The Prodigal Troll

by Charles Coleman Finlay

  Troll-sized boulders trundled through the flood. Maggot wrapped his arms around the trunk and held on tight as several slammed in quick succession into the roots of the tree, shaking it and Maggot to the tip of their limbs before rounding the bend and disappearing downstream.

  Still choking out the water he'd swallowed, he pulled himself up onto a limb that sagged beneath his weight. He leaned there, panting, his face against the rough bark.

  With the passing of the first wall of flood came a steady and bewildering array of debris. Every fallen branch and dead tree in the forest flowed past him. He saw the damp brown body of some animal gone too quickly to identify. It might have been him.

  The tree listed slightly, like a tooth loose in a jaw after being punched, as the water gnawed away the bank that held its roots. Maggot shifted position, preparing to leap to another refuge. He scarcely noticed the uprooted tree flowing swiftly toward him until he heard the voice.

  An arm crooked over the trunk, and a head tilted back just barely above the surface of the water.

  Maggot forgot escape. He clambered quickly out on the branch until it dipped toward the water. It swayed under the burden of his weight, creaking. He'd have maybe one chance to grab the man. He edged out farther, wrapping his legs tightly around the limb and holding on with one arm to hang as low as he possibly could.

  The drifting tree must have been nearly sixty feet long, wider than the river had been before it flooded. It appeared to speed up as it came close, and the nearly submerged ball of roots smashed into the base of Maggot's sanctuary, throwing loose a hail of dirt and stones that splattered in the water. With a loud pop, the branch cracked under his weight, plunging him headfirst into the river.

  He held on tight with his left hand as he fell, hoping for something to keep him afloat, but he bobbed to the surface in the same spot. The branch remained half-attached to the tree.

  The other man's fingertips fell short of Maggot's grasp. Cold water sluiced around him. The current shoved and thrust, pivoting the top of the tree downstream and dragging the root-ball free. Maggot kicked his legs, lunged out a second time, and caught the other man's outstretched hand.

  The tree drifted into the current, pulling the man away. Maggot held on, but his other hand slid down the rain-slicked branch, tearing him from safety.

  The other man struggled to disentangle himself. The tree bucked in the water as it rolled over other debris and shoved both men under. Bark scraped Maggot's side and then the protruding roots buffeted his face, but he held on. The great battering ram finally drifted past, and both men splashed to the surface, their mouths gaping. Maggot still gripped both the branch and the other man.

  A sharp crack shot through the air-the trunk split and the branch jumped out farther into the stream. The force of the water threatened to rip them loose, but the current pushed the branch around, swinging them behind the tree, where they were sheltered from the fury of the flood.

  Maggot shifted his grip to the man's wrist and dragged him forward until he also clutched the branch.

  With his arm around the other man's waist, Maggot pulled them both up the branch with one hand. He could not reach his original perch, but they oscillated near another, and when the current brought them close enough, Maggot reached out and grabbed the new branch and lifted them onto it.

  They hung there, arms over the limb, legs trailing behind them in the water. If the flood uprooted this tree, they'd simply have to float with it or drown. Maggot couldn't get the man-or himself-into another tree.

  "Are you hungry?" he asked, in the manner one troll greeted another.

  The man responded with words that Maggot didn't understand, but Maggot gathered that he was fine. The man looked much like he did-raw red scratches and scrapes covered half his body, mud the rest. His black hair was slick against his head like Maggot's, only much shorter.

  Having rested a few moments, Maggot helped the other man climb out of the water into the vee of the tree. Then he pulled himself up, and they scrunched together back to back, each hugging the branch in front of them. Their small cluster of trees was an island-a submerged island, but still a recognizable landmark-in a broad lake of brown water that appeared to fill the valley from one set of hills to the other. It was hard to tell in the darkness.

  The man spoke again.

  "We'll see our way clear in the morning," Maggot said, thinking morning might comfort a man the way night comforted trolls. The man grunted something that didn't sound comforted.

  The sky drizzled.

  Vague, shadowy shapes slid by, carried by the river out of darkness, briefly to be glimpsed, and then into darkness once again. One of them bleated mournfully and was gone. Maggot watched for other men to rescue, but as it grew darker he couldn't see much farther than the broken branch. It lashed in the vortex of the current like the tail of some agitated creature.

  Sore and drained, Maggot finally locked his hands around the trunk like a child around a mother's neck, and leaned against the rough skin of the tree, closing his eyes.

  A hand tapped his shoulder hard.

  He looked back. The other man mimed falling asleep, leaning his head sideways, eyes closed.

  "I know," Maggot said. "Good idea. We can't do anything else, huh." He leaned against the trunk again.

  The man hit him harder this time, the knuckle hitting a nerve that jerked Maggot awake.

  "Hey!"

  The man mimed sleep again, and then falling off the tree into the water. Maggot thought about explaining that this wouldn't happen, but changed his mind.

  They shared a strange intimacy, crushed together, their backs resting against each other, skin wet and cold. Yet they were able to see each other only by the most difficult contortions. Maggot had never been so long in the presence of another person before.

  He pushed himself up and adjusted his position to face the man as well as he could. "Not much of a cave, is it?"

  Gesturing with one hand, the stranger repeated a phrase several times. Maggot didn't understand, so he stuck out his tongue. The other man laughed, shaking his head from side to side, then spoke the phrase again.

  "No," Maggot murmured, sticking out his tongue.

  The stranger, clearly frustrated, shook his head and enunciated the phrase carefully.

  Maggot shook his head from side to side.

  The man raised his eyebrows. So Maggot raised his. The man shook his head. No. Shaking the head meant no. Maggot didn't know why no. But now he knew no.

  He touched his knuckles right below his mouth, to say, This is what sustains me, and spoke his name. "Maggot," he said.

  "Maw-kit," the stranger answered hesitantly.

  Maggot repeated the gesture. "Maggot, Maggot."

  "Maqwet," the stranger said more carefully.

  "Maggot!" He repeated the gesture emphatically.

  "Maqwet." The stranger put his knuckles in the same place. "Chin," he said.

  "Chin," Maggot repeated.

  "Chin!" The other man smiled broadly.

  "You have a good stink, Chin," Maggot said.

  Now that they knew each other's names, the learning went more quickly. Maggot could make a better variety of sounds, and soon they quit practicing the troll words and spoke only the language of people. He savored each sweet syllable as if it were a berry in his mouth. Hand. Eyes. Water. Tree.

  Those were the words he would use to talk to the woman.

  The broken branch quit lashing in the water. The other man pointed up at the sky. Three, four, many handfuls of stars twinkled through breaks in the clouds.

  Maggot smiled, looked up again, and saw one less star. Dawn already ate them out of the sky. It was a silent morning.

  The waters swirled away like an exhausted fit of temper, transforming the green meadows Maggot recalled into a flat of mud and devastation broken by innumerable pools and unrecognizable debris. High clouds brewed the sky, and carrion birds dropped like dark hailstones to feast among the refuse.

&
nbsp; "We walk," the man Maggot called Chin suggested, and Maggot understood him. It felt like such a triumph.

  "We walk," he agreed.

  Maggot wrapped his arms around the trunk, swung under the branch, dug his toes into the bark, and climbed to the ground. Chin fell. They stood and stretched their stiff limbs.

  The mud sucked at their feet as they waded across the swampy bottoms to the higher, drier hills. Chin lifted his head and thrust out his lips. "Brothers."

  Maggot followed Chin's eyes. Coming toward them, between the trees beside the riverbank, he saw two men with bright red cloth wrapped around their heads.

  "Brothers," he said, relishing the word. He gestured to himself and Chin. "Brothers?"

  Chin looked at him and nodded. "Brothers."

  "We brothers." Maggot quickened his stride to meet the others.

  e is saying what?" Maggot asked.

  In the moons since he had rescued Sinnglas-that was his friend's name, he knew now, not Chin; chin was their word for the food-slipping-in-place-Maggot had made great strides in learning people talk. But the newcomer's accent was just different enough that Maggot could not understand him. Nor did it help that he and Sinnglas sat on the far side of the council, in the place of least favor.

  "Wait." Sinnglas leaned forward. "I'm listening."

  Maggot waited. And listened. Mostly he watched.

  The newcomer was only the latest visitor to come to the council cave of Sinnglas's people. Council lodge, he tried to think the word, though the space, shaped of cut and bent branches, and dark inside, resembled a stuffy cave, especially when crowded by several dozen men and the pungent aroma of their medicine weed.

  Strangers had been coming for weeks to the council lodge, but this newcomer impressed Maggot more than the others. He was older, with shoulders as broad as a troll's and arms as long. His nose bent like a hawk's beak, and he talked through it more than through his mouth, making raspy, indistinct words Maggot could not follow. The newcomer's clothes were less like those of the men around him, and more like those Maggot had seen among the lion-hunting men. He carried many weapons, and two men followed him wherever he went, like a pair of trollbirds.

  Everyone in the council lodge listened to the newcomer with great seriousness, as if he were the sound of dawn.

  They sat cross-legged on the ground, frowning and sighing somberly, while the newcomer droned. Maggot had tried sitting the same way and didn't like it, so he continued to squat troll-fashion on his haunches. It also raised him slightly above the others and made it easier for him to watch their reactions. The newcomer sat in the center at the council's place of honor, beside Damaqua. Damaqua was the First of this band. He was also Sinnglas's brother.

  One of Sinnglas's brothers. The other two sat behind Maggot, at the farthest end of the hall, squeezed back against the wall. Their names were Keekyu and Pisqueto. Their eyes gleamed as happily as the morning they had found their brother Sinnglas safe from the flood.

  The newcomer finished speaking. He unfolded a cloth lying across his lap and raised a broad belt of beads, mostly black and white. Maggot couldn't quite read the picture-it looked like several men hunting an animal.

  Several of the older men shouted, then fell quiet. The newcomer handed the belt to Damaqua. Keekyu and Pisqueto traded half-smiles and nods.

  Sinnglas pretended to relax, but his eyes stayed focused on his older brother. Maggot felt like he had the first time he could remember watching trolls vote on something.

  Damaqua held the belt up, inspected it, then turned it around, lifted it high, and presented it again to all the men gathered in the lodge. Now Maggot saw the picture clearly. Four men hunted a big tooth lion. One of the men had bright red beads atop his head, the color of Damaqua's turban. Damaqua spread the belt on his lap, folded it, and handed it to the silent man who sat on the other side of him. Tanaghri, his advisor.

  Sinnglas didn't like Tanaghri; therefore Maggot hated him.

  Tanaghri held the belt with open distaste. Damaqua stretched out his hands for the pipe, placed the long thin stem to his lips, and puffed meditatively, sending little blue clouds of smoke into the air. The longer he waited before speaking, the more important his words would be. Finally, he laid the pipe upon his lap, leaving his hands upon it, and spoke in his strong clear voice.

  "We are honored," Damaqua said, "to have so famous a First Man as Squandral come among us."

  Maggot didn't understand the mountain range of differences that divided Sinnglas from his brother, but he liked the slow, rolling rhythms of Damaqua's voice. Squandral was the newcomer's name; Maggot taloned on to that.

  "His exploits," Damaqua continued, "are known from the motherwater, River Wyndas, to the northern seas and over the mountains to the ocean. Who else among us besides Squandral has killed giants, has wrestled with the Old Ones, or defeated the invaders in so many battles? He was a friend of my father, when my father was First, and together the two of them turned their paths to peace, forging alliances with the invaders. For many years now we have traded with the invaders and lived peacefully beside them. When a man so renowned in war leads his people away from war, men follow."

  Damaqua puffed on the pipe again. Maggot had understood the words, but only half the meaning. Later he would have to ask Sinnglas the meaning of giants, Old Ones, invaders, war.

  No one else spoke or showed any expression. Damaqua placed the pipe to his lap, and gestured for Tanaghri to leave. The older man placed the belt down. Sunlight and the buzz of insects slipped in when he moved the skin at the door aside. Keekyu and Pisqueto shifted uncomfortably, scowling. But Sinnglas stayed fixed in his position, so Maggot did not move.

  "Now Squandral has come down all the way from the place where three rivers meet to share his counsel with us," Damaqua said. "His words have led not only his own people, but all of our bands since the time of our fathers, and our fathers' fathers. If we are wise, we will listen to his words as young bucks look to the stag to see which way to run."

  The door-flap opened again, and Tanaghri returned with a long bundle wrapped in cloth, which he handed to Damaqua, who said, "These are a sign of our respect for the gift of Squandral's wisdom."

  A murmur of approval here. Damaqua unfolded the bundle and presented the gifts-a blanket of some fabric divided in squares such as Maggot had seen among the hunters; strings of glass beads, glittering like gems; an elegant dagger wrapped in snakeskin.

  Maggot mulled this over. The newcomer, Squandral, gave them a belt; they gave him other items. Not that different from the trolls, he supposed, who shared whatever they had. If you found two bats on the floor of a cave, you gave one to a friend, and she did the same for you. That way everyone always had a bat to eat.

  Sharing was a simple rule among trolls, but with people it was much more complicated. When Maggot had first arrived with Sinnglas, he'd had nothing but the things he carried-his knife, the two lucent stones strung around his neck-and he'd received gifts from many people. Damaqua had presented him with a blanket like the one given to Squandral. One evening Maggot went with Sinnglas and his two brothers into a house to talk to a man-Sinnglas had many people to talk to, all the time-and the old woman there gave Maggot a bowl of hominy. He was tired of carrying the blanket and gave it to her in exchange. Damaqua heard about it and was furious. He ceased speaking to Maggot afterward and no longer invited him to meals. Sinnglas, strangely, was not displeased. So Maggot thought that he had done something right, but he still had no idea what it was.

  Squandral said things through his nose about each gift, but Maggot couldn't understand him or read his expression. He wondered if Squandral would keep his blanket or give it away for something to eat.

  Damaqua puffed on the pipe before he spoke again. "Now the honorable Squandral asks us to put aside all our years of peace like a bad harvest, to set aside our relationships with the invaders like crops ruined by insects. This is a hard thing for us to do. If we thrust aside all our crops, what will we eat and
where will we get the seedcorn to plant when next year comes? Look around us here. What man among us does not carry something taken in trade from the invaders?"

  Maggot had a belt now, a breechcloth that he liked, and a fine hatchet that he kept waiting to find a use for-most of the other men also carried them. He wore no shoes upon his feet nor any of the other adornments preferred by Sinnglas's people, having too many things to carry about already. When he leaned over the shoulders of the other men for a closer look at the gifts, Squandral stared at him. He was a hard man, made of granite. Maggot met his scrutiny without flinching.

  Damaqua continued speaking, emphasizing his words with his hands. "The honorable Squandral says that a time has come for war, that the invaders push into the higher valleys, killing our game and squeezing us against the wall of the mountains. This is true. He says that they move onto our land with no respect for our use of it and build their farms and houses. This is also true. He says that we must rebel against them, as we did thirty years ago when he and my father were young men." He slapped the back of one hand against the other palm. "That if we strike the hand that steals from our plate, it will be less likely to steal from us again."

  His gaze rested on Sinnglas, challenging him.

  "I do not say yes or no to Squandral's proposal," Damaqua said. "Let us have our feast and consult with one another, and then reach our consensus."

  He handed the pipe over to Squandral, who sucked at it like a baby at its mother's breast. Throughout the room, men bent to trade counsel with one another.

  "How will they vote?" Maggot whispered in Sinnglas's ear.

  "We will not be unified in this. Damaqua cannot win a vote for peace, but my followers cannot win the vote for war."

  War. That word he did not yet understand. Sinnglas's language baffled him. It had one word that meant to dig. There was no way to say, as a troll could, to-dig-with-the-fingertips-in-soft-soil, to-probewith-toes-in-dirt, to-scoop-handfuls, to-overturn-with-the-feet, toopen-new-passageways-underground. The words for food and for the finding of it also seemed greatly impoverished to Maggot. And it had words like war that described nothing tangible, nothing he could imagine. Whenever he asked Sinnglas to describe the meaning of war, his friend embarked on a long series of stories about the invaders, their abuses and injustices.