The Goblin Gate (29 page)

Around dawn Jeriah realized he no longer cared about
being a heroic knight. Nevin was the hero, and Jeriah was content with that. Well, almost content. It would be nice to have won his father’s respect.

He unsaddled Glory, to let her rest while he ate breakfast. He was getting sleepy, but the need to be home drove him on. Though why he felt so much urgency to face to the villagers’ hatred and his father’s anger was a mystery. He had to deal with his mother, but he didn’t need to race home for that. He’d probably passed Senna already—she’d have had the sense to stop at an inn for the night, instead of pressing on like a lunatic.

At midafternoon Jeriah stopped for midmeal and fell asleep in the meadow after he ate. When he woke several hours later, he decided to press on; his need to talk to his father was growing. But it wasn’t the perfect father he’d tried so desperately to please who he wanted to see. It was the man who’d traded his own honor to save his son. The man who might understand some of the choices Jeriah had been forced to make—if his son could find the courage to tell him the truth.

Somehow during the long ride Jeriah had made up his mind without realizing it. Master Lazur wasn’t the only person to whom he owed a debt.

Jeriah arrived at Rovanscourt several hours after dark, but there was a light in his father’s office. The groom who stabled his weary mare glowered at him, but it wasn’t the intense fury that had assaulted Jeriah when he left.

As he walked the familiar corridors to his father’s door, Jeriah’s heart was pounding in spite of his resolve. He knocked quickly, before he could lose his nerve.

“Come in.” His father was frowning over a pile of tally sheets. “Jeriah!” The flash of surprised pleasure was instantly replaced by sternness. “What are you doing here? You were banished till I gave you permission to return.”

“I know. I’m sorry to disobey you, and I’ll explain it later. But first…Father, there’s something I have to tell you.”

B
RIGHT
G
ODS
: Very early in the history of the Realm, its humans began to organize themselves in a way that valued those who had magic above those who didn’t. This organizational process ultimately resulted in the Church of the Seven Bright Gods, who were held to be the source of priestly magic. These priests were eventually ranked in circles, at first according to magical ability and later more according to political power. Seventh-circle priests are the least powerful, usually representing the church in small rural villages. There are only three first-circle priests, who govern the Northlands, the Midlands, and the Southlands, respectively. Above all of them is the Hierarch, who is chosen by the Seven Bright Gods—who conveniently express their will through the Priests’ Council, which consists of all priests third circle and above.

T
HE
D
ARK
O
NE
: According to the church, the Dark One is the source of any magic that doesn’t come from the Seven Bright Gods. Because if someone who isn’t in the church has magic, then it has to come from some evil source. Right?

T
HE
L
ESSER
O
NES
: These are those humans whose magic isn’t strong enough for them to enter the church. They know perfectly well that their magic isn’t evil, and they do a lot of good, healing and helping people in small villages who don’t have access to healer priests. Or those in the cities who are too poor to afford healer priests.

T
HE
G
OBLINS
: They are the other people whose magic is supposed to come from the Dark One. The goblins know this is nonsense, but not being human, they don’t have to care. The church has tried to drive them out of the Realm in the past—the great Goblin Wall in the north is a remnant of that effort. But goblins were so ubiquitous, and so stubborn, that the priests failed. Goblins sometimes help the common citizens of the Realm, usually in exchange for a bowl of milk set out at the back door—but they’ve also been known to work mischief.

Goblins organize themselves by the type of magic they work:

T
HE
D
ECREE OF
B
RIGHT
M
AGIC
: This brings us to the time in the Realm’s history when the barbarians, a very different human culture that lives on the other side of the Great Desert, attacked the southern border of the Realm. When the barbarians first started raiding the Southlands, a priest named Timeon Lazur paid attention to the reports from the army that was sent to defend the Realm. Master Lazur soon realized that the Realm’s army wouldn’t be able to defeat the barbarians unless the army was in an extremely defensible position—like defending a very small border from behind a very high wall.

Unfortunately, the Goblin Wall was on the far northern end of the Realm, and the barbarians were invading from the south. Master Lazur decided that the only way the Realm could survive was to move everyone north of the wall. But this decision would be so unpopular that even the church would be unable to enforce it…as long as the common people had other sources of magic available to them. If they could still be healed by hedgewitches and herb-healers, and assisted by goblins, the Realm’s citizens would probably
defy the Hierarch’s command and stay where they were. So before the great relocation was announced, the church, at Master Lazur’s behest, passed the Decree of Bright Magic, which commanded that anyone, human or goblin, whose magic came from the Dark One be put to death.

T
HE CONSPIRACY
: At about the same time the Decree of Bright Magic passed, and the relocation was decreed, the Realm’s government started going downhill in other ways. Master Lazur and the Priests’ Council were looking out for the relocation. The lords on the Landholders’ Council were looking out for themselves. And the Hierarch, who usually stopped abuses by corrupt landholders and priests…wasn’t doing that anymore. So some of the better landholders and a few priests got together and tried to overthrow Master Lazur’s political cadre, which they saw as the source of the corruption. They failed, and most of them were hanged.