Iliff rowed on and, at last, shipped the oars and pulled the skiff onto shore, not far from the timber bridge the Fythe had built years before. He helped Skye from the boat. Together they climbed the steep bank to the tree line.
“What is his name?” she asked.
“Troll,” Iliff told her.
“Troll,” she repeated.
Iliff looked at the sky. “We’re early,” he said, “but he’ll be here before much longer.” He peered into the trees, apprehension rising inside his chest. He heard her step up beside him, felt her hand inside of his.
“Tell me about him,” she said.
When Iliff turned, he found her eyes before him. Their warmth recalled the night in the lane when their lips had touched, but now the same feeling unnerved him. He shifted his gaze and followed the outline of the far shore. His eyes came to a rest on the edge of a grassy clearing almost across the lake from where they stood. It was where a girl had once awakened him to ask if he were a king. He had trusted her then. He looked back on her. Why should he not trust her now?
“My earliest memories are of a prison,” he began.
* * *
By the time he finished, it was mid-afternoon and they were sitting and looking out over the water. He had told her everything, from escaping the prison to arriving on the far shore, as well as bits of his meeting with Troll that very morning. Skye stirred beside him now. The whole time she had said nothing.
“So it was Troll who left the treasures.”
“Yes,” he said.
“Why did you not go to him sooner?”
“I was afraid he would bring ruin upon you all and make me an outcast,” Iliff said. “His return was what I feared most. It was why I couldn’t countenance a truce with the Garott. Why I couldn’t countenance dismantling my walls. And yet by denying him, I put you and the Fythe in even greater danger.”
“It is what my uncle never learned.”
“Lucious. Is he all right?”
“We got him out of the Keep in time, but his mind is ruined. He recognizes no one. He rests in the hospital.”
They sat silently.
“I feel I need to warn you,” Iliff said, turning to peer into the trees again. “Troll is a creature unlike any you have seen. He is large and gruesome and disfigured by the fire that consumed the forest.” He thought for a moment. “Though I am probably to blame as well. For making him so awful in my mind these years.”
“Why does he wish to return to the forest?” she asked.
“He said only that he needed to do something very important. That he needed me along, and Adramina’s pouch. I’ve denied him for so long, I could not deny him this last wish.”
Skye closed her eyes, her brow creased in concentration. Shortly, her face smoothed and she nodded her head. When she opened her eyes, they glimmered with what appeared understanding, but also sorrow.
“He is right,” she said. “He cannot be healed. But promise me that when you reach the forest, you will do as he says.” She stood and straightened her gown. “I believe this is him now?”
Iliff followed her gaze into the trees where, indeed, Troll now lumbered toward them. Tradd ran at his heels. He had not told her about Troll’s son. Both slowed when they noticed Skye, but Iliff waved them forward.
“It’s all right,” he said. “Skye is a friend.”
Troll emerged first, stooping beneath the low branches, then standing to his full height. From where Iliff stood, Troll’s hair seemed to reach nearly to the tree tops. Iliff stole a look at Skye, watchful of her reaction. But he found her beaming, and when she stepped forward it was without hesitation.
“You must be Troll,” she said.
Troll grunted and took her outstretched hand in the pinch of his thumb and forefinger and gave it a gentle shake. Iliff could tell by Troll’s stance and the tilt of his head that she intrigued him greatly.
“And who’s this?” Skye asked, peering around one of Troll’s legs where his son tried to hide.
“That’s Tradd,” Iliff said.
Troll nudged him forward. Though Tradd kept his head lowered, he held out his arm and shook Skye’s hand, just as Iliff had taught him. When Skye laughed, Tradd lifted his chin, his broad lips twisting into a smile.
“Are you going with the men?” she asked him.
Tradd looked up at his father.
“No,” Troll said, “He’s staying.”
Iliff stepped beside Skye and lowered his voice. “Troll has asked that his son be able to remain in our woods while we’re gone. He knows what plants to eat and how to catch fish. And he has a shelter not far from here.”
“Why should he stay in the woods?” Skye said. “Why not stay in the township with us?”
Iliff had not even considered this. “Indeed?”
She smiled and nodded.
Iliff turned to where Troll was nodding as well. Troll stooped to one knee and pulled his son toward him. Believing they were playing, Tradd grappled with Troll’s massive hand, trying to wrestle beneath it.
“Listen to me,” Troll said, tightening his hold. “You’re going to go with this good woman. Do what she and the people say while I’m gone. Understand? Do everything they tell you.”
Tradd stopped squirming long enough to look at his father’s face. Though Iliff doubted he understood what Troll was telling him, Iliff could see by the way his expression flattened that he sensed the weight of it.
Troll rubbed his son’s hair, then placed his hand back over the punctures at his neck.
“Here,” Skye said. She pulled forth a bundle of herbs and held it up to Troll. “Eat these. They cannot heal your wound, but they will give you strength for the journey and ease your pain.”
When Troll bent down to take it, Skye brought her hand to his face and kissed his cheek. She then whispered something that Iliff could not hear. The corner of Troll’s mouth turned up and he patted her back.
“Thank you,” he rumbled, straightening.
As Troll sniffed the herbs, Skye turned to Iliff. “And these are for you.” She reached into the folds of her gown again and removed a pouch of white petals. “To find your way back by.”
Their fingers touched around the pouch. Then Skye took him in her arms. Iliff held her. Her hair fluttered around them, and for a moment that space became their world.
“His heart is true,” she said. “Like yours.”
“No more walls,” he breathed.
“No more walls,” she agreed.
“We shouldn’t be long.”
“I’ll await your return.”
She kissed both sides of his face, then his mouth. And when she did, something seemed to bloom inside his chest. Something that opened to both Troll and him at once. Skye expressed again that she would await his return, but inside of him now. Iliff experienced this as a slow undulation. A feeling. Too soon, her soft lips and hair fell away and their world broke open.
Skye looked from Iliff to Troll. Nodding, she took Tradd’s hand. “Come along,” she said. “We should head up before it gets dark. The town is planning a great dinner. Are you hungry?”
Tradd laughed and nodded his head.
Skye looked back once more at Troll, her face glowing softly, sadly even, then led Tradd away. Iliff and Troll watched them until they had entered the trees and were beyond their sight. Tradd’s laughter diminished with their growing distance, with the folding and unfolding of hills. Iliff looked at Troll. Moisture flashed along the crags of his cheeks as he swung his head away.
“You ready?” Troll rumbled over his shoulder.
“I’m ready,” Iliff said, and followed his companion down toward the boat.
Chapter 33
Their journey through the swamp lasted five days. Troll waded through water and over marsh, pulling the boat behind him with its tether, stopping only to sniff the air now and again. Night and day he slogged. Iliff noticed that he often pressed his hand to the wound at his neck, as if to slow the loss of vitality. To ease Troll’s burden,
Iliff rowed behind him where he could.
Though the brown waters recalled to Iliff his old hopelessness, he was not afraid of becoming lost again. Whenever they passed a rise of land, he steered the boat near enough to drop one or two of Skye’s white petals.
But whereas he was not wary of the swamp, he was very troubled about returning to the forest. He imagined the charred wasteland that Troll had described. He wondered what had become of Stag and the other Keepers of the Forest, whether they had survived, whether they still held dominion. He could not imagine that they would welcome their return. But Troll was determined.
Late on the first day, Iliff rested the oars and let Troll pull him along. He lit a plate of lantern oil to keep the mosquitoes at bay. He looked at his companion’s back, at the way the scarring split and shifted like granite fragments over his bunching muscles. It made Iliff shudder.
“How… how did you escape the fire?” he asked.
Troll peered over his shoulder, his breath booming from his nostrils like a pair of bellows. Resolute in his progress, he had said little since they started out, but now he slowed to catch his breath.
“I ran,” he said. “Ran along the river. Sometimes the fire caught me, sometimes it burned me. But I never stopped running.”
“Where did you go?”
“The mines. It’s what you told me, but it was the only place I could think to run to. Along the way, I remembered the woman. I knew I had to get to her. It was night and I found her beside the river. She didn’t see the fire coming. I picked her up and ran with her.”
“She was still there?” Iliff asked. All these years he feared that she had drowned herself.
“I carried her all the way to the hole with the roots. I carried her inside where the fire couldn’t get us. But she was hurt, Iliff. She hollered and held her belly. I thought she was hungry so I snuck down into the mines. My hair was burned away and I hurt all over. I looked like lots of other trolls down there. I grabbed food and clothes and ran back before the Boss would know. But the woman, she wouldn’t take the food. She wouldn’t wake up. Then I saw something moving under her dress.”
“Tradd,” Iliff said.
“He was so small, I was afraid I’d hurt him. But I could tell he was mine. I wrapped him in the clothes I’d brought up and fed him some food. I watched him sleep. I tried to get the woman to wake up, but she was hurt too bad.” Troll resumed his trudge through the swamp. “She never woke up again.”
“Oh, Troll,” Iliff said. “I’m so sorry.”
Troll said nothing more, and Iliff asked no more that day.
* * *
On the second day, after Troll had finished off a meal of raw catfish and swamp cabbage, Iliff asked him how long he and Tradd had remained in the tunnel. He was anxious to hear more of the story.
“We stayed until Tradd was this big,” he said, holding his hand a few feet above the water. “He ate a lot. More than me, even. Almost every day I went into the mines for food. But it was dangerous. My skin got better and my hair was growing back. One day a troll came up, one of the big ones. He smelled around me. ‘Didn’t you used to shadow a polisher?’ he asked me. I shook my head, but I don’t think he believed me. ‘Wait here,’ he said. But the second he was gone, I ran. I ran all the way back to Tradd and picked him up. I thought about what would happen to him if I ever got caught. I thought about what would happen if they ever caught him.” He turned his head toward Iliff. “I knew we had to leave.”
“But the forest…” Iliff said.
Troll nodded. “It was all burned away. Nothing grew or made songs anymore. Everything we touched fell apart. But there was still water in the river and some fish, so we followed it.”
“Just like you and I did.”
Troll seemed to think about this.
“The place where the bear bit still hurt,” he said at length. “Hurt bad. I taught Tradd everything I knew. He learned quick, but I didn’t want him to be a troll after I was gone. I didn’t want him to be a hunter either.” He glanced over his shoulder. “I wanted him to be like you.”
“Me?”
But as on the day before, Troll said nothing more.
* * *
On the third day, it was Troll who began talking. He turned his head over the shoulder that held the tether.
“Course I didn’t know where you’d gone,” he said. “We followed the river, but none of it looked the same. All the trees were black, most of ’em fallen. There was dust all around our feet. We walked a long time. One day I saw the treasures. They were just sitting in a pile, like someone had set ’em there.”
“Yes,” Iliff said. “I left the sack in the shelter that morning.”
“I was so happy to see the treasures,” Troll said. “Not ’cause they were gold, no, it wasn’t that. It was ’cause they…” He paused and scratched his chin. “Well, because…”
“Because they were something we’d shared?” Iliff offered.
“Yeah,” he said, glancing back. “Something we’d shared. I put ’em all in my pockets. I tried to remember where I’d seen you last. We went along the river a ways, but I remembered the fire had already crossed it that day. I figured it had pushed you into the forest. So we went there.”
Iliff nodded, the memories of that awful morning searing his thoughts.
“We came to a little river. I thought maybe you decided to get in it. To get away from the fire.”
“I did,” Iliff said, impressed that Troll had been able to figure out his flight to that point.
“We followed it down and down. It was so steep, I had to put Tradd on my back. And then I couldn’t believe it. There were plants again. And lots of water. It made me even happier than finding the gold.”
“What? Finding this place?”
“Yeah, ’cause it told me that you’d gotten away from the fire, probably. That you were alive. But this is a big place. We searched all around. Every day Tradd and me walked bigger and bigger circles. Then one day I found your island with the tree.”
“You found the—? But how did you know it was mine?”
“There was a shelter at the top. I saw the way it was all put together.”
Iliff nodded his head. How long after he had left there had Troll come? he wondered. Months? Days? All this time he had feared Troll finding him, but now to hear the story of it fascinated him.
“We waited there,” Troll went on. “A long time we waited. I was afraid to leave. I was afraid you’d come back, and then we’d never find you. But Tradd was growing bigger and the island was getting smaller. Finally there was almost nothing left of it. Just the tree and shelter.”
“But how did you ever get to the lakeshore?” Iliff asked, recalling his own meandering journey of many days.
“Something led us.”
Iliff became excited. “Was it a dark creature with a giant hump?”
“No, it was a light.”
“A light?”
“I saw it one night, just as it was getting dark. It was white and a little green. It was over the island across the water. I thought I’d found you. I thought you were making fire from the pouch again. I put Tradd on my shoulders and went through the water. But before we could get there, the light went out. We looked around. There was nobody on the island. But then the light showed up again. This time over another island even farther away.”
“Swamp gas, probably,” Iliff said.
“But it kept happening. Lighting up, then going out. Every time farther away. In the day it wouldn’t show up at all. But at night there it’d be again. We chased it lots of nights.”
Iliff remembered the creature he had followed. How the dark island of its back would submerge and then reappear farther off. How it would move days, but sit low and idle at night.
“Then it went out altogether,” Troll was saying. “By then we were out of the swamp. We were standing by a big water. And when the winds blew down from the hills, I could smell you. But I didn’t know how to get to you. There
were so many smells up there. So many people. And they were putting up walls that went around and around. At first I was afraid you were their prisoner. But then I thought…” He stopped and grunted.
“What?”
“Then I thought you didn’t want to see me.”
Iliff shifted in his seat. He hadn’t wanted to see Troll then. But how could he explain it to him now? Especially after everything Troll had done to find him. He anticipated Troll peeking back at him and tried to compose his face. But Troll did not look back, and after a time, it was easier for Iliff to watch the swamp sliding past than to say anything else.
* * *
“How did you know to leave the treasures in the clearing?” Iliff asked on the fourth day. “How did you know I’d find them?”
“You found ’em?” Troll rumbled.
“Yes, well, scouts brought them to me.”
“I left ’em there ’cause I found this one day.” He stopped and jammed his hand into his submerged pocket. The boat drifted up behind him and came to a rest against his back. Iliff felt a strange desire to reach out and feel his thick scabs. But then Troll lifted his hand and he was holding the knife, the one with the stone blade. “It had your hair around it.”
“Yes, yes,” Iliff said, taking the dripping knife and turning it over. “I cut my hair with it the night I reached the lake. I didn’t realize I’d left it there.”
“I put one of the treasures down and waited. Some men came on animals and took it. I left another one and they took that too. I kept leaving ’em. I didn’t know what else to do. But the men who came had weapons. I worried about Tradd. I thought we’d be safer in the dark trees near the swamp. No one seemed to go there.”
“How long were you planning on waiting?”
Troll shrugged his shoulders.
Iliff thought about the treasures in the wooden box beneath his bed. The chalice, the chest, the helmet and shield, the scepter. Iliff opened his mouth to explain why he had not gone looking for him, even after he was certain that the treasures were Troll’s doing, certain that Troll was near. But he did not know how. And when he spoke again, it was to talk about other things.
Lights and Shadows (The Prisoner and the Sun #2) Page 20