She struck again and again until all that was left in front of her was a pile of ragged metal. At last she stopped, breathing heavily.
“You done now?” asked Slobad. “Feel better, huh?”
“They killed my family,” snarled the elf. “This one slaughtered my sister. I won’t feel better until I destroy them all.”
“Then what?” asked Slobad. “More will come. They always do, huh? Broken ones get fixed, missing ones are replaced. It’s better to hide and live than seek revenge and die, huh?”
Glissa nodded. Inwardly she resolved to find the true master of these beasts and exact her revenge where it would matter. Meanwhile …
She grabbed Slobad’s shoulder and hobbled along beside the goblin. Her ankle was swollen so much it ached constantly inside her boot. Even the slight pressure from limping shot searing pain up her leg. Perhaps the goblin was right, after all. She needed to hide and rest before seeking her revenge.
On their way through the cavern, Glissa saw something glint in the goblin’s firelight. She glanced over at the shiny object, then stopped and stared in horror.
“What’s the matter now, huh?” asked Slobad. “You want to destroy that one, too? It won’t bring back your family. It will just make more trouble for us. Come on, huh?”
“I’m not going to destroy anything,” said Glissa, her voice low and measured as she fought to remain calm in the light of her discovery. “Give me a moment, will you?”
She left the goblin’s side and hopped over to a leveler nearby. She leaned on its side and reached out toward the blades arrayed across its front. The object was still out of her reach, so she leaned even farther. Just before losing her balance, she grabbed the object, then pushed herself away from the leveler to regain her balance.
“What did you find, huh?” asked Slobad when she hopped back over to him.
Glissa showed him. It was a severed hand. An elf hand with long, delicate fingers tipped with sharp claws. The wrist was red and moist, though the blood had all but drained from it.
“That’s my mother’s wedding ring,” said Glissa. “It’s been passed down from mother to son for generations. Nobody knows what the gem is anymore, or the metal.”
Glissa pulled the ring off the hand and placed it on her own finger. She kissed the fingers of the severed hand and tenderly laid it aside. “It’s all I have left of them.”
* * * * *
A subdued Glissa let Slobad lead her to the back of the chamber and through a small hole hidden in the wall. She crawled through the hole behind the goblin into a small room where Slobad obviously lived. It wasn’t much to look at. He had spread a couple of furs on the floor in one corner. A small table and chair stood in the center and another, larger table was placed against the far wall, covered with small tools and scraps of metal. After hiding the hole with a small section of wall, Slobad put the flame tube on the table and picked up a knife.
Glissa stepped back from him, pointing the sword. “Mine’s bigger,” she said.
“I told you to put that thing away, huh?” said Slobad. “You are one crazy elf, do you know that? Lie down so I can cut your boot off and look at your leg.”
Glissa breathed easier. “I don’t know who to trust,” she said apologetically. “Just be careful. My ankle is swollen right up against the boot.”
Slobad came over with the knife, and Glissa kept her sword ready just in case. She held her mother’s ring against her chest as if clinging to the past for comfort. The goblin, however, was as skilled with the knife as he had been with his tools. He sliced right down the boot all the way to the heel, never once touching her metal skin beneath.
As Slobad pulled away the leather, Glissa could see that her ankle was swollen to more than twice its normal size, and the blades had cut into her metal shin. Green pus oozed from the wounds on either side of her leg. Slobad went to the table and brought back a metal bowl full of water. He cut a strip of leather from the furs and wetted it in the bowl, then used the wet leather to wash off the pus. The goblin then cut two more strips and tied them around Glissa’s ankle.
“That looks bad, huh?” said Slobad. “I’ve not seen a lot of elves, but I don’t think your ankle should be that color. What you think? I think you lose leg if that pus doesn’t go away.”
“Let me see what I can do,” said Glissa. She sat up against the wall, dropped her sword on her lap, and placed her hands over the wounds. She knew some healing magic, but in here she could barely feel the power from the trees. What little she could muster she sent down through her fingers, and a few green wisps of energy floated down from her hands to her injured leg. The ankle glowed for a moment, and the swelling went down somewhat.
“That’s all I can do,” she said. “My magic can heal wounds, but that must be something else, some sort of disease.”
“Rest now,” said Slobad. “We leave in morning.”
Suddenly Glissa was suspicious again. “Why?” she asked. “I thought you said it was safe here.”
“It was until you came here, huh?” said Slobad. “I told you, broken levelers get fixed. Missing ones are replaced. Nobody ever bother Slobad during repairs, huh? I stay hidden here until repairs finished. This was the safest place on Mirrodin, huh? But you destroyed a leveler in the cavern. They will know somebody here. They will look for us. They will find Slobad and you.”
“I’m sorry,” said Glissa. “I didn’t mean to run you out of your home.”
“Slobad has no home,” said the goblin, shrugging. “Crazy elf shouldn’t worry about Slobad. Worry about saving leg, huh? Let Slobad worry about Slobad.”
“My name is Glissa,” she said. “If you help me, Slobad, I’ll give you a home in the Tangle far away from the levelers.”
“Hmmph,” said Slobad. “Big talk from crazy, one-legged elf. Sleep now. We leave before the second sun rises.”
“Sun?” asked Glissa.
“You know,” said Slobad, “round things in the sky. Four of them. They come up. They go down. Make world bright; make world dark.” The goblin waved his arms in a funny pattern around his head. “You can’t tell me you don’t know suns, huh?”
“We call them ‘moons,’ ” said Glissa. “It’s an ancient word for heavenly bodies that circle around the world. I know what a sun is. I’ve seen them in my … dreams. Suns are much brighter and hotter, I think.”
“Suns give light and heat, huh?” said Slobad. “That’s right. That’s what goblins know about suns. We have four suns. No moons. Just suns.”
“Okay,” said Glissa, not wanting to argue. “They’re suns. Now can I go to sleep?”
Slobad nodded, so Glissa lay back on the furs and closed her eyes. She had no choice but to trust the odd, fast-talking goblin. She needed rest, and she would need his help to get out of here. Even so, she pretended to sleep for some time, just in case Slobad tried to attack.
After a while, Glissa did sleep and dreamed of the levelers attacking her in the Tangle. She was surrounded and they were advancing, their blades spinning in front of them. She could see the bodies of her parents in a heap nearby. Her mother’s hand and ring were nowhere to be seen, and Lyese’s long hair had been sliced off, leaving a bloody scar across the top of her head. Tears welled up in Glissa’s eyes, and she rubbed her arm across her face to wipe them away.
Now the levelers changed into flying beasts that buzzed around her head. She swatted at them with her sword, but they kept coming. She could hear laughing and looked over to see a robed figure where her dead parents had been just moments before. The laughing changed to screams, and Glissa saw that the figure held Kane off the ground by his neck. Kane was screaming. Glissa shouted, then saw green tendrils of energy erupt from her hands, snaking up her arms.
CHAPTER 5
Glissa started awake in a cold sweat. Was that a dream or a flare? she wondered. How could it have been a flare? The events she had dreamed had never happened to her, as far as she knew. Who was that robed figure? He had been in the Tangle the night her parents died. Was he the master of the levelers? Glissa sat up and looked down at her hands but saw no green energy surrounding them.