Goblin Queen: Katrina Baker Novel 03 Read online

  He finally broke the kiss when the cat-calling and whistles started, and I blushed.

  “I missed you so much. We should talk about what just happened but,” he turned to Cynthia, “I need to talk to my fiancé in private for a moment, we’ll be back down soon.”

  Cynthia snorted, “Talk, right.”

  I wasn’t sure which was brighter, my blush or my smile, as he pulled me away, up the stairs, and into his room…

  I felt warm, safe, and very much loved as I laid in his arms sometime later that evening, we’d given each other a very thorough hello after our separation. I blushed, as I thought maybe brief separations wouldn’t be bad after all, if I could look forward to that each time. He hadn’t been gentle, and neither had I, at least the first time, after that we were quite gentle.

  Gerard said, “I think I lost it there for a while, when you sent your emotions to me, and I felt how deeply you love me, it’s…” he trailed off.

  I laughed lightly, “In that case, I’ll have to do it more.”

  He muttered teasingly, “Hedonist. I suppose we should get back with Cynthia before you explain, so you don’t have to do it twice.”

  I nodded against his chest, “But there are a few things we can talk about first. Like my parents want to meet you, and they want to be at our wedding. My father’s rather protective, and he can read minds, so try not to think about all the great sex we’ve had.”

  He snorted, “Great, now I won’t be able to help it.”

  I laughed, “I’ll block that stuff, my dad can deal with it, I was just teasing.”

  He sighed, “Anything else?”

  I thought about it, “No, most of the rest of it is about their plans, they want me and you to let the king know their intentions, Cynthia too I suppose. They also gave me a communicator, which will allow me to contact them from anywhere, and vice versa, and they’ll make another one for you.”

  He asked, “For me?”

  I giggled, “Of course, I’ll be your wife. It’s my duty to be able to nag you at any time, even if we’re separated.”

  He sighed, but obviously didn’t buy my excuse, “I missed you too, that will actually be really good. I hope they won’t be sharing this stuff of theirs outside of their family? The two of us I mean? They could probably make a fortune, but it would anger a lot of mages I think, they make a lot of money running their crystal balls.”

  “I don’t think so. They aren’t the merchant type and will want to keep their edge for themselves, and the people they want to stay in contact with.”

  He asked, “Anything else private?”

  I shook my head.

  He said, “Oh, I almost forgot. Edea left a message with me. She said she got the apprenticeship, and she’d catch up with you when she could.”

  I frowned, “That’s good, I wanted to say goodbye though.”

  He asked, “Ready?”

  I didn’t really want to get up, or share him again yet, but it was time. We couldn’t let it get too late, and I still wanted to read the book on Chilik tonight. We got up and bathed, I decided to slip on a dress, and then we headed down into the common room. It was a bit late, but they still had dinner simmering on the wood stove, or whatever they used. Cynthia was there, as was the mayor. I supposed I couldn’t blame the guy for wanting to know if my parents would be back with a goblin horde.

  I felt a little guilty about making them wait, but not that guilty. Besides, it was Gerard’s idea, not that I fought it, or even considered fighting it.

  Cynthia asked, “So, what’s the story?”

  I said, “In a nutshell, they won’t attack again, and they’re planning to take Chilik under their control. They wanted me to pass that along to the king, so there were no misunderstandings. Once Chilik is under their control, they won’t be pressing north. More than that, they’ll stop the raids and not let the goblin tribes do it either.”

  The mayor asked, “Why did they attack in the first place.”

  I sighed, “To find me. They said they visited last week, and no one knew who I was or where I’d gone. My parents aren’t evil, but you could best describe them as amoral and selfish. They love me, and would do anything for me, but…” I trailed off.

  I loved my parents, that didn’t mean I couldn’t see them as they were.

  “They figured that if they attacked, word would get back to me and I would come.”

  The mayor turned red in the face, “We lost three good people, two of them with wives and children.”

  “And how many have you lost in the last few raids?”

  The mayor frowned, “Do you think that makes a difference?”

  “Not to those families no. But long term I promise you’d rather have them with the evil races under their heels, than the status quo of the past. Believe me, I’m not any happier about their lack of caring for collateral damage in their plans, but in the future they won’t be coming here anymore, to attack. If they break their word I’ll stop them myself.”

  Cynthia asked, “Are you saying they’ll stay down there to help protect us from the evil races?”

  I nodded, “That will be one of the results yes, though not their primary goal. To do it, they’ll be conquering the whole kingdom, and gathering forces as they go, which is why they wanted me to pass along their intentions, so the king would know they weren’t gathering an army to invade, and respond.”

  Gerard asked, “What’s their primary reason to stay down there then.”

  I shook my head, “To protect us from them. Controlling the evil races will feed their need for… chaos. I’m putting that badly, I can’t think of the right way to say it, but they came to this world to be in the same world as me. I’ll be visiting them, as will my future husband. On my world, they loved to cause chaos and conflict, though they aren’t evil and didn’t go out of their way to kill either. It’s… hard to explain, our worlds are so different.”

  Cynthia shook her head, “And on your world, people didn’t mind?”

  I frowned, “Not really. On my world, there were others with powers and abilities that would stop the chaos. Most normal people were smart enough just to get out of the way, and actually enjoyed watching the conflict as entertainment. There were exceptions, truly evil people, but those were always put down or put away more permanently very quickly. There were… unspoken rules. The only true evil on my world was the few humans who were born that way. Born wrong. Make sense?”

  The mayor shook his head. Of course it didn’t make sense, it would sound insane to a person who grew up facing true evil across the border every day of their lives. How could chaos and violence like that ever be entertainment?

  “I guess in the end it doesn’t matter if you ever understand my world, or how things worked there. All you need to know is if you don’t react with alarm, and build a force to try to stop them, my parents will put an end to the raids and keep the evil races fighting against each other and growing their own crops.”

  Gerard asked, “Do you really think they can do it? It’s been tried before, Chilik is not weak, and there are worse things there than goblin tribes.”

  “I think so, I’m going to read the history of Chilik tonight though, and then send them the book. If my mother knows the dangers, she’ll be able to prepare for them.”

  Gerard asked, “What do you think Cynthia?”

  Cynthia sighed, “It sounds crazy, but I’m willing to pass on the message to his majesty. I doubt the king will trust their word, but I also don’t think he would invade Chilik to stop them. Any kind of fighting down there is to our long-term advantage. He might move some soldiers down if their army grows too big, just in case, but he wouldn’t invade unless they attacked us first. If things work out well, and some time passes and they prove trustworthy, then he’ll eventually pull those troops back.”

  The mayor glared, “Are you so sure you can speak to what the king will do?”

  She shrugged, clearly unimpressed by the angry mage, “It’s just a guess, and my
word isn’t binding on the king, she knows that. Plus, yes, I’m pretty sure I’m right. Jendas has their knickers in a knot right now, and tensions are higher now between the human kingdoms than it’s been in the last two hundred years. He won’t risk soldiers or resources lightly, unless he absolutely has to.”

  I asked, “What’s going on in Jendas?”

  She replied, “I can’t get into specifics, you don’t work for the king. But in general, it’s just the usual but more of it. Spies, paranoia, accusations, politics at their best. It probably didn’t help that you showed up in Magehaven with the Jendas king’s best paladin’s sword in your hand.”

  Oh, oops. Well that guy wasn’t using it anymore, and had been rotting in a pit of undead when we ran across him.

  She added before I could ask, “And no, he doesn’t believe you saved his kingdom, despite what we’ve told Jendas they’re convinced you killed the man.”

  “But that’s absurd, didn’t their clerics tell them the truth?”

  Gerard said, “The Jendas king is more skeptical of words from on high. The clerics and temples have played too fast and loose in politics up there, so… it’s a whole other story. Don’t worry, they’re not beating the war drums yet, point is that our king just can’t afford to move too many troops south and then lose them, or the Jendas king might decide to take advantage. They’re also concerned about the elf prince’s visit.”

  I sighed, none of that was my fault though.

  “Any more questions about all this?”

  They all shook their head.

  “Alright, since I don’t work for the king, and all of you do, why don’t I get to my studying upstairs and you all can talk. If you think of another question just come get me.”

  Gerard said, “That sounds fine, no matter what we’ll probably stay here until mid-morning tomorrow at the least. Just to be sure there are no goblin stragglers coming back. One thing was obvious, your mother didn’t have ironclad control of things.”

  I nodded and gave Gerard a kiss, but a chaste one that time, and then headed up to the room. I thought about the bookshelf in my temple bedroom, and summoned the Chilik book to me. Then I started to read. Ugh, it wasn’t a pretty story.

  Chapter Five

  The first thing I learned, which I’d already had an idea about, was that Chilik wasn’t ever an actual kingdom. The word Chilik had come from an ancient language on this world, and meant evil being. Apparently, a few thousand years ago some noble had started to call the land south of Trelin that, and it’d stuck.

  Chilik was made up of warring tribes of goblins, orcs, ogres, and demons that never numbered more than a hundred, and were mostly around half of that. In general, they were all in competition with each other, and constantly fighting. Some argued it was their nature that caused this, others argued the evil gods over the disparate tribes didn’t get along with each other. I’d guess it was probably a mixture of both.

  Why they were all in the southern end of the continent was also not known. Some speculation of thought believed in the distant past the humans, elves, and dwarves worked together to purge the evil races from their lands, which caused all the survivors to run south. I wasn’t sure what to believe there, and in the end it probably didn’t make a difference why, it just was. The monster races were all in the south, and outside of a few raids north a year they stayed there.

  About two thousand years ago, a witch named Idrianna was caught using her magic to twist and change human nature in experiments. It was believed she was trying to figure out how to live forever, young. It is one of the sternest laws a witch lives by, to never change the nature of a sentient being except in self-defense. Idrianna was sentenced to death, but managed to escape.

  She was the first one to flee to Chilik to escape justice. It was said she continued her experiments on goblins for many years, she was too powerful for them to resist, and those evil beings who could have destroyed her didn’t care about their lesser brethren’s plight. The book indicated her experiments were always a failure, and when she reached the age of sixty, she was filled with anger that her death would come soon. She blamed it on the narrow-minded humans who had caused her to flee. She believed her failures were ultimately because of the goblin race, if she’d had humans to test on, she would have figured it out.

  Some speculated this insanity was caused by one of the evil gods whispering in her mind for years.

  So, she’d raised a large army of goblins under her sway, witch magic could not only change a being’s nature, but could also enslave them. She forced fifteen tribes to work together, which was just over a thousand goblins, and marched north to take her revenge.

  The first iteration of Southwater, didn’t have a chance. It was designed much like the current one, to resist raids, not full blown armies. She destroyed the whole town, completely razed it to the ground. Several farmers managed to escape and run north to spread the word. Most heeded their warning, and retreated from the other towns as the evil army moved north. Still, it wasn’t until she’d reached Magehaven itself that her army broke itself on the walls, and she was taken down.

  It was a terrible thing, and many had died. But the true tragedy of it was that it had given others an example to follow. After Idrianna, many mages, paladins, clerics, and witches who were sentenced for some evil deed, or hunted by the paladins and nobles, went south to escape justice.

  Many of those faced torture and horrible death when they crossed the wrong being. Some, the ones powerful enough, carved out a small part of Chilik, and used goblins and the other races as servants. They even sent raiding parties across at times to pick up human slaves, when they longed for the company of their kind. They lived out their lives as small warlords.

  Then there were those few humans with exceptional power and strength of magic, they carved out much larger areas, and gathered many of the tribes around them, just as Idrianna had before. Even those were mostly happy enough with what they’d carved out, and enjoyed their slaves and their life until age finally took them from the world. Strangely, the most powerful were usually the most stable, and had no interest in conquest, or burning the whole world to revenge themselves.

  But most is not all.

  Some of those however, in the last category, fully followed Idrianna’s example. Every few hundred years another scourge rose in the south, and made war on the kingdom of Trelin in some twisted insane desire for revenge.

  Fortunately, since Idrianna, the kings of Trelin have posted their paladins on the southern border to keep watch and spy on the evil land. Although they’ve had to rebuild Southwater many times the last two millennia, they never again lost all the peasants to a slaughter. The paladins were authorized to demand a retreat, and did so each time the signs of a large invasion were spotted.

  Since that first time, the goblin armies never even reached the city of Magehaven, instead soldiers, paladins, clerics, and the strongest of the noble mages were sent in response to the paladins’ sightings, to the larger walled village of Greycliff and defeated the evil enemy there.

  The last invasion was over two hundred years ago, and I sincerely hoped there wouldn’t be another for a long time. If my parents were successful, there wouldn’t be another invasion in their lifetimes at least. Chilik’s history was a dark read. At the last update, which was seven years ago, there were three very powerful people ruling large areas in Chilik.

  Far in the southeast, about a hundred miles south of my parents’ location, there was a powerful witch named Violet, who had many tribes of goblins, orcs, and ogres under her sway. Though an ogre tribe was more like a family unit than a large number.

  In the southwest corner, there was a powerful arch mage called Shadow, who not only ruled over living tribes, but was said to practice necromancy which was why he’d fled in the first place.

  In the northwest there was an oddity, a powerful demon ruler who was believed to be over a thousand years old, and he had many demons under him, in addition to other tribes. Some
have speculated that perhaps not all of Idrianna’s experiments had been failures, and that he was one of her higher ranked subordinates, who’d taken over a portion of her kingdom after her death. So far, the demon showed no inclination in following its old master’s example, either in attacking Trelin, or in growing older, so he’d been left alone.

  I snorted, the old don’t poke the bear and hope it doesn’t attack us strategy. Which to be fair was working if he’d been alive for two thousand years. Maybe my parents should just leave his territory alone, but somehow I doubted that would happen. Actually, I was a little worried about them attacking any of the three larger territories. My mom was a total badass, but her weakness had always been overconfidence. That never bothered me when she was facing Omega, because he’d just laugh and put her in jail. I was pretty strong, but I didn’t attack head on because that would be suicidal. I was a strong super, but about as invulnerable as a normal human was when it came to being hit by something. Which was to say, not invulnerable at all.

  The history book on Chilik had been less a history book, than a list of insane criminals and a whole lot of speculation. There had been some useful nuggets in it though. I closed my eyes and pictured the couch I’d been sitting on in the lounge, and sent the book there. Then I pulled out my cell phone. It wasn’t really a cell phone, but I was calling it that.

  Quantum Entangled Communications Device was just too much of a mouthful.

  “Mom?” I asked, there was no send button, just a keyboard for text messaging and a screen.

  “Please stand by Katrina,” a pleasant female voice said.

  I looked suspiciously at the phone, “Who is that?”