by Dave Duncan
“What sort of laborers, exactly?” the tribune repeated. “Felons. The Imperial army is our main supplier. Trolls, of course. They are invaluable for certain types of work. I am sure you employ some trolls here in Casfrel?”
“We do employ a few, mm? Useful, yes, but not very reliable, what?”
“Oh, well,” Ainopple broke in to protest, “you can’t expect to rely on them. Can’t really rely on anyone except an imp. “
“I heard a funny story,” young Nya said eagerly, “about a djinn, a dwarf, and a jotunn-“
“Not another dumb jotunn story?” Puo wailed.
“Have you queried your supplier?” Uoslope demanded of Rap.
“He wasn’t very helpful. He spoke vaguely of malcontents, disrupting the system and causing shortages. The price of a healthy male has risen ridiculously. I thought I’d come and see firsthand. “
“Oh, yes!” Ainopple muttered, wringing her stringy hands. “Last year we lost our whole stock, and just when we were starting to have some success with the breeding program, too! Such a disappointment-“
“But we have replaced them, right?” her husband boomed. “Surely dinner must be ready now, what?”
Trolls were an indelicate subject.
3
The evening that had started so well deteriorated rapidly. Dinner was a social catastrophe. Rap had never been handy at making meaningless small talk, and he was preoccupied in listening for sorcery. He detected no more, and gradually began to hope that he had overestimated that one brief flicker. Perhaps it had come from much farther away than he had first thought. In that case the culprit might just have picked up some fuzzy trace of Andor’s talent in use and been trying to locate it. The obvious precaution was to avoid disturbing the ambience any furtherno farsight, no mastery!
Unfortunately, Andor had two beautiful girls to stalk, and the use of power was second nature to him now.
Fortunately, Rap was sitting across the table from him. Every time Andor became charming, his leg got kicked.
After a while he seemed to comprehend what this sudden belligerence meant, but it threw him totally off balance. Stripped of occult support after so many years, he was naked. He did not know how to behave mundanely, how to react. He became awkward, jittery, and stilted, which would have been very funny, had the situation not been so serious.
Worse, the spell he had cast over Uoslope and his family wore off. First the tribune himself became surly and suspicious again, obviously wondering why these strangers had come prowling around his fiefdom, asking impertinent questions about his illicit slaves. Then the stars faded from the eyes of Nya and Puo; they began to respond to Andor’s now-clumsy blandishments with understandable disdain. The charmer had become a boor.
As for that faun, his place was down with the hired hands, washing horses or something!
Sensing the awkward overtones, Mistress Ainopple became even more dithery and nervous than ever. How had such a gawk ish, ungainly woman ever produced two such gorgeous daughters? Her feeble efforts to keep a conversation going only made matters worse. She peppered Rap with questions about his mythical kingdom, but his one visit to Sysanasso had been extremely brief, and he knew very little about his ancestral homeland. He tried to invent a tropical version of Krasnegar and it sounded improbable even to him. She asked Andor about the Imperial court, and that reminded everyone of the imperor’s death. Things went from worse to disastrous.
When the meal ended, there was no further talk of dancing. Everyone was willing to accept that the visitors were weary from their journey and needed to catch a good night’s sleep. With a few incoherent apologies, Rap and Andor made a break for the stairs.
“What in the Name of Evil was all that about?” Andor demanded in an angry whisper as they climbed. “My shins are black and blue! “
“Someone’s using sorcery. You ripple the ambience.”
“I shall ripple your neck, my faunish friend! Who? What sort of sorcery?”
They reached the upper story as Rap finished explaining. He took his companion’s elbow and turned him along a corridor. “We’re not going to our rooms. We’re leaving!”
“How? Where?”
“Servants’ staircase. Got to get out before they loose the dogs. “
Andor wailed. “Dogs?”
“Along here.”
Down they went.
Using the barest hint of farsight, Rap avoided the domestics now clearing away the remains of the meal. Less than five minutes after bidding their host good night, the fugitives were outside the villa, standing in a patch of inky shadow. The air was cooling rapidly, and a bloated moon floated in a clear sky, illuminating the whole valley. The Mosweeps were especially striking.
“Now wait a minute!” Andor said, strident with fear. “This makes no sense at all! We’re caught in a dead end here! The only way we can go is back down the valley, and they’ll chase us as soon as they find we’ve
gone.”
“I know that, but-“
“They’re probably counting the silverware already.”
“The stables-“
“I’m going to call Darad. He’s much more-“
“No!” Rap grabbed Andor’s cravat and squeezed. “Now, listen carefully! If you bring Darad, that’s sorcery! You’ll give us away. You’re far better on a horse than Darad is, anyway. ” Andor’s teeth chattered briefly.
“What’s more,” Rap said, just so there would be no misunderstanding, “if they catch Darad, they catch you, too. If Zinixo gets any one of you, then he forces your word out of whichever one of you he’s got, and then you all die. All of you, is not so? Besides, I need you. Come on. “
Releasing Andor’s throat, he took a firm grip on his arm and led him off through the night as fast as he dared go.
“Need me how?” Andor muttered sulkily. “I think you’ll have to pick a lock.”
“I can’t do that! It’s Thinal you need for that, and I can’t call him because he called me. That’s all your fault, too. Know something? You really messed up a beautiful piece of sorcery when you mucked around with Orarinsagu’s formula, you dumb faun!”
“Not my idea. I know I need Thinal, but you can’t call him directly, and two transformations would be totally insane. Thinal must’ve picked a million locks. You’ve got his memories, haven’t you? So use them.”
“Just because you’ve heard singing doesn’t mean you can sing!” Andor objected, but the light was so tricky and Rap was setting so hard a pace that he soon had very little breath for whining. The settlement was sliding into sleep. Few lights showed in the cottages. The gnomes would be scavenging, of course, but they never interfered with the activities of dayfolk.
“Wait a minute, Rap!- The stables are over that way, aren’t they?”
“No, they’re that way. We’ve got a call to make first.”
“What sort of a call?”
“Trolls … Oh, do stop bitching, Andor!”
Fighting his way through some prickly bushes, Rap reproached himself for his ill temper. Andor was not the only frightened man among the two of them. With sorcery ruled out, they were nothing but mundane intruders in a private fortress. There were dogs and armed soldiers around. The legionaries might have been stationed at Casfrel as official border guards or just because the senator had pulled political strings to protect his estate; in either case those men would know exactly what to do about mundane intruders.
And if sorcery was not ruled out, the situation was even worse. Rap kept thinking up darker and darker possibilities. Uoslope himself-and he lived very well, as virtual ruler of a private kingdom-or his withered wife; or the butler, or one of the lute players … someone had power, perhaps very great power. The greater the power, the less detectable it was in use. Perhaps that person had been eavesdropping on Rap’s thoughts ever since he arrived and that one tiny ripple had been just a momentary carelessness.
God of Fools! Why hadn’t he listened to his premonition? The trolls’ prison was dir
ectly ahead, gleaming where moonlight shone on massive blocks of whitish stone. It was obviously new, and must have been built after last year’s breakout. A cell to hold trolls would have to be constructed like an elephant pen-trolls were usually restrained by brute terror, because anything else could be ripped out or torn apart. This close to the mountains, though, even a brutalized troll might feel that the chance of escape was good enough to risk yet another savage beating.
Panting and streaming sweat in the chill night, Rap arrived at the door. Andor was close behind, still muttering under what breath he had left. Fortunately, the entrance was in shadow. A bat twittered overhead in jerky flight.
Again Rap risked the merest hint of farsight, an occult peek … surprise!
“It’s not shielded,” he gasped. “I thought it would be.”
“So?” .
“So there’s a sorcerer around somewhere. Why not shield the building?”
“Bunk!” Andor said. “Where would a plantation manager find sorcery? Or a senator? What market do you go to to buy sorcery? Sorcerers don’t need money!” He muttered “Stupid!” a few times.
That was true, and yet Rap had expected shielding, somehow. He leaned against the wall for a moment, trying to puzzle it out. There was something other than logic involved, though, and he couldn’t find the answer.
“Can you pick this lock?” he demanded. “No,” Andor said sulkily.
The lock was a bronze box about the size of a suitcase. The door itself was not much larger, like the entrance to a dog kennel. The trolls would have to crawl through on their hands and knees.
“Right, I’ll risk it.”
Tumblers clanged, sounding like a fire gong in the still night. “Couldn’t you have done that a little quieter?” Andor wiped his forehead.
“Not without using more power. Come on.”
The door grated open. Rap crouched down and wriggled inside.
The interior was one huge room, still hot as a baker’s oven and acrid as a pigpen-what would it be like in summer? High slits admitted beams of moonlight, striped by bars thicker than a jotunn’s forearm. Straw rustled. He sharpened his vision a fraction and made out two bodies stirring in a corner. They were the women he had seen earlier; they sat up together with grunts of surprise. The man was lying facedown in another corner, breathing harshly. Sacking hung on pegs along one wall. The only furniture was a bucket.
“Phew!” said Andor. “Let’s get out of here!”
“My name is Rap. I am a friend.”
The two girls whimpered and huddled back into the corner, hugging each other. Making a wild guess, Rap estimated their ages as thirteen and eighteen respectively. They had no clothes on, and their pale skins glimmered with sweat. Even the child would have outweighed him handily, and she must have been the one he had seen hauling the wagon. He thought of Kadie, home in Krasnegar, with her fancy clothes, her fencing lessons, her books and romantic dreams. And then this? There were times when he despised the Gods.
He had forgotten how big trolls were-almost as tall as jotnar and burly as goblins. Their skins were doughy and tough, yet prone to sunburn; their hair was brown and woolly, their strength legendary. Doubtless a male of their own race would appreciate these two maidens’ protruding muzzles and sloping foreheads, but it was hard to think of trolls as human when you looked them in the face. Rap had met trolls in Durthing, many years ago, and he knew them to be gentle, worthy folk, placid and friendly—
“I am Rap,” he repeated. “Tell me your names.”
The girls scrabbled even farther back into their corner. Then the older seemed to understand. She pushed her younger companion away and began stretching out on the straw, making herself available.
A spasm of revulsion made Rap want to puke. He remembered Mistress Ainopple’s remark about a breeding program. He remembered things Ballast had told him, years ago, on Stormdancer. Ballast himself had been part jotunn. Half-breeds were prized even more than full-blooded trolls, because they were supposed to be more intelligent.
“No! I want to help you. Tell me your names!”
“Rap, for the Gods’ sake let’s get out of here!” Andor was gagging.
“Master not … come to … make baby?” Trolls’ heavy jaws made their speech slurred. They spoke little, and slowly, which perhaps explained their reputation for stupidity.
“No. I come to help you. What is your name?”
“Urg, Master.”
“And the child?”
“Norp. “
The big male groaned. Rap swung around to look, and then used farsight. The man’s body was a jelly of bruises and scrapes. There was blood on the straw.
“That is … Thrugg,” Urg mumbled. “He’s been beaten?”
“Masters say … Thrugg was … bad.”
Gods! He looked as if he’d been stamped on by a legion. Trolls were reputed to be indestructible.
“Rap!” Andor squealed. “As soon as the cooks go home, they’ll let the dogs loose. We’ve got to get out! Now! “
“Oh, shut up! I can’t leave them here!” Rap strode over to the pegs and scooped up the sacking; he hurled it at the girls. “Get dressed! You heard me! Dress!”
With urgent motions, they began. Ignoring a torrent of shrill complaint from Andor, Rap went over to kneel beside the comatose male. He stank of fresh blood and vomit.
“Thrugg! Thrugg, can you walk?” The answer was a subterranean groan.
Andor’s protests grew louder. He was dancing from one foot to the other in his impatience. Rap wiped an arm over his brow. He knew he was being just as crazy as Andor was describing him, but he could not imagine himself going away and leaving these people. They were none of his business. The risk was absurd-but he had to take that risk, because he had to live with himself until he died.
To use his power as sparingly as possible, he laid both hands on Thrugg’s bloody back. He closed his eyes, concentrating … He saw a couple of cracked ribs, but the rest was just bruising, a massive battering. It must have been done quite recently, too. Could anything have justified this? Perhaps he was a killer. A crazy troll would be a human earthquake.
Rap turned his head to look up at the girls. They were both fully dressed now, swathed from neck to ankles and wrists in the all-encompassing cover they needed for protection from sunlight. Their huge, vague shapes loomed over him in the gloom, only their frightened eyes distinct.
“Urg? What did Thrugg do? Why did they beat him?”
Urg nervously wiped her nostrils with her tongue. “Masters … helping me. Thrugg … was very … bad.”
“Helping you? Help you to do what?”
“Help … make baby … Thrugg got … angry.” Evil of evils! Rap turned back to the victim.
Andor whimpered. “Rap! What in the Name of Folly are you doing? “
“Be quiet! ” Heal! The ambience shivered and flared. There was so much damage! Heal! He would have to use more powerthere!
Thrugg grunted, and then began to move like a horse rolling over. Rap jumped up and backed away quickly, conscious of those enormous muscles and hands like dinner plates.
“Thrugg? I’m Rap. I’m a friend. Feel better now?”
The big, bestial face stared up at him blankly. Thrugg’s woolly beard was caked with blood, black in the moonlight. “Friend? Master? You … stop pain? “
“I’m a sorcerer. I want to find Witch Grunth. Have you ever heard of her?”
“For the love of the Good, Rap!” Andor screamed. “He’s a savage! A slave! What can he know of a warden?”
Trouble was, Andor was absolutely right. The chances of this unfortunate churl being able to help were as close to zero as chances could be. So … So a sorcerer could play hunches, couldn’t he?
“Get dressed, Thrugg.”
Another huge shape moved in as Urg approached with a coarse-woven shirt as big as a tent. Thrugg took it and pulled it on. It was a snug fit.
Andor grabbed Rap’s arm, and Rap shook him off roughly.
“Thrugg,” he said, “a year ago, some slaves escaped from here. A sorcerer helped them. I want to find-“
The ambience flared with an eerie light. Rap whirled around to give battle and screamed aloud as he was engulfed in fire.
It had been a trap all along, of course. That was why the troll pen had not been shielded.
The sorceress stood there in the same ill-fitting gown she had worn at dinner, gloating. Although triumph brightened her pinched, foxy features, it did not stop her being nondescript. Yet even that unappealing aspect was a glamour. Rap had caught a brief glimpse of her true form in the ambience, and she was far, far older than she seemed. She could never be the mother of Nya and Puo-grandmother’s mother, maybe.
The battle had been brief, for her power was immeasurably greater than his. He would have made a better showing wrestling Thrugg. She had crushed him easily, then wrapped him in a shielding spell, just as he had once encapsuled Zinixo. He was as completely mundane now as he had been for most of the last eighteen years. The loss felt a lot different when it was not of his own choosing.
Having taken care of his occult powers-and probably Ardor’s, also, just to be certain-the sorceress had then nailed them both into the walls. Their arms were behind them and their legs bent at the knees. They hung there like a couple of decorations, shoulders and backs against the stone, their limbs within it. Rap’s elbows and feet felt so cold that he assumed they went all the way through to the cool air outside. He could move his toes, but not a single finger. It was very effective restraint, but it threw all his weight on his knees and shoulders. The pain was already making him sweat, and increasing steadily.
“Sit!” the sorceress snapped. “Over there! Sit!” The trolls stampeded over to the corner indicated. They sat down in a close-packed heap, huddling together nervously.
Ainopple turned her attention to Andor. “Just a genius, aren’t you? Well, you’ll use no charisma now. The rest of your magical baggage I shall leave for my superiors to investigate.” She sniffed, cloaking anger in disapproval like a schoolmarm. “I had assumed that you were under a compulsion, but I see no signs of one. A faun I can perhaps understand. We must make allowances for such people. But how an imp could behave as you have is quite beyond my comprehension. I hope you enjoy your stay here.”