“No,” said Glissa. “We’re not safe. They’re not safe. Nobody is safe, not with me around.”
The golem returned with a jug of water. Glissa took it and drank deeply. “I should go,” she said. “You should have left me in the Tangle.”
“Trolls tell us to go, huh?” said Slobad. “After Slobad fix secret door. They say better for you to leave forest. Say with lot more words, lots of bowing and smiles. Could tell trolls afraid. Slobad see that look before, huh?”
“Then you should have left me in the Glimmervoid,” said Glissa. “It’s not safe here. It’s not safe anywhere. That vedalken mage has spies everywhere. He bought off Strang, and now Chunth is dead. He paid Geth to attack us. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t get to Ushanti. She recognized the serum. I could tell. We can’t trust her now. We can’t trust anybody.”
“We trust Dwugget, huh?” said Slobad. “Cultists never even see other races. They outcasts like us, huh? Outcasts.”
“Perfect targets for treachery,” said Glissa. She rose from the pile of hides where she had been lying and tested her legs. They were in a small cavern lit by a fire inside some metal contraption in the corner. She walked unsteadily across the room to look at the fire sconce. “Even if the robed mage didn’t get to Dwugget, I bet those foul birds have been stalking us since we left the Mephidross.” She felt like a caged animal. “We led them right to Rishan and Kane. Now you’ve put the cultists in danger. You say we’re safe? We’ll never be safe.”
Gently the golem guided Glissa to the hides. He sat her down and held her shoulders. She scratched at a spot on her leg for a while, scraping the molder off the copper, then picking the green rot out from under her claws. There was something in her fist. She hadn’t realized that her other hand had been closed all this time.
The elf opened up her hand. What she had been clenching was the thumb and finger she had picked up after the battle. They were even more shriveled and gray than she had remembered.
“I cut these off the robed figure,” she said. “I’ll keep these until I can unite him with his dead fingers.” Glissa ripped a strip of leather from the hides beneath her. She stabbed her claws through the severed digits, threaded the leather strip through the holes, and tied the gruesome band around her neck.
“Listen, crazy elf,” said Slobad. “You acting crazier than usual, huh? You need rest. Get strength back. Don’t worry about Krark cult. Dwugget keep them hidden for fifty cycles. Nobody find us here, huh? Nobody. Tomorrow we talk. Pick what to do next, huh? Like Bosh said. Then we leave. We leave, and cult stay safe.”
The golem gave her more water. Her body shook as she drained the mug. The water helped calm her a little, that and the gentle kneading of the golem’s hands on her shoulders. Somewhere down deep, she knew she was being foolish. Not everyone was trying to kill her. But until she found that mage and finished what he had started with her, nobody would be safe.
Something nagged at the back of her brain as she fingered her gruesome pendants. “Bosh?” she asked. Was this some new enemy she needed to add to her growing list? “Who’s this Bosh, and what did he say?”
“Golem is Bosh,” said Slobad. “His name Bosh. He tell me on trip, huh? Bosh.”
“He … Bosh … talks?” asked Glissa. “How?”
“Slobad clean rest of Dross in Tangle and one trip, huh?” said the goblin. “One morning he start talking.”
Glissa drank another cup of water. She was tired. She realized that. Three days asleep, but she hadn’t rested. That was all it was. She looked at her friends. They were good friends. She could see the concern on their faces. It was time to come from the darkness and rejoin the world.
Glissa took a deep breath and looked up at the golem. “So, you can talk now?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Bosh.
Glissa looked up at him, waiting for more, then looked at Slobad and raised her eyebrows.
“I say he talks,” said Slobad. “I not say he talks a lot, huh?”
Glissa laughed. She was starting to feel better, but the doubt and fear that had enveloped her and sent her hurtling into that abyss still lingered in the shadows of her mind. The sooner she left the cultists, the better, she thought-for them, anyway. Perhaps she should leave Slobad and Bosh as well-at least until the danger passed.
Later, after Glissa had gotten a little dream-free sleep, she told Slobad and Bosh of the events of the Tree of Tales: of what she had learned from Chunth and his murder. She told them that the vedalken were the source of the serum. She told them of Strang’s treachery and the robed figure in the forest. She told them of Kane’s death. That was the hardest of all.
“I’m sorry,” said Slobad. His head fell forward. “We couldn’t keep up. Slobad put golem back together, huh? We got from Tree as fast as we could. Sorry.”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Glissa. She began rocking back and forth and realized that she was playing with the severed fingers again. She pushed the necklace under her tunic and shook her head and arms to put away the darkness that threatened to consume her.
“Better you weren’t with me,” she said after a while. “You’d be dead, too.”
“Maybe,” said Slobad. “Maybe no. Still sorry. Would give life to save friend, huh?”
“No!” snapped Glissa. “No more deaths. Not because of me. We leave here now. We’ll go to the cult and end this.” Glissa pushed herself up off the hides again. Her legs and arms ached from two days of inactivity, and she almost fell. Bosh stuck out his arm and caught her by the shoulder.
“We leave soon, huh?” said Slobad. “Soon as you able. Eat. Rest. Then we go, huh?”
The elf sighed. “Go where? We can go to the cult and talk to them, but we don’t even begin to know how to find the vedalken.”
Slobad gave a short cough, as if clearing his throat. “Slobad hear of vedalken before, huh? Not much, no. But some things.”
“What?”
“Vedalken live around Quicksilver Sea. That long way from here, huh? Slobad never been. Long walk for crazy elf, Slobad, Bosh. But we can do it.”
“Do what?”
“Find vedalken at Quicksilver Sea, just like I tell you.” The goblin was plainly growing impatient with Glissa’s limited intelligence. “Maybe we go there after see Dwugget.”
There was a table in the middle of the room with bowls on it. Glissa realized she was famished. With the golem’s help, she walked to the table, where she found some stew. She gulped it down, then served herself more from a large pot. She didn’t even worry about the odd chunks of meat that she couldn’t identify.
Glissa wondered if she should tell Slobad and Bosh about Chunth’s last revelation, about the hollow world. They might think she had dreamed that part of the conversation. She wasn’t even sure if it was real anymore. But it reminded her of something Slobad told her about Krark. He had seen the inner world.
“Tell me about this cult again, Slobad,” she said. “Why are they hidden? What did Krark see?”
Slobad sat down and poured himself some stew. “Krark was goblin shaman, huh? Krark branded as heretic for violating Steel Mother,” he said in between gulps. “Executed for violating Steel Mother. But Krark story spread. Cult formed to follow his words, follow him, search for Mother’s Heart.”
“The Steel Mother?” asked Glissa as she poured herself a third bowl of stew.
“The world,” said Slobad. He thought for a moment, then continued, as if reciting a litany learned as a child. “Goblins come from Steel Mother, keep Great Furnace burning for her in life, and return to Steel Mother in death.”
“And this Krark violated the Mother?” asked Glissa. “He found her Heart? How did he do that?”
“Krark entered the Womb of the Steel Mother.”
“The Womb?” asked Glissa. She was interested in the story despite the disturbing imagery.
“Slobad never seen it,” said the goblin. “Cult say Womb is wondrous place-a huge dark tunnel straight down into the Steel Mother. All goblins live around the Womb.”