From a High Tower

by Mercedes Lackey

  Because she could set up so quickly, Giselle got in her practice before supper, and afterward had been planning on an extended read in Rosa’s Bruderschaft book. But Rosa had other plans in mind, it seemed, for she rounded up not only Giselle but Captain Cody as soon as dinner was over.

  Giselle followed her when she beckoned, and the two of them caught the Captain just before he left the mess tent. “I wanted you both to see something,” Rosa said, looking mysterious. “Someone. Both, really. He lives not too far away from here.”

  “Someone who’s also something?” Cody said quizzically, tilting his hat back on his head. “Now y’all got my attention.”

  Rosa grinned. Giselle reflected that there was a lot less verbal prodding going on between them, now, which made things much more pleasant all around. During their time in Bad Schoensee, it seemed she had gotten tired of “testing” him—or was satisfied with her results. “Come along, then, it will be worth your while,” she said. “It’s a nice walk, and I promise that there won’t be any Vilis along the way.”

  The Captain mock-shuddered. “Iffen I never see another of them, it’ll be too soon,” he admitted. “But . . . walkin’? Couldn’t we ride?”

  She shook her head. “Not advisable. Where we’re going is fine for walking, but if the poor horse shied or slipped, it would mean a dead horse.”

  He shook his head. “Hang if I know why you people like walkin’ so much, but all right. I’m game.”

  Rosa led the way up the path that led to the spring, shouldering a rucksack that she picked up from her vardo on the way. Light tree cover began right at the edge of the clearing, but it looked as if people camped here regularly, so the path was well trodden and clear. The trees were in full leaf now; they were just into June and proper summer. There were flowers in the meadow, and even things like violets under the trees, and as an Air Master Giselle was acutely sensitive to their delicate perfumes.

  The path itself was not beaten down to hard earth, just flattened grass, which was nice for the feet. Rosa was right, it was a very pleasant walk, and even better, it didn’t get appreciably cooler or damper as the sun dropped behind the mountains. This valley evidently held the sun most of the day, which meant it kept some of the warmth well into the night.

  The spring gurgled out of a cleft in the rock only about a foot off the ground and formed quite a respectable stream. Once they reached the spring, the path traveled alongside the swiftly flowing stream that it fed. The water looked very inviting, and Giselle stopped just long enough to scoop up a handful to drink. She expected it to be cold, but it was just pleasantly cool. The stream descended into a steep gorge, but the path continued along the edge, with the cliff to their left and the upward slope of the mountain to their right.

  I can see why she said no horses. The path was quite narrow: perfectly safe for humans to walk on single-file, but one slip and a horse would have been over the edge of the gorge. Giselle caught glimpses of little Air Elementals flitting through the branches of the trees growing up the slope, watching her with avid curiosity, and to her surprise, also caught sight of small Earth Elementals in the underbrush. The latter paid no attention to her, of course, but she was rather surprised that she could see them at all, since they were trying to remain hidden. Perhaps this was another manifestation of her increased powers?

  At any event, just as the sky overhead began to darken a little as a herald to sunset, they reached a gray stone bridge that spanned the gorge. It looked old, very old. She couldn’t figure out what style it was, who could have built it, and almost as importantly, why they would have done so out here in the middle of nowhere. It was only wide enough for a single person, but it did have low curbs on either side. Ferns grew up all around it, and probably down the side of the gorge as well. Here Rosa halted them.

  “Stand back, and don’t do anything,” she cautioned, and putting two fingers into her mouth gave a peculiar, shrill whistle.

  The sound echoed down into the gorge. A few birds flew up out of it, startled by the noise, but for a moment nothing else happened.

  Then . . . another sound altogether echoed up out of the depths of the gorge. It sounded like . . . rocks scraping together. Giselle cocked her head to one side and glanced over at Rosa. Rosa gazed at the gorge, not at all alarmed, but as if she had been expecting this very thing.

  After a few moments of this, something came up over the edge. It looked like a huge rock . . .

  ...no, it looked like a huge head . . . and she nearly jumped out of her skin as she recognized it from tales and Rosa’s book.

  Holy Mother of God! It’s a troll!

  “Jumpin’ Jesus . . . what the hell?” Cody said, but not terribly loudly, though he had one hand on the pistol he always wore, though what use a little lead slug would be against a troll Giselle could not imagine.

  But Rosa was practically skipping toward the creature, a huge smile on her face.

  Well obviously . . . this is what she wanted us to see.

  “Pieter!” she cried, as the troll heaved the last of his bulk up over the edge of the gorge, and simply stood there, grinning at her. “Pieter, it has been too long!”

  The troll looked like nothing more or less than a statue hewn roughly out of granite, with a little moss for hair. It had a huge bulbous nose, and when it smiled, even its teeth looked like two rows of rocks. It was clothed, more or less, in a shapeless garment that looked as if it had been made out of bark.

  “Greetings, Red Cloak,” the creature rumbled. Its voice sounded like rocks tumbling down a hillside, and yet, somehow, Giselle could understand it. “Pieter has been very, very good. Pieter has not frightened anyone, and Pieter has only eaten goats Pieter got from Pieter’s own flock.”

  “You have been good!” Rosa exclaimed. “Pieter, these are my friends. This is Giselle,” she continued, waving her hand at Giselle. “And this is Cody.”

  “Friends of Red Cloak? Hunters?” the troll asked. He raised his head a little, and stared at them, eyebrow slowly rising.

  “No, not Hunters, but they have Power.” Rosa gestured to the two of them to come closer to the troll. Trusting her friend completely, Giselle stepped right up, close enough to touch the creature. Cody was a little more wary, staying the length of the troll’s arm away. From close up, the troll was . . . somehow less intimidating. She shouldn’t have been able to make out an expression on his rocky face, and yet, she could. It was benign. She would have said, gentle, if she hadn’t been standing underneath a towering form that was at least four times as tall as she was.

  “Remember that I said that you couldn’t always tell if an Elemental was good or bad? Pieter is a case in point. Most trolls are incredibly dangerous. Pieter, on the other hand, has been an ally of the Bruderschaft for centuries.” Rosa patted Pieter’s hand, which lay on the ground beside her and was nearly as big as she was. Pieter’s arms were very much longer than his stubby legs, so as he stood there, his hands were palm-down on the ground.

  “Pieter is old,” Pieter agreed, nodding slowly. “Pieter guards the bridge. Pieter keeps bad things from crossing.”

  “Trolls are traditionally found around bridges, and usually demand a toll of something living to cross it,” Rosa continued. “Pieter, on the other hand, has been a shepherd for as long as I am aware. The Brotherhood brings him goats, or sometimes he buys them when he needs to replenish his herd. When any of us gets into trouble around here, and we’re being chased, we lead our pursuer here, to the bridge, and Pieter usually makes short work of them.”

  “Pieter guards the bridge,” Pieter agreed.

  “Can I touch you?” Giselle asked, fascinated.

  Pieter nodded and made a vague noise; there were no words in it, but the general tenor was that he was fine with being touched. Giselle reached out and touched his hand. It felt exactly like sun-warmed rock. “Are you made of rock?” she asked, looking up into his c
raggy face. He had a nose like an elongated boulder, a split below it for a mouth, and two solid black orbs under overhanging moss-covered juts for eyes. His . . . skin, if you could call it that, was the texture of a water-worn boulder, a bit rough, but not unpleasantly so. Only his eyes were shiny, but despite the fact that they were as black as night, they somehow looked kindly.

  “Yesss,” Pieter said. “All rock. Pieter is tough.”

  “I personally have never seen anything that could take him on in a fight,” said Rosa, and patted his hand again. “He’s figured as a bit of a hero in our histories for a very long time now. I wish there were more like him! Pieter, you will know them again if you smell them, yes?”

  By way of an answer, Pieter raised his head a little and inhaled. Well, “inhaled” was putting it mildly. He sucked in air so hard that her skirt flattened against the back of her legs and Cody’s jacket flapped in the breeze he made.

  Then Pieter stopped inhaling, and let out his breath in a long sigh. She had expected a fetid aroma, given what she had heard about the sanitary habits of trolls, but instead his breath smelled of nothing worse than a damp cave.

  “Yesssss,” he said, looking down at Rosa. “Pieter will know them.”

  “Thank you, Pieter,” she said, and turned back to the two of them. “Now if you run into trouble anywhere near here, just run for Pieter’s bridge. He’ll protect you.”

  “Yesss,” Pieter agreed, nodding. “Pieter go back down now. Goats must go to bed. Then Pieter will listen to the rocks sing.”

  “Thank you for coming up to see us, Pieter. Oh! And I brought you some honey from Bad Schoensee!” Rosa opened the rucksack she had carried all this way and brought out an enormous brown pot with a waxed stopper. “Here you are!” she said, giving it to the troll as Pieter reached carefully for it.

  “Red Cloak good,” Pieter said, somehow getting an expression of glee on his rocky face. “Red Cloak never forgets what Pieter likes. Pieter thanks Red Cloak.”

  “You deserve it, Pieter,” Rosa replied warmly. “Good night!”

  “Good night, Red Cloak, Yellow-hair, and Hat Man,” said Pieter, and then, carefully cradling the enormous jar of honey in one hand, he began climbing back down into the gorge. Within a few moments he was gone. From the bottom, they could hear . . . well, if rocks could hum, that would be the sound of it. Something like gravel falling, but somehow holding a tune in it.

  “Hat Man?” said Cody, as they turned to go back to the encampment. “Hat Man?”

  “I never know what he’s going to decide to call people,” Rosa chuckled. “I think he’s never seen a hat like yours before.” Cody was wearing his white, broad-brimmed hat as usual, so Giselle could understand why Pieter had taken that as the mark of his individuality. “The first time I ever saw him, I was wearing the red cloak that my mother made for me, so that became my name, so far as he was concerned. He calls Hunt Master Gunther ‘Face-Moss,’ so I think you got off lucky, Master Lee.”

  “Reckon I did, at that,” Cody chuckled. “So . . . trolls is generally bad?”

  “Almost always,” said Giselle, before Rosa could answer. “There are all manner of children’s stories about them, and they generally end with someone getting eaten.” She glanced over at Rosa. “I thought that daylight turned them to actual stone, though.”

  “It does. Sunlight never falls in that gorge,” Rosa pointed out. “Pieter knows every inch of it, and every place where it might be dangerous for him to venture. So if you are ever pursued by a troll, you should do your best to get somewhere that sunlight will fall.”

  “I’ll keep thet in mind,” Cody responded, “Though I’ve no intention of kickin’ up a troll!”

  “Stay out of caves, then,” Rosa and Giselle said at the same time, looked at each other, and laughed.

  “Trolls sometimes guard treasure,” Rosa elaborated. “Pieter almost certainly has some. It’s not that hard for a troll to get, even without ambushing travelers. People have accidents upstream and their bodies get washed downstream. When that happens, Pieter is not in the least squeamish about picking over the bodies.” She shrugged. “At least he doesn’t eat them. He’s a troll, and it’s remarkable enough that he considers any human beings at all as friends. You can’t expect him to act as if the bodies of dead strangers mean anything to him.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t,” Giselle agreed, just as they reached the spring and the start of the broader trail that would lead back down to the encampment. “The only thing I am not surprised by is how long he has considered himself to be an ally of the Bruderschaft, since he seems to be a very good creature, and probably has been from the time he was . . . well however trolls are made. Trolls live a very long time, I believe.”

  “Very. Really, I have never heard of one dying of old age.” Rosa looked back at the dark gorge behind them. “I’ve asked him how long he’s been our friend, and how he came to be our friend, but he only looked confused. I don’t think he understood the question, because I don’t think he understands the passing of time in the way that we do.”

  It was deep twilight on the trail now, but Giselle did something she had only just learned how to do: she gathered Air Magic, made it visibly glow like a lantern, and set it to float above Rosa’s head. She did the same for herself and Cody, and was rewarded by their nods of thanks. With the help of those lights, it was possible to see the trail quite clearly.

  “Well, whatcha think happened?” Cody asked shrewdly. “Miz Rosa, I been around you long enough t’know there’s likely one good notion, and prolly three or four buzzin’ round that head of your’n.”

  Rosa laughed. “You are right, and I do have an idea,” she said. “I think that when he was a very young troll, he must have encountered a proper Earth Master before he got a chance to learn to prey on people. I think that Earth Master found him this gorge, protected him, taught him how to be a shepherd, and got him his first flock. By treating him well, and respectfully, Pieter became a friend, which is how Giselle and I treat our Elementals.”

  “A’course, that there Earth Master got hisself some mighty fine protection thataway,” Cody pointed out.

  “Of course,” Rosa agreed. “Nothing is ever one-sided. I think that long-ago Earth Master recognized what a good bargain it would be for both of them. But trolls do not generally understand the concept of bargains, so he made the arrangements without mentioning anything of the sort, and only when Pieter grew in understanding did he introduce such things to him. Now, of course, Pieter understands such things very well; he bargains with us for the few things that he needs, and considers himself well paid for his protection with what we bring him. He recognizes us at once, even if he doesn’t quite grasp how time passes for the rest of us. He’s shown great sorrow and some confusion when we’ve told him someone he knew long ago is dead.”

  “He understands death?” Giselle asked, then shook her head. “Of course he does, if he has a flock of goats and eats some, and sees dead bodies in the stream.”

  “He has quite a sophisticated concept of death,” Rosa replied. “I have been down in that gorge, and near his cave he has . . . well I would call it a memorial garden, made with stones with the names of people he has learned are dead on them, all planted with ferns and mosses. Sometimes he just sits there and contemplates them.”

  “Really!” Giselle found herself touched. She would never, ever have expected that sort of behavior out of a troll, of all things.

  The encampment was in sight now, and just as well, because twilight had truly fallen, and the lights and campfires were welcome sights ahead.

  “One day, when I am not being run from pillar to post by my duties, I intend to come here and sit down with Pieter for several days and write down his history,” Rosa continued. “He might not understand the passage of time, but there is nothing at all wrong with his memory. And he might not remember peoples’ proper names, but he never fo
rgets what he calls them. I think that by starting with me and going backward, I can figure out how long he has been there. And I can certainly get the tale of his earliest recollections out of him. After that I can at least match the rather descriptive names he calls people with the records of the Brotherhood.”

  “That’ll make for a hell of a yarn,” Cody agreed, as they reached the edge of the encampment. “Jest a damn shame nobody’ll ever read it but yer Brotherhood.”

  “Yes,” Rosa agreed wistfully. “It is.”

  Todtnau was a slightly smaller town than Bad Schoensee, and although it did have a lovely waterfall, it lacked the lake, and so it was not as much of a spa destination. Still, they were able to support a run of four days, and even better, because Kellermann had made sure the show was there over a market weekend, the cost of supplies was cheaper than it had been in Bad Schoensee. Kellermann had counted on this, and made some very shrewd bargains while they were there. The Americans did like their meat, and sausages and hams would keep in the warmer weather better than anything other than salt beef.

  Kellermann called the foremost of the members of the show together after the last show in Bad Schoensee. He had a map spread out on the table. “I wanted to show you all this, so there would be no rumors that I was leading you around in circles,” he said, looking at each of them in turn. “Look, there is Bad Schoensee,” he said, pointing. “And here is Todtnau. Now, here was my problem. We could have gone this way, up to Freiburg, which is a city and we probably could stay for two weeks or more. But it is a long way, and only one village on the way, so there would be no way of earning much money on the road there. So I rejected that.”

  Everyone nodded, including Giselle.

  “Or, I could see that we could backtrack a little bit, and take this route to Neustadt. It’s longer, and circuitous, but there are seven towns on the way, and we can stop and do at least two days in each. It won’t be a lot of money, but we also don’t have to do the full show, just the main tent, so there won’t be as much to set up. So that is what I arranged.” His finger traced more of their route. “From there, we go to Donnau-Eschingen, then back this way to Freiburg with a great many shows on the way, and from there I can arrange things farther north, all the way up to Strasbourg and Baden-Baden. We can have at least three weeks in Freiburg, I think, which will give me plenty of time to arrange more bookings.”