Crypt of the shadowking - Mark Anthony [85]
"We shall see," the mage replied. He set the skull on a flat stone along with several items he drew from the small, mysterious pouch he always kept hidden in a fold of his robe: a bit of silver thread, a small chunk of yellow sulfur, and six pomegranate seeds. He held his hand over the skull and spoke several guttural words in the tongue of magic. The items the mage had set on the rock flared brightly with a deep purple light, then suddenly they dimmed and vanished. Mari gasped in shock, but before she could say anything a rough voice interrupted her.
It was the skull.
"Leave me alone, you bloody mage!" it said in an eerie voice.
The companions stared at the goblin skull in astonishment. It had not moved when it spoke, but Mari had no doubt that the voice had issued from the weathered skull. It was the dead goblin speaking.
"You must first answer my questions," Morhion said firmly.
"Garn, but I won't do it," the skull snarled. "Now go away, nasty wizard."
"I shall scatter your bones to the four winds," the mage said in a voice that sent chills up Man's back. "I shall let the buzzards peck at them, and you shall feel every moment of their desecration as an eternal agony."
"Oh, I'm scared, I am now," the skull said sarcastically. "You think I 'aven't already been desecrated? My mates made chow of me; it can't get any bloody worse than that."
"He has a point there," Caledan murmured to the others.
"Now put me back in the ground," the goblin skull whined.
"The wall that leads into the nether world of the dead is no barrier to my magic," Morhion said darkly. "I can cause such agony to your soul as you never dreamed of in life."
"You wouldn't dare!" the skull shrieked.
"Do goblins even have souls?" Mari whispered to Tyveris.
"I'm not sure," the loremaster whispered back. "It's an interesting theological question. If they do have souls, they've got to be awfully wretched, warty ones."
"Try me," Morhion said to the dead goblin, his eyes glittering.
"All right, all right, I'll talk," the skull whimpered. "But you got to promise you'll put me back in the ground."
"It will be done," the mage said. "Now tell me this: how did you come to be here?"
"I told you, my mates gnawed on my bones."
"Before that," Morhion said angrily.
"Oh," the skull said. It paused a moment, apparently thinking. "It all started when that shadowy man killed my tribe's chief. Now, no one 'as a right to do that. It's every tribe's privilege to murder its own chief. Why, what sort o' tribe is it, if you can't slit your leader's throat when you get tired of listening to 'im?"
"Stick to the story," Morhion warned.
"All right, don't get touchy," the goblin skull said in a hurt tone. "This shadowy man, he came from some place far off, but that weren't no excuse for sticking a sword in our chief. Me and some of the boys snuck up on 'im and put an arrow in 'im right neat. Taught 'im a lesson, we did. But when we got back to tell the rest o' the tribe what we done, we got a nasty surprise. Оl' Glok, he thought he should be chief now, but he knew we would just as soon tear 'is guts out. So's Glok laid an ambush for us. We beat him, only all that got kilt were et at the victory feast."
"Like you?" Morhion asked.
"Don't remind me!" the skull exclaimed.
"One more question."
"This 'ad better be it."
"What did you do with this 'shadowy man' after you put the arrow in him?"
"We shoved shadowy man in a hole, you know, to let 'im age a while before we et 'im. 'Twas in the west end of the valley. There's a ravine there, good for ambushin' travelers and slittin' their throats. We stuffed shadowy man in a cave up top o' the cliff. But Glok saw to it we never got to go back for 'im. I suppose he's still there, though I don't know what good he'd do you. I bet 'is bones ain't much good for gnawin' on by now."
"I suppose you're right," Morhion said. "I thank you for your help."
"I didn't do it 'cause I liked you, blasted wizard!" the goblin skull barked. Morhion murmured a few arcane words as he sprinkled a handful of ashes over