by Sarah Rayne
But then the first, who appeared to be some kind of leader, said, ‘At any rate, we’ll bring it to the cave, chaps. And then we’ll see whether it’s worth filleting. It’s a long job, filleting a Human, and it’s not one as you’d want to undertake lightly.’ ‘We’ll light the fire and we’ll take a look,’ said another, nodding; and he reached out to the nearest of the stakes that lit the Tanning Pit, plucking a burning gobbet of flesh. ‘Bring it up then, chaps. It’ll squirm and be off into the night if we don’t watch it. They’re cunning, Humans. I knows all about Humans.’ The Troll leered rather horribly at Maelduin, and tapped the side of its lumpish nose in a knowledgeable gesture.
‘Bring a bit of meat from the stakes while we’re about it,’ said the leader. ‘Just a bit, mind.’ He turned to watch as two of them reached up to the partly charred bodies. ‘Be sure there’s enough left to burn through tomorrow’s daylight.’
‘Leg bones here,’ said one, producing one of the sharp knives.
‘And good meaty flesh over here,’ said the other. ‘We’ll have us a bit of supper out of this.’
‘Leave enough for tomorrow’s light,’ said the leader again, and the Trolls glared at him.
‘We knows there’s got to be enough to burn,’ said the nearest. ‘We knows as there’s got to be enough to burn all night and all day,’ it added, and Maelduin, listening with every fibre of his being, thought: then they are unable to replenish the torches during daylight.
The Trolls lumbered back carrying their grisly feast carefully, distributing gobbets of partly cooked meat, the hot fat running down over their hands and darkening the thick, matted fur.
‘Plenty for all,’ said one, grinning. ‘And maybe more to come when this one’s cooked.’ He eyed Maelduin greedily.
For the moment Maelduin could see no escape. The Cadence was within his grasp, but to study it, to search it, to find a spell that would help him, he would have to concentrate. He could not do so here, like this. For the moment he must let the Trolls take him, and hope to outwit them by some ordinary Humanish means. But as they half dragged, half carried him around the edges of the fearsome Pit, their horrid, greasy-fur, stale-food stench in his nostrils, he felt fear uncoil again, and knew himself in the grip of the one Humanish emotion he had thought he could avoid. Fear: one of the destructive ones …
The Trolls were carrying him to their cave. As they moved, they held aloft the burning torch of flesh they had taken from the stake. The light fell eerily across the ground, red and flickering, casting huge, lumbering Troll-shadows.
The cave was set part-way into one of the rearing black columns. Maelduin looked up and saw that the red glow of the setting sun was no longer filtering through the single eyelet near the top of the column. Night, black and thick with malevolence, closed about the desolate Moher Cliffs, and the ocean lashed against the rocks far below.
The Trolls threw their prisoner on to the ground at the back of the cave. Maelduin lay motionless, letting the Trolls believe him to be subdued. But he studied the cave through half-closed eyes, seeing that it had a hard earth floor scattered with bones — some brittle and sapless, as if they might have been sucked dry — and coarse hanks of hair. There was a tiny pile of glinting gold coins, spilling out of a drawstring canvas bag in one corner, and in another he glimpsed a cache of silver chalices and goblets. So they were venal, these great, misshapen beings, were they? Could he in some way bargain with them for his freedom?
The Trolls had set light to a bundle of kindling lying ready in the cave’s mouth. They cast the grisly torch from the Pit’s edge into the centre, and at once flames, scarlet and yellow, burned up, crackling and spitting. A greasy stench rose on the air, and Maelduin thought: Humanish fat! They will have no compunction about roasting me, or impaling me to add light to the Tanning Pit. What did they say earlier? Something about keeping it properly lit. Are they in some kind of bondage to the Dark Realm to do so, I wonder? And surely I did not imagine their fear of daylight. He glanced up at the sky, and saw that the moon had risen, and that dark clouds scudded across the sky behind it. The night had only just begun. He turned his attention back to the Trolls, who had seated themselves round the fire at the cave’s mouth, avidly devouring the hunks of half-charred Human flesh brought from the Pit, tearing gobbets of flesh with their claws and gnawing at the bones.
‘Over-cooked,’ said the leader, grease dribbling down over his chin. ‘You don’t want to over-cook ManFlesh. It gives you wind.’
‘I likes it over-cooked,’ said another, sucking the end of a protruding thigh bone from his portion.
‘Dries the juices,’ said a third. ‘Where’s the swipes? Nothing like a mug of swipes to wash down over-cooked ManFlesh.’
‘I can’t abide it over-cooked,’ said the leader, reaching out a great paw and lifting a massive wineskin. He drank deeply, wiping his lips on the back of his hand, and then belched loudly, his mouth open, so that the warm, half-digested stench of cooked meat gusted nauseatingly into Maelduin’s face.
The Trolls finished their supper, and flung the gnawed bones and pieces of gristle into the fire’s depths. The leader stirred the fire, and the others leaned forward, wiping their paws on the front of their leather aprons, and then resting their great heavy chins moodily on their hands.
‘Now,’ said the leader with the air of one preparing to make a decision, ‘what’ll us do with it?’
Maelduin was half in and half out of the flickering firelight. The Trolls were suddenly not quite so stupid-looking: their meaty faces held a sly intelligence, and there was a glinting cunning in the little eyes.
‘I says mince it,’ repeated the Troll who liked minced Human. ‘It’ll go much farther. There’ll be a taste for everyone.’
‘If we adds a bit of the roast meat from the torches at the Pit, it’d go even further,’ agreed another. ‘There was plenty left. If we takes a morsel from each of them it wouldn’t harm the light.’
‘But the light’s a bit dim,’ said the one next to him. ‘And we’re here to keep it burning.’
‘We ought to use this one for light,’ said the leader uneasily, looking across at the torches around the Pit. ‘They’re burning very low, those Humans. Flimsy things they were. That light’ll never last through tomorrow’s daylight.’ He picked his teeth with one claw, glowering.
‘Let’s take this one to the Pit and see what light it’d give,’ suggested another. ‘Then if we decides to eat it, we can say as we considered using it as light. We can say as we thought about it, but it didn’t burn.’ He grinned knowingly at the others. ‘That’d sound loyal,’ he said. ‘It’d be in keeping with the bargain. ‘
This was thought a good idea. The Trolls nodded to one another, pleased, and two of them lumbered over to where Maelduin lay.
‘Off to the fire with it,’ they said. ‘See if it’ll light the Pit and the Gristlens, and if it won’t, why, then we’ll have it for ourselves.’ They stood looking down at Maelduin, their paws resting on their hips, grinning.
‘I says we ought to have it for ourselves anyway. It was us as caught it, wasn’t it?’
‘It was that. But the light’s got to burn without ever going out. That’s his orders — Chaos’s.’
Maelduin had become very still. As the Trolls bent over, he felt the nauseating, grease-tainted stench of them close about him, and saw the blood-heavy faces loom closer. Two of them lifted him and carried him out of the cave, towards the torchlit Pit, and Maelduin, his stomach churning from the stench of them, fought to remain calm. Their bristly paws scratched his skin and tore his flesh, and pain — Humanish pain — lacerated him.
But when they set him on the ground and stood before him grinning, he said, very coolly, ‘I see from the possessions in your cave that you are fond of silver and gold.’
The Trolls looked at one another, and then the leader said, suspiciously, ‘What if we are?’
Maelduin said, softly, ‘I could pay you well for my freedom.’
&nb
sp; ‘O-ho,’ said the Trolls, digging one another in the ribs. ‘O-ho, here’s one as likes to bargain.’
‘We knows about bargains,’ said the leader, cunningly. ‘We made a good bargain with the Lord of Chaos, we did.’ He hooked his meaty thumbs in the bib of his apron and rocked knowingly on his huge feet.
Maelduin seated himself cross-legged on the ground, the livid torchlights of the great Pit behind him, and felt the Cadence swirl silver-gilt on the outskirts of his mind. His mind was working furiously and he was horridly aware that physically he was no match for these creatures. They would overpower him before he could summon the Cadence. Could he keep them talking? How many hours until dawn?
He was barely aware of the Humanish cloak and the cumbersome Humanish bones; for the moment he was all sidh, cold-blooded and merciless and filled with the unearthly allure of his people.
Cool, strong power flooded his mind, and if it was not quite the incisive, sea-sorcerous essence of Tiarna, it was sufficiently akin to it to be of use.
And I must make it of use! he thought angrily.
He fixed the Troll leader with his eyes, and said in a soft, caressing voice, Tell me about the bargain you made with the Lord of Chaos.’
*
The Trolls seemed not averse to telling their story. The leader said, warningly they were not to be fooled; Maelduin was to understand that. There was to be no sneaking away under cover of some kind of story-spinning.
‘But we likes to tell a story,’ he added. ‘We’re good at telling stories.’
‘We’re known for it,’ added another.
‘This ain’t a trap, is it?’ demanded a third suddenly, and Maelduin said at once, ‘I do not try to trap you. But if you will tell me a little of yourselves, in turn I will tell you of my own world.’ He fixed them with his narrow eyes. ‘You do not know what I am?’ he said softly. ‘No, I see you do not. But you must believe that, if you tell the Lord of Chaos how you have caught the Crown Prince of the sidh, he will be extremely pleased with you. Your standing would be vastly increased with him.’
‘A sidh, are you?’ said the Trolls, and rubbed their paws together, pleased. ‘And the Crown Prince. We’d like to hear about that.’
‘We’d like our standing increased.’
‘I will tell you with pleasure,’ said Maelduin. ‘But in return you must first tell me of your world and of how you come to be here. It is the age-old law,’ he said, lowering his voice to a soft, persuasive allure. ‘A story for a story. And I should not wish to offend against that law.’
The Trolls said at once that they knew all about that. ‘We don’t offend against age-old laws,’ said the leader, looking very wise.
‘And we’d like to hear about a sidh,’ put in another, greedily.
‘He’d like to know as well — Chaos.’
‘We’d like to burn a sidh,’ added one, smiling horridly to show its teeth, wet and shiny with greed.
‘But you ain’t to try to escape,’ repeated the leader, thrusting his huge lumpen face close to Maelduin’s. ‘There’s to be no sneaking away into the darkness.’
‘We’d catch you if you did,’ said a second. ‘And we’d make you pay for it.’
‘There’s games can be played with Humans.’
‘I understand,’ said Maelduin, his heart pounding, but still using the silvery, persuasive voice that his father had sometimes used when dealing with Humanish travellers; hearing with sudden joy that deep within it was a faint, sweet echo of the sidh’s music itself. So, after all, something of it lingers. And although it was not the music, there was a thread, a vein of its essence. Not good, but better than nothing.
He sat perfectly still on the ground, cross-legged and straight-backed, his hands resting lightly on the insides of his thighs. The glow from the Pit fell about him like a crimson-tinged mantle, turning his hair to molten gold. His eyes were thin, glittering slits of colour. The Trolls watched him uneasily, but when he said again, Tell me of your Guardianship of the Pit,’ they glanced at one another and then nodded and seated themselves on the ground in a half circle around him. As the leader began to speak, over their heads, the moon rose to its zenith.
Dawn was many hours away.
*
It was important to keep holding on to the tenuous reins of the perilously frail bewitchment that held the Trolls. Maelduin knew that, if his concentration slipped, even for a second, the Trolls would look up and look round and the thin spell would shatter.
But for the moment I have them! he thought exultantly. For the moment they are thinking only of talking to me. He sent a covert glance to the skies. How much time had passed? He thought it must be several hours, although his perceptions of the Humanish methods of measuring time were still uncertain.
As a sidh he would have held the Trolls until dawn with ease. He would have scooped up his people’s music and thrown out twining, blue-green threads to entrap the creatures. He could have surrounded the Trolls with any number of different sorcerous chains, and escaped into the night with supreme ease.
But as a Humanish he must rely almost solely on his wits. His body, the pale-cloaked, ivory-boned, Humanish body, was already feeling the strain. His legs were beginning to ache from sitting absolutely still, and his mind was tiring too. To his left, the Fisher Prince moved uneasily inside the Silver Cage, but Maelduin dared spare it no attention. He heard it make one of its circling movements, and there was a light, scraping sound as it explored the confines of its prison again, before curling back into a corner of the cage.
The Trolls were telling the story of their Guardianship of the Pit, pouring it out, interrupting one another like ill-mannered children, telling the tale clumsily and inarticulately. Maelduin, his mind concentrating on keeping the light fragile threads spun from the music’s echoes, caught a jumble of facts.
It seemed that there had been some kind of encounter with Chaos himself, followed by meetings with Chaos’s henchmen.
‘Because you don’t do these things in the flick of a bat’s wing,’ said the leader, solemnly. ‘Us knew that.’
‘Of course not.’
‘The Guardianship of the Pit,’ said the leader, staring at Maelduin from his small, mean eyes, ‘that’s what we was given. And an honour it was to be chosen,’ he said, his eyes fixed on the slight figure silhouetted against the Pit’s fiery light.
Maelduin did not move but, as the Troll spoke, his eyes flicked to the sky. No thread of light broke the blackness, and a tiny wind ruffled the surface of the ground, stirring the dry, fetid scents of the Pit. I am not sure if I can do this, he thought in sudden panic.
The Troll was explaining how they had talked with Chaos, trying in a clumsy, childlike way to make it sound as if Chaos had sought them out and beseeched them to help him. But the one who liked minced Human was contradicting him loudly.
‘We was captured,’ it said, leaning forward and pushing aside the leader. ‘Captured and given a choice: the Lord of Chaos’s nasty Castle or the guarding of the Pit.’ Its little eyes glowed redly. ‘And we all know what’s done to them as gets imprisoned in the Castle of Infinity!’ it added slyly. ‘Worked on. Bred on to unnatural creatures.’ It slid a hand between its huge, greasy thighs and rubbed itself suggestively with a finger and thumb, grinning. ‘Your juices taken from you and fed to Goblins and Giants,’ it said.
‘Fed while they’re still warm,’ added another.
‘Mixed with snakes and rats and worms,’ said a third, shuddering.
Maelduin was dizzy with the effort of forcing the Trolls to talk, but at these words his mind sharpened. ‘That is what Chaos does?’ he said. ‘Inter-breeding between species?’
‘He don’t call it that,’ said the Troll. ‘He gives it a long name — necromantic race-breeding, or some such. Us don’t bother with it.’ He leaned forward and jabbed a horny finger at Maelduin. ‘But when we was caught by Chaos’s servants — yes we was, Lumpkin, no point in making it sound otherways — when we was caught, we was given
a choice. Have your juices taken from you or guard the Pit. And I ain’t letting no necromancers take my juices,’ said the Troll aggrievedly.
‘Unnatural,’ said Lumpkin.
‘Painful, I heard.’
‘I heard they do it with hollow needles until you’re sucked dry.’
‘I heard that as well.’
‘So,’ said Maelduin, keeping his voice deliberately low and caressing, ‘so you chose the Guardianship of the Pit. That was a very good bargain indeed, I think.’
The Trolls looked wise. ‘Trolls don’t make bad bargains,’ said Lumpkin. ‘People thinks Trolls’re stupid, but we knows what we knows.’ It made the familiar gesture of tapping the side of its nose. ‘The guarding of the Pit and the patrolling of the Moher Gate,’ it said. ‘That’s what we was given. There was no Guardian, see, on account of the Black Monk having offending Chaos.’ He shook his head. ‘Reckless, that. Nobody offends Chaos and lives to walk free.’
‘The Black Monk had the guarding of the Pit and the Moher Gateway,’ explained one of the others, eager to add his mite to the story.
‘For years it was —’
‘He thought he could challenge Chaos and win.’ The Troll shook its head sadly.
‘And so we agreed as we’d do it,’ went on Lumpkin. ‘And it’s an important task.’
‘Chaos couldn’t do without us,’ put in another.
‘Even if he didn’t get our juices,’ said the one who had told about Chaos’s necromantic race-breeding.
The Trolls leered. ‘We keeps our juices to ourselves,’ they said, nodding their misshapen heads.
Maelduin stole another glance at the sky. Was there the faintest lightening, over to the east? He was beginning to doubt his ability to keep the Trolls’ attention for much longer; his mind was becoming blurred and his muscles were locking into painful, cramping agony.
But I must! Only a very little longer! They must be kept here until the sun rises!
Help came from an unexpected quarter. Just as he thought he must give in to the waves of sick exhaustion, he felt a ripple of strength, and something cold and bloodless and ancient lay across his mind, bolstering it up, pouring cool sea-sorcery into it. He thought: the Fisher Prince! and glanced at the Silver Cage.