Brody woke the next morning on a bed of fresh straw in an empty shed. As a goblin he could sleep almost anywhere, but the bed was a nice gesture. He sat up and saw the neighboring pile of straw was empty. Julius must already be up. Officials in Sunset City had offered him better accommodations but he’d declined and taken a space next to Brody. That was Julius in a nutshell. Brody ate some of the straw, for goblins weren’t any pickier about their diet than their sleeping arrangements, and headed outside.

The streets of Sunset City looked like an anthill that had been kicked over. Some residents were fleeing with whatever they could carry. That might seem like an extreme reaction, but the weak and lowly took no chances when wars could happen. Guardsmen led groups of citizens in a frantic but thorough search for the Dawn Lantern, going from house to house. This led to more than a few confrontations as the owners weren’t happy with strangers pawing through their property.

“I don’t have this thing!” a man protested as guardsmen filed into his home. “I’d sell it if I did! Say, what’s this thing worth, anyway?”

“Your life, and everyone else’s, too,” a guardsman replied.

Goblins joined the search, crawling through chimneys and splashing through sewers. This didn’t bother them, as goblins happily went through such filthy places on a daily basis. Digger goblins dug up every patch of dirt that didn’t have a tree or shrub growing on it. Builder goblins checked homes for secret doors and hidden compartments.

Brody peered down a sewer grate and saw Habbly lead goblins as they poked through the filth with wood poles. He asked, “Find anything?”

“Loose change and a carriage wheel,” Habbly replied. “There’s also a sewer monster with lots of legs and eyes. He said he hasn’t seen it.”

Brody spotted builder goblins leaving a house. The owner swept up after them and scowled.
Brody asked, “Have you had any luck?”

“We turned up a few smuggler tunnels but no lantern,” a builder goblin replied

Brody headed over to a nearby warehouse that had been empty the night before. He opened the door to find it as busy as a beehive. Men and goblins hurried about, walking around tables and empty crates used as chairs. Stacks of paper and bottles of blue ink competed with large maps for place on the tables. Kadid Lan was operating a cheap magic mirror with a copper frame in one corner. A vender slipped through the crowded room as he sold doughnuts and coffee to the men. Not surprisingly, Julius was at the center of the crowd.

“We’re sure about this?” Julius asked.

“No,” Kadid told him. “The reports came from terrified shepherds at night. They could be mistaken about what they saw, but if they’re right eighteen vampires are headed for Sunset City.”

“How long until they arrive?”

“Three days, maybe less,” Kadid replied. “I’ve also heard from guardsmen that the remaining Red Hand members are recruiting and plan on coming back. Not sure if they want your head or the Dawn Lantern. I also heard Lord Bryce hired every swordsman he could afford and is heading here from Nolod.”

“We’ll file the last one under annoyances.” Julius rubbed his forehead and spotted Brody. He waved for the little goblin to come over. “Have you heard anything from the goblins?”

Brody crawled under a table to reach him. “Nothing helpful. Little Old Dude, why aren’t you checking the sewers with your students?”

Little Old Dude was reading old Truth Seeker papers. “It’s a perk of leadership.”

Brody glared at those stupid papers that had turned everyone’s life upside down. As he thought about it, they represented a terrible waste. Most of them revealed embarrassing details about powerful people’s lives, but dig into anyone’s life and you’d find something embarrassing. Some were outright lies, ruining good reputations or even putting people in danger.

It was the ones revealing crimes that really bothered him. The crimes were real enough, but the papers warned criminals that they’d been discovered, giving them time to destroy evidence or run away. If those facts have been delivered to guardsmen, knights or the Guild of Heroes then they could have been the first step toward catching the bad guys. Anton might have wanted the best for the world, but he hadn’t thought this out far enough.
Brody got close to Julius and whispered, “You look worn out.”

Julius’ voice was equally soft. “These problems come so fast. Helping the baron, the Red Hand, the Truth Seekers, one after another.”

“When we’re done here, we need to get you a vacation.” Julius frowned at the offer. Brody said, “Much more of this and you’ll fall down before you can lie down.”

“I know.” He sounded so tired. Nobody could be a hero forever.

Little Old Dude asked, “Have there been any new papers this week?”

Officer Dalton came over with a handful of papers and set them on a table. “Too many and none of them good. Shep, no!”

Dalton’s dog Shep charged through the room and jumped onto Julius, knocking him onto a table. Dalton hurried over and scolded the dog. “You’re not a puppy anymore! Sit! Please sit!”

Julius wrapped his arms around the dog, lifted him up and carried him over to the latest papers. “The Truth Seekers just revealed the names and addresses of secret agents working for King Ethan Trecka of Forthosia. That puts a target on their heads. Or maybe this is a lie and they’re innocent people, in which case they’re civilians in a lot of danger. There’s something here about a new evil overlord with an entire village of goblins and a smuggler gang, with a lady werewolf as his chief enforcer and paramour.”

Brody frowned. “What’s a paramour?”

“That’s not the critical detail,” Julius said hastily. He glanced at the paper and said, “It says the evil overlord is a wizard and killed three vampires. Do we know if this one is true or not?”

Kadid Lan fiddled with knobs on the magic mirror. “I’ll look into it, but Oceanview’s king lent us a cheap mirror. We’re getting so much interference it’s hard to see anything with it. That could be because it’s garbage or someone could be trying to block us.”

“The Inspired?” Brody asked.

Archibald the Archivist stood up from a table he’d been sitting at. “If they were responsible the mirror would be a smoking wreck. I’ve cast warding spells to detect threats that come within five miles of the city, and defensive spells to block enemy attempts to search Sunset City with magic. If we can’t find the Dawn Lantern, neither can they.”

“Could they bring more wizards than Magus Quake?” Julius asked.

“Their numbers are depleted after numerous failures. Their remaining members are occupied, and many greatly mistrust their fellow wizards. If Magnus calls in powerful members of the Inspired, he risks them stealing his prize. Make no mistake, Magus Quake will return better prepared to face us, but I doubt he’ll have many reinforcements.”

Julius handed Shep back to Officer Dalton. “One’s too many. We’re looking at three or possibly four separate forces attacking Sunset City. One at a time we can win, but we’ll be stretched thin if they strike too close together. At least nearby kings aren’t invading. Yet.”

Brody spotted Ibwibble sitting at a table in a corner with Craig of the Truth Seekers. The goblin handed the man a stack of papers and said, “Write down that Ibwibble the Terrifying defeated the Truth Seekers, ending their reign of whatever it is you were trying to do.”

“That’s not technically true,” Craig said.

“You’re not still going on about that, are you?”

“Ibwibble, you made it sound like you got along well with the Dawn Lantern,” Brody told him. “Do you have any idea where we should look?”

“I haven’t seen him in months. He could be a million miles from here.”

Archibald frowned. “That might not be an exaggeration. Some of the so called big fifty are capable of moving great distances on their own.”

Julius was about to speak when the vendor walked up to him and asked, “Doughnuts?”

“Two, with sprinkles.” Julius paid the vendor and said, “Do we have solid leads on the remaining Truth Seekers?”

“One of them got arrested in Nolod,” Kadid Lan replied. “The rest are spreading lies as fast as they can.”

Julius glanced at Anton. The Truth Seekers leader still wore a prisoner’s pink uniform, but he wasn’t wearing iron gloves anymore. He sat in a corner copying page after page of writing. Anton looked up briefly and said, “I’m finishing an announcement to all Truth Seekers that we’ve been deceived and urging them to stop all activities. I’m appealing to them by name and have enough personal information about them that they’ll know I wrote it, but they might think I was forced to.”

“You’re not telling them to turn themselves in,” Brody said.

“They’re good people who were doing good work and don’t deserve to spend the rest of their lives in prison. It’s my fault we took in a liar, not theirs.”

“Fanatic,” Brody muttered under his breath.

“I heard that!” Julius scowled at Anton, who looked down. “They might ignore my message. They’ll definitely ignore it if I tell them to accept punishments for what weren’t crimes. I’ll help you stop this, I’ll take your punishment for failing my quest, but I won’t betray them.”

His earlier defiance returned, and Anton shouted, “And where is Oceanview’s king in this time of trouble? Why did he let a member of the Guild of Heroes do his job for him?”

Officer Dalton poked Anton in the chest. “He’s taken the greatest challenge on his own shoulders! The kingdom is in danger we might not be able to stop, so he’s gone to get help from lawyers!”

The clamor, conversations and bustle of so many people was replaced by a stunned silence. Men gasped in horror. Anton staggered back as if struck, his face as white as a sheet. Julius dropped one of his doughnuts, which Shep the dog ate.

“I nearly got killed by the Red Hand and Magus Quake because of those papers, and even I think that’s going too far,” Julius said.

“Eighty years of mischief and I never involved lawyers,” Little Old Dude add.

Officer Dalton nodded. “It’s drastic, and there’s no telling what it’s going to cost the king. But there’s nothing he won’t do for his people.”

Brody lost his patience with Anton. He pointed at Julius and said “He’s the best man for this job. I know it, the king knows it, and if you can pry your head out of your backside for a second, you’d know it, too. We’re all in danger cleaning up your mess.”

Everyone was shocked by his outburst, even Brody. The normally timid goblin had been pushed too far for too long, and his anger boiled over. “You remember a mad scientist named Umber Hatchwich? You told everyone in a thousand miles that he wants to take over the world. Bad people thought that was an advertisement! Thousands of villains who’d never heard of him before that day showed up to join him! He was a nobody with a few goons and now he’s got an army! We can’t try to stop them because we’re facing vampires, an evil wizard, gangsters and this Bryce twerp coming because of your stupid papers!”

There was a pause as Anton stared at Brody and everyone else looked away. Julius walked over and put a hand on Brody’s shoulder. “We’ll figure something out. We always do.”

“I don’t suppose this Hatchwich fellow can help?” Officer Dalton asked.

“I wouldn’t risk it,” Julius said. He waved to the vendor and asked, “Can I get another doughnut? Thanks. Our last problem is Gron. The Truth Seekers are still working, and if Gron is with them he’s controlling their messages. Do we have any idea where he is?”

“None,” Archibald replied. He took a cup of coffee from the vendor and added, “There are two logical choices for him. The first is to declare the task too dangerous and return to the Land of the Nine Dukes. If he doesn’t feel his mission is complete, he will join up with another cell of Truth Seekers both to direct their efforts and to benefit from their magical protection that makes them so hard to track.”

“We can’t look for him and the Dawn Lantern at the same time,” Brody said.

“We can’t, but others can,” Archibald told him. “We’ve warned neighboring kingdoms about the Truth Seekers and Gron. Most can’t send us help when they have so many responsibilities of their own, but they search their territory for Gron.”

* * * * *

The rest of the day was incredibly frustrating. Nobody found the Dawn Lantern, but there was a steady stream of frauds and liars trying to pass off fakes and demanding a reward. Most of those fakes were embarrassingly bad, including a cardboard lantern painted black. One ambitious fellow asked would he become king if he found the Dawn Lantern. He was upset when Julius told him it didn’t work that way even if a punk kid had become a king for yanking a magic sword out of a boulder.

It was getting dark when Brody went outside for fresh air. The streets of Sunset City were rivers of lights as men with ordinary lanterns continued searching for a magic one. Brody was about to get some sleep when he saw Archibald leaning against a building. The poor man looked miserable, no surprise when the Archivists had accidentally spawned this mess. Brody took a deep breath and approached him.

Archibald saw him coming and raised an eyebrow. “I must admit to having never studied goblin behavior. There are a few experts on that topic among the Archivists. What they’d told me is at odds with what I’ve seen these last few weeks. You show more intelligence and loyalty than many men I’ve met.”

“I hear that a lot. You also met Yips, so I guess it evens out.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. For all his faults, Yips has a good heart and nearly matches you in loyalty.” Archibald squinted at Brody. “Your expression makes me think you’re about to impress me again with your intelligence.”

“I have a question,” Brody asked. “Anton said the Archivists hide the things they learn about the past. You said it was a partial truth. Is he right? I mean, why go to all the effort of digging stuff up if you’re going to bury it again?”

Archibald looked off into the distance when he answered. “The Archivists were formed to unearth forgotten knowledge, magic and technology. We have members on four worlds who dedicated their lives to bring back the wonders of the past. We share much of what we’ve learned. Sometimes we hold onto our discoveries because we don’t fully understand them yet. In time we will learn more, and then we can share them.”

He turned and looked at Brody. “But what to do when the past wasn’t so wonderful. When it was a time of horror, darkness and suffering. Oh yes, we’ve discovered evidence of atrocities so foul no one should have committed them, yet they happened all the same. It is a sad testament that such deeds occurred even once, and a worse indictment that they could occur so often. You know, I actually envy goblins, for in our research we found only your kind innocent of these horrors.”

A shiver ran down Brody’s spine. “Why hide that? Doesn’t it make sense to tell people what happened so they don’t make the same mistakes?”

“I think you’re too innocent to understand the answer, but I’ll try. There are age old feuds between men, elves and dwarfs over crimes committed centuries ago. In some instances we learned exactly who perpetrated those crimes. The guilty parties and their victims are all long gone, but their descendants remain, and if they learned what we know those conflicts could reignite, spreading wars that would mimic those of old. We made a decision to conceal those facts, for to release them was too horrifying to contemplate.”

“Tell him the rest.” Archibald and Brody both spun around to find Julius standing behind them. When Archibald was silent, Julius said, “You left out the biggest threat.”

“You know why I don’t talk about that!” Archibald snapped.

“You can tell me,” Brody said. “If I tell anyone, they won’t believe me because I’m a goblin.”

Archibald fumed for a moment before he relented. “The city of Ephemera is a legend from the Ancient Elf Empire. Ephemera never existed. Every elf will tell you that. But we discovered fragmentary records from the empire where elves said they were passing through Ephemera or ordering goods from merchants living there. Yet there was no city, not even ruins.

“The Archivists deduced where Ephemera could have been and began digging. We asked the Guild of Heroes for help because elves have a habit of seizing control of archeological digs that might uncover elf artifacts. Julius was one of the members they sent. We dug down thirty feet in a desolate wilderness and discovered Ephemera’s suburbs, damaged marble buildings picked clean before they were buried. Then we discovered the actual city.”

Archibald hesitated. “Three miles of nothing, a perfect circle of devastation. Stone, metal and wood had been reduced to a thin layer of powder. I dared not ask what happened to the residents. Outside that circle were untouched houses. An inch one way meant survival and the other way meant doom. We, we learned how it had been done. It…would be possible to do again.”

“Y-you,” Brody stammered, “you know how to destroy an entire city?”

“The elves lost that knowledge in the aftermath of the civil war that destroyed their empire, but we suspect some of them know it happened. Elves seek to reconquer Other Place. Can you imagine what would happen if they relearned the skill? We buried the knowledge so deeply none would ever discover it. Most Archivists don’t even know about it. That is the weight the Archivists bear. That is what we hide from the world, secrets of that magnitude.”

“Secrets,” Brody repeated. “There are others as bad as that?”

“Many more are locked away and must never be freed.”

“Sir!” Brody, Julius and Archibald turned to see Kadid Lan waving from the entrance of their warehouse headquarters. “I found Gron!”

Archibald ran over and demanded, “Where is he?”

“He’s in the kingdom of Long Land. The spells masking him failed for a few minutes, long enough for me to get a lock on him. I think the wizard who’d protecting him must have forgotten the spell had run out and recast it too late. It was a faint image, but I’m sure it’s him.”

“That’s a long way from here,” Julius said. “Can we get there in time?”

Archibald frowned. “I used all my magic earlier today. Gron knows he’s being hunted and will surely flee before the morning when I have regained my strength.”

Kadid’s enthusiasm faded. “There’s someone who might help, sir, but you’re not going to like it.”