by Gene Wolfe
These are quite human in appearance; if it were not for their hands, which have only three fingers, and their rather large noses they might pass unremarked on the streets of any city in the Confederation. The individuals I now met were of the military caste and wore armor of brightly polished iron plates sewn to leather shirts, and elaborate helmets. There is always something repellent about the concept of violence done to another intelligent being and I am not ashamed to say that I was a bit sickened to see these barbarians flaunting their spears and long cross-hilted swords, not to mention the bows with which they had been murdering the wildlife of their planet. Knowing that my paralyzer would make me master of the situation should any trouble begin, I faced them with a boldness quite suitable to a representative (even if unofficial) of Earth … .
… This person rose hastily as we approached, and seemed fearful and timid, though determined to stand his ground. He had manifestly been pushing through the wood on font and his clothing showed many a tear where the thorned vine the people hereabout call Reluctant Lover had found his flesh.
All saw him to be a warlock or fayman, for his face was flat as a trencher and he had more fingers on his hands than does a man right. So afrighted was he that I could not resist smiling at the poor loon, though I liked it not that the Protector’s talk had been broken; my smiling seemed to make him feel easier and he looked at us as doltishly as would make one think he’d never seen true men before. And, before, it may be he had not.
We of the West Lands are told strange tales of this north country; one expects the strangeness to grow less when one approaches the land itself—for is not that the way of all travelers’ tales? At any rate, I still hear those tales of maids who vow to demons and are seen no more, though their strange children long after come down from the high waste places now and again. But here in the north this is not told of some far country but of the next town or the next farm. It may be that this creature is such a one. He will not tell clearly, but only talks of the stars and strange suns when I ask. (By which you may see that I have heard his prattle much since the meeting I speak of now.) …
If one could ignore the general bloodthirstiness of their equipage it was really a thrilling sight, this group of savages with their huge buffalolike riding animals. For a moment I almost wished I had taken my degree in extra-terrestrial sociology instead of archaeology, so as to be able to help them direct their energy and courage to more profitable, humane channels. Why are we archaeologists so insistent on confining our study to things which are good and dead?
Speaking of dead, I got a lesson in the zoology of the planet here, for the natives had been hunting and were returning with their butchered victims. Several of their specimens looked like creatures a wise young scholar would not want to study any other way, however much one might regret their demise. I particularly remember a naked-looking animal like a saber-toothed lemur. The natives call it Gonoth-hag—the Hunting-devil. There was also what looked like a very big wild dog or wolf, a Warg; formidable looking, but not beside the Gonoth-hag.
The tapes you transmitted to me have given me enough of the language to make my meaning clear, although I am sure my pronunciation is bad and I don’t understand all the words the natives use. I spoke now to a broad-chested fellow who seemed to be in charge and told him that I was a traveler and a Confederation citizen who would appreciate a lift to the village. As you no doubt remember, the man your good Capt. Wilson saved emphasized the sacred nature of guestship in this culture. I thought it prudent to put myself under this protection as soon as I could … .
… He seemed to assume that I, and not the Protector, was leader and asked at once to be my guest. This would have made many wroth and lost him his head, no doubt; but I could see the poor gangrel did not know a guest must rank with his host except the host invite him first, so I told him I would take him under my protection and this satisfied him. I thought to have some sport with him after the banquet in the strong-house of Jana, and the Protector, who is good-humored enough when his melancholy leaves him, agreed. If I have wearied your Supremacy by too long talk of this person, I beg your indulgence, for he has his part to play in my tale by and by.
… They mounted me upon one of their animals (which jolted terribly) and after what I suppose a travel writer would describe as a brisk canter, i.e., a pace sufficiently swift to throw up clouds of dust and sufficiently slow to require a half-hour to cover perhaps four miles, we arrived at a native building which I will call a castle, although it is a far cry from those graceful buildings which were preserved in the France-German Province until the early part of the last century. This castle is a thick-walled stone structure of two stories huddling at the edge of the perpendicular cliff. The only feasible approach is guarded by a massive wall nearly as thick as it is high—precisely like one of the promontory forts of ancient Eire. All, as I am sure you will agree, very fittingly archaeological; but, alas, this is no sun-dried ruin. The stench is abominable. (No doubt you have already guessed, from my slipping into the present tense, that I am sending from this place. So I am, although I have left it once since the first arrival I am telling you about. The smell, however, awaited my return.)
… When we returned to the strong-house I asked the Protector to continue his talk as he had begun it before we were interrupted by meeting this vagabond, and he did so. I shall have the scribe set down his words themselves that you may hear as I heard.
He said: “I know you have guessed that all is not as we would wish in this Protectorate of Jana. Know then the reason. If a traveler follow the road through our city northward he will come upon a fine bridge built by the men of Jana of the olden days, when the men and cities of the north were famed.
“Now there are rich fields upon that other shore of the river which have been tilled by us since that old time.”
I asked him who held those fields now, for I thought our aid was to be asked in some border war, but he undeceived me, saying, “No one holds them and they grow only weeds and wild herbs. It is he who holds the bridge who keeps us from them, for one of every three who cross in these declining days is taken, and it is against him that I would ask your aid.”
This was the first time that our help had been openly asked, and I thought it best to turn it away with a jest until I better knew against whom we were to war, so I laughed loud and said, “Why do you not ask the aid of the fayman we found? Any power that can hold a bridge without the land on either side must surely be magical in its operation, and did he not tell us he had scratched himself by falling from a star?”
“Do not mock,” the Protector told me, “for that bridge is not a fit subject for it. A troll holds the passage, and I tell you he takes his tithe of those who go north or south across, and so has he done for so long as the oldest here can remember.” Thus he spoke, and I confess, Supremacy, that for a moment I could say nothing. The demons who frightened us as children have some power over our minds all our lives.
Playing for time I said, “How was it then in the olden time, was there no troll then?”
“In the olden time such a concourse of travelers, pilgrims and traders made use of the bridge that the troll’s share was scarce to be seen out of all that went over. Also our peasants, being clever wights, abode in huts upon the farther shore and only crossed after some stranger had recently been chosen, for in those good days if a man were taken all were safe for a fortnight or so. Now, knowing (so I think) that no other may be by for some long time, he is like as not to seize on two or three at once.” He sighed.
“Boats we cannot use, for until midsummer the current runs too swift; and the exactions of your Liege are such that ten years’ remission at least would be required …”
… when we reached this fortress I lost no time searching out a native who had the inclination to talk. I found one soon enough, a venerable old fellow who did odd jobs in the kitchen, but when I questioned him about old writings he was able to show me nothing going more than a hundred years or so back.
He told me, however, that there was a bridge to the north, “very old, with much carving and some writing,” adding that not even the priests could read the inscriptions now. You may imagine how that affected me. Carving with a little writing must (I thought) surely indicate pictures with accompanying text, and those might be the beginning of an understanding of the language. With little more than that they were able to break Cretan B four hundred years ago. And if that old script from which the present inhabitants borrowed some of their symbols could be read today!
I was so overcome with this thought that I rushed out in search of the native who had accepted me as his guest. After blundering about the castle for what seemed like hours, I learned that he had gone to a room in the watchtower where (after brushing past two guards before they could stop me) I found him in conference with an older native and burst in upon them with a violence which I fear would be called bad-mannered on any world.
As soon as I could get my breath I begged them to guide me to the bridge I had been told of. They seemed taken aback, but after staring at each other for a moment (it was strange to see these aliens behaving in such a human fashion, although I was so overwrought at the time that I hardly noticed it), the older one agreed, saying that all three of us—he looked rather intently, I thought, at my host—would go tomorrow.
… He held his peace then, for he saw my face darken. I was about to accept the challenge he had implied and make my offer to slay the monster when there was a great noise at the door, which flew open and in came none other than our freakish vagabond, who I have since discovered calls himself Dokerfins, flying as swift as if he had been kicked. Without so much as a bow or a courteous word he demanded that we lead him to the troll’s lair without delay. The Protector, who cared nothing for the poor creature’s life, consented; and I was forced to agree, though I feared his presence might interfere with my own plan.
No sooner had he left us than I began to turn over in my mind the methods our forefathers, the illustrious warriors of your glorious grandsire’s golden circle, used when such creatures troubled our own land as severely as they still vex this unhappy north. It is unfortunate that those heroes who survived such encounters were so reticent, except perhaps among themselves, about how they did it.
Strength, I knew, would not support me. Cirman, the most sinewy of all that band, never emerged from the sunken palace of the Horogat troll. And was not Selimn, the cleverest, found babbling in the waters of the Hidden Canal, never to speak sense again? Yet Gerhelt the Great and Tressan his Son are both said to have destroyed trolls and so, I felt, might I.
… I began at once to check over my equipment for the trip. I had my minicamera and illuminator, and my notebook; precious little of the proud tools of modern archaeology. However, the site seemed an easy one. Everything aboveground and no organic matter to be carefully preserved for carbon 14 testing.
As my benefactors had promised, we left the next day; not only we three, but twenty or more soldierish ruffians, and cooks, grooms, servants, and so forth. It was very thrilling and medieval, Professor, but I fear it also bore a certain resemblance to the Gardenia Day festival at dear old Edgemont—all it lacked was a few semiprofessional undergraduate beauties on floats. The parade started at least an hour behind schedule. (I think it may have been more, actually, but I am not too clear on the local horological system. It seems to depend on the changing of various nominal “guards” having no connection with the real pikemen on the wall. Some of the periods are longer than others; evidently day guards at whatever castle the system originated in stood longer watches than the night men. In addition there are special short “guards” for meals.)
Also—getting back to our parade—there were some youngsters lurking about the fringes of the crowd holding clods behind their backs and waiting for a moment when no one was looking. Perhaps I am wrong in trying to separate these things from the medieval element, however. The more I consider, the more I am inclined to think that the Black Prince or the Cid might have felt completely at home when our gaudy banner was unfurled and the crowd (the whole town had come to see us off) gave their weak, the-rack-if-you-don’t cheer.
The country through which we passed after we left the village can only be described as a decayed wilderness. The road was a dusty rut which had never known pavement, and there were no buildings more pretentious than squalid log huts … .
We left at first light, the party consisting of myself with a few of my most trustworthy retainers, the Protector with his guards, and one or two servants, the minimum dignity permitted, for we meant to live with the simplicity suitable to those who march against foes more than human. The whole of the inhabitants of the Protector’s strong-house, and many of the more respectable residents of Jana, were early from their beds to see us off; they raised a great cheer as our column left the strong-house gate. Hearing it, I ordered that the standard of the West Lands should be unfurled, and this brought forth a greater cheer still.
I have often observed since how much friendship the folk of Jana feel for us of the West Lands, and their gratitude for your Supremacy’s protection, though I suspect it might be greater still if it were not for their Protector’s telling them that the tribute is much more than we ask in order to extract taxes from them. Indeed, it might be better if they were directly subject to some West Lands High Justice, who would repay your Supremacy in armed followers to whose maintenance the people could scarce object considering the lawlessness of the country. Would not a vassal with a loyal army be preferable to an inconstant tributary?
I believe that I forgot to mention, in what my scribe has put into letters already, that by the will of the Protector the mountebank went with us. He is a clumsy rider, and sneezed so much from the dust as to furnish us all with a deal of low amusement.
The country about Jana is fair enough, fertile valleys lacing the rocky hills and even the uplands supporting swine and suchlike useful cattle in some number, though as we drew nearer the bridge, dwellings failed till even the swineherds’ cots were rare to the eye. When we came the third day to the bridge itself, I saw that the Protector’s boast that the men of Jana had built it was only vainglory, for it is clearly a work of the forgotten age; a thing greater than even the West People could make, and having in it a spirit we could not contrive. This I saw as we paused at the crest of a hill just before the land sloped to the river. Then I saw too something which made my eyes like to burst with wonder, for the vagabond, Dokerfins, had slipped off his mount and was running at full speed down the bank toward the bridge!
… How I wish I could convey to you the thrill I felt when I first viewed that bridge! It is built of monolithic slabs of white stone so skillfully joined that the crevices are difficult to detect even at close range, and it vaults its little river with a flat curve somehow suggesting an easy arrogance, as though its planners were a little ashamed at having to bridge this modest stream. The carving which covers every surface except the roadway saves it from the severity which disfigures our modern construction. It is deeply incised bas-relief.
Need I tell you how eagerly I went to examine those carvings? You will not be surprised when I admit that in my single-minded concentration I rushed forward without waiting for the rest of the party.
I had just begun to scrutinize a large group of written characters about a quarter of the way across, for the moment slighting some pictographic work near the bank, when I was startled by a loud thump behind me. Turning, I discovered the native who had taken me as his guest sprawled on his face on the roadway, having apparently been pitched from his mount, which was rearing and plunging in a most alarming manner just behind him. He had not been badly hurt by his fall, though, for he jumped up at once and began gesticulating to me, shouting very rapidly in the native language something about a traki; it was a word I had heard them use among themselves before, but the meaning was not on the tapes. I tried to get him to speak more slowly, but he only became more excited than ever and positively gibbered. I was perha
ps ten feet farther onto the bridge than he, and although he started forward once as though to actually seize me, he seemed afraid to go farther.
Suddenly something behind me grasped me by the shoulders. I tried to turn; but no matter how vigorously I twisted the lower half of my body, the upper half was kept directed straight ahead; I jerked my head about until I nearly sprained my neck, but all I could see was a blurred dark object at the extreme edge of my field of vision.
Before I could collect my wits enough to think of getting out my paralyzer, I found myself flying through the air and saw the dark water of the river rushing toward my face. I hit it with a terrific slap and lost consciousness.
… I spurred after him, and had almost grasped him by the collar (for he would not heed my calls) when he stepped onto the bridge itself and my steed pulled up so sharply that I was thrown over its head and onto the bridge.
For an instant I lay stunned, then I leaped to my feet and looked about for the wretched fayman. He must have fled, or so I thought then, for he was not to be seen; instead there stood before me the troll. I challenged him to attack me, stamping my foot to show him I stood upon the bridge he claimed. For a moment neither of us moved. I stared at him, wishing to fix his appearance in my mind, so that after my victory, Should the spirits of the place grant one, I might tell others his true shape and save them from going ignorant into battle as I had done.
My eyes have been called sharp by many, but the longer I gazed at the troll the less well could I see him, and although the day was cool the bridge shimmered as the southern plains do when the sun gives a traveler no more shadow than is under his feet. Still, it seemed to me that the troll was a warrior, tall and fell, whose face was more like my own than the faces of most men are. In one hand he held a great sword, heavy and cruelly curved at the tip, and in the other, as a boy might hold a wriggling pup, he grasped the wretched Dokerfins, he looking no larger than a child or almost a child’s doll. I knew then that it was their spirits I saw and not the flesh. Then it was with me as though a blade had opened the veins of my legs; I weakened and my eyes were darkened and I thought nevermore to see the sun. The troll I saw coming toward me with arm outstretched, and his look was not kind.