The Prodigal Troll

by Charles Coleman Finlay

  "You weren't baiting him again?" she asked when Maggot came and squatted down with them.

  "I wanted to wish him good luck," Maggot said. "But he doesn't want it."

  Rocky sensed his agitation and picked considerately through his hair. "In the spring," she said, "people will see how bad their decision was. We'll have another vote."

  "Perhaps," Maggot answered. His face was wistful, sad. He wore a smile that was less his than the skins that covered him. "Listen, I didn't say anything earlier because I was saving it for the feast when I won. If I won. But it's better this way, because there's more for the four of you."

  Skeeter licked his lips. "What is it? Another humpback?"

  "People," Maggot said plainly. "A small group crossing from the southern pass. I don't know if they got lost, or what, but the blizzard trapped them, made it hard for them to move. I buried the bodies under their stuff and pissed all over it."

  Stump grinned from ear to ear. "Where are they? Let's go!"

  "Follow the wind, down the rocky river, where it passes between the tall stones. There's a glade of chestnut trees there." He smiled at Stump. "If you can't find the meat, you can always eat the chestnuts."

  "I know that spot," Rocky added enthusiastically. "There's a deep rock ledge down there, along the river. We can spend the day sleeping there and eat again tomorrow night."

  The other three stood up and left at once. Windy rose also, and black dots swam suddenly before her eyes. When they cleared, she noticed Maggot sitting still. "Come on," she said.

  He stuck out his tongue. "Would you ever eat the flesh of another troll?"

  "No!" Something was wrong with him, to make him so stupid. Trolls buried their dead away from light, so that they could pass through the hot day of death and enter again into the long sweet night of life.

  Maggot came over and sat beside her. "So will I never eat people flesh." He paused, picked at her skin one more time. "I'm people, Mother. I'm not a troll."

  "You're a good troll!"

  "I've tried hard. You saw that tonight. I'm a better troll than Ragweed in every respect, but one. I'm not a troll."

  Sharp pain shot all the way up her arm into her chest. "What will you do?"

  "Go down to the western valley where I was born. I've studied people for years now, as they passed through the mountains. Maybe I can learn to be like them. Maybe find a band that I can join."

  Ah, so that's it, she thought. Maybe it's for the best. She took his hand in hers, and walked up out of the stone circle. "We'll go downstream with the others," she told him. "We'll sleep overday under the rock ledge, and tomorrow we'll continue on our way."

  He tried to pull his hand free; she gripped it as tight as an old root wound round a rock.

  "Mom?"

  "Yes."

  "Mom?"

  "Yes."

  "Mom, this is something I have to do alone. You need to stay here. This is where you belong."

  Stump reappeared on the edge of the hill. He spritzed an odor of worry for her. He was very kind. When he saw she was all right, he gave off another musk.

  Maggot had never once given off the proper musk, had never once said that he loved her. And yet she knew that he did, that he always would.

  "Go with them, Mom," he said softly. "I'll be fine."

  He pulled his hand again, very gently. And she did the hardest thing she had ever done in her life.

  She let go.

  lashes of bright color, a ragged line of them, stomping and shouting, penetrated the forest's net of browns and greens.

  Maggot shifted his position in the tree for a better view. Pine needles pricked his bare back. The bough swayed slightly under his callused feet. Blue and yellow and white, closer, closer still, and then, leaning forward, Maggot-

  Yes, the flat chest and beard were those of a man. Maggot flared his nostrils, frowned, rocked back on his haunches.

  He had come down from the mountains in search of a mate. So far he'd seen nothing but men.

  The man in blue stomped and shouted within a few yards of Maggot's tree. He carried a large section of log on a sash across his bare shoulder, so he must be very strong. Maggot picked his nose and flicked snot at the man's head, but the man didn't notice anything.

  People were stupid. Compared to trolls.

  The man passed under the tree and into open sunlight. He wore strips of white skin wrapped around his feet and tied in a knot at top. Another skin skirted his waist, with blocks of green divided by cracks of sharp blue.

  Maggot peered off into the deep, unexplored forest. He'd like to find the creature that had that skin.

  Maybe he should steal this man's skin and wear it to make himself stink more like people, and that would help him find a woman. Maggot had been stealing things from people for the last five or six winters, whenever people crossed the mountain passes. So he'd seen a few human women. At least he thought they were women, although who could know for certain when they were covered with extra skins and the stink of dead things.

  But he had discarded his people items, the skins and blankets, because it was too hot down here in the valleys with winter's snow already melted. He'd kept only the knife and spear-the small hard leaf, the hard leaf on the branch.

  As he descended the tree to follow the man, Maggot heard shouts. He pressed aside the branches just in time to see the man pound his fists on the log he carried. Birds erupted from the trees and fled away to the sky. The log resonated with a deep, full sound, a troll greeting sound, like fists on a chest. For a second, Maggot's heart leapt into his throat, a loneliness too hard to swallow.

  Retrieving his spear from the pile of needles, he eased out from the evergreen's sheltering cape. He sniffed experimentally, trying to smell something besides the scent of pine. Not for the first time, he wished for the broad flat nose of a troll.

  He ran to a thick stand of brush and hid. The man with the log knuckled out a rhythm more complicated than any message used by the trolls while the others chanted words in a beat that matched their step. They repeated it over and over until it almost made Maggot crazy.

  "Lion, lion," he repeated with them, not knowing the word. "Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh!"

  People talked stupid.

  He mumbled it again and rapped his knuckles against his chest, shaking the knife sheath that hung on a string about his neck. But for once his mimicking skills failed him. The pounding made no more sense as a message than did the words.

  A quick scuttle to another cluster of trees upslope and he saw the next person in line-another man! By the time he reached the peak of the ridge, Maggot had counted four handfuls and two fingers of people, all men. Two more carried the big logs. Every fifth man, or thumb, held a large, flat disc of metal-the troll word described the taste of it-shaped like certain mushrooms. When the men tapped the mushrooms with sticks, they made a chilling ring. All the other men thrashed the brush with long branches.

  Stupid men were scaring all the animals away and not just the birds. Maggot's stomach rumbled. There was little to eat here. The trees were just unfolding their leaves, sending forth seedlings that spun down to the ground like wounded butterflies, and only the smallest flowers bloomed, little white stars and tiny blue-and-pink blossoms that hung upside down.

  The man beating the brush nearest to Maggot stepped cautiously, careful not to tramp on any flowers. Maybe people scared winter off this way, Maggot thought. These lands were more fertile than the high mountains and earlier in the season too. Maybe this was magic, the false-flavored nature his mother had warned him to avoid.

  He decided to run ahead of the men to see if there were any women farther down the valley. He crossed the ridge, but near the bottom of the slope he saw a flash of light and dove instinctively into the cover of a thicket. Thorny branches scratched at his skin as he peered out.

  A second line of silent people in drab clothes carried spears with the points thrust out in front of them. They stood closer together, angled toward the no
isy log-and-mushroom men.

  Maggot crouched his way along behind them, counting. There were more people here than in the largest troll band! And they were all men. Picking up a pinecone, he winged it at the back of the last man in line. The man's head snapped forward. He reached over and shoved his neighbor while Maggot grinned and backed away.

  His stomach gurgled a second time. He escaped the closing jaws of these two lines of men and went off to find something to drink, maybe even something to eat, before he continued his search for a mate.

  He jogged through the woods until the noise of the thrashers was faint, far behind him. He found a trickle of water and followed it down the hillside where it joined a stony brook that soon dropped over a steep incline. Maggot paused on a jutting rock at the hill's lip and looked at the stream's low, looping crawl toward a pond in the meadow. One dot of dark blue flitted across the sunlight, chased by another toward some distant nest. Maybe he would find fresh eggs here.

  At the edge of the woods, beside the stream, he noticed scat. Bigtooth scat, from the size and shape of it. Dusty white-several days old at least. He bent and sniffed. It didn't smell fresh. Still, with a bigtooth in the area he would have to be much more careful about where he denned up. Though he might get a chance to steal fresh carrion.

  He bent on hands and knees by the cool, clear pond. In his head, Maggot had always seen himself as a version of his mother, as a troll. The twig-nosed, nut-mouthed, shaggy-headed face in the water still surprised him. He brushed his hair over his embarrassing high forehead before a woman saw it.

  Maybe if he spent more time among people, he'd start to see himself like them but find a troll in his reflection instead.

  Before he could kiss his image to sip the water, he heard voicespeople coming. He snatched up his spear and hid in the undergrowth while three people entered the meadow.

  His breath caught in his mouth. His knees wobbled.

  One of the people was a woman!

  He straightened, inhaled, and leaned forward uncertainly.

  She had saggy breasts, somewhat like a woman, and a round, smooth-skinned face like a woman. But her hips narrowed like a man's. Sunbright loops around her neck and similar bands around her arms echoed those the men wore. Her skin was as black as polished rock and her hair was fog-colored like an old troll's bristle.

  Maggot puffed out his cheeks and exhaled. He'd hoped women would be, well, he didn't know. More attractive.

  The two other people were men. The younger had skin a soft brown color, with hair as black and thick as Maggot's. He was tall and lean, like Maggot, and had even less hair on his chin. The third man was bearded, pale like Maggot, his brown hair pulled back and twined like vines. Though not as tall as Foghair or the boy, his shoulders were broader and he looked stronger. Other men, carrying spears, joined them.

  The bearded man studied the meadow carefully, following the edge of the pond over to the stream. When he found the bigtooth scat, he motioned the others over to investigate. He must be the First, Maggot decided. Even Ragweed, who was not an especially good First, looked at things and brought them to the notice of other members of the band.

  They were very excited by the smell, or sight, of the scat. They talked very quickly, gesticulating and pointing in the direction of the noise made by the log-and-mushroom men. The men with the spears made jabbing motions at the scat. So even people were wary of bigtooths. That showed some intelligence.

  Foghair lifted the horn to her mouth and blew a series of short, clear notes. A few moments later, the clamor on the hillside shifted direction.

  Then they filled their water bladders and spoke quietly among each other until they were interrupted by a crashing noise on the hillside. A whitetailed deer burst from the woods and froze, looking back toward the din of the log-and-mushroom men. Three more deer emerged from the trees and traipsed to a halt.

  The boy tapped his chest. The bearded man, First, gestured to one of the spear carriers, who passed his spear to Boy. Boy skipped forward and flung his spear into the air-

  Maggot blinked, having never used one as more than a long arm with a claw on the end!

  -which fell into the flank of the nearest deer. It bleated pain, collapsing as the other three scattered. The deer staggered up and dragged its rear legs in a circle, the spear bouncing wildly. One of the spear carriers rushed forward and put the animal down with a second thrust through the throat.

  Maggot felt a dead-end cave crack open into a wide new cavernyou could throw spears.

  Maybe people weren't so stupid after all.

  As the spear carriers emptied the guts out of the beast, Foghair blew her horn again. The drumming and ringing and thrashing stopped, and all the others came in.

  Two men tied the animal to a long pole. Maybe they were taking the meat to their women. Maggot had already decided to follow them to find out when he saw the mammut.

  The shaggy red giant ambled into the meadow. Sun blazoned off metal knobs that adorned the ends of its tusks. A small man perched on its head behind the flapping ears. Stranger yet, a tent-a cave made out of sticks and skins, striped blue and yellow-sat astride its back. There were two people in it.

  Boy presented the deer to the mammut riders, one of whom said something-the higher voice sounded like a woman's-before they turned away toward the lower valley, with the men carrying the deer and the others chasing after. Maggot followed them, like a shadow stretched out far and behind by a low sun.

  Their trail paralleled a stream to where it met a river gushing over a rocky bed. The men approached a village of tents-a cluster of caves made of skins like the one on the back of the elephant-at the river's edge. Fires burned there, making Maggot wary. That magic eluded him. The only time he had ever tried to take hold of fire, he'd burned his hand.

  Maggot hid in a large copse of trees that occupied a slight rise at the river's edge, downstream from the camp where too many men moved about constantly, like bees at a hive, making them impossible to count. Though he watched for a time, he saw no more women, and he began to despair that Foghair was the only one after all.

  Exhausted, Maggot sipped from the river, then crawled under a fallen log and covered himself with leaves for a brief nap. He awoke refreshed, with the moon only half itself and dropping out of the sky. Though he moved about in the day now and had for many years, despite his mother's fears, some part of him still felt more comfortable at night. When he crept forth for a closer look, he left his spear behind so he could have both hands free for scavenging. His knife still dangled from the string around his neck.

  He approached the darkened camp slowly, anxious at the smell of fire and burned meat, wondering how he'd find the women here if there were any. A big animal coughed at the edge of the tents, and Maggot dropped into a crouch.

  Three lean, long-legged, spotted cats-unlike any big cats Maggot had ever seen-padded through the darkness. Their eyes glinted green. One paced back and forth, pausing to bat at one of the tents. So he was not the only one to prey on these people tonight.

  Staying low, Maggot crawled off to the opposite side of the camp. While the men were distracted by the cats, he'd go in and take what he wanted. He was creeping inside for a closer look when one of the tents moved.

  Maggot froze.

  The huge bulk of the tent budged again, then lifted a snakelike appendage into the air.

  The mammut! It swayed like an old tree in a strong wind. Maggot had known mammuts before, especially on the morning side of the mountain range. Trolls and mammuts fed side by side sometimes during the summer nights. Maggot had always been fond of the creatures because they were bigger than trolls. Even Ragweed looked diminutive next to one.

  The little cave was no longer on its back. Maggot approached it gently, reaching out to pat its side. Big clumps of winter fur came loose at his touch. The trunk turned around, snaking over his shoulders, his head. All the while, the mammut rocked, lifting its back leg, dropping it, repeating the motion, until Maggot noticed t
he iron band affixed to its ankle. The mammut was chained to a stake driven deep in the ground.

  That just smells wrong, Maggot thought as he hunkered down to examine the stake. It was the size of a small stump and buried deep. Gripping it with both hands, he braced his shoulders and tugged. The soil was soft. He wiggled the stake from side to side, pulling until it came free.

  Shoving the animal's hard, unyielding side with his hand, Maggot whispered, "Go on, go away."

  The shaggy creature shuffled in place.

  A buzzing snore droned out from one of the nearby tents. Maggot spun around-he had forgotten to watch the tents. Leaving the mammut, he slouched toward the new noise, alert for signs of movement, his heart pounding at his own stupid distraction. He spotted one of the logs that the men carried through the woods propped at an entrance flap to one of the tents. He hefted it, expecting a heavy weight, but found it remarkably light. He saw at once that it was hollow, with the ends covered by some stretched skin. People did a lot with skins. Maybe because theirs were so thin. He tapped the end with his fingertips, and the sound made him jump.

  Maggot felt suddenly nervous around all these people and their things. Carrying the log under one arm, he hurried back to the nearby copse.

  Sitting down at the base of a tree, he propped the log between his legs. He tapped at it again with the tips of his fingers, and it made a light noise.

  It reminded him of woodpeckers drilling dead trees. He smiled, wishing he'd had something like this among the trolls. He could have sounded almost like them then. With his fists, he pounded out the danger-death warning. The log resonated just like Ragweed's chest. He repeated it a couple times, adding a shrill scream at the end. He grinned, imagining the reaction of other trolls.

  Looking back in wonder at the camp of men who made such things, he noticed some of them clearly outlined against a big fire that hadn't been burning as brightly a short while before.

  First stood there, with Foghair by his side. Maggot recognized them by their posture, as surely as he would recognize a member of another band.