by Timothy Zahn
“Your job requires a lot of unwinding time, then?” McBride asked, not quite sarcastically.
“I just like looking at the bridge,” Kersh said. Even to his own ears, it sounded pretty lame.
“Mm,” McBride said again. “Well, I think that’s all I need right now. Thank you for your time.”
“You’re welcome,” Kersh said, standing up and backing toward the door. “Will you be finished in time for me to work my shift tonight?”
“You’ll need to call in later this afternoon,” McBride told him. “We should know by then when we’ll be reopening the bridge.” He hesitated. “And thank you for your warning.”
“You’re welcome,” Kersh muttered again, and escaped.
He headed down toward the park, barely even noticing all the Federal agents and Port Authority people milling around, his mood and eyes darkened with grief and loss.
Because it was over. All his years with the bridge. McBride would dig into his background and find out that he didn’t live where he said he did. Someone else would notice that the age on his old employment record was all screwy. Someone else would find out that he didn’t have a birth certificate or immigration papers, just the Social Security card he’d been issued when the program first began in 1935.
They would probably blame him for the bombs and put him in prison. They might even figure out that he wasn’t really human.
But if it was over, it wasn’t over quite yet. Maybe there was still time for him to find out who had put those bombs on his beloved bridge.
And he had a pretty good idea where to start looking.
Kersh spent the day wandering through town, visiting shops, historic sites, and parks. He had a big lunch, considered going to a movie so he could get a little sleep, decided instead to continue his walk.
He had company, of a sort, throughout most of the day. McBride had apparently assigned someone to follow him and report on his activities. The man was pretty good at his job, with a bagful of tricks that included a roll-up hat, sunglasses, a reversible jacket, and even a false mustache that he could quickly put on or take off.
Not that any of it helped him any. The man had exactly forty-four dollars in his wallet, which made him very easy for Kersh to pick out of the crowd.
At two o’clock he called his supervisor and was told not to come in, that the bridge wouldn’t be opening until the start of morning rush hour. Kersh thanked him, and continuing his wanderings.
An hour after sunset, he slipped away from McBride’s agent and returned to his bridge.
Normally, Kersh spent most of his time at the south end of the park, in the hole he’d dug beneath his bridge. Tonight, though, he had another destination in mind. Somewhere along the river, he knew, lived a group of water goblins.
He was nearly to the north end of the park when he finally found their nest, hidden among the stones and grasses at the edge of the water. “Goblins!” he called softly but firmly. “Goblins! I would speak with you.”
For a long minute the only sounds were the soft lapping of the river against its banks and the distant whooshing of the city traffic. Then, with a sudden rippling of the water, a small wizened figure pulled itself up onto the shore. “What do you want, Troll?” he demanded in a grating voice.
“I want to know what you did to my bridge,” Kersh growled back.
“Your bridge?” the goblin sneered.
“Yes, my bridge,” Kersh said. “You set two bombs to try to destroy it.”
Three more goblins popped up out of the water beside the first. “And if we did?” the first goblin challenged. “What are you going to do about it?”
The four of them took a menacing step toward Kersh. “I don’t want any trouble,” Kersh protested, taking a long step backwards. There were more goblins gathering back there, he knew—he’d heard them leave the water, and he could smell their dank odor on the light breeze. If the four in front of him would take just one more step …
“Go away, Troll,” the first goblin demanded as they moved in unison toward Kersh. “Leave us or you will die, wrapped in waterweeds like a newborn.”
“I don’t want any trouble,” Kersh said again. He took another step backward.
And threw out an arm behind him to grab the nearest lurking goblin squarely around his thin throat.
The goblin gave a startled gurgle, which changed to a high-pitched squeak as Kersh hauled him off his feet and swung his body across the half dozen other goblins who had thought they were sneaking up on the big intruder. There was a flurry of squeaks, gasps, and curses as bodies went flying into the reeds or rocks or back into the river itself.
Kersh spun back around just as the four original goblins charged. Three of them managed to stop in time; the fourth went flying into the river as Kersh swung his makeshift club across his torso. “But if you want trouble,” he added, lowering the squirming goblin to his side, “I can do that, too.”
“Enough,” a new voice rumbled from somewhere inland.
Kersh turned to see a much larger goblin emerge from concealment in the grasses. “You’re their king?” Kersh asked as he spotted the crown of water plants entwined around the other’s hairless head.
“I am,” the Goblin King confirmed. “Release him, and ask what you will.”
Kersh hesitated. Technically, a Goblin King only had to tell the truth if he himself was a prisoner. But the old rules had slackened somewhat over the years. It was probably worth showing a little good faith.
Besides, if the creature lied to him, Kersh could always come back later and wring his scrawny little neck.
“I want to know why you put those bombs on my bridge,” Kersh said, letting go of his prisoner’s neck. The creature scurried away, wheezing out curses as he went.
“We had nothing to do with any bombs,” the Goblin King said without hesitation. “Or with your precious bridge. Why would we?”
“Because the bridge allows humans to bypass your domain,” Kersh said. “Without bridges, many more would travel by boat, bringing fresh victims into your reach.”
The Goblin King hissed out a watery laugh. “And we waited more than seventy years after the bridge was built to decide to do this?”
That was a good point, Kersh had to admit. “You might only now have gotten fed up about it,” he suggested hesitantly.
“What we have gotten is resigned to it,” the Goblin King growled. “Besides, even if we were somehow able to destroy all the bridges, the humans would merely use the tunnels. Then the bridges would be rebuilt, and we would be no better off than we are now.”
Another good point, Kersh decided regretfully. Besides, how would the goblins have gotten the bombs up there in the first place? They were strong enough, but they couldn’t climb worth anything. “I suppose not,” he conceded.
The Goblin King hissed something bitter-sounding in the goblin language. “Then go,” he ordered. “Seek elsewhere for your enemy, and leave us at what peace we still have.”
“I will,” Kersh said. “I’m sorry to have bothered you.”
The Goblin King pointed a bony finger at Kersh’s chest. “But if I were you, I would look in only one direction for the creatures who threaten your bridge.” He tilted the finger up to point at the sky. “Look to the air, Troll. Look to those creatures who have always hated the intrusions of human metal and stone into their domain.”
Kersh frowned. Intrusions of metal and stone? “You mean the air sprites?”
The Goblin King snorted. “The legendary brilliance of trollish minds,” he said contemptuously. “Yes, I mean the air sprites. Seek them out, and take your vengeance there.”
“Perhaps I will,” Kersh said. “Farewell.”
He turned and made his way back along the riverbank, the anger that had been directed toward the water goblins now shifting to the air sprites. Those little pests, at least, wo
uld have no problem getting to the underside of his bridge.
The question was, how was he going to catch one of them and confirm they were the guilty parties? Most of the time they wafted through the air like living ghosts, only rarely coming in reach of earthbound creatures like himself.
They could be caught, he remembered, if he could lure one of them into a spider web. But the days were long gone when there were spiders who could be hired or bribed for such a purpose.
But with a little of that trollish brilliance the Goblin King had mentioned, maybe he could come up with another way.
It was after midnight when Kersh finally heard the faint whispering sound that announced that an air sprite was near.
He sat up a little straighter, peering out from behind the bushes where he was hiding. He could see the sprite now, a nearly transparent shape whose edges billowed leisurely like curling smoke on a nearly windless day. There was a faint bluish tint to the image, which meant this particular sprite was female. She was hovering about six feet above the wooden bowl of sugar water that Kersh had set out in the center of a stand of outward-bent ferns, her head moving back and forth as she searched for danger. A moment later, apparently satisfied, she began drifting downward.
Silently, stealthily, Kersh got a grip on the vine he’d rigged up as a trigger and waited. The sprite floated the rest of the way to the bowl, her flowing edges fluttering with ecstasy as she sipped at the sweet liquid. Gently, Kersh pulled the vine.
The fronds snapped upward and inward, closing on the sprite like the jaws of a Venus flytrap. The sprite twitched and tried to duck away, but as she dodged one group of fronds she backed into one of the others.
And suddenly the whole group of ferns was churning back and forth as the sprite fought furiously to free herself from the trap.
Lunging to his feet, Kersh shoved his way through the concealing bushes. “Don’t struggle,” he warned the sprite. “It’ll only make it worse.”
The sprite’s only answer was to redouble her efforts against the mysterious force that had trapped her against the fern. Kersh walked toward her, shaking his head. Sprites were not the brightest creatures around. Something seemed to tingle past his head, like a screech or call too high-pitched for troll ears to hear. He reached the sprite and leaned over to get a grip on her.
And bellowed as a hundred needles suddenly jabbed into his skin.
He leaped backward, his corkscrewing arms sending blue- and red-tinged sprites flying in all directions. But each one that he managed to throw off was replaced by two more, digging their tiny insubstantial teeth into his hide as hard as they could.
Kersh’s skin was thick and tough, as many a would-be adventurer had learned to his sorrow over the years. But even trollish hide could take only so much. The air around him was thick with hazy bluish and reddish creatures, swarming around like the wasps from a hundred hives. He hadn’t realized there were even this many in the New York area, let alone within range of his trapped sprite’s distress call. Clenching his teeth, he swung his arms even harder, trying to shake them off.
“We will strip the flesh from your bones, Troll,” a tiny voice said in Kersh’s ear, and dug his teeth into Kersh’s earlobe.
“Not a chance!” Kersh shouted back, batting him away.
“Release her!” a different voice demanded. “Release your prey!”
“Then leave my bridge alone!” Kersh snarled. “You hear me? You touch my bridge again and I’ll kill you all.” Through the growing pain, he again heard the tingling of the not-quite-audible voice.
And abruptly, the biting stopped.
Slowly, disbelievingly, Kersh came to a halt, breathing heavily, his whole body burning from the bites. The hills and trees of the park, the river and the city lights beyond the river—everything was still colored with swirling hints of red and blue. The sprites were still there, more than ready to resume their attack.
So why had they stopped?
“Your bridge has been harmed?”
It was the first sprite again. Only this time, the voice was calm and controlled, without the fury that Kersh had heard there earlier. It might even have held a little concern. “Someone tried to destroy it,” Kersh said, still panting.
“We’re sorry to hear that,” the sprite said. “We know what bridges mean to trolls.” He paused. “Yet the bridge appears to be as always.”
“The harm was stopped before it could happen,” Kersh said. “Are you saying it wasn’t you?”
“Of course not,” the sprite said. “Who would think we would do such a thing?”
Kersh grimaced. “It was the Water Goblin King.”
“Of course.” It was hard to put disgust into such a tiny voice, Kersh reflected, but the sprite had no difficulty whatsoever in pulling it off. “Goblins enjoy pitting peoples against each other, while they sit back and watch the blood and destruction. Never trust what a goblin says, Troll.”
“No,” Kersh said, thoroughly confused now. Clearly, someone was lying to him. But who? “So you didn’t try to hurt my bridge?” he asked, just to make sure.
“We do not destroy,” the sprite said firmly. “That is not our purpose. Besides, why would we want to hurt any bridge?”
“Because you don’t like the structures humans build into your air,” Kersh said. “That’s what the—that’s what I’ve heard.”
“Most of the time that’s true,” the sprite conceded. “But bridges are different. Especially now that most of the humans’ horseless carts pass over without stopping.”
Kersh felt his eyes narrow. “What do you mean by that?” he demanded.
“Not because it robs you of your purpose,” the sprite hastened to explain. “But because the thrill of the ride is better this way.”
“You ride the cars?” Kersh asked, wondering if he’d heard that right. “But I thought you couldn’t touch metal.”
“Oh, no, we don’t actually touch them,” the sprite explained. “We fly along close behind them, riding in the calm among the winds.”
“Ah,” Kersh said as he finally understood. “It’s called drafting.”
“Drafting,” the sprite said. “An interesting word. I shall remember it. I simply meant that when the carts stop to pay you for crossing your bridge, we must stop with them.”
“So it’s better when they don’t,” Kersh said with a sigh. Everyone, it seemed, benefited from the stupid E-Z Passes. Everyone except him. “So you really don’t dislike bridges?”
“Traveling—drafting—behind carts on a bridge takes us higher in the air than when they travel their usual pathways of hardened earth,” the sprite said. “It’s a pleasure we never had in the old days.”
“I understand,” Kersh said. “I’m sorry I accused you.” He looked down, suddenly remembering the sprite in his trap. “Here, let me help you.”
He knelt beside the sprite and carefully pulled her free of the ferns he’d tricked out. “What is that?” the other sprite asked, moving cautiously in for a closer look. “It doesn’t look like spider web.”
“No, it’s something the humans create,” Kersh told him as the trapped sprite came free and flew quickly away. “It’s called duct tape. Very strong.”
“Interesting,” the sprite said. “Is it made from actual ducks?”
“Artificial ones,” Kersh assured him. It seemed the simplest thing to say. “I’m sorry for the trouble I’ve caused you.”
“We and the trolls have never been friends,” the sprite said gravely. “But we’ve never truly been enemies, either. We understand you, and your need to have a bridge of your own.”
“Thank you for your patience,” Kersh said, bowing to the floating figure. “If there’s ever anything I can ever do for you, please don’t hesitate to ask.”
“Perhaps it is we who can help you,” the sprite said. “Tell us how exactly your bridge was
threatened.”
Kersh told him about the bombs. “I see,” the sprite said thoughtfully when he’d finished. “So you are seeking someone who is both a good climber, and who can climb while carrying a load.”
“And who doesn’t know much about bridges,” Kersh added, remembering what McBride had said about the bombs not being in the right places to cause much damage.
“Yes,” the sprite said. “In that case—”
“Lord Albho!” a new voice cut in. “There is someone climbing beneath the bridge!”
Kersh tilted his head back, his eyes searching the span overhead. “Where?”
“Here,” the sprite said, moving between Kersh and the bridge.
And through the sprite’s faint reddish image, Kersh saw it: a smallish figure, laboriously crawling along the underside of the bridge roadway, heading toward the New Jersey end.
“I see him,” Lord Albho said. “A long way for him to have climbed from the far end.”
“Or else he climbed up the tower,” Kersh said. The figure was nearly to the same place the other bombs had been. No way Kersh could swim out to the tower, climb up to the span, and catch up with him in time.
Which left him only one other option. “I’ll have to climb up the anchorage,” he said, heading west across the park. “Thanks for your help.”
The sprite’s answer, if he gave one, was lost in the wind whistling past Kersh’s ears.
He reached the edge of the park and continued on, running full speed toward the mass of concrete and steel that formed his bridge’s western anchorage. The city’s nighttime traffic had long since faded to a trickle, and as far as he could tell no one spotted him. He reached the anchorage and started up, climbing hand over hand as fast as he could. He could only hope it would be fast enough.
The small figure, another barrel strapped across his back, was still toiling his way along the support members when Kersh reached him. And now, close up, Kersh could see that the creature was a gnome.
