by Terry Brooks
Not that the ragpicker cared if they didn’t. But it would be a nuisance to dispose of them.
He glanced at the sky, noting the expanse of darkness that had crept steadily westward as twilight faded and night closed in. A cluster of whip-thin clouds formed purple streaks across the encroaching blackness, momentarily lit by the last of the sunlight. It would be a mostly clear night, and the moon, three-quarters full, was already a bright presence on the eastern horizon.
He was only two dozen feet from the closest Troll when the one climbing about on the upper levels noticed him and called out to his companions in warning. All heads turned; all eyes fixed on the ragpicker. The latter stopped where he was, relying on his unthreatening appearance to keep them from attacking him, looking from one face to the next with a benign expression. He had his bag of scraps slung over one thin shoulder, and as the seconds passed and no one moved he lowered it carefully to the ground and straightened up.
“I’m looking for someone,” he said, speaking in the Troll tongue. He could speak perfectly in any language, an ability he had acquired early on in his life, when he had made the choice to abandon his humanity for something more permanent. “A man who carries a black staff. Do you happen to know where I can find him?”
One of the Trolls, a short, mean-faced individual with thick bark-skin that gave him the look of something sculpted from a block of wood with a chisel and hammer, walked over and stood in front of the ragpicker. “Why should we tell you?”
The ragpicker shrugged. “Common courtesy?”
The other snorted. “Why shouldn’t I just kill you? Then the man with the black staff won’t be a problem for you.”
The other Trolls exchanged glances and said nothing. Even the one atop the exterior wall came over to listen. The ragpicker had the distinct impression that the speaker was the leader.
He cleared his throat and looked down at his feet. “I could give you something valuable for that information,” he offered.
The Troll stared at him. “What could you give us that we would want, chilpun?”
Chilpun. Troll for “fool.” A decided lack of respect was not helping matters, the ragpicker decided. But he had to play along for the moment. “I could show you a way into those buildings.”
The Troll looked at him with sudden interest, as if killing him was no longer of interest. Not that the option was completely off the table, of course. The ragpicker nodded encouragingly. “What do you say to that?”
“How do you know a way in?” the Troll asked. “That’s what I say. Do you know the man who lived here?”
Lived here. Past tense. That meant dead or fled. “No. But I can find a way into anything. It’s a skill I learned awhile back. If you want to get inside these buildings, I can help you.” He paused, tried out a smile. “Do you have a name?”
“Do you?” The Troll sounded newly belligerent. “Tell me yours first.”
The ragpicker smiled some more. “My name doesn’t matter. Call me ‘ragpicker.’ That will do.”
The Troll smirked. “Well, ragpicker, I am Grosha, son of Taureq, Maturen of the Drouj. Have you heard of me?”
The ragpicker hadn’t, but he said, “Of course. Everyone speaks of you. They are afraid of you.”
Grosha nodded. “They are right to be afraid. Now tell me how to get into that complex, and I will spare your life.” He drew out a long knife and gestured toward the other’s throat. “Do it now, old man, or we are finished here.”
The last of the sunlight had faded and night had closed down around them. Moonlight gleamed off the knife’s razor-sharp edge. Everything had gone still in the wake of Grosha’s threat; the other Trolls stood motionless, waiting.
“First, you must tell me of the man with the black staff,” the ragpicker insisted. “Then I will help you get inside the complex.”
“You will help us anyway, if you don’t want your throat cut,” the Troll replied softly. “Or should I feed you to my hounds?”
He whistled, and a pair of dark shapes materialized out of the night, their faces long and lean and bristling with dark hair that stuck out in clumps. Wolves, the ragpicker guessed, though not like any he had encountered before. When their jaws opened and their tongues lolled out, he saw rows of sharp teeth. They sidled up to Grosha and rubbed against him like pets. Or spoiled children anxious for attention.
“What’s it to be?” Grosha demanded, reaching down with his free hand to stroke one of the animals on its grizzled head.
The ragpicker thought about it for a few moments and then shrugged. “It seems you leave me no choice. But I am very disappointed. Tell me the truth. You don’t know anything of a man who carries a black staff, do you?”
Grosha laughed. “That’s a legend for superstitious fools, ragpicker. Do you take me for such? Those who carried the black staff are long since dead and gone. No one has seen one since the time of the Great Wars!”
“I have,” the ragpicker said softly.
There was a long moment when everything went silent and everyone motionless. A strange hush descended, and even time itself seemed to stop moving.
“In a dream,” the ragpicker finished.
Grosha’s face changed just enough to reveal the hint of fear that had suddenly uncoiled deep in his belly. The wolf dogs must have felt it, too; their much stronger response was mirrored in their yellow eyes. Both of them backed away suddenly, going into a crouch and whimpering.
Grosha looked down at them, confused. Then he wheeled back on the ragpicker. “What are you doing to my hounds, you skinny old …?”
He didn’t finish. His knife swept up in an attack meant to disembowel the ragpicker with a single stroke. But the latter caught the Troll’s wrist with one hand and held it fast, pinning it to the air in front of him, his grip as strong and unbreakable as an iron cuff.
“Were you speaking to me?” the ragpicker asked, bending close. “What was it you called me? Say those words again.”
Grosha spit at him in fury, yanking on his wrist, trying to break free. But the ragpicker only smiled and held him tighter. The other Trolls started forward, but a single glance from the ragpicker stopped them in their tracks. They saw in his eyes what he was, and they wanted no part of him. Not even to save the son of their Maturen. Instead, they backed away, as cowed as the Skaith Hounds, which had retreated all the way into the rocks, still whining and snapping at the air.
The ragpicker forced Grosha to his knees. The Troll’s mouth was opening and closing like a fish gulping for air. His scream was high and piercing. He groped at his belt with his free hand for another weapon, but he couldn’t seem to find one, even though there was a dagger not three inches away.
“Speak my name!” the ragpicker hissed at him.
“Ragpicker!” the hapless Troll gasped.
“My real name! Whisper it to me!”
Grosha was crying and sobbing. “Demon!” he moaned.
“Am I your master and you my servant?” The ragpicker put his face so close to the other he could see the veins in the Troll’s eyes throb. “Or are you detritus to be tossed aside?”
“Anything! I’ll do anything you ask of me!” Grosha was slobbering and drooling, and his hand and wrist were turning black. “Please!”
The ragpicker released him. When Grosha sank down all the way, cradling his damaged hand, the ragpicker put a foot against his chest and pinned him to the earth.
“Now tell me what I want to know. Everything I want to know. What are you doing here? What are you looking for? What is inside this fortress that you want so badly?” He looked up at the rest of the Trolls, hunched down amid rocks and debris and on the point of fleeing. “Don’t try to run from me! Get down here with your friend!”
He shifted his gaze to Grosha once more, his eyes gleaming. “You were about to say?”
Grosha shook his head, eyes squeezed shut against the pain, body shaking. “Nothing, nothing!”
The ragpicker reached down and tilted the Troll’s chin u
pward. “Look at me. What are you doing here? Where is the master of this keep?”
“Dead. Last night. Blew himself up with explosives and killed seven Drouj …” He trailed off, shaking his head. “Seven of us dead. He stole … something. Something that was ours!”
“Something you stole from someone else, maybe? Something he’s hidden in his lair?”
“Yes, yes! That’s right!”
“Gold coins, maybe? Silver?”
“Yes, yes! Gold and silver!”
“And then, once he had it safely hidden, he blew himself up?”
“Yes! He blew himself …” Grosha trailed off, realizing that he had been tricked. “No, I don’t mean …”
The ragpicker shook his head. “You really are worthless. A liar, and a bad one at that. A coward. A piece of …” He looked over suddenly at the other Drouj, clustered together on the edges of his vision. Hopeless, as well. He reached down and seized Grosha’s injured hand anew, squeezing. “This is your last chance, Grosha, son of Taureq, Maturen of the Drouj. What are you looking for? And don’t lie to me!”
“A girl,” the other answered quickly, gasping in agony. “A hostage from the valley beyond the mountains. There!” He pointed east, his arm jerking spasmodically. “But she escaped! Let me go!”
The ragpicker experienced a sudden rush of adrenaline. “A girl. From where? A valley, you say? Does she carry a black staff?” He squeezed the wrist savagely. “Does she wield magic?”
Grosha screamed and shook his head, fighting to free himself. “Stop, please! My chest! Exploding! Listen to me! She’s just a girl, but the boy thinks … Arik says … Please! I can’t …”
The ragpicker squeezed harder. Useless. Nothing more to be learned from this one. He fastened the fingers of his other hand about the Troll’s thick neck and added more pressure, an intense and killing tightness.
Grosha screamed. His neck snapped, his body sagged, and his eyes rolled back in his head. The ragpicker released his lifeless weight and let him drop to the ground.
“A girl,” he whispered to himself, wondering if it meant anything, if it could help him in his search.
He shifted his gaze to the walls of the complex, searching high up where the buildings were stacked like blocks, one on top of the other, and caught a sudden, momentary whiff of the magic he had been tracking.
That was all it took. A demon with his talent could sense the presence of magic with much less to work with than that, and he sensed it now. Real magic, the kind he was looking for. The girl—or whoever was in there with her—had use of it. After all his searching, after all the roads he had traveled and disappointments he had endured, all the false leads and dead ends, he had found the real thing. He clapped his hands like an excited boy and smiled.
He kicked Grosha’s body aside and started for the nearest door. He would have to be careful here. He didn’t want to lose her. He had to make certain she didn’t elude him. He glanced around. The Skaith Hounds had fled, disappeared into the rocks. But the Trolls were still there, cringing away from him as he went past. The demon’s lean form was hunched within his ragged disguise, his eyes as bright and hungry as a predator’s as he beckoned for the Trolls to follow him.
“You’ll search this place with me, once we’re inside,” he said, his voice hard-edged and laced with venom. “All of you. No one comes out until I do. We stay there until we find this girl. But she is not to be harmed if you find her. She is to be brought to me.”
The reluctant Drouj fell into line behind him, being careful not to get too close. In a knot they converged on the main doors to the complex.
The ragpicker’s bundled cloth scraps lay where he had dumped them, as rumpled and forgotten as the shattered form of Grosha Siq.
ATOP THE RUINS, high up on the overlook where she had witnessed most of what had taken place between Grosha and the ragpicker, Prue Liss hunched down behind the concealing wall so that the old man couldn’t see her. What sort of creature was he, she wondered, that he could subdue Grosha and cause Skaith Hounds to slink away like beaten puppies? What kind of power did he possess? Now Grosha lay sprawled on the ground below, and from all appearances he was dead. And that ragged old man, together with the Drouj who were now at his beck and call, were coming for her.
Stupid, she chided herself, to have believed he couldn’t smell her out. It had happened so fast. One moment he had been questioning Grosha, all of his attention on the Drouj, and the next he was looking right at her hiding place. He couldn’t have seen her—probably couldn’t even know who she was—but her fate was determined nevertheless. He was at the doors to the keep, and she had a feeling that what had kept the Trolls out would not be enough to stop that old man.
What should she do?
She made up her mind at once to escape before they locked her in. That they would think to do so was questionable, but she couldn’t take the chance. Some sixth sense—perhaps her warning instincts—told her that they were going to get inside the fortress, iron doors and locks notwithstanding, and that once they did it would not take them long to find out where she was hiding.
She left the overlook, moving away from the wall in a crouch, easing herself back through the door and descending the stairs. She had returned from her previous attempt at escape by following the same corridors that had taken her to the rear of the building, shaken by her ordeal and haunted by the killing of the Troll that had discovered her. She had made several wrong turns, fought to remember how the signs worked, and eventually made it all the way back. Unable to think of anything else to do and needing to know what was happening with the Drouj, she had gone back up onto the overlook. Watching the Trolls move about the walls without seeming to find a way in had calmed her, and after a time she had believed herself safe again. With the doors securely locked, it didn’t appear that anyone could reach her.
But then that old man had appeared to confront Grosha, and now everything had changed.
Her backpack was still sitting on the kitchen table where she had left it. She shrugged into it once again, stuck the long knife back in her belt, and slung the bow and arrows over her shoulder. After taking a last look around the room, making sure she hadn’t forgotten anything, she set out once more.
Too much time had been wasted already, she knew. She should have kept her head after her encounter with the Troll and gone back outside and made a run for it. The Trolls were all back around the front of the complex by then, engaged with that old man. She would have been able to make a clean break. By now, she would be high into the foothills and safely on her way to the mountain passes. They wouldn’t have even known she was gone.
But that’s how it was with hindsight. If she went far enough back in time, she could argue that she should have stood her ground when Phryne Amarantyne had cajoled Pan into creeping up on that nighttime campfire for a closer look. She would have squelched that suggestion and they would all still be safe inside the valley and Arik Siq would never have gotten in.
She shook her head in disgust, picking her way along the stone corridors. Or something else would have happened and she might be in an even worse situation. Who could know? She studied the signs on the walls, the array of different-colored arrows and the strange language she couldn’t read, trying to remember. It wasn’t as easy as she had thought it would be. All at once it seemed so confusing.
She slowed when she heard the sound of metal clanging and hinges squealing with the weight of a door opening from somewhere behind her. The old man and the Drouj were inside. She knew it at once. She didn’t think they would come straight for her; they would have to search the front rooms first, all the way up to the overlook, and that could take time. On the other hand, if that old man could dispatch the locks on those iron doors, then he might have a few other skills, as well. One of them might have something to do with finding her.
Adjusting the backpack so that it rested higher up on her shoulders, she continued on, choosing what she believed was the right way to go. She hu
rried a little more now, walked a little faster, a twinge of genuine fear seeping through her. It wasn’t like her to panic, but she could feel the urge to give way to it. Something about that old man. Something about how he had looked at her, even from that far away.
Pan, I wish you were here with me.
But he wasn’t, and she didn’t know where he was. Hopefully, he was back inside the valley and doing what he could to help Sider find her. She believed that he would come for her, but she wanted to reach him first. She didn’t want him to venture outside the valley again. She didn’t want that old man to find him, too.
No, I wouldn’t want that. Not for him or anyone.
She found herself in a hall that didn’t look familiar, even though the arrows had pointed her that way. Had she taken a wrong turn somewhere farther back? She didn’t think so, but then she had been dwelling on things other than the arrows, things having to do with the danger she was in. That old man. The Drouj. The growing sensation of isolation, of walls closing in and darkness descending. She still had the solar torch, and its beam was still strong, but she had no way of knowing how long its power would last.
Sounds of doors opening and closing, of boots thudding and of furniture and supplies being moved about echoed through the stillness. It all felt far too close, as if the searching had progressed much more swiftly than she had expected. Voices lifted out of a subsequent silence, a mix of soft whispers and gruff mutterings. Heavy armored bodies scraped against rough walls.
She hurried ahead, abandoning her plan to try to get back to the exit she had found before, concentrating now on reaching any opening at the rear of the complex where she might find a way out. All she wanted was to escape, to get clear of a place that was beginning to feel like a tomb.
