I took a solid bite of an ear (not easy without teeth) and I began hauling it from the burrow. Newt's body was strong, especially for a duck, and the gobling would be easy enough to carry back in flight with a rest here and there.
I was so pleased with my catch that I almost didn't notice the grunts coming from deeper in the tunnel. From the depths, shapes were rising. Each of them sported two pinpoints of orange eyes. They growled in ravenous fashion.
I counted five of the creatures. There were probably even more waiting, crowding forward. They were cautious, which was fortunate. I couldn't fight them all. I dragged my prize toward the surface, and they followed along, getting ever closer. I'd gotten halfway out the burrow when one finally latched on to the corpse's foot and, with a growl, yanked it from my bill.
Hands would have made this easier. I guess Newt was used to his lack of them, but they truly were practical tools. I lunged at the gobling and nipped off a bit of finger. The creature let go and retreated. I hastily swallowed the finger, gripped the corpse by its arm, and hauled it out of the dark and into the light, where the goblings would not follow.
Then I sat and caught my breath. Goblings tasted very good. It was no mystery why they devoured each other. I was tempted to go back and grab another for a snack. Instead, I bit off the big toe of the one I had and chewed it slowly. I wondered how humans tasted in comparison. An instinct told me they were even better. And Wyst of the West would surely have a flavor beyond lesser men, but this was perhaps an assumption of my growing affection.
A voice interrupted my musings. "A duck eating a gobling. There's a sight I'd never thought to see."
A gray fox sat on a flat stone. She smiled. Foxes usually did.
"I have demon in my flesh," I replied.
"Yes, and a witch in your mind."
I didn't know I looked surprised, but I must have.
She smiled wider. "Oh, I've seen one or two witches in borrowed bodies before. One even borrowed mine once."
"You're very observant, I can see."
"Well, I am a fox. A very clever fox at that, if I say so myself."
I sat on my gobling. "Not that I doubt you, but what would a very clever fox be doing around here when every other living thing has the good sense to be elsewhere?"
"I never said I had good sense. I merely claimed to be clever, but the problem with being clever is that I get bored easily. So when the goblings came along, I began a game. Every night, they rise from their burrows and scour the woods for every morsel, and I do my best to avoid finding myself in their stomachs."
"A dangerous game."
"As all the very best games are. And why, I must ask, should a witch's mind in a demon duck's body dare risk herself for a gobling corpse. Surely, they aren't that delicious."
"You're very curious," I replied.
The fox smiled again. Rather, she smiled differently than before. "A hazard of being too clever, I'm afraid."
I explained how I needed a specimen to study that I might discover if magic was indeed involved in this horde of goblings.
She stopped smiling and playfully swished her tail. "I am no witch, merely a fox, and I can tell there is magic in this." She walked over and sniffed the corpse. "For one, this is not a true gobling. None of them are."
"How so?"
"I couldn't say. I'm not that clever, but they are not genuine flesh and blood. Can't you tell?"
"No, but I'm no fox, just a witch." I kicked the corpse. It felt solid. Yet it was already stiffening and stone cold but minutes after its death. These were surely signs something was amiss.
I remembered the wolf's remark on Ghastly Edna's killers. They had been men who were not men. Was there a connection, or were creatures of false flesh more common than my sheltered existence had led me to believe? I didn't know, but it was certainly noteworthy. Perhaps my vengeance was not so far away as Newt suspected.
I thanked the fox for her help. She wandered off to get some sleep before the evening games began, and I flew back to the fort, my dead gobling clamped in my bill.
10
After returning Newt and myself to our proper bodies, I examined my dead gobling inside my tent. A cursory inspection showed something unnatural at work. The corpse was decaying remarkably quickly only hours after death, and my sensitive nose detected none of the stench of rot the undead in me so relished. In fact, the corpse smelled hardly at all. I leaned close and sniffed it up and down. There was an odor of dirt, moss, and a dozen faint aromas this gobling would have collected from the forest. Of the gobling itself, there was nothing. Though it looked real and felt real and tasted real enough, it didn't seem to exist at all in smell. Such an anomaly could only be magic.
Newt watched but had other interests. "What's it like to fly?"
"It's nice," I answered while running my fingers across the goblings square face.
"Nice?"
"As a form of travel, it is very convenient. Although I think I prefer walking."
"You're not just saying that, are you? Just to make me not feel bad about not being able to."
"Not at all."
"Because I've always been led to believe that flying is wonderful."
I flipped the gobling on its stomach and prodded it along its spine. "Flying is like most talents. Everyone who can't do it assumes it must be greater than it is, and everyone who can knows it for what it is."
"You're talking in circles," he said.
"I know."
"I wish you wouldn't. It's confusing sometimes."
"It's meant to be."
"So is flying good or not?"
"It's good, but I prefer having hands to wings."
"They're very practical, I grant you."
I flipped the gobling back over and tore open its belly. I stuck my hands wrist deep into the cold innards. They were already dried and shriveled.
Newt hopped on the table and watched as I yanked the goblings insides out. Again, there was no odor and barely any fluids. I catalogued the various organs as I spread them before me. Everything seemed in order.
I dipped a finger in the brackish slime leaking from the gobling and licked it. I offered Newt a lick for a second opinion.
"Not bad. Kind of bland."
"Exactly. But when it was fresh, it tasted delicious. So unless gobling meat turns in a matter of hours, this fellow is gradually fading away, one sense at a time."
"Yes, so?"
"That means something. Something important."
"What?"
"I don't know."
I hunched over the gobling and stared at it. Its one half-opened, orange eye stared back, defying me to glean its secrets.
Newt abruptly brought up a new subject. "I made some observations about your body while I was in it. Would you like to hear them?"
I didn't reply, engrossed in contemplation of the gutted corpse.
Newt took this as a sign to keep talking. "For one thing, you're much stronger than you let on. I bet you could break a man's neck."
Only half listening, I replied, "At the proper angle, most easily, but a good witch doesn't resort to brute tactics."
"And another thing, I was studying your naked body earlier."
I frowned.
"Don't worry. I was inside. No one could see me."
I was too intent on the gobling to bother with a lecture.
"And I started thinking," Newt said. "If this is a curse, why should you be so beautiful? At first, I thought a mistake had been made. Then I remembered our mistress saying once or twice that magic doesn't make mistakes."