“That’s it,” Drakis grumbled, taking a step forward. “I’ve got to put a stop to this.”
“Just a moment,” Ethis said, reaching out with one of his left hands and restraining Drakis by the shoulder. “I think he’s nearly finished.”
Jugar’s voice dropped dramatically into hushed tones, drawing his eager audience even closer to him. “So what did Drakis do?”
The gnomes leaned closer still.
“He THREW the crown away from him!” Jugar shouted, reenacting the moment by swinging his arm in a wide arc over the heads of the nearest gnomes.
The gnomes gasped in astonishment.
“That’s the truth of it, and may the gods strike me down otherwise!” Jugar concluded. “Drakis tossed away the riches of the elven world-a crown whose wealth would have bought him power and position even among his evil elven masters-for he saw that wealth and power were meaningless if one pays for it with one’s own soul! And from that day to this, Drakis the Just, Drakis the Wise, Drakis of the Prophecy, has wandered the face of the world seeking to fulfill his destiny, destroy evil, and bring lasting peace to all!
“And now,” Jugar paused then pointed his finger directly toward the astonished Drakis. “Now he has come to YOU!”
The mud gnomes leaped up, cheering.
“Oh, no!” Drakis murmured, his eyes going wide. “No, no. .!”
The gnomes rushed toward Drakis in a riotous wave of approval, sweeping the human off his feet.
“DRAKIS! DRAKIS! DRAKIS!”
“Put me down!” he insisted to no avail. He managed to twist in the mud gnomes’ collective grasp as they lifted him over their heads. “Ethis! Where are they taking me?”
“I suspect back to the feast hall,” Ethis replied through a perplexing smile splitting his malleable face.
“Again?”
“That seems to be their preferred way of showing their appreciation for a good story,” Ethis replied, pushing gingerly away from the dried mud wall of the story-cavern. “Besides, we’re leaving with them in the morning, and we’d all rather do so on a full stomach. I don’t see the need for any complaint. The food here is quite good, and they seem perfectly content to share it with us.”
“But it’s a lie!”
“They don’t seem to care,” Ethis observed as the gnomes once again carried Drakis above their shoulders and down a ramp toward their common feast hall. “If anything, they seem to prefer it.”
Early the next morning, Drakis stood outside the great mud city of the Hak’kaarin mud gnomes and waited in the cool dawn with Jugar, Ethis, Belag, and RuuKag with their traveling packs filled to overflowing in preparation for their journey.
“What are we waiting for?” RuuKag grumbled. “The sooner we get moving, the quicker we’re out of this cursed plain.”
“We’re waiting for Mala and the Lyric,” Drakis responded. “A pair of gnomes came with word that they would be late but would be along shortly.”
“Where have they been for the last three days?” Ethis asked. “I’ve seen them at the feasts, but then they seemed to disappear.”
“Oh, I know about that!” Jugar said brightly, his round cheeks bowed upward in a cheery smile. “I asked the Chief of the Day where they had taken the precious women in our company and. .
“Chief of the Day?” Drakis asked.
“Oh, yes! I assure you that these Hak’kaarin have enacted a most fascinating form of governance, really,” Jugar replied. “They have no permanent rulers but rather take turns directing things. They change out the chief pretty much whenever they feel like it. There is no set schedule, but a change in leadership usually takes place when the Chief of the Day gets tired of doing the job and gives someone else a chance. They have no interest in power or wealth as we understand it-indeed, they find the stories we tell of the acquisition of such things to be something like cautionary tales. Their civilization is entirely based on total community of property and pride taken in the whole rather than the individual. Individuals don’t ‘own’ anything as we understand it but take ownership in the whole of their society. All these gnomes coming and going take whatever burrow is available to them when they arrive, use the things in it as though they were their own-because in a very real sense they are theirs as a community-and then just leave them behind when they travel to the next mud city. For that matter, it’s one of the reasons the elves-or anyone else for that matter-have never bothered to conquer them: They don’t have anything worth taking. They live relatively simple lives, journeying constantly from one mud city to the next. They have no desire for power-they even think that the great Aether magic of the elves and even the Aer magic of the dwarves is a ‘crutch’ that weakens the moral fiber of anyone who touches it. With no desire for power and no interest in wealth, they are a formidable group for anyone wanting to corrupt them.”
“Fascinating,” Ethis replied through a yawn, “but you were telling us about the women?”
“Oh, indeed I was!” Jugar nodded brightly. “The Chief of the Day told me-and in rather disappointed tones-that they have been keeping Mala and the Lyric separated from the males of our group and offered women of their own tribes to you in substitution.”
Drakis blinked. “What?”
“The Chief of the Day had hopes that you might each mate with some of their women,” Jugar concluded. “It would have been a great honor for their community.”
Belag sniffed. “Barbarians!”
“Well, each of us has our different customs,” Jugar replied with a shrug. “Strange as they may strike us as outsiders, it sometimes is to our credit to keep a more open mind about the traditions of other nations. . ah, but here is the rest of our intrepid group now.”
Drakis turned to see Mala running toward him, relief in her eyes. She threw her arms around him, nearly knocking him off his feet in her eagerness. “I’ve tried to find you! These little mud creatures kept pushing me off in other directions. Are you all right?”
Drakis looked down at her upturned face. The anger and the fear had for the moment evaporated from her countenance, freeing her once again to look like the Mala he had loved in that life before-and still loved in the jumble of memories that occasionally threatened to overwhelm his thoughts. Her skin was still smudged and tanned from the long journey, and her face was now framed in the rust-red hair that had sprouted from her head, nearly obscuring her slave brand tattoo, but in that moment she looked again like the woman he had so long loved-or believed he had loved-and he smiled warmly in return.
“Mala, I am fine,” Drakis said. “Are you ready for the road?”
She stepped back, still smiling at him. “Three days’ rest in a mud cave seems to have been quite enough. I’ve got my pack and, thanks to these gnomes, far better shoes for the journey.”
She turned in front of him, raising her foot. Drakis laughed at the sight of the soft leather boots with their hard soles-indeed, perfect for the road but entirely incongruous with the rest of her tattered clothing.
“What’s so funny?” she asked, a note of caution coloring her words.
“They are, indeed, perfect,” Drakis laughed, letting go of his anxiety and fear seemingly for the first time in ages. It felt good to laugh again. “How is the Lyric today-or perhaps I should ask ‘who’ is the Lyric today?”
“You’ll find out soon enough,” Mala teased. “But one word of caution-duck right after you ask.”
They were two days out from the third mud city. The trail of Hak’kaarin gnomes stretched across the savanna in a seemingly endless procession. The line heading northward, in which Drakis and his companions marched on the left side of the trail, was matched in kind by a second endless procession heading back the way they had come on the right side.
Drakis smiled as he marched along. There was something soothing in the rhythm of his strides, the wide sky above him, and the warmth of the sun on his face. Mala and the Lyric-now claiming to be Sheen-rhaq, Warrior-Queen of the Manticores-were both riding on a large wagon being pulled by scores of gnomes. . an honor he had declined. Ethis was arguing once more with RuuKag behind the wagon while Belag tried to broker some peace between them. Ahead of him, Drakis could see Jugar marching alongside the gnomes and decided he could use the sound of the fool’s prattle in his ears. He quickened his pace and shortly, as they crossed a shallow river, caught up with the dwarf.