Toede pressed his hands to his temples. "Just bloody wonderful. Okay, what else can go wrong?"
"We're back!" said Taywin, bouncing into the hut.
She was followed by a large, angry-looking human dressed in black. Toede's eyes widened. His shirt was open to reveal a large T that had been carved into his chest.
The assassin from the Jetties towered over Toede. Even hunched over, his shoulders grazed the ceiling of the hut. The assassin's eyes glowed like hot embers with barely contained emotion. At his hip was a great sword in a rune-carved scabbard.
Toede felt his throat go dry, his tongue turn to sandpaper. Toede choked out, "Dance on the lilies, warrior."
The assassin let out a great cry, and Toede backed up. As it was, he was pressed flat against the wall of the hut when the human drew his sword and collapsed to his knees, presenting it, hilt-first, to the hobgoblin.
"My life is yours, O sage leader!" said the warrior, his eyes focused on Toede's toes.
Toede pried himself from the side of the wall with as much decorum as he could muster. He took the sword (the same one, he noted, that had previously been used in combat against Groag) from the warrior's hands, and strongly considered ramming it right back into the human's T-inscribed chest. However, as this might lead to further complications with the kender, (particularly the guard with the club), he instead gently touched the warrior with it on the shoulder, his mind scrambling for something suitable to say for the occasion.
"Your life is yours to live," mumbled Toede. "Arise, good Sir… In all the previous excitement I never learned your name?"
"Rogate, most sage leader," muttered the warrior, eyes bent to the floor.
"Arise, Sir Rogate," said Toede. "You have pledged your quest with my own." Whatever the heck that might be, he added to himself.
Rogate tottered to his feet, swaying slightly, and declaimed to the others, "I serve the mighty Toede, and have been accepted and forgiven! Behold, the first of the Toedaic Knights!"
Bunniswot and Taywin applauded politely. Miles, the kender guard, grimaced and left to return to his post.
"Now, if everyone will please sit down," said Toede. "Perhaps someone would like to tell me exactly what is going on."
Rogate drew himself up to his full height, or at least as much height as the hut permitted. "But you know all, most puissant and sage of wonders!"
Toede motioned for Rogate to sit, saying softly, "I come to you skyclad and unshorn, seeking the teachings of the flesh." He made a mental note to get a few more quotes under his belt.
Rogate's face brightened, then he quietly sat down. "Perhaps, then, it is best that I begin, my wondrous leader, for I have been in Flotsam for most of the past year, and have seen what has transpired."
Toede nodded. Rogate continued, "I awoke in the Jetties with my wounds healed, the innkeep declaring that you had considered taking my life, but spared me instead. In that moment I realized your true mercy and felt ashamed.
"I did not return to my post that night, or ever again. I know now that I was a dupe of the false creatures known as the Water Prophet and Gildentongue. When Gilden-tongue's dining habits were revealed to the masses I was angered, but more concerned when it turned out that Hopsloth's own priests chose to rule in the same.highhanded fashion.
"I sought out one who I believed would tell me what had happened to you, and found that unworthy creature, Groag." Rogate looked as though he was about to spit. "He helped me not, and soon afterward he left the city himself, to further his own ambitions."
Toede slid a look in Bunniswot's direction, but the scholar declined to mention his tenure of eating Groag's cooking. Instead, he stared blankly out the hut door.
Rogate continued. "I knew that retribution most divine was upon us, and began to preach, to warn others of your next return. The priests of Hopsloth crushed all dissent, and many early martyrs disappeared without trace." Rogate lowered his eyes in silence.
"I was correct, and you did return, on the back of a great metal elephant that spoke in a mathematical tongue!
"You were magnificent, my sage leader!" beamed Rogate.
"You cut down the followers and guards of Hopsloth right and left, charged his fortress-lair, and dispatched him forthwith. Some say you died in the struggle, but I believed that you passed only after you had removed that foul stench from our land. It was then I founded my simple Faith-of-Toede-Returned.
"And yet," added Rogate quickly, "the foulness reappeared. In the turmoil following your triumph against Hopsloth, a dark being returned to Flotsam, the obscenity known as Groag."
Another silence hung in the air for a brief ice age. Toede prompted, "And then…?" But the newly christened Toedaic Knight sat, shaking his head.
"It seems that Groag captured Rogate's audience,"
Bunniswot put in.
"Kidnapped!" roared Rogate. "Stole their minds and souls! Filled then with false fears and threats and had himself declared Lord of Flotsam, chosen by powers beyond our ken! It was then that the darkness truly fell, and I was forced to leave!"
Toede was stunned. "He succeeded? Groag?" he stammered. He looked at Bunniswot. "Short fellow, whines and faints a lot?"
The scholar nodded. "In the confusion following your… er… death, Groag arrived and usurped Rogate's preachings, but with the added punch line that he controlled your return, and unless all of Flotsam toed his line, you'd be back with a vengeance."
"An effective argument," said Toede. "And what happened when the populace laughed in his ugly face?"
"That's just it, they didn't laugh," said Bunniswot. 'They'd seen the local ruling class decimated twice in previous months by your apparent actions. They figured things could hardly be worse with Groag on the throne, so he took control by acclamation. After all, he claimed to be acting in your name."
"False pretender," muttered Rogate. "False minion! And he wore a mask, so none might know his face, though many knew his touch."
Toede was silent for a moment, unable to think of a suitable reply. Then he asked, "So how's he doing?"
Rogate snarled. Taywin shook her shorn head. Bunniswot answered, "You know how once I told you about Renders's histories, the ones that called you a fop and fool and a bumbler?" Rogate started to snarl again, so Bunniswot quickly added, "In a moment of light jest."
Toede nodded, an eye cast toward his new knight. "In a moment of light jest, I remember." It might be interesting having a follower with the protective nature of an attack dog.
"Well, Groag makes you look like wise king Lorac of the Silvanesti," Bunniswot said.
Toede leaned back against the wall and whistled. "That bad?"
"Corruption, despotism, whimsical rulings, oppression," said Bunniswot, ticking off his fingers.
"Nothing new there," said Toede, then added quickly for Rogate's benefit, "That's par for the course in half a dozen cities throughout Ansalon."
"Summary executions," said Bunniswot.
"Part of any ruler's rights," said Toede.
"Without hearing, involving torture, and in public," sighed Bunniswot. "The bodies displayed on the gibbets for crows."
Toede winced. "A little too much of a good thing. And was the population recalcitrant, to earn such heavy-handed responses?"
Bunniswot shook his head. "Not before. They are now."
"I suddenly understand why your… ah… my book on government is so popular," said Toede.
Bunniswot nodded. "Some inhabitants fled, and many merchants avoid the city now. Groag used to threaten the populace in your name, now he just threatens them period. He has hired small armies of mercenaries to protect him and his court. Nonhumans are banned once again. Other nonhumans, that is."