The Rebellion

35

Mudwort said there is magic in Moon-eye,” Graytoes said, encouraging her mate, alternately looking at him, the goblins venturing closer, and the reflected stars in the mirrored basin. “Use that magic, Moon-eye. See the Plains of Dust.”

The landscape Mudwort and Moon-eye looked down upon evanesced, and in its place the Khalkist Mountains rose into view. They flew above the highest peaks, whizzing so fast to the south that the range became a blur of grays and browns.

Graytoes gasped. In the gap between Moon-eye and Mudwort, the field of stars shimmered and revealed the mountains. Graytoes squeezed Moon-eye’s arm proudly.

The mountains whisked by and gave way to swampland, a riot of greens the likes of which none of the goblins hovering around them had ever seen. Millions of lizards, practically invisible with protective coloration, darted from under spreading ferns. Vines dotted with large red and purple blooms hung from thick forests of trees as tall as hills. There was water everywhere, most of it covered with a green film and hazes of insects. Mudwort could practically taste the brackishness and smell the loamy sod of the place.

Farther south their vision journeyed, finding a wide game trail that led through the heart of the swamp and past the ruins of a thatch village. Numerous parrots with bright plumage lined the tree branches there, taking flight when the snakes and monkeys came too close. Crocodiles and pangolin lined the banks of rivers. Everywhere insects clouded.

The buzz of goblin talk was drowned out in the ears of Mudwort and Moon-eye by the buzzing of the insect swarms and the growls of hidden creatures not reflected in the basin. They flew farther south, and the jungle finally thinned into a lush, green plain that stretched toward distant hills and woods.

“Said Moon-eye had magic, see? Mudwort was right. Moon-eye is magic.” Graytoes beamed with pride at her mate, then switched her gaze to Mudwort and again mouthed, “Be careful.”

Mudwort stared at the images reflected in the black stone, searching for people and creatures that could do harm to goblins. If that was where Direfang wanted to go, she wanted to make sure they weren’t being led into a place as misery-wrought as Neraka and Steel Town had been. She and Moon-eye spiraled upward, observing more of the land from a higher vantage point. There were villages and bands of centaurs and trails wide enough to accommodate wagons.

So there was plenty of land in the Plains of Dust, but it was not a vacant place. The two scrying goblins continued to spiral outward, searching, searching. Moon-eye somehow knew that Mudwort was looking for other goblins. Eventually they located a small band, hunting hares in a copse of birch trees. Later, they discovered a lone goblin hiding out for some purpose at the base of a big black willow.

“Always goblins are hunted,” Moon-eye said.

The goblins around them nodded in agreement.

“Direfang says no more,” Mudwort returned sharply. “Hurbear and Direfang, and later Saro-Saro, too, talked about a nation of goblins in the Plains of Dust. Said there was plenty of room for goblins there. There is room and food and water.”

“Room for a nation.” Direfang had finally come down into the basin and joined them, standing close behind the three goblins, gingerly shifting his weight back and forth on the balls of his feet as if the surface were glass and he might crash through. He stood directly behind Mudwort, staring over her and at the images reflected between her and Moon-eye.

Only one spectator stared at something else. Grallik’s gaze was fixed on the red-skinned goblin’s twitching fingers and on Moon-eye’s, where the two goblins touched hands. Together, they had cast some remarkable spell or managed to work some enchantment that neither could accomplish alone.

“How is that possible?” Grallik breathed.

No one answered his question; few heard. They were all staring at the vision in the basin, which was shifting again.

“Where look?” Moon-eye understood that Mudwort was not content with exploring only the Plains of Dust and had moved on.

Mudwort shrugged, not answering at first. “Elsewhere,” she said finally. “Look elsewhere until sleep calls.”

So, together, they worked the magic of Godshome for hours, discovering remote places of Krynn that likely held no predators for goblins but likewise offered nothing to entice them to settle there. They visited Icewall and lingered to scrutinize the strange walrus people with spears. They looked far, far north where deserts were so white they looked snow-covered and where blue dragons hunted and laired. They crossed a sea and spotted islands far too populated with humans and minotaurs, and they witnessed incredible, tall-masted ships manned by men as dark skinned as the priest.

Most of the others watched patiently, in silence and awe. The Dark Knights never wavered. Some goblins drifted back up and out of the basin. A few began to doze.

They saw a land one goblin near Moon-eye called Northern Ergoth, a rugged land teeming in parts with goblins.

“Sikkei’ Hul,” Mudwort said, using the goblin tongue. Somehow she, too, knew the name of the place. The goblins there looked organized and fierce, muscular, and they didn’t exhibit the whip marks and insignia of slaves. “Warriors,” she pronounced them. Then she shifted her vision again.

“The army of Ankhar.” Mudwort didn’t know the land she looked at, but she heard a nearby goblin whisper “Estwilde” and saw a band of goblins chasing down Solamnic Knights.

The scene shifted again and again. Finally they saw a forest.

“Qualinesti,” Grallik said, putting a name to the place. He stood close behind Direfang, who frowned and raised an eyebrow as if suddenly reminded of the wizard’s existence.

“This place,” Direfang said, “holds itself familiar to Grallik, yes?”

The wizard nodded, returning his attention to Mudwort and Moon-eye’s partnered fingers. “Aye, the forest is familiar to me. Long ago familiar. I lived there once.”

Mudwort and Moon-eye slowed their voyage through the woods of Qualinesti, finding small settlements of elves on the coast and the ruins of elven villages toward the heart of the land. Water and game appeared plentiful, and the ground undoubtedly could support whatever crops they wanted to grow.

It seemed empty compared to the other places they’d looked at.

Something about the place struck a chord with Mudwort, and she felt her senses reach out and dip deep below the basin. The sights, sounds, and smells she picked up exploring the Qualinesti trees were heady and overwhelming, and she wrapped herself in the experience and wondered if the place appealed to Moon-eye as much as it appealed to her. Was Moon-eye sharing all her feelings? Did any of the other goblins understand what they were seeing or share her regard?

She thought about the goblins, noticing Direfang and Spikehollow standing nearby on the basin, Saro-Saro with them. It was as though she studied them from a distant point far, far away. There was Moon-eye and Graytoes too, and she saw herself, also. Nearly all of the goblins wore astonished, exhausted expressions-but there’d been no change, subtle or dramatic, in their awestruck expressions since she’d plunged into the Qualinesti wilds and felt the surprising euphoria.

So they were not feeling what she was feeling, not even Moon-eye. She thrust her mind away from the mountain and deeper into the place Grallik had called the Qualinesti Forest. She could hear him, faintly, over her shoulder, talking about the forest, answering Direfang’s questions. She half paid attention to what he was saying-in case he knew something that might prove valuable to her.

Grallik said that the elves had abandoned that nation, once their homeland, that a great green dragon had conquered them and chased them away. They had slain the dragon but fled.

She listened to other voices, too, none of them from goblins she recognized and none of them talking about the Qualinesti Forest. They were goblins whispering as though from far away, goblins scattered in the lands that her mind had visited. They were talking about food and shelter and the heat of the sun. One talked of a mate she’d recently lost.

“Who is there?” one of the spirit-goblins asked.

“Mudwort. Just Mudwort passing through.” Mudwort didn’t speak those words; they were only thoughts in her mind, but clearly the faraway goblin heard and understood her and answered.

“Mudwort? Where is Mudwort?”

Startled, Mudwort continued moving, fearing if she stopped to converse with the mysterious unseen goblin, the magic of the place might melt away and she’d be forced to stop.

Searching intently again, deeper down in the earth, she noted the earth-bones of long dead creatures, the husks of insects, thick tree roots, forgotten cellars and pits, and more.

Was she still in the Qualinesti Forest? Had she traveled somewhere else? Mudwort didn’t know where her senses had taken her without physically leaving Godshome. Her searching was so intense, she hadn’t realized another goblin had joined her and Moon-eye. His name was Boliver, and he spread his fingers out to touch those of the other two goblins. Boliver’d helped her days past in Steel Town. Together, they’d willed the dirt to move beneath the wall of fire so a goblin named Twitch and a few others could escape. Boliver had survived the death march of the army and was beside her now.

“Goblins in the village named Boliver Shaman,” Boliver told her.

Faintly she heard Boliver speaking to her. A part of her mind was pulled back to Godshome.

“Talk to the stones, sometimes,” Boliver added. “Like Mudwort do. Shaman, the goblins of home clan said. Stone-teller, some named Boliver.”

Mudwort preferred to ignore Boliver, but he was trying to help. And in that instant she felt the power of Godshome coursing through her, more than before. Everything suddenly came clearly into focus.

Her mind was still in the Qualinesti Forest. And there was magic in the old forest of the elves. It was one of the true places of power in the world, of secrets in the bosom of the earth.

Godshome was another such place, where the eldritch energy was so vibrant.

But the Qualinesti Forest was perhaps more powerful-she didn’t know. All she knew was that she wanted to go there.

The power of Godshome could not be hers. But the power in the Qualinesti Forest, it was something different and perhaps obtainable. Her mind continued to search, coming close, closer, yet never close enough to what she craved.

“Need to be in that forest,” she whispered to herself. “In that forest, it can be found, the magic.” Louder, she called out to all surrounding her. “The Qualinesti Forest, Direfang!” The excitement in her voice was palpable to all who listened and spread with murmurs and whispering.

“The forest?” Direfang asked, prodding her shoulder, but that was a mistake. Instantly Mudwort’s mind was ripped away from the vision of the Qualinesti Forest, and she found herself wholly back to reality, back in the basin, her fingers briefly unloosed from those of Moon-eye and Boliver.

She shook her head and rolled her shoulders, and by her expression let Direfang know that she was not pleased with his stupid interruption of her vision, even after all those hours.

“The Qualinesti Forest, Direfang. That is the place for a goblin nation. Not the Plains of Dust.” She shook out her hands and crossed her arms in front of her chest irritably. “There are goblins in that forest and goblins elsewhere. Goblins on an island with a stairway of great energy-saw that. Goblins everywhere, scattered. Weak, most are.”

Moon-eye pulled his hands back and hugged Graytoes. “Yes, goblins all over the world,” he boasted. “Saw the goblins, Direfang, heard the goblins. Those goblins can be called.”

“And added to this nation,” Boliver chimed in.

“Through stone,” Mudwort said. “Talking through the stone, this stone, any stone, the goblins can be called to the Qualinesti Forest. There to form a nation.”

Moon-eye stood and pulled Graytoes up close to him.

Graytoes nodded. “It is up to Direfang to build the goblin nation.”

The hobgoblin looked up to the western rim of Godshome. Right then there was a break in the clouds, a soft, orange glow spilling through. The glow wasn’t reflected fire or lava. It was the sun setting. He remembered Moon-eye’s song:

Low sun in the warm valleys

All goblins watch the orange sky

Looking for shadows of ogres

Knowing the time’s come to die

“It can be done, this nation.”

His own words only mildly surprised the hobgoblin. Direfang recalled from days earlier his conversation with Hurbear, and wondered if the old goblin had made it through the volcanoes. “A nation of goblins. Yes, it can be done.”