The Festival of Light

Another extract from Goblin Launderette. Seemed appropriate for this time of year! Usual caveats of it being an early, unedited draft apply!

The fire in front of Em flickered, sending embers up into the sky. Night was creeping into the goblin village now, squeezing between the ramshackle walls of its houses and barns. The temperature was dropping too, although Empathy didn’t feel it at first. It was cold and dark enough that the youngest hatchlings had been ushered safely back to the hatchery, and a passing goblin had helpfully pressed a mug of mulled cider into her hand.

Em glanced down at the clay cup as she wrapped her hands round it for warmth. Em took a long sip and felt the liquid warmth flow through her. She turned the mug in her hands, looking at it. Feeling the differences in its skin. The clay was discoloured where it had been patched, then patched again. Like most of the things you found here in the village, it was goblin-made.

It made sense, Em thought. Thousands of years living in the Beneath had made the goblins wary of relying on other people. When your species has spent most of its existence as prey, or slave armies, you learned to trust only yourselves. The K’Xit tribe had found their way out of the dark not long after Empathy had been born, so it was well within living memory. It would be generations, she suspected, until they truly felt safe - if that day came at all.

Em had been visiting the goblin village for almost as long as she could walk. Or, rather, since she’d been old enough to run errands for her father. Back then, there’d been few people in the town prepared to do business with the goblins, but her father had been one of them.

“Laundry is laundry.” He’d told her, while ironing. “And people are people. There’ll be a lot of people in your life who try and tell you that’s not true. They’ll point out the differences between us, and never the many ways in which we are the same. Never trust anyone who tells you someone else is different, Em. Because one day they may well say that about you.”

Em had nodded and listened, but children are sponges. They absorb the prejudices of the world and the world looked down on the goblins, so soon Em found herself doing the same. Because they did seem different. She saw this every time she took an invoice down to the village and returned with the odd mixture of Imperial and foreign currency that they’d pay her father with. Their houses didn’t look like her house. Their clothes didn’t look like her clothes. Their food smelled strange to her. So when she saw others laughing at them on market day, it was easier to just do the same than object.

One day, shortly before her sixteenth birthday, Em had been in the launderette with her friends, kicking the bench and throwing around stories like a ball. While her father was out back, one of the goblins arrived with a large load of washing. As he struggled to open the door, Em instinctively moved to assist.

“Wait.” A boy named Francis said. His dad was the Mayor, and he regarded himself as the leader of their little group. “It’s funny. Leave it.”

The others laughed, so Em did too.

With effort, the goblin finally managed to open the door. He ignored them all and went straight to the counter, Francis’ eyes following him the whole way. The goblin reached up and dropped the load on the counter, then beat a hasty retreat as they all watched him leave in silence.

“They’re so fucking strange.” Francis said, loudly, as he passed. After the door slammed closed. He laughed again. So they all did, too.

As they resumed their positions on the benches Em caught a glimpse of her father out of the corner of her eye, standing in the doorway to the backroom. With a jolt of shame, she realised he’d been watching. She expected him to say something, but he didn’t. Somehow that made her feel worse.

He didn’t say anything the next day. Nor the day after. Nor the day after that. Indeed by the end of the week, Em had forgotten it had even happened. It wasn’t until a month later - it had been the solstice then, too, she realised that must be why she was thinking about it - that it had come up again.

It wasn’t the first time that the goblins had invited her father to their solstice celebrations. Indeed, he’d been going as long as Em could remember. One of the neighbours would come over - Mrs Holt from the Butchers, or Amelie from over the road - and watch her as he pulled on his coat and headed out into the dark, cold night. By the time he returned home, she’d long since be abed. This time was different, however. No neighbour appeared. Instead, as he pulled on his coat, he tossed her own winter jacket to her.

“Come on.” He said. Excited, she dared not say no. He might change his mind.

The walk down to the village was about thirty minutes, after you left the town gate. It was an easy route down the winding main road and a safe one, even on a dark night. Gamlinberg was a merchant town and it knew that what visiting merchants craved was security, so electromagical lamps were spaced out on both sides of the roads along the way, leaving no shadows in which an optimistic bandit or two could reasonably hide. Indeed the journey was a quiet one. She tried a few times to ask her father what the solstice would be like but he clearly wasn’t in a mood to talk, so she soon fell into silence herself. The only moment of excitement came when they forded the branch of the river just outside the village. Normally Em took the time to go further down the bank until she reached the bridge. It wasn’t that the water in the ford was deep - barely knee-height on a human - but at this time of the year it was cold.

Em had assumed that night that her father would do the same, but rather than turning off down the bank as the river loomed ahead of them, a rushing streak of bubbling grey against the blackness of the night, he simply kept moving forward.

“Don’t worry.” He said when she hesitated behind him, a hint of amusement in his voice, “We’ll dry off soon enough. That’s part of the fun.”

Gritting her teeth, Em followed him through, trying to ignore the painful cold that hit her legs like a wall and soaked her socks and trousers with cold.

She was just starting to shiver a few minutes later when they reached the outskirts of the goblin village. Indeed she’d become so focused on the cold that she hadn’t really been paying attention. So when she heard her father shout out a greeting she looked up with a start.

What she saw - and heard - took her breath away.

In daytime, the goblin village looked like a ramshackle mix of badly assembled houses, cobbled together from whatever materials the goblins had scrounged up or bought around town. On a regular night, you could barely see it at all. The goblins stuffed every crack in the walls with scraps of cloth, blankets and any material they could find so that no light escaped. Prey learns never broadcasts its presence.

Tonight though… tonight the village blazed.

The material the goblins used to fill the cracks in their buildings had been pulled out and cast aside. From every building - every house, barn and shop - lanced shafts of fierce light that danced across the sky. Multicoloured light. It must be from electromagical lamps, she realised, turned up to their brightest, behind every major window or hole, either coloured themselves or covered in material that made them look that way. And mirrors! So many mirrors, she realised! Hanging from every surface on ropes and ribbons. As the beams caught these, dozens of new rays of light would be sent out in completely different directions.

Em stopped and starred, open-mouthed. She didn’t know what to say. It was magnificent, unlike anything she had ever seen in her life. It was ever moving, ever changing and it was beautiful.

Her father turned and looked at her, a broad smile spread across his face.

“Well?” He grinned. “What do you think?”

Before she could muster a reply, someone shout her father’s name.

“Myp! You magnificent bastard! Get in here, we’re already about half way through the-” Backlit against the blinding sight of the village, the silhouette of an approaching goblin stopped, and bowed deeply.

“My apologies,” The voice said. Em thought she detected a mix of amusement and respect. “I didn’t realise you’d be joining us, milady.”

This sent her father into fits of laughter.

“Knock it off, Colin.” He bellowed. “By the Divines, man, she’s a teenager. Don’t give her more of a superiority complex than she already has.”

“Hey!” Em said indignantly, punching her father on the arm. But before he could react Colin seemed to close the gap between them in an instant, flinging himself upwards, and enveloping Myp in the warmest of hugs. Her father reacted by hugging him back and soon both were laughing. It was the happiest, most relaxed Em had seen her father in a while, and she found herself smiling.

Dropping to the ground, Colin turned to her. Suddenly he looked very serious.

“Empathy du Mypetha. On behalf of the k’Xit, you are invited. Let our hearths be your hearth. Let our homes be your home. On this day on which we remember the dark, enter and find shelter in our light.”

Em looked at her father, unsure what to say.

“Say you’re honoured.” He said, under his breath.

“Colin du… um… Colin.” She stumbled, realising in horror that in all the times he’d visited the launderette she’d never thought to ask him his full name. He winked at her and nodded his encouragement. “I am honoured.” She finished.

“Good! Now let’s do some fucking drinking!” He shouted.

“For fucksake Colin! No swearing in front of my daughter!” Her father objected. Em snort-laughed. It was the first time she’d ever heard him swear. He suddenly realised what he’d done. “Okay fine.” He laughed. “But no drinking. Not for her. She’s fifteen!”

“Old enough for one, Myp! Grant her that at least. Better she learns now than with some idiot with deep pockets and bad intentions.”

Em gave her father her widest-eyed look. This was an unexpected opportunity. One she wasn’t going to let slide.

“Gah!” Her father sighed, putting his arm round her shoulder. “One.” He said firmly. “And you eat first. Are we clear?”

Em nodded harder and faster than she’d ever nodded in her life.

“Then it’s settled!” Colin cried, loudly and happily, “To the booze! Ready! Advance!”

Grabbing both of them by the hand, Colin pulled them forward moving so fast that Em found herself having to break into a jog to keep up. As they drew closer still to the village, she felt a tug at her hand, she glanced down to see that Colin was looking up at her.

“Em, if you think this is good,” He whispered. “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

And with that, they advanced into the throbbing, twirling light.

***

As the memory receded, Em looked at the cup in her hand once again, running her fingers over the areas where it had patched.

She felt a blanket slide over her shoulders. She looked over to see Colin, a little older now, but still beaming the same smile he’d beamed that first solstice. She nodded at him, and he slid onto the bench beside her, taking a long look into the fire it the centre of the circle the remaining goblins were gathered around.

“Colin, do you remember my very first solstice?” She said, holding the cup up and turning it, slowly, in her hand.

“I remember I caught you having two drinks when Myp said you could only have one.”

She elbowed him.

“I’m trying to being serious.”

“Sorry. Go on.”

“Colin, when you were fifteen, did you do stuff you… regret?”

“We age differently to you, remember?” Colin replied, “Fifteen in your years is… well, it’s about three in ours. We grow up fast, then age slowly. We have to. But yes.” He said, quickly when he saw her open her mouth to say more. “Em, I don’t think there’s anyone in the world who doesn’t regret something they did when they were fifteen. Frankly if you find one then they should probably be on some kind of watchlist.”

He turned to face her. “What’s on your mind?” He said, gently.

“That first time. Before that first solstice. I thought that, well.” She took a deep breath. “I thought that you were all-”

“Grubby? Suspicious? Strange?” Colin interrupted. The way he said the last word made her sit up. In a flash of horrible memory, she realised for the first time that it had been Colin they’d laughed at that day in the launderette.

Colin saw her reaction and waved his hand, dismissively. “Em, if we hated everyone who thought we were different, we’d hate the world. And that kind of thing is why we left the dark. Go on. Sorry. I shouldn’t have broken your concentration.”

“I’m so sorry, Colin.” Em said.

“Apology accepted.” Colin replied. He squeezed her shoulders and chuckled. “Is that why you look so brooding tonight?!”

“No… Well, a bit.” She conceded. “But it was more… I look at this cup and…” She drew a breath.

“That day, after I’d had my one-”

“Two”

“Two drinks, and after the dancing and the music, dad sat down with me here. He took the cup from my hand - a cup a lot like this one - and held it in front of me. He said to me: ‘What do you see?”

“And what did you say?”

“I said it was broken.”

“And then?”

“Then he told me to look closer.”

“Of course he did. The cryptic bastard.”

“Colin!” Em batted at the old goblin. He dodged. She continued.

“So I did. Looked close. Really close. Then he took my hands in his, moved the cup ever so slightly and-”

Em moved her own cup again, slowly and gently, in her hand. Between each of the patches were tiny filigrees of gold and silver holding them together. As they caught the flickering light of the fire, like the village, they sparkled.

“And what did you see then?”

“That it was beautiful. That it was stronger than it could ever have been when it was whole. That I’d judged it by its surface, as I’d judged the village, as I’d judged you and…”

“…and you’ve been a friend to us ever since, Em.” Colin told her, firmly. “Why regret something you learned from? That’s what matters in life.”

She smiled and hugged him.

“I remember your father that day,” Colin said, leaning back and finishing his mulled cider off in a single gulp. “One second. I’ll be back with more.”

Colin pushed himself up from the bench and half-walked, half-staggered to the large cast iron pot resting over embers by the village hall four or five metres away. Picking up two fresh cups from a wooden table to its side, he dipped them into the pot then turned and headed back towards her. A small group of goblins nearer the fire called out to him, beckoning over, but he nodded his head in polite refusal and sat down beside her once again. He offered her one of the cups, and she took it.

“We’d been bugging Myp for years, asking him when he was going to bring you. Your mother, well she used to come too before she died. By the gods those two loved to dance! And I always told him, I said: ‘Myp, you’re fucking family. You bring Em. We’ll look after her. Don’t you worry.’ But he refused. He said not until you were ready.”

He took a swig of the mulled cider. Em did the same, feeling the kick of the spices.

“To be honest, I was worried he’d never bring you. Especially after she died. Thought maybe the associations would be too strong. But then when he turned up with you that day…”

Colin sighed.

“He was so proud of you Em. Proud of the person you were becoming. He told you that, right?”

“We didn’t really… talk like that.” Em said, quietly. “I don’t think it was even mum dying that did it. No, maybe it was. Who knows.”

Em felt Colin lean against her shoulder. Instinctively, she pulled the blanket up and round his shoulders too.

“I’m sorry Em.”

“No! Don’t be!” She said, quickly. “I don’t mean it like that! I know he loved me, he did everything for me. He was brilliant. It was just as I got older, I think I got a bit… You know…”

“Annoying?”

“Teenage. It was like we couldn’t work out how to talk properly any more. So we just stopped trying.”

“Seems to me you talked a lot that night.” Colin replied.

She took another swig of her drink. “To be honest, I think that solstice was the most we’d talked in a year. Probably more than he said to me for another two. And I still don’t know if it was him talking or-”

Em suddenly realised that the drink had gone to her head. That she was talking too much. She caught herself, with relief, before she accidentally told him what her father had been, and what she’d become.

“-a God?” Colin said, quietly, finishing her sentence. She glanced down in surprise. He was looking up at her with a calm smile, his eyes blazing in certainty.

“You knew?!” She could barely breathe and the words almost choked her. They came out as a whisper.

“Yes.” The goblin held her gaze. “Just as I know that you’re one too.”

Em couldn’t explain all the feelings that washed over here at that point. It was a rushing, gurgling mix of fear, confusion, relief and a whole lot more.

“I’m not a God. I’m the Divine of Empathy.” She stammered. It was the first time, she realised, that she’d talked about who… about what she was now to anyone who wasn’t a Divine themselves. “Like my father was before me.”

“Call yourself what you like.” Colin told her, with a laugh. “I know what you are.”

“How did you know?” Empathy asked, her mind running through events since she’d returned to Gamlinberg five years ago, trying to work out where she hadn’t been careful, where she’d given herself away. “Did Myp tell you? I guess that makes sense you were friends and-”

“Myp told me fuck all! He didn’t have to.”

Em looked at him. Colin sighed and stood up, pulling himself up to his full height. With Em still sitting down, they were almost eye-to-eye.

“Em, what do you see?”

She looked at him. He said it again, with more fire in his voice than she had ever heard from him before.

“What do you see?”

“I see… you. I see Colin.”

“Look closer.”

So she did. And, as she did so, she felt the magic suddenly rise within her. It swept over her and around him, catching every fracture of shadow and light that flicked across Colin’s face. It crackled along their edges in colours only she could see. Hot on the back of it came memories. Not hers, but Colin’s. No, not Colin but-

“My name - my full name is K’lin-ur-K’thar-su-K’Xit.” The goblin said, as if he could read her mind. “Warlord of the K’Xit. Scourge of the West. That is who I was. Colin is who I am. It is the person your father helped me to be.”

The memories were coming fast now. Blood. War. Suffering. Death. Then in her mind she saw a meeting in a glade not far from town. A goblin scouting party, cornered. Her father standing above Colin with a sword. The expectation of death but instead an offered hand.

Then she felt a jolt of realisation. Of horror. Of regret. So much regret.

She looked at Colin. She didn’t know what to say. He gave her a smile. It was the saddest smile she’d ever seen. He sat down and leaned on her again, more tentatively this time as if he was worried she would flinch. She did not. She simply wrapped the blanket round him again.

“My clan spent a thousand years in the dark.” Colin told her. “Most of my kind are still there. Down there we are cattle, unless we attach to something powerful. Find something to serve. So that’s what we do. We are drawn to power. To magic. To doing its bidding as a method of survival. We become the hunters, the raiders, the hordes that trouble the lands up here in the light. So it was for the K’Xit, for as long as the stories of this clan can remember.”

“You are not the first god I have known, Empathy.” Colin told her, quietly. “Nor was your father. In Hu’Toth’s name I scoured the world, until I met your father.”

Colin chuckled, quietly.

“Because that was the fucking thing about Myp, wasn’t it? He wouldn’t say much. But he would listen. And then he would get inside your head.”

“And that day was when…” Em began.

“No. Oh no.” Colin cut her off. “I know what you’re going to ask but it wasn’t instant. I didn’t suddenly go ‘fuck me! I’m saved! To me, my people! Let us head off into the light!’ I didn’t go back to Hu’Toth and say ‘listen boss, I’ve been thinking and I would like to hand in my three month’s scourging notice.’ No. It started as a feeling and as idea. One that took a long, long time to become reality.”

Colin smiled, wanly. “I asked him later - after we’d got out. After we’d come up here. We found a way out past the great gates without being spotted only to find him waiting, looking like the smuggest bastard in the world. I said to him. ‘What did you do to me three hundred years ago? What seed of magic did you plant in me?”

“And do you know what he said?” Colin quaffed the last of his drink. “I planted nothing.’ He said. ‘It was there already. I just helped it grow.’”

They sat in silence for a while. Then, eventually, Em pushed Colin gently off her shoulder and stood up. Wordlessly, she took his cup and walked over to the pot of mulled cider. Having filled both that and her own, she returned. Placing the cup in one of Colin’s hands, she then pulled him up with the other.

“To my father.” She shouted, loud enough that a few goblin’s nearby looked up and cheered, although they didn’t know why. She lowered her cup so that it was within Colin’s reach.

“Best God I’ve ever fucking known.” He said, slamming his cup into her own and making them both fizz up. The two friends quickly downed them in one go.

“Present company excepted, of course.” Colin added, with a wink.

“You old charmer.” Em said. “C’mon. Let’s dance.”

Em grabbed Colin’s hand and they headed towards the fire, the shadows of dancing goblins moving across its face as a slow, haunting beat rang out.

“Oh and don’t tell anyone.” She added quickly. “The Divine thing. Nobody else knows. Not Chloe. Not anyone.”

“Really? You’ve told no-one? Oh, cool. I’m sure that won’t backfire on you in a massive and unexpected way.”

“Shut up.”