***
Lucifer massaged his shoulder as he walked behind Ganymede’s entourage. With the history they shared, he felt Ganymede was the person to particularly keep an eye on. Sariel walked next to Elandril far ahead and jabbered to his friend like they hadn’t spent the last million years apart. Elandril appeared to listen, nod, and reply, but he was guarded. Lucifer couldn’t blame him.
He looked around and waited for the next surprise. As Sariel had said, the goblins were into mind games, and Lucifer’s instincts told him that the game had only just begun.
They turned down corridor after corridor, and Lucifer noticed something odd about the escort. Every now and again the goblins would turn in the same direction at once, and it wasn’t just when they were rounding a corner. There would be a noise or a painting on the wall, and a dozen heads would swivel at the same time.
He wondered if they had ear pieces and were communicating with each other. Goblins loved their little gadgets.
He thought less about the odd coordinated movements as they got closer to the throne room. Perhaps he should signal Sariel to get the viewing orbs ready. He quickened his pace and moved between the two columns, but grew uneasy again as the goblins turned toward him in unison. When he looked at them, they averted their eyes, and he could feel the other column’s gaze grow more concentrated.
Instead of heading toward the throne room, Elandril pivoted smoothly and walked down an old corridor. Unlike the rest of the castle, this area hadn’t been renovated with viewscreens and modern sculptures. Instead, the walls were of brick and mortar, and the artworks looked like they were from eons ago. Lucifer noticed that none of the plants in vases or flower pots were alive. They were dried and shriveled, but their roots had overgrown the containers long ago. He kicked at one of the roots and watched as it disintegrated into the air.
“Why hasn’t anyone watered these?” he asked one of the blue-liveried goblins behind Elandril.
“This is the Corridor of Tears,” the goblin said. “The servants aren’t allowed to touch anything in this section of the palace.”
“Why?”
“You’ll see.”
All of the blue-and-black dressed goblins smirked at him. Lucifer looked to the front of the pack and saw Elandril smiling too. Perhaps he had found something Sariel said humorous.
“Where are we going?” Lucifer asked.
“To another room,” Elandril said. “One where there is plenty of old furniture to destroy and no chance of interruptions by pesky nobles.”
The Goblin Prince stopped at a door, pushed it open, and bowed to the rest of the group. Lucifer peeked inside the room but was greeted by nothing but pitch black.
“After you,” Elandril said, head lowered, and still grinning.
The princes and the goblin entourage filed into the musty dark. Lucifer could hear the servants shuffling along the back of the room, but it was too dark to discern what might be impeding his path, so he groped around blindly as he moved forward. For several seconds, he grasped at air until his hands found a wooden column.
Light erupted beside him, and he saw Elandril’s face illuminated by seven perfectly round, blue orbs which the goblin sent to candle holders positioned around the chamber. As Lucifer’s eyes adjusted to the luminescence he realized he was holding a bedpost, and the bed was not empty. In it lay an old goblin, face shrunken with what must have been impossibly old age.
Lucifer looked to Elandril for clues about whether or not he should move closer, but the goblin did not return the stare. Instead, Elandril watched the old creature in the bed. With the two goblins so close to each other, Lucifer almost immediately noticed a family resemblance. Elandril and this slumbering goblin each had the same jawline.
“He’s not sleeping,” Elandril said. “This is King Veldin, my father. He hasn’t been moved since the servants brought him here, shortly after your assassin took him from us.”
Lucifer watched Sariel back away from the bed with his mouth agape and eventually bump into some of Ganymede’s retainers. Lucifer, however, stepped forward. Behind him, Elandril’s servants jockeyed for position as they undoubtedly watched his every move.
He could see the blood that had seeped through the covers from the King’s chest wounds. Lucifer moved to the King’s side and gazed into his sunken eyes and gnarled features.
Veldin’s demise reminded Lucifer of his own father’s death only a few months ago. In his mind’s eye, the blood-stained sheets turned into blood-spattered stones in a mob-filled courtyard, and he envisioned Eranos stalking the Goblin King around the palace as the old man ventured into the corridors unaware.
“We are each of us orphans now,” Lucifer said, as he picked up the King’s hand—a hand that hadn’t held life for a million years. “For my part in your demise, Great King, I apologize.”
Lucifer brought the King’s hand to his lips and kissed it. “I’m sorry.”
Elandril moved closer to the bed from the opposite side and eyed Lucifer intently. The right corner of his mouth twitched, and he was obviously struggling with what to say. Lucifer found comfort in this. Whatever game Elandril had expected, he didn’t appear to be prepared for Lucifer’s sincere emotions. As he resumed bowing his head to look at the wasted form of Veldin, Elandril finally found his voice.
“A part of me wants to believe both of you. After so many years of us sharing beds, laughs, and even lovers, I have never forgotten our old times—just as you both probably haven’t. While I was going through my training in the stars, conditioning my body to become a celestial forgewright, I got myself through many of those tortuous years by laughing until I cried, despite the pain, while remembering much of our time together.”
Lucifer smiled widely and looked to his left again. Elandril’s smile was genuine but far less open than Lucifer’s. The Goblin Prince had more to say. Elandril’s smile lessened and Lucifer wanted to look away from his old friend, but he stopped himself. He knew that Elandril wanted to watch his face for a reaction.
Old friends or not, the Kadingir brothers were in danger, but despite Lucifer’s instincts to check the positions of the goblin retainers, he looked directly into Elandril’s eyes. The first mind game in the state room had focused on brawn; this one focused on something else. Maybe emotions, maybe wits, or maybe this test was completely improvised. Lucifer centered himself and waited for the onslaught.
“And when I came back to my homeland,” Elandril continued, “from years of burning my skin off and honing a craft of honest labor, I realized that my world had been turned upside down. I returned to a land without voice, life, or joy. They told me that my home had been assaulted by my old brothers. Then they told me that my father has been murdered by agents of these same friends, the memory of whom had made the sight, sound, and smell of searing my flesh from my soul seem less scary … less painful … less intense.”
“We were all led astray by Eranos and the Council,” Lucifer said. “You and Nina thought her father would let you lead a normal life together, and Eranos convinced all of Chaos that the assassinations in Alurabum were the work of goblin agents.”
“You know about Nina?” Elandril asked, turning toward Sariel, who nodded back.
“She’s dead,” Sariel said. “Killed by her father for being pregnant.”
Elandril’s hands shook momentarily, and he grabbed a bedpost. He didn’t appear to be breathing. After exhaling quickly, he continued his earlier train of thought.
“I was thrust back into the capital—into a life that I thought I had given up with my forgewright training. My younger sisters, the heirs apparent after my abdication, had been stolen from our lands, and their fates were hidden from us for many years.”
This was news to Lucifer. He knew Elandril had sisters, but he assumed they had gotten out of the capital on their own accord. There were certainly no military records of them being captured. He looked toward Sariel, who shrugged. Apparently, he didn’t know either.
“At least that
’s something,” Elandril closed his eyes, exhaled, and then looked at Ganymede. “So, my old friends were unaware of the kidnapping of my sisters. I’m not sure if that helps or hinders your case. You may be surprised to discover that your uncle Batarel, of the Council of Wizards, is the demon that took them. He killed their defenseless servants and then took my sisters.”
“Batarel?” Sariel asked as he slumped to the floor. “Are you sure?”
Elandril nodded simultaneously with some of the servants around the room.
“I’m sorry,” Sariel bowed his head. “We had been ordered to kill the goblin royal family.”
“He didn’t kill them,” Elandril replied.
Sariel looked up at Elandril. “He didn’t kill them? How do you know?”
Elandril didn’t answer.
“Oracles?”
“Oracles,” Elandril said in a low voice as he turned to Ganymede. “How curious of you to mention them. You hear that, Ganymede? Maybe the oracles told us!”
Ganymede didn’t smile. He looked at Sariel with a sickened grimace. He cleared his throat to respond.
“Batarel blinded young Persephone, and left her with one of our convents. She was the elder of the twins, but now she is unfit to become that which she was meant to be. The women of the convent agreed to take her in and teach her divination—the art of looking into the pattern to glimpse what has been and what will become.”
“There is some consolation that she took so easily to her new trade,” Elandril said.
“First time in recorded history that an oracle has been indoctrinated so late and survived the trials. Most go mad.”
“And so, we have come to believe that Batarel knew something that we didn’t.”
Lucifer knew his uncle engaged in deadly games of politics, but he had never known Batarel to directly defy a Council order. Whatever the old man had been thinking, it appeared that Elandril didn’t find it too offensive.
“What of the other sister?” he asked.
“Good question,” Elandril said.
Lucifer nodded in understanding. So, Elandril didn’t know where his sister was. Perhaps this was something that Lucifer could remedy now that he knew she was gone. “I cannot speak for my uncle, but I will find out what happened to your sister, Elandril, and if she is alive, I will bring her back to you.”
“No,” Elandril strode across the floor and laid a hand on Lucifer’s shoulder. “She will come back of her own accord.”
Lucifer looked at the hand and smiled, and Elandril returned the gesture.
“I have wanted to hate you for a long time,” Elandril admitted. “I have looked through the libraries and watched your deeds from afar through our gadgets and agents, but the more I’ve looked, the harder it has been to hate your clan.”
“You fought admirably,” Ganymede agreed.
“I killed your father!” Lucifer said.
Ganymede didn’t immediately reply. He wiped at the corners of his eyes as some of his servants rested their arms on his shoulders. “Yes, but you saved tens of thousands of other fathers with that duel. I cannot hate you for my father’s death. Without that duel, I could have lost my brothers as well, but thanks to your offer, they still breathe. My father could have died a worse death.”
Lucifer breathed a sigh of relief.
Elandril removed his hand from Lucifer and turned his back to him. “And it appears that your uncle saved both my siblings and my universe from the Council.”
“Your universe?”
“The Great War was just an excuse for the Council to assassinate a pattern.”
Lucifer watched his brother shrivel up into a ball. Sariel would understand better than him.
Elandril perked up as he watched the reaction. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I couldn’t possibly hold a grudge against you and the Council anymore. The Great War has had the opposite effect on us. We have been revitalized and rebuilt, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”
He walked around the room and wiped some of the thick dust off a book shelf. “The pattern assassination showed us a weakness. My father’s death would have been the death of the Goblin Realm had Batarel not hidden my sisters.”
“But you were alive, too,” Lucifer said.
“I was busy burning away all of my skin and organs,” Elandril said. “The Council knew what they were doing.”
“I’m not following you.”
“I wasn’t entirely alive at that point, so I wasn’t a part of the bloodline.”
“And the bloodline is important to your universe?”
Elandril laughed. “I don’t trust you that much, yet.”
Lucifer motioned toward Sariel. It was time for the orbs. As Sariel rummaged in the primal for the viewers, Lucifer watched the goblins turn in unison toward his brother. The way they sometimes moved together was still creeping him out.
“Nina or your father?” Lucifer asked.
“I’d rather not be reminded of my foolish youth,” Elandril said, “and how my presence in your realm almost caused my entire universe to implode.”
Lucifer expanded his question. “Her death or his?”
Elandril’s blond eyebrows rose, and his eyes widened. Perfect question.
The Goblin Prince folded his arms, and so did the blue-and-black attired goblins around him. “If you want these negotiations to go any further, I believe you’re going to have to part with both.”
“Best to start from the beginning then,” Lucifer said as his brother tossed an orb labeled Nina into the air. It spun round and emitted a mist that formed a screen in between Sariel and the others.
There wasn’t any sound on this one. Nina was yelling at her father, and Eranos was staring back at her. They appeared to be within a large, black stone house, probably their familial home a few light years outside of Alurabum.
She was asserting herself. Even without the sound, Lucifer could make out many of the words. Keeping it … Arnessa …
Elandril let out a soft groan as the scene unfolded.
On the screen, Nina stormed out of the room after threatening to pack her things. The orb stayed in the room with Eranos and watched as he summoned a zinanbar sword. He chopped his ancient wooden desk in two and tore into bookshelves. He drove his blade into the fireplace and caved it in. His red wings broke through his skin and knocked holes in the walls and floor.
As Lucifer watched the display, he was reminded of his time spent under the Courts of Chaos before his father’s execution. The same rage. The same red wings.
Nina appeared on the viewer with two bags in her hands and four in her tendrils. She rushed into the room, dropped a bag, and pointed at Eranos. The damage to the room didn’t appear to register with her, or maybe she didn’t care. She might have thought her father was just being dramatic.
And then Eranos turned, and she faltered. She saw the overturned tables and the remnants of the family desk. She fought against his wings as they grabbed her around the stomach and squeezed. Despite the lack of audio, Lucifer could easily read her lips. My baby …
Eranos pulled her to him and tears drained into her open mouth. A zinanbar blade protruded through her back, and Eranos’s hand was at the other end of it. He pushed it farther into her, and she spat blood into his face. Curse you, Daddy …
As the screen flickered, Elandril and his followers were in tears. “Now, I remember why I was willing to give up my titles.”
“She was a good choice,” Ganymede said. “Full of life …”
“And a son …”
Ganymede hugged Elandril and patted him on the back.
“Are you ready for the next orb?” Lucifer asked.
“No,” Elandril admitted. “No, I’m not. That is enough for now. You’ve won this round.”
“What is the prize?” Lucifer asked, smiling.
“Some information and a chance to plead your case to the people. That other orb will come in handy.”
“I’m listening,” Lucifer said.
; “Your Council came close—too close. Yes, my bloodline is important to our universe, but steps are being taken to harden our pattern against similar attacks. Ganymede here was tasked with leading a full research review into our vulnerabilities, and we’ve made changes to our primal pattern. These changes should make us stronger, more resilient against attack by your universe.”
“And who is leading your universe now?”
“That’s complicated, but I am,” Elandril said. “I’ve been elected to the goblin throne.”
“I guess it would have been inappropriate to ask for invitations.”
“I’ll be sure to add you to the list.”
“You haven’t been crowned yet?”
“All in good time. We’ve been busy.”
Lucifer frowned. What was more important than the coronation of a new king? Elandril appeared to understand his facial expressions.
“What good is crowning another king while we are still vulnerable? Repairs had to be made, and our society had to change. The research review opened our eyes to old pattern magic long considered heretical by both of our universes. Some of these magics we let sink back into the moldy corners of a forgotten library, but others we’ve incorporated into our society and the very essence of who we are and how we operate.”
Lucifer shivered just thinking about the implications. Demons could be killed in Chaos for simply discussing pattern magic. Did the goblins just not care if some random, disenfranchised immortal loosed a supernova into the center of Arnessa? This was one of the more common scenarios taught to Lucifer when he was a child in school.
“What kind of changes?” he asked.
“We realized that putting a single person into the centerpiece of our primal pattern exposed a fatal flaw—a single point of attack.”
“So, how does your election fix this problem?”
“I’m no longer one person,” Elandril said.
“What?”
“Everyone in our society was tested, and the results were shared publicly. The vote was possibly the most informed political decision ever made in the history of the cosmos.”
“What the heck are you talking about?” Sariel said.
Ganymede and his entourage backed out of the room and Elandril and his backers spread out. “It’s best to just show you.”
Elandril’s retainers sprang into action in an elaborate display of synchronized sparring, and he stared into Lucifer’s eyes. As Lucifer tried to follow the combination of fighting, stances, and perfectly choreographed somersaults, he hoped that he wasn’t missing Elandril’s point somewhere in the turns and flips.
The movements of the retainers grew to such a speed that their limbs blurred, and small tendrils of smoke meandered around the room, distracting Lucifer. Goblins did not have wings, so this haze was being caused by something else. Lucifer was almost certain that pattern magic was at play here, even though he had no idea how it worked. The goblins started moving so fast that miniature sonic booms echoed against the walls, mirrors, and furniture.
“Are they clones?” Sariel asked.
“Do I look like a clone?” the retainers said in unison as they locked blades inches from Sariel’s face.
They all had different faces, bone structures, heights, and hair. Sariel and Lucifer exchanged puzzled looks.
“I,” a goblin stated.
“Am,” another goblin beside him continued.
“Elandril,” Elandril finished.
Lucifer was speechless.
“Seriously,” Sariel said. “Spell it out for us imbeciles. What’s going on here?”
“We are one and the same.” Elandril’s party stated simultaneously, resulting in an almost musical quality as the different pitches of their voices produced chords and harmonies. “I’ve been elected because, out of all our immortals, I have shown the deepest, most diverse, and most natural ability to gain new members. We communicate instantly through the primal, share our thoughts, sights, and sounds …”
“You really shouldn’t be doing this, Elandril,” Lucifer said. “We shouldn’t know this. Even though I have no idea what is going on at this point. Even though I don’t have the slightest clue about how to exploit this, we could still betray you again. As a friend, I beseech you not to tell us anything else.”
“Perhaps you might betray me again,” the Goblin Prince stated. “But at this point, I don’t think your demon clan is the one I have to worry about. I can assure you that similar knowledge will not be shared with the Agalals. Anyway, if I want to give you a decent chance at gaining asylum here, then you’ll have to at least understand how our society operates now and in which direction we have evolved.”
Lucifer and Sariel nodded and smiled at each other. This was a start to a more official friendship between their exiled government and the Goblin Realm, but Elandril wasn’t done talking.
“You may think that asylum is mine to grant you, but it’s not,” he said. “Your society has not only wronged me and my family, it has also wronged my entire universe, and consequently, you have many goblins to answer to. Until the coronation happens, the Goblin Realm is almost entirely run by plurality vote, and every goblin votes twice: once inside their collective individual, and again in the main elections.”
“You’re making my head hurt,” Lucifer said.
“You need a break, and I have just the thing for you,” all of Elandril’s members said at once.
“Please,” Lucifer complained. “One at a time. Just use the one I’ve known for most of my life.”
“Very well,” the blond Elandril said. “You’ve no doubt seen the coliseums on the way in. They are the home to a new favorite pastime of ours—one that appeals to our new skill sets. I would like to invite you both to today’s championship Certamen.”
“Championship?” Sariel perked up. “I only need to know one thing … Will there be gambling?”
Elandril and Lucifer shook their heads in accidental unison.
Sariel backed away from his brother. “Elandril hasn’t … acquired a new member, has he?”
Lucifer thought about winking at Elandril and taking his brother for a ride, but his mind was just too jostled by the news of distributed beings now inhabiting the Goblin Realm. Instead, he sighed and rolled his eyes.
“This may surprise you, brother, but years before the goblins developed group minds, we all managed to independently agree that you’re an idiot.”
Sariel laughed and wrapped an arm around Lucifer’s shoulder. “Haters gonna hate …”
He almost told Sariel to act his age, but that had never worked in a million years. Pointing out his disappointment only seemed to encourage his brother to irritate Lucifer even more. He mumbled a small protest, and Sariel squeezed a hand against his shoulder.
The simple act gave Lucifer some comfort. The last time he had been at the center of a crowd, his parents had lost their lives. In truth, he was glad to have his brother with him if he had to enter another one, no matter how hard Sariel might try to push his buttons.