“Troll, is that you?” He listened. “It’s me… Iliff.”
He took another step.
There was more movement in the growth, and now Iliff thought he could see someone, or something, crouching. There rose harsh, hitching breathing. But just as in his dreams, the familiar breaths did not sound in front of him, but climbed from behind. Iliff spun, then drew his hand to his mouth. The enormity and grotesqueness of what stood above him caused him to step backward.
His skin was no longer gray. It was black and scabbed, like scorched earth. Deep fissures ran between the dense encrustations. Iliff craned his neck. He had grown. Had grown a lot. He now stood almost as tall and broad as one of the stone towers, just as Stype reported. High up, almost hidden by tree branches, Iliff recognized the large, jutting jaw and squat forehead, disfigured though they were. His violence of coiled hair had turned hoary with age.
“Troll,” Iliff whispered.
Troll just stood looking down on him, his charred brow protruding over eyes deep-set and invisible.
Iliff recalled his meeting with Adramina the night before. He summoned the image of the tree with the vines and the common root. He steeled himself, then stepped forward. If Troll meant to harm him, he told himself, he would have done so already. He stepped forward again. With the next step, he was almost to his old companion. Troll’s breaths tore the air above him. Iliff reached his hand forward. It felt as though he were reaching across a chasm of many years. His fingers were just alighting on Troll’s leg when the stone muscle beneath them jumped.
Iliff clenched his eyelids.
Chapter 30
By the time Troll reached the valley, the sky was graying and he was nearly out of breath. He slowed to a trot, then a low, lumbering walk. Rather than smash through the trees now, he nudged them away. The red was fading from his mind. He placed his hand where his shoulder met his neck and craned his head. He could not hear the men anymore. The men with the weapons. There had been so many. And more of them up on the hill. Where Iliff was.
Yes, he had smelled him.
The ground began to squelch beneath Troll’s feet. He saw that he was nearly back now, nearly to the shelter. But he did not want to go there, not yet. He climbed from the valley. He needed to think. He picked out a large tree and sat with his back against it.
There had to be another way to get to him.
But he had only seen Iliff outside the stone walls the one time. The time when Iliff had come into the woods. The wind carried his scent down the hills, down to where Troll had built the shelter. Troll followed the scent. But when the man who smelled like Iliff came into his view, there were others with him. A woman and, behind her, two men with weapons. Troll hesitated. He was not sure it was Iliff, after all. He remembered the rules. Three of them. The one about no people had been the one Iliff was always most serious about.
From his crouch, Troll watched the distant man and woman standing in front of a tree as though they were discussing it. He watched them move and walk farther into the woods. He watched them a long while. By the time Troll determined the smell was Iliff’s—people or no—Iliff and the others were leaving. Going back inside the stone walls. And Troll retreated back into the dark of the low woods.
Now Troll scratched his jaw. He had not seen Iliff since then. He had only picked up his scent here and there. A faint thread among thousands. And always from behind those cursed stone walls. Troll pressed his hand to his neck again. He needed to get to him. Needed to get to him badly. The hunger filled his waking and his sleeping now. Why, just last night he thought he had heard Iliff calling his name. At first the voice had sounded far away, but the second time it was very close. It was the reason Troll had gone charging up the hill. He thought he had Iliff at last.
But instead he had found men everywhere. The men who smelled like earth.
“Troll…”
He jerked his head from his hands. This time he was not imagining it. The call had come from behind him, from the valley floor. He stood slowly and peered down through the trees. He saw the animal first and then… Iliff? Troll started to creep toward him, then paused. The person below was different, too different. Troll sniffed the air but the wind was moving the wrong way.
“Troll?” the person called again.
He was near the shelter. He was looking toward it.
“It’s me… Iliff.”
Troll’s heart leapt. He had him. At last he had him. His breath hardened as he crept through the trees. He sniffed the air again. Yes, yes, it was him. Troll emerged from behind a thicket and stepped slowly toward Iliff. He was almost to him when Iliff turned.
Troll stopped where he stood. The upturned face was older, the angles harder. Not soft and round like the boy he had known. His hair was shorter too. And where it had once been completely dark, it now showed silver above his ears. There was something about the way this man carried himself too. It was hard to say what it was exactly, just different, older. Like his eyes, like everything else. Indeed, had it not been for his scent, Troll was not sure he would have recognized him.
“Troll,” Iliff whispered.
Troll could see Iliff stepping toward him now, could see him raising his arm. And suddenly, the horrible morning of his banishment came back. He could feel the fire advancing, like spikes under his skin, could see the fallen bear at his side. And here was Iliff before him, just like on that morning, his arm raised. And any moment now he was going to point past him and order him away, order him back to the mines. Troll was so certain of this that he closed his eyes. So certain that when he felt Iliff’s hand against him, he jumped.
There was a long moment where nothing happened. Little by little, Troll relaxed his muscles. Soon he could hear Iliff laughing below him. And this made Troll’s lips tremble and stretch awkwardly, for the fire had fused them on one side. Then Troll too was laughing his relief. The two of them laughed for a long time.
Iliff turned his face up. “So it is you,” he said.
Troll nodded.
“How long have you been here?”
Troll started to speak, but then shrugged his shoulders.
“But why?” Iliff was asking him now. “I mean, after all that happened…”
There were two reasons Troll had come. Two things he needed to do. And for both of them he needed Iliff, needed him badly. But now that Iliff was here, standing before him, he was not sure how to tell him. Troll looked toward the wet growth that Iliff had been walking toward. It was where Troll’s first reason lay, for beyond the growth was the shelter. Troll could not see him from where he stood, but he could smell him. Was Iliff going to be mad? he wondered. Was he going to be mad that he brought him?
Iliff followed his gaze. “What is it?” he asked.
Troll cleared his throat. “I brought someone.”
“Who?”
Troll grunted toward the shelter and jerked his head. He grunted again, this time louder. Troll could see him moving now. Dark leaves rustled above his plodding footfalls. At last the growth parted.
* * *
Iliff stepped back. The young man who emerged was almost as tall as he was, but thicker. His torso swelled above gray trousers, and his arms swung low as he walked. As he came nearer, Iliff could see that his jaw was large and square. His brow protruded as well, but not so much that it hid his eyes, which were dark with luminous yellow rims. As the eyes moved between Iliff and Troll, the young man scratched his tangle of black hair.
“He’s… he’s yours?” Iliff said.
Troll grunted behind him.
The young man stopped near a tree and pulled at his trousers. He appeared to want to go to Troll, but at the same time appeared wary of having to walk past Iliff.
“What’s his name?” Iliff asked.
“Tradd.”
“Well, hello, Tradd,” Iliff said, extending his arm. “I’m Iliff.”
Troll’s son looked at Iliff’s hand, then up at his face, his brow twisting in confusion. Iliff could see
now that, though he was large, he was no more than a child. Something in his expression, his stance, reminded him very much of Troll from their early days together. Iliff chuckled and took his hand and showed him how to shake. Tradd’s grip was big, but uncertain.
“I want you to take him,” Troll said.
“Take him?” Iliff wheeled around. “What do you mean?”
Troll grunted for Tradd to stay put, then knelt to the ground. Half turning from Iliff, he moved his hand from the place where his neck met his back. Iliff stepped around for a better look.
“What is it?” he asked.
But now he could see them, the deep punctures. They glistened amber where fluid seeped out and traced the fissures of black scabbing. It was where the bear had seized him in her jaw those years ago.
“She hurt me bad,” Troll rumbled, his words sounding pressed together. Iliff saw that he could only speak from one part of his mouth. Troll lowered his voice further. “It’s never stopped hurting, Iliff. Every day it takes a little more from me. And then a little more.”
“What are you telling me?”
“I’m dying.”
“Dying?” Iliff whispered.
Troll’s craggy face furrowed for a moment. “That’s why I came. That’s why I brought Tradd.”
Iliff looked back at Troll’s son, who had gone over to the horse. He watched him reach for the horse’s head with a timorous, outstretched hand, then step closer to pet it. The horse pressed its nuzzle to Tradd’s chest.
“There are healers in the town,” Iliff said. “Healers who could help you.”
Troll shook his head. “The hunter used to tell me about vitality. Said that a creature can’t live without it. Said that if you exhaust enough, the creature can never get it back. Mine’s almost all gone.”
Iliff looked again at the wound that must have been weeping like that for years.
“There’s another reason I came,” Troll said, getting up from his knee. “Do, um… do you still have the pouch? The one that made the white fire?” Hope seemed to lift his suffering voice as he stood to his full height.
“I do,” Iliff said. “But why?”
“We’ll need it for when we go back to the forest.”
Chapter 31
It was barely past noon when Iliff returned to the town. Already crews were at work cleaning the lanes and hauling away debris. Iliff sighted a fair number of Garott among the laborers. They wore common clothes now, appearing strange without their dark armor and weapons. He steered the horse to his cottage and dismounted. Though the front door stood ajar, the inside was largely undisturbed. A few muddy tracks in and out of the kitchen was all.
Iliff bathed and pulled on fresh clothes. From beneath his bed, he drew forth Salvatore’s bag and opened it. The water skin sat inside and, beside it, Adramina’s tinder pouch. To these Iliff added a set of folded clothes, a lantern and matches, a tin of oil, and as much food as would fit.
When he stepped from his cottage, he encountered a young man pushing a cart heaped with rubble and lengths of timber. Iliff recognized him as the son of the head farmer.
“How goes it?” Iliff said.
“Oh, hello there!” The young man stopped and wiped his brow. “It goes well. There’s lots of work yet, but once we get the town cleaned up, we’re off to the fields. The spring seeds must be sewn by month’s end.”
Iliff smiled at the way the air glowed around him.
“And the Assembly?” Iliff asked.
The young man looked up toward the Keep. Amid the ruins Iliff could see where a large tent had been set up. “They’re meeting with some of the Garott,” the young man said. “Looks like they want to settle here.”
“And people are all right with that?” Iliff asked carefully.
The young man shrugged his shoulders. “They’ve been good help so far.”
“Indeed?”
“It turns out most of them didn’t even want to fight. They were laborers like us, pressed into service…” The young man stiffened suddenly, and when he turned toward Iliff, his face shone red. “No, sir, I—I didn’t mean to suggest—”
Iliff raised his hand. “It’s all right,” he said, bringing his hand to the young man’s shoulder. “I’m not offended by the truth. I will be very happy to see you and your family free from the walls and back in the fields doing what you love.”
The young man relaxed and smiled. “Thank you, Master.”
“And please, you will call me Iliff.”
Iliff remounted and worked his way toward the bluff. The bodies of the fallen had since been removed. Iliff imagined them draped in white somewhere, being prepared for their Final Passage. When he came to Gilpin’s cottage, he drew the reins. The windows in which Gilpin’s lanterns had once shone appeared especially dim now. Iliff bowed his head.
“I already miss you, my friend,” he whispered. “You taught me so much more about my walls than I could ever have taught you. A truer friendship, I have never known.” He wiped his eyes. “Now go to that great sea and be at peace. This you have more than earned.”
Iliff pressed his hand to his lips, then to his chest. He turned the horse and plodded on toward the bluff.
* * *
The tent had been set up in the courtyard between where the outer and inner walls had once stood. It was one of the few spaces not piled with fallen stones. Iliff sent the horse away with a gentle pat and went to peek inside. On one side of the tent sat Stype and members of the Assembly, on the other, several Garott. One of the Garott spoke now. Though Iliff could not make out his words, his tone sounded repentant. The Assembly members before him nodded their heads. Iliff looked for Skye but did not see her. He guessed that she was tending to the wounded somewhere.
Before Iliff could draw away, Stype spotted him and waved him inside. Iliff shook his head. Stype excused himself and walked to the tent flap. He looked at Iliff, then at the bag over his shoulder.
“Are you off somewhere?” he asked in surprise.
“Yes,” Iliff said, taking care not to hide his thoughts. “There is something I must do.”
“I understand.”
“May I have use of one of the skiffs?”
Stype nodded. He called a guard over and, after speaking with him, said, “They will have one for you down at the dock.”
Iliff gestured to the tent. “How does it look?”
“Promising, Iliff. Very promising. Those who most ardently opposed the truce are either gone or have fled, Depar among them. And most who remained would like to stay. Many left behind wives and children, and we are deciding how best to bring them here so they may settle together.”
“But the ones who fled,” Iliff said. “Aren’t you worried they’ll return?”
“There is always that danger,” Stype replied. “But it is our hope that the presence of their own among us will deter them. And I doubt they’ll soon forget the creature that devastated them. They believe it was the kelpie rumored to guard these waters. They believe the creature favors us.” He smiled and lowered his voice. “I will say nothing to discourage such thinking.”
Iliff recalled his first meeting with the King and smiled back. So the kelpie had been a good omen after all, he thought.
“If I don’t see your sister,” Iliff said, “please tell her where I’ve gone.”
“How long will you be away?”
“I’m not sure.”
Stype nodded and clasped his hand. “I will tell her. Go well on your journey, brother.”
Iliff lingered outside the tent after Stype had returned inside. He went and looked over the township, where already a semblance of order was beginning to appear. The marketplace was mostly clear of wreckage now, as were the town’s main lanes and several of the green spaces. All about, Fythe and Garott mingled in their labors, sorting timbers, piling stones, starting repair work on some of the cottages. Iliff remembered his pledge to the dying King. He turned a slow circle now and tried to see the town and bluff without stone walls
.
At last he made his way down the stairway cut into the rear of the bluff and stepped out onto the dock. As promised, a small skiff sat in the water, knocking against its mooring. Iliff pulled the skiff close, then climbed down and set his bag on the floor before him. He was undoing the tether when someone spoke.
“I would like to meet him.”
Though hair spilled from the cloth over her head, though her clothes were mussed and her eyes solemn, she appeared more angelic to Iliff than ever. He fumbled the tethering and nearly lost it.
“Meet who?” he managed.
“Your companion,” Skye said. “The one you’ve been hiding these years.”
“You’ve known?”
“Lucious taught you to guard your thoughts, but your emotions, your conflicts, have always been plain to feel.” Her voice softened. “Father told me to say nothing of your companion. He told me that you must decide to reveal him in your own time.”
Iliff looked up toward the ruined Keep. “But aren’t you needed here?”
“I have put on the path to healing those who can be healed,” she said. “There are women enough to tend to them and comfort the others.”
“But I don’t understand. Why do you want to meet him?”
Her blue eyes remained steadfast on his.
“He’s…” he hesitated, not sure how to finish. …brutish …grotesque …destructive.
“Because I want to see you, Iliff. At last, I want to see all of you.”
Chapter 32
Iliff rowed them along the shore before angling toward where the swamp spilled into the lake. There was a gusting wind, and waves chopped against the skiff’s progress. Skye sat behind Iliff, but neither spoke. Pulling on the wooden oars, Iliff thought about what she had said on the dock. If his emotions had been so plain, then she must also have known his feelings for her. Had they offended her? he wondered. Repulsed her? Is that why she had never acknowledged them? Iliff looked to the distant shoreline where, somewhere among the trees, Troll lurked.
Lights and Shadows (The Prisoner and the Sun #2) Page 19