“Sometimes call Best Breeder, but also sometimes call Fu—”
“Nope, not that!” Amma threw her hands up. “I mean what did your mother call you.”
The goblin froze then squeaked out, “Faazzi.”
Amma pressed a hand to her chest and blew out a breath. “Faazzi. Wonderful. I love that if you love that, okay? And the rest of you, whatever your old king called you, it doesn’t matter—you can go by whatever it is you’d like to be named now, all right?”
Faazzi and the others nodded sheepishly though they looked unsure.
Amma sighed, resting a hand on her fist. “Gods, Jiblix wasjust awful, wasn’t he?”
Faazzi’s pale eyes widened with terror. “King Jiblix?”
“Yeah. Everything I’ve heard and seen—he was terrible.”
“Uh, well?” She looked for confirmation from the others, and got the tiniest nod, then turned back, puffing out her chest as her voice fell into a raspy growl. “Jiblix worst.”
“Hate him,” said another soon after.
“Glad died,” agreed a number of goblins amongst the rows.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Amma sat back, stretching. “So, ladies, here’s the thing: I’m not really looking for a wife—or forty—though you all seem perfectly nice.”
At this the goblins began fidgeting, some frantic whispers rising up.
“But,” she cut back in, “Iamlooking for help at this whole king thing because, believe it or not, it’s my first time, and I think you all might know this place and your people a little better than I do.”
Faazzi wrung her hands. “King Amma ask for help?”
“Yeah, like, more advisers. Or, I guess, visors? Skoob’s fine, but he seems overwhelmed. Maybe you could form a council or something?”
Many eyes lit up through the chamber, hushed voices growing excited. Though Amma had no intention of staying, this might leave the clan better than she found it.
A goblin had come up to Faazzi and had taken one of her massive ears in hand, whispering into it, big eyes darting to Amma. When she stepped back, Faazzi took a breath, brows knit. “We show King project now.”
“Oh, okay.” Amma stood, following her back into the low opening the women had come through. More snaking tunnels dotted with mushrooms and canvas-covered passageways took them to a neat arch chipped away at the tunnel’s end.
“Jiblix say stupid,” Faazzi sighed, “but we not allowed doanything except have baby. No fight, no cook, no sort, no even raise baby, just have. So, gobbie wives and concubines do projects with unwanted scraps to fill up time.”
Ushered through the canvas covering the last archway, Amma stepped into a massive chamber, nearly as big as the market at the den’s entry. Though it was also crammed with sorted garbage, there were little plateaus rising naturally here and there and atop these rocky ledges stood what they meant by projects.
Amma could not guess their uses, the contraptions cobbled together with all manner of disused, human junk, but they were nothing short of impressive. She wandered to the closest, admiring what was a machine of sorts made of long, metal tubes, broken shutters and crates, and two sets of axled wheels, cracked at one time and put back together using a hardened pine pitch, a cauldron of which Amma could smell simmering somewhere in the cavern.
“What is this for?”
“Not sure,” said Faazzi, gesturing to another goblin who had scurried up to them and was holding open a book, the pages upside down. “We just make.”
There was a diagram laid out in the book, though the words were in a different language, not Key or Chthonic, but one from across the sea. Amma gently flipped the book over in the goblin’s hands and could see the resemblance plainly then. The components were much different, and the one they stood before was a little ugly in comparison, but it was otherwise spot on.
She took another long look around the chamber with a new appreciation, each plateau no longer holding a cobbling together of junk, but a purposeful attempt at creation, even if they had no idea what to do with them.
“Ladies, this is amazing.”
Faazzi’s bulbous eyes went watery, claws clasped before herface. “Really think so? Can do mores?”
“Go wild,” said Amma with a shrug.
There were happy noises from the goblins as they scattered about to work, and Amma watched until there was a tug at her shin. She looked down to see a rather small goblin who was panting quite hard. “Missus King? Presence requestered at throne, please.”
