A Handful of Men: The Complete Series

by Dave Duncan

  “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.”

  “Rap!”

  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 gills. “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 power — there!

  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.

  4

  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 Andor’s, also, just to be certain — th
e 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.”

  Andor howled. “Ma’am, you do not understand!”

  “I understand perfectly well, troll-lover!”

  “No, no! I was —”

  The sorceress was not interested in his denials. His voice stopped abruptly, half of a dirty washrag hanging from his mouth.

  She turned to Rap, smirking up at him. “Well, you weren’t nearly the threat we were expecting. A pushover!” Her scraggly mouth puckered sulkily. “After all this time I wish I had a more worthy catch to report.”

  Rap felt a faint surge of hope. She did not know who he was, obviously.

  She shrugged. “I shall report the news in the morning. I expect his Omnipotence will drop by in a day or two. Until then, do try to enjoy the company. Just remember you chose it.”

  “Your master is Zinixo?”

  “Certainly not! If you mean the former West, he died years ago.”

  “Olybino, then?”

  “Of course!” She smirked again. “And yours is Bitch Grunth, I expect. His Omnipotence may well decide to keep you here as bait for a while, and see if she attempts to rescue you — or put you out of your misery, perhaps.”

  “No!” Rap said. “Listen! You don’t understand! You haven’t talked with the warlock yet, have you?”

  “That’s not your concern.”

  “Don’t go away, ma’am! There’s something very important I must tell you. First, I’m not Witch Grunth’s votary! Second, I had nothing to do with any other trolls escaping. Third, I — Arrgh!” Rap’s elbows and shoulders moved closer together, bowing his back out from the wall like a cup handle. His arms and legs strained in their sockets. The pain increased tenfold.

  “I have no wish to listen to your imaginative droolings,” the sorceress remarked. She was testing him, of course, in case he had been faking earlier. He could not ease his agony without using sorcery, which meant first ripping off his layer of shielding — and that was as immovable as the Mosweeps, or his hands.

  His head was jammed against the wall, twisting his neck so tightly that he could barely speak. “Not lying!” he gasped. “You can see that!”

  But of course she couldn’t. The shielding worked born ways, so she could not read his mind. Without that guidance, why would she believe a captured felon’s wild excuses?

  Rap could not speak through the pain. Just as he thought he was about to faint, that strangely plastic wall adjusted itself again, easing some of the pressure on his head and spine. The sorceress had apparently decided that he was as feeble as he seemed.

  “Ma’am, you are in danger…”

  “Whatever you have to say can wait for your trial. I expect the Four will give you a hearing eventually, or the warlock may just decide to dispose of your case himself. Meanwhile, I shan’t wish you a good night. I disapprove of hypocrisy.” The door closed and locked itself. Ainopple vanished.

  Gods! She had left him to endure this?

  Andor said, “Unnnnnnnnng? Unnnnnnnnnnnnnnng!”

  “Thrugg,” Rap said, forcing the word through clenched teeth. “The other man needs help.”

  The trolls were bait, of course. Obviously, when the Four had turned down Olybino’s complaint, he had taken the law into his own hands. The warlock of the east should not be meddling here in Grunth’s sector, but he had set a trap for the culprits, perhaps several other traps also.

  “Unnnng! Un-unnnng!”

  “Thrugg!”

  The male troll scratched dried blood out of his beard and smiled a bushel of ivory across at Rap. “Hot in… here. Master,” he growled. Apparently he saw nothing unusual in a man being fastened to a wall. Without rising, he began to strip off his shirt. The woman and girl followed his example.

  Yes, it was still hot in the cell, but outside the temperature was dropping rapidly. Rap wondered if his feet would freeze before morning.

  “Thrugg! The other man needs help. Go to him, Thrugg.”

  Thrugg clambered to his feet — but only so that he could take off his pants. Andor was becoming more and more urgent.

  “Thrugg! Come here!” Rap bellowed. Oh, to have his sorcery back!

  How many votaries had Olybino posted around the fringes of the Mosweeps, waiting for the next slave-freeing attempt? Ainopple was no more Uoslope’s wife than Rap himself was. She was a substitute. Her glamour was a magnificent piece of sorcery, which had escaped his notice just as easily as it had deceived the tribune and his daughters and all the other inhabitants of Casfrel.

  The trolls trudged over to the pegs and hung up their clothes. They must have been trained to do that, because clothes were not part of their culture.

  Rap tried again, as loud as he could. “Thrugg!”

  This time the monster shambled across to him and stopped with his muzzle almost in Rap’s face. “Master… hurt? Stuck?”

  The huge hands closed on Rap’s waist, giving him a vivid image of himself being torn in pieces as the troll pulled him loose.

  “No! No! Let go! The other man. Over there.”

  Thrugg turned. “Other… master stuck?” Being native to the dense rain forests, trolls had excellent night sight, of course.

  “Just the cloth in his mouth, Thrugg. Bring me the cloth in his mouth.”

  Thrugg crossed to Andor, removed the dirty rag, shuffled back to Rap, and inserted it in his mouth instead. It tasted unimaginably vile. Andor laughed shrilly.

  Without warning, Thrugg cuffed the child. It was apparently a playful blow, although it would have stunned a nontroll. “Go!” he boomed. Norp headed obediently for the nearest pile of bedding and lay down. Thrugg put his aims around Urg. “Mate?” He kissed her.

  “Unnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng!” Rap said desperately.

  Andor yelled, “Thrugg!”

  Thrugg paid no attention. He was not much older than Urg was, and apparently neither of them knew that trolls almost never bred in captivity. From the way the embrace was proceeding, this was going to be one of the rare occasions when they did.

  Rap solved one of his problems by vomiting violently, rag and all. He coughed and choked and spat, then puked again.

  “Rap!” Andor begged. “Do something! Help!”

  “Oh, I’m sure he can manage on his own.” The agony in Rap’s joints was becoming excruciating. He could hardly see for tears, and he was afraid he would start screaming soon. He did not think Andor was in anything like as much pain as he was, at least not yet.

  Thrugg had Urg down on the floor now, right in the middle of the cell. He really should have taken her over to the straw, but probably trolls did not worry much about finesse. She seemed enthusiastic enough.

  Andor cursed fluently.

  “I can’t do anything,” Rap said. “She’s gelded me. I’m helpless.” If he tried to ease his shoulders, his knees burned, and vice versa. Bitch! “Can you call Jalon?”

  No, that wouldn’t work. Jalon was much sligh
ter than Andor, and might be able to work his legs loose, but if Andor’s arms were bent as Rap’s were, then even Jalon could not wriggle out of the stone bonds. The transformation might tear him apart anyway; he was shorter than the imp.

  “The magic isn’t there!”

  “Nor mine.” Rap’s attempts not to groan were making his voice as guttural as a dwarf’s. If Ainopple could blank out Andor’s spell, then she was extraordinarily powerful.

  “How long is she going to leave us here?” Andor wailed.

  “Not as long as she thinks. The Covin must have sensed her use of power. They’ll be here shortly, I think.”

  That did not seem like much of a rescue.

  “We’re dead!”

  “Let’s hope it’s quick.”

  That did not seem much like Zinixo.

  Thrugg and Urg were grunting and roaring in their joint frenzy. Rap dared not try to speak — if he opened his mouth now he would scream. Andor was weeping. Minute followed agonizing minute. Down on the dirt, the earth-shaking passion came to an end. The dust began to settle.

  How much pain could a man stand before he fainted? Rap tried to think of other things. Such as, how long had the fake Ainopple been living at Casfrel? Months, surely. She had not yet heard of Zinixo’s usurpation of the Four. She had been lying in wait for a sorcerer, so she had deliberately refrained from using power, just as Rap had done. He had given himself away when he cured Thrugg’s injuries. Only a very puny sorcerer would have rattled the ambience so much for a minor healing.

  And because she had been staying out of touch, she did not know that Olybino had disappeared. She would discover that when she tried to report to him in the morning, for Zinixo had control of the Gold Palace. It was astonishing that the Covin was not already investigating the use of power at Casfrel.

  The situation seemed completely hopeless.

  Thrugg heaved himself to his feet. Puffing and mumbling, he shuffled over to Andor and took hold of him. “Master still… stuck.”

  Andor screamed in terror. “No! No! You’ll tear me apart! Stop!” His voice choked off as he feinted dead away. Rap opened his mouth to yell at the well-meaning lummox also. Then he realized that — first — his pain had stopped, and — second — that he had his power back. And third, Thrugg’s very solid image in the ambience was grinning at him hugely.