in before Fenrick could say anything. “Yeah, son, where did the baby come from?”
Fenrick fixed Tristos with an astonished look of betrayal as he stammered to think of something. “I – I found her.”
Ralice’s maternal instincts kicked in as she took the baby into her arms. “You found a baby out in the jungle?”
“Uh-huh,” nodded Fenrick.
“Well, son, I am very disappointed you didn’t share this with me,” said Tristos, playing the role of an oblivious parent wonderfully. “I assure you, Ralice. The boy will be dealt with harshly.”
This was too much for Fenrick’s taste. “You were lying sack of –”
Tristos raced forward to cup a hand over his son’s mouth. “– Boys will be boys.”
Fortunately, Ralice was too absorbed in cooing over the baby gnome to listen. “Why, she’s just darling. What race is she?”
“Human,” responded Tristos confidently. “She’s a little baby girl.”
Ralice had nothing against humans, and they were similar enough to dwarves that Tristos’ excuse was passable. “She seems a little small for a human.”
“Probably malnourished,” suggested Tristos. “We don’t know how long she was out in the forest by herself.”
“We?” inquired Ralice.
“I mean Fenrick.” Tristos covered for his slip of the tongue. “Fenrick doesn’t know how long she was out there alone. Don’t you, son?”
“Yeah.” Fenrick seemed to be keeping his distance from the baby and eyeing her with fear in his eyes. “There’s something you guys should know.”
“Nonsense,” Tristos clamped on his son’s shoulder. “Your mother and I know everything there is about raising a child. Nothing could surprise us.”
“Wanna bet?” asked Fenrick.
Ralice set the baby down on a chair. “Poor thing is covered in blood. Oh, the horrors she must have seen. It’s too dreadful to think about. I think I have an old nightshirt of Agmatha’s over here in a dresser somewhere.”
Right when Ralice turned her back, a purple glow emitted out of the baby. Tristos watched in awe as the baby and the chair levitated in midair. His mouth dropped to the floor. He’d heard of magic before but had never seen it with his own eyes and never exhibited by someone so young before. The baby just continued sucking her thumb like nothing was the matter.
“I tried to tell you,” explained Fenrick. “Kid flew straight up out of my arms when I tried to get her into the workshop.”
Tristos was at a loss for words as he stood agape. If his jaw could open any more, it would have it the floor.
“Ah! Here we are,” said an oblivious Ralice in triumph when she found the nightshirt.
The baby and chair landed on the wood floor right when Ralice turned around.
“Let’s get you out of those icky clothes,” cooed Ralice to the baby before shooting a glance at her husband and son. “What’s got you two so anxious?”
Tristos nearly choked on his tongue. “Nothing, dear.”
“We should have dropped the kid when we had the chance,” whispered Fenrick.
*****
“We can’t keep calling her ‘the baby,’” stated Ralice as she settled the little gnome on her hip. “What do you think about the name ‘Tara’?”
“That’s fine,” grunted a dumbstruck Tristos in reply.
Tristos felt like the walking dead. He hadn’t slept a wink all night. He remained seated by the basket where Ralice placed baby Tara to sleep throughout the night. Purple sparks would occasionally issue out of the baby as she slept. Ralice remained delightfully oblivious to any of the magic displayed by the young gnome. That was the way he wanted to keep it.
“What’s wrong with you?” asked Ralice.
This question was ironic coming from Ralice. If she could have looked in a mirror, she would have seen the pulsating violet boils leaking jelly all over her face and arms.
“Nothing is wrong,” responded a wide-eyed Tristos. “Everything is fine.”
Tara glowed bright purple again. Tristos watched in horror as Ralice’s ears swelled to twice their size. Tara giggled with delight.
“Who’s a happy baby? You are!” cooed Ralice.
Little Agmatha wandered into her parents’ room at the worst possible time. She looked up at her big-eared mother covered in boils and smiled with delight. “You look funny, mommy.”
“You look funny too,” echoed Ralice jokingly.
“I gotta go to the market.” Tristos couldn’t pull on his boots and cinch a belt around his waist fast enough. “I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
Dawn had barely begun to touch the horizon as the household awoke. Tristos saddled up the family unicorn, and a disfigured Ralice prepared the morning meal with Tara on her hip. The smell of porridge, eggs, and sausage, attracted Tara’s attention as she gazed upon the breakfast with great interest.
Ralice was never happier when she had a baby on her hip. She joyfully wrinkled her nose at Tara. Tristos doubted she’d be smiling so much if she knew Tara was a gnome and not a human. Agmatha and Eram bounced excitedly and chattered at Tara. They made faces and tugged on their ears all for the baby’s entertainment, who regarded them with an odd stoic expression.
“Let me hold her! Let me hold her!” begged Agmatha.
“No!” Tristos choked up the food he had in his mouth. “Don’t touch her.”
A jelly boil encrusted big-eared Ralice regarded her husband with a confused expression.
Tristos quickly tried to recover from his outburst. “The child — erm, Tara — has had a traumatic experience. It’s best that the kids don’t hold her. Too much stimulation could be bad.”
Ralice started to get a little suspicious but said nothing as she went back to making breakfast. She set Tara down at the table between herself and Eram. She filled a bowl with porridge and placed it before the tot, then handed her a spoon.
Tara examined the contents of the bowl, sniffing it cautiously. It smelled rather good, so she took a small bite. It was easy to tell she liked it by the way she gobbled up the porridge and whined when it was gone.
“You have big ears, mommy,” said Eram.
Again, Tristos almost choked on his food.
Ralice, still oblivious to her magically oversized ears, just smiled at her four-year-old. “You’ll have big ears too when you grow up.”
Eram grabbed his ears in terror.
“I’m heading out,” announced Tristos to the table as he climbed to his feet.
“You’ve barely eaten anything,” said Ralice.
Tristos was already halfway out the door. “I have to get an early start if I’m going to find that little one a family she belongs with.”
“Maybe we could be her family,” suggested Ralice.
Tristos froze in place. “What do you mean?”
Ralice gently smoothed Tara’s blonde locks. “By all means, do everything you can to find her family. If you can’t, maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to adopt her. Poor little girl needs a place to call home.”
Tristos couldn’t entertain the idea. “No, she has to go back to her own kind.”
“Just think about it,” pled Ralice as one of the jelly blisters on her face burst.
Tristos left without another word.
“Unicorn is ready to go, Pa,” said Fenrick as he hiked back to the house. “Mmmm, I smell breakfast.”
Tristos stopped the ten-year-old before he could go inside. “Your mother is going to look a little different. Just do your best to treat her normally. I’ll be back as fast as I can.”
A very confused Fenrick sauntered past his father to enter the house.
Tristos got about two steps in before Fenrick’s horrified scream echoed from the house. He chose to keep going and not break stride. Heading back inside would only delay his mission. Tristos swung a leg over his unicorn and galloped off to town.
Act I Conclusion:
The town sprawling outside Fort Runcasolis was busy as usual.
(Description of the village)
Tristos searched all around the bustling village for any sign of the dwarves who came to meet with him the day before. There was no sign of him or any dwarf for that matter. He saw fauns, elves, humans, harpies, merfolk, trolls, centaurs, minotaurs, and even slithtaurs. No dwarves.
It was all very odd. He’d never known a time for all dwarven kind to be away from Runcasolis before. Then again, Tristos had never really cared if the group of halflings was around or not before now. It struck him as quite abnormal.
Figuring halflings would know exactly where the dwarves might be, Tristos focused his attention on interrogating the trolls and entics of Runcasolis. There weren’t many of them around either. In fact, he noticed a lot of them were in the middle of getting off the island. They all rushed to pack up everything they could carry to catch the next ship out of the dock bound tor the distant continent of Kathara or the Far East. Anywhere that was not Adele.
Tristos found it amazingly difficult to get any halfling to stop and speak with him. Many of them scattered in his presence. Tristos didn’t get an answer to these curious actions from Runcasolis’s smallest population until he found a pair of faun soldiers loading a dead dwarf onto a stretcher.
As he neared the grisly scene, Tristos could tell the dwarf had been stabbed, and the deceased was fortunately not the same one who met with him the day before. The Fantasian military was responsible for all matters of law enforcement in Runcasolis. They were often late to react and a group who struck first and asked questions later. Little of their attention was geared toward investigating crimes and tracking down leads. They were only around to prevent the village from erupting into anarchy.
Tristos march toward the soldiers who were loading the dead dwarf into a wooden cart occupied by other dead dwarfs and gnomes. “What happened?”
“Another stabbing victim,” responded the faun soldier without a hint of sympathy or desire to wonder why his cart was full of dwarven corpses.
“Why so many deaths?” asked Tristos.
The soldier just gave a simple noncommittal shrug. “It’s not my kind; that’s all I need to know.”
“There’s an entire group of dwarf corpses out in the jungle,” stated Tristos.
Again the disinterested soldier showed no concern. “I’m not heading out there, so that’s probably where they’re going to stay.”
Tristos was flabbergasted. “Aren’t you concerned why all these dwarves are turning up dead?”
“Look, I’m busy,” said the soldier. “If the perpetrators turn up, then sure, we’ll put them in jail. Till then, our only job is to keep the peace. The town doesn’t need to be worried about a bunch of dwarves. Nobody cares about winding up dead. Do yourself a favor and just go about your business.”
Tristos refused to give up. “Have you picked up a dwarf about five feet tall with bushy hair named Hogan?”
“No,” grunted the soldier.
Tristos stood back, feeling utterly powerless as he watched the faun soldier climb into the driver’s seat with his two partners and crack a whip against the hulking armored backside of the bonnacon bull pulling the cart over the cobblestone street. As Tristos turned to head further down the street, he saw a little entic watching him from an alleyway.
The blue-skinned female entic’s glowing antenna twitched. She opened her mouth like she was about to speak, but her red-skinned husband quickly swooped into hustle her down the street.
“Wait!” Tristos gave chase. “I don’t mean you any harm.”
The halfling pair were too quick. They rounded a corner and disappeared in the thick crowd before Tristos could reach them.
“Tristos!”
He turned when his name was called to find none other than Atnurk Rusburm, Chapter Head of the Goblin Blacksmith Guild, coming toward him. The rotund goblin needed a wide birth to clear room for himself and Busord towering behind him. Tristos forced a strained smile in the face of these two insufferable goblins; it was important not to anger them for the sake of peace within the guild.
“I thought that was you,” Rusburm reached out with his chubby hand to shake Tristos’ hand. “How have you been? The wife and I are looking forward to that Founder’s Day soiree. Thank you so much for offering your home up as a venue; we were really struggling to find a place this year. You’re always dependable Tristos, that’s what I like about you.”
“Uh-huh.” Tristos wasn’t really listening and still devoted his attention to scanning the crowd for signs of the entic couple.
“How has your family been?” asked Rusburm.
“Uh — what? I’m sorry I didn’t quite get that,” said Tristos.
“Your family,” repeated Rusburm. “I trust they’re holding up well.”
“Oh yes, very well,” said Tristos, still only half-listening.
Tall Busord had to lean down to whisper into his boss’s ear.
“Yes, yes, I’m getting to that.” Rusuburm turned his attention back to Tristos. “Busord here says he saw you and your son around the jungle last night. Mentioned you came across a group of dead dwarves.”
“We were out looking for our catablepas that had ran away,” announced Tristos. “Sad to say we couldn’t find her.”
“My sympathies,” Rusburm swept a thick arm to Tristos’s side, guiding him into a darkened alley way in town. “About the dwarves, though. I’m afraid it’s a bit of a fragile subject. You see, I would very much appreciate it if you would not report it to the authorities.”
This piqued Tristos’ attention. “You weren’t involved, were you?”
Rusburm lowered his voice to a barely audible whisper. “I’m sorry we didn’t tell you. It wasn’t meant to be so close to your land.”
Tristos was too surprised to speak. He knew Busord was at fault and wasn’t working alone. But his theory was that the goblin brute had been working with a group of merciless thugs. Never in his wildest imagination would Tristos have suspected that the guild members, his own kind and the people he counted as his closest friends,could be capable of this kind of bloodshed.
“We had to do it,” explained Rusburm. “Someone tipped us off that the group was in possession of an extremely dangerous magical child. We couldn’t find the child so we’ve been knocking down the door of every dwarf household in Runcasolis looking for it. Sad to say things may have gotten a little bit out of hand.”
“Every dwarf in Runcasolis is dead!” shouted Tristos.
“Keep your voice down,” scolded Rusburm. “I’m handling it okay? Let’s just keep this between guild members and be on the lookout for a baby gnome shooting lighting bolts out her ass or whatever. Can you do that for me?”
Tristos tried to ignore the feeling of his heart going into cardiac arrest as he said “Sure, no problem.”
Rusburm slapped him on the arm. “I knew I could count on you.”
Tristos waited for Busord and Rusburm to disappear into the crowd before hurrying back home.
*****
Tristos wasn’t sure what he would find when he returned home. He walked into a house that was unusually quiet. Ralice had her back to him as she fussed around with the fire in the hearth. Tristos felt a chill in the air and looked up to see a hole had been blasted straight through the roof. Furniture around the living area sat at weird angles. The patter of little feet against wood skirting behind him, preceded the sight of little Tara dashing through the messy household.
“How was town?” asked Ralice.
Tristos could not detect any feeling in her voice. “It was fine.”
Ralice spun around to give Tristos a ugly sight. The jelly blisters on her face were starting to fade, but now her nose was the size of her entire arm, her ears were still huge, an extra arm clawed at the air out of her mid-section, and a long slimy tongue fell out of her mouth.
“Notice anything different about me?” wondered Ralice with three hands on her hips.
Tristos wasn’t sure if she noticed the changes or not. To cover for himself, he just said. “You’re beautiful as ever my dear.”
“Look at what that dirty little gnome did to me!” screeched Ralice.
She knew. Fenrick must have told her the whole sordid tale. Tristos slowly backed away to the door. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth, but it’s really not that bad.”
“I’m a monster!” shouted Ralice. “I want that little pest out of my house this instant.”
“It’s not that easy.” Tristos spoke as fast as he could. “The guild was behind the death of her family. All of it. The dwarf who came yesterday is probably dead. They’re looking for her. She’s just a baby who can’t control her power. We can’t give her up to them. They’ll kill her.”
“I don’t care!” shouted Ralice so vilely that her words were like poison. Her long tongue licked the air like a snake as she drew closer toward Tristos. “That little good for nothing child is nothing but trouble. She deserves to be dead.”
The couples other children certainly thought otherwise. At that exact moment a burst of purple light sent little Agmatha scooting between her parents on her bottom. She climbed to her feet with a smile on her face.
“Yay!” cried Agamatha. “Again! Again!”
“I wanna play with the baby now, it’s my turn,” argued Fenrick as he chased Tara into the living room. “You’re hogging her.”
Ralice buried her face in her third hand. “Kids, your father and I are having a discussion, go outside.”
The kids were too excited to bother with noticing their tense surroundings and they played with Tara. The little gnome giggled as she chased them all over the house. Her chubby little arms flailed over her head with glee. She was just being a kid. Tara didn’t know her own power and she certainly didn’t ask for it. Tristos couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. In that moment he knew he had to protect her like his own.
“Kids! Listen to me!” Ralice still tried to restore order to the household with little luck. “That child is a diseased pest. You can’t play with her. There’s no telling what she might do to you. Don’t touch her.”
Tara looked up right at Ralice and glowed purple.
Tristos cowered behind an upturned rocking chair in fright.
A beam of light shot out of Tara, hitting Ralice dead on.
Tristos tentatively peered around the chair, wondering what disformed body part Ralice might have next. Surprisingly, Ralice seemed to be okay, other than the number of other previous jinxes placed upon the matriarch, nothing appeared to be amiss.
“Ralice?” wondered Tristos tentatively. “Are you okay?”
Ralice opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Tara had successfully rendered her mute.
Tristos had to admit this was fortunate. Now he could speak his peace without Ralice contradicting him at every turn. She would have to listen to him. He turned to Tara to say “Thanks.”
Tara just looked at him blankly for a moment and went back to chasing the other kids around the house.
“She’s got nobody,” Tristos began. “We have to see through our hate for her sake though, because she needs us. Just this morning you wanted to adopt her. Nothing has changed about Tara since this morning, just your perception of her. She’s not a beast, she’s not an animal, she’s not a pest . . . she’s a person, and we have to do the right thing by treating her like one. It’s okay to be scared but look at the kids.”
The troop of four youngsters had moved outside to chase each other around in circle. They all looked happier than Tristos had ever seen them.
“I don’t want my kids to learn fear for their fellow people and hate from me,” said Tristos. “We’re different and that should be celebrated. So the dwarves took some business away from us. If not them, it would be someone else. That’s the nature of the world. Everything is temporary, but the bond between family can and should endure. I’m done being a monster of hate. I’m not going to let this evil infect me anymore and I hope you can see it in your heart to do the same.”
For the next few months Tristos was Tara’s primary caregiver. He would keep her company during the night and talk to her even though she couldn’t talk back. Tara slept in a basket throughout the day in Tristos’ workshop. Despite Ralice’s objections he always brought her in during the night, allowing her to slumber in their bedroom. When she awoke with nightmares, which was often, he was the one who soothed her.
Tara continued to have disturbing accidents with magic. Tristos was convinced she couldn’t control her power. While there was always a lot of fear she would set the house on fire or worse, most of the magic that came from Tara was harmless.
Ralice was fine. All the bodily disfigurements she suffered from Tara were gone within a few hours and she was back to being her normal self. Still she remained standoffish and distant toward the child.
Tristos didn’t know much about magic. There weren’t many people in Runcasolis who could point him in the right direction either. He knew magic had been around in Fabella as far back as he could remember. Powerful groups like the Sentinels, Titans, and Olympians were scattered throughout history and folklore. Tristos didn’t know how to read so all his information on the subject had to be delivered to him by travelling bards and merchants in Adele. He could never ask any of them directly about a case related to Tara, but nobody knew of any babies blessed with the ability to use magic.
The Blacksmith Guild had murdered or chased away all dwarves and a tremendous amount of halflings from Runcasolis. Rusburm proudly boasted about all the senseless homicide at guild meetings.Tristos stopped attending these meetings, claiming to be sick and busy trying fill large important orders. He did everything and anything he could think of to hide the truth that these people were no longer his friends and they were not a group he wanted to spend any time around at all.
Nobody else seemed to be the least bit concerned about the lack of halflings in Runcasolis. All the humans, fauns, harpies, goblins and merfolk who came to pick up their goods expressed their happiness that their fair town was mysteriously cleared of the little people. Most of them hadn’t even noticed that the halfling population was missing until Tristos said something about it. At which point the self absorbed clientele shrugged their shoulders thanked God it wasn’t them and went on their merry way. Only the taur population displayed any worry over these events.
Taurs in Fabella were centaurs, minotaurs, and slithtaurs, who always got a bad rap from other people because they wore little clothing. Many people didn’t consider them to be intelligent races at all, referring to them as halfbreeds or sub-people not part of the main group. It was one more aspect of the world that Tristos had his eyes opened to. Another example of how he’d carelessly been guilty of belittling entire groups of people who had been mistreated.
Tristos continued to stay at home where he worked in his shop and cared after Tara. He went to great lengths to hide her whenever a client came calling. The last thing he wanted was for word of Tara to get back to the guild.
It took a while for him to find a groove and routine that worked, but Tristos started to enjoy his new life. The same unfortunately could not be said for Ralice.
“This has gone on long enough,” shouted Ralice one day. “I thought you would come to your senses but clearly you’re not going to change your mind.”
“I’m changing for the better because I’m putting in the effort, which is more than I can say for you,” shot back Tristos.
“Why do you always have to make me out to be the monster here?” demanded Ralice. “I don’t want to be the villain. You’re not some holy altruistic hero. Don’t pretend you’re anything other than some scared delusional goblin.”
“I’m trying to do what I think is right.” Tristos rocked back and forth with a sleeping Tara in his arms. “My eyes have been opened to the suffering of people around me. You can’t expect me to turn my back on that and just go about business as usual.”
Ralice paced around their bedroom. “I believe there is a time to stand up for the unfortunate, but I also believe there’s a time to turn the other cheek. Tara needs someone who can help her. That’s not us.”
“Well, it’s certainly not you,” quipped Tristos.
“Turn her over to the military.” Ralice glared at Tara. “That’s what we should have done in the first place. They’ll get her to someone who can help her. It’s their job.”
Tristos tossed his head dismissively. “It was also their job to to stop her family from being murdered and look how that turned out. You didn’t see them, Ralice. They don’t care to investigate. I’ve tried getting them to arrest the guild. They won’t do it.”
“You just haven’t been trying hard enough.” Ralice flat out refused to believe the military was as unhelpful as her husband said they were. “Give them the child. I’m not asking you. I’m telling you.”
“This discussion is over.” Tristos turned to leave with Tara to go sleep in the workshop.
Something hard hit Tristos in the back of the head.
He dropped Tara and the basket as he stumbled about to see Ralice behind him.
“Someone had to knock some sense into you.” Ralice took a coil of rope to tie her dazed and confused husband to a wooden post in the center of the household.
The concussion Ralice gave Tristos caused his surroundings to swim in front of him. He couldn’t tell which way was up, let alone fight back. “Ralice don’t –”
“– I’m done talking.” snapped Ralice. “This child is going to be delivered to the military and they will decide what to do with her. Then we can go back to our normal lives. End of discussion.”
“They’ll kill her!” shouted Tristos.
“You’re just being dramatic.” Ralice said dismissively. “You’re not thinking clearly. The military is here to protect us. I’m not a bad person, I’m only doing what’s best for us, Why can’t you see that?”
Tara whined from her basket.
Ralice reached for a sleeping potion in a cabinet and hastened to feed it to the baby.
Tara was too weak to fight Ralice off, as the green liquid slipped into the baby’s mouth, she fell fast asleep.
“There.” Ralice smiled with victory. “That should keep her from having any more nasty fits. I should have drugged her sooner.”
The sound of horse hooves outside the house announced they had visitors.
“It’s about time,” remarked Ralice as she left to open the door. “I was beginning to think my letter had gotten lost.”
“Don’t open the door!”
Ralice didn’t heed Tristos’ warning. As soon as she unlocked the front door of the house, the heavy wooden edge smashed into her head.
Ralice fell to the floor as blood drained from the cut in the side of her forehead.
Tristos struggled against his restraints, but his wife’s skill with a knot was too good. He couldn’t rush to her aid. All he could do was stare up at goblins Busord and Rusburm as they entered the house.
Rusburm’s shrewd eyes roved around the household. “Now, I really didn’t think you would be stupid enough to shelter a baby dwarf. There was a time when I thought you were the best of us Tristos. Your father never would have stooped this low. It appears the apple has fallen very far from the tree.”
“Don’t you touch her!” screamed Tristos at the head of the Blacksmith Guild.
Rusburm chuckled. “You’re not really in the position to stop us from doing anything.”
Ralice stirred from her place on the floor. “I sent for a knight.”
“And your letter wound up in the possession of a knight loyal to the Guild,” explained Rusburm with a casual wave his hand. The rotund goblin stalked toward baby Tara. “Rumors of this child have spread all over the island. She’s too dangerous to be kept alive. Imagine the kind of raw, wild, and reckless things she’ll be capable of if she grows up. No, this power is an abomination that leads to disorder and chaos. The only responsible thing to do is to snuff it out like a candle.”
At this, Busord marched toward the fireplace. The flames highlighted the hulking ork’s thick hands as he seized a log from the fire. Tristos watched in horror as Busord set fire to his home. Embers ate away cherished family heirlooms in seconds as the house was quickly engulfed in an inferno.
“Kids!” screamed Ralice.
She tried to get up, but Busord pushed her against Tristos.
Rusburm picked up Tara in her basket. “The choice is yours Tristos. Save your children and your home or follow us to save some miserable little creature. Time is running out old boy. No savior is going to come to your rescue now.”
With those final words of parting, Rusburm turned around and marched out the door with a sleeping Tara. Busord lumbered into the dark after him.
Ralice struggled up and fumbled with the knot she’d tied around Tristos’ wrists. “I’m sorry. Oh, Lord, you were so right. How could I be so stupid?”
“There’ll be plenty of time for apologies in the future. Lord knows there’s a lot I have to atone for too.” Tristos tore himself away from the ropes binding him to the burning post. “We have to get the kids and save the house.”
“The house is gone,” said Ralice. “Our family will survive . . . and that includes Tara.”
*****
A short while later, Rusburm took a long pull from a bottle of wine. The excess red liquid dribbled out of his mouth, getting trapped in his stringy beard and running down his wide front. Rusburm’s yellow teeth caught dim light aurora overhead as he grinned with pleasure at the thought of his conquest now being moments from ending once and for all.
“Let’s get this over with,” ordered Rusburm.
He and other guild members had been slaughtering every halfling in Runcasolis for weeks looking for this child. The assistance of paid members of the military turning the other way while the Guild did their business was greatly appreciated. He had no idea the child could be hiding out with one of his own men until Ralice’s letter reached his attention.
All was well though, now that the child was about to be sliced in half by Busord’s axe.
Rusburm watched as his big brutish partner deposited the child in a basket on the jungle floor. It was not enough just to drop the kid and leave her. Rusburm needed to verify that she wouldn’t be any more trouble, and that meant staying till the bitter end.
The blade of Busord’s axe caught the light of the aurora.
Rusburm took his eyes off the grisly scene just for a second to check if there was any more wine remaining inside his cloudy glass bottle.
A harsh THUMP called Rusburm’s attention back to the scene. He expected the sound to be that of the axe being brought down on the helpless little dwarf child. Instead it was caused by Busord himself who had fallen backwards. The baby still appeared to be unharmed.
“What are you doing you big oaf?” demanded Rusburm. “Get up.”
Busord rolled on the ground screaming in agony.
Then Rusburm saw it. Horrifying red light from above shone over an arrow buried in the orc’s arm.
“Who’s there?” Rusburm spun around wildly in the thick jungle scanning the canopy overhead. “Show yourself!”
WHOOSH!
Rusburm felt the wind of an arrow speeding past his neck. He turned around to follow the path of the arrow just in time to catch a fleeting glimpse of a dark figure under a black cloak. Rusburm drew his sword and started slashing madly into the darkness, hoping to hit whoever had fired the deadly arrow.
“Is that you Tristos?” Rusburm called out into the darkness inching closer to the baby as he spoke, readying himself to plunge a sword into the child. “Your family means so little to you that you would leave their side to save the life of one who doesn’t it. Look at what this child has brought you. She’s a disease. I know it might seem like she’s able to do fantastic things, but think about what this could mean for people like us without her power. People like her will use their abilities to squash us like bugs. We have to make them extinct or its us that will pay the price. Come out of your hiding place and we’ll settle this like adults.”
Rusburm drew within striking distance of the child. He made his move and thrust his sword at the baby . . . or rather where she had been. The blade of Rusburm’s sword tasted only dirt and not flesh.
The baby and the basket she was in had disappeared into the night.
Rusburm boiled with rage. “Where are you?”
Those were the last words he said before a dark cloth fell over him, snuffing his voice out like a candle.
*****
The house was gone but the family remained whole . . . with one additional member. They all scrunched together in the workshop. It was a tight fit, but they had each other and that’s what mattered.
Ralice spent the next few days fawning over baby Tara. Tristos spent long hours just leaning against the threshold of his workshop watching his beautiful wife dance with the baby gnome in the little space lit by candlelight and the occasional purple glow of Tara’s magic. In looking at the two of them you’d never know that Ralice had any ill will toward dwarfkind at all. She’d fully embraced Tara as her child.
That made the day Tristos dreaded would come, all the more painful.
Hogan, Tara dwarfen father, returned to collect his daughter. There was little argument over the matter. Tristos and Ralice gave themselves and the children a few days to say goodbye to Tara, but they were only prolonging the inevitable. She needed to go back to her family.
“I had to run from the guild members in the fort,” explained Hogan. “I would I have come earlier if I could.”
“I know you would have,” said Tristos as he met with the dwarf in the ruins of the house.
“We separated before the baby was born,” explained Hogan. “I wasn’t there when she was born. I wasn’t there for her first steps. I don’t even know her.”
“You have the chance to be there for her now,” said Tristos.
Hogan looked back at Tara and Ralice. “Part of me wonders if I should just leave her here. She has a loving family and I — I don’t know how to be a father.”
“You just care for her and protect her with your life,” coached Tristos as he leaned against the charred remains of a beam. “Teach her right from wrong. Show her how to love people and treat others with kindness. That’s all any of us can do.”
Hogan nodded. “I like the name ‘Tara.’ Your wife chose well. I don’t know what her mother called her, but I like to think she would have liked it too.”
“Are you heading to Fort Orthos?” asked Tristos.
“No, we’re heading back to the mainland,” said Hogan, puncturing the bubble of hope Tristos had of visiting Tara as she grew up. “We can’t stay in a lawless place like this.”
Tristos couldn’t help smiling. “Between you and me, I think the military of Runcasolis will have a little extra incentive to maintain law and order from now on.”
Before Hogan could ask what Tristos meant. Ralice appeared behind the dwarf with baby Tara and her belongings.
Ralice choked back tears as she handed Tara over to Hogan. “She’s rash on her tummy. I made some ointment that will help sooth it. Just rub it over the rash nightly for the next few days.”
“Thank you,” said Hogan. “I don’t know what to say.”
Ralice forced a smile. It was all she could do to keep from collapsing into tears.
Tristos pulled his wife close as they watched Hogan climb atop the back of a boar and set off to the sunset. Tara looked back at them over her father’s shoulder. Her big eyes watered with tears under a mane of blonde hair. She glowed purple. A trail of sad purple sparks followed the path of father and daughter as they rode off into the distance.