Chapter 3

“Are you familiar with the story of where us goblins came from?” the elderly monk asked, again. Nermel knew the story, and he was pretty sure every goblin kid in Khoma knew it, but that wouldn’t stop Erdon from telling it again. Everytime Nermel came to the goblin monk’s pottery kiln he was treated to the story. Nermel had considered ways of making him stop, but he looked on it as a substitute for not attending temple sessions. Besides his mother would be proud he was still listening to the preachers, even if it was one for Eaou and not a proper goblin god.

“The messenger of god appeared to Baetate Evantu, in the tunnels under the Great Waste and told him that the goblins would be granted paradise if he agreed to drive god’s enemies from the Well of the Gods,” Erdon paused dramatically as he looked to the sky. “Do this for the Lord and you will be granted access to the afterlife, where you will be rewarded in the kingdom of heaven. And that’s exactly what he did.

“The goblins rose up and turned their righteous wrath on their oppressors, who had disobeyed god, and per god’s command they gathered up others to join in god’s cause. Together with the orcs, ogres and goblins of all types, they drove the offending sinners from the continent.” The older monk paused in his tale and dabbed at his brow with the sleeves of his robe. Here was where the political efforts of the Eauo followers joined the story. Nermel had heard this part enough to know it almost as well.

Erdon resumed. “Their mission complete. They turned on each other, as conquerors often do, and though the goblins were god’s chosen people, there were again forced to submit to the dictates of others.

“But that is changing now. The Wayfarers’ returned to make amends for the miss deeds of their ancestors. They drove out the Nis and have established a kingdom where goblins are protected and respected for their role in the god’s creation,” Erdon smiled, confident in what he said.

“Ha!” one of the goblin potters said. “The humans are no better than the Nis. We are nothing but subjects under both humans and the Nis.”

“That’s not true,” the monk protested. “The king takes care of us and lets us live our own lives, on our own terms here in Khoma.”

“In the Warren, you mean,” some of the other potters mumbled agreement. “As long as we stay on our side of the city wall. They don’t much like us over there, in Khoma.”

“Things are improving, though. The Wayfarers have sworn the treaty, and Eaou is working on their hearts” Erdon bowed his head to them as he spoke so they could see his tattoo. Spirals of symbols and lines, decorated his bald head, like they did the scalps of all the Eaou followers. “The Lord’s plan will guide their path, and we will know true peace on earth as well as in the afterlife.”

“If the Kletchkii don’t convince them to purge us all,” the goblin potter retorted. Erdon frowned back at him for a moment, before his pleasant demeanor returned.

“Have you so little faith? Perhaps, you should find another place to work before the wars return. Hmm?” The potter got the hint and returned the kiln owner’s bow. Erdon snorted at his feigned repentance and turned to Nermel. “Come, they must be done harvesting the white coal by now.”

Nermel followed the monk back inside the drying area of the potter’s shop and away from the working potters. Erdon was always arguing with them about religion and politics. Fortunately, he took the Eaou belief in pacifism seriously and rarely were there fights, but in the months Nermel had been coming here, the goblin monk didn’t seem to be getting many converts either.

Inside this section of the potter’s shop things were wide open, with rack after rack of drying clay pots and plates. The tarp curtain walls were wide open to help speed up the drying and let in enough light to do the finer glazing. At the back half of the area was the baking room with its large triple ovens.

Narrow brick and cement archways allowed entrance into the oven through a wall of loose brick and stone. On the backside of each oven a smaller longer archway allowed coal to be fed into the ovens. Coal Nermel provided.

The rearward exteriors of the kilns were smudged with small black hand prints; and the last one had a small upright lizard man standing at the entrance to the coal furnace holding a dirty coal sack. The little lizard barked into the archway as they approached.

“How are things coming?” Erdon asked loudly. “I can’t keep these things shut down all day. I have casts to fire.”

“They’re done now I think,” Nermel said as the lizard like kobold scooted out of the way so another kobold could crawl out of the stove.

Soot covered the kobold from his scaly neck to the end of his tail. Scrambling to his feet, he passed a chunk of dark grey coke to the kobold with the bag. The small lizard brushed his hand uselessly on his coal sack tunic before turning back to help feed a small ladder through the oven’s coal chute.

The one with the bag barked a phrase in the kobold tongue.

“Yeth, they are done.” Nermel told the goblin monk. He tried to smile but doing so wasn’t part of his nature. He took the bag from the first kobold and tested its weight. “Not a lot. But this should be enough to cover your coal bill.”

“Good. Good,” Erdon repeated as if to reassure himself. “So I can expect another half ton of coal next week?”

“Quarter ton,” Nermel answered. “They are thtarting rationing early thith year becauthe of the war.”

“But the war in Six Terms has been going on for years. Why start rationing now?” the monk asked.

“There aren’t any treeth left to burn for the winter in Thix Termth,” Nermel had trouble picturing the treeless plains across the river. There weren’t any trees in the Warren either, but there were so many buildings that one never saw a flat horizon. The idea of being that out in the open made him uneasy. Where would you hide? He had never been there anyway, nor did he plan to go.

Six-Terms was the province across the inlet north of Khoma. Although Khoma was home to the Outer-Rimmer king, it was really just a big city. In power, it was an important trade hub, so it held even greater sway than its larger subservient neighboring principalities. Six-Terms, or the Duchy of Presper as it was officially known, had been granted to the King of Khoma as the domain of his eldest son. The hope had been that it would bring stability and much needed grain to the Warren, but it had been in a state of near perpetual war for years.

Until recently it had been a hard fought-over area, but last year all parties just seemed to run out of steam and the size of the fighting forces dwindled considerably. Most likely because in the years of constant warfare they had pretty much picked the countryside clean. The latest rumor was that the sides had formed an unofficial truce to hold what they had in an attempt to discourage others, like the nation of Orhompo, from entering the fray.

Nermel’s kobold assistants were from Six-Terms, as were many of the goblins in the Warren. They had all moved across the river waiting for things to calm down, only they never quite did.

The last kobold out of the stove’s chimney gave Nermel his assessment of the coke harvest. It wasn’t their best but Erdon’s chimney’s hadn’t been cleared in so long that there was a couple kilograms of good quality coke in addition to the usual low grade stuff. It was always a crap shoot with the chimneys of the Warren. Goblins were often given the low grade coal so getting good coke was a blessing when it happened. But it could make Nermel a nice bit of coin when he did get some.

Nermel thank Erdon and got out of the way quickly so the monk could get his kilns fired up again. The three kobolds in his chimney group were eager to get back to Nermel’s warehouse and out of the uncomfortable coal sack clothes they were wearing. The soot and dirt didn’t seem to both them, but the coarse fabric did. But Nermel wasn’t going to spend money dressing up the little lizard folk when most of them didn’t like wearing clothing anyway.

The kobold group’s leader, Teleedel was an exception. She had taken to wearing children’s summer dresses, and quite a variety of them. When Nermel asked her why, she tried to play it off as if she were tired of humans treating her like a boy, but inside, Nermel knew that she liked them for more than just that. As Nermel and his group slipped into the warehouse via the main gate, it was Teleedel that greeted him with a wave and a missive from across the warehouse.

“There are wizards to see you,” a voice whispered in Nermel’s ear from out of nowhere.

Nermel paused, though the kobolds with him had not heard the magical message, the kobolds hesitated too. Calmly Nermel said, “But the coke with the rest. And then help the others with the bagging. Teleedel and I need to deal with something.”

Reassured that everything was fine, the short lizardmen headed to put the valuable coke with the rest of the stash, while Nermel made his way among the coal piles and stacks of bagged coal towards the small room that served as his office. As he did so he could see the other kobolds were nervous too; looking over their shoulders at him as they filled the coal sacks with rations of various grades. Nermel felt the tension too. Nobody in the Warren appreciated unannounced wizard visits.

Why were they here?

Teleedel left the door to the office ajar as she went in, and through the crack into the better-lit room he could see the burgundy cloak of a Watchman too. He hoped that didn’t mean this was an official inspection. It had been a long time since his last one, and he wasn’t sure all his paper work was in order. Usually they gave him a week’s notice, or more. Nermel began to wonder whom he had made mad.

Though his powers were different than those of wizards, Nermel focused on blocking out all surface thoughts as he entered. One could rarely be too cautious with wizards.

“You are Master Nermel, of the Red Hand and the Fire Scorpions?” the middle aged looking man asked in formal Tadarjii. Were it not for the decorative chlamys cloak that the man wore over his right shoulder, Nermel would have taken him for merchant. The broach that held it on had a golden mortar and pestle on it, indicating he was an alchemist.

Nermel nodded as he approached the human sized table that served as his desk. Teleedel stood to his side while her pet ferret climbed off the table and onto her shoulders. On the other side stood the alchemist and four goblins of the watch, including Podak, Nermel’s distant uncle. The goblins looked ready to smirk, while the alchemist glared at him as if he were being rude.

“Go on, answer him Nermel.” Podak said.

“I am.” Nermel said. He knew what Podak doing. Though they were related that didn’t stop the gob from teasing Nermel about his speech. Nermel took pride in avoiding saying yes, but he wasn’t going be able to make it through a long conversation without using an s. So he gave up. “What can I do for you, thir?”

The goblins behind the alchemist smirked but no one made a noise. This must be official business.

“I don’t supposed you heard of the incident at the library.” The alchemist said. Nermel shook his head. “A couple members of the Guild have passed on. I will not encourage rumors with the details but suffice to say there are funerals that need to be held. We need to spirit them to the afterlife soon and with a pure and properly blessed flame. Do you understand?”

Nermel nodded. Humans had their own weird funeral practices, wizards even more so. Burning was their fashion. “You want coal for the pyre?”

“Not just coal,” the alchemist said. “I need incense to keep malicious spirits away. I need acynod. Can you make it?”

“Yeth,” Nermel was stunned. No one could afford that incense mix in the Warren. It was magically bound together. He had the ingredients to make some but Teleedel would have to make it. He glanced at her and got a nod. If Kalshi helped her they could make several pounds easily, but he hadn’t seen the kobold prophetess in a few days. “How thoon do you need it”

“By morning.”

“How much?” Teleedel asked. Her ferret started squirming on her shoulders sensing her apprehension.

“As much as you can make. We are on a short time limit here, and with the festival coming up there are few supplies around,” the alchemist said. He eyed Teleedel suspiciously sure he had figured out Nermel was going to make the acynod. “I also need rarefied coal.”

“Rarefied coal?”

“Coke,” he said. “Coal contains impurities that can taint the passage to the afterlife. Plus the hotter flame speeds the process. For a wizard of high rank it is essential.”

“Why come here?” Nermel said as innocently as possible.

The alchemist glanced at Podak. “I was assured you had some.”

Podak smiled.

Nermel’s coke harvesting was supposed to be a secret. Coke was highly sought after for making high grade steel. There was a Blacksmiths’ guild monopoly on it. And a stiff penalty for not selling it to the Khoma based Guild.

“How much do you need?” He had planned to sell it to the weapon maker for the Gold Tooth clan. Coke brought high coin. Now Nermel would have to avoid them until they wrote him off as a liar. Or beat him for making false promises.

“How ‘uch will you fay?” Teleedel demanded.

The Alchemist, and the his escort, were thrown for a moment as they tried to understand the kobolds words. Not having lips, the kobolds were harder to understand than Nermel and his lisp; their own language was mostly barks, grunts and whistles.

The alchemist smiled once he figured out what she had asked. He pulled a paper from a pocket under his shoulder cloak and laid it on the table. “Fulfill the contract and twenty sovereigns will await you at the servants’ gate. With satisfactory results and you can cash this note at the Khoma Merchant Guild for a hundred more.”

Nermel stared at the paper. That was exactly what it said. His expression confirmed it enough for Teleedel, who push her unhappy ferret of her shoulders immediately.

“I work now.” She said as she headed out the door, undoing her dress as she went.

“Have Kalshi help too,” Nermel suggested.

“Kalshi has gone.”

“Where?”

“Spirits summoned her.” Teleedel seemed annoyed by the prophetess’s departure but she had always trusted Kalshi’s prophecies. Nermel was tempted to ask more but Teleedel was quickly out of her dress and through the door, shouting instructions to the other kobolds.

The alchemist smirked at her reaction. “Bring what you have as soon as you can after dark. To the back gate. I don’t want people seeing goblins bringing in sacramental items. Speak of this to no one.”

Nermel nodded. In his head he was trying to figure out how many incense sticks they could make in an afternoon, without Kalshi. He was going to need all the kobolds working on this. The bagging would have to wait.

A few quick signatures and the alchemist was ready to leave, his seal on the paper contract still hardening. The Watchmen hurried to open the door for him and keep the populous of the streets away as he left. Podak held back and approached Nermel in the doorway.

“The Ratters will be keeping an eye out for you tonight. We wouldn’t want something so valuable to grabbed on the way to the funeral.” Podak played with his beaded beard, and revealed his fangs as he spoke. He winked as he pointed to the contract. “Be sure to remit our finder’s fee when you cash that in.”

The Watch captain paused as headed after the rest of the escort, to make sure Nermel had understood. Then he glanced to the sky and pulled up his hood. “Be sure to cover up. It looks rain and we wouldn’t want a poorly toasted wizard, would we?”

Next Chapter: Chapter 22