On the Verge (13 page)

Freya followed Rusty’s lead, but the action felt odd. She wasn’t used to genuflection. She kept her head up and watched as two shafts of the blue light that seemed to be the lifeblood of the place sprouted from the top of the rock. The light dimmed and solidified, forming twinned horns of cobalt blue. It took her a moment to discern the face that glowered at her from under the magnificent prongs, and she started when she finally distinguished the malevolent coal-black eyes from the rest of the rocky outcropping.

When the thing was certain it had her attention, it seemed to unfurl itself from the confines of the zenith and Freya was able to recognize spindly arms resting on pointed hips, a set of raised ridges that could have been ribs and two vertical spines that formed legs.

“Didn’t you bother to teach this outlander some protocol, Rusty?”

Its voice was surprisingly mellifluous. The question was formed out of slow and careful vowels and softened consonants. Freya had been expecting the harsh grind of rock on rock. Instead it put her more in mind of molten lava, supple and bright, but inexorably dangerous as well.

“I’m sorry,
Königin
.” Rusty’s voice was barely audible even in the stark silence of the grand hall.

Freya was struck by the great man’s timorousness. With his head bowed and his back hunched, his attitude went beyond respect to abjectness. Freya suffered from self-doubt as much as the next person, but one thing she had in bountiful supply was a profound respect for her individuality and for the individuality of others. It filled her with rancor to see anyone’s dignity trampled, and she could plainly see that Rusty’s had been crushed many times. Do that enough to a person and you break their spirit. There were few fates worse than that.

The thing’s flinty eyes stared coldly at Freya, but she was determined to remain unimpressed. She didn’t know what it was exactly, but already she couldn’t stand it.

“We’ll deal with that oversight later, drudge.”

The thing almost sang the words, so sweet was its tone, but there was an unmistakable bite hidden behind the honeyed tenor. Freya looked over at Rusty and although he still stared blankly at the floor in front of him there was a great sadness in his eyes. Sadness and resignation.

“Who are you, girl?” asked the stony figure.

“My name is Freya,” she said, her tone somewhere between defiance and dread.

“You’ll have to do a little bit more explaining than that,” said the queen. “Just because you’re accompanied by our sorry excuse for a guardian doesn’t guarantee your safety.”

“I came for your color, for the cobalt blue of the kobold. My life depends on it.”

The thing stared down at her quizzically from its lofty perch.

“No one just takes our blue,” said the queen imperiously. “Surely our dear custodian Rusty explained this to you before dragging us all into this unfortunate and, apparently, unnecessary conversation.”

She shifted her gaze back to Rusty whose eyes still had not left the floor.

“Come now, Rusty, my boy, there is a certain minimum level of decorum that I would expect even out of a lout like you.”

“I’m sorry,
Königin
,” Rusty whispered. “But I know you have a reckoning to administer, and what greater humiliation could there be than to gift the offender’s horn to an outlander.”

The queen stared hard at Rusty, her flint eyes cruel and calculating.

“Intriguing idea, drudge,” she said. “Gifting the offender’s horn to an outlander. That is truly the ultimate dishonor.”

The queen shifted her gaze back to Freya.

“To come up with such an idea, our little Rusty must wish for a particularly happy ending with you, girl.”

The queen laughed musically. Freya shuddered at the sound. She glanced at Rusty who stared determinedly at the ground. Freya was beginning to understand his laconic attitude. He had learned long ago, she was sure, that things went better for him the less he said.

“Well, now. I think I struck a nerve,” said the queen. “Beauty and the Beast, eh. Well, why not? This is the Verge,” and she let loose her sickening giggle again.

“Let’s get on with things,” she continued. “There’s only so long I can stand an outlander in our midst.”

The
königin
made a grand gesture upward and lightly grabbed hold of one of the bright blue horns that grew from the bare black rock of her head. She released her grip and ran a single stony finger down the length of the cobalt spine. It was a simple gesture, but somehow she managed to fill it with a lasciviousness that made Freya’s stomach turn. The queen giggled girlishly and continued on.

“Our horns are our identity,” the queen said, suddenly serious. “Without them we are mere hunks of rock. To harvest a horn is the ultimate punishment among our kind. Worse than death, it is to become nothing at all, to be summoned back to the Verge for eternity, existing in a sort of Limbo, unrecognizable and useless, but forever denied reentry into this world. It is a fate that our kind find utterly reprehensible and it is reserved for the worst among us.”

Freya said nothing. She only hoped that the goblin in question truly deserved the fate that was about to be meted out to him. With a queen like that, she doubted the punishment necessarily fit the crime and she wasn’t keen on advancing the totalitarian regime of this goblin megalomaniac.

“So I think we are all ready for a bit of fun, aren’t we?”

As she spoke, the
königin
took a step off the top of her lofty summit and, just as Freya was certain she would tumble to the ground, a small flat-topped spire of stone raced up from the sheer sides of the black pinnacle to catch her footfall in midair. The queen took another step into empty space and another, but each time her certain plunge to the unforgiving stone floor was interrupted by the sudden appearance of well-timed stepping-stones. This unusual means of descent and the graceful, almost weightless quality of her footfalls, made it seem as though the queen floated to the ground. Despite her best efforts to the contrary, Freya was suitably impressed and a little afraid.

Her newfound trepidation only increased as the
königin
stepped lightly to the floor. The queen of the kobold was but a few paces away from Freya now, allowing the girl the opportunity to fully appreciate the evil that radiated from her every aspect. She was over six feet tall, and her horns, curved and striated like those of a gazelle, reached another two feet beyond that. She wore no clothing; her stony exterior gave no hint at her sex, but she moved with a kind of cool sensuality that was difficult to reconcile with the sharp skeletal quality of her body.

Her face, set into the smooth dark gray rock of her bare head, was composed of angular features that complemented her malevolence. A small, straight gash for her mouth, an angular nose and carven cheeks, but, as always with Freya, it was the creature’s eyes that revealed the queen’s true nature. They stirred the primitive parts of Freya’s brain. Like obsidian razors, they were cruel and unyielding; their shiny, pupil-less surface reflected the light from the cavern ceiling stealing any semblance of warmth from the blue blaze above.

The
königin
took a few long strides forward on her spindly legs so that she hovered over Freya and Rusty menacingly. Then, stepping even closer, the queen bent her face so near to Freya that she could feel the creature’s breath on her cheek. It came like the dank wind from a cold, wet cave and it was all Freya could do not to retch from its putrid stench.

“This is going to be fun,” the queen whispered.

Freya felt her knees weaken, but she wasn’t that feeble. She wouldn’t give into this stone tyrant. She felt her resolve strengthen. She couldn’t be broken so easily. The queen would have to work a lot harder than that.

The
königin
smiled cruelly when Freya made no move to back away. The empty mirth in her grin was more disturbing than if she had simply stated her cruel intentions.

“Right. Well then, let’s get the process started, shall we?” the queen said. “Please excuse me while I return to my pulpit. It really is most unseemly for me to appear before my congregation on an even footing. They look up to me, you see.”

Freya watched as the goblin queen ascended to the apex of the stone spire once more.

“What did she mean congrega—,”

Freya had turned to Rusty to ask him her question but stopped mid-sentence when a low but powerful rumbling made her turn around. From out of the massive flagstones of the cathedral floor, blue pools had sprung and seemed to be forming into recognizable shapes in much the same way that the queen had materialized. Freya watched with a mixture of horror and awe as the brilliant hue of a hundred or more goblin innards disappeared under the rigid façade of black granite. Blue spines of cobalt pierced the vibrating air of the stone nave and hundreds of flinty eyes glinted wickedly in the half-light of the blue-white flames.

“Welcome, kobold!”

The queen’s voice reverberated throughout the massive space. She began speaking in a tongue that Freya could only assume was their native goblin language, which sounded to Freya’s ear like German with the harshest consonants mellowed by graceful vowels.

“What’s this now?” Freya hissed to Rusty who had not moved a muscle in the last several moments.

“This is the congregation of the
Juwelstein
,” Rusty muttered in a barely audible whisper.

“Wonderful. And what are they doing here?” Freya could sense the panic rising in her voice.

“They are here for the reckoning,” Rusty answered without expression.

Freya gulped. “What did he do?” she asked quietly.

Rusty appeared reluctant to answer. As the queen continued the formalities of the goblin gathering, her voice ringing hollowly throughout the cavern, Freya studied Rusty’s face, waiting for a response.

“Insurrection,” Rusty said. He didn’t look like he was going to elaborate.

“What happens to them, Rusty?” Her voice was serious but plaintive. “Is it truly a fate worse than death?”

He raised his head and looked her in the eye for the first time.

“Without their horn they cease to exist in this realm. When a kobold no longer fits the legend, when they lose such a central part of their identity, they are recalled to the Verge.”

“What happens to them there?” asked Freya.

“It’s just as the queen said,” Rusty replied. “They become the flotsam and jetsam of the Verge. Characterless, they are set adrift, neither alive nor dead, to float across the dark of the blank pages of eternity’s empty storybook.”

The queen abruptly stopped her speechmaking and looked down from her lofty perch at Freya. The
königin
’s eyes were like black scalpels; her sermon to the kobold seemed to have stirred her more base instincts and she looked even less human than before. Freya felt her resolve faltering, but she held her ground.

“Girl, come forward.” The queen’s voice maintained its lyrical quality as it issued the command, but it seemed to Freya that there was a wild animal there in the undertones of her voice, waiting to be released.

Freya stepped away from Rusty and walked a few feet closer to the
königin
’s spiky pulpit.

“You will be this evening’s reckoner.” Her voice sounded musical still, but the beast seemed to be creeping closer to the surface. Freya’s pulse quickened. She looked to Rusty and his small nod confirmed her worst fears. She would be the one taking the horn.

“I—I couldn’t possibly,” she stammered.

“The law of this
Juwelstein
is mine, and mine alone. That law has been broken most egregiously and it is up to me to retain order.”

The melodic quality of her voice faded away completely and the growl of her true nature filled her words.

“To be desecrated by an outlander – that is the ultimate shame, and the ultimate expression of my incontestable authority here. Bring me the
blamieren
.”

A collective roar issued from the throats of the assembled kobold and Freya felt a little faint. A rent in the throng of goblins appeared slowly at first and then with surprising speed until a single goblin was isolated, his form backlit against the blue flames of the fireplace at the entrance to the hall. The roar of his brethren grew in intensity and those nearest to the condemned began brutally prodding him with their horns and forcing the goblin forward. The creature did not retaliate but neither was it resigned. It walked resolutely forward seemingly unaffected by the cruel blows it received from all sides. When it was nearly to the front of the cavern and the queen’s pulpit, a final thrust of razor-sharp horns struck the accused in the face. The goblin stumbled and fell to its knees. Viscous blue dripped from a gash on its head.

By now the howls of the assembled kobold had reached a fever pitch. The injured goblin found his feet and continued forward until it came to a stop just to the left of Freya. A hush fell over the congregation then, as though a switch had been flipped. Freya couldn’t decide which was worse, the deafening thunder of shrieking goblins or the deadly silence of this legion of otherworldly creatures, like tigers crouching in the underbrush.

“Kneel.” The queen’s voice was like a million shards of flint.

The goblin did as it was bid, but there was defiance still in the deferential posture.

“Rusty, the axe,” the queen growled.

From against a nearby pillar Rusty retrieved the same wicked-looking pickaxe he had been holding when they first met. Freya thought he had left the mining tool back in the great room of the lodge, but he must have brought it with him through the fire.

Rusty strode quickly forward and handed Freya the axe with its vicious silver blade and jet-black handle. It was much heavier than Freya had anticipated and her outstretched arms gave a few inches before she was able to recruit enough strength to hold it properly. Rusty didn’t look her in the eye during the exchange but there seemed to be a new tension in his shoulders, an anticipatory tautness in his limbs. She wasn’t sure if it was apprehension or excitement. Perhaps it was both.

“
Blamieren
, your time has come.”