The Dragon, the Earl ,and the Troll

by Gordon R. Dickson

  "The Dragon Knight, of course," he said. His eyebrows relaxed to their lowest level. "My dear Sir—" He stretched his hands out to Jim, a smile on his ruddy features. "Damn happy to have you here! I've not wanted to disturb you and your Lady, after all the adventures of your trip. I hope those rascals of mine took care of you properly, the way I told them to?"

  "Eminently well, my Lord," said Jim. He had been half afraid the Earl had meant to embrace him, as Brian and Giles now did; but all his host did this time was to clasp his forearm in a friendly but powerful grip and beam at him. In polite fashion Jim clutched back at the forearm behind the hand that clutched him. Then they both let go.

  "But—" A frown returned to the Earl's face. "What draws you to my nether floors? Strictly forbidden to anyone to go down there! Strictly—" He puffed out his cheeks momentarily. "Even I almost never go down."

  His cheeks deflated; his eyes, which had been meeting Jim's boldly, became suddenly shifty, glancing off to one side.

  "—Never, actually…" he muttered, under his breath.

  "Carolinus sent Sir James, and said I should go with him," put in Brian, "so he could remonstrate with any who might be down there."

  "Hah!" said the Earl, perking up amazingly. "He did, did he! Capital notion! Yes, yes, of course. Good of old Carolinus to think of it. I wouldn't want to impose on a guest, of course; but the Dragon Knight, of course…"

  "But," said Brian, "if your Lordship objects—"

  "No," said the Earl hastily, "by no means. Follow your master in magic's orders, Sir James. Eminent magician, Carolinus. None better! Yes—do what he says. I—I must get upstairs to the rest of my guests right now; but I will look forward to seeing you later."

  "Thank you, my Lord," said both Jim and Brian.

  The Earl and his two men-at-arms turned and hurried off. Jim and Brian went on down the stairs.

  They descended several more levels without speaking. The lighting had become almost nonexistent, and Brian had plucked a rush-light from a wall holder and carried it as they continued downward. Finally they emerged into what seemed to be an area under the very base of the castle itself, with the stone and wooden supports above them propped by great arches of more stone; and nothing but earth underneath their feet as far as could be seen.

  "He must be around here, someplace," said Brian. "The stink of him is loud enough. Do you note, James, that there is fur on everything about, down here, to the height of a man?"

  "I think it's hair. Maybe he rubs himself against things to scratch an itch," said Jim. He sniffed cautiously at a nearby supporting stone arch. The smell was not of the kind that would gag a person, however. It was, Jim thought, rather like a sharp, wild-animal scent. "I think it's the hair that smells."

  Brian was peering around him in the torchlight. There had been no fear in his voice, but definitely a note of caution.

  "Carolinus did say that the giant was not a real giant, did he not?" Brian asked, turning to Jim.

  "That's what he said," said Jim.

  "It is well that is so, then," muttered Brian, peering into the gloom beyond the area illuminated by the rush-light, "for the beams and stone above us here are but inches above the top of your own head, James. Well, let us look."

  He led the way, apparently at random, into darkness. Jim followed.

  They wandered among the stone arches for some little time, peering as far as they could in the illumination of the rush-light; but there was nothing to be seen and nothing to be heard.

  "This is no good," said Brian, halting at last. "We could wander forever like this."

  He raised his voice.

  "Ho! Giant!" he shouted. "If so be it you are not too fearful to face us, let us see you. Come forth!"

  The response was so quick that it took Jim's breath away.

  Suddenly the rush-light was so pale in the new illumination that it could hardly be seen. Around them, arches, beams—even the ground under their feet—were glowing with a strange but powerful light, so that they could see for about ten yards in every direction not blocked by stone.

  But it was not necessary to see ten yards to discover the individual facing them. He was less than ten feet away, and his appearance was not such as to invite them to step forward and greet him, as they might another person.

  "By all the Saints!" said Brian. "A troll. But one larger than any I ever heard of! Do you speak, troll?"

  "I speak, man!" came back the answer in a harsh, deep and powerful voice that made Brian's seem like that of a boy. "Tell me how you dare come here before I tear you apart and eat you!"

  The giant of the castle looked as if he could do exactly what he promised. But Carolinus had been right. Technically, he was not, in fact, a giant. But he was hardly less than one.

  He was at least an inch or so shorter than Jim, though taller than Brian.

  On the other hand, Jim remembered, from his own twentieth century, the old saying about someone being two ax handles across the shoulder—but this was the first time he had ever seen someone who actually had that kind of shoulder-width.

  This troll's shoulders, Jim thought, must be at least as wide as he was tall. This was mind-boggling. Most trolls, even the largest night-trolls, were only reputed to be about a hundred and twenty pounds in weight. This one looked as if he could match body weight with a gorilla.

  In addition to that, his arms were long. His oversized hands dangled below his knees; and both arms and legs bulged with muscle. Jim had heard a great deal of trolls but had never actually met one before. He was fascinated by the head and face of the one he was looking at now. It was something like an oversized head that had been squashed down. It was broader than a human head would be, the nose large, and the nostrils flaring; the eyes were deep-set and of a dark color that Jim could not identify precisely in this light. The mouth was abnormally wide, with a powerful lower jaw beneath it. Right now the lips were drawn back, revealing sharp, pointed teeth that a saber-toothed tiger might have envied.

  At first glance Jim had thought that the troll was dressed in some close-fitting suit of tanned leather. Now, he realized that what he saw was actually the troll's skin. He actually wore nothing except a sort of short, and rather dirty, kilt around his waist; upon which were black rows of single lines rather rudely marked, as if someone with very little education or practice had been keeping tally of something or other.

  "Know you, troll," said Brian, "the gentleman beside me is Sir James Eckert, Baron de Malencontri et Riveroak, and a Mage. He brings you an order from his master in magic, none but Carolinus himself. Think on that. Are you so lost in this depth here that you have never heard of Carolinus?"

  "Of course I've heard of Carolinus!" growled the troll. "The wolf's told me. I'll show you what I think of Carolinus. I'll eat you both and send your bones back to him!"

  A low growl began in the darkness beyond their area of light. It approached, resonating deeper until it seemed to echo off or in the very stone around them.

  They all turned toward its source.

  "Think again, troll!" said an equally harsh voice, if somewhat higher-toned; and Aargh stepped into the light. His ears were erect, his tail was straight out behind him and his yellow eyes had a flat, murderous look as if the light behind them had gone out.

  "These are friends of mine," said Aargh. "You will never set tooth in their bones."

  "I take no commands from you, Aargh," said the troll. "You've been of use to me, in bringing news of the outside; and you dared come from the woods down my tunnel, up which I must go to find the food I need. But none ever came down of their own will, these eighteen hundred years, until now. None—until you. But never think you I can't eat you, too, and send your bones up with these as well—for your own sake, stand away!"

  Aargh smiled. But it was not his ordinary smile. This smile was vertical, not horizontal. The lips had wrinkled back, first in the middle, and then outward, revealing the gleaming knives of his wicked teeth.

  "Aargh stand away?
" he said. "All trolls are fools, and clearly you, Mnrogar, as the oldest and biggest of all, are also the biggest fool. Reach for any one of us, and learn how Aargh will stand away!"

  The troll growled thunderously and took a step toward Aargh. Aargh's jaws closed with a ringing snap. His lips wrinkled farther back; and he half crouched for a spring. But in that moment Jim pointed a finger at the troll, and his voice rang out among the stone and timber.

  "Still!"

  Mnrogar froze where he was, almost off balance with his stride forward barely completed. Aargh slowly relaxed and straightened up from his crouch. His jaws opened again in the more familiar, silent wolf-laugh.

  "So, now what of your eating and sending of bones, Mnrogar?" he said. "The apprentice alone has made you helpless. What if you were to face his master?"

  Mnrogar did not answer; but that was for the very good reason that he could not. To do so he would have needed to move his vocal cords; and all voluntary control of his body had been checked by Jim's magical command. A magician—unlike a sorcerer—might not use his powers for reasons of offense. But to render someone immobile, except when they were in a vulnerable position, was not an offensive use of magician magic. Mnrogar had become a troll-statue—still of flesh and bone, but motionless, nonetheless.

  Jim walked around so that he was standing directly before the eyes of the motionless troll.

  "Neither I nor anyone else here wants to quarrel with you, Mnrogar," Jim said. "But you must know that, strong as you are, you're helpless against a magician—"

  "Speak for yourself, James," said the harsh voice of Aargh, and the wolf brushed past Jim's leg to lift his nose almost to the face of the motionless Mnrogar.

  "Do you see that bulge under his upper arm, James? I have had to deal with, and slay, a number of trolls in my time. That is not muscle, but one of the tubes of his body through which his blood flows. A large tube, and much blood. It is close to the surface there, and I could rip it open with ease. There are other such places about his body which I know. Never think, Mnrogar, that Aargh could not kill you. You trolls all fight alike, because you are used to seizing, biting and tearing with your claws. You all move the same way; and an English wolf knows how to slash and move away from what you would do, long enough for your body to empty itself of blood. Which it would in a moment or two if one of those tubes were opened. I will die when my time comes, because I am such a wolf. You will live for thousands of years yet, if no one kills you; but I tell you now—if you live until oak, ash and thorn, together, were forgotten in this land, you would never have been able to kill Aargh."

  He stepped back from the troll and out of Jim's sight.

  "Mnrogar," said Jim, "I'm going to release you so you can move now. But remember that no one here has any cause against you, but if one of us did you couldn't hurt him. Your strength is nothing against my magic. Remember that. And remember this message I bring from Carolinus. You aren't to shake the castle again for two weeks, however you manage to do it!"

  He waited a moment to let the message sink in.

  "You're free to move," he said, then.

  Mnrogar moved, but not toward any of them. With a wild howl he flung out his arms so that each one reached a seemingly impossible distance, to hook itself around one of the stone pillars on either side of him. He threw his weight against the stone he held; and everything around them shook as he continued to throw himself backward and forward.

  "Still!" snapped Jim.

  Mnrogar was suddenly frozen and the shaking stopped. Jim heard his own breathing, harsh in the sudden stillness. But that breathing was all he heard; neither Aargh nor Brian was making a sound. It took him a moment to control the sudden, reasonless anger that had boiled up inside him at the massive troll's immediate action.

  "Mnrogar," he said at last, in something like a calm voice, "I could leave you just as you are now, to stand for as long as your body would hold you up. Maybe you could stand forever—I've no idea whether you'd die before your body would fall, or not. But I'm not going to leave you like that. I won't, because I'm not like you, who does things like that for nothing; only to trouble others. Now, I'll give you one more chance and let you go. But this time don't do anything that'll make me stop you again. Because if I do, this last time I'll never set you free again."

  He waited a moment to let his words sink into the troll's mind. Then he spoke again.

  "You can move once more," he said.

  Mnrogar moved. He threw back his head and howled; a howl that rang and echoed from the stone arches all around them. His face was twisted in an expression of terrible grief. He opened his fanged mouth and howled like an animal in pain.

  "For nothing?" he cried. "But it is mine! My castle, my lands! No other troll shall have them!"

  He threw himself down and began beating his head against the earth floor with a force that seemed as if it should have torn that head from his body.

  "Of the Lord's mercy!" said Brian's hushed voice off to Jim's left. "The creature weeps!"

  Chapter 7

  It was true. Great tears were running down the troll's ugly face; and his wide, powerful chest was racked with hoarse sobs.

  "Eighteen hundred years!" he choked, looking up at Jim, like an animal caught in a cage. "Eighteen hundred years have I kept this hill, and this land, so no other troll dared set foot in it. Eighteen hundred years—"

  He clutched at the kilt around his waist and pulled its bottom edge up toward Jim.

  "Read! Count! Each mark—ten years, that says this place is my own!"

  "I see," said Jim, for in spite of everything that had gone before, this sudden explosion of grief was so unexpected and overwhelming it tore at his emotions in spite of himself. "I believe you, Mnrogar," he said. "I see the marks. Yes, I believe you—eighteen hundred years."

  "All that time!" choked Mnrogar. "And now you, all of you men and women, have brought another troll in on my land, my place—and you keep me from doing anything about it!"

  The troll's suffering was so obvious and so intense that Jim found he could not stand it. Recklessly, he ransacked his mind for some magic that could ease the Natural's pain. His actual stock of spells was so small that at first he thought he had nothing. Then he realized that he did have one thing.

  "Sleep!" he said, pointing at Mnrogar.

  Mnrogar's grief checked in mid-sob. His eyes closed and he slumped to the ground, still. His face smoothed out, and no more tears came from under his eyelids. In sleep, his face had lost the marks of the agony it had shown before.

  "What was he talking about?" demanded Brian, moving up to face Jim. "Another troll? Here? Brought into the castle by one of the guests? It cannot be!"

  "I don't see how it can, either," said Jim, shaking his head. He looked at Aargh, who had also moved up close to sniff at the sleeping Mnrogar. "Aargh, can you smell a troll here in the castle?"

  The ability of wolves in general to pick up scents had been known to be remarkable, back in the twentieth-century world from which Jim had come; and during his three years of knowing Aargh, he had seen clear evidence that that knowledge was in no way exaggerated. But in this case, Aargh did not even bother to lift his nose in the air and sniff.

  "What else can I smell," retorted Aargh, "with a troll here, right under my nose?"

  It was an obvious answer. Jim felt foolish. Happily, the wolf seemed more interested in something else.

  "Do the marks on this thing he has wrapped around him actually tell of eighteen hundred years that he has kept this place?" he asked.

  "As far as I can see," said Jim.

  "If so," said Aargh, lifting his head to look at Jim, "he has done a great thing. I know of no other troll who has held his ground for more than forty years. You might want to think before you change him for another troll, James."

  "What other troll?" said Jim, startled.

  "The one upstairs—if there is one upstairs," Aargh said. "Otherwise, if he sleeps forever here, sooner or later some other troll
will come down the tunnel and kill him as he lies for the sake of his land. I understand that, Jim; perhaps a human like yourself does not. They have their own ground, which they guard and keep against all comers, as my people do. But other than that, they are little like us. Each one is abandoned as soon as it's whelped by the one who whelped it. It grows up if it can and lives—and fights to win ground of its own. Then it holds that place until another comes and kills it and takes it from him. It is so with us wolves. It is so with trolls."

  "Aargh!" said Jim. "Is this troll a—a friend of yours?"

  "Friend?" said Aargh. "Only minutes past, you saw me ready to kill him. I understand him, only."

  Jim felt embarrassed. At the same time, his mind was working. If there was a troll somehow upstairs in the castle, and Aargh's nose could be brought anywhere near it, it would be easy for the wolf to pick out the intruder. Although why a troll should be here, or why any guest should bring one in, were questions that seemed to have no sensible answers at all.

  "Look, Aargh," he said, "if I can come up with a way to make you invisible—or the next best thing to being invisible—upstairs where everybody else is, so that you could use your nose up there, away from Mnrogar, you'd be able to find the other troll, wouldn't you? That is, if there is one."

  "I could, but I won't," said Aargh. "You know I've no love for these things called castles and inns, and the other traps you humans huddle in. No, I will not go upstairs with you. Ask me no more such questions, James. My answer is what you have now. And also, I have no more reason to stay here. I will go."

  Instantly he was gone into the darkness beyond the light.

  Jim was silent—and Brian seemed to have nothing to offer. When Aargh put things like that, it would be a waste of time and tempers to try to change his mind. This medieval time in which Jim and Angie now lived was one in which almost no one ever seemed to change his or her mind.

  It was not only Aargh, Jim thought. It was generally true of Brian, Carolinus—or even his own men-at-arms, castle servants and the people belonging to the Malencontri estates—who were theoretically bound to obey any order he gave them. He could control the last category of people physically, but he could not even bend the point of view of any one of them.