The reign of Istar

The Goblin's Wish

The human carried a broad-headed spear with a crosspiece mounted behind the spearhead. The crosspiece would keep a speared boar from running up the shaft and mauling the hunter, but the human didn't think the crosspiece would be necessary when the spear ran the kender through. If the spear went in right, it shouldn't make any difference what the kender did.

The little guy was only a hundred paces ahead now, and the chase was obviously getting to him. The man, on the other hand, had run after prey all his life. He knew if he could just get on a good, firm, downhill slope, he was sure to put the little unbeliever on a spit and collect on his hair. There was a five-gold bounty paid on kender scalps in Aldhaven. That was ale for a month. Good-bye, kender.

The kender was fast, though, the man had to give him that. The little guy's filthy brown hair whipped back and forth as he ran through briars, splashed through creeks, and vaulted over rocks in his panicked flight, and his bare feet were quick and sure, even up dirt slopes. But the kender didn't have the long legs the human had. The hunter knew that was how the gods of evil marked their lost children, with misshapen limbs that mirrored their souls. Some people killed kender and their wicked kind out of righteousness, but righteous causes did not impress the hunter much. Bounty money was reason enough.

The kender disappeared around a ridge, nearly falling over an exposed tree root. The man put on some speed, sensing his time was near. He'd never killed a kender before, though he'd once stabbed an old drunken goblin behind a barn and had gone for a lost elven boy two summers ago with a club, battering the lad until not even his own mother would have recognized him. The hunter had gotten only two gold for that scalp, which infuriated him to this day. He wouldn't be cheated this time, or the fat priest in Aldhaven who paid out the bounties would get a little lesson in the consequences of not keeping his word to honest men.

The hunter rounded the ridge, arms tensing for the throw or the thrust, and there was the kender — down. The unlucky little guy had fallen over a log in an old creek bed covered with dead leaves, and he was trying to get up but was crying out because he'd hurt his leg. It wouldn't hurt much longer, the man thought, and he lifted his spear to run it through the willowy kender's rib cage. The human was so close he could see the kender's wide brown eyes. The kender put up his hands to ward off the blow, but thin palms had never stopped a spear.

A thing like a red-and-black spider leaped out of the bushes on the low creek bank to the hunter's right. In a red fist it held a steel machete that swung down too fast to see or block. Pain jolted the hunter's body from his right thigh where the blade hacked its way through trousers and skin and muscles, biting into the hard bone. Blind with agony, the hunter went down. The spear jammed into the dirt and fell from his grasp, landing behind him. Then all he could do was scream.

The scalp hunter was able to think a little bit as he screamed, because he didn't want to die here. He tried to get up to run but had lost all feeling in his leg below the wound. He looked down in terror and saw his thigh cut open right down to the broken white bone. He gripped the flesh to pull it shut and stop the bleeding, but his hands and arms were slippery with blood. The air was full of the sharp tang of gore. There was movement down the trail behind him. The hunter looked through pain-dimmed eyes and saw the goblin there, walking casually, its red-splattered machete dangling in one hand.

It was a goblin, the hunter knew, because it looked a lot like the old drunken one he had killed, but this goblin was big and young and did not look drunk at all. It wore a ragged black tunic with a thin rope belt. Wiry muscles flowed under its dirty red skin. Its black eyes were relaxed and seemed to smile, though its round face was as cold as stone. The goblin eyed the now-silent kender, then bent down and picked up the boar spear with its free hand to examine the tip. The goblin tossed its machete aside.

"Don't kill me!" the man screamed in the trade tongue. "In the gods' names, don't kill me! I was after the kender! Please, get a me a healer! I'll give you anything, anything at all, but please don't kill me!"

The goblin snorted gently and looked down at the hunter. "Get priest? What you think maybe priest do for me when I knock door, eh? Think maybe priest say, 'Hey, goblin, here silver for you. Be good, you go home?' "

"Don't kill me!" The man sobbed, tears running down his face. The pain in his leg was unearthly, and the blood just kept coming out. "Please don't kill me. Please."

The goblin hefted the spear, feeling its balance, then gripped it hard in both hands and upended it, ramming it into the hunter's abdomen, pushing it through and twisting it until the man's last screams and spasms had passed and his head fell back on the leaves, his mouth and eyes open forever.

The goblin jerked out the spear and stuck it in the ground. He recovered his machete and wiped it off on the hunter's stained trousers, then stood up and looked at the kender again. The kender was on his feet down in the gully, staring at the dead human.

"Rats," said the kender. "You got him too quickly."

The goblin lifted his chin, judging the distance to the kender. The spear could reach him with a good toss, and the machete with the right spin. But the kender was doing nothing to require immediate action, and he had no obvious weapons. "Too fast, say?" the goblin asked, mildly curious.

"Yeah," said the kender. "He would have run right into my pit in another three steps." The kender stuck out his bare left foot and nudged at the thick patch of leaves before him. A stick shifted, revealing a long, dark split in the ground. The goblin carefully took a step closer and saw that, indeed, there was a pit in the center of the dry gully. It was an expertly done pit, at that.

The goblin stepped back, eyeing the kender with a faint amount of respect. He hadn't seen a kender in years and had thought they were all dead in these parts. Pointing down with his machete at the dead human, the goblin asked, "He want hair bounty on you?"

"I guess so," said the kender, still looking at the man. "I was about to skin a deer when he saw me. He just started running after me, and I ran away." The kender sighed and looked up at the goblin, the hunter forgotten. "Say, are you hungry?"

The goblin's empty stomach lurched when the deer was mentioned. He could go for several days with no solid food, but it had already been two days and the taste of grass and leaves did not appeal to him. He had been an informer and extra muscle for a human moneylender in East Dravinar when the Kingpriest's men had broken into the warehouse, with magical lights and swords in their hands. The goblin was the only one to get out through the skylight before the vigilantes seized the rope. The screams of the thieves and other thugs had grown faint behind him as he fled across the rooftops to escape into the countryside. Stolen food from farm houses had helped for a while, but the farmers, after the first half-dozen break-ins, had been prepared for raiders.

"Are you hungry?" the kender repeated, still waiting for a reply. "I mean, I've got a whole deer, and the meat won't go to waste with two to eat it. Do you want some?"

The goblin thought about it some more, fearing a trick, but his stomach won. "Yes," he said simply, marveling at the novelty of it all. No one had ever asked him if he was hungry before. No one had particularly cared.

He'd just make sure the kender didn't try anything without catching the wrong end of the machete first. Just to be safe, he picked up the spear, too.

"Well, let's be off, then," the kender said, waving the goblin on to join him as he set off into the woods. "Mind the pit. It took me a week to make all the stakes."

"We really should go back and bury the human at some point," the kender said, kicking through a big pile of brown leaves. "I mean because of the wild dogs and wolves and things. And the smell, too. I don't live here, so it wouldn't bother me much, but I have some pits here, after all, and there are always humans about, you know. I wonder if anyone will miss him — the man, I mean. No one ever seems to miss us, people like you and me. The humans have each other to look after. We have no one. We just have to stay alive when the humans come. That's the way it's always been, hasn't it? My parents told me it wasn't, but I learned different. They said some humans were nice. I never saw the nice ones. Maybe my parents were telling me a story, right? They always used to tell me stories about heroes and dragons and ghosts and elves. They told some good ones. Do you know some stories to tell? I bet you do, the way you handled your sword. I was sure glad to see you, even if I had the pit ready. You never know what might happen. I found a wolf in one of my pits once and I nearly fell in looking at him. The wolf was almost dead, and I felt sorry for him, so I had to kill him. I forgot that other things besides humans might fall into the pits. It would have been

… um… i-ron-ic if I had fallen in. My father taught me that word. He was good with words. What's your name?"

The goblin hesitated. The kender's chatter was more than a little annoying and was bound to grow worse, but playing along with the charade of friendship would keep the kender off guard for now. Kender were supposed to be trusting, if unbearably nosy. "Do not have one," he said stiffly.

"No kidding? No name at all? I've never heard of that before. Didn't your parents call you anything?"

The goblin had never known his parents, having been sold into slavery as an infant and having escaped in his teens. He had been called many things by the human thugs who had also worked for the moneylender, but none of the names were worth remembering.

"Eh," the goblin said at last. "Do not know why."

"How strange," the kender said. "I thought everyone had a name. Mine is…" The kender stopped, then looked down in sudden embarrassment as he walked. "Well," he finished quickly, "what's important is that we're alive, and that's what counts. My father always said that. He was smart."

The deer carcass lay on a hillside among a pile of leaves. A broken arrow shaft protruded from the space behind the deer's front left shoulder; a bow leaned against a nearby tree. The deer had been cut half open, and flies swarmed about the entrails. The kender searched in the leaves for a moment, bent down to pick up a long-bladed knife with a bone handle. The goblin tensed, but the kender merely sat down by the deer to finish dressing it.

The kender continued talking throughout the whole process. His easy patter about the forest and its secrets were of more than passing interest to the goblin, who suspected that he might have to live in the wilderness for some time to come. The kender had obviously lived here long and had learned much.

In the back of his mind, the goblin knew that one of these days it might be necessary to kill the kender, particularly if food became too scarce to be shared. Until then, he would listen and learn, and would watch his back just in case the kender's syrupy friendship turned out to be as false as a human's.

The goblin watched his back, and the kender talked and talked. The kender borrowed the goblin's things, and the goblin took them away again. Three weeks flew by. The winter rains were now six weeks away.

The minotaur had fallen into a stagnant pool of cold water and red leaves, where it lay unconscious. Its breath rasped slowly and heavily as the leaves endlessly rustled around it and flies feasted on the open, filthy wounds across its back and shoulders. The twenty-foot length of mud-choked iron chain, linked to the manacles on its wrists, had gotten snagged on a log, which the weakened minotaur had been unable to pull loose before collapsing.

The goblin caught the kender by the arm as the latter approached the huge brown figure. "Damn, you crazy!" he growled. "What you do, eh? One bite, we all bones." He hefted the boar spear in a muscular red fist. "I finish it and sleep good."

"No!" The kender grabbed the goblin's arm and pulled it down. For a second the goblin started to resist, almost turning the spear to run it into the kender's chest, but holding off. Instead, he simply shoved at the kender with his free hand and sent him sprawling.

The kender immediately got to his feet, face filled with rage. "No!" he shouted. "I want to help him! If it was you, I'd help you! Look at his chains! He was a human's slave! I want to save him!"

"We have no food to feed him in winter!" the goblin retorted. "We live good, bellies full now, but food gone when rain come. You say you hungry in cold rain, hunting bad. He hungry, too. What you feed him, eh? You like him chew off leg?"

The heated argument continued unabated for several minutes. Finally, the goblin cursed and turned his back on the kender, walking the two miles back to the cave where they lived. Damn the little bastard! Did he want to start a city out here in the forest? The fool was not thinking with his head. The minotaur was more dangerous than a company of city guardsmen. The goblin once saw a chained minotaur bite off the arm of its slave overseer, though it knew it would be killed for its crime. The minotaur had roared with laughter until the massed humans had beaten it unconscious with clubs before dragging it away to its fate.

The goblin fumed and stamped around the cave, finally realizing it was cold. The kender had always gathered wood in the evening while the goblin sharpened their weapons and relaxed. Everything had been just fine until now. The goblin knew how to use the fire-starter bow, but he didn't know where the kender found all the wood for the fire pit. When he went outside, all he could see were sticks and leaves, no burning wood.

And the kender did most of the hunting and cooking, too.

The goblin stamped around some more.

Maybe the minotaur could be bargained with. The goblin had no illusions about whether or not the minotaur would be a grateful and friendly ally, but even a brute like that would see the value in having two lesser beings tend to its wounds and hunt for it. And having a monster like that around might not be a bad idea, if it could be managed. Minotaurs were as savage and brutal as could be imagined. They were damn strong, mightier than humans. They hated humans more than they hated any other being, and they hated the slave-taking, holier-than-all Istarians most.

The goblin cursed himself for believing this would work. The kender was infecting his brain. He should just kill both the kender and the minotaur and let them rot.

But the kender did almost all the hunting and cooking.

The goblin sullenly picked up his weapons again and left the cave. Life wasn't fair. He hated that.

The tired kender looked up, knee deep in the water alongside the minotaur, and a grin broke out on his face. "I knew you'd help," he said with relief.

They made a crude sledge before nightfall, roping two long rough poles together with a ragged length of hemp that the kender recovered from disassembling an animal snare. It was past midnight when they got back to the cave with the minotaur and set him down inside. The huge brown beast had never once stirred. The goblin staggered off to collapse in a corner and fall asleep.

When he awakened, it was long past sunrise. Cold, cooked venison was spitted over the fire pit; the fire itself had long gone out. The minotaur's festering wounds had been carefully cleaned and dressed with old rags from the cave's rag pile, donated by many farmhouse clotheslines. The kender apparently had found nothing to cut the huge chain the minotaur was dragging around. The chain was carefully wound into a loose pile by the minotaur's side.

The goblin rubbed his face and got up. He noticed the kender had succumbed to exhaustion and was asleep, sitting upright against a cave wall, some rags in his lap, a bone needle and sinewy thread in his hand. He'd been stitching together a crude blanket.

Then the goblin saw that the minotaur, still lying flat on its stomach, was watching him. The beast's dull eyes were as large as a cow's, with the same deep brown color. Long scars crisscrossed the monster's muzzle and low forehead. One broad nostril was split open from an old wound. Long yellow teeth gleamed dully against its thick lips.

Trying to pretend he hadn't been caught off guard, the goblin nodded at the beast. Suddenly the idea of having a live minotaur in the cave did not look as good as it had earlier. The goblin could almost feel the monster's enormous teeth tear into his flesh. The minotaur made no move to get up, and the goblin took care of a few minor chores with an air of forced casualness. The minotaur must be very weak to skip a live meal. The goblin made his decision.

Chores finished, the goblin walked over to the fire pit and carefully sawed off a piece of venison with his machete. Very slowly, he moved over to the minotaur and knelt down near its scarred, long-homed head. He could see no readable expression on the creature's bestial face.

If this worked, they would have a new ally. The goblin was sure that the minotaur would eventually kill both the kender and himself if they weren't careful or if it went hungry. But the goblin had worked with the strong and brutal all his life, and he knew the value of strength in numbers. He hoped the minotaur knew this lesson, too. At least the minotaur wasn't a human. It was poor consolation, but in these days, it helped.

The goblin held out the piece of venison near the minotaur's muzzle, letting it smell the food. Then he moved the venison closer to the monster's mouth.

The huge nostrils flared and snorted. The minotaur stirred slightly, then grimaced with pain. Its teeth were bared as its lips drew back and it closed its eyes, but it quickly forced itself to relax and open its eyes again.

With a carefully measured move, its gaze fixed on the machete that the goblin gripped in his other hand, the minotaur opened its mouth, revealing a set of teeth that rivaled those of the largest bear. Its breath was unspeakably foul. Very gently, it took the venison and began to chew.

Four weeks passed. The minotaur recovered. The kender was overjoyed and talked until the goblin dreamed of killing him just to shut him up. Both goblin and kender hunted now; the minotaur sat silently in the cave. Though the minotaur never spoke, the goblin feared that the beast would react violently the moment the two smaller beings asked anything of it, so he worked more than he had ever worked when it was just him and the kender, and he grumbled about it under his breath. But deep inside he was satisfied. He began to think that bringing the minotaur to the cave had been his own idea. He had a boss again, a strong boss who could eat humans for breakfast if it chose. It was worth the trouble for the added power and safety — just as long as the minotaur didn't go hungry.

The wind grew colder. The kender raided some of his old caches, laid more traps, and brought more food and supplies to the cave. The goblin was able to build a windbreak of huge branches and rocks at the cave's entrance, and this doubled as camouflage for the cave in case humans were about. The minotaur ate a whole deer now every three or four days, and its muscles bulged until they were like huge knots of steel under its ugly brown hide. It still never spoke, though the kender talked incessantly now, a beatific look on his face as he gladly tended his new friends.

The kender still borrowed the goblin's things, but the goblin no longer cared. He had too much else to worry about. The winter rains were almost upon them.

The goblin watched his quarry — a large buck worth half a week of food for them all — leap out of bow range and bound away. The cry had startled it. Cursing softly to himself, the goblin leaned forward in the bushes and strained to hear against the stirring leaves.

He heard nothing now. A bird? His grip on the bow and arrow relaxed.

No. Not a bird. He could hear it again. It was a human, maybe, crying out. He'd probably fallen in one of the kender's pits. Perhaps the kender heard it, too, but the kender was nowhere to be seen. Figured. He was probably distracted by something again when he should be hunting. It was amazing that the kender had lived this long.

If the human was alone, it wouldn't take much to finish him off and pick through his belongings. He might even have some money. The goblin didn't plan to live in the forest forever. It wouldn't hurt to save a little change for a future day.

Crouching low, the goblin moved through the crackling brown undergrowth, sliding from tree to tree. Cool wind blew over his face and through his black rags. He kept an arrow nocked. He had only three more arrows if the first one missed, which it often did. He wasn't the experienced hunter the kender was.

Laughter reached his ears, human laughter. The goblin stayed down, listening, then moved forward more slowly. Hidden among rock outcroppings and thick briars, he climbed up a low hill. Someone was saying something in a nonhuman language. It sounded like an elven tongue, Silvanesti. The speaker mumbled; his words were unclear.

"I can't understand you," said a human voice in a language the goblin remembered well from his days in East Dravinar. 'Talk Istarian, boy."

Someone mumbled again. The goblin was almost at the top of the hill. No guards were visible. He carefully checked his bow, arrows, and machete, then began to crawl toward a fallen tree trunk overgrown with briars and thick vines, slightly downslope on the hill's far side. The wind covered the sounds of his movements.

"Talk to me, gods damn you!" Beefy smacks sounded from the hill's other side.

A few seconds later, the goblin reached the fallen log and looked down the slope.

There were three humans, two men and a woman. All wore the brown and gray leather of Istarian free rangers. Once the defenders of Istar's forested west, the free rangers were now no better than mercenaries and bounty hunters. A thin, blond-haired man was leaning into the face of a male elf, whose arms were wrapped back around a tree trunk and presumably tied there. The elf's head sagged; cuts and bruises were visible through his long, sun-bleached hair. Both his eyes were blackened and swollen. The elf's fine clothing, too light for the weather, had been deliberately cut and ripped to shreds.

"You listening to me?" the blond man demanded. His right hand gripped the elf's hair and pulled the prisoner's head up and back. "Anything getting through your pointy ears? Why were you trailing us, elf? What were you after?"

The elf started to mumble through thick, puffy lips. His knees had given out, and he hung upright only because he was tied in place.

The goblin chewed his lower lip. An elf and some rangers. Great. Two of a goblin's worst possible enemies. Maybe there should be a dwarf here, too, just to round things out. But it looked like there soon would be one less elf, and that was fine with the goblin. Damn shame the rangers had probably robbed their victim first. This day was nothing but bad pickings all around.

"The elf said something about a sword," said the massively built, dark-haired man standing nearby. He sounded uncertain. "Didn't the captain find a long sword, a ceremonial thing of some kind, in a box with that elf the boys caught yesterday?"

"I thought he said sword, too," said the woman with them. She had the plainest face the goblin had ever seen on a human, but she was heavily muscled, too, with short, stringy hair the color of old hay.

"Hey, elf!" yelled the thin, blond man, his mouth against the elf's left ear. The elf winced and tried to turn his head away. "Hey, can you hear me? Did you want that pretty sword with the gems on it? Was that what you wanted?"

When no response came, the blond man slammed his fist into the elf's abdomen. The three humans waited as the elf vomited and choked and gasped for air.

"This is taking all day," said the woman. "We gotta get back to the troops. We should just take this sword and sell it to the clerics in Istar, make our fortune! Either gut him here or take him with us."

"Shhh!" said the blond man. He leaned close to the elf, listening as the elf's lips moved. The goblin heard no sound.

"So it was the sword, right?" the blond man said. Without waiting for a response, he added, "Is that sword magic, boy? Does it got magic powers?"

The other two humans stood a little straighter, startled by the question. They watched the elf intently.

After a pause, the elf nodded, his face slack. He was nearly unconscious.

"Damn," said the blond man. He looked up at the other two humans, a smile crossing his face.

There was a whisper in the wind, followed almost immediately by a thump. At the same moment, the huge man with the dark hair bent back, his hands clawing behind him at the dull-colored arrow that had struck him directly between his shoulder blades. The arrow was sunk in almost to the feathers. The man made a strange wheezing sound, then pitched forward on his face.

"Oh, great Istar!" the woman said, wide-eyed. Her hands pulled her sword free, and she and the thin, blond man ran for cover behind separate trees. They crouched down, both clearly visible to the goblin. The man on the ground did not move. The elf hung limp from the tree, his chin against his chest. The wind started to blow harder.

The goblin slowly reached down to his side. His fingers touched the curved wood of his bow.

The blond-haired man, his nerve gone, made a break for it. He took off from his tree, running in a straight line for a clump of bushes about a hundred feet away. The woman started after him, but she must have heard the arrow as it went past her, for she dropped to the ground, rolling until she was behind a pair of close tree trunks. From there, she could hear the blond man scream as he writhed in the leaves and dead ferns.

"I surrender!" the plain-faced woman cried in the trade tongue. "Don't shoot! I've got kin who'll pay my ransom!"

"Then come out!" the kender's voice called. (It figured, thought the goblin.) "Leave your sword!"

"I've got a big ransom!" the woman yelled again. The goblin could see the white in her face, as pale as a drowned man's skin. She looked as if she would be blubbering any time now. The blond man was not so much screaming now as making short, gasping cries, trying to pull out the arrow buried deep in his lower back.

"Just come out slowly," said the kender. "Very, very slowly."

The woman tossed out her useless sword, then got to her feet. Her legs shook as she placed her hands on her head. "Don't shoot me!" she yelled again, looking around with huge eyes and a trembling lower lip.

"I'm over here," said the kender. He stood up, his bow lowered but his arrow nocked.

The woman saw him and stared, surprised at his size and obviously reconsidering her chances of survival. The goblin could see it on her face. If I can get close enough to that little bastard, he knew she was thinking, I can make hash of him. It's my only chance.

"My kin can pay a big ransom for me," she said, her voice gaining strength. "Lots of gold, I swear it. Just don't hurt me. Promise me that you won't hurt me."

"I promise," said the kender.

The long arrow that thumped into the woman's chest took her by surprise. She staggered back, her hands still on her head. Her eyes grew terribly big and round before she fell over backward. She never made a sound.

The goblin lowered his bow. It was the first time in four days that he'd hit anything on the first try. He waved at the kender, then started down the slope toward the gasping blond man.

The goblin found the minotaur sitting in front of the cave, gnawing on a deer's thigh bone. The overwhelming odor of dried blood and ripe manure carried on the air. The goblin was actually getting used to it.

"Eh," said the goblin, almost apologetically.

The minotaur, ears up and alert, glanced in the goblin's direction. Yellow teeth tore away a scrap of deer meat. The thick chain links hanging from the beast's wrist manacles swung and clinked.

The goblin swallowed the bile churning in his stomach, but he went on, even daring to smile. "Kender and me hunt deer, but kill humans. Shoot three. We find damn elf, much bad hurt, bring him back. Elf no good, eh? I know, but maybe elf know woods, good ways to hunt. Maybe we make him teach us. Want maybe keep elf alive for now. OK?"

The goblin hesitated, wondering if any of this was sinking into the minotaur's brain. It hadn't spoken a word since they'd found it. Humans said minotaurs weren't very bright, but this one had to be dumber than dirt.

The minotaur continued chewing on the bone, watching the goblin with its dull brown eyes. The goblin felt he had done all he could to safeguard the elf's survival, at least until the issue of the magical sword was cleared up. After that, the minotaur could dine on Silvanesti meat when the kender's back was turned, for all the goblin cared. The goblin nodded to the minotaur, then went back to help the kender carry the elf up to the cave. There they laid the elf out on the kender's bed — a pile of rags on the packed-earth floor.

The kender was frantic to do things for the elf. Before long, the elf was undressed, wrapped cozily in the kender's own blankets. The goblin busied himself by going through all the loot that he had taken off the bodies of the rangers and the elf as well. The kender gently washed the elf's face. The goblin carefully counted thirty-six Istarian gold pieces, ten Istarian silver coins, and two rings. It was more money than he'd ever had, even in East Dravinar in the good old days. He couldn't spend it, but it felt awfully good. He wrapped the money in cloth to muffle it, placed it in a pouch, then tied it inside his clothing behind his belt, where not even the kender's light fingers would find it.

He lifted the elf's backpack and looked it over. Its quaint, elaborate tooling and stitching occupied his curiosity briefly, then he undid the straps and looked inside.

He snorted. Books and papers… and a small bag of gold coins, twelve of them, each with an elven king on one side and a swan on the other. Silvanesti for certain. The rangers must not have gotten around to searching the elf's gear if they had missed this. The goblin palmed the gold and was about to empty the rest of the backpack's contents into the fire pit when he noticed the biggest book.

Except that the book in the elf's backpack was white, it was just like the red spellbook the goblin had seen a Red Robe reading one day, three years ago, on the banks of a mountain stream. Of course, the goblin had given that wizard a wide berth. It wasn't smart to mess with wizards.

The goblin eyed the book before gazing at the battered elf. If the rangers had found the book, the elf would have been dead long ago. The goblin wondered if that wouldn't have been best. A minotaur knew but one way to kill you and would at least be quick about it; a wizard knew a thousand, and he often took his time. The Istarians burned wizards at the stake, but it was not uncommon for whole Istarian villages and towns to go up in flames themselves shortly after such events. Better to turn away from a wizard than to raise your hand against him.

The goblin chewed his lower lip.

Better to turn away, but maybe better still to make a wizard your ally — even an elf — if you could do it.

The kender, muttering to himself all the while, finished cleaning and dressing the elf's wounds. The goblin, coming out of his reverie with a start, made a production of relighting the fire until the kender went outside to wash off in a stream. Once he was alone, the goblin carefully replaced all of the Silvanesti coins and made sure the elf's things were in order inside the pack before strapping it shut. He then took both the backpack and the elf's pouchladen belt and stored them in the back of the cave where the minotaur and kender weren't likely to find them. (The kender had already fully explored the shallow cave and was unlikely to search it again.) Then there was nothing to do but wait — and think.

The elf regained consciousness later that afternoon. The kender was beside himself with joy and talked without stop for two hours afterward, pestering the elf with questions that he lacked the strength to answer. This gave the elf a chance to eye his surroundings and take in the goblin and minotaur; upon seeing the latter, the elf's eyes widened and he seemed too afraid to move. The goblin kept to the background and took care of minor chores that the kender usually handled, saying nothing. The minotaur merely grunted when it saw the elf, then went outside and sat down to dine on a freshly killed boar taken from a pit trap, noisily tearing into its dinner with its bare teeth.

When the kender ran off to fetch some water from the nearby stream, the goblin ambled over and sat down on the ground next to the elf, who tried to edge away. The goblin pretended not to notice.

"You feel good?" asked the goblin in the trade tongue. He knew only a few Silvanesti words, and he had never had the chance to learn the goblin tongue — not that an elf would have appreciated it. "No human beat face for fun now, eh?"

The elf looked as though he couldn't think of anything to say. His eyes were blood-red spheres nestled in great black bruises that covered nearly his entire face.

"No need worry, eh," said the goblin with a squint-eyed grin. "The humans you meet, they get sick. Bad sick. We can do nothing. Maybe bury them later. More humans maybe out in woods, looking around, but you safe here." The goblin reached over and gently poked at the elf with a stiff finger. "Eh, you Silvanesti?"

The elf stared in tight-lipped silence at the goblin.

"Yes? No? Not matter," said the goblin, looking down to check his fingernails for dirt. "You think, eh, goblin not like elves. Maybe he do for me hard." The goblin looked into the elf's eyes with a knowing smile. "Maybe goblin want you to live. Maybe we all help each other. You wear robes, eh?"

The elf licked his lips, seeming to overcome some obstacle inside him. "Yes," he whispered. He was obviously afraid, but the goblin could tell the elf wanted to come out with it. Pride, no doubt. And perhaps an arrogant honesty. "I wear the wh — " The elf coughed painfully and swallowed, then continued in a weaker voice. "I am of the White Robes."

"Hmmm." The goblin made a face, looked down at his fingernails. It figured. "Good magic not help much, eh? You maybe looking for something when humans catch you?"

The elf started to reply, then stopped. His wide-eyed gaze locked onto the goblin.

Gotcha, thought the goblin. "Humans that beat you say they take magic sword from elf, maybe not long ago. Maybe humans go to Istar with sword, give Kingpriest. What you think Kingpriest do with sword? Maybe cut off little elf, goblin heads?"

The elf's face twisted. He made an effort to get up, without success. "No," whispered the elf, rolling back in despair. "Did they take it? Are you sure they have it?"

"Eh," said the goblin, feigning indifference. "They say they have sword with gems. Pretty sword. Humans gone now."

The elf's eyes closed. "My cousin," he whispered. He took several deep breaths, then continued. "They must have caught my cousin. I was looking for his trail when my horse broke a leg. Then the humans found me. They asked why I was following them, but I wasn't. I just wanted my cousin and the sword." He roused himself again, looking at the goblin. "Did they say anything about my cousin?"

The goblin shrugged and shook his head. He knew what must have happened. He knew the elf knew, too.

The elf groaned and again tried to get up, but he was very weak and fell back limply. Sweat beaded up on his forehead. His breathing became labored, but soon evened out as he fell unconscious and slept.

For several minutes, the goblin sat by the elf in silence. Instinct confirmed that the sword had to be magical. An elf, especially one who was a wizard, would not waste time worrying about a simple weapon. What could the sword do, though? Magical weapons were capable of doing anything, the goblin had heard. Some were said to hurl lightning, others to bum like torches, still others to cut through stone. The goblin had never before dreamed he would have the chance to get a magical sword of his own. He was certainly thinking about it now.

"How is he?" asked the kender as he came in with the full water bucket. "Is he still alive? Did he say anything?"

The goblin snorted and got up, dusting off his hands. "Still alive. Not say much, need sleep. Maybe all right soon." He looked down at the sleeping figure. "Not bad elf. Maybe we get along, eh? First time for everything."

"Running no good," the goblin observed the following morning. Leaving the cave, he found the elf standing upright by the entrance. A cold wind moaned through the branches. The sky was overcast, as usual.

The elf turned and almost fell over, but he grabbed for support from the rock face behind him. The elf wore stolen clothing that the kender had provided. The outfit was old, mismatched, and ill fitting, but better than nothing.

"I wasn't going to run," said the elf softly. He looked with a trace of anxiety in the direction of the minotaur, who was slowly wandering among the bare tree trunks some distance away. The beast had wrapped its chain around its waist and tied it there, like a belt, allowing its hands and arms some range of movement. The chain links clinked together lightly as it walked.

The goblin nodded in approval. "Good you stay. No horse, no luck." He waved a hand at the forest. "Nice new home, eh? You like? Stay long time with us, maybe?"

The elf looked away, his hands clenching and unclenching. His breathing was short and shallow.

You're exhausted and in pain, but you want to escape, thought the goblin. You want to escape and get that sword back. It's so obvious, it's laughable.

"I — " began the elf. He wrung his hands, seemingly unaware of what he was doing. He was watching the minotaur, who was casually breaking off tree limbs as thick as a grown man's arm, then dropping them or hurling them away. The kender would use them for firewood later.

"Tell me story, why you here now," said the goblin, sitting down on a rock. He was relaxed even though he didn't have his machete or spear. He knew he wouldn't need them.

The elf was silent. He looked down at his clenched hands.

"No story, eh?" said the goblin in mock disappointment. "Maybe tell good story about magic sword. Make no matter now. Sword gone. Humans got it. Tell about sword. Good to hear story, start day."

The elf unclenched his hands. "It was just a sword," he said without looking up.

The goblin grinned mirthlessly. "Just sword, eh?" he said. "Dirty sword, no good? You sure you wear white robes?"

Stung, the elf flushed, but still did not look up. "It was a gift for a friend," he said. "It… had a lot of personal value for me, too."

"Hmmm," said the goblin, after a minute had passed in silence. "Not much story, eh. We find you, shoot humans, save life, fix you up, and you have no story. Eh! Wizards all alike." He made a gesture with his hands, resigned to the ingratitude of the universe. "We save white book, even. You throw many spells all you want. Play good wizard all day. Still sword gone. Still no story. Eh I"

The elf blinked and looked directly at the goblin. "My spellbook?" he asked in astonishment. "You have my spellbook? Where is it?"

"In cave," said the goblin easily. "All safe for you. Eh, some goblins not stupid. Work together, maybe live. Fight each other, all die. Winter coming, you know. Rains start soon. Maybe you use spells, we live to spring. You stay, grow strong. We safe from humans here. You leave, eh, we not care. But humans, maybe they not so nice next time."

It would be tricky, the goblin knew. If the elf had the magic to obtain the sword, he would certainly have done so by now. But he didn't have the sword, he hadn't stopped the rangers from beating him up, and he hadn't managed to escape even now. He might not have the magic to do much of anything. But maybe he did and just needed time to prepare. It would be tricky, baiting him like this, easing him into the circle, making him give up his secrets.

"You not trust me" the goblin said at last. "Maybe good thing. Elves, goblins like water and fire. Humans, they kill us both, but we not care. That fine with you, maybe?" The goblin gave a short laugh. "Look! You see me, you see kender, you see minotaur. We work together. You alive also. Think! Wizards good at thinking. Real enemy is who, eh? Think!"

The elf did not answer for a minute. He looked embarrassed as the goblin spoke. "I apologize," he finally said. "I'd just never imagined that… well, that — "

"That goblin get smart, eh? Or kender? Or — " The goblin jerked a thumb in the direction of the minotaur. "Istar make us smart. No time for stupid things. We stick together or Istar collect our hair. You, wizard, maybe worth more gold than me, minotaur, kender." The goblin grinned, rubbing his own short, wiry hair. "My head, I like much, eh?"

The elf actually smiled. Then he looked around, and the smile faded as he saw the bare trees and low clouds and seemed to look beyond them.

"Cousin gone," said the goblin softly. "Why you risk life for sword?"

It was the moment of truth. The goblin's eyes narrowed as he leaned forward on the rock.

The elf looked down at his hands and wrung them together for several long minutes.

"It was a gift for my cousin," he said at last, looking at something only he could see. "I made it with the help of my brethren in the Orders of High Sorcery. Over the years, my cousin had shielded many in the orders from Istar, defying his own family to do it, and we wished to reward him. I asked that we make him a sword, one that he could use as his wisdom saw fit."

The elf took a deep breath and let it out, never looking up. His eyes seemed to glisten. "I rode out to meet him at a prearranged place south of here, but an Istarian patrol chased us. He got the sword, but didn't have time to undo its case before we split up. I tried to find him. Then my horse… You know the rest."

The goblin nodded solemnly. The sword, he shouted inside. Tell me about the sword, you maggot elf.

The elf licked his lips and went on. "The sword was named the Sword of Change. We wanted to fulfill my cousin's dearest dream, whatever the gods would grant, so we gave the sword the power to do just that. It will grant its user one wish. It is not all-powerful, but the gods of magic will grant the user what he asks for if it is within reason." He grimaced at a thought. "I've been guilty of worrying more about the sword than my cousin's life, but the sword could do much harm in the wrong hands. The Kingpriest no doubt could find a use for it to build his power. He could root out traitors, gain victory in battle, grant himself many more years of life. Now it's…" He lifted his hands, then let them fall, his shoulders sagging.

The goblin quietly digested this. The idea that a sword was capable of so much power was almost too ridiculous to believe, but the practical aspects of having a sword like that were not lost on him at all. A parade of wishes flowed through his head. Food, riches, women, physical might, rulership, immortality — he would ask for any of these if the sword were his — or if it became his, one day. It began to seep into his mind that perhaps the sword wasn't totally out of his grasp. It certainly couldn't hurt to find out if the elf knew anything more that would be useful in obtaining the sword. The goblin would have to prepare himself for the journey, though it meant abandoning the elf, the minotaur, and -

"Wow," said the kender.

The elf spun around and nearly fell again. The goblin jumped in surprise. Eyes full of wonder, the kender was sitting on the hillside over the cave mouth, beside a few small saplings only thirty feet away. The goblin had never seen him.

"A sword that can do all that," said the kender in awe. "And you cast magic, too? I can't believe it. That's incredible. Are you going to capture the sword? Can we see it if you do? What's it look like? My mother and father told me all about magic, and they said it was the best thing. I'd love to see a magic sword. Where is it? Can you find it?"

The elf slowly swallowed, appearing confused and unsure. He glanced from the goblin to the kender. "If I knew where the men who took it were, I might have a chance to get it back," the elf said. "If my cousin is… if he is dead, then I should see that the sword stays out of Istarian hands. I could not sleep, knowing they had it and could use it."

"Great!" shouted the kender, leaping to his feet. "Can we go with you? He and I are great hunters" — he pointed to the goblin — "and we can track and set traps and do all kinds of stuff. And the minotaur can carry things. He's strong! We won't get in the way, I promise. We'll be good! Are you going to cast spells to get the sword back? I can't wait!"

Both the elf and the goblin stared at the kender in astonishment. The goblin looked at the elf. The elf looked back at the minotaur, who was now sitting under a tree, taking a nap.

"Well…" said the elf.

"Then let's get going!" shouted the kender. "I'll grab my stuff!" HeScooted down the slope and ran into the cave, past the camouflage branches.

The elf and goblin stared at each other. Each seemed to be about to ask a question. Neither did.

The elf cleared his throat. "I really should recover that sword. The Istarians will use it against us and against everyone not of their faith, and we will suffer for it. Making that sword was foolishness. Letting it go to the likes of them is worse."

The goblin shrugged and glanced at the minotaur. "You know, that fine by me, you get sword. Fine that we go for walk. But maybe big one not like to take walk with us," he said in a very low voice, nodding in the minotaur's direction. "Hard to tell with big one."

The elf thought. "Maybe I can do something about that," he said. "I don't like doing this, but… could you find that white book you said you found? I think I have a spell there that might…" He let his voice trail off.

The goblin made a show of looking up into the trees, then motioned for the elf to follow him into the cave.

Everything was working out so perfectly that the goblin had trouble believing it. The possibility that he would soon have the sword in his hands made it hard to think. He'd have to calm down and use his head. There was too much at stake to blow this. And he'd have to start thinking about the wish he would make the moment his hand closed on the sword's hilt. There were so many things he had always wanted, and now…

There was no sound in the forest but the rustling of dry leaves and the cold wind in the bare branches. Beneath the tree where it rested, the minotaur leaned back, eyes almost closed, perfectly still except for the gentle rise and fall of its barrel-sized chest. One of its broad, cupped ears flicked away a horsefly, then curled back like the other toward the cave mouth.

They traveled east under a dark sky for the rest of the day. Behind them were the woods that the kender had known all his life. The kender was quite excited about the trip and talked incessantly, though he looked back now and then, too, and was sometimes silent. Nervously eyeing the placid minotaur, the goblin marched along quickly to keep up with everyone else. The elf's spell of charming did indeed seem to have tamed the huge beast, though the goblin was careful never to annoy it. There was no sense in pressing one's luck. Once the elf felt certain of the minotaur's obedience and that it understood the widely used trade tongue, the elf paid little attention to the beast and merely had it carry their heavier supplies. These included a few bags the elf had dropped when the humans had captured him. The elf fussed over these for several minutes before assuring himself that they were safe and unharmed.

The Istarian free rangers had left a remarkably clear trail behind them. The goblin spat on the ground as the kender traced it back with ease. In the old days, the goblin had heard, no living thing could find the path a ranger took. Obviously, that had been a VERY long time ago.

They bedded down that night, too exhausted to talk. The kender took first watch in the evening, unable to sleep from excitement. He talked to himself a lot, however, which kept the elf and goblin awake until the elf relieved the kender and forced him to get some sleep himself.

On the afternoon of the second day, the foot trail of the rangers merged with that of a larger party of humans with horses and wagons. The signs of a camp on the edge of the forest were fairly fresh, abandoned not more than a day ago. A bonfire had been built in a broad clearing; the large ash pile was still smoking slightly.

There was a grave, too, with an elf's battered helmet pounded into the soil above it. The elf rested his hand on the soil for a few moments, then stood, said nothing. The goblin noticed, though, that the elf's eyes seemed unusually red thereafter. The goblin shrugged; vengeance would make the wizard fight all the harder. And it meant one less elf in the world.

"We've got to move more carefully," said the kender, scuffing his bare feet through some flattened tall grass. "If they rest in the evenings, we could catch them as early as tomorrow morning. But they could catch us, too. We killed three of their scouts, but they might not miss them right away. It looks like they have about twenty men, probably in armor. They might have slaves, too. Those footprints right there are barefoot. The slaves probably stay in the wagons when the Istarians are traveling. Looks like children, maybe a woman, too."

"Where are they heading?" the elf asked, shading his eyes to look into the distance. The sky was overcast, but the cold sun managed to peek through irregular breaks in the clouds.

"East, probably back to Istar. It looks like a regular patrol, border checkers. They must all want to get back home. They used to come into the woods when I was small, but not so much lately. We should stay low and near trees whenever possible." The kender turned to look up at the elf. "Say, what spells are you going to use when we find the humans, anyway?"

The elf looked down with a faint smile. "This was all your idea. I thought you knew."

"No, really," said the kender. "You're a wizard. You should know about stuff like this. Are you planning to throw a blast of fire at them? Are you going to blow them up just like that? Can I watch if I'm quiet?"

The goblin, who had turned to continue the trek, stopped to hear the elf's response. The same thought about their tactics had been going through his mind, too, but he had planned to ask about it this evening when they made camp. Would the elf do all the work for them?

The elf's lips pressed tightly together. His face was now less puffy, but it was an off-green color, the bruises and cuts fading away slowly. "We'll see," he said. "I have a few things with me that might help. I'll need to think it out, but we should be able to put on quite a show. I doubt that the patrol will ever forget it."

The kender nodded with excitement, the goblin with satisfaction. The minotaur wandered on ahead to kick at some rocks.

The kender's guesswork on the location of the Istarians proved to be reasonably accurate. By late evening, even the goblin could tell that they were not far behind the humans. The oddly assorted companions elected to camp for the night, forgoing a fire to prevent their being spotted. They planned to catch the humans on the following night. The elf guessed it would be their last chance to do so before the humans entered territory that was more heavily defended.

That evening, before the light in the sky was gone, the elf carefully outlined the plan he had developed for assaulting the Istarian camp. He brought out the things that the order had gifted him with before he had left with the Sword of Change, and he went over their uses, point by point. It would be difficult to take on the Istarian force, especially since the four of them were far outnumbered. But the elf pointed out that they had the weight of magic and surprise. If a kender and a goblin could kill three rangers, they certainly had a chance against the rest.

The kender was beside himself with excitement at the plans; the minotaur seemed indifferent and uninterested. The goblin listened carefully to the explanation and fought to control his mounting tension. He mentally thanked himself for not having burned the wizard's books and for the silver tongue it had taken to open up the elf's foolish trust. This elf was truly dangerous. It seemed he could do everything.

And it was that very thought that brought back a tale the goblin had heard, and his blood ran cold with fear. Nonetheless, he asked the question with earnest innocence.

He cleared his throat to get everyone's attention. "Hear talk from men of Istar, back when, that priests of Istar hear you think when you not talk." The goblin tapped the side of his head with a red finger. "Maybe they do this to you or us, find us out?"

"I doubt that they have a priest with them, but it's possible," the elf replied, unhappy with the thought. "I've heard about the priests' mind-reading, too. Only the more important priests can do that, but… let's hope for the best."

The goblin grinned. "Eh, hope for best, yes. Maybe you can do this listen-to-thoughts trick also, eh? You hear their thoughts so we know what they think?"

"No, I'm afraid not. There were a few spells I was never able to learn, and the mind-reading spell was one of them. I couldn't learn to cast a fireball spell, either, but I think I've taken care of that. I've always wanted to throw a fireball, but what I've got is better."

The goblin laughed and nodded. His mind was safe. His plans were secure. The relief he felt almost left him light-headed. He knew a White Robes wizard would not lie, and he was grateful for that flaw as much as he despised the elf for it.

The goblin busied himself, setting up camp without even being asked, which was unusual for him, but welcome by the elf and kender. The goblin had already come to terms with what he needed to do to get the sword at the least amount of risk to himself. All he needed was to lay his hands on the sword for a few seconds, long enough to make his wish, which he now knew by heart. After that, he'd have no worries at all.

The elf took first watch that evening. The others bedded down in the darkness of a thicket at the foot of a hill. The minotaur simply stretched out on the ground, chains rattling, and was asleep almost at once. The goblin and kender bedded down as well. After long minutes of forcing his tension-tight stomach to settle down, the goblin closed his eyes and prepared to take a much-needed rest.

"Are you still awake?" came the kender's voice. The goblin jerked, and his eyes opened instantly. Then he realized the kender wasn't talking to him. The soft voice came from where the elf had gone on guard duty.

"Of course I'm awake," the elf said.

The goblin sighed and lifted his head slightly. With his night vision, he could see the elf settle down on the ground next to a log, about fifty feet away. The kender wandered out of the dark undergrowth and sat down by the elf. The little nuisance was wrapped in a blanket he had brought from the cave. The goblin tried to close his eyes to sleep, but found rest impossible now. He resigned himself to staying awake a while longer, watching the elf and kender and listening to them talk.

"I can't sleep," the kender said, scooting closer to the elf. "I'm a little excited about tomorrow night. I've been in fights before, but never one like this. Is it bad to be excited like this?"

"No," said the elf. "I'm feeling a little… er… excited myself, but it will pass. Just remember your part, and when the time comes, you'll be ready for it."

The kender sighed. "I hope so. I keep thinking about what it will be like, and I can't seem to make my mind slow down enough to drop off. My head's all full of things."

Your head is full, yes, thought the goblin. It is full of briars.

The elf grunted. "You know," he said, "I never did ask you what your name was. We've been so preoccupied that I never got around to it."

There was a little silence. "Well, I wasn't really going to tell you, because I was talking with the goblin a few weeks ago when we first met, and he said he didn't have a name. I figured it would be im-po-lite to tell him my name when he didn't have one to tell me. My father taught me that word."

"Hmmm," said the elf. "Well, so you're worried about offending what's-his-name, the goblin?"

"Yeah," said the kender, scooting a little closer to the elf. "So you can't tell me your name, either. We have to be fair."

The goblin gently shook his head in disgust. He had long ago given up trying to plumb the depths of the kender's bizarre mind. It simply made no sense. Still, he felt odd hearing the kender's reason for never telling his name. It made the goblin vaguely uncomfortable, and he couldn't say why.

The little guy was now practically stuck to the elf's side. The elf raised his arm and hung it back over the fallen log to keep from poking the kender in the head with his elbow.

"Magic is great," said the kender. "I never knew you had so much magic. I've wanted to see magic all my life because my parents always told stories about it. They said it was the most marvelous thing, but it wasn't fair because kender couldn't cast magic, no matter how hard they studied. But elves and humans knew how. Is that true?"

"I'm afraid there's some truth to that," the elf said. "Kender can cast spells if they serve the gods, but the Orders of High Sorcery are closed to them." He shrugged his shoulders, but his voice betrayed a certain relief at his words.

The goblin was appalled. A kender casting spells? The very idea was chilling. Gods above, there was enough trouble in the world already. Istar would be less of a threat than a kender wizard.

"By the way," said the elf. "That's mine."

"What? Oh! I'm sorry." The kender handed something back to the elf. "It fell out of your pocket."

The elf put the item on the ground far away from the kender. "If I lose anything else, I won't be able to cast any spells tomorrow," he warned.

"Oh," said the kender. There was a pause. "Here. I found these, too."

The elf took the offered items with a deep sigh. Thanks," he said, and all was quiet for a while.

"I used to ask my parents if I could learn to cast magic when I got older," the kender said. "My mother said maybe it was a good thing I couldn't, since if you want to become a magic-user, you have to pass a test, and they make you do terrible things in the test. Is that true?"

The elf was silent for perhaps a minute. It was a differ ent kind of silence than merely thinking. The goblin found himself turning his head to hear better, straining to hear more.

The kender poked the elf gently in the side with an elbow.

"What?" asked the elf blankly. "Oh, the test. Yes, we do have to take the Test of High Sorcery. The test doesn't really make you do terrible things, but you… you have to

… um… go through some terrible things. The bad things just… happen to you. I don't think I want to talk about my test right now. I want to keep my mind clear and ready for tomorrow."

"Oh." There was a brief silence. "Would I have made a good magic-user? I'm thirteen now. Is that old enough to be a wizard?"

The news surprised the goblin. He had seen very few kender in his life, but because they had all looked to be the size of human children, he never thought twice about this kender's age, assuming it was about thirty or so. Thirteen was far younger than he had expected of someone, especially a kender, with so much ability at wilderness survival and lore.

"Thirteen is a little young," the elf finally commented. "But a few wizards start not long after that age. Some slightly younger."

The kender seemed to be thinking hard about something after that. Finally, he blurted out, "Could you cast a spell for me?"

The goblin blinked in shock. What?

"Well, I could," said the elf slowly, "but most of the spells I have right now should be saved for tomorrow night." He paused for a moment, then said, "I suppose I could try one small thing. I can relearn a new spell in its place in the morning."

The kender leaned forward in excitement. "Really? A real spell?"

He dropped his voice, glancing back at the goblin and minotaur. The goblin closed his eyes, though he figured they'd never know if he was awake or not unless he moved around.

"All right, I'm ready!" the kender whispered. "You won't set anything on fire, will you? It's awfully dry out here and it hasn't rained in the last five days. Anything but that is fine."

"Don't worry," the elf said softly, and he raised his hands. "IMPILTEH PEH."

A faint blue light — a tiny ball the size of a fingernail — began to glow in the darkness between the elf's fingers. The goblin caught his breath, not daring to make a sound and reveal himself. He had never seen magic before; either, and the sight of it frightened him as much as it excited and fascinated him.

The elf's fingers began a slow, waving dance around the ball, and the ball responded by moving from one hand to the other, swaying back and forth. In a moment, the ball divided into two balls of equal size, then each ball divided again and there were four, then eight, each rolling to the rhythm of the elf's hands. By the faint, mobile light, the goblin could see the kender's eyes shining.

The elf's hands moved, altering the pattern. The eight blue balls began to chase each other in a small circle, changing colors from blue to violet, then to red, orange, yellow, green, and blue again. The balls began to change colors out of sequence with each other, whirling around between the elf's outspread fingers as he manipulated their magical essence. They formed an oval pattern in the air, chasing each other faster and faster, until they were a single, unbroken cord of golden light that gyrated like a coin rolling on its edge in a tight circle, just before falling flat.

The elf's lips pursed, concentrating on the pattern. The circle began changing shape as it revolved in the air, taking the form of a square, then a triangle, then a five-pointed star. Then its shape altered even more: a flying bird, a leaping rabbit, a swimming fish, all whirling around without sound.

The elf's fingers changed the pattern again. Now it was deep glowing green, a narrowing column that revolved more slowly until it stopped over one outstretched palm and began to grow leaves like a live plant. Each leaf appeared in outline, then filled in with soft color; thorns formed on the main stem. The top of the plant bloomed into a bright red bud, which slowly grew until a rose of crimson light reached up toward the sky.

The elf uttered a soft word, and the plant collapsed into a small ball of pale white light. In moments, it formed a mouselike shape that scampered around on the mage's palm with lifelike curiosity. When it had finished exploring the hand, the mouse stood up on its back legs, did a short dance, took a deep bow to the kender and wizard, and vanished into a dot of light that slowly faded from sight.

It was completely dark now. The goblin had forgotten how to breathe. He slowly shut his mouth, unable to believe it was over. He blinked and resisted the urge to rub his eyes. It was magic. Real magic.

Then he heard the kender sniffle.

He looked at the little figure by the elf's side. Both of the kender's hands were pressed to his face, covering his eyes. The kender suddenly drew in a ragged breath and began to cry.

The elf's arm dropped over the kender's shoulders. "What's wrong?" he asked in confusion.

The kender leaned into the elf's chest as he wept, his thin body shaking. Long minutes passed in the night as the goblin watched.

"My mamma and daddy told me magic was beautiful," the kender sobbed. "They said they had never seen it before, but they knew it was good. They wanted to see it so badly but no one would show them. They told me that humans weren't all bad, and maybe someday a human or an elf would show us some magic if we were patient with them. They didn't think humans would hurt them, but the humans did. The humans hurt them, they hurt my mamma and daddy a lot and I couldn't help them because I was too scared and I hid, and when the humans were gone, I had to bury them and say the goodbye prayers like they taught me. I was too scared to help them, even when they were really hurt bad. I wish I had magic then so I could have helped them. They wanted to see magic so bad." He shook as he wept, his face hidden in the elf's clothes.

The goblin realized that his hands were clenched into cold, trembling fists. Something burned in his eyes; it was hard to see. Slowly, the goblin unclenched his hands and covered his hot face with them. He hated weakness, he had hated it all his life, and now he was filled with it. He hated himself for it, and it was all the kender's fault — the damned, weak, stupid, wretched kender. Wet streams flowed down the goblin's cheeks, and he bit his lower lip until he tasted blood.

Tomorrow, he thought. Let tomorrow come fast.

No stars were out. A tall fire burned just up the slope of the hill, visible through the thick trees and under-brush. The crickets called from all around.

"So you think you know how to handle that elf girl?" the grinning guard said. "You think she's not too much of a match for you?"

The smiling guard had turned to face his companion, who was bending over to pick up firewood. The goblin drove his knife into the grinning man's lower back, straight through his leather armor. The guard knew instinctively he was going to die, the pain was so great. He was terrified and tried to scream, but the scream wouldn't come out through the goblin's calloused hand that was clamped over his mouth and face, twisting his head back with incredible force. The man reached back to grab his attacker, but agony filled his head and made him forget everything. The goblin let the body sag to the ground.

"You bet I can handle her," said the guard picking up the firewood. He crouched down to adjust the load in his arms, reaching for a few more pieces. "Good redeems its own, they say, and I'm gonna redeem that elf girl before she gets to Istar. She's gonna know the ways of man, and I'm gonna be the head priest. They can have the other slaves. I've waited too long to pass this one up."

He picked up the last piece of wood, and the goblin slapped his hand tightly over the man's mouth and pulled him into his hard chest. The razor-sharp blade sliced swiftly through his throat. The man knew what was happening, but could do nothing to stop it, and trying to scream did nothing useful at all.

Then it was quiet again in the night woods, and soon the crickets began to chirp. Everything smelled of blood.

The goblin grinned, wiped off his blade, and moved on through the wood. He felt no weakness at all now, not with the spell of magical strength the elf had cast upon him. He thought he could lift a horse now if he wanted to, maybe ten horses. And he wore a ring that altered the sounds around him, so a man would think he had heard an owl hoot if the goblin spoke, or heard the wind blow if he walked up. It was too good to be true. In his excitement, he barely noticed the cold.

The main encampment of Istarians was on the hilltop, packed tightly around the bonfire in the chill air. Down the slope, in a clearing, half hidden from the hilltop by trees, was a cluster of several wagons and all the Istarians' horses. The elf had scouted ahead with his spells and reported finding slaves in one wagon: an elven woman, an old dwarf, and three children — human or elven, he couldn't tell. The other three wagons were empty. The kender's estimate of twenty men was close; the goblin guessed twenty-four — twenty-one now that he had killed three men in the last few minutes of circling the camp.

The elf and minotaur were down by the wagons, attacking the guards there. The elf cast a spell that silenced the minotaur's rattling chains. The goblin crouched down, pulled a thin, ceramic flask from a leather pouch on his rope belt. It was time. Uncorking the lid, he drank the contents, screwing up his face at the bitter taste. Wiping his mouth, he stood up, tossed the flask aside, and moved toward the firelight in a crouch. He had to reach the top of the hill before the kender arrived with the fireball.

Every step of the way, the goblin pictured the sword. He saw himself holding it instead of his machete, and saw himself after he made his wish, the one wish, the only wish. The thought almost made him hurry too fast and give himself away to the humans, who were directly ahead of him. He dropped down behind a tree and faded into the darkness. He was only two hundred feet from the fire on top of the hill.

"It's not like we're killing real people, you know." The human who spoke kept his voice low, but his tone was sure and knowing. He shifted his stance, and his armor clinked. Chain mail, maybe with plate. "You and I, we're real people. We know the difference between right and wrong. The great gods blessed us with vision that no other race has. That's the vision to see our destiny. We're not like the mongrel races who see only to the next day's meal. They don't deserve to breathe our air. By the blessed gods, do you want to live in a city with goblins?"

There were two men ahead of the goblin, thirty feet away, near a pile of brush and branches from a fallen tree. He could see them well in the firelight. One wore metal mail, the other riveted leather. The goblin guessed that the one in mail was a leader, maybe a knight. The man would be hard to kill if this wasn't done right. The goblin wondered if he should just go around them, but he hated leaving anyone alive behind him, especially people who didn't want to live with goblins or breathe their air.

The man in the riveted leather looked away from his companion, his grip loosening on his spear. "No, Your Reverence," he mumbled.

The goblin froze. Gods of Istar, he thought, a priest. Perhaps a priest that could tell what you were thinking!

"Well, neither do I," said the mail-armored man, looking at the other with a half-grin. "No one does. You know what kinds of evil things goblins do, don't you? Well, certainly. We have to destroy them, and you know that's right. And kender. Forgive my asking, but would one of the gods of good ever have created a kender?"

"They — " The other man stopped, obviously trying to think this out carefully. "They aren't… I mean… kender, they cause trouble, I know, but — "

The mail-armored man snorted good-naturedly. He looked away at the distant bonfire in the center of the camp, surrounded by the secure clutter of bedrolls. The dim firelight was reflected in his polished steel breastplate. "You're trying to tell me that kender aren't as bad as goblins, right?"

The leather-armored man took a breath, thought better of his answer, and said nothing.

"So you DO think kender aren't as bad as goblins." The mail-armored man sighed. "You think we're doing wrong, is that it? We're doing the will of the gods of good and the Kingpriest of Istar, and it's wrong?"

"No." The man seemed badly frightened. The goblin could barely hear the answer. "No, that's not it, Your Reverence."

"Ah," the cleric said, the misunderstanding apparently cleared up. "The captain said this was your first campaign. I know it's hard, and everything seems confusing at times. Maybe all the time, right?"

The other man looked at the ground and seemed to nod in the affirmative, unwilling to speak.

The goblin's worst fear was eased. If the priest could read minds, he wasn't doing it now. The goblin studied the ground ahead of him, then reached into a side pocket and pulled something out. He couldn't count on a clean kill through mail armor, so he'd have to use the potion's powers and work around it. He slowly crept out from the tree's shadow.

"It was confusing for me, too, when I started." The cleric suddenly sounded strangely vulnerable. "It was terrible for me at first. I wasn't worried about fighting goblins, but other things threw me. We had to fight dwarves once. They put the fear of evil into me, with their shifty little eyes and ratty beards and stumpy bodies. They fought like" — the cleric dropped his voice and turned his dark eyes on the recruit — "like the Seven Evil Ones were in them."

There was only silence after his words, except for the distant crackling of the fire. The wind seemed to be picking up around them.

"It was a terrible war in the mountains," said the cleric in a low voice. "I saw my friends crushed by avalanches, shot by bolts and arrows. They lay in my arms with their limbs hacked away, begging me to heal them. The dwarves did this to us in the mountains. They didn't fight like humans. They weren't human. They were evil reborn. I saw it all then, and I came to believe at last in their evil. I wish to the gods even now that there had been a better way for me to learn than to have gone through that. I'll not see my friends die in my arms for that again, bleeding away and me not able to stop it because all my spells were gone to others wounded earlier." The cleric's eyes were like dancing black flames.

The cleric reached up, patted the other man on the back. "I like you, boy. You remind me of the way I was, before the war in the mountains. I wish you could always be like that. I really do. You're a lot happier for it."

The leather-armored man coughed and dared a weak smile. The cleric smiled back at him. The leather-armored man reached up to wipe the sweat from his forehead.

Something moved across his feet and crawled up his legs.

The man jumped when he felt it. Something had him by the feet, and he lost his balance and fell over, dropping his spear. The cleric began struggling and slapping madly at his thighs. He was seeing tall grass and vines and roots and briars and saplings knot themselves around his calves like iron chains. The two men opened their mouths to shout or scream. No cries sounded. Instead, the crickets chirped more loudly, the wind blew harder, night birds called. The men on the hill by the fire went on about their business.

The goblin came swiftly out of the darkness. He whipped a flexible wire over the cleric's head, twisted the wire around his neck, and pulled it tight in less than a second, snapping the cleric's head back with great force. The cleric's eyes bugged out; he fought to get his fingers under the wire but found no space. His tongue came out between his teeth, and his eyes stared, white, at the stars. The man on the ground struggled to get free of the vines and grass that tightened over his legs and chest and arms and reached up for his face, and he screamed and screamed and heard only the crickets and the night birds and the wind in the trees above.

Then the cleric collapsed, falling backward into the grasping grasses and vines, and the dark shape released the garrote and looked at the fallen man with cold eyes. The leather-armored man saw it and believed the cleric about the evil then, he believed it all, and he screamed like a madman right up to the end. And no one heard him.

It's all too good to be true, thought the goblin.

"Where in the Abyss are they?" muttered the captain, heedless of the sleeping men around him. He had to be the captain, the goblin decided, though the man wore no armor. His bearing and movements marked him at once as a man who was in charge. "Hey, you!" he shouted to the sentry standing across the camp. "Get out there and tell those two dung-eaters that the fire's dying, and they're to get their fat asses back up here with the wood right now. And tell them I want to see them afterward, too. If they've got time to hunt squirrels, they've got time for a few other things I've got in mind for them. Go!"

The sleeping men slept on. The chosen soldier saluted with a grin and took off into the woods, passing the unseen goblin and leaving the bearded captain to slap at mosquitoes and gnats. "I hate being out here," the captain muttered. "I hate all of the camping out crap, with little things that bite and sting. The wilderness doesn't give a damn about me or my rank or anything. I can't fight back."

The goblin looked at the soldier heading into the woods. The man wasn't likely to find the last two bodies, covered up as they were, but if he kept going he'd soon find the first three. Time was running out. Hidden behind a cluster of saplings, the goblin rubbed his arm muscles and looked back at the camp. He counted twelve sleeping rolls around the clearing; the captain was standing guard now by himself. The other men must be down the slope with the horses and wagons, if they were still alive — which the goblin doubted very much.

The kender was due. The goblin had to get there first, to look for the sword. He took the time to squint against the firelight and search the clearing for any sign of a box or crate that might contain a sword. There was only one pile of belongings and supplies, and that was on the edge of the clearing, about two-thirds of the way around to the left. He couldn't make out what was in the pile very well; the fire interfered with his night vision. His only hope was that the captain had thought the sword valuable enough to bring it into the camp to prevent its being stolen.

The goblin carefully moved back from the light and began making his way around the camp's edge toward the left side. He tried not to think of the possibility that the elf, the minotaur, or even the kender would find the Sword of Change first. He had dreamed about the sword so much in the last two days that he couldn't imagine not having it. There was so much to gain, and he deserved it so badly. The wish would pay for a lifetime of loneliness, deprivation, and brutality. It would set him above all worries ever again.

He still felt as if the strength spell was working. He didn't know if the plant-control potion was active or not, but he didn't care. If he could get close enough to the supplies and find that sword, he wouldn't need to entangle the soldiers with plants again; he could just take off and run with his prize. No. He changed his mind. He would use the potion's effects if it still worked. Better to snag everyone with weeds until he had time for his wish. Then it wouldn't matter anymore.

The slope in the woods behind the supplies fell off steeply, dropping at least twenty feet straight down through the tree limbs. The goblin kept as low to the ground as he could while he moved, taking his time. Any minute now, the guard in the woods would find someone's body and set up an alarm. But the goblin couldn't afford haste. He reached the edge of the grassy cliff. It was bathed in shadows cast by the supply crates and chests, blocking the fire's light. The goblin decided to risk standing up in a crouch, and he took a much better look around the camp.

Right then, the kender flew down out of the sky and landed in the middle of the camp, not a pike's length away from both the captain and the goblin himself.

It happened so fast that the goblin froze in the act of taking a step, and the captain didn't even shout to wake everyone up. The kender merely landed and looked around, then waved a hand at the captain and gave him a devilish grin. The kender, his dark hair full of tangles and his scarred face smudged with dirt, came up to the captain's breastbone. The kender wore his usual filthy mix of torn clothes and animal hides, and he held a huge bag cradled in his arms: the fireball.

"What in the Abyss!" whispered the captain. His right hand slowly edged up his back toward a dagger sheath. Keeping his face blank, he waved at the kender.

The kender hopped into the air, did a smooth back flip, and landed on his feet again, his face alive with excitement. He nodded at the captain and made a motion of looking briefly toward the sky, as if urging the captain to try it, too.

The captain licked his lips. His fingers were working on untying the dagger straps. "I'm… I'm afraid I can't fly like that," he said, forcing a smile. "But that was real good."

Out of the comer of his eye, the goblin noticed an arm snake quietly out of a bedroll about ten feet behind the kender, reaching for a sword on the ground. The captain seemed to see it, too, but he kept from looking in that direction after the first glance.

"Do you know any other tricks?" the captain asked, almost conversationally.

"Sure!" said the kender, then looked instantly contrite. "Not supposed to talk," he mumbled apologetically. "My mistake. But here's my last trick anyway."

The soldier in the bedroll behind the kender lifted the sword, then slowly rolled forward to get within striking distance. The goblin tensed. He hadn't the faintest idea what to do next.

The kender crouched and leaped into the air. Still carrying the bag, he flew straight up into the darkness. The soldier in the bedroll flung himself forward. His sword whipped down, missing the kender completely.

"Camp awake!" roared the captain, forgetting the dagger and pulling his long sword free instead. "To arms! Get the rocks out of your asses and get up! To arms, the gods damn you!"

The kender was gone now, lost against the starless black of the night sky. The goblin backed farther into the undergrowth until he was on the edge of the cliff. There was nowhere to go. He kept the bulk of a tree between him and the awakening camp, and silently cursed the kender for nearly getting himself killed.

Sleepy, frightened men tore at their bedrolls, flailed about for weapons and armor and helmets and shields. The captain, swearing at all the gods, stared up into the sky for the flying kender.

"Sorry I missed 'im, Cap'n," said the warrior. "I had 'im right there before he took off. Was he a wizard?"

"Had to be," said the captain tightly, still looking upward. "He flew."

"What's going on, Captain?" one of the men shouted, his armor half-on, an axe in his hand.

The bearded captain looked down. All his men were up now, crowding around. "You," said the captain, pointing to a red-haired man. "Get down the hill and get the priest up here; we could be having some trouble. Tell him there's a wizard loose. Take three men with you. Don't — ow, damn it!" The captain clapped his hand over his eyes, rubbed them vigorously with his fingers, and other men around the camp nearest the fire did the same. Sparks flew up from the bonfire's flames as a black, powdery rain began.

It was the start of the fireball.

The goblin realized his danger when the black dust came down and the men in the camp swore. He knew he should get away, but he hesitated just a moment before escaping, because he couldn't figure out where to go without being seen. That was all the time he had and it was gone.

The fireball was an explosion of white and yellow light half as big as a city block. It billowed out over the bonfire, filled the entire clearing, framed the flying bodies of men at its base for an instant before it swallowed them whole.

A solid blinding wall of superheated flame and air reached for the goblin through the black branches and leaves, incinerating the trees as it came. The flames found him and burned the hair from his arms and face, set his rags on fire, and roasted every scrap of skin that faced the inferno. In agony, the goblin instinctively flung up his hands to ward it off. There was no time to be truly afraid. He had no time to react, except to move.

He turned and threw himself off the cliff. He fell through space, bathed in firelight, the wind roaring for a moment in his ears, the distant sloping ground rushing up to meet him.

The ground slammed all of the air from his lungs when he hit. He rolled in a crazy tangle of arms and legs down the slope until he struck a tree with his back. He couldn't breathe. A million thorns and sticks had torn his burned skin. A flaming mass of leaves landed around him. He forced himself to his knees without thinking at all. He fought for air and felt a dozen sharp knives stab him through the lungs. It was the worst pain he had ever known, worse than the bums and cuts. He got numbly to his feet, not daring to breathe again, and staggered forward, heedless of everything, until he fell over a log. Something struck his forehead like a hammer, and the world went out.

For a minute, the goblin could not remember what was going on or why he was even here. All he knew was a peculiar numbness. Strange images began to filter back to him, part of some awful dream that ran around and around in a storm inside his head. He remembered who he was, but nothing about where he was or what he was doing here. He lay back, feeling some of the numbness slip away into a slowly building pain that covered his whole body. He dreamed that he had bathed in lava and been beaten with clubs.

I am out in the night in a forest, he thought. There's a big fire on a hill above me. I should get away from here, but I don't know where this is or why I'm here.

He started to roll over but didn't, wincing from the awful pain that started deep in his chest. He slowly began to remember the kender, then the minotaur and elf. He even remembered the sword, but he had no idea why he should care about it.

After a while, he remembered that, too.

He finally got to his knees, but stayed there, his bruised chest aching with every wheezing breath he drew. The blast had been the elf's coal-dust fireball, the one he said he'd worked on with the help of gnomes, who had provided the coal for the enchantment. The goblin wondered if the kender could have survived the blast, being so far up in the sky. The elf had warned the kender about staying aloft too long. The spell would fade and drop the little guy from the clouds to his death. Maybe the kender wouldn't have to worry about that possibility, if his curiosity had gotten the best of him and he'd tried to watch the blast close up. The goblin found himself hoping the kender was still around somewhere. After all, he told himself, the kender did all the work.

Then the goblin remembered the elf and the minotaur. The elf would be looking for the sword right now, and he had the minotaur's help as well as his spells.

That's all right, the goblin thought suddenly. I'm going to kill that elf. I'm going to kill that elf and the minotaur, too. I can do it; I've killed lots of men tonight. I'll just kill everyone. I'm so strong, nothing can get me. I just need to get that sword, and that's all I'll ever need. I have to do it now.

Carefully, using a tree trunk for support, the goblin got to his feet and began to stagger back up the hill.

Smoke drifted across the countryside in the night as flames leaped through the dry trees, sending yellow sparks skyward by the thousands. The bottoms of the clouds glowed orange.

The goblin began climbing the hill, pulling himself up foot by agonizing foot. His burned, aching hands clung to branches, bunched weeds, and stones. He climbed until he knew he had been climbing for years without end. Somewhere along the way, he lost his magical ring. Several times he felt delirious and babbled about things that seemed to make lots of sense but never stayed long in his mind. He yelled and sang and grasped a last handful of grass, pulled himself up on his stomach, and saw that he had made it. He was still singing something, a tune he'd heard the thugs sing in East Dravinar, but the song faded away as he coughed on the smoke and the stench of burned flesh. He rested for a moment, then pulled himself up to look around.

It took a while, but eventually he realized that the fires on the hilltop were going out. It took a few moments longer to realize that it was probably the doing of the elf wizard. The goblin watched dumbly as a small fire in front of him died away into a blackened smear of ash and smoke. Only the much-weakened bonfire still burned with any heat and light.

The goblin shivered as a violent chill passed through him. He knew it was from both fear and the beating he'd taken, especially from the bums. He had to find the sword. He couldn't go on much longer. He moved forward on his hands and knees, his body alive with pain, looking for the supply pile.

As he did, he heard someone stumbling toward him through the scorched remains of the camp. The goblin coughed and looked around.

A blackened apparition in guardsman armor held out its arms to the goblin as it approached. Its face was burned beyond recognition, and its fingers were gone, leaving only the black stumps of its hands. The figure walked stiffly toward the goblin. The man was blind and unaware, trailing smoke from the remnants of his smol dering clothes.

The goblin shrieked in terror. He couldn't even think of fleeing or fighting; All he knew was that it was a dead man, a dead man he had helped kill, and it wanted him. He knew all the stories about dead men. He didn't want to know any more.

The burned apparition stumbled over a body on the ground before it collapsed with a muffled cry. For a moment it tried to rise, then it fell flat and was still at last.

The smell hit him then, and the goblin retched, but he forced himself to look away from the dead man and began crawling again. He knew he'd find worse as he got closer to the blast, but it didn't matter. He had to find the sword.

A jumble of blackened wood appeared in the dying firelight, only thirty feet away. With a burst of energy he didn't think he could find, the goblin gave out a gasping cry, then hurried forward on hands and knees, heedless of what he had to crawl over or through to get there.

Restless fingers reached for the smoldering boxes. He saw that they really had been camp supplies, but it was still possible that the sword was among them. He was so close now, so close to the only power he would ever know, that he couldn't stop looking. He got to his knees and tried to examine the boxes in the dimming firelight.

And, almost at once, he saw one that stood out from the rest. It was a weapons case, once covered with fine elven carvings in the wood but now half-charred. It was just a little bigger than a sword would be. He snatched at it with an agonized, inarticulate cry, dragging the case to him as he fumbled for latches or locks. His fingers found one, snapped it open, and emptied it out.

But it was already empty.

He blinked.

It was already empty.

He checked the inside of the box again.

It was still empty.

Empty.

Empty.

Someone moved through the camp behind him. The goblin turned around, shivering but feeling no pain at all from his wounds.

"Oh, gods!" cried the elf's muffled voice. His face was white with shock, and he held a cloth to his nose and mouth with his left hand to ward against the awful stench in the air. "You're hurt! Don't move!"

The goblin dully dropped his gaze to the elf's right hand, which held a gleaming, jewel-encrusted long sword, point down, at his side.

The elf sheathed his sword in a scabbard that the goblin did not recognize.

"I found the Sword of Change with one of the guards by the horses," the elf said hastily, coming up to kneel and check the goblin's injuries. "The man must have won it in a dice game or something. The minotaur's just down the slope. The slaves ran off into the hills. Let's get you to a creek and get you washed off. If that kender's around anywhere, we'll get him to bandage you up. Damn, you're really hurt. How close were you to the fireball? Couldn't you get away from it?"

The goblin's shoulders slumped, and he seemed to melt into himself. The elf reached out and gently took the goblin by one arm, trying to help him up. The goblin flinched at the painful touch, but didn't get up. He sat on the ground and stared at the elf's feet without a trace of expression.

"Come on," said the elf. "We have what we came for, and now we must look after your wounds." He reached down again with both hands. The goblin looked up stupidly at the elf's face. Then he looked down and saw the sword.

"Come on," the elf urged.

The goblin stirred, reaching up to the elf with both hands as he sat back on the balls of his feet. He took a sudden deep breath and lunged forward through the elf's arms. As he hurtled past the elf's side, he snatched at the sword hilt with both hands. The sword snagged, then pulled free of its sheath.

He had the sword. He had the sword!

"Gods, no!" shouted the elf, starting for him.

The goblin stumbled backward, nearly falling before he caught himself. The elf almost grabbed him, but the blade came up. The elf dodged and jumped back, almost a moment too late.

"Please!" pleaded the elf. "You're crazy! You don't have any idea of what you're holding!"

The goblin stared for a moment, then laughed — a wild, mad, painful laugh that rang in the night across the hilltop. His eyes were glistening balls of blackness in his burned, filthy face, his mouth open to the black sky. His chest shook as if each breath was killing him.

"Give me the sword!" the elf shouted. "Give it to me!"

The goblin still laughed and shook his head. He felt giddy, as if his soul were leaving his body. He seemed to hurt all over. "It my sword," he managed to say, though the pain in his lungs stabbed him with every word. "It my sword! My sword!"

"You'll ruin everything, you fool!" the elf yelled. "It's a wish sword! We can fight Istar with it! We can save ourselves and our people from Istar if we use it right! We have the chance now! Give me the sword!"

The goblin shook his head slowly. He kept the sword point facing the elf, ready to thrust in case the elf did something stupid like charge. But the goblin was feeling very tired now. It seemed like a year since he'd slept last. The sword was very heavy, and his chest was starting to hurt more than usual. He tried to swallow, but it hurt too much.

The elf held his pose, his arms reaching out to the goblin from a crouched stance. Then he slowly let his arms drop, and he stood up. "Fine," said the elf in a different, flat voice. "I should have known better. I should have known. This is the way you want it, so" — the elf raised his hands into the air — "I have no choice."

The elf's hands began to glow.

The goblin's mouth fell open. He raised his sword — and he couldn't remember his wish.

"Aliakiadam Vithofo Milgreya!" shouted the elf. "Somalitarak Ciondiamal Freetra — "

A huge, dark shape arose from the brush behind the elf, its massive brown bulk and long horns silhouetted against the light of the dying fire. The goblin saw the minotaur and fell back with a wild cry. He landed on his backside and knocked the wind out of his lungs. He didn't release the sword, simply held it before him.

The minotaur swung its arms in a huge, rapid arc. The black iron chain whipped around, struck the elf in the back, smacking him like a giant's hammer. The elf was thrown forward into the air, crashing in a heap on the ground. The magic on his hands flared up — and died out.

The elf writhed on the ground, gasping for air. He managed to roll onto his chest and pushed himself up to face the minotaur. The elf's chest heaved, and his face twisted in grotesque pain. The goblin could see in the firelight that the back of the elf's shirt was stained dark and wet where the thick chain had struck him. Not daring to move or think, the goblin stared at the minotaur, which was standing upright now, facing the elf. From the minotaur's large hands dangled the long black chain, readied for another strike.

The goblin tried to remember his wish, but it wouldn't come to him. He couldn't think of it at all.

"Well," said the minotaur in the trade tongue, as it looked at the elf, "aren't you going to throw a spell at me?"

The elf wheezed, seeming to find it hard to breathe. The goblin stared at the huge brown monster and forgot about breathing entirely.

"You… can talk," the elf gasped at last.

"Very good," the minotaur said. It spoke lazily, but with a perfectly precise grasp of the trade tongue. "You have learned something about your world that you did not know before. I've heard that elves value knowledge, so this information will serve you well in the afterlife."

"Wait," said the elf, trying to catch his breath. "Just wait. We set out… to get the sword… so that we could… use it against… our common foe… Istar. We have to — "

"No," said the minotaur. "We each set out to gain the sword for our own purposes." The minotaur flicked a glance in the goblin's direction. "I would guess that our friend the goblin merely wants power. Maybe he wants to be a god. But my need of the sword is far simpler."

The goblin wondered if he was dreaming. The elf pulled himself up a bit, but couldn't seem to sit upright now; he grimaced as he settled down, chest against the earth again, his breath coming shallow and quickly.

"You don't appear to have heard me," said the minotaur. The chain in its fists swung slightly.

"No! I heard!" said the elf quickly. "Why? Why?"

"Because this is the way of the world: Only the strong deserve to rule, and the strong should use any means at their disposal to accomplish this. Because true strength is revealed in chaos, in the destruction of all borders and laws and boundaries, so that each being may challenge every other for the right to rule. Once I take that sword, I will ensure my chance to rule the world, from sea to sea and beyond, for all time, by wishing for the doom of the civilized world. My brethren and I will have our freedom at last, and we will command what's left of this sad, tortured land."

The elf stared at the minotaur. "Madness," he whispered.

"No more mad than your hope to destroy a part of Istar's power with this sword. You'd open the gates to chaos in your own way, but you'd leave justice and order in the world intact. Those who make the laws and govern the armies would probably find minotaurs to be as inconvenient as do the Istarians — and they might not be as willing to save our race for enslavement."

The goblin figured that the elf's back was broken, and indeed it might be, but the elf seemed to gather some strength as he spoke next. "If we use… the sword together, we… can break the hold… Istar has on us!" he pleaded softly. "We can start to… throw down slavery… and killing and prejudice everywhere, and be free! We can… have a new world!"

"Did you not attempt to enslave me with one of your spells before we left on this quest?" asked the minotaur, raising a thick eyebrow. "If that's a sample of how your new world is going to be, I confess I find it lacking. I threw off that spell, thanks only to my willpower — the same willpower that allowed me to survive long enough in this mad wilderness to be found by that pathetic kender. Besides, I really have no quarrel with slavery or killing — as long as it is the minotaurs who are doing the enslaving and murdering. It is the way of the world. You elves should really come out of your forests once in a while and see what the world's all about."

Sweat dripped from the minotaur's broad snout. "This has gone on long enough. You have had your fun tonight. And now I'd like some fun myself." It stepped forward, arms and chain swinging back and around.

The elf raised a hand. "Elekonia Xanes," he said, pointing his index finger in the minotaur's direction.

A pulsing stream of white light burst from the elf's finger, flashed into the minotaur's chest. The beast flinched and threw back its head, roaring in agony. Then it came on, maddened, the long chain lashing down to strike at the elf's head. The goblin came to his senses and rolled to get out of the way.

The elf gave a strangled cry when the chain struck him. The goblin heard the chain lash down again, and again, and he kept rolling to get away.

Then he remembered his wish.

He remembered it perfectly.

He stopped rolling and held onto the sword's hilt as he lay on his chest, facing away from the smashing and rattling sounds as the minotaur flailed at the fallen elf.

"I wish," began the goblin in a choking voice, his chest burning and his hands shaking, "that I would be — "

He heard the minotaur's earth-shattering roar directly behind him. Panicked, he brought the sword up as the minotaur leaped at him.

It was cold, but the goblin didn't feel the cold very much. The chill from the ground seeped into his body and through his bones, but it seemed very distant and not very real. It was odd that he felt no pain. For some reason, he thought that he should.

Someone was calling, someone close by. The goblin opened his eyes and saw dark gray clouds rolling overhead, heard the wind tossing the tree branches. Something cold and wet struck him on the forehead. Rain, maybe.

A new sound began. It was the stupid kender. He was crying. The goblin stirred, trying to look in the kender's direction, but he couldn't move very well. He found it hard to breathe.

Footsteps thumped over to his side. Small, cold hands touched his cheeks, wiping away dirt and blood. Turning his head, he saw a thin face with tangled brown hair and brown eyes.

"Are you alive?" the kender asked, his voice almost breaking. "I saw you move. Please say you're alive."

The goblin licked his lips. His mouth felt very dry, and it tasted awful. "Yes," he said. It hurt to speak; the wind almost carried his voice away.

"I'm sorry I wasn't here," the kender said, choking back his sobs. His hands continued to clean the goblin's face. "I got lost last night because of the explosion and the wind, and I crashed in some bushes. I came down far away and kept falling over things and getting stuck in briars and almost twisted my ankle. What happened?"

"Fight," the goblin managed to say. Was the kender going to talk him to death? He suspected that he was dying anyway. Then he remembered. "Minotaur," he whispered fearfully, trying to look around.

"The minotaur's over there." The kender waved an arm blindly to his right. "I'm sorry. He… he's dead." The kender started to cry again but fought it down. "The humans killed him with the gem sword. The elf's dead, too. The humans beat him up. I don't want you to die, too."

With a sudden effort, the goblin forced himself to sit up a few inches and looked in the direction the kender had indicated. The minotaur lay collapsed in a dirty brown heap, the sword's silver blade protruding from its back. The goblin remembered now the minotaur's roar as it had leapt upon the blade, its full weight smashing into the goblin's face and chest. Then the awful gurgling howl as it arose and tried to breathe with a shaft of steel through its lung and heart.

The goblin eased himself back down, fighting the dull pain that came from his chest. I should be happy, he thought. I killed a minotaur. But I feel so tired. It isn't worth it to move. I just want to… Oh. The -

"Sword," whispered the goblin. He tried to reach toward the dead minotaur. "Sword."

The kender wiped his eyes and leaned closer. "What?"

"Sword," said the goblin. He tried to reach for it. Things seemed to get dark and that frightened him, but his hand caught the kender's hand, and he felt less afraid. Stupid kender, he thought, and the world slowly drifted away.

One of the wagons carried shovels. It took the rest of the day, with intermittent droplets of rain falling all around, for the kender to dig a pit large enough to bury his three friends. The goblin had asked for the sword, so the kender carefully cleaned it after removing it from the minotaur's chest, never touching the blade. He held it by its hilt as he prepared to lay it at the dead goblin's side.

"I wish…" the kender whispered, then closed his eyes to better remember the words that his parents had taught him. He could remember only the end of the good-bye prayers, so he said that. "I wish you peace on your journey, and hope you will be waiting for me at the end of your travels."

Because his eyes were closed, he did not see the sword glow briefly as he spoke. The light faded away when he set the sword into the goblin's hand.

The kender filled the pit halfway with dirt, then covered it with rocks to keep out wolves and other creatures. It was dawn the next day before he was finished.

He left the Istarian soldiers where they lay. Then he went home.

Raindrops began falling all across the hilltop. Within minutes, the land was awash in a cold, blinding torrent.