She sorted through the pages until she found the illumination spell. Old water damage smeared part of the middle, but most of the spell was still legible. She had tried this one before, in the privacy of the distillery. If she could find a way to create light without fire, it would make the muck work so much safer. In the past all she had managed was to burn herself.
But now her eyes devoured the page. “Nothing more than a basic transference and enhancement enchantment, really.”
She blinked. She didn’t even know what that meant, though the rhyme was catchy. Her mind was clearly leaping ahead, instinctively grasping more advanced concepts of magic. Her heart pounded as the arcane instructions became clear. She squinted at the damaged section. “Probably talks about providing an initial source of light, like the spark to start a fire. Pretty basic spell. Not so much generating magical light as stealing it from somewhere else.”
Her fist tightened around the firestarting stick. First she needed to use the binding spell to tap into the surrounding magical energy. “That should be simple. There’s enough magic trapped in this place to light up half the world.”
“Hush,” said Grell, poking her in the backside with one of her canes.
Veka ignored her. She spread her fingers, drawing a web of magic in the palm of her hand. The silver lines connecting her fingertips were far stronger than anything she had managed before. “That’s only the first part of the binding. The magic needs to be linked to the light itself in order to manipulate it.”
Veka smiled as she studied the binding. The silver lines weren’t true light. Bringing her hand closer to the page didn’t illuminate the words, nor did the light cast any shadows. The others didn’t seem to notice it at all. Her hand felt warm . . . healthy. She began to mutter the second part of the binding, then changed her mind.
“Why bother? The words are useless, a crutch for the weak-minded.” Her hands flexed of their own volition, and the silver web bowed outward. A tendril of light crept through the air until it touched the flame of the firestarting stick.
“Interesting,” she muttered. “Magic is more sluggish here. Probably an ambient effect of the sterile nature of this world.”
Veka stared at her hand, trying to understand the words coming from her own mouth. More sluggish than what? She tried to convince herself she was simply remembering passages from her reading. Josca liked to use big words, many of which Veka still didn’t understand. What was the historical unification of mythological heroism anyway? So she blurted out a few strange phrases as she cast her spells. It was part of her growing awareness, nothing more.
Josca did say the Hero would tap into previously unknown reserves of strength and power as she traveled along the path. This crisis had simply helped her discover those reserves.
She giggled. She should have snuck away years ago instead of waiting around for Jig Dragonslayer to teach her his worthless flavor of magic.
“What’s so funny?” Slash asked.
Without thinking, Veka pushed the flame with her mind. Orange light leaped from the end of the stick, splashing as it collided with Slash’s nose. The firestarting stick went dark.
Slash’s nose lit up like a muck lantern with an oversoaked wick. He leaped back, smacking his head against the wall, then falling as he tried to scramble away from his own nose. Dirt and dust swirled around his body. “What did you do to me?”
“Quiet,” Veka said sweetly. “We wouldn’t want the ogres to hear you.”
Jig had turned around, his hand again going to his sword. The tunnels had widened a bit, back at the junction where the ogres’ tunnel breached a larger one, but Jig still had to squeeze past Braf to reach her. “What happened?”
She tossed her firestarting stick aside. “The light was dying. I made a new one.”
“Take it off, goblin,” said Slash, “before I—” Veka shook her staff, rattling the beads and trinkets at the end. Slash cringed and took a step back. A gleeful giggle tried to escape her lips at the sight of his fear, but she fought it down. Heroes didn’t giggle. “Calm down, hobgoblin,” she said. “Right now I’ve only channeled the light to you. Would you like the flames as well?”
Slash’s eyes crossed as he stared at his nose. The orange light turned his face pale, almost white. Veins traced dark lines throughout his nose, especially around the nostrils. “Could you at least dim it down a little? You’re giving me a headache.”
“He looks like a pixie flew up his nose,” Braf said, grinning. Slash stepped toward him, and that grin vanished.
Veka thought she was going to explode from sheer joy. She had cast a spell. She had mastered the magical energies around her and harnessed them to do her bidding. And she had shown that stupid hobgoblin a thing or two in the process. That would be the last quip he made about her magical abilities. He was lucky she hadn’t done anything worse.
“The light
is
pretty powerful,” Jig said. They had left the ogres’ tunnel behind, crossing once again into familiar obsidian, and the orange light reflected from the rock for a fair distance in both directions.
“Say no more,” Veka said, waving her hand in what she hoped was a gesture of generosity. She turned to Slash, reached out her hand, and tried to pull some of that light back into herself.
Nothing happened. She frowned and tried again. The spellbook said the caster would have total mastery of any effects they produced.
“I . . . I’ve changed my mind,” she said. “Leave the hobgoblin to his discomfort. He can tie a rag over his face if he wants. At least that would spare us the ugliness of his features.”
She saw the muscles of Slash’s neck and shoulders tighten, but he didn’t say anything. He was too afraid of her!
“Here,” said Grell, handing him an old stained cloth.
Slash’s hands shook with anger as he tied the cloth around his nose. The light shone right through the cloth, but it was significantly softer. “What is this?” he asked.
“Old diaper,” Grell said. “Don’t worry, I rinsed it out before I packed it.”
“Veka. . . .” Jig’s voice trailed off. He looked nervous. Was he starting to realize she would soon replace him in the eyes of the other goblins? Already Braf stared at her with new respect, and Grell . . . well, Grell looked annoyed. But she always looked annoyed.
Veka smiled. “Shall we proceed, Jig Dragonslayer?” Beside her, Grell shrugged. “Might as well. I’ve got no interest in standing here staring at the hobgoblin and his amazing glowing nostrils.” She turned away and started walking. With a shrug, Braf fell in behind her.
Veka gave Slash one last smile before she followed. Fortunately, Slash had no magic of his own. Otherwise the hatred on his face would have melted her to a puddle of goo right there.
Veka found herself walking beside Slash, to the annoyance of them both. Without her firestarting stick, the only way for her to read was by the light of his nose. Several of the glowing bugs she had seen in Jig’s temple circled Slash’s head, evading his angry swats.
“I’m going to kill you and feed your body to the tunnel cats, you know,” Slash said.
Veka ignored him. His bluster reminded her of the goblin guards boasting about what they planned to do to the hobgoblins. They were too afraid to follow through. Those few who tried tended not to return.
“What are you planning to do when the ogres and the pixies find us?” he asked. “Making pixies glow isn’t going to do much good.”
“There are other spells,” she said, giving him a side-long glance. Though they would be far simpler to master if her spellbook weren’t in such wretched condition. Here was a spell to fling fire at one’s enemies, but most of that page was blackened beyond legibility, all except the warning at the top:
Do not cast near a privy.
Another page contained the first few steps in what seemed to be a very advanced spell, but the last part of the title was smudged.
“Shadow Beam of what?” she muttered. Shadow Beam of Darkness? Shadow Beam of Death? This could be Shadow Beam of Endless Belching for all she knew. If the rest of the spell had been present, she would have tried it on Slash anyway, but without the later instructions, the page was worthless.
A draft of warm air brushed her face. She glanced up and, for the first time since leaving the woods, really noticed their surroundings.
The dust ahead was heavily scuffed. She spotted large footprints ahead of Jig and the others. Ogre footprints.
She could hear a humming sound farther down the tunnel, like a giant playing the world’s largest wind instrument. The air was drier than before, and it smelled of bat guano.
Ahead, Jig had stopped moving. He looked frightened.
“What is it?” Veka asked.
“I know where we are. Where we’re going, at least.
I hoped I was wrong.” He leaned against one wall and wiped sweat from his face. “The Necromancer transformed his tunnels into a labyrinth full of traps and spells, and every tunnel led to the same place: a bottomless pit where he could dispose of those who weren’t ’worthy’ of joining his dead servants.”
“I know the song,” Veka said. Keeping her voice low, she sang,
“Deep in the mountain, to the blackness below,
that’s where the Necromancer’s victims all go.
Your screams start to fade as you plummet and fall,
so bring a good snack and don’t bounce off the wall
of the Necromancer’s Bottomless Pit.
The Necromancer’s Bottomless Pit.
You can fall for a lifetime, if you come prepared.
Bring food and klak beer, there’s no need to be scared
of the Necromancer’s Bottomless Pit.”
Slash grunted. “We hobgoblins sing something like that. The chorus is a little different, though.
“How many squirming goblins will fit
in the Necromancer’s Bottomless Pit?
Keep tossing them in as they beg and they shout,
keep tossing them in if you want to find out
just how many terrified goblins will fit
in the Necromancer’s Bottomless Pit.”
“Will you please both shut up?” Jig asked. “Those giant bats, there was a whole nest of them living in the pit. That must be where the ogres are going to collect them. You can already feel the wind. This tunnel leads to the pit. We’ll be trapped if we go there.”
“So let’s go back,” Veka said. The others stared. “We passed at least one other tunnel, back where the ogres had broken through. All we have to do is—”
“The ogres have been following us for a while now,” Jig said. “Can’t you hear them?”
Veka’s ears swiveled, trying to shut out the sound from ahead as she listened. She flushed. Jig was right. The sounds were faint, but the grunting and clomping of the ogres was unmistakable. How could she have missed it?
“They don’t know we’re here though, right?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t bet on that,” Jig mumbled.
Braf was looking back and forth between them. “So what do we do?”
“We go forward,” Veka said. “Follow the path.”
“And hope it branches off again between here and the pit,” Jig added. He mumbled something about ogres being the least of his worries, but by then Veka was once again scouring the pages of her spellbook.
The wind picked up, ripping the page Veka had been studying from her hands. She barely managed to clamp down fast enough to keep the rest from following. She watched as the instructions for transforming urine to beer fluttered down the tunnel. The wind was making it impossible for her to study.
She grabbed Slash by the arm. “Come on. I need the light.”
Slash growled deep in his throat as she led him back down the tunnel, chasing the flapping paper. After several failed attempts, Slash shoved her aside and stomped on the page. He picked it up, ripping the edge, and shoved it into her hands.
“Thank you,” said Veka.
Grell shook her head. “Next time you go running off like that when we’re trying to avoid an ugly, ogre-inflicted death, I plan to put a knife in your belly. I thought you’d like to know.”
Veka bristled. Didn’t Grell understand this was the magic that would save them from the ogres and the pixies, not to mention this bottomless pit? Well, maybe not the urine-to-beer spell, but magic in general.
The wind grew stronger, tugging wisps of hair from her braid and whipping it into her face. Grudgingly she conceded the older goblin might be right. If she kept trying to read, it would probably cost her any number of spells.
Her muscles tightened as she shoved the pages into the pocket of her cloak. It was as if her body were physically rebelling against the idea of giving up her studies, even for a short time. So many things had begun to make sense, so many possibilities were becoming clear, and she was supposed to simply set it all aside?
The noise was louder here. Despite Jig’s hopes, the tunnel had taken them farther and farther down, following a relatively straight line through the rock. They were trapped between the ogres and the pit.
The pit itself was visible now, a black shadow at the end of the tunnel. Jig stood to one side, staring at the darkness as if he could somehow transform it into a bridge or a ladder.
For a goblin who had fought and triumphed over adventurers, the Necromancer, and even a dragon, Jig didn’t act like a Hero. He acted . . . well, more like a goblin, really. He preferred to cower and hide, to run away from danger and avoid the glory of battle.
Jig was what Josca called a Reluctant Hero. Chapter ten discussed the various kinds of heroes. For herself, Veka had every intention of becoming a Hero of Legend, one whose triumphs would inspire her people for generations after she was gone.
But Jig was clearly a different breed. She rested one hand on the comforting weight of the book, reciting the passage to herself from memory.
The Reluctant Hero wants nothing more than to be left alone, but such is not the fate of the Hero. The Hero is destined for great things, and destiny is not easily fooled. Destiny uses a variety of prods to push the Hero into adventure, the destruction of his village being one of the most common. The murder of friends and/or family is also popular. If you feel you may be a Reluctant Hero, you are advised to go forth into the world as soon as you can. It may be your only chance to protect your loved ones from the cruel, crushing hand of destiny.