Song of the Serpent

by Hugh Matthews

  The torchmen parted enough for Mordach to step through to the fore. The troll eyed him askance but continued to cut rock from the cliff face and reduce it to smaller pieces. The mage's arm moved in a sweeping motion aimed at the ledge, and a rune carved into the nail of his index finger glowed with a light that made Krunzle's eyes ache, even at a distance. A smoking line appeared on the floor of the ledge just short of the growing pile of rock fragments. The troll paused in his work, sniffed at the air above the line, and growled. Then he went back to work.

  Mordach and the torch-bearers departed, climbing the scaffolding's steps back up to the town, though not before the wizard favored Krunzle with a considering gaze. When the steps were cleared, the overseers hurried the slaves to form two parallel lines from the ledge up to the top of the gorge. Baskets were passed down from above until every man had one. The thief and his minder were pressed into line, becoming two links in what would become a continuous double chain to move baskets up and down the scaffolding.

  Now a slave with a long-handled iron rake stepped up to Skanderbrog's growing pile of broken stone. Gingerly, the man extended the tool and pulled some rock across the line, which had now ceased to smoke but remained plain on the ledge's surface. As the rake's heavy tines grated on the stone, the troll paused in his labors and turned his head slightly toward the sound. Immediately, another slave, whose only function appeared to be to watch Skanderbrog, hissed a warning. The rake man stepped back. But the troll only growled again, then with a grunt, swung the hammer against the chisel head. The first man in the basket chain scooped rock into his basket then passed it to the slave beside him, who passed it in turn to the next man.

  And so went the morning. For the first hour, Krunzle was in the upward-moving chain, taking a loaded basket from his left and passing it to his right. It took about half a minute for a basket to be loaded with Skanderbrog's output, so that every thirty seconds he had to bear a load for a few moments. At first, it wasn't hard, but as the minutes piled up, his shoulders and lower back began to ache, and his forearms to cramp. Raimeau was opposite him in the second chain, passing empty baskets downward to where the troll kept making fresh material for them to shift.

  After an hour, a whistle blew and the two chains changed jobs. Krunzle welcomed the relief. But all too soon, it seemed, the whistle sounded again, and he was back to the hard life. By now the sun was well up, and the rock face caught and reflected its heat. Sweat ran down the thief's face and chest, soaked his shirt to his back, made his eyes sting with its salt. He reminded himself that he had sworn never to engage in brute labor—a vow he had seldom broken, and then only at the order of a magistrate who could command guardsmen with whips and truncheons to enforce their sentences.

  The whistle blew again, and Krunzle was back to passing empty panniers. "Do we get lunch?" he said to Raimeau, working opposite him.

  "More gruel," was the answer. The man next to Raimeau made a face. "Sometimes with a cat or a few rats in it."

  Krunzle grunted. It was time to find a new occupation. But he was surprised at the idea that emerged from the back of his mind—until he realized that the thought had not been his, but Chirk's.

  Are you insane? he thought back at the snake. Even here I am too close to the troll.

  But the thought formed: after lunch, the snake wanted him to take the place of the man with the rake.

  Why? But in a moment, he knew the reason. Chirk wanted to have a conversation with Skanderbrog. You are insane, Krunzle thought. No one ever benefited from a conversation with a troll, unless it was the troll—a little diversion before dinner.

  The word formed in his mind: Nonetheless.

  No, returned the thief, and that is final.

  But it wasn't. Chirk showed him pictures: Mordach the Prudent dissolving the thief in a vat of acid, then draining it away to retrieve the unharmed bronze serpent from among his smoldering bones; Mordach sliding Krunzle into a blue-flamed furnace, then raking through the ashes for the again-unharmed Chirk; Mordach coating the traveler with a sticky, sweet syrup and staking him down between two great anthills, returning later to—

  Enough! said Krunzle. He will do one of these things?

  A moment later he knew that Mordach was delayed only because he had not yet decided which of these methodologies would create a maximum reduction of Krunzle with a minimum effect upon the object around his neck. The mage was known, after all, as "the Prudent."

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Lunch was gruel and rotten pumpkin. Krunzle found a few flakes of gray meat in his, and swallowed them without comment. The work had given him an appetite as well as an acute awareness of several muscle groups that he had always taken for granted. He cataloged his aches and pains and swore to himself that Boss Ulm would one day render up an accounting for each and every one of them.

  While they were eating, Mordach the Prudent returned and, with the torchmen to shield him, renewed the strength of the boundary spell he had cast that morning. Then he went back to town, throwing Krunzle a considering gaze as he passed.

  The whistle blew and the thief said to Raimeau, "Come, and quickly." They descended the rough wooden steps as lightly as could be allowed by Krunzle's ill-fitting shoes and the prospect of plunging to a deadly battering on the rocks below. By the time the basket lines were reformed, he was standing near the mage's deadline—still visible, though no longer smoldering—with the rake in hand. Raimeau was beside him, wearing a look of deep uncertainty when he wasn't casting fearful sideways glances at the troll, the monster sitting with his back against the wall, glowering at them and the rest of the uncooperative world.

  The man who had used the rake before said, "Give me that." To add emphasis, he scooped up a fist-sized rock and cocked his arm.

  But it seemed to the traveler that the man did not have the full conviction that the implied threat required. Chirk? he thought.

  Instead of an answer from the recesses of his mind, Krunzle saw the man lower his arm. The chunk of rock rattled among others in a basket, and the fellow—and his assistant, though not without a muttered threat to Raimeau—joined the basket chain.

  The gray-haired man was regarding the thief with even more trepidation than when they had first met. "What?" said Krunzle, turning to where Skanderbrog was levering himself to his splay-toed feet and taking up his tools again.

  "You don't know?" said Raimeau, keeping his voice low.

  "Assume I don't." Krunzle raked a pile of rock toward the man whose job it was to fill the baskets.

  "The snake," his partner whispered. "It glowed, kind of purple, but when you look at it too long black spots start floating before your eyes. It did that when Chenax tried to take it."

  "Oh, that," said Krunzle, "of course. I'm familiar with the effect."

  "Get to work!" The shout came from above, where one of Ulm's bullyboys was pushing his way down the steps between the lines of basketmen, and reaching for a whip coiled at his belt. Krunzle turned and began to rake rock.

  Skanderbrog hacked at the cliff face as if it were his direst enemy. The muscles of his shoulders and arms bulged and flexed as he swung the hammer that seemed to weigh no more than a switch of willow. Raimeau watched the troll closely, speaking a warning whenever the creature gave over attacking the wall of rock and turned to smash the boulders at his feet into pebbles. For that phase of the operations, the thief and his helper stood well back.

  Even so, a flying shard opened Krunzle's cheek. He felt the sting, then a warm trickle making its way down through the dust on his face. The troll looked up from his work, snuffling, his nostrils dilated. He stared at Krunzle, and for a few seconds the traveler knew what it was to be a rabbit undergoing inspection by a fox. Though he was well beyond the mage's line, still he took a step backward.

  As he did so, words formed in the back of his mind. He pushed them back where they had come from, saying, I don't think so. One of my longstanding rules is not to draw the attention of man-eating monsters. It has served me well
so far and—

  A jolt of pain shot up from the base of Krunzle's spine to rattle his skull. He felt an even larger one forming where the first had begun, like a thundercloud boiling up on the horizon.

  Well, if you insist, he thought. Ideas began to form in his mind, a strategy for gaining the troll's cooperation. Krunzle watched the sequence of thoughts unravel, then said, in his inner voice, No.

  A jolt of pain shot up from his spine again. He spasmed, hissing, so that Raimeau looked at him in alarm. The thief ignored the man and the troll, which had also glanced his way, and said to Chirk, I did not say ‘no' to the project, but only to your approach.

  He was surprised to hear a voice, soft and sibilant, speak in his head. It makes sense, came the reply. The creature must hate Ulm and Mordach. A chance to take revenge—

  Krunzle cut off the voice. You are collecting crumbs, ignoring the cake.

  How so?

  Let me show you. He received no response and took the silence for acquiescence. Aloud, he spoke to the troll in a carrying whisper: "Skanderbrog! Do you enjoy your work?"

  The creature was back at work on the rock face. Krunzle saw it regarding him from the corner of one eye while the hammer and chisel continued to gouge out chunks of gold-bearing ore. Over the clink of iron on iron, he heard a deep-throated growl. "You mock me?" Skanderbrog said.

  "Don't mock him," said Raimeau. A full-body shiver had taken possession of Krunzle's helper. "He doesn't like being mocked."

  "I cannot pass the line," said the troll, "but these can." He nudged the pile of broken rocks with the end of the chisel.

  "It's true," said Raimeau. "Boss Ulm had a half-orc overseer named Horkak who used to stand just clear of Mordach's line. He would mimic Skanderbrog's labors and make uncomplimentary comparisons. One day, the troll picked up a piece of ore and threw it at him. The boundary spell heated the stone so greatly that it exploded in Horkak's face. He fell into the gorge and broke on the rocks."

  "Horkak tasted bad," Skanderbrog said. "Too much gristle." He turned his head to look Krunzle up and down. "You will be more tender."

  The thief would have gladly ended the conversation at that point, but Chirk was insistent. "I do not mock," Krunzle said. "I wondered if you had had enough of working for Boss Ulm. If you might want to move on."

  Skanderbrog addressed himself to the rock face. "I do not like to work," he said. "But before I was captured, I starved. I ate frogs and dug for worms. I tried to make a place for myself in a cave on the edge of Grunchum's territory, but he drove me away. The same happened when I went into the land of his neighbor, Brugga. Here, at least I eat well and do not sleep on wet leaves."

  Krunzle smiled to himself as he raked the cracked ore toward the men who filled the baskets. "Still," he said, "it's no life for a promising young troll."

  The hammer rang on the chisel. Another great wedge of rock fell at Skanderbrog's feet. "It is true; I am not content," he said. "But I am resigned to my fate."

  Krunzle let a few moments pass, then he said, "What kind of weapon does Grunchum wield? Or Brugga?"

  Skanderbrog turned to smash the wedge of gray stone. He cocked his head, remembering. "They are traditionalists," he said, "and favor the long cudgel. They are not particularly adept, but they make up for it in sheer power."

  "Do they eat well? As well as you have been eating this past little while?"

  It was obviously not a question that had occurred to the troll, if indeed questions ever did. "Now that I think of it," Skanderbrog said, "probably not. The odd deer. Or a bear when they're still in winter sleep."

  "And would either of them have developed the kind of muscles that now adorn your upper body?" Krunzle said.

  Again, the troll took a long moment while the dull teeth of his mentality engaged the issue. "Grunchum was big-bellied, but his legs were spindly for a troll. Brugga looked as if he had had a good winter. But he's getting long in the tooth."

  Krunzle nodded. "So would either of them expect to be confronted by a well-fed, hard-shouldered young challenger armed with an iron-headed hammer? Not to mention a sharp iron spike that he could throw like a spear?"

  The troll paused, the hammer poised. He held the chisel out at arm's length and studied it. "I would have to think about that," he said. He set the iron spike into a crevice, and brought the hammer down. Splinters of rock flew.

  "You might also think," Krunzle said, "about how comfortable a territory an enterprising troll might make by combining both Grunchum's and Brugga's. You did say they were neighbors?"

  Skanderbrog had gone back to cutting more rock from the cliff. He did not answer, but his expression was as thoughtful as his kind could manage.

  We'll let it cook for a while, Krunzle told Chirk.

  Where did you learn about trolls? the snake said.

  I know nothing about trolls in particular, said the traveler, but I know what it is to be young and seeking for a place in an uncooperative world. Don't you?

  Chirk was a while in responding. My history, it said at length, is different from yours.

  Yet we are both bound to another's service, aren't we?

  The snake was even longer in giving an answer, so that the traveler thought he would receive none. Finally, he heard, You should know that I am not as easily gulled as a troll.

  Chapter Five

  A Headache for Mordach

  After a supper of more gruel, this time with cobs of stale, moldy bread to dip into it, the slaves were put away for the night. All except Krunzle. Red-bearded Brundelaf stopped him as he was about to enter the noisome lock-up. "Wait," he said, before efficiently binding the traveler's hands behind him and pushing him in the direction of the town.

  When they reached the main street Krunzle expected to be ushered toward the back room of the saloon, where Boss Ulm had questioned him the night before. He hoped not; he was not at all sanguine that his tale of being a caravan scout would have held up under any kind of concentrated mulling. And the wart-nosed man looked the kind who would worry at a nagging suspicion until it was chewed to rags.

  But when they had crossed the mud-puddled thoroughfare, Brundelaf did not compel him toward where light and noise spilled from the drinking establishment's doors and windows. Instead, the prisoner was shoved in the opposite direction. They walked uphill for two blocks, then came to a narrow, three-story building that featured only a few small windows, well barred, and a flat roof with a railing all around it. When the Ulfen pounded on the stout, iron-studded door, it opened soundlessly and without any visible agency. The redhead suppressed a shiver and, putting a hand between Krunzle's shoulder blades, propelled him through the door. The barrier closed silently behind the rogue, and he heard the sound of a lock engaging.

  He was in a lamplit foyer, a spiral staircase to his left and a hallway leading into darkness at the back of the house. From above came the voice of Mordach the Prudent, beckoning him upstairs. Krunzle climbed. The second floor was one large room, scarcely lit by a brazier filled with glowing charcoal. One wall was lined with shelved books, many of them ancient and tattered, some of them scrolls of dried animal hide or coarsely made papyrus. Nearby hung an isinglass in a carved frame.

  In the center of the room stood a workbench littered with alembics and retorts, and instruments of metal and other materials whose shapes and purposes, given the lack of light, remained a matter for conjecture. He did see, however, his buskins, sword, and scabbard, pinned down by what looked like thin gold wires. All three objects twitched as his gaze fell upon them, as if they were straining to break free of their bonds. He thought about trying to recover them himself, but a tingle in his neck told him that Chirk did not favor such a strategy, and in this place Krunzle was ready to take the snake's advice.

  As the traveler continued up the spiral stairs, something in a cage hanging in the far corner of the room turned large, lambent eyes toward him, the twin golden circles disappearing then reappearing as the unknown creature lethargically blinked. Before h
e left its sight, he heard a hiss that carried a note of disappointment and a sound like an attempted fluttering of confined wings.

  The top floor was Mordach's living quarters. The walls were unpierced by windows and the domed ceiling was asplash with stars. The room itself was a starkly ascetic space containing only a narrow bed, a bare table and a hard chair against one wall. The center of the chamber was dominated by a complexly patterned rug that covered most of the floor. The staircase ended at one corner of the carpet; the wizard was waiting at the corner diagonally opposite. "Approach," he said.

  The thief did so. But as he stepped onto the rug, a mist sprang up behind him and to his sides; it thickened rapidly, until there was nothing in the world but the carpet, the wizard, and Krunzle. Even the raucous sounds of Ulm's Delve at night faded to silence. The captive had the impression of being in a much larger space than the area of the woven cloth, and the room's low ceiling seemed to have receded into infinity.

  Mordach also had changed; in this place, he was somehow larger, more prepossessing. "Now," he said, "let us have a proper talk."

  "I am happy to do so," said the traveler. "The conversation of the men with whom I spent the day lacked sophistication. As well, we were often short of breath, the work being strenuous."

  The mage's smile showed an absence of amusement. "Save your blandishments," he said. "I saw Chenax's corpse before Skanderbrog got at it, and had the arms recovered from where the troll threw them."