They were roughly dragged along the dusty floor under the orange glow of the braziers to a small holding cell. They hit the back wall of the cell as they were thrown roughly inside ‘Clang!’ the heavy door slammed and they were left in the darkness save for the ochre glow filtering under the door as though a distant fire were in the hall outside.” How long they lay flitting between the realisation of their ignoble capture and the pain of their captor’s brutal handling they could not remember but the isolating fevered dreams and lucid realisation that played continually during their captivity lasted like an endless day.

Then the goblin guards returned and roughly hauled them to their feet. They had been given no food or water but now one of the guards forced vile liquor down each of them in turn. Despite its acrid taste of mould and fungus it fortified them to enable them to stand without swooning. Without a word they were taken along a sandy inclined tunnel to what Martahu thought could only be the high chamber of the warren. It was always the custom that the high queen lived closest to the escape route out of the warren. Within his mind an idea formed but its execution for the moment failed him.

After a few minutes and many turns they entered the high chamber. A high ceiling mitigated its smallness and opposite the high chair along one end, ran a rough tapestry. Female goblins did not do this work which crudely depicted bestial acts against the human race.  Martahu flinched as he was wheeled round to face the queen. From a small opening above the stars could be seen wheeling their ancient dance around the moon.

The sprite queen Drossa was a fearsome creature. Glassy obsidian eyes set deep into a bony brow framed with the blackest string like hair, long brown jowls and a hooked nose gave her face a misshapen appearance. When she smiled scimitar shaped fangs protruded from her thin crimson lips and every so often a swollen black tongue flicked between them. She looked at us with disdain and spoke, “The world is soon to be once again restored. Yet tis but only game and all you had just the spark of aptitude to play the parts I have set you.”

Pausing to breathe deeply she continued, “Bethink you that I am certainly a fool. Yet no fool could weave such a puzzle that would bring you to me now. Let those with wisdom decipher this moment in the days to come. That is why you can never win - you're arrogance prevents you from seeing that I have been guiding things to this end for decades...”Only those with wisdom see that what you are about to lose is only; that which you never fully understood was yours.

Drossa lifted her head and laughed out to the stars. They shone bright in the night sky but yet looked so icily cold hanging in the blackness. The cold air touched my exposed skin and I knew it was hopeless.

Her eyes took hold of mine and I fell from grace under their gaze. She rose out of the chair and drew herself to full height and continued. “The three separate and yet equal strands are here and whether you will accept it or not, they are woven together. You, I and the doom of Evensul become one. It was ever to be so; for we are familial creatures bereft of choice yet know it not. Think you the foretelling of Arexus”

When the time must come soon to face our fears

Remember the past and shed all your bitter tears
Advice you ignore from your patriots, and seers
Will destroy wholly the nation in only fifty years

She paused and then went on... “The world is not what it was; you know this. Do you wish to see how much has changed? Here are the choices you must make.” With that she rose from his seat and motioned to one of the guards. The guard pulled back the curtain along the far side of the wall to reveal an immense cavern below. Within it stood serried ranks of armoured goblins; tall and hideous like Drossa herself. Statuesque they stood in formation; resolute and unmoving as though carved from stone. Martahu knew instinctively from Drossa’s face that each was her progeny. Goblin colonies are not as others. Rather like a termite mound they are served by queens who hold the whole citadel together.

Drossa continued, “We have been cautious, hidden away in this scomatacacht but now see the result of endeavour. In secret we have multiplied and while ever you thought the old ways and your indomitable spirit would serve you in a future war, see now how utterly false that assumption has been.”

© Edetric Vistal