The Prodigal Troll

by Charles Coleman Finlay

  THE CROWN ROSE

  Fiona Avery

  THE HEALER

  Michael Blumlein, MD

  GALILEO'S CHILDREN: TALES OF SCIENCE VS. SUPERSTITION

  edited by Gardner Dozois

  THE PRODIGAL TROLL

  Charles Coleman Finlay

  PARADOX: BOOK ONE OF THE NULAPEIRDN SEQUENCE

  John Meaney

  HERE, THERE H EVERYWHERE

  Chris Roberson

  STAR OF GYPSIES

  Robert Silverberg

  THE RESURRECTED MAN

  Sean Williams

  CHARLES COLEMAN FINLAY

  For Cole and Fin, my own two little trolls.

  ran entered the great hall still wearing the stolen wolf costume, battered mask tucked beneath his arm. The curtains were thrust aside from the tall windows, which were open to the last halfhearted revelry of the party outside and the first finger-poking light of dawn.

  He dropped the mask on the long table in the center of the hall. A servant set a chalice down and poured chilled wine into it. Bran reached for it without thinking and winced. The first knuckles had been cut from the thumb and forefinger of his sword hand. The fight outside had torn the new calluses. Nor had the nails pulled from his other fingers healed yet as well as he had thought.

  Lifting the cup with his left hand, he paused to inhale the sweet fragrance of plums. Then he pressed the cool metal to his bruised forehead.

  Ah. Relief.

  The relief was short-lived. His lord, still attired in an extravagant lion's costume of gold armor and emerald silk, stepped out of the shadows and paced around the table until he came to rest directly behind Bran's shoulder. The weight of the golden mask pressed on his back.

  "Who was he?"

  Bran twitched as the deep voice filled the empty room. Who was he? Who was the dark-haired man, the giant who had come down out of the mountains and into the castle in disguise with Bran? "I don't know," he replied. "I tell you three times, I truly don't know."

  "But he saved your life twice, first from the guards and then a second time by trading his life for yours."

  Was he reminding Bran that he might change his mind and not spare Bran's life after all? "That wasn't even the first time. The first time he saved my life, I was a prisoner of the mountain peasants, tied to a stake in a bonfire pile."

  That was the night he'd lost his fingers and nails, the night he'd lost all hope, until the stranger appeared. He lowered the cup to his mouth. Swallowed in a single long gulp, the wine was too sweet and too strong, though it brought him a different kind of relief. He thrust out the cup for more wine, but the servant did not refill it.

  "So he thought he could do that and just walk away?"

  "You saw him," Bran said.

  "I did. And that is why you are standing here speaking to me now. Wine."

  The servant glided over silently to refill Bran's cup. His head still throbbed-his whole body ached, exhausted by the ordeal of the past few days. He took a small sip. The footsteps around the table were light and deliberate for such a large man wearing over one hundred pounds of costume. Bran lowered the cup and stared into inscrutable eyes peering from a stylized mask, carved from gold and framed by two huge ivory teeth taken from the jaw of a dagger-toothed lion.

  "So you know nothing about this man? Nothing of his home, his mother, his obligations?"

  "No more than he gave in answer to you," Bran replied.

  "Yes, but those answers were mocking."

  Bran was not so sure. "Perhaps. He did not speak our language when I first met him, but even after he learned it, he did not explain much."

  "How do you explain him?"

  "I do not know," Bran said. "I do not know how to explain him. He went where he wanted, and did what he chose."

  "Did he name himself?" Fingers drummed on the table, a deliberate act, signalling impatience.

  Bran considered carefully before answering. A man's name was one of the few things he owned, and was his alone to give. But did it matter what he said now? It mattered very much to the man who stood beside him.

  "He told me that his name was Claye," he answered at last.

  Outside, cheers greeted the sunrise. Light poured into the room, illuminating the shabby, empty-eyed mess of his wolf's mask. Soon, the revelers would begin to make their ways home. Bran already knew that he would not join them. He did not expect to leave the confines of the castle for a very long time.

  "Did the name mean anything to him?" The voice was hard now, dangerous, as it had been outside a short time before.

  "No."

  "That," said the man behind the mask, "explains even less. I have no idea why he chose what he chose."

  He lifted one finger casually, and the servant brought him a cup of wine. Perhaps, thought Bran, his head also ached. And he wondered if he should mention the stranger's other name, the difficult one he had given first.

  hree of them crowded into a corridor so dark they could barely see where they were going. While Yvon double-checked the rope's knot with his fingers, the nursemaid rocked the drugged infant in her arms, murmuring, "Oh, Claye. My poor baby, my poor, poor baby."

  Yvon tugged on the rope to make sure it held fast to the post. Picking up the coiled end, he stepped carefully around woman and child. "Beg your pardon, m'lady Xaragitte."

  She cooed to the child, ignoring him.

  When he entered the garderobe, a breeze through the seat hole carried with it the stench of waste. He dropped the rope, found the stone slab by touch, and tried unsuccessfully to shove it aside. The siegeenforced fast had weakened him.

  "Need a hand?" asked a breathless, high-pitched voice.

  Yvon turned his head toward the doorway. A handheld taper illuminated the rounded features of Kepit, Lord Gruethrist's eunuch steward. "No, ma'am," Yvon said politely. "I can do it."

  Gritting his teeth, he shouldered the slab a second time. Stone scraped on stone as it moved aside. He dropped the length of rope through the hole and peered after it. Out of darkness into darknessthat was the way of life, was it not?

  He looked up in time to see the eunuch touch three fingers to forehead, chin, and chest, while muttering the names of two gods. "If you survive," Kepit said, "and someday decide to take the dress, our lady will see that you receive my property."

  Yvon appreciated the honor, but he did this for other reasons than the comforts of status or property. He glanced at Xaragitte's shape behind the eunuch. "When I tug on the rope, it's safe. Understand?"

  The eunuch nodded.

  Gripping the rope, Yvon lowered himself into the hole. Lean as he was, he found it a tight squeeze. He emerged from the bottom of the garderobe and braced his feet against the stone. He glanced over his shoulder and saw no sign of the besiegers. Then he craned his neck the other way to see the reason why.

  The far end of the castle burned, lion-tongued flames licking the sky. The oak beams of the great hall's roof turned to leaves of black ash, a roiling forest of smoke that obscured the stars. The besiegers had abandoned their posts and crowded around the front gate gaping at the conflagration like moths lured to a candle-just as Lord Gruethrist had predicted they would before he took several skins of oil and climbed high into the rafters to set ablaze the castle that he'd built.

  Yvon descended quickly to the small mound ringed by dirty water. He tugged on the rope, and it disappeared above him. He squinted his eyes against the stinging haze and held his breath against the stink of raw sewage.

  One man, alone, in the dark, on an island of shit: as a general description it fit every bad moment in Yvon's life, but for the first time it was wholly true.

  The sloping mound of old excrement and refuse under his feet was held toget
her by a collection of vines more deeply rooted and intransigent than the mountain peasants. A few bushes grew among the weeds, including an early-blooming crackleberry shrub filled with tiny fruit.

  Yvon's siege-hungry stomach rumbled.

  Still no movement among the shadows across the moat. His hands did a quick inventory, touching the small knife in his boot, the dagger at his belt, the short sword concealed under his cloak. Fingers brushed the nape of his neck, freshly shorn of its braid. Without it, he had no proof that he was a knight and no right to carry a sword.

  A muffled groan sounded above him. Broad feet kicked in the small square hole. Xaragitte was the only person allotted full rations during the siege: she was stuck.

  He aged another year with every heartbeat that he waited. At this rate, he would shrivel up like an old man, die, feed the maggots, and become scattered bones before she touched the ground. Feeling like half a skeleton with hunger, he grabbed a handful of the green crack- leberries and shoved them in his mouth. They were so bitterly unripe they set his teeth on edge. His stomach knotted, half in satisfaction, half in protest. He gathered another handful and swallowed them without chewing.

  Her feet withdrew, then appeared again a second later. Her pale, lovely legs wiggled and kicked until her plump bottom popped free. She dropped suddenly and Yvon braced to catch her, but then the rope jerked short. She tried to smooth her skirt over her knees. The effort set her spinning.

  "Don't brush against the filthy stone," he whispered.

  She did, despite his warning. The rope slipped, and she made a second abrupt descent. He wrapped his arms around her, breaking the fall. Her soft flesh pressed against him, hurting like an unexpected wound.

  He set her down at once and fumbled at the knot in the rope about her waist. "Watch your step, m'lady."

  "Don't act like I'm highborn, too fine to get my hands dirty." She smeared her palms clean on her skirts. "I've wiped worse off baby bottoms."

  Where-? "Where's the baby?"

  She looked up. "We couldn't both fit through."

  Another delay! Yvon heard voices on the far side of the castle, mixed with the crackle of the fire. He yanked on the rope as soon as it came loose. It vanished into the hole like a demon sliding under water.

  Xaragitte stared up, waiting; Yvon stared at her. She had rare red hair like the goddess Bwnte. Her lover had been a common soldier named Kady, who'd died fighting the Baron's men before the siege started and just after their baby daughter's death from the coughing sickness. Yvon couldn't express his interest in her, not politely. But if only he could spend time with her, he could make his feelings clear. Sure, he was two decades older than her, but Lord Gruethrist was that much older than his new lady, the baby's mother, and they got on well. Yvon would point that out to her. It could work. It'd better. He risked not just his life but everything he'd earned in his life for the chance.

  The rope reappeared above them, tied to a basket.

  A bell tolled.

  Xaragitte dug her fingers into the hard flesh of Yvon's forearm. "They've found us!"

  "No," he said, glad she hadn't noticed him jump. "It's for the fire. It's good-if any of the Baron's soldiers are somehow so blind they've overlooked that towering column of flame, they'll hear the bell and go investigate."

  If they were somehow both blind and deaf then he would have no problem killing them, even weak from lack of food.

  He stretched his hands above his head to catch the basket.

  "Be careful," Xaragitte cautioned.

  "Oh, I will." He caught and lowered it, peering inside. "He's a very dangerous baby."

  She didn't laugh at his joke, but maybe the barb bit too close to the bone of truth. Lord Gruethrist's sudden marriage to Lady Ambit's daughter, the birth of Claye, and Claye's immediate betrothal to Lady Eleuate's infant daughter united all three ruling families in this border province. With Lady Gruethrist childless, Lady Ambit's daughter had been named heir to the Gruethrist title and lands, and would eventually inherit her mother's title and domain as well. The betrothal would give everything to Eleuate's daughter, Portia. The families had counted on inaction from the aged, inattentive Baron Culufre to get away with their grab at united power. But the old Baron had died and been replaced by some young man the Empress favored more. His army had marched on Castle Gruethrist, besieging it. So in a way the siege was the fault of this child.

  The baby flipped over, wrinkling his face. He was nine months old, long-limbed but pudgy, with thick blue-black hair. Xaragitte lifted him from the basket and placed him in the sling across her shoulder. "Hush now, darling, you're safe."

  Not hardly, Yvon thought. He drew his dagger-hard steel in his hand calmed him-and sawed through the rope. He jerked on it, but nothing happened. He looked up and saw a dark, lumpy shape fall out of the garderobe's opening.

  "Crap!"

  It was the bag containing supplies for their journey-Yvon batted it away from the nursemaid and cursed the eunuch.

  "The poison was already taking effect when Kepit let me down the rope," Xaragitte whispered. Above them, the stone slab slid back into place with a solid thunk.

  Yvon picked up the bag and bit back another sharp remark. If they escaped, only Lord Gruethrist himself would know what had truly happened. Even Lady Gruethrist would be told that the child and his nursemaid perished in the fire. The poison Kepit had taken protected their secret. It also prevented the stripping of her dress and the painful execution that awaited her at the Baron's hand when the castle surren dered-eunuchs were assigned by the Empress and were supposed to serve Her first.

  Yvon waded into the water's edge and flung the bag to the other side of the moat. "It's too deep for you to cross, m'lady. Best if I carry you."

  "I can do it," she said firmly.

  He scooped a couple handfuls of the compost into the basket and sank it in the water. "Your skirt'll be mighty heavy if it's wet and we've leagues to go."

  She took a step toward the water.

  "Hold on tight," he said, lifting her before she could protest. He stepped into the cold water, the surface of it as black as the sky, scattered with clouds of slime. Yvon selected his footing carefully. The Baron's army had been slowly filling the moat with trash and dirt. Now it worked to Yvon's advantage. At the deepest point, the water only reached his waist, and with some strain he held the woman and child clear of the foul liquid. Xaragitte wrapped one arm around his neck, pulling tight and pressing her bosom to his cheek. He concentrated on his next step, aware how easily he might slip. "I was born a commoner, like you," he said without explanation.

  "His Lordship told me," she answered equally quick.

  "Ah." So she'd made inquiries to the lord about him. Women often did that before pursuing a formal relationship.

  "I didn't expect ..." she began.

  "What?"

  "M'lady Gruethrist said you were dangerous."

  "I am," he said. "To her enemies, and to yours."

  He staggered up the bank, setting her down and scanning the shadows for the Baron's soldiers. The constant knell of the temple bell filled the air with noise as thick as smoke.

  "He's waking," she said. The baby slurped on the side of his thumb. "We should have given him a stronger draught."

  If he cried and brought the Baron's men on them-"Just keep him quiet a few more moments. We're going to walk past those houses, then out across the fields."

  His feet squished in his boots as he went ahead to see the way clear. He hadn't taken five strides from the water's edge before the temple bell rang again, much louder than before and lower pitched. The sound was so loud, so sharp, that Yvon stood rooted, unable to move. His bones vibrated like harpstrings, if harpstrings were as long as rivers-his very marrow twanged. By the time he drew breath to protest, his muscles dissolved like meat sliding off bones in a boiling pot, his internal organs melted into a single mass of jelly, invisible redhot pokers were shoved into his ears, and needles pierced his eyes, while his teeth ratt
led around loose in his jaw like dice in a gaming cup. Or so it felt. He hurt.

  Which is when he realized that it wasn't the temple bell at all. It was magic.

  The Baron's wizard had placed a bell ward over the castle, and Yvon'd just hit it like a hammer. His respect for and fear of the Baron increased instantly. He'd seen bell wards set over rooms before, in the Imperial City, and once over a minor palace, after the riots, to hold someone too important to kill, but nothing big enough to ensconce an entire castle.

  Reaching his numb fingers inside his shirt collar, Yvon sorted the glass charms hung on silver chains around his throat. He nearly grabbed and broke the hammer charm, which would have put a dent in the Baron's bell but kept it ringing until the gods died. When he found the flame charm, he held it before him and shattered the ampule in his fingers.

  Blue fire sprouted in the air and the bell stopped ringing. The pain that gripped Yvon burned suddenly away, though the effects of it lingered.

  Wherever the Baron's wizard kept his model of the castle, it and the bell atop it had just gone up in flames. Much like the real castle, probably. Yvon hoped that the Baron was standing close enough to the model to be singed by the heat.

  Xaragitte tapped him on the shoulder. "D'oo'eer'at?"

  "What?" A ringing in his ears muffled her voice. When she repeated herself, he watched her lips.

  "Did you hear that?"

  "Yes!" He shouted even though he didn't mean to, his own voice sounded so faint. "I hope no one realizes what it was yet. We must hasten. The Baron's wizard will know that someone has escaped the castle."

  The noise had woken Claye despite the sleeping potion. He pulled at his lip with little fingers and his mouth was open, though Yvon didn't hear any crying. It was hard to hear anything but the ringing in his ears. At least the size of the spell stretched it thin. Xaragitte and the baby appeared to have been safe outside the nimbus when he set it off. If he felt this sick, it might have crippled them.

  He turned and led them beside the three houses that comprised the whole street. The camp of tents lay just beyond. Something wet dribbled down the back of his leg when he paused. Just as he prepared to run across the open ground past the tents, Xaragitte clutched his arm. He whipped around.