Chapter Six: Ialuna

Ialuna maintained her silence as they returned through the guarded corridor. Their departure was marked by eerie quietude, with the Kundan Cerund not stirring for a salute, and the trumpeters at rest, so that all that was heard was the swish-swish of Huiln's princeling rags and the clip-clap of Ialuna's boots. The Tzhurarkh's footwear was as distinctive as her earrings, being polished black leather inlaid with a kyrdayn of bright green enamel depicted rampant, all four wings raised to strike down its unknown enemy.

Palace roads bridged one castle to another until they arrived on a large lot suspended in mid-air by Alfyrian architectural and other-dimensional tricks, upon which soldiers already gathered. To the left was the chaotic skyline of elven skyscrapers, while just ahead, the road continuing from the platform dipped toward the Quront Sabata. Though the elven bookstore was miles away, its central black tower loomed several stories over the surrounding spires.

Seeing their Tzhurarkh general, the assembled Kundan Cerund filed in ranks of sword wielders, spear bearers, archers, halberdiers, and trumpeters. At the end of each rank was a flag bearer; while most flew the High Tzhurarkh's standard—a silver serpent with aquamarine eyes, embowed on bright orange fabric—some flew Ialuna's rampant, emerald green kyrdayn, on sable black.

Huiln blocked out his common sense, that railed against the folly of so many soldiers on such a massive platform, buttressed only by four narrow stone arches that ran hundreds of feet to the city below. In addition to the tremendous weight of elves, a tower extended as tall as the castles, next to which were two large mechanisms crafted from bright metals. To Huiln's eye, they seemed to blend the mechanisms of weapons and musical instruments, and were cast from iron and brass. The goblin would have been loath to wheel them on this flimsy structure, let alone upwards of a thousand Alfyrians and a few dozen of their bizarre horses.

"These must be the clarion cannons," said Huiln.

Ialuna gon Weqana said nothing. At the end of each device was a lever, which she cranked counter-clockwise several rotations, then yanked downward. When she backpedaled, pulling Huiln with her, the clarion cannons' barrels ratcheted to a forty-five degree angle, click-clacked, then turned to repeat the invisible volley every fifteen degrees until its movements marked a complete circle. A quarter of the way through that cycle, Huiln heard the music of bells ringing where each volley fell, at first only a distant tinkling, but continuing to surround them until the cacophony surged.

"Where were your targets?" asked Huiln. "I see no damage."

When Ialuna nodded and smiled good-naturedly, it set off warning klaxons in his own skull, as no Alfyrian he had yet met had smiled good-naturedly, though Cyhari may have acted altruistically—with acted being the key word—before Huiln learned she was a spy. "What we call a clarion cannon is a misnomer, and more of a herald's horn, that presages war or royal decree. I believe we call it a cannon because sounding it marks the onset of a battle." Huiln marveled that Ialuna was soft-spoken, then feared that his admiration was written on his face when she said, "tell me your mind, Son of Hwarn."

When Ialuna used "Son of Hwarn," the Nahurian courtly mode of address, Huiln was intrigued. "You've been to Nahure."

"Yes, but that isn't so remarkable, when elves climb through the Abyss. What you mean to ask, though you've forgotten your manners, is 'do you travel to other worlds?' The answer is yes, though mostly to Nahure because I like goblins. Even the surly one in front of me."

"After my week," said Huiln. "you'd be surly too." The noisome bells again resounded when the clarion cannon struck.

"I won't debate it, because we don't have time." When Ialuna waved her sword, the elves began to march. "Despite your trying week," she said to Huiln, "I insist that you keep up. Carrying you will debase us both." When it became obvious that was no mere insult, as the long-shanked Alfyrians marched nearly as fast as a trotting horse, Huiln interspersed a hundred yard dash here and there into his briskest walk.

That Huiln had found an honest ally on Alfyria seemed too good to be true, so he skeptically pondered the alternatives. Since Ialuna was kin to that lamentably detestable creature, the High Tzhurarkh, could she not also be his creature, and just as lamentably detestable by association? Worse yet, she could turn on him like Kejuro, after Huiln had ensured that no tiny sorceress could rescue him. Given the two-faced traitors the Spider God had gifted to him, Huiln could not afford to lose true friends, but Huiln would test her to determine if Ialuna was also a gift from the god's web. Though the pace was arduous, he paced himself, so that when he ran alongside Ialuna, he was able to keep his voice even. "When will I receive arms and armor appropriate to my station?"

"One of those replies was the armory, who reported they will arrive with fourteen wagons. You may have your pick, though I cannot guarantee any will be made for your stature, let alone your station."

As they left the Palace of Tzhurarkhs, it was as if Huiln stepped from the inconceivable, steeped in insanity, to the lesser madness of the city streets, which now held a hint of ordinariness in their tidy, canopied sidewalks and their sharply hewn city grid. It was only when you looked up at the towering structures that they borrowed from the elves' madspace vision and interpenetrated space in ways unimaginable to non-elves, such as sharing floors though the contributing structures were hundreds of feet apart. The most common trick of Alfyrian architecture—and by extension, elven perception—was the way the elven skyscrapers defied the parallel, so that at their zenith, they fluttered against each other maddeningly, despite being as inanimate as the three-dimensional constructs of other worlds. When Huiln's thoughts were atomized by trying to comprehend the Tzhurarkhs' molecule of connected castles, he would fall back into the details of the world, such as losing himself in earrings, or straining to see a centipede-sized giantess; or fall into his own self-consciousness, such as counting his fingers and toes, and even his nose, to assure himself that elven nonsense had not altered his composition to match their unthinkable aesthetics. And now, as the Kundan Cerund knights descended each inconceivable bridge, themselves non-Euclidean marvels that passed through obstructing buildings without interrupting the flow of stone, Huiln's mind descended from this cage of self-reflection. He had decided to stop caring to understand, to take one step at a time, for that was his everyday limit regardless of whether he ignored or accepted reality as the elves saw it. It was at this moment that Huiln's thoughts once again turned outward, not toward Alfyria, but toward his own horizon, that of taking his leave from this madhouse and returning to Ielnarona to free his father. <

And yet there remained a paper-thin scrap of self-reflection which he could not cross, sparked by his interest in Ialuna. He could not deny his interest in this unusually down to earth elven woman, but would he ever be able to penetrate her intrigue without understanding the way she saw the world? And was her rejection of her home world born from judgment or mere jadedness? The madness of Alfyria was Ialuna's everyday life. Anyone could become full of the Elven World's constant distortion. Perhaps this was why she preferred the earthier world of Nahure to Alfyria, where, if he understood half what he perceived, he would be trapped in endless hypotheses. Given time, this heightened intellection would became banal even for the book-loving goblin, for whom reading whetted a craving for sensual delights. Perhaps even elves felt the need for new days, despite their all-knowing attitude and all-encompassing disinterestedness.

As Huiln returned from his reverie, he noted the fearful passersby—not so abject as to flee or hide in their houses, but wary enough of their liege's army of kings that these cautious citizens did not obstruct Ialuna's army. In addition to the gathering onlookers, the mass of Ialuna's army doubled in size at the arrival of the Alfyrian horses. It was one thing to see one skeletally-sleek double-jointed horse with disjointed eyes, but to see a fleet of the emaciated creatures made Huiln tremble, for it was like a vision of death descending, if a polychromatic, festive, death. While half of them were roan colored, there was much variation, just as there was in the elves themselves, with violet-haired, emerald-haired, and azure haired specimens, as well as further piebald mixes of these. They were mounted by Kundan Cerund outfitted with even heavier armor, and each carried a shield with the same figurative device as on their mask, as well as three-pronged lances that flared into hooks behind the spear points.

"Those are tiabela. We are expecting eight hundred of them and a dozen kyrdayn."

"Eight hundred?" said Huiln. "They're wondrous. Though I won't call them beautiful animals. And they're of limited use in a siege, are they not?"

When none of the thousands of eyes in the mob or the cavalry paid Huiln any mind, this lack of attention gave them the illusion of single-mindedness, as if the Spider-God's many eyes turned to witness the gathering of the High Tzhurarkh's army. It was the first time since arriving on the Elven World that Huiln didn't feel he was being watched, a feeling so liberating that he felt he should immediately flee from the Spider-God's scrutiny.

You can't flee cobori, little spider-eye, came the dulcet voice in Huiln's head; knowledge is the web, and Quront Sabata is its center.

It's a spider, thought Huiln, only realizing he gasped it out loud when Ialuna spared him a puzzled look, then turned in the direction of the goblin's stare to see the mammoth black building jutting over surrounding structures.

"Yes, it is," said Ialuna. "I've entertained that thought since I was a girl. Every time I left Quront Sabata, thinking I would never return, that there was nothing left of interest, it reeled me back in. Did my tangled studies snare me, or Quront Sabata's webs?"

"You mock me," said Huiln. "Forgive me. I'm ashamed you heard my foolish prattling."

"Not at all," she said. "You're right that it looks like a spider. Especially from here."

As they neared their destination, descent into a low altitude boro elevated the Quront Sabata in their field of vision, so that their route seemed to be a web running into the perched black library. "I admire your imagination," said Huiln. "I see why the High Tzhurarkh selected you to lead this siege."

Ialuna said, "you mean that my cousin fears his shadow, suspects I am affiliated with these traitors, and sends me to prove my loyalty, with the hope I might die on the end of a sword." She paused, then continued: "If you flee now, he might count it as treason, but I wouldn't spare any troops to look for you.."

"No worries," said Huiln. "I like bad company."

Ialuna smiled. "Even if I prove myself worthy of such obstinacy, you'll regret that."

As they approached the Quront Sabata, the crowd thinned, no doubt fleeing the soldiers assembling there, and the streets began to clear. Huiln noticed a pattern in street names named not after noteworthy elves, but notions, abstractions, and historical eras. Here was Pure Street, there was Abyssal Road and Erudite Avenue, and there was Ierakyne Street, where a market square's vendors crated their goods and loaded them into carts to flee as fast as they could, but not quite fast enough to avoid the onrushing Kundan Cerund. When Huiln whiffed the syrupy scent of fruit and the wholesome aroma of vegetables fresh from the ground, he thanked whatever cruel god might be listening that while Alfyrians couldn't tell meat from bone or bread from stone, Alfyria itself produced some mouth-watering odors. When Huiln lingered at the produce stalls, Ialuna threw the vendor some coin, and Huiln stripped off his shirt to tie it around a load of good food.

Ialuna looked away and scowled. "My advisor may need supervision, or by the end of the day he'll prance naked." She turned to the marching army, waved her sword, and yelled, "Halt!" When four Tzhurarkhs sprinted to her side, she spoke such rapid Alfyrian that Huiln could not comprehend even the gist of what was said. Three led the Kundan Cerund in different directions; one column circled the Quront Sabata's octagonal perimeter to the left, another went right, and the third filled the street with forty ranks eleven deep, with the exception of the archers, who entered three curiously-named monolithic buildings—The Gallery of Symphonies, The Eternity Fund, and the Cartographers' Trust—to use the facing windows as battlements. Two of the armory carts, which already had long lines behind them, blocked the road at both ends.

Another Tzhurarkh took Huiln's arm brusquely and led him around the Quront Sabata's near right side, toward another of the armory carts. Though it was all he could do to keep the vegetables tied in his shirt from spilling to the ground, Huiln allowed himself to be half-dragged through the crowd to the front of one of the shorter lines. While they didn't count as friendly faces, as he knew none of them personally, it pleased Huiln to see goblins in the queue, as well as humans that affected elvish garb.

"We call this the 'odd cart,'" said his rude escort, who seemed neither man nor woman but an elven refinement, as if their pandimensional architecture had influenced elven breeding as well, giving life to the ambiguity of their desires. The soft, pansexual, voice was belied by the roughness with which the Tzhurarkh pulled him several hundred feet through a crowd. "It's stocked with arms for our off-worlder mercenaries, and is your best chance of finding armor that fits."

Huiln had no retort, as his mouth was full of an ambrosial fruit, the flesh of which was so delectable that the pulp leaked down his mouth into his stubbly chin. At the back of the cart, the Tzhurarkh dropped the cart's gate, then grunted as he lifted the densely muscled goblin inside. There were sheaves of arrows and spears, bundles of swords and maces, stacked shields, and opened chests of breastplates, backplates, chain hauberks and skirts, helms, vambraces, gauntlets, greaves, gorgets, and sabatons. Though a good number were goblin made, even those not goblin sized, it was fortunate Huiln had first choice, for only one of each fit him. Moreover, each seemed made to order, as if each was tailor made to his measurements by a completely different craftsman and then hid in the jumbled-up armor chests.

Had the Spider-God's tugged the trip-webs of time and fate to stock this armory specifically for him, Huiln wondered; if so, Lyspera saw a gory battle on the goblin's horizon, and this armor spelled the difference between life and death. It didn't fill Huiln with confidence to think that Lyspera wanted him armored because he figured into her ongoing story, because any god that contrived to armor you couldn't be a mighty god. In that moment, Huiln regretted all his theological training.

Huiln, knowing Lyspera would hear, grumbled, "You salivate thinking of these deaths." But talking to the Spider-God was even less satisfying than talking to Eurilda, as when he opened his mouth, he had the unpleasant sensation he fed the hungry immortal, that his unwilling faith was its food.

Armored in not only patchwork styles, but piebald colors, Huiln found satisfaction in the fine craftsmanship of his hodgepodge ensemble, all tempered until obdurate enough to turn most blades, bludgeons, and arrows. Those that couldn't be turned—for all armor has chinks and gaps—Huiln would defend against by the common sense Lord Hwarn bred into him, and secondly with the red kite shield he took from the 'odd cart.' Moreover, his broadsword, forged in the goblin fashion from a dozen steel sheets bonded by white hot fire, would parry any blow.

"Good," said the rude Tzhurarkh. "That took long enough."

Huiln had enough of being dragged and carried, and leaped down from the back of the wagon. When he tipped forward, he wheeled his arms to keep his footing. Though not unfamiliar with armor, it had been a few years.

"How do you do?" said Huiln, feeling dapper, "I am Huiln, Son of Hwarn."

"We've met," said the humorless Tzhurarkh, who then looked elsewhere.

"And you are?" said Huiln. This was the first elf he had met that wasn't in a hurry to give their flowery name and promote their own greatness.

"You're not my adviser. Why do you care?"

Huiln would not pry further. A boor was the same on every world.

As they walked back through waves and waves of armored elves, the Tzhurarkh said, "I am Tzhurarkh Gatele gon Tcherele." The haughty elf looked down on Huiln, and added, "you're very lucky, goblin."

"I'm aware. Without luck I'd be dead twenty times over. Do you know the traitor Kejuro?" asked Huiln.

"I meant many here crave your position," Gatele said, then added, "Why would I keep the acquaintance of traitors?"

"You both have a treacherous tone, though your racism is a little quainter. He always called me 'Nahurian' this, and 'Nahurian' that. It showed a little more respect than calling me goblin."

"You are a goblin," sneered Gatele.

"As I'm above calling you 'elf,' but not above giving you the silent treatment, this may be our last conversation." Gatele did not attempt to rebut this, and Huiln enjoyed the conversational lull. It was by no means quiet, however, as Ialuna's army now packed Coterna Street.

The Tzhurarkh's army had roped off the store fronts facing the Quront Sabata. Most had closed, with the exception of cafes and restaurants, which were pressed into serving food and drink to the gathering army. At the sight of Kundan Cerund with aprons tied over their breastplates, assisting the kitchen staff, Huiln admired Ialuna's foresight, that had reassigned a handful of troops to get a head start on feeding the throngs long before the besieging army had a mess hall. There were many restaurants in the Quront Sabata's vicinity, and that their kitchens only lacked the manpower to feed an army was quickly remedied by pressing her soldiers into kitchen prep and waitstaff duty. While Huiln didn't care one way or the other whether elves were fed, he worried that he might lose a chance to influence Ialuna if the cagy Tzhurarkh concocted such clever strategies without his advice.

"There he is," said Ialuna. "When I heard the food carts wouldn't arrive for several hours, I thought my might approve of this idea."

"Having Nahurian cooks would improve your idea," said Huiln, his stomach grumbling at the thought of the tasty food of his home world.

"I love Nahurian food," said Ialuna. "There's a goblin eatery in Kuln I enjoy whenever I can. To my knowledge, it's the only one on Alfyria."

"I've been there," said Huiln. "Two days after my arrival. If only the Quront Sabata would let us use their city gates while we're sieging them."

"If this is a game," said Ialuna, "I can't top that ridiculous notion."

"It could be more than a notion." said Huiln, "as I saw several Nahurians mercenaries. I doubt any were restaurateurs, but I'm sure all have a passion for food. Each goblin House has its own recipes they treasure more than gold."

"What is House Hwarn's specialty?" said Ialuna. "Right now, I run the cafes in this district and could order it made—if you trust elves with your recipe."

Huiln looked at her warily. While House Hwarn had several specialties, goblin Houses hoarded them like fine art as a point of pride. More than anything else since his arrival, even more than Cyhari's treachery, her innocuous question shook him to the core of his being. Did Ialuna not know that giving up a treasured recipe would be a betrayal not only of his noble House, but of goblin mores?

He had delivered his message—why was he still here? Why had he invested in the Alfyrians' fate, and why swear fealty to the High Tzhurarkh? While Huiln gave himself free reign in his travels, he had never been thrown to the winds of chance—or the webs of fate—as he had in this undertaking. Thinking of family recipes had returned Huiln to himself, and in that moment of frank self-appraisal, he saw an armored mercenary at the beck and call of a warlord. Previously, he had only discovered himself capable of such vagaries of personality when following Khyte into trouble without a thought to his own well-being, but now he had no such excuse. He was fighting for a people for whom he had little to no affection. While the siege outcome would affect Nahure and many that he cared for, he had loved ones on both sides, all of whom should be dining and sharing stories in House Hwarn. He would grieve less if he left before Julaba became a battlefield; why must he see this through? Inflated pride and overdeveloped honor could not have borne him this far. Was it his unresolved interest in Cyhari? Or was he sincerely tempted by his sentiment for Ialuna, who, more than any other, reminded him of his sister?

Huiln's heartfelt summons of his sister confirmed him in his current path, for helping these people is what she would do, whether or not they deserved her. Not that Alfyria was a likely destination for Kuilea, who was beset with the goblin phobias, and would have shrunk from the Elven World's illogical skyscrapers, in which parallels grappled against all sense.

Except...if Lyspera moved space and time to place a humorously mismatched, but perfectly fitting, suit of armor in the odd cart, nothing was impossible for the Spider God or even his own sister.

Many moments passed before Ialuna added, "no worries. I won't ask again." When a Kundan Cerund saluted—a curious gesture, in which an unmasked guardian raises their blade to their face, then kisses the hilt—and whispered to the general, Huiln, preoccupied by his own concerns, did not eavesdrop.

Huiln offered up a silent request, his first prayer in many years. To the Dark Gods of Nahure: bring me my sister, and I will do as you will, here and now.

Such a small thing? Her soul is in your hands. Huiln's hands, which had knotted together without him knowing, were tangled with webs. They disappeared when Ialuna spoke.

"Forget the food. We have a serious concern. Look at them," said Ialuna. While at first, the ranks of Kundan Cerund appeared an unbroken wave of elves, the longer Huiln looked, there were eddies in the elven wave, breaches through which a carriage could ride. When he looked at another place in the line, however, the previous gaps filled in, and another gradually became perceptible where he now looked. When his eyes started to hurt from the effort of finding the gaps, he broke away; when he turned back, he again saw that the Kundan Cerund ranks were unbroken, shoulder to shoulder.

Realizing he was mute for almost a minute, Huiln turned to Ialuna. Before he could make his observation, Ialuna asked, "is this not a large army? Yet we do not surround Quront Sabata."

"Nonsense," said Huiln. "It's a building, not a city. You have more than enough soldiers to lay siege to it."

"I know," said Ialuna. "Yet the fact remains."

"Since we have the numbers," said Huiln, "we must assume this is caused by a magical property in the Quront Sabata."

"Or the side effect of one," opined Ialuna.

"I agree," said the goblin. "If a stricter geometry interprets the irrational architecture of the Quront Sabata, then your army can't circle its perimeter, as a part of that perimeter is in every city with an entrance. While it would be feasible to coordinate with soldiers in these cities, since the foundation was laid not in one city, but all of them, the Quront Sabata is rooted in indeterminacy, and the circumference of your multidimensional bookstore can never be a known quantity."

"I'm enjoying this," said Ialuna, "but why not say, 'you will never get an accurate measurement'?

"Why not build in three dimensions?" Huiln said, shrugging. "We all do what we can."

"Like any goblin philosopher worth reading, your destiny was always Alfyria."

"That would be a horror."

"You find the Elven World stimulating, just as I enjoy the smells, tastes, and sounds of your world."

"To continue," Huiln said. "Not to mention that the Quront Sabata's measurement is baffled when you go through a gate that faces East in Julaba, and West in Kuln. And if I am right, additional concealed apertures—The Doorways we have been sent to ascertain—pierce the Abyss itself, and convey those that enter to any desired destination, so that the Quront Sabata's dimensions, if measured Door to Door, dwarf that of any of the Five Worlds."

"My adviser's first lecture," said Ialuna. "I rather liked it. Do your diminished goblin senses enhance your appreciation of its magnitude?"

"Diminished?" scoffed Huiln. "Goblins have better eyes. You see an additional dimension, but we see more of what there is."

"I've been trying to get your attention," said a familiar voice, "and you haven't seen me." Huiln turned to embrace Kuilea; his sister wore none of the odd cart's scraps, but laminated wooden armor from the dryad army. In the finely crafted armor, his sister could have passed for a high caste dryad.

"How?" asked Huiln. While he still doubted the dark god's intentions, he could no longer doubt Lyspera's power, as she had parted time and space to bring his sister to him.

"I guess there's more to me than we had believed. Remember the underground river that flowed into Wywynanoir, and the smuggler's cove?

"Yes. Eurilda betrayed us, you fainted, and we were captured."

"A dryad's scream woke me to witness your escape."

"I bit her fingers off, and steered her into her comrade's sword."

"When you ran off, Eurilda shape-changed into a monstrous dog, scooped you up in her jaws like a bitch would her pup, and leaped the wall. The shock of abandonment and fear of capture kept me alert as I shimmied down the cargo elevator shaft. In their attempts to recapture you, and their concern for Khyte and Frellyx, who they had rescued from Eurilda, they forgot about the fainting goblin girl. No one gave me another thought." When Ialuna unstoppered a flask which had a delightful bouquet redolent of whiskey, Kuilea took a swig and continued.

"I rejoined the Councilor-Generals' army and begged Councilor-General Teuren that she might make better use of me as an agent to Alfyria. After they cleared the debris at a place called Glesingren, I climbed through a shattered tree trunk to pass through what Teuren called The Doorway. That was this morning. When I arrived, I thought the Elven World was at its armageddon, for after a horrible din of bells, armored elves marched on this building."

Though Kuilea's fantastical story was all the more improbable for requiring Huiln to believe his level-headed sister was as mad as he was, it was all credible if this out of character trait was true. Whether or not Kuilea was herself, this brave Nahurian was his sister. The only enigma was whether she was also the Spider God's plaything, and if so, was she always tugged by Lyspera's whims? In spite of himself, Huiln interpreted his sister's story in light of the Spider-God's tortuously labyrinthine theology, as he wasn't certain whether Kuilea yet had free will, or if she was merely food for the gods. If she was Lyspera's toy, sister or no, he must distance himself or share her fate—bones, oblivion, and nothingness. But if his sentimental pleading to the dark god tangled Kuilea in Lyspera's webs, he would never forgive himself. There was no way to know whether Kuilea had truly been on her way to him, or if she was pulled through the Five Worlds in answer to the prayer.

Such a small thing? Her soul is in your hands.

It was one thing to tell himself Lyspera's voice was unreal, but unless Huiln could deny the evidence of his own eyes, that had seen the dark god in her shadowy webs, he must take responsibility for the fateful prayer that entangled Kuilea in the god's fatal will.

Huiln broke the silence. "Forgive me, Tzhurarkh. This is my sister Kuilea, Daughter of Hwarn."

Ialuna, said, "So I gathered. Think nothing of it. It warms my heart to see family come together, and to hear of your escape from the dryad tyrant. Especially one detail. Lady Kuilea, where did the Doorway deposit you in Julaba?"

Huiln was so wrapped up in what Kuilea's presence portended that he had missed the obvious: Kuilea knew the Doorway's location.

"The catacombs under Alfyria—unending gray, interrupted only by the Doorway's blue light and a black stone stairwell. On the first landing, I crept past nine dryads, whose cruel spears had wide leaf-like blades, and who were armored with broader and thinner leaves that nested into a shining mesh. I climbed a dozen flights or more until the next landing, which was a dark tunnel. Unable to budge its sealed doors, I exited the tunnel into these city streets, and that monolithic black building was at my back."

"If this is true," began Ialuna.

Huiln cut her off. "Of course it's true," he said, more angrily than he ought. "My beloved sister does not lie."

Ialuna looked down her nose at Huiln, and continued as if he had not interrupted. "...then that means two things. One, that is undoubtedly where the giants and dryads entered our world. Two, if they discover we know, they will move to defend it, anticipating our strategy must be to destroy it at all costs."

"We could simply block it," said Huiln. "You'll need it later to counterattack."

"Want a back door through which people may walk in from anywhere in the Five Worlds? I need that like a third thumb. We must destroy or disable it." Ialuna closed her eyes, as if she was meditating on all that she had heard. When she opened them, she said, "what now, trusted adviser?"

"Am I so trusted?"

"More than I trust anyone else I met today," she said, avoiding his gaze, "and, for that matter, more than anyone I met this year. I don't know why, but it is so. Tell me your plan, vizier."

"I will return to the odd cart, gather up every goblin, sneak inside before the dryads draw their line of defense, and dismantle the Doorway."

"Will every goblin at the odd cart be enough? While I have great love for goblinkind, if a hundred dryads pour through this Doorway, could a handful of goblins close it?"

"My thought was to arrive before the dryads, but it may be wiser to bolster our ranks with all the elves you can spare."

"I cannot spare any. Well, maybe I could spare one." Turning to Kuilea, she asked "how far?" At Kuilea's blank stare, Ialuna clarified her question. "How far down the tunnel, and down the stairs to the Doorway?"

"No less than twenty minutes."

"But you were sneaking upstairs. What if we ran all the way down?"

"I don't know!"

"Estimate."

"Ten minutes. Eight at best."

"If we could run in armor for ten minutes," muttered Huiln.

"That's exactly what we'll do," said Ialuna.

"We?"

"Get your goblins together. I'm coming with you. I can't spare anyone else."

"They can't spare you either," said Huiln.

"Is that your honest assessment," she said, a smile twitching at the end of her lips, "that we don't have enough kings? Go get your goblins."

Kuilea followed Huiln to the odd cart. "What now, Huiln?" Ialuna's besieging army had swollen, this time adding food carts, fodder carts for the tiabela, and—hopefully for the purpose of containing traitors and not insolent goblins that had outlived their usefulness—stockade carts with barred windows. When a flight of at least twenty krydayn flew over the Quront Sabata, three of the ungainly beasts descended into the encampment, causing some elves to scatter and reform their ranks elsewhere. Soon Ialuna's forces had spilled onto connecting streets.

As it would be harder to prove Ialuna's love for goblinkind wasn't misplaced now that she had taken command, Huiln was feeling a little aggravated, and snapped at his sister, "which part wasn't clear to you?"

"You're not going to war here and now? Let the Alfyrians fight their own battles. Come to Ielnarona, and we'll take the fight to Inglefras."

"The Son of Hwarn must uphold the honor of House Hwarn."

"The Goblin World is not listening. Nor is Alfyria for that matter."

"There are always those who listen."

"It's our word against theirs," said Kuilea.

"Goblin ears and elven mouths are not my concern."

"The gods?" When Huiln didn't answer, she sighed, a long and drawn out expulsion of breath worthy of a kiuvathi, and said, "Not again."

"Again? Though I learned the holy verses, rites, and formulas as a boy, I never saw the gods until the day before yesterday."

"What did you see? A great big spider? The webs of fate?" When Huiln fell silent, she laughed a loud and raucous goblin laugh, such as he had not heard since leaving the Goblin World, and though her intent was to mock him, hearing it raised his spirits instead.

"Yes," he said, laughing along with her, and knowing not whether he wiped away tears of sadness, laughter, or relief. "I did. She's real."

"HA HA HA HA HA," she laughed uproariously. "And I climbed her sister, the mountain god, honest and truly?"

Huiln's laughter died as his sister's drowned out the din of the besieging army, and attracted stares from the troops. When the aloof Alfyrians turned up their noses and turned their backs on the clamorous goblins, he said, "I can only speak for my own sister," he said. "who should forget I said anything, and stop laughing, because we don't want to leave a bad impression on the ones we want to recruit."

"Pah!" spat Kuilea, "you're the Very Important Vizier. Order them."

"I'm just the adviser." he sighed. "I could have wished for anything or anyone. Why did I wish for you?"

"Oh, now you wished for me?" Kuilea's nose wrinkled indignantly, as if she didn't know whether to spit or bellow. "Why should I stop laughing?" she said, squealing the shrillest laugh he had ever heard; like the terrified bleating of a slaughterhouse with the door ajar.

"If you haven't come to help," said Huiln. "leave the way you came."

"Why would I leave my brother?" she said. "My ungrateful brother. Do you know how hard it was to climb through that dead Dryad tree, pass through the Doorway to this elven city—whose name I still do not know—and search for my brother, all while a war is brewing? I'm not like you or our father; I don't have the madness. I can only keep it together by thinking of you or that moron Khyte, gods help me, because I might faint if I get a good look at the insanity of Alfyria! I'd leave for Nahure this minute, if father was there, and there wasn't two armies between here and the Doorway."

"While I am sorry," said Huiln, "you must know that if you traveled to Alfyria, you have the madness." When Kuilea did not respond, he turned to see that his sister was pensive and troubled; her eyes were half-closed, as if mulling over something better left unexamined, and her lips were half-open, as if she wanted to speak but had no words. "Don't be anxious; it's cause for celebration. And you can track down that idiot Khyte whenever you want." When they neared the odd cart, he added, "but could you help me? Two can recruit a dozen easier than one."

"You don't need a headhunter. Whether they enlisted in a Tzhurarkh's army or are mercenaries already bought, the heads are already hunted. Hide your king face and wear your schoolteacher face instead."

Huiln knew Kuilea spoke true. These mercenaries expected to fight today, so where they fought, or who they fought for, mattered little. Moreover, would they not be more eager to serve a goblin master? No doubt he cut a fine but curious figure in this finely wrought, if mismatched, armor; though he hadn't found the makers' marks yet, each piece was likely made by one of the renowned goblin smiths. So while Huiln's ensemble did not present the unified aesthetic of a single artist, Huiln nonetheless looked resplendent in the patchwork metals. But while he was concerned with the impression he was about to make on the goblins he was sent to hire, in the end there was only one impression that mattered. Knowing that his hodgepodge armor fit the Spider-God's perverse humor, inspired not only confidence, but a kind of morbid happiness that he be the butt of one of her long-spun jokes rather than kick at the end of a more tragic thread.