Chapter Four: Hate and Other Masks

On the second floor, Huiln found a broom closet behind one door, and behind another stacks of books, their binding broken, and a work table with brushes and glue pots. He stamped up to the third floor, where there were private reading rooms, all occupied. The fourth floor was twice as tall, with nothing but rows and rows of ceiling-scraping bookshelves, and wheeled ladders for patrons to reach the top shelves.

While Huiln wasn't affected by goblins' fear of heights, and staring up towering shelves didn't bother him, he felt pressed when the shelves swayed as he walked between them. Claustrophobia was rare in goblins, who were stricken by its opposite, agoraphobia, but Huiln's fear of looming, overloaded, shelves was a rational one, as while eight pound elven tomes are more enlightening than eight pound stones, both fall with an equally crushing weight. So when Huiln heard a resounding boom, and he scampered back through the central aisle, each row shivered from the reverberation. He slowed to a walk, as much to quiet his pounding heart as to listen for other telltale sounds. When he reached the stairwell, he heard ringing steel, crunching, snapping, and then an escalating clangor, each smash followed by a crash. Huiln knew the sounds of battle well enough to guess what transpired by sound alone: the ringing steel was assuredly hand weapons, the crunching and snapping sounds were no doubt doors being broken, and the smashing piled on crashing could only be a giant—or worse, giants—charging through bookshelves and interior walls.

Huiln froze on the stairwell landing, unable to choose up or down. While the commotion below made a strong argument that the Doorway was concealed downstairs, it also made it reasonable to hide himself upstairs. Being a slain bystander in a robbery or a riot might prove him right, but it was contrary to the spirit of an escape. He struggled with the alternatives, wishing he was as cunningly creative as Khyte, who would uncover more favorable options, whether the new possibilities were coaxed from hiding with his sly barbarian charm, or bullied into existence by brute force. But though he racked his brain, no excluded middles came to mind. Perhaps if I thought like Khyte, he reasoned—like a barbarian equally disloyal to friend and foe, with little to no book learning, and an elven sophist and spy for a tutor—what would I do? When he drew a blank, he descended quietly.

On the third floor, the private rooms had emptied, except one with a closed door and pulled blinds. Perhaps the patrons, feeling safer in a group, had packed into the reading room, Huiln reasoned. As he approached the second floor, he heard the first floor door open, and the clink of armored boots, and backpedaled a few steps. When their shadows pooled in front of the door, he pressed against the stairwell, hoping to observe without giving away his position, but the goblin couldn't have anticipated his shocked recognition, and he lurched down the steps toward them.

"Khyte!" When his old friend turned an expressionless face, Huiln knew the human was here for one thing: killing. Seeing the goblin, Khyte's mask-like features animated, and after a momentary war against darker emotions, a smile won out.

"Huiln! I have never been happier, brother."

Behind him were several dryads, including one that wore the face of Inglefras (though Huiln knew not if this was the dryad seed that acted as Khyte's fiance, general, and queen by proxy), and an elf, also with a hated face: Frellyx. While none showed any internal struggle to match Khyte's, neither were they happy to see the goblin. When her eyes became half-lidded slits of contempt, Inglefras's face, already a wooden simulation of a face—Huiln felt nausea then, as he remembered kissing those cheeks—became even more mask-like. Frellyx's eyes seemed to bore through Huiln.

Khyte embraced Huiln, who pulled himself free, took a step back, and asked, "are we?" Climbing the steps behind the dryads were several robed in black embroidered with red runes colored and patterned after the Abyss. Others would assume they were as human as Khyte, but the goblin knew Uenarakian speech and runes, and had seen these cultists on the battlefield arrayed against the Councilor-Generals' army as well, to know that they were giant sorcerers that had diminished themselves with an enchantment.

"Are we what? Happy, or brothers?"

"Both!"

"Don't ask me sad questions, brother," said Khyte. "I don't have any sad answers."

"Just lies," snorted Huiln

"No, we will do the asking," said the dryad with Inglefras's face. Was it his imagination, or did her face seem more animated? Flooded again with thoughts of kissing the dryad queen, this time the idea made him feel buoyant. His breathing had become more expansive, as if he was trying to fill himself again with his past feelings. He should know better, he rued; he knew of the effect of a royal dryads' pheromone. Since it felt so good—too good—to be in her presence, he must be on guard not only against them, but his own deceitful heart.

"It's a pleasure to serve," said Huiln, executing a well-mannered bow, "though I don't know who I address." Huiln would assume this Inglefras a co-conspirator of the one that blackmailed Eurilda with her infant son, as if he was not careful, and alluded to this event to the wrong Inglefras, she would slay him to conceal it.

"Consider me the Inglefras you knew."

"Knew?"

"Yes, she was the one we are."

Huiln snorted. "Don't be surprised if my answers are nonsense too."

Inglefras sighed. "Have you not, in all your reading, learned the truth about dryads? Neither the Inglefras you knew, nor this one that stands before you, is the true Inglefras."

"If you're not the true Inglefras," asked Huiln, "does that make you the lie Inglefras?" Though he aimed for a flippant tone, he failed, and underscored his words with a regrettable emphasis. This earned him a dark look from Khyte, who had the mellowest mood in the mob of humans, elf, giants, and dryads. He laughed, smiled, and said, "now that I'm here, all Five Worlds are represented. It's not a sight you see every day."

"Your friend is hostile, Khyte," said Frellyx. "His games are puerile, so if killing him is off the table, bring him with us."

"You're talking about Huiln, " said Khyte.

"He's more your friend than mine," said the elf. "At best, he's a paying client of Quront Sabata, and at worst our enemy."

"Oh, Huiln's the worst," said Inglefras. "He killed Kharteia's seed. But Frellyx is right. We'll sort it out later. Provided he holds his tongue," she added, giving the goblin a meaningful glare. Having never known a Kharteia, Huiln guessed her the one slain in his escape.

"I have no objections," Huiln said, "nor any comment. I'll be seen and not heard."

While Huiln last saw Khyte, he had shunned a friend he still considered too treacherous to forgive, and ignored the changes a year with dryads had wrought. Now he studied his half-friend. Not that Khyte was unrecognizable; the dryads worked no magic other than the long spell of influence. This young barbarian was as Huiln remembered—dark as iron, red haired, and with muscles rare outside of paintings and sculpture. But Khyte had grown; not only had he filled out in a flattering way, so that his stony face softened, and his much-enlarged musculature moved more gracefully, but his coppery hair and beard, which Khyte had taken pains to keep short, grew out into red, wiry rings, painstakingly brushed, fanned out, and perfectly coiffed—a little too perfect, reminding Huiln not of the intuitive work of a hairstylist, but of the methodical clipping of a groundskeeper. There were other effects of being kept by the dryad princess, the most noticeable of which was that Khyte had cast aside Azuri's sword, as rank as it was, for one of the dryads' hardwood blades. Though the dryads' blades were of a dense wood unknown on the other Worlds, and fire-hardened further until obdurate as metal, no wooden blade, no matter how tough, held an edge like metal, and it was this weapon choice that demonstrated how much Khyte had softened under Inglefras's influence. It was also troubling to see him in ridiculous furs draped like white wings over exquisite dryad armor, lacquered wood fortified by shining leaf-shaped scales. The Khyte that Huiln knew preferred everyday linens, leathers, and double-knit wools, loathing not only finery but heavy armor, which was entirely unnecessary for one that killed twenty-five goblins in one day while armored only with demi-gauntlets. Moreover, Khyte was nearly proof against being stabbed in the back due to his lovable and jovial nature. Though Huiln schemed against Khyte many times, he was easily disarmed by the Drydanan warrior's affable smile and infectious laughter. Not that Huiln was so deluded as to believe Khyte a good man, but it was hard not to believe Khyte's wicked desires less base than his own, though they wanted the same things—and, in point of fact, once shared an affection for this imperious dryad queen—when Khyte's heart was so warm, and his demeanor so easy-going.

Inglefras had perfected her regal sneer, so that if Huiln told anyone he was once a suitor in the princess's goblin harem, they would never believe him, let alone that they were acquainted, for there was no recognition in that beauteous face. So impassive was it now that despite the saccharine signature of her cloying pheromones, Huiln saw not the beauty, but the wood. The almond brown dryad seed was also shelled by armor of lacquered wood and shining metal leaves, and a golden circle girded her green hair. As they continued upstairs, she said, "you called this traitor 'brother,' Khyte."

"You condemn him to silence, then judge him in earshot. If I regard him not a brother but the best of friends, will you recant your unworthy slights, or double down and end him?"

"The last time I listened to pleas for clemency, that monster escaped with your son."

"Don't speak of her."

"I'll speak as I will, and you will treat me as the mother of your daughter, though your offspring is no dryad at all."

"Neither am I, not that you would ever treat me like one. Do you pretend to love, as well?"

"Of course I do," said Inglefras, "I'm not even real, just the seed of the one who loves you. Which you know full well! Mocking my unreality is cruel, my prince."

While they bickered for some time, Huiln was preoccupied with his own anxiety, and wondered at their destination. When they reached the highest story, followed by the sound of mailed boots, Frellyx waved a large iron key, and the stairwell ceiling receded at least twelve stories, revealing countless stairs above them.

This was when Huiln heard a voice in his right ear, not the Spider-God's dulcet whisper, but an equally recognizable murmur: "make your way to the front."

When Huiln froze, the black robed giants ran into him, bowling him over onto the steps. One yelled, "Get up goblin, or I'll peel you off the soles of my boots."

Huiln's brown blood trickled down his scalp and from his lip. He reined in his resentment, knowing they would be happy for an opportunity to crush a goblin. The giants had no doubt enthusiastically thrown themselves into their collision, for they should not have knocked him to the ground so easily. While giants were large even in human guise, goblins had stony muscles and were heavier than they looked. "What are you looking at, mudboy?" Mudboy was the worst pejorative for goblins, a slur which came less from their earthy coloration than from brown blood and a fear of heights that grounded their civilization in single-story dwellings.

Though far in the lead and still bickering with Inglefras, Khyte jumped back down two steps at a time. The giants stood their ground as he helped Huiln to his feet. "There's no time for this," he said, pointing down the stairwell. "They're not far." Huiln was torn between the exultation of seeing his friend return to himself, and the humiliation that Khyte once again had saved him, and the jubilation won out, as when things were right, that was the status quo he remembered. Then the goblin recalled what caused him to stumble.

For he had heard not Lyspera's whisper, but Eurilda's. The diminished giantess was no god, but had no doubt chosen Huiln as her steed for escaping Ler Gilaila's scouring flames. Huiln needed to finish sorting through his feelings, not only for these half-friends, false friends, and hated faces climbing the Quront Sabata's stairs with him, but the diminished giantess that whispered in his ear.

Though he'd much rather have Khyte at his back than on the other side, even given recent events, it would mean backing Inglefras as well, not only as ruler of the Dryad World, but as empress of The Five Worlds. Huiln was spared from choosing by what happened next.

As Khyte ran back up to Inglefras, Huiln followed, dabbing at his chin with his ripped sleeve. "What do you want, Khyte? Were you the center of the battle I heard below?" Inglefras's smile would have seemed saintly if it wasn't topped by leering eyes tainted with schadenfreude. Huiln made a mental note not to crow when he turned the tables on the usurper; spite was such an ugly emotion, and he wished to be better.

"I'll tell you everything, Huiln. Just not now."

"Where are we going?" Huiln asked, wiping another stream of brown blood from his chin. "Better yet, how did you get here?"

"How do you think?"

"Show me the way. I'm weary of Alfyria." In truth, Huiln's exhaustion had set in on The Dryad World. He was sick to death of trees and snobs, and missed the good food of Nahure.

"You know how we traveled here."

"Humor me," said Huiln. When Khyte said nothing, the goblin added, "it's just books, you know. Nothing else."

"No, there's something else."

"What's special about the elves' Doorway, Khyte?"

"Nothing," said Khyte.

"Though we're grateful it's here," said Inglefras. "No more questions, Nahurian."

"How about an observation?" said Huiln. "Won't the High Tzhurarkh lay siege to this building now you're here?"

"You lie, goblin," said Inglefras. "It's just another question."

"Regardless," said Huiln. "How will you weather that?"

"You fool," said Inglefras. "We're the storm. Save your gloomy forecast for your High Tzhurarkh."

"He's not my High Tzhurarkh," said Huiln. "I haven't even met him."

"Regrettable—for you," sighed Inglefras. "You would have been useful to me."

"Huiln," said Khyte, "let's talk about something else." As happened many times before, Khyte again came to his rescue, and the gratitude that welled up in Huiln also drowned him in shame; even now, the goblin thought of Khyte as 'the traitor', so that his friend's name had become a weird, ungainly, shape to speak or think. "Remember when we last came to Alfyria, Huiln? After stealing the Qruln Tchaban, we bought a bag of those sweet, hard rolls to use as skipping stones at the wharf. Only one skipped, and the others sunk into the Cevon Jintawa."

"Brother," said Huiln, though it pained him to call the traitor that, "though I find your tale very curious, having heard of the Qruln Tchaban, and having found elven pastries just as disagreeable, I have never seen the Cevon Jintawa. Perhaps Frellyx was at your side that day, throwing bread into the elves' ocean, as this is my first journey to Alfyria."

Khyte frowned. "Are you certain? I was reminded of you many times since my beloved planned this trip to the Elven World."

Huiln had neither the heart nor the courage to tell Khyte that what he felt was conscience or, if immune to moral compunction, a deep cut to their sentimental bond.

The twentieth floor stairwell emptied into a large gallery overlooking the descending stairs on one side and several doors on the other, including a white stone double door from which a phalanx of armored Treikondant Cerund burst out two abreast, their metal masks lowered. Huiln recognized Kejuro by the garish grimace of his winged golden mask, as well as Ler Gilaila's painted wolf mask, the praying priest mask, and the other masks of those that had fought Eurilda, as well as many others, such as a tusked dragon, a mirrorized octagon painted with at least a dozen eyes, and the image of a labyrinthine castle, its eye-slits peering though the tops of two towers. The gray light of a new day dimly illuminated a towering stained glass window so that their masks, in the faint light of the green, red, and orange panes, changed from moment to moment like real faces. The stained glass window looked to be from the same hand as the mosaic, as it also depicted The Five Worlds, though its background color was not black, but midnight blue, and there was neither Spider-God nor white webs but a sixth world of blue panes, in its center. As the sixth world lay in its dead center, circled by a corona of worlds and blue connecting glass, the effect was of a monstrous eye staring down on the opposing forces.

"Well met, Frellyx," said Kejuro, his voice echoing in the broad gallery. Frellyx bowed stiffly, as if out of practice, while the fully armored Kejuro bowed with poise and grace. When Frellyx tepidly moved his blade en garde, Kejuro's sword rang it with such gusto that Frellyx was brushed back, but in the rapid exchange that followed, one's strikes mirrored the other's parries and vice versa, although to Huiln it seemed that Frellyx lazily copied Kejuro's flagrantly original style. In one pass, Frellyx gambled on a lunge that would have impaled any other opponent, but Kejuro swatted the thrust with his backhand, then swung towards Frellyx's collarbone with a riposte that Frellyx didn't dodge so much as dive to evade.

While luck was Huiln's saving grace in the sword fights he had survived, he had witnessed many of Khyte's one-sided duels, and considered himself a competent judge of sword artistry. That said, he had never seen a fight between two masters, in which the lesser skill was subtly constrained and forced to take many risks compared to the freer abandon of the greater.

In the rush of both sides to find opponents, Khyte fell back to guard Inglefras, and when Huiln backed towards them, a Treikondant Cerund intercepted him, with blade drawn and a mask that was an opaque black diamond etched with white flowers.

"You're better than me," said Frellyx. "This could become interesting."

"It might," said Kejuro, smiling. When their blades crossed, Kejuro forced Frellyx towards the railed balcony overlooking the stairwell.

"You're enjoying this!" Frellyx accused the other.

"I am, if only a little," agreed Kejuro.

As this banter unfolded, the black masked guardian pointed her sword at Huiln—left handed, he observed. Despite mask and armor, he recognized her a moment later, as her right hand was not wearing a gauntlet because of a purplish, puffy, and obviously broken thumb. "Cyhari?" he asked. Her answer was her flickering blade, which scratched his left hand, then his right hand. "I am unarmed."

"You lie."

"Do you see any weapons?"

"You'd injure me if I let you. With or without a weapon."

"Do you mean to kill me?"

"I haven't decided," she said. "Why, do you surrender?"

"I haven't decided," he said, though if the mighty Khyte was not a few yards behind him, he might have answered differently. Huiln backed a few steps toward his friend.

"Brother!" Khyte called; Huiln heard a scraping and rattling, then felt something come to rest against his boot. The goblin dared not take his eyes off Cyhari, but when she charged, he stooped to seize it, tucked his knees and chin, and tumbled to the right. When he stood, he unsheathed Khyte's short sword, dropped the scabbard, then brought out Cyhari's double-bladed knife in the other hand.

Cyhari readied for another charge when Frellyx and Kejuro's duel, which had roamed all over the gallery, crossed between them. The two elves were now a stark contrast, with Frellyx straining to parry, and Kejuro smirking as if it was no more strenuous than a game of eukewra. Frellyx moved tersely, keeping his blade chest high and in guard position, in an effort to limit Kejuro's strikes, and Kejuro countered with wide slashes, the point of his sword on one side and then the other, but bobbing back to turn Frellyx's blows.

"Had enough?" asked Kejuro in a steady voice, as if asking when to stop pouring wine.

"Yes," panted Frellyx. The flurry of sword strokes seemed to die down.

"I wasn't expecting the Nahurian," said Kejuro.

"I thought it half-likely."

"How does he fit in?"

"How could he?" When Frellyx rested his sword point on the floor, and Kejuro did not press the advantage, Huiln felt the shock of confusion, and began inching around the duelists so that he could dash for the stairwell.

"Now's the time. Your friend's back is to us," said Kejuro. Huiln again felt confused, as he was backing away and faced all three—not only Kejuro and Frellyx, but Cyhari, who was still divided from Huiln by the dueling elves. But they didn't mean him, he realized.

"I'd rather not have to lie," said Frellyx, "so I'll take her."

When Frellyx turned on Cyhari, she shouted, "Kejuro, kill him!"

"No, I don't think so," said Kejuro, seizing Huiln one-handed and carrying him to the gallery rail.

"Quickly!" hissed Frellyx. Clenching Huiln's ragged shirt, Kejuro dangled the goblin over the stairwell's twenty-floor drop. Half-blind from the spinning room, half-sick from a dizzy height that would frighten giants, and half-deaf from ringing steel, the only thing Huiln could clearly see and hear was his shirt's seams popping. When he flailed with Khyte's sword, it clanged, clacked and clattered in quick succession, then bit into the metal, sticking fast, so that when he pulled back for another swing, his hand came away empty and he elbowed himself in the face.

"Look what you did to yourself, goblin," scoffed Kejuro. "I think you might soil your pants too." When the elf dropped Huiln over the side, the goblin tasted blood.

Huiln plummeted past the nineteenth, eighteenth, and seventeenth floors. When his fall slowed, at first it seemed his final moments creeped by at a torturous pace, but when it took several pounding heartbeats to pass the sixteenth floor, he grabbed the stairwell rail and pulled himself under it onto the cold stairs. Though faint, he laid on the steps for only a few breaths, because with the exception of Khyte, everyone four floors up wanted him dead. When he descended, and the lightness did not pass, he knew he wasn't just light-headed, but light of body,. He felt he could spring back up to the twentieth floor with a tap of his toe.

"Show yourself," Huiln said.

"Not yet," said Eurilda's small voice. "I have less friends than you do on Alfyria." The body lightness enchantment was one of Eurilda's favorites, as added to her mutable size, it gave the giant a grace and stealth she could never have had by nature.

"I may need your help."

"This is me helping," said the disembodied giantess.

"What are they after?" Huiln asked.

"I have ideas, but first I have questions of my own."

"You mean second. First is getting away from here in one piece."

"I always did like you, Huiln," came Eurilda's voice. "You know that, right?" In response to his silence, she added, "In our circle of friends, I now like you best." As they descended, each stairwell window was a progressively brighter shade of blue, striated with vermilion rays from the luminous morning receiving the crackling energy of the Abyss. The skies were nearly clear save for a streamer of dark clouds at the far horizon, but each window they passed in their descent showed the storm more and more unfurled, widening its dark swath over the city and promising inclement weather by afternoon.

"You would say that now," said Huiln. "when I'm useful."

"Now why would you say that?"

"You left me!" Intending to whisper this indignant retort, Huiln hissed as he remembered his pain on awaking, not only from the egg-shaped bruise on his head, but the heartache of his best friend Khyte choosing to flee with the polyamorous dryad princess and the treacherous giant, and leaving Huiln to King Merculo's not-so-tender mercies.

"You know it wasn't that simple. The statue fell, and one of its fragments knocked you out. Moreover, our plot was discovered. What should we have done?"

"You could have shrunk me and put me in that pouch with Azuri, for one."

After a long pause, Eurilda said, "always the smart one." She laughed. "In the face of so much reasonableness, what can I do but admit you were right not to trust me?"

"Apologize."

"That's unlikely. You can count this rescue as your apology."

"Who's rescuing who?" scoffed Huiln. "You're riding on me like a flea. And after I take you to safety, you'll still need me."

"Let's talk about something else." By now, Huiln had descended past the first floor, towards the underground tunnel. "I don't know which is worse—the way you looked at that elf, or the way she overpowered you."

"I'm here, am I not? I got the better of her."

"That's right, you did. You're a dirty fighter, Huiln."

"Don't you sleep?"

"You're lumpy, muscly, and a much better stadium than a bed. Not that I was about to sleep, the way you were ogling that Alfyrian. I've never seen a goblin kiss an elf, and I was wondering if it would work, with your overlarge jaw and overcrowded teeth, and her overlong nose...and overabundant elvishness. Elves are so stiff."

"As boards. How could you peep at us from your diminished perspective? Weren't you out of scale?"

"Normally it is. But I've practiced my elemental magics, so that I can curve the air into a kind of a lens for distance viewing. Where are you going? I thought you'd head to Kuln."

"No," said the goblin. "There's a mystery in all this—what did Cyhari do that got Azuri arrested? It may be relevant. With luck, we'll find something at Azuri's for the High Tzhurarkh's eyes." Finding the tunnel doorway propped ajar by a pile of books, Huiln raised his eyes toward the ceiling and mouthed a thank you, but knowing with the utmost uncertainty that the Spider God would see his thanks and find it gratifying, he couldn't help accenting the gesture with emphatic eye roll. Acknowledgment of Lyspera's existence took enough of a toll, and praise would be entirely too irksome, as while he had the good manners to thank her for her forethought in placing the books in his future, he would be damned if he was going to praise her for what was just a link in a chain of inconveniences she had premeditated for him—and as a god's premeditation is as good as a happening from their perspective perched outside of time—for what she had already done to him.

"You stupid goblin," she said, "you still want to fulfill the mission?"

"Of course," said Huiln. "And with Sarin Gelf—and your son—at the High Tzhurarkh's palace, I'm assuming you want to come." At the bottom of the stairwell, when Huiln trod through chilly rain water that had trickled down the tunnel's slight grade to pool there, and his feet were both soaked and chilled, he made the rudest goblin gesture that he knew up into the air. While he intended it for both the Spider God and the lazily presumptuous giantess, he hoped the gesture was too out of scale for the miniature giant, who had no reason to magically spy on him during their conversation. He wouldn't actually want to offend the giantess, who may have been less dangerous than a god, but was nonetheless both giantess and sorceress and more dangerous than he, and who wasn't likely to have plans for him at all beyond his immediate convenience to her.

"Why would Sarin Gelf be there?", Eurilda said.

"Why would Sarin Gelf steal your son and race you to Alfyria?" When Eurilda was silent, Huiln said, "someone wanted you here."

"Why?"

"Yes, but the right why to ask is not 'why do they want you here,' but 'why did they make you come?' There is only one answer: they needed you here, and couldn't risk you saying no."

"My why is much simpler: why me?"

"The High Tzhurarkh is not only Alfyria's ruler and general, but its spymaster; I'm guessing he got wind of the coalition." As they neared the exit, a cool breeze sprinkled rain in the tunnel.

"I have only guesses about this coalition, Huiln."

"I have only speculation, myself. Especially since I don't know what side we're fighting for anymore, as on Ielnarona, Frellyx was at the Councilor-Generals' table, while here he conspires with the Treikondant Cerund. What I do know is I won't be on his side, and since he wants me dead, his plan has no room for me, either."

"Maybe not all Treikondant Cerund."

"So it's a coup?"

"It's not that simple. Perhaps the key player—whether that's Inglefras or Frellyx—wants the Quront Sabata and the High Tzhurarkh as well."

"It's a twofold coup, then." As they left the tunnel, the cool breeze gave way to a blast of cold early morning air, and they joined the traffic on the crowded sidewalk, where the canopies' sconces were still lit green. When Eurilda hopped off, grew elf high, and looked down at Huiln, the goblin saw that the giantess was no longer so disheveled, filling out azure blue robes and a sable black cloak, and having hacked her blonde tresses and re-braided them so the braids jutted out. But though she had styled her hair and stolen clean and fashionable clothes, Eurilda's frenzied glances at Huiln and over her shoulder made her seem more unrestrained, and she made a stark contrast to the harmless looking crowds of aproned cafe and restaurant workers, and robed clerks and other functionaries, making their way to work.

Though Huiln couldn't help thinking that the workers seemed disturbingly overanxious to begin their daily routine. When they started to run, Huiln cast about for the source, looking for good hiding places as he did so, though he still couldn't see the cause of the mob's alarm. Even more frightening than their flight was the silence with which they hurried, which set the stage for an even more fearful tremor as Huiln saw ranks of armored elves pressing through, each mounted on tiabelas that were no less than five hands taller than the other elven horses Huiln had seen. Barded with rattling metal skirts, these destriers cantered through the pedestrians. When one's shoulder impacted a canopy post, it cracked, and rainwater sloughed down to spray the crowd and soak a merchant's wagon, so that grain burst into the street.

Watching the crowds flee the advancing soldiers, rather than stand to one side, indicated to Huiln these troops were the hated and feared hand of a brutal king, enjoying a much more authoritarian rule than the enlightened despots of the Goblin World. The elf king's bully boys wore not the masked helms of the Treikondant Cerund, but shining helms crowned with seven points, and coats made of a brilliant metallic mesh of linked seven pointed stars. When their eyes lighted on Huiln, the lordly elves glided rapidly through the scattering pedestrians, as if not clad in mail but gossamer.

"Huiln of House Hwarn?" said one of the armored elves. Though his hair was concealed under his resplendent crown helm, he was distinguished by wispy, azure blue eyebrows and sideburns.

"Isn't it presumptuous," said the goblin, "to ask the unluckiest goblin you meet, who's clad in rags and who skipped dinner, if he was born into a noble house?"

The elf sneered. "You are indeed unlucky, to speak so discourteously to Tzhurarkhs. For such impertinence, any of us could strike you with the flat of our sword, or all of us could claim the privilege."

"You're High Tzhurarkh?" scoffed Huiln.

"No, just one of a hundred in service to the High Tzhurarkh, who may only be served by Tzhurarkhs. If you're not Huiln of House Hwarn, make peace with your gods." When the elves drew their swords, he continued, "one swat won't kill you, but a dozen might."

It would have been natural to cringe at the sight of so many bared weapons, but having a giant at your back can put steel in your spine, even if you're uncertain she's on your side. Still, it was all that he could do to keep the stammer out of his voice. "What if I am Son of Hwarn?"

"No more song and dance, goblin," said the Tzhurarkh.

Though the street and sidewalk had cleared, Huiln felt many eyes on him from the surrounding windows, and couldn't resist playing to the audience. "Yes," said Huiln. "I am the one you seek."

"Huiln of House Hwarn, for suspicion of espionage you are under arrest by order of the High Tzhurarkh. Will you come with us?"

"I have a choice?"

"You may come gracefully, or be humiliated in front of your lady."

"I am not his lady," said Eurilda, and when Huiln snickered, thinking Eurilda was no lady at all, the giantess glared, then continued, "though I may have relevant information."

"What information? What is your name?"

"Eurilda of Uenarak."

"Then for suspicion of espionage, Eurilda of...wait, did you say Uenarak?" The elf in the ostentatious crown raised his sword en garde. "To clarify, you mean the island of giants?"

"Is this my welcome?" laughed Eurilda. "Small wonder many giants pretend to be human in the face of prejudice."

"With all due deference," said the Tzhurarkh, "and with my apologies if I did not extend the honor that is due a visitor and a lady, but begging your pardon, you are still a giant."

"Now you're belaboring the obvious."

"Will you come quietly?"

"Giant and sorceress."

"What?"

"I'm not only a giant, but a sorceress as well. I wanted all the prejudice on the table."

Huiln couldn't stomach her hypocrisy. "Maybe if both pot and cauldron weren't black?"

"Excuse me?" said Eurilda, glaring at the goblin.

"Never mind," muttered Huiln. No matter how many reassurances Khyte gave, he had never considered the bigot giantess a friend. Not only was Eurilda a physical threat; not only did her magic author horror for those in her orbit; most execrable of all, her mind was a fortress of the most unpleasant thoughts imaginable, housing vile prejudices and harboring unconscionable hatred, and all of it stacked upon the most despicable axioms, as if she pretended to discover her loathing through discourse and logic. It was difficult to refrain from commenting when Huiln so dearly wanted to lambast the giantess for her hateful nature.

"I'll come," said Eurilda, "though not quietly, as I have words for the High Tzhurarkh."

When the Tzhurarkh captain issued an order that Huiln, who was fluent in Alfyrian, could not comprehend, the Tzhurarkhs split their number into two flanking columns, one on either side of Huiln and Eurilda. While Huiln was impressed by the craftsmanship of their armor, the coded order, and their discipline, had he not been cowed by their blades, he might have mocked them again for sending so many kings to capture one goblin. Still, he made a mental note of the joke, which would be a lively embellishment if he survived to tell the tale.

When they marched into the street, rainwater streaming into the gutters soaked Huiln's pants. Though none in their train talked, it was a noisy silence: armored boots sloshed through the puddles; rain drained into the sewers; and, the stately pomp of the Tzhurarkh procession forced carriages to stop or skirt around them. Loudest of all were those grumbling at the commandeering of their thoroughfare. The next block was the same, as was the next, as was the first cross street, and the monotony of their parade of elven kings grew oppressive, the more so when they left the noise of the business district for the cultivated greenery of a vast park that fringed the vaulting stones of the High Tzhurarkh's palace.

Palace was an understatement, for the High Tzhurarkh's abode was an opulent manifesto of the Alfyrians' decadent architectural aesthetic, consisting not merely of one castle and its walled estate, but of countless interconnected castles, their foundations and buttresses fused, and their battlements wedded in the air by a series of stone conduits that seemed so tenuous as to defy common sense. Or rather, Huiln admitted, goblin sense, for common sense on Alfyria embraced this illogical synthesis of the possible with the impossible.

Huiln looked up, up, up, and still up, his eyes following the stone struts to an upside down castle, in which distant elves drilled at arms on its manor field. Though topsy-turvy, walking on soil diametrically opposed to where Huiln stood, they did not fall, and moreover, went about their business as if the city below was not their sky above. To be fair, they had equal claim to which way was up, and which down—though the goblin was reluctant to pursue this line of reasoning any further, as despite his resistance to goblin fears, he was nonetheless a goblin, and loath to contemplate the vast spaces and dimensions that he dared travel. Moreover, he had already seen this trick upon arriving on Alfyria, and what seemed the greater miracle was the castle not crushing its flimsy conduits.

After their escorts ushered them through a gigantic portcullis, they continued their march down the winding road, which widened into a busy concourse sporting more businesses and something which astonished the goblin.

As a young goblin, reading of the High Tzhurarkh's one hundred attendant Tzhurarkhs, each with their own castle orbiting the High Tzhurarkh's, he accepted the outlandish description as fact. When Huiln grew into a more skeptical adult, he didn't find the Palace of One Hundred Castles plausible; while one hundred and one castles strained credulity, a city with one hundred and one kings had to be fiction. Gaping at the legendary city within a city didn't make the spectacle more believable.

What Huiln's Alfyrian books did not tell him was that the Palace of One Hundred Castles was peopled not just by the rich, and their pampered staff, but by hosts of beggars, who lined the Concourse, and pressed up against their rulers—a few even daring to tug at their cloaks. It was clear these mendicants were unafraid of the Tzhurarkhs, unlike those outside the Palace.

"They do exist," said Huiln.

"Unfortunately, Elves are all about us," agreed Eurilda.

"No, I mean the poor. Look at them. It's like the poor of all worlds live in the Palace."

"Where Alfyria is concerned, that is very nearly true," said the captain, "as it is a crime to be poor, but no crime to live on the munificence of the High Tzhurarkh. They live free so long as he pities them."

"What freedom?", snorted Huiln. "What living?"

"Hold on," said Eurilda. "It's a crime to be poor in Alfyria?"

"Only for the kukurre," said the captain, using an elvish word meaning 'the unpitied.' "The real pity is it's not a crime to be a poor listener."

Though the giantess seemed to ignore the discourtesy, Huiln wasn't fooled by that indifference. She had already started a mental checklist of this elf's offenses. "What's the humane punishment for poverty? Debtor's prison? The rack?"

"It's neither our business nor our concern," stressed Huiln.

"You brought it up," roared the giantess.

"Justice is meted out according to mercy," said the elf. "You'll see."