by Peter Plasse
And then came the voice, softly at first, then louder and louder.
“I want her. I want her. I want her. I want her...”
The hair on the back of her neck bristled, her skin crawled, and again she felt she might vomit.
A great rumbling abruptly shook the chamber walls and, off to her right, some massive thing began pushing its way up from beneath the ocean of writhing bodies that were soon sprinkled over its towering form like so many maggots adhering to a rotting carcass. It had an immense head, with spiraled, ram-like horns. Phosphorescent orange-red dots were centered within each of its six, coal-black, deep-set eyes, and the mouth, which took up half its face, bore a macabre smile of row-upon-row of needle-like teeth. It slowly turned its gaze towards her, casually flicking away from its behemoth body dozens of the tiny terrified-looking souls that clung to it, the horrifying screams of whom echoed in her head as she watched them plummet back down into the pit. She desperately wanted to turn away from this thing, but found she was powerless.
Smashing hundreds with every step, it began wading towards her, raising its arms in a desire to grab. Now completely panicked, she pulled wildly at the cord. Finally, it responded, violently jerking her away from the monster’s hands closing in on her. She rocketed upward through a tunnel of hellfire and, with the flame tips licking at her heels, straight out into a nocturnal sky dusted with the sparkles of countless millions of stars. The iridescent indigo blues and sapphire reds of nebula clouds whizzed by her, and as frightened as she had been by her encounter with the beast, it was impossible to not hold her breath in wonder at these heavenly visions. But before long, the speed at which she was traveling caused these dazzling sights to blur and stretch until everything was whited out, flooding her in the light of a hundred suns.
Then, everything went still. She felt for the cord. It was gone. She sensed ground beneath her feet as she touched down from her trans-world crossing. Directly in front of her were three Trolls, each one chained to a massive white column, the tops of which disappeared high overhead. To the right was a pathway. To the left, a solid white wall over which she could not see. It looked to be made of polished marble.
“Please free us,” called one.
“Yes, free us,” called the second. The third echoed the first two.
“I know you,” she said. “You were the ones who were going to execute me a few hours ago. Tell me, why should I set you free?”
“Because you killed us, and we can go no further without your help,” said one. “We are dead by your hands and will remain chained here until you pass on, unless you free us. At least that is how it was explained to us. Are you sure you want to have it on your conscience that we will be chained here and suffering all that time, knowing you could have set us free?”
“What are your names?”
“I am Jobst Nunns,” said one.
“I am Martus Kisk,” said the second.
“I am Forbst Grottos,” said the third.
“My name is Doreen,” she said. “At least that’s the name I have been using, although I’m told that my name is Stephanie Doreen Strong. The thing is, I have, like, no idea who I am. I have no memory beyond a day when I met a boy named Erik. He’s the Prince of Ravenwild. Or was, anyway. Some Troll who cracked me on the head took that memory from me. Why he did that I don’t know, but what I do know is, had he not, I would at least know who I am. Okay, Jobst Nunns, tell me, why you were going to kill me?”
Jobst Nunns looked puzzled by the question. Doreen walked up to him and put her face in his. “What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue? It’s a simple question. Answer it.”
He looked down at his feet. “I have no good answer for you except to say that we were acting under orders.”
“Besides, we weren’t going to execute you,” said Martus Kisk. “We were only taking you to be executed. As Jobst said, we were just obeying orders.”
“Just … obeying … orders,” said Doreen. “That’s a pretty lame excuse for taking somebody’s very life, don’t you think? All right, Forbst Grottos, you answer it, why was I being executed in the first place?” She moved over, now standing directly in front of him.
“I don’t understand the question.”
“Well, you better understand the question, or I swear I will walk down that pathway and leave you here to rot,” she barked. “For the simpleminded, I will ask it like this. What did I do to deserve the sentence of death? What was my crime?”
“I am sorry, Stephanie Doreen Strong,” said Forbst Grottos. “I still do not understand the question. We are, or were at any rate, nations at war and acting on orders from our commander. When you are at war, the rules are different. Our orders came from our commander. And those same orders, by the rules of war, came down from our Emperor. To have disobeyed them would have meant that we were guilty of treason and ourselves put to death. We had no choice in the matter. Soldiers obey. That is what we do. Did.”
“Yes, and besides,” interjected Jobst Nunns, “the plain truth is, we were going to eat you. Well, maybe not us, but you were going to be eaten. Meaning yes, your life would have been forfeit, but your body would have served to keep some of us alive. So your death, however tragic, would not have been a total waste.”
“Eat me?” screamed Doreen. “You were going to eat me? How sick is that?”
Nobody spoke for a while as Doreen walked over to a white stone bench that had suddenly materialized out of nowhere on the far side of the trail. She sat down and put her head in her hands, trying to sort it all out.
“We are Trolls,” said Jobst Nunns softly. “It is what we do. It is what we have always done.”
“Tell her the rest,” said Martus Kisk. “Tell her how she was going to die.”
“Yes,” said Doreen. “I thought about that a lot last night. Do tell.”
Jobst Nunns looked nervously at Forbst Grottos, licking his lips, then back at Martus Kisk. “You brought it up,” he said. “You tell her.”
“All right,” he sighed. “I will. You would have been boiled alive in a cook pot, screaming to the end … ” his voice trailing off to a whisper.
“Great,” she mumbled, all the while holding her head. “What a happy thought. And what purpose would that have served? The torture, I mean?”
All of the Trolls remained silent.
Doreen stood, shaking her head, a look of disgust on her face. “I’m going to take a walk now. Maybe I’ll come back. Maybe I won’t. I need to think about this.”
She walked along the pathway until she was out of sight of the three Trolls. She could hear them calling to her, but didn’t pay any attention to the words until she heard one of them yell, “We are sorry. We were wrong.”
She walked on a bit further and came across another bench that faced a beautiful stream. It gurgled happily in front of her. Birds called out cheerily, and squirrels chattered noisily all about. The sounds stirred something deep inside of her. She was certain she knew those sounds. She remembered them from somewhere, but she could not remember from where. But she knew there was something right about them, something that was good and decent from the life she had known before her memory was taken from her on that terrible day.
She remembered how she had awakened in the castle of the Troll Emperor, and the love that had been given her by that wonderful doctor whose name she had never known, and how he had died that horrible death on the Great Slovan Plains. She thought about the warm embrace of his assistant, a Troll. What was her name? Daria. That’s right. She remembered how she had tended her, and fussed over her, the gentleness in her touch, the caring. And how her brother had risked his own life to save her from the beast who was going to have her killed the same way that those three Trolls she had walked away from had admitted they were going to end her life.
All at once, there was no bench, there were no sounds, and not a breath of air broke the stillness. With only the feel of her chin resting on her hand, everything around her lost all color and clarity. In a m
oment’s time, she found herself in a bank of fog so dense she could not see her hands before her face.
Then the voices started, coming from out of the pall. A few at first, they whispered to her, and then a few more calling out softly, and then more and more, until there were dozens of them, then hundreds, then thousands. All clamored for her ear, pleading with her to hear their voice, to listen to their story, but she could only make out a word or two of any one particular voice before it was lost in the din. If only she could sort them all out. If only she could make it all stop.
Then one spoke, a little louder than the rest. The others calmed and faded away, and as quickly as the fog had appeared, it too abated to reveal a familiar place, but not the one she had moments before left. She sat high in a sand dune overlooking a dark blue sea, the hue so deep as to make it appear almost black. She was in her “other place”. It was a place she knew. And she had been here before. She knew this as well.
“Hello, Stephanie,” a voice said. The voice was soft and full of love. It was as beautiful a sound as Stephanie could ever remember hearing. Standing up, she looked for the source of the voice. It seemed to come from out beyond the edge of her small hollow in the dune.
“Please sit,” said the voice. “There is no reason that you must see me.”
She sat back down in the sand, hugging her knees.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“I am the voice of your lineage,” came the answer. “The voice of your Grandparents and their Parents and their Parents before them to the beginning of time. I want to help you with the decision you have before you, for the three who await you have spoken the truth. You hold their fate in your hands.”
“Well, what should I do?” Stephanie asked.
“That is a decision only you can make. You will, however, need some guidance. You see, this world, and the one you are actually from, is made up of thousands upon thousands of living creatures. Some are intelligent, that is, capable of thoughts and reason. In the case of these higher life forms, their thoughts and beliefs, their reasoning of what is right and wrong, if you will, are shaped by those around them. The process starts, of course, with their families when they are small, and all they can do is observe. But then as they grow, their behavior continues to be molded by the ones they grow up with: the ones they play with, go to school with, work with, those sorts of things. So, while the ways of many might appear strange, and perhaps hateful, to a stranger who finds him or herself among them, they can only be judged by the ways they have been raised, and taught, since birth. And, since all of the mortals are raised differently, it could never be “up to them” to stand in judgment of each other. In essence, it could never be expected of them, on this world or any other.”
“It seems to me you’re telling me I should let them go,” said Stephanie. “Is that what you're telling me?”
There was no answer, just the whisper of the offshore breeze.
Stephanie looked down at the ground. With so much to think about, her head had started to ache. When she looked up once again, she found herself on the same bench where she had previously sat. She thought it all over for a while, then stood and retraced her steps to where the Trolls remained in chains.
Jobst Nunns, Martus Kisk, and Forbst Grottos had not moved since she left them. They seemed transfixed by her presence, and it was not only in the way they stared at her as she walked up to them. By the looks on their faces, they might have been looking at an angel. They were looks of wonderment.
“I heard you say something important,” she said, standing before them with her hands on her hips.
None of them spoke, each looking one to the other.
“One of you called out that you were sorry, that you were wrong. Is that true?”
Again not a word. They seemed afraid to speak.
“Jobst Nunns,” she said. “I heard one of you say you were sorry, that you were wrong. Was it you?”
He lowered his great head and said quietly, “Yes, Stephanie Doreen Strong. It was I. I am sorry for what we surely would have done to you, had you not killed us first.”
“Martus Kisk. What about you?”
“Yes, Miss, I am sorry. Our ways were wrong. For this we are sorry.”
“Forbst Grottos?”
“Yes, Stephanie Doreen Strong. We were wrong. We talked it over after you left us. Our ways were wrong. We ask, we beg, for your forgiveness.”
She took a seat back on the bench. “And how do I know you’re not saying these things so that I’ll set you free? How do I know you’re not lying through your teeth?”
“We cannot,” said Jobst Nunns. “That is how it was explained to us when we got here.”
Stephanie looked confused. “Explained?” she asked. “Explained by whom?”
“By a voice. Before you arrived,” answered Martus Kisk. “We never saw the one speaking. We were told that we would have no choice, that the truth of our answers would be of something beyond this world.
“Uh-huh,” said Stephanie.
She stood and approached them.
“Two things,” she said. “One, you’re free.”
The chains that bound the three Trolls turned to ash and drifted to the ground at their feet.
“That’s interesting,” she mused, as the Trolls fell to their knees in front of her.
“That too is interesting,” she said, looking down on the tops of their bowed heads. “And you make my point for me. I am not the one from whom you should beg forgiveness. And I’m not the one before whom you should kneel. Stand up.”
The Trolls stood, but kept their heads bowed.
A pathway now opened up in the direction opposite of the one down which she had just walked. “I have a feeling that you are being summoned,” she said, nodding in the direction of this new path.
The Trolls began to walk down it. “Thank you,” called Jobst Nunns over his shoulder.
“Yes, thank you,” acknowledged the other two.
She awoke from the trance. The first thing she felt was the amulet, red hot against her chest, through which it felt like it was ready to burn a hole. The first thing she heard was her horse, neighing ferociously as it reared and pulled at the reins she had tied off to the tree. She looked around. Once again Trolls surrounded her. All were heavily armed, and all had murderous looks in their eyes. It had been such an odd dream, and she closed her eyes as she tried, as best she could, to remember every last detail. With her eyes shut, she felt all manner of small things striking her, as one might feel when a baby strikes its holder when first learning to move its tiny arms. She opened her eyes and looked around her, seeing the dozens of shattered arrows, crossbolts, and spears that lay all about her on the ground.
Looking up, she saw the mob of Trolls. Rather than the fury of mere seconds before,
she now saw nothing but bewilderment in the looks they directed her way.
But, more important than all of this, she remembered who she was!
Flooding her mind was a torrent of memories as to how she had journeyed to this place, a world apart from her own, and the life that had been hers before Hemlock Simpleton entered it. She was Stephanie Doreen Strong from Salem, Connecticut.
Entirely shocked by the overwhelming rush of thoughts, she paid not the slightest bit of attention to the Trolls who had gathered all around and were pressing closer and closer. When she finally did realize that the nearest were now within an arm’s reach of her, she snapped, “Back up!” which they did straight away, many in the front falling clumsily over those behind them in their rush to obey her command.
One of those nearest to her spoke. “Are you a god?”
She barely heard him; such was the intensity of the thoughts coursing through her mind.
“What?” she asked, then, “Don’t be ridiculous.”
She walked over to her horse and unfastened the reins from the tree. Terrified, he reared back and lashed out at her with his hooves, with his nostrils flared, his ears back, and the whites
of his eyes showing.
“Easy boy,” she cooed him. “Easy. It’s all right. It’s all right. Easy … easy.”
It took several minutes, but eventually he calmed down and allowed her to mount up.
She rode slowly away, once again leaving the Trolls behind her. For the second time they had tried to end her life. Now they merely stood and talked to each other in hushed tones.
As she rode, she knew what she had to do. She was sure that her mother and father had followed her to this place. It only made sense. She needed to find them before something bad happened to them, if it had not already. She eased the horse into a canter. She had a plan.
“What do you mean ‘it’s complicated?’” Jessica asked the Gnome soldier.
The Gnome didn’t answer her right away, and Blake could see that she was about to explode, so in his most diplomatic tone of voice he said, “Sir, we have been completely without any news as to the whereabouts of our daughter for months now. If you could please give us any information you have concerning her, we would be entirely grateful. Please.”
The Gnome looked again at Captain Pilrick, then back at Blake, then lastly at Jessica, to whom he addressed his next words. “I cannot say for certain,” he began slowly. “But this is what I have heard. The news of the capture of the Prince of Ravenwild and a peasant girl came to us late last fall. Some time after that, we heard that they had escaped, along with the Emperor’s private doctor and one of his nurses, aided by one of the Emperor’s own commanders and a small band of renegades. Then the Prince was recaptured, but she was no longer in his company, it seems. Not a month ago, a girl fitting her description was seen walking down from the border of the Enchanted Northland. The word is that the Trolls captured her up near the village of Obb, where they have a temporary garrison set up. It has been used to house members of the resistance movement, pending their execution. She was apparently taken to it, but a story has come out in the last, oh, I would say a week, of a girl, once again fitting the description of the one who was captured with the Prince, who escaped from there. One who possesses powers not of this world. Extraordinary strength mostly, as well as the fact that her body is impervious to injury by sword, axe, arrow, spear, or crossbolt. It is said that she hurled a Troll jailer hundreds of feet in the air as though he weighed no more than a child’s ball. She then, if the stories are correct, rode away from the garrison on one of the horses that the Trolls had been keeping for foodstuff, and was last seen headed south. That is all I know.”
