by Peter Plasse
Suddenly the waters erupted like a malignant geyser, sending spray high into the air. But nothing touched him again, so he raced for the far shore, now only yards away. He looked towards Mandel and Seth, but a foul, greenish-brown mist between them obscured his view. He had just placed his first foot on shore when he heard the scream. Up he scrambled onto the bank, and now he could see Mandel, high overhead, in the grip of some sort of huge tentacle and being waved about like a rag doll. Seth, having made it to the far bank as well, had dropped his sword and was nocking an arrow. Turman Pandieth sprinted towards him and did the same. Together, they let fly a number of them, one after the other in rapid succession, most striking the thing with no obvious effect. Turman yelled, “Keep shooting,” grabbed his short sword, and charged back into the water, screaming, “For the Prince!” where he began to slash and cut at the monstrous arm that held Mandel helpless high above them. Every blow buried itself deep into the flesh of the thing, and he was rewarded with the appearance of a thick, black, slimy fluid that he assumed was the monster’s blood. It didn’t look like he was having much of an effect on it, however. And after several strikes his sword arm began to tire. It was then that another tentacle shot out of the water and wrapped itself around his sword arm at the wrist. It happened so quickly he didn’t have time to change hands, although he tried, his sword falling into the stream.
He drew a dagger from his belt and started to plunge it over and over into the coil of the beast when yet another much larger tentacle wrapped itself around his waist, picked him up completely out of the water, and tossed him up on the far side of the stream bank some twenty feet from shore where he tumbled and rolled to a stop. Quite shaken, he sat up. He reached for his boot knife but it was gone, having been lost in the struggle. He glanced towards Mandel and Seth. They too were sitting on the bank of the shore that they had wanted to reach. They too were weaponless, but looked to be unharmed.
“That’s crazy,” he thought. “Why didn’t that thing simply kill us all?” It didn’t make any sense. It surely could have slain them easily.
“That will do, that will do,” a voice called out. “You have had enough fun for the day. Go and tend to your wounds. Go on. I will be back to visit with you later. You did a good job, a fine job. I am proud of you.”
Seth and Mandel limped to the side of Turman. All were badly battered and bruised up.
“Follow me,” said the old woman, who turned without further ceremony and began to walk away. Turman nodded to the other two, and they all fell in step behind her. In a matter of moments all three were overcome by feelings of exhaustion. Turman found himself yawning. Soon, they all walked along as though in a trance, incognizant of where they were, in what direction they were going, or why. All awareness of their surroundings faded gradually as she ensnared them deeper and deeper into the spell that she wove, using incantations, dust, and the like.
Turman woke up first, sitting straight up and reaching for his short sword, which was absent from his side. He looked quickly around, having no idea where he was or how he had gotten there.
They were in a small, one-room log cabin, not unlike the one in which the Prince, Norma Webb, and Ettan Cooke were now housed. But this one had the comfortable look of a residence with a full-time occupant. There was a dining area with a table and four chairs, a bed that looked like it probably belonged to the strange woman whom they had encountered the day before, and a small but striking fireplace in which burned a cheery fire. And if that were not enough, there was a roast cooking. The smell was overwhelming, and he found he was ravenous.
He nudged both Seth and Mandel with his foot, noticing for the first time that his boots were missing. He looked at his clothes, which were nothing like those he had been wearing the day before. These were soft and clean. The colors were garish: Greens and golds and purples. They were adorned with many of the same pastoral scenes he had observed on the cloak of their rescuer; garments for sleeping, not for fighting. Seth and Mandel woke up, staring curiously at their surroundings and the outfits in which they were dressed. “What do you make of this, Turman?” asked Seth.
“You might want to turn that meat,” came the soft voice from the loft above them. She climbed slowly down the ladder. Finishing the last rung, she turned to face them. “We want it to cook evenly now, don’t we?”
She gestured towards the roast with her palm up as if to say, “Good manners, now. I have made a simple request, please don’t ignore it.”
Mandel jumped to the fireplace where he turned the roast on its spit.
“Good,” she said. Her voice was soft, but powerful, as were her eyes. As she gazed at each of them in turn, they felt as though she could see right through them to their very souls. Fighting Gnomes, they nevertheless felt like small boys in her presence. It was unnerving, and they dealt with it by keeping silent.
“Well now,” she said, “My name is Elsie. I am known hereabouts as Elsie of the Lake. You don’t need to introduce yourselves. I already know who you are and why you’re here. Do not worry about the Prince. He and the girl have been taken care of, and he is probably just now feeding.” She paused and looked them all over again. Each, yet again, felt the feeling a schoolboy has when the teacher is speaking.
Turman found his tongue first and asked, “Where are we?”
Elsie chuckled. “Why, you are in my home of course.”
Turman wanted to ask where that was, but couldn’t seem to find the words.
“How … how long have we been here?” asked Mandel as he turned the roast again.
“Long enough to warm up and get your legs under you,” she answered. “Don’t worry. This is a special place. Time does not pass here as it now passes in your world. Now, if you would be kind enough to set the table properly, I will go and gather some vegetables to eat with our meal. You will find fresh, cold goat’s milk right outside that door.” She gestured to a door beside the table and chairs. “I will be right back.”
She left by a smaller one at the far side of the room, closing it softly behind her.
Seth set the table for four with a colorful array of dishes. Mandel retrieved the roast, which was done to a turn, and set it on a platter in the center.
“I must say,” said Turman, “I feel a little uncomfortable sitting down to a fine dinner when the Prince, his wet nurse, and another of my fellow Gnomes are all living right now under some pretty harsh conditions over on the other side of the lake.”
“Yes,” said Elsie, as she returned via the same door through which she had left not a minute before, “and I understand your concern. But all is as it should be, Turman Pandieth. They are well, and have already eaten a meal that, while not quite as fine as this one, was nevertheless every bit as nourishing and warm as this one promises to be.
“Please, let us bow our heads and give thanks to the Old One for these gifts that he has blessed us with this day.”
All bowed their heads, and Elsie gave thanks for the meal and the day to which they had all awakened. When she had finished, the food was served. It was a magnificent affair. Elsie excused herself several times while they were eating, every time returning with yet another dish of something warm and hearty. All wondered how she managed to do this, in view of the fact that none saw her preparing anything, nor did she use the small stove at all. Still, nobody made inquiry in the interests of good manners.
When the meal was done and the dishes washed and put away, she asked them all to be seated.
“Now. You must return and bring Norma Webb and the Prince back to me. After that, your work here is done, and you will return to Vultura. The Emperor has died, as you know, and Saviar Murlis is in hiding. You will find him and bring him back here. We must meet, he and I. I will show you a better way to get here than the one you used. What ever possessed you to try and arrive here via the swamp, anyway? Oh, never mind that. The way we go today is the way you will come back then.”
“Do we know where it is that the acting Emperor is in hiding?�
�� asked Turman.
“If we did, he wouldn’t be in hiding, now would he?” She laughed softly at her own joke. “Turman Pandieth, you were the head of the Palace Elite, were you not?”
“I was.”
“And these were two of your finest officers, were they not?”
“They were … are … were.”
“Well then, I should think you would be able to deduce the answer to your question with a little homework when you have arrived back in the capital city. They think you dead, right?”
“They do. How did you know that?”
“Very well,” she stood, “Let us be on our way. In the back, through that door, you will find an ample supply of Burnfast. Please take more than you feel you need. The nation cannot afford to lose any of you to the cold. Not now. There is far too much at stake.”
Humming a Gnome lullaby, she walked away from the table and exited through the other door, leaving the three of them staring blankly at each other. She poked her head back in the door. “Oh yes,” she said, “Your clothes are hanging there as well. They have been cleaned. I retrieved your weapons with some help from a friend. Mandel, I took the liberty of putting a better edge on your blade.”
Mandel, embarrassed, blushed a deeper shade of gray.
In a matter of minutes they were dressed and ready. Elsie had not returned. Seth checked the door through which she had left them and let out a low whistle. “Look at this,” he said. He opened the door wide. Behind it was a solid stone wall. They checked it from top to bottom but could find no defect.
“Strange,” muttered Mandel.
“Not the strangest thing we are likely to see from this one,” added Turman.
Chapter 21
Maxilius Bravarus slowly got to his knees. It took every ounce of strength he had, having been essentially buried alive for more than forty-eight hours on the summit of Ghasten Cliffs.
Two days before, it had been a pitched battle with the hard-charging battalion of the Emperor’s soldiers. Malance’s troops had tried in vain, like demons possessed, to overwhelm the small band of renegade Trolls, who had fended them off by taking advantage of the fact that the trail was too narrow for them to attack more than one at a time. Maxilius and his loyalists had clashed with the enemy this way for hours, defending their tenuous position, three fighting and two resting.
It was Stevaros who devised the final strategy that allowed them to win the encounter, temporary though their victory was to be, and the cost had been dear. He had called for Maxilius, Dragor, and Marcos, the three best fighters in the group, to hold the line. He then worked feverishly with Bowdoin to chop down several large bushes with their swords, using a flint-and-steel to set them ablaze. These they tossed over the heads of the nearest soldiers into the long line of troops behind. Three hacked at attackers while two hacked and tossed the fiery brush. Maxilius ordered Marcos to join them in their fire-setting efforts. “Go,” he commanded. “We can take care of this. If I call you, pick up your sword.” More and more branches they tossed, two chopping and one tossing anything that would burn. The screams of the troops, as the flames roared around them, were deafening. The trail was soon an inferno. Within seconds they were all retreating, charging wildly back down the narrow canyon trail. In the midst of the commotion, however, a crossbolt, fired wildly from over the shoulder of one of those retreating, found its way into the chest of Stevaros. He fell.
Maxilius rushed to his side, hoping against hope that there was something he could do to aid his friend, but his eyes had already glazed over. He was dead.
Dragor seized the arm of Maxilius and said, “Come, Commander. There is nothing we can do to help him. I know a place where you can hide. Quickly now, the fire will burn itself out in a few minutes. They will be back. Now, Sir.”
They sprinted towards the precipice from which the horses had leaped, where there was a small crevice in the bedrock. “Get in,” he said to Maxilius. “Lie flat.”
Maxilius did as he was told, and soon he was completely buried in leaves and sticks. “They will never find you,” he grunted. “They will be too busy chasing us. Stay here for as long as you can. We will leave a trail that even those boneheads can follow. Don’t worry about us. I know a way out, but the odds are better for you if you stay here. We’ll be back for you in a couple of days. Strength.”
“Strength,” returned Maxilius from below the debris under which he was buried, offering an unseen somber nod.
He heard the advance of the remainder of the Troll battalion. He heard the frantic orders being screamed by the commanders. He was wedged too tightly in the tiny crack of the rock to move, and he knew he would die a quick death were he found, but true to the word of Dragor he went undiscovered, and the sounds of the pursuing Trolls eventually faded to silence. The following morning he felt the sun come up, glad for its warmth. He felt it go down again, and sleep finally came to him. He felt it come up again and go down again. On the dawn of his third day of hiding, he knew if he did not get water soon he would die in this life-saving hole.
Struggling tremendously with the effort, he got to his knees and peered cautiously over the rim of his hideaway. He was alone. He knew it would be better to wait for the cover of darkness, but he didn’t think he would make another hour without something to drink, so he slowly climbed up and out.
He attempted to stand, but found he could not. He was as dizzy as a coot. Instead, he crawled on all fours across the flat to the head of the trail. Dead Trolls lay everywhere, the stench of their already decomposing bodies overpowering. He found a canteen on one of them and drank thirstily. It was then that he heard the voices. Around the bend he could hear them talking. He crawled back and hastily stripped the clothes off of one of those who had been badly cut up, switching clothes with the corpse. Then he scooped up several handfuls of gore from the belly of another who had been run through and smeared it all over the back of his head and neck, as well as on the dead soldier’s clothes that he was now wearing. He found another canteen and emptied this one as well, then moved back once again to the head of the trail. From the bits and pieces he overheard of the conversation around the bend, he knew they were playing a board game. Every once in a while, raucous laughter punctuated their chatter. When their conversation stopped, he lay on the ground and swung the arm of one of the dead Trolls up onto his back, keeping stock-still. No sooner had he done this than the group of regulars rounded the bend.
“You mean to tell me the four of us have to carry every one of these stinking carcasses back down to the castle gate?” complained one loudly.
“Oh shut up and be thankful Malance wants to hang them up for all to see, and not us,” said another. “He still might, you know.”
“Can’t we get some sort of wagon up here?” asked another. “It would sure be better than carrying them down one at a time.”
“Not a chance,” said the first one. “First of all, we could never get a wagon up here. Not one that would carry more than one at a time anyway. You heard the Captain. And we can’t drag them. We have to carry them.”
“That will take us a week. At least.” said the second.
“Three days,” said the first. “That’s all we have, or we too will hang on display.”
“Three days!” shouted the second. “It will never happen.”
“Were you there?” the first shouted back. “Not two hours ago when the Captain gave us the order. Were you listening?”
“All right. All right. Where do we start?”
“At the bottom, you idiot. Why trip over ourselves?”
Having assessed the work in front of them, the four walked back down the trail and around the bend. Maxilius took several breaths. It had been all he could do to hold it while the four Trolls bickered amongst themselves. He had almost passed out, but he knew if he took a single one while they were close at hand, it most likely would have been his last.
They never made it back around the bend on the first day. So when the sun finally set, Maxi
lius Bravarus crept down the trail to the entrance that lead to the cesspits.
He eased himself into the cavern and felt his way along the walls until he was well inside. He would wait there until the wee hours when the guards were sleepy. Then he would hopefully be able to locate the one Troll with whom he needed to join up, the one who not only might help him to get out of this mess, but might also be able to aid him in recruiting a band to do some damage to this evil regime. He needed to find a Troll named Forrester Wiley Ragamund.
He crouched down low and snuck slowly towards his prize. He was careful to make not a single sound, and to keep his slight frame hidden from its view. Norma Webb had told him at some point that the red-spotted black frog was one of the most difficult creatures in all of Elsie’s swamp to catch, since it had not only the two normal eyes found on all frogs but, due to some odd genetic mutation that had occurred somewhere in its evolution, it had a third one located on the top of its squarish head. Not four feet from his quarry, he lay down on his belly and eased forward. Inch by inch he made his way towards the tiny creature that was happily warming itself in the late-summer sun. Slowly, he brought his arm around, keeping it flush with the ground and preparing to strike. He dug his toes into the soft grass and pushed himself forward one last time. The eye on top of the frog’s head began to blink furiously, the tiny critter sensing that something was not right, when he struck. “Gotcha,” he cried, holding up his prize. It wiggled furiously in his firm grasp.
“It’s all right. Don’t worry,” he said to his struggling captive. “I won’t hurt you.”
He looked him over for a time, marveling at the beauty of this fascinating little creature. It stopped wiggling, and he rubbed his finger along the side of its head, being careful to avoid the eye, then tossed it back into the marsh stream.
