Chapter 6
Rasp and Clutch
Waimbrill looked into others who could take Terredor in, but he was growing too old to even be considered an orphan anymore, and besides, only a Soulclaine had the political clout to prevent the Elderling estate from collecting on Jaxoll’s debt. The Delvers normally took care of their own, but Terredor’s father had ruined his relations with them. They even told Terredor not to use the surname Delver anymore. Waimbrill’s own surname was DoLommis, but Terredor was not from Lommia, and could not logically use that name. So Terredor remained just plain Terredor, and he never once complained or even indicated he was aware of what a surname was.
By the time Waimbrill’s first five years of service were complete, Terredor had matured a great deal, and became a competent gardener and cook. He remained short, scarcely rising to Waimbrill’s shoulders, and slim as Delvers were. His skin was pockmarked with small, round scars, the remnants of sores from a less nutritive time. An empty soul doth cry that the stomach is full, and food bland. Soulcleavers were prone to appetite loss, but even when Waimbrill refused to eat, he ensured that Terredor had a few pieces of bread and some vegetables.
One evening, while Terredor stayed at the cabin to fix a supper of braised leeks with leftover bits of mutton that a gnomish butcher had given the pair, Waimbrill attended to the death of Helga, his elder Delver friend. She was a beloved woman whose grandchildren gathered by the dozen along the wobbling stilted planks of Delverton. Waimbrill weaved through the crowd, teetering on the narrower walkways. Delvers parted from him, their conversation stopping as he passed.
After cleaving Helga, her family invited Waimbrill to dinner. He politely refused, and pretended not to notice the grateful sighs. He knew no one would want him at a Delver wake, which were joyous, raucous affairs. They gave him a few gifts, including the largest iggther he had ever seen.
Waimbrill returned to his humble cottage and gave the iggther to Terredor, who valued them more than he. As they ate the supper Terredor had prepared, Waimbrill described a recipe he acquired from cleaving Helga. Terredor listened intently and promised to catch an opossum to roast.
“I am coming up on my five year assignment. I’m going to request my homeland,” Waimbrill said, “I’ll pay the remainder of your debt in a few months with some gold I received from the moneylender Berollos Verrabirrin, so you shall be free.”
“Why are you leaving?” Terredor asked, his voice almost accent-free.
“When we cleave people who knew each other, who were part of the same family or village, we find it hard to be around the survivors. I feel like I know everyone’s personal tragedy around here, but the worst part is that I don’t actually know. My heart rages for reasons I can’t decipher,” he said, “I’ve always been planning on going back to my home. It’s traditional in my land for the third son to become a Soulclaine and return to tend to the family and neighbors. That’s what it is. It’s not you. I miss my parents, and my brothers and sisters and friends. I miss them so much, Terredor. Sometimes I forget. I get so caught up in the griefs of others, I forget about my own family.”
Terredor’s increasingly pallid face was downturned. He stood, looking at Waimbrill as though about to speak, then ran out of the cottage.
Waimbrill called out Terredor’s name, following him into the woods, but he quickly lost sight of him. He didn’t hear any reply to his calls, and soon enough lost his trail.
His back against a rock, Waimbrill slumped to the ground. One moment, he wondered why Terredor was angry, or if he wanted to come with him, the next, he remembered the melancholy of the daughter of the Delver grandmother he had just cleaved, and the next, some long ago misery, the loneliness of a widower, and even flashes of the aimless, wandering regret of Terredor’s long-dead father. He grounded himself in reality by narrating his thoughts, describing the roughness of each tree trunk, its brownness, its sturdy shape, the trilling of each bird that lived in its spreading boughs. He rose and paced, repeating comforting mantras until the pains of his cleaved faded.
He was so lost in thought that the goblins were nearly upon him before he realized they were there.
Of course, the goblins weren’t robbing him. Instead, they jabbed crude blades at a family, a sturdy farmer with a sunburnt face and broad shoulders, and a pretty young wife with a terror-stricken face, accompanied by four wild-eyed children.
The goblins were short, skinny creatures with long, spindly limbs and dark green skin, pockmarked with sores, warts and knobs. They wore only a tattered rag wrapped around their waist, and their wide, broken-toothed mouths jabbered in their own tongue. They demanded the family’s valuables. Like typical goblins, they didn’t realize most humans did not have huge caches of gold and jewels.
The farmer and his family were begging for mercy, but the confrontation stopped as the goblins noticed Waimbrill.
“We hath nah quarrel with ye, Mortiss Waimbrill,” one of the goblins hissed at him, “On ye way, be pleased.”
Waimbrill saw in the eyes of the family the same look of earnest good-heartedness and honest gentility that twinkled in Terredor’s sad brown eyes. He stepped forward, raising his hands to stop the goblin bandits. The children, clinging to their parent’s legs, begged for help.
“Stop,” Waimbrill said to the goblins, “These humans have nothing of value to you. Their worth is in their life, not belongings. Your lives, and mine, shall be poorer for their death. If you are hungry, you may eat of the vegetables in my garden.”
The goblins grumbled but agreed. They dared not defy a Modrobenian, though Waimbrill had no illusions they would not attack the next group of defenseless humans they happened upon.
“Thankee sire,” the farmer said, shaking Waimbrill’s hand, smiling nervously, “Ye be a right kind one, sure ‘nough.”
After escorting the family to their own home, Waimbrill returned to his cottage, where he noticed a few vegetables picked, a tomato plant trampled, stems snapped, and pits and seeds tossed carelessly to the side. The moist earth of the garden revealed a few long-toed goblin footprints, and Waimbrill sighed, repairing the damage the best he could.
He meditated, hoping to take his mind off Terredor and quell the cascading emotions that rumbled deep in his belly, a thundercloud darkening his lungs, pinching each breath tight with bitterness and frustration, sheets of sadness like sleet assaulting his stomach and intestines, which quivered with terror and trembled in shame. His head ached, his eyes ached, his cheeks and jaw, his shoulders and knees. He knew that the pain was in his head, and somehow, that made it worse.
Meditation gave him no satisfaction. He practiced a series of choreographed motions that often cleared his mind. But on this day his distracted ruminations lead to mistakes in the routine, and an onslaught of potent feelings invaded his thoughts despite his best efforts.
Finally, depressed and pessimistic, he moved to the deprivation chamber. Certain sensory isolation wouldn’t work, he cynically mumbled excuses as he pulled the sheet ceiling over his head, relaxing onto the cold cloth covering the ground. He recited a prayer in his mind, and his consciousness drifted away.