The Troll-Human War

by Leah R. Cutter

  And speaking of such…

  A young executive came striding up the stairs. Possibly a lawyer, but definitely something powerful and white collar. His dark black skin practically shone with confidence. He kept his hair trimmed short, showing off the perfect features of his skull. The suit he wore cost more than Ty probably made over the course of half a year. It fit him impeccably across his broad shoulders, trimmed exactly right down to his waist. He carried a leather briefcase, handmade, of course, that matched his Italian leather shoes.

  He paused as he came even with where they were sitting. He shook his wrist, showing the expensive silver wristwatch he wore there. “Excuse me, my watch seems to have stopped running this morning,” he said. “Can you tell me what time it is?”

  Even his voice sounded rich and powerful.

  “Ten thirty,” Ty lied.

  Christine shot him a puzzled look, but she didn’t say anything. It was actually closer to eleven thirty.

  “Good,” the man said. “I won’t miss my lunch date with my wife at noon. Thank you.”

  He gave Ty a sharp nod then walked on.

  “What was that all about?” Christine asked.

  Ty gave her a big grin. He glanced casually around, making sure that no one was within listening distance. “That was a contact of mine. He was just checking in. Seems that he has a big meeting with some demons at noon. Trying to see if we can get the jump on Lars.”

  “Wow,” Christine said, her eyes wide. “I had no idea.”

  “You have your own spy network, right?” Ty asked. He’d never really been in a war before. He wasn’t quite sure how all of that worked.

  “Yeah,” Christine said. “But one of Ozlandia’s people is in charge of it. I don’t have to actually meet with contacts. I don’t have time.” She looked wistful for a moment. “I just have to fight.”

  “You’re doing more than that,” Ty assured her. He wasn’t certain where all this self-doubt was coming from. Was Christine being influenced by demons? He didn’t smell it on her, though he’d have to check again later.

  Christine nodded. Ty didn’t have to see her yawn to know how exhausted she was.

  The war had changed her. Possibly not for the better, making her harder and more cruel.

  They’d just have to see if she could break that spell too, and become someone else.

  They finished their lunch in silence, each contemplating the near future in their own ways—though neither of them had much hope.

  Ty had never been on the Underground Seattle tour before. He’d been down in the sewers for the city—more times than he cared to remember, chasing one demon or another. He’d also gone careening through more than one alley, down fire escapes, over rooftops, and up so many staircases. (Somedays it seemed to him that the whole city was connected by stairs.)

  He’d known about the great fire that had consumed most of the downtown area back in 1889. His people tended to be long lived (silver bullets and holy water not withstanding) so he had one grandfather who remembered the fire, though he’d been young at the time, not even a teenager.

  Human history didn’t much interest Ty, even though he was technically one half human.

  He didn’t perk up until they finally left the outdoor seating area of the bar where they’d gathered and finally approached the stairs to go underground.

  The stairs were modern, of course. Metal and loud as they all trooped down them. Human built. Most of the crowds who passed through here were human as well. It had been a long time since any of the kith and kin had visited, at least as far as his nose could tell.

  Ty took a sigh of relief when the cooler underground air struck his skin. He placed himself directly next to one of the tall black fans that were running. The concrete floors helped hold in the cooler air, as did the all brick walls.

  The guide stepped up onto a wooden platform to address them, giving the history of where they were standing, the building that had originally been there.

  He noticed that Christine wasn’t standing beside him. She wasn’t even paying attention to the guide, but had her back turned to the speaker.

  What was she looking at? He craned his head forward.

  Then the guide gestured to where Christine was standing, explaining the map of the underground that she was perusing.

  That seemed to bring Christine out of her deep study. She started, looked around, then moved to the side so that others could also see the map.

  Only then did she look over at Ty. She gestured with her head that he should join her. He nodded, showing that he understood. Then waited until the guide had finished her spiel and moved onto the next spot before he walked over to the map.

  “Look closely,” Christine said softly.

  Ty looked at the map. It was cartoonish, showing the upper streets of Seattle with the underground original buildings directly underneath.

  Wait. Were those buildings moving?

  He blinked, trying to clear his eyes.

  For a moment, a tall obelisk appeared in the center of the map. It appeared to be made of four pieces, though he couldn’t quite catch the names. Just the bottom, which he thought it said something like “Vern’s Vase.”

  Then the pieces flew apart. In the style of a National Geographic video, each piece secreted itself in a different area of the map, the name of the location flashing briefly.

  He turned to look at Christine, who nodded slowly at him.

  The oracles had said that she needed to assemble the obelisk of truth.

  Looked like it was going to be a treasure hunt.

  At the end of the tour, Christine bought a copy of the map, then led them to a clear area of Pioneer Square where they could unfold it and look at it. A corner of the square had been set up with a two-piece band, a guitar player and a banjo player, singing original songs.

  For a moment, Ty wondered if the main singer actually recognized Christine, given the way his eyes followed her. Ty raised his nose and sniffed. Yup. Guy wasn’t fully human. He had black hair that fell into his eyes, a casual smile, and dark brown skin that spoke of a mixed family.

  But then Christine gasped, and Ty forgot about Toby, the singer.

  The obelisk was no longer in the center of the map that she held. The edges of the map were filled with ads from local stores. The center ad on the right side was a law firm that appeared to use an obelisk for their logo.

  The map wavered again before Ty’s eyes. The words “Vern’s Vase” appeared beside the bottom of the obelisk that was the law firm’s logo.

  “Do you know where the Potichens live?” Christine asked.

  Ty thought for a moment. “Yes,” he said. “They’re a peaceful race. Potters, actually. Their world doesn’t have large land masses. It’s mainly rivers. They collect the red clay from the banks to make their pots.”

  “And vases?” Christine said with a grin.

  “And vases and cups and tiles and everything that they can,” Ty said, nodding. “When do you want to go?”

  Christine blinked, then pulled back from him. It was subtle, but Ty could see it in the way her shoulders straightened, the way she sat up straighter, as if preparing herself for a fight.

  “I’m sorry,” Christine said. “But I think…I don’t think you’re supposed to go with me.”

  Ty shrugged as if the words didn’t sting. He’s actually been looking forward to spending more time with Christine. Why didn’t she want him to go along? Searching for demons was his specialty. He was really good at finding things. Was Christine pissed off because he hadn’t found Lars yet?

  “The piece is labeled as Vern’s Vase,” Christine explained. “I think I’m going to need to take my dad.”

  “Oh,” Ty said. “That, that, actually makes sense.” He looked down briefly, chagrined at his own lack of confidence.

  “I don’t want to put my dad into danger,” Christine said. “He keeps asking what he can do for the war, and I keep putting him off. But it looks like I’m not going to hav
e a choice.”

  “Vern has turned out to be a pretty powerful magician,” Ty pointed out. “Do you want backup? Do you want me to go anyway?”

  Christine considered for a moment. “How about this. Can you set up the portal for us? And if we don’t return after two hours, come to the rescue?”

  “Done,” Ty said. That actually sounded just fine to him. Ty to the rescue.

  “Thanks,” Christine said. She seemed relieved.

  “It’ll be fine,” Ty assured her.

  Christine pressed her lips together in a hard line for a moment before she finally said, “Magic has changed my dad. He doesn’t seem to be the same person that I knew growing up.”

  “You’re not the same person, either,” Ty pointed out.

  “True,” Christine said. She thought for another moment before she shook her head. “Let’s go get my dad,” was all she said.

  Ty nodded, but he heard the unspoken words anyway. He’d heard them often enough from Nik, himself.

  Never trust a human.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Wow. This is kind of groovy,” Vern said, looking around the land of the Potichen in awe. He’d never been to a place like this. Heck, he’d never even imagined such a place.

  First of all, the sky was yellow. Not the comforting yellow of sunflowers or buttercups. Nope, this was the amazing neon-yellow of a child’s plush toy. Vern didn’t get headaches, but he could see himself developing one if he had to spend a lot of time in this place.

  Then there was the earth beneath his feet. While he saw a few dried weeds off in the distance, most of the ground was bare. Which wouldn’t have been bad if the dirt had been a normal brown. Instead, it was all the color of baked red clay. And it smelled like clay too, that wet pottery smell, even though the ground was dry.

  The problem was that the shade of yellow overtop and that shade of red clashed hard enough to set Vern’s teeth on edge.

  Christine must have felt the same way. He could hear a soft growl coming from her.

  A blue river ran a few feet in front of them. At least it was a blue color found in nature, like in the Mediterranean on a sunny day, and not the chlorine blue of a pool. That might have been too much eye-searing color.

  And Vern liked color. He considered himself a colorful kind of guy.

  This was just too much.

  Then there were the beings who inhabited this place, the Potichen, themselves. They were so tiny! The tips of the ears of some of the bigger ones may have come up to Vern’s thigh. Their fur was almost the same color as the sky, that bright yellow, which on them at least looked cuddly. They looked kind of like rabbits, with black-tipped yellow ears sticking out of the top of their heads like antenna, a small pushed-out snout, and large buck teeth that gave them a slight beaverish look. They squatted beside the river bank on their solid hind legs while they worked the clay with their itty bitty fingers.

  What was disturbing was how the clay tinted their fur, making their yellow hands appear blood stained.

  No, that was not the most disturbing thing about the Potichen, Vern quickly discovered. The effect was much worse when they decided to lick their hands clean, staining the fur around their mouths red, making them look like blood-thirsty rabbits.

  Christine continued her soft growl. His daughter was wearing her full troll body—something that Vern rarely saw. She normally wore an amalgamation of troll and human features around the family. She stood her full height beside him, close to eight feet tall.

  She was dressed as a warrior. She had on ring mail, the rings sewn to a blue tunic, her muscled green arms bare. Her brown pants ended just below her knee, but tall black boots protected her shins. On her head, she wore a golden helmet, her tall pointed ears sticking out on the sides, making her look more menacing. Her huge, double-headed ax was still tied to her back, but Vern had the feeling that she could grab it at a moment’s notice.

  He felt positively underdressed for the occasion. It appeared that human magicians, at least the modern ones, didn’t go in for long robes or capes. Honestly, he’d been a little disappointed when he’d learned that. Instead, he wore solid jeans and hiking boots, along with a nice looking, blue-striped button-down shirt.

  What else were you supposed to wear when you went to work? Vern just wasn’t sure. He’d thought about adding a vest, but that hadn’t seemed cool enough. He would need to add something more to his outfit, though. Maybe a hat.

  In his left, non-dominant hand, he did hold his wand. It had taken him a while to find the right one at Nik’s shop. Too many had looked like children’s toys to him, carved out of wood and all knobby, despite the power they may have held.

  No, his wand was sleek, about a foot long, made out of a rod of dark blue resin with gold flecks swirling through the center of it. It didn’t have an obvious tip, but Vern always knew which way to point it.

  “You know what they look like?” Vern said, looking up at Christine.

  “Like anime characters,” she said with a growl. “Particularly with those eyes.”

  Vern didn’t see what was so special about their eyes, until two of them looked up and spotted them. Their eyes grew comically huge, all white with tiny black pupils.

  “When the Potichen are attacked, they generally flee rather than fight. Their magic allows them to disappear at will. See?” she said.

  The two Potichen who had looked up and spotted them popped out of existence simultaneously, then reappeared just a few feet from where Vern and Christine were standing.

  “They are vicious fighters when cornered,” Christine added as the two beings, who appeared to be the greeting committee, approached them. “They also have a nasty electrical shock attack. Don’t piss them off.”

  Vern nodded as he smiled at the two creatures slowly hopping their direction. He could totally handle this.

  As his son was fond of saying, he was born ready.

  “So’s, I was sayin to my brother, here,” Chunali said, continuing his explanation of how they’d founded this small town. “This is our home. Our digs. You got me?”

  “Sure, I got you,” Vern said, nodding earnestly. He felt both bewildered and amused. Particularly since it seemed as though the Potichen had learned English watching B grade movies and “Italian mobster” appeared to be the accent of choice.

  The Potichen’s homes were located in underground warrens, like rabbits. Christine had transformed the pair of them into miniature versions of themselves, though they both were much rounder, something to do with the conservation of mass. The four of them—Christine, Vern, and the two Potichen brothers—sat around a glowing bed of coals sunk into the center of their hosts’ house.

  The two brothers had insisted that they share a meal before they got “to the business of doing business with yas.” The meal had mainly consisted of root vegetables braised in walnut oil and grilled over hot flames. It had been a little weird tasting with mint, cinnamon, and anise seasoning, but still delicious.

  The room they sat in was round, with amazing tile on both the floor as well as the walls. The colors appeared random, yet they were done in a soothing pattern. Vern wasn’t quite sure how they’d managed that. Maybe it was the way the colors flowed into each other, passing from paler versions into brighter colors and back again.

  Now, one of their hosts was telling them of the clashes between the clans (which there appeared to be many) and how it was that they’d come to settle this area of their world, after escaping the heavy hand of the Mosetti brothers, the clan who lived just a couple miles away.

  “It was a good thing you’d come to us,” Kanuli continued, picking up his brother’s story. “We can set you up.”

  “Yeah,” Chunali said. “What he said.”

  They grinned at each other, two rabbits showing their buck teeth and nodding their heads, their ears flopping like the cartoon characters they resembled.

  Vern looked over at Christine, who gave him a firm nod. They’d discussed this before coming here: s
ince it was his vase they were seeking, he should do the talking.

  “We’re on a quest from the oracles,” Vern said when the two Potichen finally stopped mugging for each other and turned to their guests again.

  “Oh, I gots ya,” Chunali said. “Important stuff.”

  “Exactly,” Vern said. “World saving, groovy stuff.”

  Vern could feel Christine practically pull something trying not to roll her eyes, while their hosts both oohed and ahhed at the implications, how their name would be tied to something so important.

  “So whatcha need?” Kanuli said.

  Vern hesitated. “A vase.”

  The two brothers looked at each other. The entire tenor of the room shifted abruptly, growing colder.

  “What kind of vase?” Chunali said, throwing the words out like they were a challenge.

  “I, ah, don’t really know,” Vern said. This had always been the problem. They didn’t have a good idea of what this “vase” looked like, or how it became the base of an obelisk.

  “We’ll know it when we see it,” Christine added.

  “Well,” Kanuli drawled after a moment. “I don’t want to say we gots a problem here. We just might have to come to a different understanding though.”

  “I’m not following you,” Vern said as the two Potichen stared at them.

  “Us? We’re tilers, capiche?” Chunali said. “We make tile. We love tile. We live for tile. We make the most beautiful tile in all the worlds. No one, but no one, can compete with us when it comes to tile.”

  “Okay,” Vern said slowly, still not understanding.

  The brothers heaved a sigh in unison.

  “Them other boys, the ones I was telling you about? The Mosetti brothers? They make vases,” Kanuli finally explained.

  “I see,” Vern said. He glanced over at Christine, who shrugged.

  Then Christine got a sly smile on her face.

  “Wanna go on a raid?” she asked.