Tanequil (14 page)

“So you have other furnaces in other places?” Pen pressed.

“Half a dozen that have been constructed over the years, more if you count the ones we have abandoned as unsafe. We are a mobile people, but our villages are well established. We simply move back and forth among them, choosing the one that seems most advantageous with each migration. Just now, we are concerned about uninvited guests and so have chosen this village, with its superior defensive positioning.”

Khyber glanced about. “You don't look all that ready to go to ground if you are attacked. No guards, no sign of anything out of the ordinary. We just sailed right in on the
Skatelow.
”

“Only because we saw you coming from five miles off and identified your sloop as harmless.” The dark eyes swept back to her and away again. “Don't mistake what you see, Khyber Elessedil. We keep close watch in all directions. We won't be easily surprised. If we are threatened, we can disappear into the caves behind the village in a matter of minutes, much quicker than an enemy can reach them. Once inside, we can survive for months on the provisions stored. Or we can escape through any number of back doors. And there are extensive fortifications inside the caves as well, in case an attack is pressed. Believe me, things are not entirely as they seem.”

Which was in keeping with most of what they had encountered on their journey to reach Taupo Rough, so his guests decided to take him at his word.

 

 

A few minutes later, they were settled inside the big Troll's home, a sprawling affair occupied by his brothers, sisters, parents, and grandparents, as well as a child or two somehow connected with the rest. Kermadec explained, on completing introductions, that Trolls tended to house together in families, often living that way the whole of their lives. The house his family occupied had once belonged to another family, but that family had lost enough members over the years that they no longer needed anything quite so large. Since Kermadec's family had grown, they were offered the other family's home in exchange for their smaller one.

It was an odd approach to determining living conditions, but one that the Trolls seemed quite used to. Homes didn't seem to belong to any one person or family, but to the entire community. Pen thought that perhaps because Rock Trolls moved so often, they weren't quite so attached to their possessions, homes included, and were therefore able to share more freely.

Still, he was curious about all those people living together under one roof, and after being served a cold drink of black tea and herbs, he asked what determined if any member of the family moved away. Or didn't they? This produced an even odder and more complicated explanation of the Troll lifestyle. Trolls, Kermadec offered, did not maintain family units in the same way as the other Races. Trolls started out life as children in one family, but often ended up as children or even adults in another. When sickness or death rendered parents unable to raise their children, other parents stepped in. When a child or adult grew dissatisfied with a family situation, he or she could petition to move elsewhere, and frequently the move was allowed. It was thought better to accommodate that individual and try to ease the source of dissatisfaction than to allow the problem to fester. The move didn't happen until a thorough effort had been made to resolve the conflict.

Moreover, Troll parents did not regard their children as the exclusive property of the family and were not possessive of the responsibility for raising them. The care, nurturing, teaching, and disciplining of children was the responsibility of the entire village, and everyone was involved in the rearing process. Successes and failures were always shared; decisions and pronouncements were never left to one person. A Troll child started out life as the result of the union of two people, but reached adulthood as the result of the efforts of many.

“Well, that's enough for now about the social structure of Rock Trolls, young Penderrin,” Kermadec declared, seating himself across from the boy and the others. “Tell me everything that's happened. Bristle Beard, you begin. Right from the time I left you at Paranor. Tell it all.”

So they did, each of them speaking in turn, each of them adding a piece to the larger puzzle. Tagwen told of coming to find Pen's parents at Patch Run and finding only Pen. The boy related the details of their escape from Terek Molt, the subsequent encounter with the King of the Silver River, and the task he had been given—to travel to the ruins of the ancient city of Stridegate and the forest island of the tanequil. Tagwen then picked up the story once more to tell of their decision to seek help at Emberen from Ahren Elessedil. Much of it was difficult, especially Khyber's recitation of the events surrounding her uncle's death in the Slags. When it came Cinnaminson's turn to speak of the creature that had killed her father and her cousins aboard the
Skatelow,
she was forced to stop and compose herself several times. But both Elf and Rover made it through their tales, through the dark and terrible hurt they had experienced, to emerge, Pen thought, a little stronger than when they had started out.

Kermadec listened carefully and, when they had finished, shook his head in a mix of disgust and disbelief. “I knew our Grianne had placed too much faith in her ability to keep those Druid sorceresses from reverting to kind, Tagwen. Even an Ard Rhys can do only so much with black hearts and foul schemes.”

He sighed. “But losing Ahren Elessedil? I never thought I would live to see that. I never thought anything could happen to him, as much as he had survived already. He was the best of them, Khyber, your uncle. The best of them all.”

She nodded in acknowledgment of the kindness of his words. “I appreciate hearing that.”

“And Cinnaminson.” He turned to the Rover girl. “I am sorry for the death of your father, whatever the circumstances that brought it about. Your father is an irreplaceable loss. You have shown great courage and presence of mind in surviving the madness that consumed him. I will send my Trolls to see that he and his cousins are given burial.”

He leaned forward. “Now, then. You have told me your tale; let me tell you mine. Maybe we can make some sense of this business once I do.”

 

After leaving Tagwen at the Druid's Keep, Kermadec had traveled north on foot out of Paranor and across the Streleheim to the ruins of the kingdom of the Warlock Lord. He did not want to do this, but he had no better idea of where to begin his search for Grianne Ohmsford. Days earlier, he had accompanied the Ard Rhys to investigate rumors of apparitions and strange fires within those ruins and had encountered an impossibly dark and evil presence. The Maturen felt certain that there was a connection between that presence and the disappearance of the Ard Rhys, and he was hopeful that by taking a closer look at the site where the presence had revealed itself, he might discover something useful.

It was a long shot at best, and as Kermadec had made clear to Tagwen, the Troll people did not go into the Skull Kingdom for any but the best of reasons. Kermadec was brave, and there were few dangers that could turn him aside, but that was one of them. Rock Trolls had an inbred fear and distrust of the land where the Warlock Lord had ruled and been destroyed. Rock Trolls, in that time and place, had served the Warlock Lord, slaves and soldiers to help in the conquest and subjugation of the Four Lands. It had taken many years for the Trolls to recover from those monstrous times, years for them to be accepted again by the other Races. Grianne Ohmsford had done much to make that possible. If a journey to the forbidden land was what it would take to help her in turn, then so be it.

Nevertheless, he had determined that he would not go back there alone.

So he traveled first to a Gnome village situated below the River Lethe on the western borders of the Knife Edge, seeking a man he believed would know better how to protect against the danger he expected to encounter in the ruins. The man's name was Achen Wuhl, and he was a Gnome shaman of some repute in the tribe to which he belonged. He was old, perhaps ninety, and he had been a shaman the whole of his life, living with the Warst, a tribe that migrated across the Streleheim between the Kensrowe and the Charnals.

Kermadec had met Achen Wuhl twenty years before on an outing that had brought a company of his Trolls in contact with the Warst while the latter were under attack from Mutens. In most circumstances, Rock Trolls would have nothing to do with Gnomes because the two Races were traditionally at odds over territorial rights and migratory routes. But the Trolls hated Mutens worse than anything. Voiceless, soulless remnants of the Warlock Lord's dark magic, the Mutens survived in the Knife Edge in much the same way as the Werebeasts did within Olden Moor—by preying on the Gnomes who worshiped them as sacred spirits.

So Kermadec had broken the unwritten rule that forbids Trolls from interfering with the lives of Gnomes, and his company had come to the aid of those unfortunates who were being butchered by the Mutens because they had ventured too close to the monsters in a misguided effort to appease them. Among those rescued were women and children and the shaman, Achen Wuhl, who accepted the gift of his life from the Trolls with a promise that some day he would repay the favor. Kermadec had not claimed that promise before. He chose to claim it now.

With Achen Wuhl in tow, he journeyed back through the Knife Edge, carefully avoiding the caves of the Mutens, until he was back within the ruins of the Skull Kingdom at the site where Grianne Ohmsford and he had encountered the strange fires and the apparition. Without revealing the involvement of the Ard Rhys, he recounted to Wuhl the events of his earlier visit, suggesting that the apparition had appeared unbidden and that he was searching for its source. Together, they combed the ground surrounding the cold and blackened fire pit that had given birth to the presence, looking for something that would reveal its source. They found nothing. As nightfall approached, Kermadec suggested they leave and come back in the morning. But Achen Wuhl insisted that they stay. Once it was dark, the shaman would try to summon the apparition himself.

Kermadec felt that was a dangerous undertaking and that he should put a stop to it. But he was desperate to discover what had become of the Ard Rhys, and the shaman was still the only chance he had to unlock the secret. Achen Wuhl was a skilled conjurer and an experienced shaman. He would not be careless in his efforts. He might accomplish what Kermadec could not: find a link between the apparition and the Ard Rhys. Ignoring his instincts, which were screaming at him to get out of there, Kermadec convinced himself that the risk was necessary.

So they sat together in the growing dark, the old Gnome and the Troll Maturen, watching and waiting for something to happen. Darkness fell, and nothing did. Midnight came and went. The mountains were still and deep and seemingly empty of life.

Finally, with the moon down and the stars layered across the black firmament like scattered grains of brilliant white sand, the shaman rose from his place in the rocks. Motioning for Kermadec to remain where he was, he moved forward to where the fires had appeared last.

“I had a bad feeling about it right away, but I kept still,” the big Troll told Pen and his companions. “I could still remember how that apparition made me feel, how dark and terrible was its visage, and I thought it would be better if we didn't see it again, ever. But the little man was determined; he had courage. So I let him go. I was thinking that this was the way I would reach your aunt, Pen. I was thinking that this was how I would discover where she was.”

He shook his head at the memory. “Achen Wuhl brought up the fires right away, as if all he had to do was reach down to wherever they were hidden and summon them up. The fires flared and hissed right in front of him, bright flames burning with such intensity I could feel the heat from where I was sitting a dozen yards away. I heard the shaman muttering, saw the movement of his hands. I peered through the darkness to the flames, watching.
This is what I've been hoping for,
I kept thinking.
I'm going to find her, after all.

“But then all of a sudden the flames just exploded. It was as if they found a fresh source of fuel, though there wasn't anything but the darkness for them to feed on. They shot upward a hundred feet, maybe more, all brilliant orange and yellow-tipped, crackling and hissing. It surprised me so, I almost fell over. But here's the odd thing. There wasn't any new heat. The fire burned with the same intensity, at the same temperature as before. Like magic.”

He exhaled softly. “Something reached out of the flames and wrapped itself about the old man. I don't know what it was. A part of the fire itself, I guess. It snatched him up and it pulled him in. He was gone in an instant, so fast I barely saw it happen. He never made a sound. He just disappeared. The flames consumed him. There was nothing left.

“Then I saw that face, the one the Ard Rhys and I had seen days earlier. I saw it in the fire, just for an instant. It was a dark and twisted thing, its eyes like a cat's, only blue and freezing cold. Those eyes were searching the darkness beyond the fire, hunting. I stumbled over myself trying to hide from them. I flattened myself against the rocks the best way I could. I never thought to do anything else. It was instinct that drove me, that warned me that if the eyes found me, I would go the way of the old man.

“So I hid. The face was there, the eyes searching for a moment more, and then both were gone. A second later, the flames were gone, too, collapsed into a black smear of ash burned into the stone of the pit. The heat died with the flames, and the night turned still and empty again.

“I stayed where I was for a few minutes more, then came out to look around. In the starlight, I could see what was left. Nothing. Nothing at all.”

His voice trailed off and his gaze dropped to where his big hands knotted in his lap. In the silence, Pen could hear himself breathe.