Too Stupid For Civility
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Fola’s responsibilities as Civic Guildmage were many that afternoon. She inspected the injured Jaleen Firedrinker, and held Jora’s weeping sister and wailing baby in her arms; she consulted with Tulu the Armorer Guildmage, and watched M’bari and the other warriors prepare, grim-faced, for the next attack. She hadn’t expected to see the brushwagg for another full shadow–but now it came, scuttling, to the town green. Fola hastily brushed off her robes. She wanted to look as official as possible when she greeted the goatherd.
But no goatherd appeared. Instead of settling happily at her feet, the brushwagg collapsed, exhausted, whimpering until she carefully laid a hand on its head. She’d never seen a brushwagg look so weary or scared. The twigs covering the creature clattered against one another with its shivering, while its eyes stared up at her in confusion.
Fola scratched absently at the tender skin behind the brushwagg’s eye ridge as she scanned the horizon once more for the goatherd. Nowhere. The man was not here.
Illus. Tom Wänerstrand
“What happened?” she asked. The brushwagg lurched upright and began pawing letters into the dirt.
“I gO meeT IT. IT with two-POinTs. I Do MESAGE MESAGE MEsagE. It thumP ME. MEMEMEMEME. No more Mesage. Ow! OWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW. Go bacK oR Get ThumpEd. BrushWAGg no diE.”
This goatherd was not what Fola had hoped. Either he was cruel–perhaps even somehow in league with Bwire?–or he was stupid. Or there was something else terribly wrong with him. How could anyone attack a brushwagg pawing at the ground? Everyone knew that was a brushwagg gesture of greeting and friendship! Fola’s indignation swelled. Who was this goatherd that he’d attack her messenger?
Fola ground her teeth. First Bwire, now this vicious herder. Even if she hadn’t needed it for Kenlo’s salvation, she would have to take the Amber Prison from the goatherd; it was far too dangerous in the hands of someone as foolish or as evil as he seemed to be.
Leaving the brushwagg eating banyan shoots from the hands of a small girl, Fola stalked back to her hut. It was time to summon something the goatherd deserved, something stronger and more aggressive.
Fola felt her rage transform to an icy calm. Mana flowed through her in search of the creature her mind envisioned. In a mere whisper of seconds, Fola heard a thump just as her nostrils caught the oversweet scent of rotting bananas. She opened her eyes and stared grimly at the leering creature in front of her. As crude in mind as it was in body, the gray gargoyle squatted opposite Fola, its taloned toes scratching at the ashes of her hearth.
Illus. Dermot Power
“Greetings, gargoyle.”
“Fight,” the gargoyle scraped out, in a voice like pebbles grinding underfoot.
“Yes, I will give you someone to fight, gargoyle. A man of terrible evil or worse stupidity. He is a goatherd west of here. Fight this man and bring back his goats to me.”
“I shall eat goats. Grind their bones into splinters and pick my teeth with them!”
“Of course not!” Fola exclaimed. “Bring the goats back alive–alive and unharmed.”
“Why fight if I can’t crush?” the gargoyle grumbled.
“Because I order you to. Go!” Fola commanded.
With a sigh like boulders scraping, the leering gargoyle flexed its dusty wings and leapt into the air.
Collapsing backwards in the banana-scented darkness of the hut, Fola could only pray this creature would be more successful than the last. But this time, her message was no longer peace.