The length of the battle was telling on the Highlord. Blood leaked between the epaulets of her wounded upper arm, forming a deadly calligraphy on her armor. Even Kali could see she was favoring that arm, and Oster pressed his advantage, driving her back, step by step, to the bedroom door.
Kali's eyes took in the battle, but his mind whirled with options, all of them bad. At first it seemed to him that Oster would surely perish under the attack, which was good in that at least he would die without finding out his ladylove was his murderer, but bad considering that said murderer would probably avenge herself on the rest of the community. Now it looked like Oster would be victorious, which would be equally disastrous, for once he discovered the Highlord was his Columbine, he would perish just as surely of a broken heart, if not busted ribs.
Kali chewed on his beard, fidgeted, raised his weapon, fidgeted again. Eton was a statue next to him, working out his own thoughts, or perhaps preparing himself for the afterlife. The pair were enraptured by the deadly ballet played out before them.
Oster was now beating the Highlord's attacks easily, reducing her to weak parries and dodges. The two locked blades again (Kali made a mental check to see if there was any surviving furniture). This time, when they broke, the Highlord's sword separated from its owner, burying its point in the china cabinet (shattering the last of the unbroken teapots). Oster brought his sword around in a mighty blow, aimed at his opponents' throat, as smooth and as level as carpenter's beam.
Kali stepped forward and, in a loud voice, shouted, "Oster, don't do it! It's your Columbine!" Or rather, he fully intended to. A great, soft explosion blossomed at the base of his own skull and he toppled forward. The room pitched and the floor rose up to meet the gnome. He was dimly aware of two other forms striking the floor before he reached it, one the shape of a full human helmet, the other resembling a human sans both helmet and head. A part of Kali's mind paused to calculate how long it would take a plummeting gnome, a falling severed head, and a crumbled body to all hit the ground at the same time. Then the void closed up over him.
Kali awoke to find himself in his own bed, looking up at a grim Oster and a worried-looking Eton. The expression on his fellow gnome's face told the story — that shamed-dog look of gnomish responsibility when an invention goes slightly awry, combined with a mild sense of pride that the idea proved feasible. He still had his combination plowshare-shovel in his hands.
Oster's face was human and therefore unreadable. Gray. It looked like that of a gnome who has realized his invention is unworkable, and nothing could change that fact. A look of defeat, tinged with worry.
"She's dead," Kali croaked. Not a question, but a notation, a footnote.
"They both are," said Oster, putting a hand on the reclining gnome's shoulder. "And the priest, too, I'm afraid."
"Both?" Kali's brow clouded.
"The Highlord, and… and…" Oster shook his head. "Eton showed me the tomb you made for her. It is very sweet. Almost as if she were alive. When I pointed the priest toward the bedroom, the Highlord was waiting. If you hadn't come home, he would have caught us both."
Kali looked hard at Eton, hoping to elicit from his fellow gnome an explanation that would at least bring him up to date.
Eton avoided his eyes, and instead grabbed Kali's big toe and looked at his wrist. "Hmmm, confused from a lateral conclusion. He'll need his rest. If you don't mind, Oster?"
The human nodded and saw himself out. The bedroom door had been replaced with a roughly-hung carpet, and Kali could hear the human busying himself outside.
Eton leaned over to check the dressing wrapped at the base of Kali's skull. The small healer grabbed his caretaker's beard and pulled him close, hissing so Oster could not hear.
"How did you keep him from finding out?"
"Quick presence of mind," whispered Eton. "Before he could examine the body, I told him that if the Highlord was near, other enemies may be around as well. Oster scouted. I gathered up the pieces. By the time he had returned, I had placed the body, still in its armor, on the pyre."
"And Columbine?"
"Still in her crypt. The Clockwork Hero made up his own story, and did a better job than we did. He's broken up about it, but he'll get over it. I think. Humans are so difficult-to figure out."
"Why the…?" Kali glowered at the destructive weapon Eton held.
The other gnome sighed and said, "Because you created something that worked, and I did not want you to throw it away."
Kali's head hurt, perhaps just from the shovel blow, but he wasn't sure. He frowned, but remained silent. And silence for gnomes means agreement.
"You created a hero, Kali," Eton said quietly, gently. "Oster arrived as a prisoner, a failure as a merchant and a rebel. But because of all the lies you spun — the tale of Columbine, the errands to fetch useless items — he found a purpose in life. I knew you had decided to tell him the truth, and I had to stop you. If you had told him, he might have pulled his blow, and she would have killed us all."
"But he believes a lie!" groaned Kali, still keeping his voice down.
Eton shrugged. "From what I know of humans, that is a standard state of affairs. They excel at self-deception. Sometimes the lie is the unity of a nation, or the perfection of a cause. Or the love of a good woman — "
" — who doesn't really exist," muttered Kali.
"Exactly." Eton nodded. "It might even be preferred that way. Less fuss and bother. I might create one for myself…"
Kali hrumphed weakly and drifted off to sleep. After a few days he came around to seeing things as Eton did. And Oster did heal over time and come to conquer the wound in his heart made by Columbine's death at the hands of the Highlord. And after a time it became less and less important for Kali to tell Oster the truth of the matter. Even so, he himself pledged to tell no more lies. No more dangerous ones, at least.
And so it has been from that day to this. There still is a gnome village so remote that other gnomes refer to it when talking about remote villages, a noisy place of clanging hammers and the occasional explosion. And it has as its protector a champion in bronze armor, a human in clock-work attire. And its healer is a gnome who has an air of satisfaction because he made something that works, though, even if pressed, he won't reveal the nature of his discovery.
Now, if you ever encounter this Clockwork Hero, you can ask him the tale, and he will tell, as best he is able with his human tongue and direct manner, of the story of his reluctant heroism, of finding himself entrusted to protect a group of small, foolish gnomes. He will speak of encountering a beauty wrapped in slumber, a fair maiden who never spoke to him, yet captured his heart. And he will tell of the fell creature who killed her and threatened his newfound people, such that they called upon him for salvation. And he will speak of sacrifices made and mighty oaths sworn and horrible battles fought and how justice and valor prevailed at the end, though at terrible cost.
But that, of course, is a Human Story, and as such we shall not worry about it.
The village of Dimmin lay snugly in a fold of the Kharolis Mountains, tucked between the elves' Qualinesti and Thorbardin of the dwarves. On the outskirts of that little village, beyond the bend of the brook where willows overhung the water on both sides, stood a small stone house. It was the mage's house, and Thorne had lived there for twenty years. To the eye, he was a man just come into his prime, but he'd been looking like that for all these twenty years past, never a hair turned gray, and so folk reckoned that he had an elf lurking in his ancestry somewhere.