I Am Not Evil

        

          I have an awkward step. At the best of times I can bolster a limp, but no matter how hard I try to hide it, my legs always manage to betray what I really am. Of course, I am also short, but there are plenty of short people in this world, dwarves and halflings and the like, but on this side of the mountains we are rare. And I am especially rare. I am a goblin. I am green. And I am hated – by everyone and everything, but I can assure you, I am not evil.

          My brethren are murderers. I hate to even call them that though, ‘brethren’. Ha! They are not my brothers. They are swine, uncouth and wild. They are a plague, a disease, and I am proud to call myself different.

          But the rest of the world doesn’t see me the same way I do. I have to try my hardest every day to blend in with the people around me. Fortunately, that tends to be easy as I am rarely around people. I keep myself hidden. I stick to the trees and the comfort of the night sky when I walk. It’s better that way. It’s safer.

          Last night, I killed a man. I didn’t want to but he had seen me from the road, while I was walking through the bushes, and when I ran instead of answering his shouted questions, he proceeded to chase after me. I had a fair lead and I quickly ducked into some overgrown brush to hide, intending to let him ride passed me on his horse, but my mind twitched darkly when he came into view. I got the overwhelming sense that he was going to spot me, to kill me, and I attacked first. I’m not sure if it was my actions that killed him or if it was the fall from the horse, but either way, he was no longer moving.

          Upon searching the body, I found a few pieces of silver, a dagger that I strapped to the belt around my thigh that was hidden underneath the gray-black robes I wore, a shortsword that was visibly too unwieldy for me that I left in his death-gripped hand, and a small golden locket that when opened revealed a picture of a young girl. In his pockets I found a small folded piece of paper that smelled like cinnamon and flowers. There was a flowing black script that traversed the page, the entire page; it looked like whoever had wrote it had struggled to fit all that needed to be said into the restricted space. I can’t read human. I would if I could, but being a goblin, there aren’t many people who would willingly sit down and teach me. I’ve managed to unlock the secrets of their language from just being around and listening to them when I could, but writing is a whole other beast. The best guess I had was that this was a love letter, he was her love, and she was the girl in the locket.

          Grief overtook me. Look what I had done! There was blood on my hands – literally. A man was dead, a girl was sure to be worried sick, and for no reason at all. Sure, self-defense, maybe, but who would believe a goblin, especially if I didn’t believe it myself?

          I sat down next to the body and started crying but the tears quickly transformed into the maniacal cackle known to my race. It was hard to keep that hidden. It just came out at times, when I was stressed out or excited or just walking and thinking about nothing. Here though it scared me. I bit my tongue sharply to halt the sound. There was a good chance that others were nearby in the woods and I didn’t want them to find me like this.

          Earlier in the day, I had caught the scent of some farm animals on the wind and knew I was approaching a village. Villages meant people and I thought I was being extra careful while skirting it but that was obviously not the case. Now I had a problem on my hands. The body was sure to be found in the morning. We were fifteen human paces off the road but we were in a clearing in the trees and easy to see. I didn’t have the strength to carry much more than my walking stick and I felt covering him up would be a shining beacon to the trained woodsman that walk this path. Once he was found, there was sure to be search parties sent out. They’d scour the landscape turning over every stone and twig looking for the killer and I couldn’t have that.

          There was also the girl. I felt worse about her situation than for the kid laying here in front of me. She didn’t deserve this. She didn’t do anything to cause it, or to earn it. Still, she would now suffer because of me. I hated myself for that. I am terrible for killing him, and for hurting her, but I would fix it. I am not evil. I have changed and I could do something about this bloodshed.

          When I found the village, the morning was just cresting over the eastern trees. It was early spring and there was a chill in the air. I could see a number of smoke wisps wafting up out of the town’s chimneys and it made me yearn for the warmth they could provide even though I hadn’t been warm in years – not since my renaissance when I gave that luxury up.

          As I entered the main gates, I had already adapted the alter persona I always carried around myself. My legs were stiffened and I stood up taller and straighter. The hood of my cloak was pulled up over my ungainly, large ears, folding them back behind my head and hiding them from sight. I was forced to use my staff to keep my balance as I walked and that’s what ended up producing the limp. I looked like an old, halfling human shambling along, or that’s what I hoped at least.

          There were a few people out doing chores or opening the awnings on their shops, getting ready for the day’s work ahead. I went relatively unnoticed through the streets. If I could just find the girl, I could tell her what happened, tell her I was sorry, and, at the very least, return her letter and hope for the best. She might spite me, she might try to kill me, but I had to take that chance. I had to fix this.

          At the end on the first block, on the right hand side, I saw a swinging wooden sign with a simple ‘INN’ burned into the wood. There was a man standing outside smoking some tobacco, leaning up against the wall, and I could see he was watching me. He was quiet as I turned off the road to enter the inn, but just as I was passing him, he spoke up.

          “Who the… what the hell are you!?”

          What? How’d he know? I’ve got everything covered – my feet, my hands – I checked. I should seem normal at the very least.

          I tried to ignore him and quickly entered the inn anyways. He burst in behind me.

          “What the fuck, you little maggot, are you daft?” he shouted. He had a rough, burly voice and the patrons of the inn silenced when our commotion entered. “Get the hell out of here!” He grabbed my shoulders, spun me around, and pushed me up against the door harshly, trying to force me back outside.

          “Get your hands off me!” I returned in my best halfling accent.

          “We don’t take to your kind around here.”

          I was struggling against his arms but it wasn’t very effective.

          “Jackson, watch out!” another voice shouted from across the room.

          The man holding me ducked slightly to his left to see what the other guy meant when a powerful fist hammered against the side of his head. Jackson’s body was pushed forward into mine. I was crushed against the door and fell to my side, rolling across the floor to try and get out of the way, but I didn’t get far as he landed on my right leg trapping me. Abruptly, his body was pulled off and thrown sideways into a cluster of chairs and a table that broke as he crashed through it.

          I sheltered my head and scootched backwards up against the wall.

          Every voice in the inn was shouting.

          “No!”

          “Jackson, you fool!”

          “What the hell, man?!”

          The last one was directed at the guy who saved me. He was a brute, tall and wide. He wore leather straps over his chest in place of a shirt and a tight fitting pair of brown, leather pants. In his right ear was ring of ruby alabaster.

          A supporter! I thought as I saw the gleaming, red sparkle in his ear. I’m safe.

          The earring was a sign of the Red Brotherhood, one of the few groups still openly fighting against the King’s Law. When the King declared war on the dwarves, the halflings got swept up in the raid. He swore to eradicate all the ‘little monsters’ from this world, and so far he was winning. The dwarves were pushed back into the Arcans where they sealed off their entrances and fled underground. Most of the halflings that lived in the cities at the time tried to run, but many of them were stopped at the Empire’s gates and forced into dungeons. When the dungeons were filled and overflowing, the King had them executed instead. It had been a couple of years since the King had died, and fighting in the Empire was dwindling. The dwarves had vanished and the halflings, having nowhere to go, tried to assimilate themselves back into the world, but that wasn’t going very well. The King’s actions and the war had built a harsh racial line between the humans and their shorter counterparts that I didn’t see being fixed for years to come.

          In the inn, the sound of swords being unsheathed from their belts filled the room. The Red was reaching down to pick up a great axe that he had presumably left at his table was knocked over when he jumped up and rushed to my rescue.

          “Now, hold right there, mister.” said the man standing behind the bar to the Red. He was holding a short sword, as the same with most of the people in the inn. “Jackson, get your ass up.”

          “He’s a fucking monster!” exclaimed Jackson as he tried to stand back up.

          “No, he’s a member of the Red Brotherhood, and you’s best be careful what you say around him. I don’t want any trouble in here; I’ll gladly kick you both out.”

          “Not him, the little shit in the corner!” He said while pointing.

          All eyes turned to me. I didn’t have time to assess my appearance in the fall and I now found that I sat with my robe bunched up around my knees, and my hood tilted back, exposing my head and ears which were spread out candidly above me.

          I could feel the nervous energy building inside me. There was nothing I could do to hold it in. And so I laughed, I snorted, and I burst into that appalling high-pitch cackle that I despise so much. That was not the best action that could have happened for sure, but it was a racial trait and I could not stop it.

          Now, in addition to the eyes, all the swords in the room were pointed at me. The hate that was radiating off their blades caused my skin to crawl and they somehow managed to shine maliciously in their owners palms. I, in turn, looked at their owners, one by one, and when I settled on the Red, I saw that his face held most of the fury in the room. He had stood up for me. He had fought for me. But in the end, not even a Red Brother could see past the racial line into goblin territory.

          “Now, now, guys, let me explain.” I said cautiously, still holding myself to the halfling accent. I had intended to play off my appearance as a joke or some sort of disastrous mishap with a wizard, but my thoughts fell blank when I saw the man walking down the stairs at the back of the room. He wore the streaming blues of House Brighton and full chainmail under his long tabard. He was built like an ox but looked as if he could move with the graceful certainty of an experienced warrior.

          My mind twitched darkly again, just like in the woods with the boy.

          “Sir Fenton Wheats’bane”. The cold words said, filling my mind His rattled voice. “Kill him, kill him now!”

          There was no fighting it; when the Master spoke, you bid his wishes, and I did. The command was so powerful and direct that I forgot about the other faces in the room. I was still holding onto my staff, even though I sat with my back against the wall, and I could feel the blackened shadows of the Ripper’s power flowing within me.

          I trust my staff forward and shouted “Suffer!” in my native tongue. The Ripper’s power laced the words and they came out garbled and wicked sounding. Wheats’bane grabbed his head with both hands and fell against the wall in pain and surprise.

          Something about the change in my demeanor caused the Red and Jackson to lunge at me with their weapons. I lifted my staff absentmindedly towards them to block their way, and they met a wall of black darkness that knocked them back, scattering more tables. In the same motion, I stood up and ducked behind the bar, away from the crowded room.

          Wheats’bane had crumpled and plunged down the last few steps of the stairs to lie on the ground. I could feel his presence on the other side of the bar from me even though I couldn’t see him.

          “Agony!” I shouted, again in goblin and touched with power. The man screamed as I invaded his mind farther. From the clattering sound in the room, I knew he was writhing around and kicking whatever his feet could find.

          I instinctively jumped up onto the bar-top just as I felt the wind of the innkeeper’s sword whoosh passed behind me. I didn’t even see him. I was in a trance, locked on my target, going for the kill.

          I looked down at Sir Fenton Wheats’bane and knew it was over. My eyes rolled back in my head as I channeled the dark energy into my staff. When my eyes refocused on my target with a sudden straightforwardness, the power burst out of the rod like a ball of black lightning.

          “Die.” I whispered as it traveled. It hit him in the chest, killing him instantly, before exploding and wreaking havoc on the room around me. Black lightning bolts shot out in random directions, barreling their way through wood and people, scorching holes in the walls and roof, before shooting up into the sky.

          The darkness inside me quieted as the Ripper’s orders were fulfilled.

          In the distance, outside the inn, coming from all directions, I heard a roar of voices rise up in sharp contrast to the quiet of the inn. The voices were swiftly joined by terrified screams of disorder and mayhem from the townsfolk. When the cacophony got closer and practically surrounded the inn, I realized that the roar was actually the sound of a thousand voices laughing at once.

          The glass window at the front of the inn shattered and two small goblins tumbled in giggling and swinging crude swords down on the patrons that had been knocked to the ground from my blast.

          “Axxley, Axxley, Shadow’s Hand, kill the humans, kill the mans!” They mused together as they attacked bodies left and right whether they were already dead or not. It looked like a game to them, like they were having the time of their lives.

          I felt sick when the realization of what happened washed over me. His voice had effectively blacked out my thoughts and I didn’t know what I was doing. But the evidence of the destruction that I had wrought was written all over the walls. I couldn’t deny it. The inn was destroyed, and now his minions, his goblins were dancing around the room in front of me.

          There was a commotion outside and the front door opened up, banging against its hinges. The goblin that entered was a general and wore a purple cloak around his shoulders in addition to the customary leather loincloth. He stood at least two hands taller than the escort guards that followed him – a venerable giant amongst my people.

          “We did it!” he exalted upon entering the inn. “Great job, Shadow’s Hand! Your signal was perfect, high and black, easy to see… Oh ho?! Wheats’bane and a Red too!”

          “You eldritch bastards!” I screamed, both at the goblins and at the Voice I knew was listening inside me.

          I stormed out of the inn to try to get away from them, but outside, the city was billowing with new fires and there was a horde of goblins filling the streets and wreaking havoc on the buildings. They greeted my appearance with cheers and laughter.

          I was horrified, and at the moment, I seriously thought, for the first time, that I wanted to rescind my life. I didn’t want to die, no. I wanted to be free of the life I had chosen. But that choice is a hard one to make when you see the benefits I had gained. I was a goblin warlock – the first of his kind. I had traveled to the Underlands. I had seen the other side. I had spoken with the Shadowripper and he had given me the greatest gift I could ever hope for, knowledge. No longer was I a mindless fighter. No longer did I accept my place in the world as a worthless goblin hiding in the corners of the world. I was smart. I was wise. I was powerful. And I was a puppet… To this day it still kills me to think about what I had done. I traded my soul to the Ripper and gave him control over me, to do whatever he wished. I accepted the bargain in hopes that one day I could find a way around his influence. A way to fight it, and to leave with both my new power and the knowledge I had gained, free of his dark touch grasping my mind. But I was foolish to think that. There is no escape. He is Tarn! the Shadowripper, Lord of the Underlands. And I was Axxley – fool.

          Standing there, with goblins all around me shouting and hollering the merits of my ‘achievement’, I felt like the lowest creature in this world, lower even than the green, laughing animals that surrounded me.

          I forced my way through the crowd and exited the city. I wanted to get away. I needed to get away.

          After about an hour of walking through the woods, thinking horrid thoughts about the monster I had been transformed in to, the scent of cinnamon and flowers caught my nose. I flashed back to the boy that I had killed the night before and my determination to fix it at the time.

          She’s near! Oh, my luck, I can do this! I can make things better, at least a little bit, at least with her!

          When I found the girl, she was laying on the ground against a fallen tree crying softly. It looked like she had been there for a while and the tears were beginning to putter out. I took out the letter and snuck up behind her as best I could. When I was a few lengths away, I rushed in and clamped my right hand around her mouth and began speaking rapidly.

          “I am so, so sorry for your loss, dear one. I didn’t want to kill the boy but he attacked me in the woods and I felt forced to defend myself. The town… I don’t even know what to say about the town. I can’t fix that, but I can help you. You need to keep running. Do not stop. The horde will be coming this way. They will follow me to the ends of the map, and if they catch you along the way, they will kill you.” She was quivering under my touch. “I am sorry, I really am. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.” I held out the letter with my free hand and dropped in on her lap. Her breathing quickened.           “Yes, I killed him. Please, please try to forgive me.” I reached down under my robes and pulled out the knife. “I also brought you this; use it to defend yourself if they reach you. Kill as many of them as you can.”

          I placed the blade onto the ground beside her leg and released her, backing away quickly. She lunged for the knife and spun on me but a quick blast of energy knocked it from her hand without harm. She glanced at her hand, then looked up at me and screamed. I turned and ran, as fast as I could. There was nothing else I could do. She needed to be left alone with her misery.

          I am a goblin. I am green. I am a warlock. And I am hated – by everyone and everything. I have done wicked things at the forced hand of my Master, but I am not evil, and someday, I will prove that to the world.

~ From the Memoirs of Axxley, Ripper’s Demise