"Rule one of demonology; never let an uppity git think that just because he has a pair of horns and a pitchfork, he can boss you around. You know what else has horns? Sheep!"

Gnarl


...


"Well," Louise said clearly and trying her hardest not to stammer, leaning on her staff while she kept the ball of fire in clear sight, "there are two things you can do. There is the easy way, and the also pretty easy way. Uh, but the second one has more burning."

She paused, and consulted the note she'd her to the sleeve, trying to ignore the cheeping of birds. It was not really an appropriate backdrop for what she was doing. Even if she was doing it in a swamp which was disgusting and there were probably frogs around – Founder, she hated frogs so much – and she really, really wanted a bath and... focus, focus, focus.

"You can give up, and obey me. Or I can throw this fireball at you and then my minions will bludgeon you lot unconscious and you'll be taken back to my… um… tower."

Behind her, the collection of her minions, mostly armoured in rusted iron or bits of re-dead undead leered, made threatening gestures, made rude gestures, or carried out some combination of the aforementioned. And standing on the other side of the clearing, the ragtag tribe of goblins made similar gestures back.

Now that she had spent some time around minions, she could see how the goblins were different. They were... well, patchwork was the best word to describe it. They looked a bit like scrawnier, more feeble browns, but their skins varied from a dark yellow to a mucky green, their eyes were duller, and there was a small cluster towards the back who had curled horns like reds. They did rather look just like the pictures of goblins she had seen in various bestiaries back at the Academy, which made it easier. The largest of the goblins stepped forwards, and yattered something in some crude tongue.

Maggat, standing behind Louise cleared his throat. "Ahem," he said. "Goblin chief, he say that scary-eye-lady not scare him now or in future. She have the scary eyes of slave-making, but she not wear armour. He say he kill her and take her shiny hand." Maggat paused. "He say other things, but most of it swearing or saying rude things about us minions," he added.

"Oh." Louise sucked on her lower lip. The chief goblin was larger than the others, and had better armour – it looked like it might have once belonged to a royal roadwarden. That was confirmed by the dried-looking human head hanging from his belt, which in its own way made everything easier.

"My lady, stick to the plan," Gnarl said, his voice echoing in her head.

She nodded. "In th-that case, I challenge their leader to... to a duel!" she announced, clenching her armoured hand into a fist. "If I win, all his followers will serve me!"

There was muttering from the goblins, and a single barked word from the chieftain, who drew a 'sword' which appeared to be a stolen butcher's cleaver.

"Deal," Maggat translated unnecessarily.

Louise swallowed. "Has he killed many other humans before?" she asked her henchminion, idly bringing her left hand up so the fireball held within lit her face from below.

There was another chatter of goblin language. "Oh yes," Maggat translated. "He say that he kill many two of two of human. He say he going to kill you and use you for..." the brown minion trailed off. The reason he trailed off was because Louise had just exhaled onto the fireball, sending a tongue of pink fire roiling and boiling forth.

It consumed the chieftain, who briefly screamed and was cut off. As the thick white smoke parted, the charred bones of the leader and the red-hot remnants of the metal he had been carrying revealed themselves.

"Any other of you goblin snot-heads want to fight Overlady?" Maggat announced proudly.

The general consensus was 'No', and those goblins stupid even by the low standards of the minions were quickly clubbed unconscious by extremely prejudiced violence. Another set of goblins had been acquired from the trackless swamplands, and the long and unpleasant trek back to the tower to have them sworn to her. And at least she had come up with the bright idea to be carried on a palanquin so she didn't have to get her feet wet.



Louise was in a vile mood when she got back.

"Have them flogged! Extra!" she snapped at the guards at the now-cleared entrance to the tower. "I mean it! I w-want to see them all suffer for that!" Sulking, she stomped her way up to her new bedroom. She had managed to find a place on the partially ruined second storey where someone had installed shutters – which looked like they had been torn from a peasant house at some point – and so got natural light. It was much improved from the squalid place she had started in. Albeit only in the sense that a barn was improved over a burnt-out shell – she was still living in a ruin.

It said something of how she had been forced to lower her standards that she now looked forwards to the hip bath the minions had salvaged from that room full of animated severed hands. Which had all possessed immaculately manicured nails. That had been very strange.

Louise filled the bath with rainwater from the barrel in the room, and then held a fireball underwater until it was hot. She stripped off her stinking swamp-soaked clothing and tossed it away, where it splattered. That was another dress ruined, and for the last few months she had been living in clothes found in this place. Ones in her size were not exactly common, and that was before the moral issues which came from the fact that they had probably come from the victims of the vampires, or the aesthetic issue that most of them were made for commoners and were not up to her standards.

Minion attempts at laundry had... not gone well.

She screamed in rage, which made her feel slightly better. One of the captured goblins had tried to escape, and she had been knocked off her palanquin into the swamp. She was drenched and smelly, and… she screamed again. The only thing which had not been utterly soaked was the gauntlet, which she kept on. It felt nice to wear, and... honestly, now that she had it, she felt naked without it. More naked, that was. With a sigh, she sunk into her hot bath, clicking metal fingers against the side.

And then those disgusting little goblins had made fun of her tower when they had arrived. And said things like 'Me see no tower' and 'Overlady tower flat as chest', at least according to Maggat's translations.

Oh, they were going to be flogged to within a centimetre of death, if she had any say in the matter. She sank deeper into her cramped bath, blowing dark bubbles of wrathful vengeance.

Though she hated to admit it, that was probably one advantage of being... er, less advanced in the height department. She could actually, if she huddled up enough, manage to just about sink her head down low enough to get it underwater, and try her best to rid herself of the smell of swamp before it joined the normal smell of dank tower.

Opening her eyes underwater, she stared up at the ceiling. When she got back to civilisation, she would never complain about little things like servants being late bringing towels again. God. How she missed life's little necessities like that. Or lemon-scented soap. Or... well, soap that wasn't made, like so much of the products of minion manufacture, from mushrooms and rats. She had eaten far, far too much mushroom and rat in the last few months. Eating rats. Eurgh.

Well, okay, maybe the rat au vin wasn't too bad.

She realised that a pair of beady eyes was staring down at her, and sat upright with a splash.

"Ah, your evilness. I see you are in a particularly cruel and vindictive mood today! Excellent," said Gnarl, straightening up from where he had been peering down at her. The old minion was showing his normal capacity to be impressed by her tempers as long as they were suitably extravagant, which... well, honestly, when she had calmed down Louise felt slightly shamed by that approval. "I shall have to see if we can obtain a torture chamber for you for such moments, although, of course, that will be dependent upon an improvement in your financial circumstance.

Louise shrieked, and huddled into a ball, trying to cover herself. "Wh-what are you doing in here?" she blurted out at her senior advisor, while the jester – who sadly had survived everything she had directed at it – capered around behind him. Her cheeks flushed bright red with embarrassment.

"I came to speak to you, my…"

"I'm having a b-bath! Get out!"

She was sure Gnarl was leering. "But your evilness, previous overladies took great delight in taking briefings while in a less dressed state. Or sometimes dressed only in blood and the guts of their foes, or many other often imaginative permutations, or…"

"Then they are indecent h-hussies who were no better than they should have been! And…"

"The Exhibitionist!" contributed the jester, who was rewarded for his wit by an explosion to the face. The minion slammed head-first into the wall, and lay there, twitching, but Louise paid him no attention. She… she had just… just used the gauntlet as a wand.

Huh. That meant that… huh. That was, really, really…

Louise's native language did not actually use the word 'cool' to describe things unrelated to the thermal state of an object. But nevertheless, she thought "cool". It was a hot, squirming little thought, and the gleam in her eyes spoke of explosions in the future. She had thought it had been the staff, but if the gauntlet supported it too… no, it was probably best to keep the length of heavy iron for when things didn't require large explosions or fatal burnings.

And when she thought about it, it did make sense. After all, there were wand-swords and staff-glaives and other weapons, and the gauntlet was a powerful magical item made to be used by a mage, right?

Her chain of thought was interrupted by the realisation that the jester looked like he was getting up. So she blew him up again. "You mentioned torture chambers, Gnarl?" she said sweetly, keeping her legs huddled up and her right arm protectively in front of her.

"Indeed I did, my lady, but that was not why I came here. No," said the elderly minion, "I came to report that we have finished counting the plunderings from the goblin camp, and that the beasts themselves have now been processed and are proper minions, as they were always meant to be."

"That's nice," Louise said, bluntly, "but I'm having a bath. You can't just walk in h-here! I'll… I'll talk to you when I find new clothes and… and get dressed and…"

"It is on the topic of clothes that I wished to speak," Gnarl said, stroking his goatee. "My lady, as it stands your garb is not appropriate for one of your standing. Quite frankly, you can't be an Overlady in old worn dresses like this! And with the wealth acquired from the most recent minion raid, we can finally afford something better quality and more fitting for your station." The old minion pursed his lips. "I will meet you down in the tower heart room when you are ready for a journey, my lady."

Gnarl shuffled out of the room, pausing to drag the jester out by its ear. Louise sunk back down into her bath, still blushing. She would need to find a way to bar the door. She wasn't sure if minions were male or female under the loincloth, but Gnarl at least sounded male, and that was bad enough!



The tower heart room had been cleared of the corpses littering it and the blood on the floor had dried, but it was still lacking in things that would prevent one from taking a perilous fall over the side. Louise tried her best not to look down as she made her way over to where Gnarl was waiting, by the heart itself.

She was still not best inclined towards him for intruding on her bath like that, but now that she was washed, dried, no longer smelt of swamp, and had a fresh mostly-fitting dress on, things were better. The black gown-like garment still had to be belted in at the waist, but at least it did not assume that she was built like Kirche von Zerbst up top, and she had added breeches under it because the fact it was slit to the mid-thigh meant her legs were getting cold.

"Mmm, my lady. Yes, of the goblin tribe, nine of them became browns when processed, seven greens, four reds, and one single blue," Gnarl said, as if nothing was wrong, "which is a useful thing indeed. This brings your combined number of minions back over one hundred and thirty, after the losses which were taken claiming the tower heart." Louise nodded in approval. "Should you wish to check our reserves of life energy, you can do so," Gnarl added, "but without a minion hive we cannot use it. We should look towards acquiring one, and in the meantime, among certain clients we can use it in payment."

"I see," said Louise, who didn't, really. She intellectually knew that the glowing life force which she could see when she was wearing the gauntlet was the thing that they could make new minions from, but she wasn't really sure that she should be trading it to anyone.

"This is relevant, because on the topic of obtaining a proper mode of dress for you," Gnarl said, rubbing his hands together, "there's an old friend of mine who from what I have been able to gather lives in your capital city nowadays."

Louise raised her eyebrows. Gnarl was, not to put things bluntly, a malevolent goblin-thing who had been stuck in a cage for decades. "A friend of yours lives in Bruxelles?" she asked, sceptically.

"Oh, is that what the place is called nowadays?" he asked. "Yes, that's what I have managed to pick up. I would beckon him here directly, but… well, you know how the tower heart is damaged, your evilness. You will have to travel there most of the way yourself; it doesn't have the power to properly reach more than twenty miles or so. And so…"

The girl frowned. "What's a mile?"

Gnarl blinked. "… my lady?" he asked, momentarily and unusually lost for words.

"A mile. What is that? Is it an old-fashioned word for metre?"

"What's a metre?"

They stared at each other, caught in momentary dimensional uncertainty.

"Is it a large distance?" Louise asked.

"A mile is… a mile," Gnarl said helplessly.

She shifted her shoulders, and stood up. Well, I'm a bit over a metre and a half tall," she said, helplessly.

Beady eyes scrutinised her. "Well. Fine, it seems your 'metre' is about a yard. Probably named after some self-righteous Hero type who decided to name the unit of measurement after himself rather than a good old fashioned yard. And a mile is one thousand, seven hundred and sixty yards."

Louise stared at him. "You're joking," she said, flatly. "That's stupid. Why in God's name would you have such a stupid number?"

"Ah, it has great occult and mystical…"

"Stupid. There are one thousand metres in a kilometre. Things are easy, simple, and don't require me to memorise stupid numbers." She folded her arms. "That is final!"

"… yes, my lady," muttered Gnarl, a hunt of sullenness in his voice. "But your evilness, the tower heart works in miles, because it is a bad old traditional device, not using your silly modern measurements. It will not understand your 'kilometres'."

"Then we shall deal with it when we have worked out a way to handle such an annoyance," Louise said imperiously, squaring her jaw.

"Your evilness, I am pleased to see you are working on your royal we," Gnarl said, "even if you are wasting it on such a silly topic."

The girl blinked. "Oh, no, I meant that you were going to help me do it."

"As you wish, your evilness," Gnarl said, in an impeccable manner, before turning the conversation back on topic. "My… acquaintance is of the demonic persuasion, but fear not for your virtue, because he is retired from the incubus business. His name came up as someone who knows how to find people who can provide services for specialist clients."

Louise pursed her lips. This was the first major moral challenge for her. Killing or enslaving goblins was… well, actually it actually was a good act in the eyes of God; there had been a papal declaration of that and everything. Consorting with demons – and in the case of incubi, it was literal consorting – was about as far away from good as one could get. "Retired?" she echoed.

"Oh yes, according to word on the Evil street," Gnarl said confidently. "And, your ladyship, when he was working he would not have been interested in you."

There had to be a logical reason for Gnarl saying that, Louise thought, and therefore there was probably a good reason she should not explode at him. Yet. "And why was that?" she hissed.

"Excellent hiss, your evilness," Gnarl remarked. "Well, the reason he would not have considered you among his clientèle is that you are female."

She blinked. "I thought you said he was an incubus."

"Oh yes."

Right. She wasn't going to think about that. "And he'll know where to get things?" she said, skittering away from that particularly conversational topic.

Gnarl nodded, the light hanging behind him bobbing up and down. "Yes, my lady. He'll either be able to provide the equipment himself, or he'll know who can. In addition, his name came up so often that I think he has even wider contacts than he must have had in the old days; that means that he might know things like where some of the treasures from the tower went, or where the missing chips from the tower heart are. And that," and a tone of menace entered Gnarl's voice, "is why it will be a good idea to keep on good terms with him."

Louise nodded. All right. Yes. She wasn't consorting with an incubus. She was just… going to see an information source. And it was okay to deal with evil information brokers; just look at Gnarl. "I understand," she said. "So I… can go by the tower heart?"

"Indeed. Lickit!" Gnarl called out, prompting a minion to scurry forwards carrying a mass of black fabric in his hands.

"For the master!" the minion announced proudly.

Gnarl cuffed him over the back of the head. "Mistress, Lickit," he sighed. "Yes, the proper garb for an Overlady going concealed among the disgusting lands of Good and fluffiness and bunnies and the like," he said.

Louise shook the garment out, revealing it to be a long, tailored and – shockingly – clean black robe. It looked warm and comfortable and like it would actually fit her. "Where did you get this?" she demanded accusingly.

Gnarl shrugged. "We found another bride," he said. "She happened to be your size."

"Blood come out in washing!" Lickit added, helpfully.

The pink-haired girl shuddered, and put it on. It was just as warm and comfortable as it had looked; a long hooded robe which reached down to her ankles, which was slightly too long in the sleeves but which she thought that even her limited sewing skills could extend to fixing.

"I will help you with the negotiations," Gnarl said, "but I will stay here. I'm old and don't like travelling, and also I don't think the little darlings should be left alone, especially when we're still assimilating a sizeable goblin contingent."

That was probably a good idea, Louise agreed.

"Now, as for how you use the tower heart? Well, you have read the theory, yes. It's not really necessary, but it helps. Simply put your hand on the tower heart, think of the right place from the visions it shows you, and step through it," Gnarl said.

The girl frowned. Surely it couldn't be that easy to carry out an act of magic which even the mightiest square mages could barely manage for short distances.



It was late afternoon when Louise stepped into the surface of the tower heart, and out – and through it – to an old ring of stones which lay, half-fallen, on a grassy hilltop.

Apparently it was that easy.

"Is this thing on? Ah, good, can you hear me? I can hear you. I was worried that the damage to the heart might have ruined its long range capacities," said Gnarl, his voice echoing through into her mind. "Evil news! It means you will be able to return to the tower by this tower gate! If you can find the other fragments, we will be able to increase the range. Likewise, if you can find any of the other towers or the relays, you will be able to use them to transport directly between them. And…"

"I can hear you," Louise said, just so she could confirm. There was a puddle on the ground nearby, and she leaned over it, checking her face. Carefully focussing, she dampened the light in her eyes until they were no longer glowing. Her irises still seemed to be a yellow-pink, however, and she wasn't sure if she could do anything about that. This little spell she had learned to hide the light was only a minor bit of magic, and according to the book it failed if she felt strong emotions, so maybe there was a better one out there, somewhere.

"Malevolent! This tower gate used to overlook a road which led south… it is still there?"

The girl looked around. The lush green landscape of grasses and free-roaming ponies was quite in contrast to both the swamp around the tower and the stormy conditions she had ridden here in, but she thought she recognised the place.

In fact, yes, she did. This was the old circle of standing stones she had noticed on the way up here, the one by the burnt tree which had been hit by lightning at some point. Which meant that, yes, down there was the road, and she could follow it south to… yes, there was a village perhaps eight kilometres away, which would be a fair walk, but there had been both an inn there and a hostelry, which meant that she could buy a horse and ride to Bruxelles.

She shot a glance at the wild ponies. Someone unused to riding would have tried to ride one of them, and then been thrown off and trampled on for their pains. And they would have been rather sizeable pains, too. No, wild ponies were best left alone, she thought, leaning on her staff, and wondered where her mare had got to.

Something butted her from behind. She turned and stared at the equine beast, which apparently had not heard her chain of thoughts about 'leaving them alone'. "Shoo!" she ordered. "I don't have any apples for you." She paused. "Oh, Founder, I would so love an apple right now," she added. "Or any kind of fruit. Or vegetable that isn't a mushroom or moss or lichen or… they'll have food at the inn. And I have no idea why I'm telling this to you, horse."

The pony retaliated by biting down on her sleeve. She managed to twist her arm out of the way – she was used to the cunning ways of such beasts – but it still managed to lock onto her sleeve. And refused to let go, no matter how much she shouted at it.

So Louise punched it in the face with her armoured fist.

As one, the other ponies turned to face her.

"Nice ponies?" Louise tried.

The beasts disagreed.

The barmaid at the Fat Pig, the inn in the village of Radys was listening to the complaints of one of the pony-herders with half an ear as she polished mugs.

"An' then, no sooner did I get there than there was all this 'orrible white smoke everywhere an' moi 'erd was on fire! 'Ain't natural, I tells you; wildfires aren't things we should be getting in spring. I'm blamin' that ol' stone circle there; everyone knows it's bad luck. Or goblings bein' paid by the elves to do stuff. I lost one o' moi smallest 'erds there, an' I'm gonna be 'ard pressed when it comes to the slaughter season," Ol' Phil slurred, his accent lurching wildly between the regions of northern Tristain in his distress. "Where'm I's gonna be getting moi milk and wool from if not from moi horses?"

The barmaid stopped listening to the old drunk when the door opened, and a dark robed, hooded figure swept in. The stranger's face was cast entirely in shadow in the dim lighting of the bar, and in their left hand they had a staff of black iron. For a moment, she thought she could see a strange glow from underneath the hood, but it must have just been a trick of the light. Possibly a candle reflected off a pewter mug.

It would have been rather more sinister if the figure hadn't been quite so short.

"Barmaid," the figure rasped, as it made its way over to the bar, and then paused, and coughed. "Wretched smoke," it muttered to itself. "Barmaid," it tried again, revealing it to be a fairly young woman. "I require a room for the night, as well as food."

"Ah… uh, yes," the barmaid said, momentarily perplexed. "That'll be two deniers."

"Wait a moment," the stranger said, raising her right hand and shifting slightly to turn her back on the barmaid. "Just need to…" she fiddled with what looked like her left sleeve, "… not quite practised with this, when is it going to w… aha!" She turned back around, two silver deniers in hand. "I have it," she said.

From her accent and tone of voice, and the strange way she pronounced words like ''ave' and 'goin'', the barmaid could tell that the stranger was noble-born and educated, and so she prepared to be nice to her. "Thank'ee, my lady," she said. "I'll get the boy to show you to your room."

The stranger coughed. "And what are you serving this evening?" she asked.

"Uh…" the barmaid squinted in recollection, "… that'd be a stew of salted pork an'… you know, turnips an' carrots an' cabbage an' the like. It's hardly a noble dish, but we don't have many nobles stoppin' by here or nothing."

"There's no mushroom in it, is there?" the girl asked. "Or… uh, rat?"

"Rat? God, no," the brown-haired woman said, sounding shocked. "I'll have you know moi husband runs an 'igh class place 'ere. An'… nah, no mushroom neither, I don't think."

"Wonderful," Louise breathed.



In the morning, Louise moved on, now mounted on a newly purchased horse, heading along the road which would lead her to Bruxelles.

The next evening, there was a fracas at the front gate of the inn. Ol' Phil was very badly beaten, though he swore blind that he had never seen his attacker and that they – whoever they had been – had attacked from behind. And also taken his money, his beard, his belt, his knife, and his collection of lucky horse shoes which protected him from elves.

And while people were distracted, all the chickens were stolen from the henhouses, which were also smashed into firewood and set on fire. The locals blamed goblins, and sent out an advertisement looking for a Hero to save them. It had worked when they had that infestation of giant rats in the basement, hadn't it?