by Renee Wildes
“Tell me a tale,” she begged Dax. “Of the First Mother of All, of how trolls became.”
He shook his head with a rueful smile. “You’ve heard it a hundred times. You could tell it to me.”
“’Tis a good night for stories.” She wrapped her arms around her knees.
Dax stared at her for a long moment from beneath heavy brows. “They’re fools to do what they did, the council. You shouldn’t be punished for doing what you feel is right. Compassion shouldn’t be a crime.”
“Thanks.” Pryseis struggled to swallow down the lump in her throat. “The story?”
“Afore the earth was new, all was dark and still,” he began. “The earth was solid, but lifeless. In the heavens danced the seven sisters of Light, stars burning bright as the sun. On the youngest daughter’s one hundredth-hundredth birthday, her father asked what gift she desired most of all. She claimed the earth.
“Her sisters scoffed at her, told her ’twas a foolish wish, a lifeless ball of rock at the edge of the heavens. She insisted that was what she wanted. More than anything. Her father, who could deny her naught, let her have it and told her sisters to leave her be.” Dax turned the tree-hare so it wouldn’t burn.
“But they didn’t.”
“Nay, for such is the nature of siblings. They badgered her, asking what she would do with a great dead rock. She danced across the rocks, warming, shaping, until the earth began to sing to her song. It rose up to dance with her, enthralled by her light and her song. The first trolls came into being.” Dax handed Pryseis a cup of rainwater.
“She loved her trolls.”
He nodded and stretched out on the ground across the fire from her, bracing his head on a large hand. Long, matted ropes of brown hair coiled over his broad shoulders. “Everywhere she danced, grass grew and flowers bloomed. Birds and animals gathered to her, and the trolls were never lonely. Their Mother missed her sisters, and every time the sisters visited earth, they begged her to come back and chase them across the heavens again. The trolls built her a mountain, the tallest mountain made from the earth itself, but ’twasn’t enough. She wept for the loss of her sisters, and her tears formed the sacred pool, atop the highest mountain peak, as close to the heavens as she could get, until she could bear it no longer. She left her troll children to look after their home, whilst she returned to the heavens.”
Pryseis sipped her rainwater. Mother’s tears? “And they never saw her again?”
“Aye. Every hundred-hundred years she streaks by, a bright comet in the sky. The earth trembles at her approach, dancing in her presence. Ever the trolls guard her lands and the sacred pool of her tears.”
“Elixir, the pool of neverending life. Why would she forbid her children to drink?”
“We must return to the earth from whence we came, to be reborn anew. ’Twas darkness and light at the beginning, and so it continues even now. The darkness of death. The light of rebirth. As our Mother wishes it.” He pulled the tree-hare off the spit and began his meal.
“And us? What of the faeries?” The trolls had such an interesting theory on that.
“The Mother gave you to the world from the Light and the breath of life, to keep her creatures at peace. The pool keeps you forever young. Forever renewed.”
“For a price. Always to drink from our own hand, to be kept apart from all others. We are naught but a myth to most.” Pryseis rose to stand at the cave’s edge, where the wind blew a fine mist of rain against her skin. Not as cold as the mountaintops, but cool and refreshing.
The myth was about to become flesh.
She thought on the Mother, on Her children—the trolls and the faeries. One, child of earth and metal. One, child of air and fire. Different, yet both Her children, and She loved both. If only Her children could do the same. See the similarities instead of the differences. See how much more the world was for each wonderful and special presence.
“You should sleep,” Dax told her.
She wasn’t ready to face the darkness yet and rubbed her arms. “Sleep brings no rest.”
“Then come sit by the fire and relax. I’ll make some garelbark tea. That should help.”
Garelbark soothed a troubled heart. Not an exact cure, but it wouldn’t hurt. “Sounds lovely.” Pryseis stared across the fire at Dax. “Thank you for coming with me.”
“You’re the only one on that barren rock of a mountain who matters to me.”
What? “That’s not true, Dax. You have your friends in the guard.”
He shook his head and set his jaw. “The true trolls have never been comfortable with me. I’m not as big and strong as a rock troll. I’m faster and a better tracker than even the forest trolls, true, but I’m an oddity. They thought my mother overreached herself by pairing with one of our faerie lords. The faeries wonder what was wrong with my father that he never settled with one of them.”
“What was wrong with your father?” Pryseis strangled on a shout. “Lursa, Dax, there was naught wrong with my brother—or your mother. They fell in love. ’Twas beautiful, magical. They didn’t care about differences, and neither should we.”
“I’m neither one.” He handed her a cup of tea.
“You’re both. A special, unique individual I love because of, not in spite of.”
Dax snorted. “Then you’re the special one. The faeries don’t see any as an individual.” He studied her over his own cup. “How did all this start, Aunt Pryseis? You’re taking a terrible gamble for a gob-child.” He corrected himself in mid-word, and continued. “This has cost you everything. How do you ken you’re not wrong?”
“I don’t.” Pryseis watched the flames dance in wood that sizzled with lingering moisture. “We dream faeries can sense the tenor of dreams, both dark and light. Our nets soften the edges, blunt the extremes. Except for this child ’twasn’t enough. It continues to paralyze him. What if it grows beyond him? Shall it encompass his kin? His tribe? His nation?”
Dax blinked. “Can dreams do that?”
“I think this one can.” Pryseis shivered anew and rubbed her arms. “It already has me. I’m not sure ’tis a mere dream anymore.” But if ’twasn’t a dream, what power could she wield over it? What if it grew beyond her? Would her sisters be next?
“We’ll find a way through this.”
“And the lad?”
Dax started to growl, then sighed instead. “’Tis no secret how I feel about goblins, but I’m not indifferent to the plight of a child. I care more for you, though. You’re the only one who treats me as kin, not some misbegotten half-breed abomination.”
Pryseis wanted to hug him, kenned he’d shove her away if she tried. “Cease! You’re no abomination. You are kin, Dax, the only one I’ve got, and worth a hundred of them. My brother loved your mother and you. He’d be proud of you. Never doubt that.”
“I’m trying. But goblins? I still think there’s a trap in this somewhere.”
“That’s why you’re here.” Pryseis finished her tea and lay down. Dax settled on the other side of the fire, betwixt her and the outer rim. She felt him slide into a wary doze.
She closed her eyes and drifted like the wood-scented smoke of the campfire along the threads of her dream-net. Let distant thoughts and dreams flow around her, through her, catching none. A bright light that shone for Benilo beckoned, distracting her. He slept in the Shadowlands, already on his way to her. His mind reached for hers, as if they had an instinctive bond now. Her body burned as she recalled the feel of his hands sliding over her skin. She nudged him away, forced her body to distance, to stillness. The net she cast tonight was a specific one, marked for a single individual. She’d never tried such a thing afore. She’d no idea if it would work. If ’twas meant to work. Did the Mother care for individuals, or the world as but a whole?
It crept up on her like the smoke, the first thin wail. A brush of fear, tinged with sorrow and despair. Her net burned bright with her anger. No child should feel despair so young. Where were his parents, his guardia
ns and protectors?
“I’m here for you,” she whispered in her mind. “Feel the Light. I can help you. Come to me.”
His dreams flowed about her, horrific visions of ravenous beasts, vicious monsters. They slid through the net and clung to the threads of Light. The net pulled the dream from the sleeper, infusing him with peace and Light. “Relax…sleep…” she reassured him. “I have you.”
“Nay, sorceress, I have you!” a strange, guttural voice snarled. An explosion of black power shattered her net, hammered through her mind. Lursa, when had the goblins achieved magic? Dark magic, crude…but strong. Barely able to think through the pain, she grasped the realization the connection worked both ways. Someone had used a helpless lad to ensnare her. She, or her kind?
Dax tossed aside the fire. With her last bit of strength, she tried to wake him, but the dark sorcerer held him in sleep. She beat against the wall in her mind to no avail.
They came for her from the depths of the caves, through crevasses in the back wall, formed by the sorcerer’s black magic in what had been a solid wall of rock. Goblin drones, crawling over the rocks. She stared at the first to approach. Short, dark and lean, with thin bandy legs, a hunched back and short wispy hair on its round head. Its face was disconcertingly…off. The black, empty eyes were too close together, with a flattened nose, flared nostrils and a tiny slit for a mouth. Whilst their sorcerer held her mind enthralled, powerless, they bound her with iron chains which scraped across her wings, chafed her skin. One raised a blackened ash bow, moved to strike Dax down. The hammered bronze arrowhead glinted with an ominous greenish tinge. Poison! Pryseis watched, voiceless, helpless, as the bowstring twanged and the arrow buried itself into Dax’s chest. He lunged to his feet with a roar, took two shaky steps toward them and crashed to the ground.
The last thing she saw as they dragged her away was Dax’s chest rise, fall…and still.
Crystal butterflies in chains of iron… Sharp pain stabbed Benilo in the ankle, through his boot. He focused on gleaming ebony feathers. The raven perched atop the coiled end of the rope and cocked her head as their gazes met. She was large, even for one of her kind. A messenger of the spirit world, sometimes guardian and sometimes guide for the departed. What wished she of him?
“I still live,” Benilo reminded her.
She ruffled her feathers.
If only he carried something for her to eat, but ravens ate meat. He reached for the spiced khaffa. He needed it. “You kenned of the dreams.”
She clacked her beak.
“Chains cannot be a good sign. Is Pryseis in trouble?”
The raven hopped over to his pack. She pecked at it with an impatient air.
“Is there time to eat?”
She ruffled her feathers again.
So, eating on the run yet again. In minutes he packed the tent and pulled a cake of dried fruits, grains and nuts stuck together with honey to gnaw on whilst he walked. “Which way?”
She flew off east-southeast and circled overhead.
“So you shall keep me company for a time?”
Affirmation.
“Have you a name?”
An image of a new moon brushed his mind.
“Thank You, Lady.” A strange Goddess-gift, ravens touched the planes of both worlds. Recalling Anika’s warning, he hoped Pryseis had not yet crossed over. Their world was not ready for another war. He yawned and stretched as he strode through the mud. Leaves shimmered with lingering raindrops. Intermittent sunbeams penetrated the canopy foliage.
New Moon cawed, jarring him from his thoughts. Her impatience stirred up his air spirit, and the nagging sense of urgency increased. He lengthened his stride, pushing through the fronds of ferns, stepping over fallen logs and around boulders. Dried vines from last year clutched at his boots, threatened to trip him up as he half-slid down an embankment.
Difficult to hurry when he kenned not where he went. New Moon pushed, pulled and led. Always east-southeast, into rough, misted hollows. The dampness clung to his clothes, to his skin. He shivered. The fire in his soul did little to ward off the chill. A chill not all physical. A hint of green tinged the white mist, the shadow of death-approaching. New Moon’s wings brushed his mind. A soul hovered on the edge of the planes, a soul she did not wish to carry across. She urged Benilo forward to prevent the crossing.
Someone lay dying. He must stop it. Now he broke into a run, latching on to the green. Weaker-to-stronger, heading for the source. New Moon streaked above him, afore him, showing the way. But the earth in him scarce needed her assistance. He focused on the poison. A blending specific in target and purpose. Earth and metal, designed to kill earth and metal.
He had no control or influence over metal. Would his earth sense alone suffice?
Dark holes appeared in the rocks. Caverns. A heart beat, faint and erratic, spreading the poison throughout a body which weakened with each beat-beat…echo…beat-beat…echo…
Benilo scrabbled up the steep slope to the cave entrance. A dusky-skinned troll sprawled behind the still-glowing remains of an almost-dead campfire. An arrow pierced his chest. Earth and metal, yet…not. Troll, yet not. Too lean. Too small. Too air.
Whatever was air in the creature on the ground was unaffected by the poison. It fought, long enough to hold spirit to flesh. Benilo knelt next to the troll, brushed aside long snakes of matted brown hair and felt for the faint double-pulse in his neck. His fingers caught on a silver chain. He pulled out the necklace from beneath the troll’s rough woolen shirt. Amethyst wings sparkled. The crystal butterfly of his visions.
His heart froze. Pryseis. Lady of Light, where is she? What is he doing with her amulet?
He clutched the arrow, followed the shaft with his mind. It rested betwixt the troll’s two hearts, had pierced a lung. Two hearts? Benilo had never kenned of any with such advantage. He eased the arrow back, sealing off the wounds as he withdrew. Following the poison, he used air—his own and the other’s—to surround each toxic droplet with a cushion, buffering its effects. He shook with the effort. His vision blurred. Ignoring his own discomfort, he nudged the toxic droplets all back up to his patient’s lungs, took a deep breath, exhaled and sucked the poison out. Like venom from a snakebite wound. He spat it out on the ground, where it hissed and sizzled, and then he took a deep breath of fresh air and breathed it into his patient. He took another breath, adding a bit of the uneven flare-up of soul-fire, enough to strengthen the troll’s will to live but not enough to burn him.
The lingering touch of the poison seared the earth portion of Benilo’s own soul. How had his patient borne it, the pain and the weakness? “Come on, friend,” he called. “Wake up. Rise—”
Wham! A huge fist connected with his jaw, sent him sprawling. Afore he could blink, the troll held a knife to his throat, in a hand which was none too steady.
Benilo forced himself to not react, to stay still. “You are welcome.”
Dark brown eyes glared from beneath heavy brows. “Who are you? Where’s Pryseis?” His voice was the rough, gravelly growl of an angry bear.
“I am the one who saved your life. I have no idea where Pryseis is, but get off me and we can discuss it.” Benilo shoved him aside. He suspected the only reason he was able to do so was his patient was still weaker than he was. Thank the Lady for small mercies. “I am Benilo, a healer. You were shot with a poison arrow. I removed the poison, but have not yet had time to reverse the effects.”
New Moon dropped to the ground, regarding them both.
To Benilo’s surprise, his patient inclined his head to the bird afore turning back to the healer. “I’m Dax. Aunt Pryseis mentioned an elven spirit healer. You’d be him?” His long, heavily muscled legs churned as he struggled to rise, reminding Benilo of a new foal. “Goblins snatched her in the night. We must get her back.”
Aunt Pryseis? So his troll was part faerie? That explained much, including the air in his soul capable of fighting an earth-and-metal poison. “You are in no condition to mou
nt a one-man assault on armed goblins. Sit down afore you fall down. Let me finish what I started. Then we can speak on rescues.”
Dax growled, baring his tusks, but sank back to the ground. “I was a fool. I didn’t expect them to boil through the rocks.” He stared at a fissure in the back wall. “That wasn’t there afore. Tells me there’s a way down back there. I’m taking it.”
Benilo centered himself. Mostly. “Tell me of the poison. Is its use common?”
Dax shook his head. “’Tis something new, made to kill trolls. Were I not half-faerie, I’d be dead. But why? We were once allied with the goblins.”
“I ken that.” Benilo tamped down the anger. “Yours and theirs have killed many of mine.”
“Stay to your side of the barrier and it wouldn’t be an issue.”
“So we are…what? Cattle to remain pastured on our side of a fence? To be milked or slaughtered at will?” Benilo sighed and recentered himself. “As long as that is how everyone feels, there shall never be peace in these lands. Do your people wish for naught more than birthing more sons to fight, to bleed, to die?”
An uncomfortable look crossed Dax’s broad face.
“What is it?” Benilo scanned the other man. Weakness would leave Dax vulnerable, less able to take care of himself…fend off attack. The damage was reversible, by speed-regeneration.
“You sound like her.”
“Pryseis?” Benilo focused on the damage, on making Dax’s body’s natural rebuilding tools shift into a faster gait. A pounding headache followed in the wake of energy, warning Benilo he risked his own strength. He tried to pull from the earth, from the small campfire, but it was like wrestling adolescent bears—no control at all.
“Aye. She has the most impossible visions of such a thing as peace.” Dax snorted. “We used to guard our lands, attacking goblins, then elves. Now we guard faeries. Aunt Pryseis has oft asked if we want naught more.” He shifted on the ground as the energy coursed through him.
“Relax, it is healing energy.” Benilo smiled through splintering pain to hide his growing concern. Dax’s liver had taken the brunt of it; designed to purify the body of toxins, yet this poison had overwhelmed it. Benilo took care to prevent scarring or the impaired organ would work less efficiently in the future. Scar tissue was unproductive. He studied the shadowy back of the cave. “What can I expect?”