Mellinda glowered silently. Arcon couldn’t read her mind and had no control over his former body, but he did feel everything she felt and saw everything she saw. There was nothing she could do to hide her feelings from him. He had come to know her too well.
“What are you afraid of, Mellinda? Start speaking to me or I’ll start coming up with more inane lists,” he said tauntingly. “Or better yet, I could torture you with the horrible jokes that the Mage School professors used to come up with.”
Sighing, she finally replied, Must you try and guess my every thought?
“What else am I to do?” he asked. “Go for a run?”
She let out a snort. I have nothing to be fearful about.
This was certainly true. At the moment, things were going quite well for her. With the Troll King gone missing, her influence over the Trollkin had been increasing. Hundreds of new trollkin were being born every day and hers was the first face they saw. Her healing touch was the first joyful thing they experienced.
“I am not wrong,” Arcon insisted. “What haunts you?”
It is nothing. Just a feeling. The unease she felt was hard to explain. She had woken with it this morning. It was a sensation that she could not shake. A great sense of loss. It was as if she had been gravely wounded; lost an arm or an eye, and yet there was nothing wrong with her that she could tell.
“Have you had a premonition?” he pressed.
Nonsense, she replied. She used to have premonitions. Mellinda remembered that from days past before the Dark Bowl; back when she had still been a bonding wizardess. She’d had dreams then. Glorious dreams that had shown her future events. I haven’t had one of those since the Bowl rejected me.
As soon as the thought passed through her mind Mellinda realized that this feeling was something akin to the feeling she’d had that day. She had been in the Dark Prophet’s palace and the Bowl’s rejection had awakened her in the night. She’d felt an awful pain in her left hand as the rune in her palm split in half, causing a wound that took weeks to scar over, even with magical aid. But that pain had been minor compared to the empty sense of loss that had accompanied it . . .
“What is this?” shouted an outraged voice.
Mellinda turned in the chair to see a trollkin approaching from the direction of the Axis Palace, its pyramidal structure rising above the trees behind her. Mellinda’s lip curled as she saw it was Murtha, the Troll King’s part-dwarf assistant.
When the king had disappeared on the way back from the Mother’s triumphant feast, Murtha had been fearful of his demise and suspicious that Mellinda had something to do with it. Only the First’s assurances that the Mother knew he lived had calmed her.
Since then, the female had been a thorn in Mellinda’s side, opposing her at every opportunity. It wouldn’t have mattered except that she was respected in the community and so far Mellinda had been unable to gain any ground with her. The part dwarf was one of the few trollkin that rejected Mellinda’s offers of healing.
Mellinda coolly turned back around and faced the still waters. She hadn’t expected to see Murtha here. The part-dwarf had rarely come to Solitude without the king. Working on the Mother’s newly birthed children seemed to be the one responsibility Murtha believed Mellinda was worthy of handling.
Murtha snarled at Mellinda’s casual dismissal. “Sacrilege! Get out of the Lone Chair, Snake-k Woman!”
“What are you going to do about this?” Arcon wondered. The mage had long been an advocate of arranging some sort of accidental death for the part-dwarf.
Mellinda glanced at one of her supporters. His name was Felberon, a tall and powerful specimen with the ears and tail of a dog. He was watching Murtha’s advance but not acting. Felberon wasn’t the smartest of her followers, but he was eager to do her bidding. One of her fingers writhed bonelessly as she sent threads of air and fire magic to jolt him into action.
Felberon grunted as he felt a fiery lash across his backside. He glanced at Mellinda, then strode forward to meet Murtha. “You are the one making a sacrilege, Murtha!” he said loudly. “When someone sits in the Lone Chair it is supposed to be quiet. This is a holy place!”
“A holy place,” echoed many of the others.
Murtha came to a stop before Felberon and looked up into the human-like face that Mellinda had perfectly sculpted. At six-feet-tall Murtha was short for a trollkin, but she was wider at the shoulders than Felberon and even more thickly muscled. She sneered up at him, her face disfigured with a slanting jaw and a mouth full of rows of jagged teeth. “The Lone Chair is holy when the K-King sits in it. She is just a snake-k!”
“You certain you don’t want to kill her?” Arcon asked. Mellinda was asking herself the same question.
“Mellinda is no snake!” Felberon growled. “She heals us! She does the Mother’s b-!”
Murtha elbowed Felberon aside and strode to the side of the chair, leaning threateningly close to Mellinda. “Get out of the K-King’s chair!”
“Step back or I will flay the flesh from your bones!” Mellinda warned, her voice boosted by magic. She had been holding back, but it was time she herself said the things that her servants had been whispering among the people. “The King is gone! And while he has deserted you all, I have remained. I am the one doing the Mother’s will! I am the one building her army. You must look to me for-!”
“You lie!” Murtha interrupted, her voice triumphant. “He has returned!”
Mellinda stood and turned to face the part-dwarf. Anger overcoming her, she raised her arms fully ready to use the power of the rings to torture Murtha into submission . . . and froze, her eyes falling on the tall figure making his own approach from the palace.
The Troll King came forward with purposeful strides. Whatever the reason for his weeks long absence, he looked very much the same as he had when she had last seen him; half handsome man, half troll. A bit thinner perhaps, but that was not what drew her eye. Slung across his shoulders was a wooden bow and clenched in his human hand was a quarterstaff as long as he was tall. Both were made of Jharro wood.
“He’s never carried weapons before,” Arcon observed. “This can’t be good for us. Can it?”
She didn’t know what this development meant. Somehow he had come across dead wood, though she was uncertain where he had found it. Perhaps he had returned to the scene of the Mother’s feast?
Mellinda stepped quickly away from the Lone Chair and forced a look of pleasure onto her face. “My king! You have returned to us! We have all been worried.”
The king spared her barely a glance. He walked past her and stood at the bank of the lake. He aimed a pensive gaze at the still waters.
“K-king! It was as I told you! The snake-k was in your chair!” Murtha said eagerly.
Mellinda raised a cool eyebrow. “I meant no offense, my king. I merely rested there while waiting for the Mother’s womb to rise.”
He glanced back at her. “You sat there to show dominance. No doubt you have been building your base of power while I was absent.” He looked back into the depths of the lake and the mound of the Mother’s womb just visible under the surface.
Mellinda was taken aback by both the directness of his statement as well as the lack of venom in it. She did not let herself be ruffled, though. “I have no want for power. I merely did my best to serve the Mother’s interests while you were gone. There have been many births. More than a thousand new trollkin in the last week alone.”
“More than a thousand who know only you and have not met their king,” he said and before she could reply, he pointed his staff at her. “Go. I must speak with the Mother.”
“But she will birth any minute. You will need my magic to fix those who-.”
“I said go,” said the Troll King no louder than before. To Mellinda’s astonishment, the end of his staff formed a spear-like point.
“Yeah. This is bad.” Arcon observed.
Mellinda gave him a deep curtsey. “If that is your wish I will do so my king. I
shall be at the Old Hospital if you should need me.”
“If he should decide to try and kill us, you mean,” Arcon observed.
It won’t come to that, Mellinda replied as she walked away from the bank and towards the path leading to Khanzaroo proper.
Several of her followers made as if to accompany her, but she shook her head and gestured for them to stay. She would need a detailed retelling of what happened while she was gone.
“How can you be so certain? Everything he accused you of was true.”
The king is too practical for that, she replied, pointedly not looking back as she headed down the pathway. . I have made myself far too useful for him to cast away. Besides, I have the Mother’s backing and he won’t go against his goddess.
“Perhaps,” Arcon said, his tone doubtful. “I am not so certain. What if he believes you mean his people harm? Murtha will be doing her best to convince him of that.”
I have a plan in place to change her mind, she reminded him. The mental snort she heard in return told her how little he thought of her plan. That just showed how little the Mage understood female vanity. And if that plan doesn’t work, I have a few ways of making sure she disappears.
That last bit seemed to alloy Arcon’s fears for the moment, but the Troll King’s part-dwarf assistant was the least of Mellinda’s worries. Her thoughts were bent on the staff that had changed shape in the Troll King’s hand, a thing that should not have been possible.
“Did you see that?” Murtha said. “The way the c-cullers looked to her?”
Xeldryn raised his hand, dismissing Mellinda from his mind. He would have to deal with her later. “I must speak with the Mother.”
She found his lack of concern bewildering. “But about what, K-King? Where were you all this time? And how did you make that wood change like that?”
This wasn’t the first time she had plied him with questions like these. Murtha had been one of the first trollkin to find him when he had entered the city. The part-dwarf had been quite confused when his first act upon arriving had been to organize an expedition to retrieve weapons and equipment from the Mother’s midden.
“I will answer your questions later, Murtha,” he promised. “I have much to say to all our people. But first I must see if I can dissuade the Mother from this war.”
Murtha’s jaw dropped. “Dissuade the Mother?”
Xeldryn winced at her response. Questioning their goddess was blasphemy, something he wouldn’t allow from other members of his people. Shaking his head, he turned to the lake and went down on one knee at the water’s edge. Only to meet the unexpected gaze of the First who had emerged from the water before him.
The First had an odd tendency to make sudden appearances from the water. Swimming seemed to be his favorite form of travel. In fact, Xeldryn had never seen him walk any long distance. He would always disappear into the water in one place and appear in another. Often the King had wondered if the Mother had gifted the First with gills.
“You have returned, my King,” said the First with a smile and Xeldryn moved aside slightly to allow the lanky trollkin to climb upon the shore. He didn’t seem surprised that Mellinda was absent from the shoreline, though his smile faded slightly when his eyes rested on the Jharro staff clenched in the king’s right hand. “The Mother is ready to birth. She has an exceedingly great number of children for us today.”
Xeldryn frowned. That would take a long time and he did not want to delay. “I must speak to her first. I have learned something very important.”
The First bowed. “As you will, my King,” he said with his raspy voice and as Xeldryn bent to extend his troll-like arm into the water he did not notice the First reaching out to touch the Jharro bow on his back.
The Troll King didn’t have to reach far before his fingertips touched the Mother’s flesh. One of his nails pierced her and the pores in his skin opened up to release a chemical message. Her response was immediate.
The water of the lake swirled as the mass of her womb moved back from its place close to the shoreline. A thick green stalk rose from the depths where the womb had been. The stalk bent towards him and as it did so, a mass of pink flesh formed on the end.
The Troll King bowed his head, reverently waiting.
The center of the fleshy pink mass opened up, revealing rows of sharp fang-like barbs. His skin was pierced as the Mother’s mind latched onto him, enveloping his head. The pain was minor and Xeldryn felt no fear. He had spoken with his goddess in this manner many times before.
The Mother’s thoughts surrounded him, communicated by a series of chemical responses between his flesh and hers. Though her mind and body were vast and focused on many things since her great feast, she had noticed his absence at her birthings. She greeted him as a parent whose child had been gone for some time.
Despite her warm thoughts, Xeldryn could tell that she was somewhat irritated at being called from the task of birth. She sent him an overriding question. What did he want?
Xeldryn did his best to express his desires to her. He remained loyal, but it was important that she alter her plans. Whatever else happened, she must not seek to destroy the Jharro Grove.
He sensed anger in the depths of the Mother’s ancient mind. To her the chemicals he had sent smacked of impudence. Suddenly, her regular way of communion with the king was not enough. Fortunately, her conversation with Mellinda had taught her another way. She formed a sharp spike and drove it through his skull to make direct contract with his brain. The Troll Mother delved into Xeldryn’s memories.
Chapter Five
Djeri stood with the other cullers and watched the king’s casual dismissal of Mellinda with a mix of concern and fascination. He watched the human woman that many of his fellow trollkin called queen stride by, her head held high as she motioned them to stay behind. What did all of this mean?
He focused back on the king. Djeri had been born with a knowledge of this person. The Mother demanded that all her children obey him. Yet, Djeri had heard many disparaging things about him, mainly from Mellinda’s closest followers. It was said that the king was fearful of battle. That he had been against the Mother’s triumphant feast. The king’s absence these past weeks had been touted as evidence that he was no longer worthy to be their leader.
Djeri had heard these things and wondered what it was about this king that would make them doubt him and why would the Mother put such a weak trollkin in charge of her children? Now with the king in his sight for the first time, Djeri used his talent to size him up. He was quite proud of this ability. Mellinda called it his discerning eye and had found it quite useful when culling the Mother’s children.
Djeri focused on the king and as he did so he felt a pressure build somewhere behind his eyes. The king’s form blurred, his trollish side taking on a human appearance. For just a moment Djeri saw him as the man he had been before the Mother had changed him. The king had been a proud-looking man with his hair braided in the traditional Roo style. That could have identified him as either Roo-Dan or Roo-Tan, but Djeri knew from the ribbons in his hair that he was Roo-Tan. A silvery crown rested on his brow.
The vision soon faded and Djeri wondered what this meant. Had he learned anything useful? It was now common knowledge among the trollkin that they had once lived other lives. Each of them had been chosen to be devoured by the Mother and reborn as part of this holy new race. Who they had been in their previous lives was a constant matter of speculation and discussion between them. He wasn’t certain why it seemed important that the Troll King had formerly been of the Roo-Tan. Perhaps it was something that Mellinda would like to know.
The king and Murtha were having a discussion that Djeri had to strain to make out. The king said he wanted to dissuade the Mother from the war. But why? Mellinda said the war was necessary. They would rid themselves of the Roo-Tan and Roo-Dan who were the greatest threat to their safety. The war would expand the Mother’s reach and turn their small race into a major power in the world. Was th
is not important?
Djeri saw the First emerge from the water and the king’s call out to the Mother, then watched in shock as the Mother’s toothy mind rose from the lake and enveloped the King’s head. Djeri winced briefly, knowing that such a union was bound to be painful.
Then came the waiting. Ten minutes passed. Fifteen. The king knelt motionless on the shore, his arms hanging limply at his side. Djeri wondered how he was breathing in there.
Murtha stood anxiously next to the king, wringing her thick hands. The First picked up the gray wooden weapons that the king had brought with him and stared at them in awe, running his claws gently along the weapons’ surface. Djeri instantly recognized that they were made from Jharro wood. He did not know why he knew this. There were no memories to provide a frame of reference. It was just a fact.
Though he had only been born a few days ago, Djeri’s mind was filled with facts like these. He didn’t know how to find this information in his thoughts. The facts simply came to him as needed. When he reached for food, he knew what it was and how it would taste. When he saw an object he knew its name.
The other trollkin said that this knowledge was a gift given to them by the Mother. Djeri wasn’t completely convinced it was that simple. He could certainly understand why, in her wisdom, she might give her children knowledge like this. She needed the Trollkin to thrive and survive immediately upon birth. But something about that explanation felt off. The more he pondered it, the more certain he was that he almost had the answer. Just when he was almost certain he had it, the Troll King’s conversation with the mother ended.
The Mother released the king, her mind pulling away from his head with a soft sucking sound. Her fleshy pink brain disappeared into the long green stalk which began to lower into the water. The king remained kneeling motionless at the water’s edge, his head lolling on his neck, his eyes rolled back.
Behemoth (The Jharro Grove Saga Book 6) Page 8