The Twistrose Key

by Tone Almhjell

  “Those marks look exactly like the ones in Isvan’s mansion,” Lin said. “What are they?”

  “That I should very much like to know,” Teodor said. “Because they are doing the impossible. They are killing Sylver’s guard runes.”

  “That’s a guard rune?” Rufus’s voice broke into a squeak. “Aren’t they what keep the Nightmares out?”

  “Yes. The Palisade is strong, but it can only do so much to protect us. Without the guard runes the Nightmares would eventually swarm the border. Tell me. When you visited my turret tonight, did you perchance notice the runes on the wall?”

  Lin tore herself away from the bite marks. Like the holes in the floor of Isvan’s mansion, they sounded like discordant fiddle strings. “The ones under the round windows?”

  “Yes. My warning runes. They were made to fire if something happened to the guard runes. Did they seem burned to you?”

  Lin tried to remember. She had been so preoccupied with The Book of Frost and Flame. But of course, she hadn’t known that the carvings were runes, or that they were important. “I think two of them were smudged by soot.”

  “But not the third.”

  “No.”

  Teodor nodded. “Then we can hope that the last guard rune still lives. The rune in the Hall of Winter was killed over a month ago, not long before Isvan disappeared. I thought perhaps it was an accident. After all, ice is an unstable substance. But tonight the Palisade rune was destroyed, too. You heard it, Lin. Its warning rune fired while you were there.”

  So that was the scratch and the stink from the turret! That was why he had shoved them out the door and galloped up the Caravan Road!

  “The guard runes are old, created generations ago, and far beyond my capacity to re-create. I would protect the third and final rune, except I do not know where it is located. I only know that it is carved somewhere to the north of Peppersnap Nook.”

  “Could the Nightmares be behind it?” Rufus’s knuckles had turned white from clinging to the hedge.

  “No,” Teodor answered. “As long as the final rune lives, they cannot cross the border. And though Nightmares are lethal, their minds drift easily, like the dreams they came from. They do not deal in plots or plans.”

  Lin stared out into the pass. Had Isvan really come here all alone? Left the safety of the Palisade behind without anyone to guard his back? Now that she had seen the Nightmare Mountains, she doubted he would have gone out there just because he was afraid of Teodor and Mrs. Zarka. Nothing could be more terrifying than this shifting darkness full of howls and things that moved.

  Teodor tensed beside her. Lin saw it, too. By a formation of low rocks near the end of the pass: a flash of light. Another.

  She drew a sharp breath. The jars in the House of Flame! The grains and nuts and seeds!

  Blink, blink.

  Danger. Trolls nearby.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Lin’s legs felt watery as they climbed down from the Palisade, fox, girl, and vole. Every few breaths a new, shivering howl rose from the Nightmares out in the pass. She still couldn’t believe it. Nightmares were creatures made from the secret fears of children, and some of those fears were her own.

  “Those are really trolls out there?”

  “Snow trolls,” Teodor said. “Our local tribe. Dumb brutes, but deadly.”

  “But that was a troll-hunter signal by those rocks!” Rufus said, edging his way across a platform. “Who else is out there?”

  “I don’t know, Rufocanus!” Teodor barked. “If I had every answer to every question, I would not have to deal with the likes of you!” He forgot all about his old man’s bones and jumped the final ladder to the ground.

  “Fabian,” he called, stalking over toward the little horse and Ursa Minor, who stood huddled behind a big branch. “You must prepare yourself. We are going through the gate.”

  Fabian’s nostrils flared with fear. “But there must be dozens of trolls out there! No one can last against a whole pack of Nightmares. Not in the open. Not at night.”

  “I know,” Teodor said. “Yet we have no choice. If the Twistrose believes that Isvan is out there, then that’s where we must go.”

  “We have pulled many wild stunts, but this . . .” There was resignation in Fabian’s voice. As if he had no hope that they would make it. He scraped a shoe against the frozen earth. “It shall be as you say, old friend. But hooves are not much use against trolls.”

  • • •

  Which was true. There was only one weapon that could kill a troll outright, and Lin didn’t have any. Bane.

  “Teodor,” she said. “What is the bane of snow trolls?”

  “Silvercone seeds.” He fished a small lozenge box from his pocket. It was half full of pearly grains. “This is the reason I returned to the Hearth of Flame—we keep our stores there. But this year, somehow the silver firs did not yield any cones. These are all we have left.”

  He tossed the lozenge box to Lin.

  “You’re giving all of them to me?” she said.

  Teodor inclined his head. “When the Rosa torquata brought the Twistrose Key to you, it knew you are not only a riddle-cracker of some skill. You’re an expert troll hunter, too. In this, we will follow your lead.”

  They all watched her. Fabian with his serious, sad eyes; Ursa Minor with his close-set gaze; Teodor with a sly glint. And Rufus, whose eyes were bright with pride. All four of them were ready to follow her into the Nightmare realm. Lin swallowed. She was an expert, all right, an expert at making the trolls terrible and dangerous, because that made the hunt more thrilling. She had never imagined that she would actually encounter them. And until now, she hadn’t truly understood Teodor’s words: Tonight, young Rosenquist, you will find that some games are real.

  “First of all,” she said slowly, trying her best to appear collected and calm, “we can’t just go blindly into enemy territory. We have to know where we are headed.”

  Teodor grunted. “I’ve witnessed Clariselyn Winterfyrst leave for the Well and return within two hours. The Well has to be near the Cracklemoor. Yet I have never seen any well-like formation in these parts, let alone glacial cathedrals.” He clicked his tongue. “I wish I’d had the foresight to bring a map.”

  Rufus looked from one to the other. “Oh, fine,” he muttered, picking a roll of paper out from one of his scarf pockets. His “Comprehensive Chart of Sylveros and All Its Lands.” They unrolled the map between them. At the end of the Sylver Vale, there was a bit of map that Rufus hadn’t revealed until now: The Whitepass and the Cracklemoor.

  “Where did you get this?” Teodor said.

  Rufus gave a pursed-lip shrug.

  “You have been in the Cartography Chamber.” Teodor shook his head in disgust. “I suppose it takes courage of some sort to trespass and steal right under the nose of your superior.”

  It did, Lin thought, but it took even more courage to own up to it. She leaned close and whispered, “One point to Rufus of Rosenquist.”

  The Cracklemoor was a wide, shallow basin, like a sheet tethered between mountain peaks. The Caravan Road cut a brave line straight eastward, toward a range of craggy peaks called the Shatterjaws. To the north lay the tall Towerhorns, from which the Crackle Creek flowed across the moor to the Grieve Cleft.

  “I remember something Lass the gatherer said. She found Frostfang in a rimedeer carcass near the spring of the Crackle Creek. Which should be here.” Lin pointed to the northernmost end of the stream. “It’s no guarantee the Winterfyrst Well is in the Towerhorns, but it’s the best lead we have.”

  “If we want to go there, the Crackle Creek is our only hope,” Fabian offered. “It runs through a dell of shrubs and trees. Snow trolls don’t have much of a sense of smell, so if they can’t see us, we might stand a slim chance.”

  “Good idea,” Lin said. She drew a line from the pass
to the stream. “Once we’re out on the moor, we’ll head for the Crackle Creek dell and keep our heads down. But that won’t work in the pass. In the pass we have to outrun them.”

  Outside the Palisade a new wave of howls rose, setting everyone’s fur on end. Fabian nickered, and Lin could see the white at the edges of his eyes. Teodor frowned at the moaning, swaying, slicing hedge. “Something is not right here,” the old fox said. “Snow trolls are loners. They have been known to attack one another on sight. Yet here they are, crammed together in the Whitepass, thick as lice. And that signal we saw—I cannot think of any other explanation than that the trolls sent it.”

  Rufus snorted. “Trolls making troll-hunter signals? That doesn’t seem very likely, unless they’re trying to lure us out through the gate. I thought you said Nightmares don’t deal in plots or plans.”

  “Wait,” Lin said. She heard a wheezing, grating voice in her head, clipped into pieces and deadened by static, but still as clear as ice. On Wanderer’s Eve, I shall have the Nightmares ready.

  Rufus smiled. “The quizzy face! Lin, do you have a theory?”

  “What do you know?” Teodor’s eyes blazed with impatience. “For the love of the Flame, Twistrose, our lives are at stake here! I cannot help you if you keep me in the dark!”

  “I think the trolls are being controlled.” Lin picked the falcon cylinder out of her boot and pried out the letter. “‘The Margrave’s Song’ is not about a star, it’s about a person. We found a second verse in Figenskar’s office. He stole it from a falcon messenger.”

  Teodor snatched the song out of Lin’s hands. “This message is for me! I am Vulpes of Lucke.”

  “You are?” Rufus gathered his whiskers in suspicion. “How convenient.”

  “My last name is Lucke, and Vulpes means ‘fox.’ Something for you to ponder, Rufocanus.”

  Rufus glared at him, but Fabian nipped gently at Rufus’s scarf. “It’s not intended as an insult,” the horse said. “Merely as a reminder. Right, Teodor?”

  Teodor didn’t reply. He had his grizzled snout in the Queen of Soothsinger’s letter, as if bringing it close would help him decipher the words. “A new lord on Wanderer’s Eve. A powerful lord. A Blood Lord.” He clicked his claws against the parchment. “Margrave means ‘lord of the border.’ And the border is under attack from the Nightmares. Nightmares that do not behave as Nightmares.”

  “That’s what I was thinking about,” Lin said. “I found something else in Figenskar’s office. A recorded message from the Margrave. He said he would have the Nightmares ready, for Wanderer’s Eve. That they were set for some plan they call Operation Corvelie. We don’t know exactly what it is, but they’re covering their . . .”

  “Corvelie?” Teodor interrupted. “Corvelie, you say? But that means . . .”

  The old fox licked his lips. “Oh dear. I have been looking at this puzzle from the wrong side. Yes, Margrave means ‘border lord,’ but it also another name for the Wanderer. For someone who is a long way from home. A very long way.”

  He turned abruptly and climbed onto Fabian’s back, wheeling him around. “Lin. Rufocanus. May the Flame forgive me, but you will have to brave the Cracklemoor alone.”

  “Alone? You’re not coming with us?” Rufus cried.

  “I cannot.” Teodor had the decency to look ashamed. “I do not know how you will fare out there alone, but I have no choice but to leave you. Remember, Lin. We trust in your gifts, and so must you.” He whispered something into Fabian’s ear, and the Hoof threw himself into a run.

  “At least tell us where you are going!” Lin called after their whipping tails.

  “The final guard rune!” Teodor cried. “I must find and protect the final guard rune!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  “On the upside,” Rufus said between his teeth, “we don’t have to wonder if we can trust Teodor or not.”

  Rufus and Lin sat astride Ursa Minor. Lin held on to the fur between Minor’s shoulders, and Rufus held on to Lin, and in their free hands, both riders clutched a small pile of twenty-six silvercone seeds.

  All they had to do was touch the Gate Thorn, and the Palisade would let them through. Lin wished they could stay within the safety of Sylver’s border. But Isvan had come this way. He was out there, silenced and caught in the secret cold. And a troll hunter did not back away from danger.

  “I am ready when you are, small ones,” Ursa Minor said. They had tried telling him that he didn’t have to come, but the great bear had insisted. “I want to help find the little boy,” he had said, shaking his massive head. “He was leaving, and I didn’t understand. Maybe if I had, he wouldn’t be out there with the howlers.”

  Lin took a deep breath. “Rufus.”

  Rufus leaned out and put his hand against the Gate Thorn, a white sickle covered with runes, like a carved and sharpened elephant’s tusk. A thrum went through the Palisade. The branches stirred before them, unhooking, untangling, ungrasping, until a tall, pointed opening had formed in the hedge.

  Ursa Minor walked through it. The frozen dirt of the Caravan Road crunched under his paws. Immediately, the brooding air enveloped them. It felt sluggish and full of foreboding and malice, like the very moment you shift into a bad dream. Rufus twisted back and forth behind Lin. “Where the rats are they?”

  “Shhh,” Lin hissed. The scuttlers had been over by the mountain walls, at least three hundred yards away from the gate on both sides. She had a small hope that they could slip through the pass unnoticed, that they would be out on the Cracklemoor before the trolls even knew the gate had opened. Behind them, the hedge whispered shut, braiding branch with branch, until the Palisade was whole again. In the silver and black of the mountain gorge, nothing stirred, save the wind that tore at their breath clouds.

  Minor took a silent step forward.

  A pair of green eyes lit up in the darkness, pale and big like jellyfish. But they weren’t over by the mountain wall. They were ten yards away.

  The troll unfurled from its crouch, joint by joint. It became two meters tall. Three meters tall. It had a long neck and a matted, white pelt. And teeth. Many, many teeth.

  A howl came tearing out of its maw and sunk into Lin’s heart. “Go!” she cried. “Run!”

  Minor’s great muscles bunched up, and he threw himself into a wild gallop. And as he did so, hundreds of pale green eyes lit up in the pass, two by two, like shipwreck lanterns. They were everywhere.

  The bane! Lin clenched her fist tight as she clung to the Ursa’s tilting, lurching back, trying to find her balance so she could get a decent shot when the snow trolls came at them.

  And come they did, scurrying out of the night, so fast their legs blurred against the ground. But Ursa Minor ran fast, too. The trolls gained on them, but whenever they came almost close enough, they fell back a few steps, howling with their nasty maws instead of attacking. Lin cast a confused look over her shoulder. The trolls were so fast. Why were they just chasing after them?

  The answer appeared at the end of the pass. A whole wall of green eyes lit up, a barricade stretching from one mountainside to the other, like a mirror palisade. Only this one had teeth and claws instead of thorns. The trolls stood shoulder to shoulder, rows and rows deep, waiting for them.

  It was a trap.

  “Minor!” Rufus cried.

  “I see them,” Minor growled. “Hold on, small ones!” He veered left, running along the gnashing wall at a fifteen-yard distance. It bought them some time, but not much. The mountain wall was approaching rapidly.

  Lin clutched her precious little handful of silvercone seeds. The trolls of the barricade didn’t react to their change of course. They stayed put like toy soldiers lined up for battle. But to stand a chance of hitting the trolls with the bane, Lin and Rufus would need to move within the monsters’ reach. And even if they threw all of the seeds at once, Lin doubted it would be enou
gh to blast a hole in the wall. Her pulse thumped in her ears. Never, in all her years of troll hunting, had she imagined a situation this desperate.

  “Troll hunter!” Minor roared, and it was both a warning and a question. Twenty more bounds, and they would have to choose between crashing into the mountainside or turning back toward the Palisade, straight into the claws of their pursuers.

  A group of rocks rose out of the ground on their side. The stone formation where they had seen the mysterious troll-hunter signal! The troll wall curled along it, but the jellyfish eyes looked more sparse, only two trolls deep against the stones.

  “Right!” Lin screamed. “Over the rocks!”

  She felt Rufus’s grip around her waist slip an inch as Minor turned again, lurching hard under them. His bounds grew hard and fast as he raced for the troll barricade. And when the first trolls reached for them, he leaped for the sky.

  Lin held on with one hand and let a few seeds go with the other. Around her, bursts of silver, and some of the green eyes winked out as those trolls collapsed, shrinking, shrieking, in a distorted knot of melting flesh.

  But not all the bane hit home. And the trolls that remained lunged at them. Claws sliced at their legs as Minor found purchase against the rocks and clambered up, pebbles skittering under his paws. Lin felt something sharp clawing at her foot, but she kicked and it missed. But behind her, Rufus cried out, and his arm let go of her.

  “Rufus!” Lin screamed, wrenching around. One of the trolls had Rufus by the tail, and her friend’s eyes bulged in pain and panic. Another gripped Minor’s hind leg, opening its maw of splintered icicle teeth, ready to sink them in.

  Lin felt a rush of electricity sting through her body. She could save them. She flung every single silvercone seed back at their attackers and grabbed Rufus by the scruff, hauling him onto Minor’s back. And as the bane found the enemy, the troll wall finally let them through.