Mudwort thought about it and made a decision. She used the spear to slice off Thya’s left arm only; so sharp, the spear made the task easy. Before burying the body again, Mudwort searched Thya’s pockets and found a pretty shell and several carved wooden beads on a string. Mudwort put them in her own pocket.
A few gestures, and the ground sealed itself again, hiding Thya deep inside. Mudwort buried Thya’s arm under a silver birch several yards away.
“Thya is remembered,” Mudwort said aloud. “Thya loved to mingle magic and was good at it. Thya led a clan well.” She paused and rested against the spear, thinking she should say more because, after all, Thya had been her friend, almost. “Thya was worried about the Dark Knights and wanted to help Direfang and the smashed, burned city. Thya cared about others.” She paused again. “Thya was curious, too curious. Thya should not have followed Mudwort. Thya would still be alive helping Direfang and worrying about the Dark Knights otherwise. Curiosity led to Thya’s downfall.” Mudwort reverently bowed her head. “Thya is remembered.”
She padded across the grave, smoothing it with her feet, inspecting the moss to make certain everything was perfect and no one would ever notice that the earth had been disturbed.
“Thya was simply too curious,” she said. Mudwort thought the ceremony might make her feel less guilty about killing the goblin, but it hadn’t. “Did Saarh kill friends too?” Had her counterpart from ancient times accidentally discovered how sharp the spear was by thrusting it through the belly of a friend?
Mudwort intended to look in on Saarh again. She wanted to learn more about the spear and what the ancient goblin leader had done with it.
“Maybe look for Saarh now.” She left the clearing and sat between a pin oak and a birch tree with scarlet leaves. A blueberry bush was within arm’s reach, and there were plenty of plump berries on the lower branches where the birds hadn’t yet feasted.
But the blueberries didn’t interest her. Mudwort had lost her appetite. She crossed her legs and rested the spear across her knees. “A long time ago …” Mudwort began. “What did Saarh do with this spear? What great things did Saarh accomplish?”
A vision came to her so fast, it was difficult to comprehend it.
From a distance Mudwort watched Saarh’s village in a time of thriving, the goblins multiplying and becoming hunters and farmers and trading with black-haired elves who came from the south. Then she watched as the buildings started to deteriorate and the goblins moved east toward the mountains. Mudwort recalled Saarh and Brab saying the goblins would return to the earth.
But Brab and Saarh didn’t go with the clan, and the spear stayed behind with Saarh. The shaman waved it, and the earth swallowed up the homes, as if the clan had never been there. Another wave and saplings sprung up where the goblins used to farm and dance. Vines covered the older trees and filled out with purple and red flowers. Saarh was using the spear to enhance the forest and cover the tracks of her people.
If Mudwort wanted to help, perhaps she could use Chislev’s spear to hide Direfang and his ruined city from the Dark Knights. But still, Mudwort did not want to go back.
“Forward,” she thought. “Only forward from now on.” It was time to peer into the future. Her brow furrowed in concentration, and she ground her teeth together. She touched a hand to the ground, thinking to burrow her fingers into the earth.
Suddenly the image in her head shifted, and she again spotted the clearing where she’d unearthed the spear.
“No. No. No.” She’d wanted to see into the future. “No …”
A moment more, and she got her wish. The clearing looked vastly different, overgrown with holly and blueberry and raspberry bushes, small trees sprouting where before only moss grew. The ash trees that circled it were still there, but they were taller, more than a hundred feet in height, Mudwort guessed. The pin oaks, silver birches, and more were also taller and fuller. A good amount of time must have passed.
Where was she in that future? How many years or decades ahead? Could she look in on herself? Could she see what she was doing in the future-place?
Mudwort concentrated so hard that her head ached but was rewarded with nothing, just as she’d come up with nothing when she’d tried to see what had eventually happened to Saarh.
“The earth keeps secrets,” she hissed. “Won’t show Mudwort the secrets.”
Instead she focused on the spear. Find the spear in the future, she decided, and she would find herself. She would trick the earth.
As magical as the spear was, Mudwort felt certain it would grant her a long, long life. There was that kind of magic in the spear: forever magic, god magic.
“Find the spear. This spear.” Mudwort tapped the haft.
The forest spun into a miasma of greens and browns until brown gradually became the more predominant color. When the image cleared, Mudwort was looking down upon a mountain. Crawling around on the mountaintop were clans of goblins. They were all manner of color, just like the ones in Direfang’s ruined city: gray, brown, yellow, red, and some multicolored like the Skinweavers.
The goblins weren’t alone. There were dwarves there too. Mudwort had never met a dwarf before cutting through the village in the mountains south of Steel Town, the disease-ridden village where Graytoes stole the baby. Dwarves didn’t usually mingle with goblins.
Those dwarves were different. They were all ruddy-skinned, thick, and with short, muscular limbs. All of them sported beards, some of the beards braided and with bits of bone and beads woven in the plaits. They all dressed in clothes and leather armor. Many of them had weapons hanging from their belts.
The goblins carried weapons too, fine ones forged of metal like the weapons in Steel Town had been. There wasn’t a single crude club or a simple knife.
Were the two races set to battle each other? Mudwort peered closer and saw they didn’t fight, they … mingled. The goblins and dwarves talked and laughed, argued and pointed east toward what Mudwort guessed was the Plains of Dust. They acted as if they had joined together, belonged together.
“Find Mudwort’s spear. Use the magic. Find the spear.”
The image of the dwarves and goblins became sharper, the colors more vivid.
“So the spear is there. Where?” Though she looked hard, she didn’t spy herself in the crowd. There must be hundreds of the goblins and dwarves on the mountain, hobgoblins, too, she noted. She saw more going in and out of caves. “The dwarves live in the caves. Goblins too,” she said a moment later when she saw a yellow-skinned, elderly goblin helped out by a young dwarf. “Live together in the caves.” She shuddered at the thought.
“Mudwort’s spear,” she droned. “Find it. Find it. Find it.” She flew like a hawk, swooping low over the vision, skimming south, banking, then coming up toward the north. She didn’t recognize any of the goblins on the mountain. Maybe she was in one of the caves, holding court as Saarh had done when Mudwort had first looked in on her. Maybe the vision was so far in the future that all the goblins she knew-Direfang too-had died. Maybe she was all that was left, and she was holding court.
“Umay?” Her senses hovered above a female dwarf who looked strangely familiar. And she was the one holding court. The squat figure stepped up to the highest level spot on the mountain. She clutched Mudwort’s spear in her right hand.
Mudwort’s stomach clenched as she stared. The dwarf was indeed Umay; Mudwort recognized her eyes and nose-all the years, decades, had not changed those features. And her smile, that was the same too. There were wrinkles at the edges of Umay’s eyes and mouth and creases along her wide forehead. If Umay was old, at least well into middle age, likely at least a century or two had passed. Mudwort had heard dwarves live a very long time.