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By Root 696 0

him. “Then why?” I demanded, shifting over to grab his shoulder and force him to look me in the eye. “Why did you not tell me Rico's reason for wanting you back?” “Tell you?” he balked. His goblin accent had suddenly flown. “A goblin tell Drizzt Do'Urden of his plight? A goblin appeal to a ranger for compassion?” “You know my name?” By the gods, he even pronounced it correctly. “I have heard great tales of Drizzt Do'Urden, and of Bruenor Battlehammer and the fight to reclaim Mithril Hall,” he replied, and again, his command of the proper inflections of the language was astounding. “It is common talk among the farmers of the lower valleys, all of them hoping that the new dwarven king will prove generous with his abundant wealth.” I sat back from him. He just continued to stare blankly at the flames, his eyes

lowered. I do not know exactly how much time passed in silence. I do not even know what I was thinking. Nojheim was perceptive, though. He knew. “I accept my fate,” he replied to my unspoken question, though there was little conviction in his voice. “You are no ordinary goblin.” Nojheim spat on the fire. “I do not know that I'm a goblin at all,” he answered. If I had been eating at the time, I surely would have choked once more. “I am like no goblin I've ever met,” he explained with a hopeless chuckle. Always resigned, I thought, so typical of his helpless predicament. “Even my mother ... she murdered my father and my younger sister.” He snapped his fingers to mock his next point, to accentuate the sarcasm in his voice. 'They deserved it, by goblin standards, for they hadn't properly shared their supper with her.“ Nojheim went silent and shook his head. Physically, he was indeed a goblin, but I could tell already by the sincerity of his tone that he was far different in temperament from his wicked kin. The thought shook me more than a little. In my years as a ranger, I had never stopped to question my actions against goblins, never held back my scimitars long enough to determine if any of them might possibly be of a different demeanor than I had come to know as typical of the normally evil creatures. ”You should have told me that you were a slave,“ I said again. ”I'm not proud of that fact.“ ”Why do you sit in here?“ I demanded, though I knew the answer immediately. I, too, had once been a slave, a captive of wicked mind flayers, among the most evil of the Under-dark's denizens. There is no condition so crippling, no torment so profound. In my homeland, I had seen a contingent of a hundred ores held under complete control by no more than six drow soldiers. If they had mustered a common courage, those ores could surely have destroyed their keepers. But while courage is not the first thing to be stripped from a slave, it is certainly among the most important. ”You do not deserve this fate,“ I said more softly. ”What do you know of it?“ Nojheim demanded. ”I know that it is wrong,“ I said. ”I know that something should be done.“ ”I know that I would be hung by my neck if I tried to break free,“ he said bluntly. ”I have never done any harm to any person or any thing. Neither do I desire to harm anyone. But, this is my lot in life.“ ”We are not bound by our race,“ I told him, finding some conviction finally in remembering my own long trail from the dark ways of Menzoberranzan. ”You said that you have heard tales of me. Are they what you might expect of a dark elf?“ ”You are drow, not goblin,“ he said, as if that fact explained everything. ”By your own words, you are no more akin to goblins than I am to drow,“ I reminded him. ”Who can tell?“ he replied with a shrug, a helpless gesture that pained me deeply. ”Am I to tell Rico that I am not a goblin in heart and action, just a victim of

merciless fate? Do you think that he would believe me? Do you think that sort of understanding is within the grasp of these simple farmer folk?“ ”Are you afraid to try?“ I asked him. ”Yes!“ His intensity was surprising. ”I'm not Rico's first slave,“ he said. ”He's held goblins, ores, even a bugbear once. He enjoys forcing others to do his own