by Dave Dickie
Daesal thought about Beldaer and the elves tendency to look down on humans in general and hid a smile. She said, “Why did the troll attack? I could not understand your conversation, but I could see he was going to use his weapon.”
Beldaer frowned. “I am not sure. He thought that perhaps the elves had been helping the humans back during the great war, although he did not explain why.”
Daesal nodded. Beldaer was lying. Or, at least, not sharing the entire truth, which in this case amounted to the same thing. But he had not tried to betray them, and she felt certain he would have worked toward their escape if things had broken differently. It came down to these gates, and Daesal could understand that. Power was a universal coin, and these gates were clearly powerful. But there were undercurrents she did not understand. Daesal said, “He did not reveal any way to leave the city? How he arrived in the first place?”
Beldaer grinned. “No, but he did say he had unlocked the world gate. With that, I believe I can get us to the Evael, and from there, I swear to you, I will get you delivered to Kethem.”
Daesal cocked her head. “I thought salsenahain were the only humans allowed in the Evael?”
Beldaer shrugged. “There have been exceptions. And you will not allowed to see much on the trip to Lennella Holden where the human merchant ships are allowed to dock. But I will speak for you, and the evowna delivered to my people put us very much in your debt.”
The elvish word confused Daesal for a moment, then she realized what it had to be from context. “Yes, the crystal ball. May I ask what it was?”
Beldaer said “It was a recording device. What was on it…” Beldaer stopped and sighed. “We are dependent on the salsenahain. Our race is powerful, but we have few children. Every elf that dies is one more step toward our eventual extinction. So we use the salsenahain in situations that might be hazardous, and to protect us from harm. The dragon you saw, Veskavar, has found a way to corrupt the process by which humans pledge themselves to our service. Even a small number of salsenahain that were not truly loyal could do unimaginable damage to my people. But we cannot abandon using them either. The evowna was a recording of how this was accomplished, enough to know when a salsenahain has been compromised.”
Daesal nodded. “I see. And who is Veskavar that hates you so? I have heard of dragons, in northern Pranan, but they are not intelligent and bear no resemblance to what we saw.”
Beldaer looked uncomfortable. “Veskavar is not native to this world. He and my people have been at odds for some time.” Daesal was going to press further, sensing there was more to it than Beldaer was letting on, but the elf turned to the console. “Let me see what we can do with this now that it’s unlocked.”
Daesal called to the others. “Grim, please check the body of the great troll. Gyeong, Hantlin, we need something we can stand on to reach the panel more easily. Stegar, watch for trouble. While it seems there was only one great troll, we cannot be sure.” Grim approached the body gingerly. Daesal was not the only one that remembered the tales told of great trolls and their power.
Daesal turned back the the console. Beldaer, even with his height, could not reach the top, but he could reach most of the panel. Orange glowing text in great troll scrolled across the screen, looking like a list, different from the original text when Daesal had tried it the first time. One green line of text sat on the bottom. Beldaer was studying it intently. She woke the amulet again and silently commanded it to translate everything for her. When the common versions of the words were displayed, it turned out to be a long list of functions. Daesal read things like “alternate universe access," “alternate plane access," “binding functions," and “command functions”. Some did not have any words under them at all. Daesal assumed they were things with no human equivalent. The one in green said “local gate access.”
Beldaer frowned. “The gate is unlocked, but only for limited access. There is not much I can do.” He reached up and tapped the green text, and a new set of words appeared. Only one was green. Some were orange, some were red. Nine of the red ones had common, or more accurately, old Lanotalis Empire words, next to them, but none of them were familiar to Daesal. Then she realized three of them were human forms of elvish names. “The only unlocked function is inter-gate travel, and only one destination is available.”
“And that destination is?” asked Daesal.
“Another gate. I do not know where it is, but it is active. I assume it is where Gruggrul arrived from, but even that is conjecture.”
“But the gate on that side may be unlocked. If so, could we use it to travel to the Evael? Or anywhere else the gates lead to, even if those destinations are unavailable at this world gate?”
“Possibly. It may also be under the control of any number of great trolls, and I would guess they would not welcome us any more warmly than Gruggrul.”
Daesal thought. “If we had a day, we could recharge the invisibility artifact on your belt and send someone through to scout the area.”
Beldaer said, “This area is protected from such things, and I suspect the other gate will be as well. And if Gruggrul doesn’t return quickly enough, they may become suspicious.”
Daesal looked at him quizzically. “So, my friend, you suggest we roll the dice and see what comes of it?” Beldaer nodded.
By this time, Hantlin and Gyeong had returned with a troll chair to use as a platform, and Grim had finished searching the great troll body. “Nothing,” said Grim, “other than this.” and he held up the oddly shaped rod the troll had used. Daesal touched it. “Charged item. It has quite a few charges left. From what we saw, a high intensity fire beam.” She took it from Grim and ran her tongue over it. Daesal sensed things from that, from whatever residual sweat the troll had left, but, unlike humans, she did not have any prior experience that would allow her to pull out more than basic impressions. It tasted like defeat, like hopelessness, like despair. And like it was layered, like it had been picked up, put down for a long time, picked up, put down for a long time, over and over.
Stegar, whose eyes had been scanning in all directions looking for any possible threat, suddenly harrumphed and glanced meaningfully toward Beldaer, who was looking at Daesal strangely. She felt her cheeks go red as she pulled the device away from her mouth. “A bad habit, good elf, please do not mind me.” But she could see doubt in those blue eyes.
What she didn’t sense on the item were any indications of other trolls. But perhaps this was a personal item, not shared with others. She sighed. “Roll of the dice it is. It seems if we were to do it, sooner is better than later. I do not think the trolls spent much time here, or the nearby buildings would show signs of occupation. And there is no sign that Gruggrul brought food or even drink.” Beldaer nodded. Daesal explained to the others what Beldaer had shared with her. “We will activate the gate, move through, and be ready for trouble on the other side,” said Daesal. “There is no point in waiting.”
Stegar nodded. “I’ll be in front with buckler and sword. Grim and Gyeong to my sides, with swords. Nyjha has his bow. Hantlin, you will take my crossbow. Daesal and Beldaer, you are behind them. Daesal, can you activate the troll’s fire beam artifact?” She nodded yes.
Beldaer shook his head. “I have no spells I could use for an attack. I should be on the front line with you.”
Stegar indicated his appreciation, but said, “you are also the one who knows how to use these gates. That knowledge means you are more valuable than anyone else here.”
Beldaer looked like he was torn, but Daesal touched his arm. “It is true, friend elf. You would be doing us a favor by remaining safe.”
Finally, Beldaer said “At least let me teach you how to operate the gate, so if I fall, there is still some hope of escape.”
“Certainly,” Daesal responded. There was nothing she would like more.
Beldaer stepped up to the gate. “A slashing motion from left to right means go back.” He drew his hand down and at an angle, and the panel returned
to list of functions. He did it again, and the panel blanked for a moment, then displayed the original warning Daesal had seen. “This is some kind of additional information. I do not know what it means. But normally, the panel will display the menu when you first touch it. If it does not, if it is blank, perform a right to left slashing motion.” Beldaer drew his hand down from right to left and the menu was displayed again. “Of these symbols, this is the one you want.” He pointed to the text that read local gate access. “You can remember these symbols?” Daesal nodded. “Touch it to activate it.” Beldaer touched the green text, and the list of what were presumably gate sites was displayed. “These three are safe,” he said, pointing to the ones that were elvish names rendered in human text to Daesal’s eyes. “The others are not. If you can remember them all, on the other side, one will be different. That will be this gate. You understand?” Daesal nodded again. “If a function is locked, it is orange. You can touch it, but it will not activate without a password. If a function is red, it is prohibited without a gate key.”
“A gate key?” asked Daesal.
“A small, rectangular device that fits in your hand, black like the panel,” and Beldaer pointed at the panel for the world gate. “Some functions are set so that they can only be accessed using the gate key.”
She turned to Grim. “You searched the troll thoroughly? He had nothing like what Beldaer is describing?”
Grim shook his head. “I’m sorry. Nothing.”
She turned back to Beldaer. “I understand.”
They formed up as Stegar had directed. Hantlin looked distinctly uncomfortable with Stegar’s heavy crossbow. Nyjha had lost his normal veneer of stoicness and indifference. He looked afraid, almost panicked. Stegar was breathing deeply, eyes focused. Daesal could see the man he use to be at times like this.
Stegar glanced back at everyone, eyes running over each person, verifying everyone was ready. “We are set,” he called back to Beldaer, still standing at the panel. Beldaer touched the green text and the gate suddenly blazed, the little flickers of polychromatic fire become streams, then a wall of flame. It threw off no heat, but made members of the group instinctually step back. Beldaer joined Daesal at the back of the group. Stegar faced the gate, raised his shield, and cried out “Forward!”
Chapter Nineteen
Entering the polychromatic fires was both frightening and disorienting, if what they did could rightfully be called “entering.” It seemed like the flames were a veil you couldn’t see through, but so thin you never actually touched it, you were just suddenly on the other side.
Stegar had experienced his fair share of narrow scrapes before. Less than some, since his Hold had been on the inner side of the Kethem peninsula, facing the Lanotalis sea rather than the Cair ocean. But when the Stangri raiders struck from the Cair, it happened in waves, and the Kethem Guard and the Kethem Navy could not protect the entire southern coast. These were the older Stangri, not the ones that had settled in Kanday like Gyeong’s people had. Where they landed, towns were pillaged and burned, people were killed. So wardens from the north went south when the raids started, to help where they could.
Stegar had seen four such battles before he had been stripped of his Gold Ring, been reduced to a commoner. Each of those had been single instances between long periods of inaction, during which you needed constant training to keep your edge. Never had he been in a situation that was a continual battle to stay alive, escaping death each time by a razor’s edge and a lucky roll of the dice.
He was accustomed to magic, fire beams, and artificer’s weapons, as well as the myriad daily magics, glow disks and weather shields and cold runes and, occasionally, teleporting. He’d seen the more subtle but powerful magic of the priests, calling forth some aspect of their gods. Never had he seen magic like this, magic whose power you could feel in your bones, sheets of multicolored flames twenty feet high, spectacular and terrifying and leaving you with the feeling that it was just the point of the arrow, a minor aspect of the powers flowing between those pillars. He did not understand it, could not comprehend it.
It didn’t matter. For the first time in a long time he felt no need for a drink, no need to blot out the world, no need to seek dark oblivion to escape his memories. No need to find some obsessive activity to focus on, something to keep his mind from turning inward. He was living moment to moment. He would deliver these people home or he would die trying, and if dying was what the gods of the dice wanted for him, well, that was the ultimate dark oblivion, and it might balance the scales a bit for his other failures. For his brother.
On the other side of the polychromatic flames was an empty room. Where they had moved into the large area between the obsidian poles, now they were facing out from it. In front of them was a panel like the one in the temple they had just left. Stegar held his buckler in position, had the sword rigid and extended in front of him. He maintained that until everyone was out and Daesal called the all clear, then relaxed a bit. With a light pop, the flames disappeared.
The room was smaller than the temple they had left, but it was still large by human standards, at least as large as a stick-ball field back in Kethem. The floors and walls were rock, serviceable but utilitarian. There were small windows high up in the thirty-foot-tall walls. The walls had inset hooks about twenty feet up that looked like they might have supported tapestries at one point. Now, the walls were bare and cold, nothing but gray stone. There was one doorway out. It was closed.
Daesal moved past Stegar with Baelder, heading for the control panel. Stegar said “Nyjha, Hantlin, with me. We will guard the door. Grim, Gyeong, stay with Daesal in case there is some other way into the room, or the gate is used by someone else to enter here.” Grim and Gyeong nodded and moved after Daesal and Beldaer.
When Stegar, Nyjha and Hantlin reached the door, Nyjha leaned down and inspected the ground. “One troll has passed this way many times, back and forth, back and forth. Their name in the troll tongue was sunshine.”
Stegar blinked. “And you know that last bit how?”
Nyjha laughed. “I am joking. About the name. It is hard to be sure, but where I can see markings, they all look like the same tread, same size. I do not think we are going to be facing an army of great trolls. I do not think we will be facing any great trolls. I think it was just Gruggrul.”
Stegar frowned. “Let us not count on that. It is hard to understand why one great troll survived all these years while the rest perished.”
Nyjha nodded. “Perished, or are somewhere else. But remaining cautious is sensible.”
But Stegar could feel it. This place was empty. It was more than the silence; it felt dead. Finally, he motioned toward the door. “Hantlin, open it and step aside.” Hantlin touched the door and jumped back. The door swung open, splitting down the middle. Another room, perhaps forty feet across. Smallish by troll standards. As Stegar entered the room, glow disks lit up.
Hantlin frowned. “Glow disks would not last five centuries. This place is being maintained by someone.”
Stegar looked around. There was a desk and chair, both troll-sized, and a set of cabinets behind it. The desk was too high for him to see the top. He climbed up on the chair. There were two ledgers sitting there, one blue, one red. There was a smooth stick that came to a point. There was an arm with a glow disk attached to it that could pivot back and forth. Stegar dragged his finger across the cover of the blue book. It came back clean. “No dust.” He opened the blue book. There were a set of neat, single line entries in great troll with a symbol at the end. The red book had a symbol on the cover. It matched the symbol on the last entry in the blue book. “Hantlin, look in the cabinets,” he said.
Hantlin opened the closest one. It was full of red books. Stegar assumed the blue book must be an index of some kind, and the stick some kind of magicked writing implement. He frowned. The blue book and red books were thick, hundreds of pages. If the entries in the blue book were all for red ledgers the size of the one on the tab
le, It would have taken a long time to fill them. He flipped through the blue ledger and noticed the script changed near the end of the book. Or not the script, but the way it was written. Different trolls at different times? It was impossible to be sure.
He hopped off the chair. “Next doorway,” he said. He and Nyjha stood ready, and Hantin opened the door. It was a hallway, twenty feet across. A grand hallway even by troll standards. Stegar listened and heard nothing. He gave Nyjha a look.
Nyjha shook his head. “Nothing.”
Stegar thought for a moment, then said, “Wait here. Stay alert.”
He walked back to the gate room, where Daesal and Beldaer were examining the control panel. “Not good,” said Daesal. “This panel is locked for most functions. Travel to the other gate is unlocked, but does us no good. There are some anomalies that Beldaer is trying to understand.” Stegar could see the thin chain from the troll amulet around Daesal’s neck, but the amulet itself was under her dress. She glanced down and back up to let him know it was active.
Stegar said, “This facility, at least in the vicinity of this room, is empty. But it is clearly used frequently, or at least cleaned regularly. If there are things like the little helpers in the city, we have not seen them. There are documents in the adjoining room, but they are in great troll. There is a hallway that leads to other locations. I am going to scout the area to determine if there is any threat to us. If there is, we will return quickly and we will need to flee or fight. Be ready for either situation.”
Daesal nodded. “We will continue with the panel. Be careful.” Stegar nodded and returned to Hantlin and Nyjha.
“Hantlin, stay here. Give the alarm if you see anything out of the ordinary. Nyjha and I are going to search the area.” Stegar gave Hantlin his buckler. Hantlin took it awkwardly, then rested the end on the ground.
“This is heavy,” Hantlin complained.
Stegar grinned. “Yes, it is. You can put it to the side if you wish. I think mobility will serve me better than protection in this place.” Hantlin nodded, but kept the shield. Stegar and Nyjha moved off. The hallway was stone, utilitarian like the gate room. Glow disks lit up as they moved down the corridor. There was an archway to the left, an opening with no door. Stegar looked around the corner cautiously and could faintly make out tables and chairs in the darkened room.