by Helen Gosney
“If we could find it...” Rose broke in, “Even if it’s collapsed, we might be able to dig a way through...”
“And we will help ye,” Shale said stoutly, “Surely between all of us, men and trolls both, we can find a way.”
“Why don’t we go to the wall and have another look around now?” Moss suggested, “Maybe we will see something today that we did not yesterday.”
“The wall... yes...” Basalt said, scratching his grey beard thoughtfully, “Curse it! My memory is terrible these days, and the harder I try to remember... but... I think ... I think perhaps there was something up near the wall... but it’s so long ago now, I was only a youngster myself. I’m sorry, I truly cannot remember...”
“Don’t worry,” Rose said to him as he shook his head in frustration, “We’ll go there now, and maybe you might see something that’ll help you to remember.”
“Maybe thee should have asked thy oldsters too,” Moss mused.
“Well, we did, in a way... last night the clan was speaking of nothing else but ye and your travels, and the tunnel ye seek. Everyone was there, all the oldsters and youngsters too... but...” Shale sighed, “I’m sorry, none could help ye...”
“Don’t worry, Shale,” Rowan said, “You’ve done all you could, and we’re very grateful. Maybe all’s not lost yet, let’s go and see what we can see...”
They set off with renewed energy, but there was little change from the previous day. The flagstones were level and windswept, the sheer wall was as smooth and unclimbable as ever, and the great stairway climbed easily up the mountainside above it as it had for uncounted years. Today they could see a bit further up the steep slope, for it was fine and sunny, but still the top of the mountain was wreathed in clouds.
They looked about, perhaps a bit more carefully than the previous day as there was no icy wind to contend with, but still they found nothing. Basalt couldn’t remember any more but he had the uncomfortable feeling that he should have been able to. They were sitting on the grass, idly watching the horses grazing on the other side of the valley, when Shale suddenly spoke.
“Brace yourselves, my friends, our peace is about to be shattered,” he pointed down the road, to where they could see Marna striding towards them. She was carrying Varla and holding an impatient Venn by the hand. Ella walked beside her holding a huge basket.
“As long as they’re here, they should at least see the horses close up,” Rowan said with a smile. He whistled quietly.
The horses raised their heads immediately; Mica and Soot began to trot towards him, followed a moment or two later by Max and Bess. Rowan quickly stood up to pet the horses as they came to him. They nuzzled at his hands and face, pushing at his chest with their noses as he tried to make one pair of hands go around all four horses.
For a moment Cris wondered how the hell Rowan had managed to teach Bess to come to him like that, and then he remembered what the twins had said about Rowan’s being a… er… a Horse Whisperer. Odd expression, that. Rowan didn’t really whisper to the horses, or not always. He didn’t have to do anything at all most of the time: the horses seldom strayed far from his side, and if they did they’d always come when he called them or whistled like that. It was certainly a handy talent to have even if it was completely inexplicable.
The she-trolls arrived and began to set out the contents of their picnic basket, while Shale and Rowan took the little trolls aside to look at the horses. Varla’s knee was still painful, so Shale held her in his arms, and Venn held onto Rowan’s hand. The youngsters were excited at seeing all of the horses together, so close to them, and they were delighted when Rowan showed them how to flatten their palms and feed the horses bread from their hands. Varla giggled as Soot’s soft black muzzle tickled her palm, and she turned to Rowan and asked him a question.
He smiled at her and shook his head. Suddenly, his eyes widened, and he grabbed at Shale’s arm.
“Shale... Shale, did she say what I think she said?” he said, trying to hold his sudden excitement in check, afraid that his understanding of Trollish had deserted him again.
“Hmm...? I’m sorry, Rowan, I wasn’t really listening,” said Shale vaguely, as he tickled Soot’s ears, “These are very fine, these little beasts of yours...”
Rowan spoke softly and carefully to the little she-troll and she nodded solemnly, looking at him over her sire’s mighty shoulder. Venn pulled at Rowan’s sleeve, chattering too quickly for him to understand.
“What was that?” Shale said, his attention now focussed on his offspring, “What was that about a... a ‘manhole’?” He spoke to the little twins in Trollish, and looked down at Rowan, his expression unbelieving, “Come, Rowan, maybe...”
They hurried back to the rest of the group who were all sitting on the grass, happily eating big pieces of cold roast mountain goose between thick slices of bread. Cris looked up and saw Rowan’s face. It was alive with hope and a sort of disbelieving astonishment.
“Rowan? What is it? Have you...?” he said.
“Cris, Varla just asked me if I’d found the ‘manhole’ yet,” Rowan replied, “And she said... I’m so sorry, Basalt, but she said you’d shown them where it was...”
They all turned to look at Basalt in amazement. He looked back at them shamefaced.
“I thought there was something around here...” he said, “Remember, I said to ye... but... but I still can’t recall where it is.”
“Can you remember showing the little ones?” Rose asked gently, not wanting to distress the old troll.
“Sort of... what a silly old fool ye must think me. I can remember... I can remember showing them something ...” Basalt frowned as he tried to bring to mind whatever it had been, “Not a tunnel such as ye seek, I don’t think. But a… manhole?” he hit his head with his hand. “Curse this old head of mine!”
“Don’t worry, it will come back to ye,” Marna told him sensibly, “Eat your lunch now, and we’ll talk of other things, and maybe it will come back to ye.”
But Basalt simply couldn’t do that. He wanted very much to help these young folk who’d helped his precious little ones. But what was it he’d shown to Varla and Venn? A manhole? What in the Nine Hells was a manhole? Whatever it was, it had been up here by the Great Stair, he was fairly sure of that; but it had been a while ago now, the little twins were barely walking and he’d carried them up here one day when it was fine and sunny like today, to show them something his own grandsire had shown him so long ago. He had an idea it hadn’t really been all that exciting, even then, certainly not as wonderful as his younger self had been expecting, but… Basalt looked at the circle of folk around him, each trying hard to hide their disappointment.
“No, it wasn’t a tunnel,” he said again slowly, “It was… it was a shaft, a shaft going down into the ground, but I couldn’t get it open to show the little ones like my grandsire did with me… but where in the Name of the Great Ones was it…?”
Under his breath, the old troll muttered a few words that were most unsuitable for little troll ears and looked around hopelessly. No, there was nothing that jogged his memory. Nothing at all. He simply couldn’t remember.
Venn pulled at Rowan’s sleeve again, and when he bent his head to him, Venn spoke very softly and slowly into his ear. Rowan listened carefully, then picked the surprised little troll up and spun in a wild circle, hugging him tightly. The others looked at him as if he’d suddenly gone mad, as well they might.
“It’s all right,” he said, laughing, “I haven’t gone daft...if you could just see your faces! Venn has just told me that if his grandsire can’t show me where the secret manhole is... then he will, because... because I helped him and Varla yesterday, and let them ride Bess.”
The others gaped at him. Moss spoke quickly to Venn.
“Thou art right...” he said slowly, “Venn says that Varla can’t remember exactly where the manhole is... but he can...”
**********
31. “I’m not about to let a mise
rable little hole in the ground stop me.”
A little later, their lunch forgotten, they were carefully counting the huge flagstones in front of the wall.
“Twenty-seven… twenty-eight... twenty-nine... twenty-nine!” called Moss from the end of the plaza nearest the wall.
“Yes, there are twenty-nine along the side too,” said Cris thoughtfully.
“Now... find the middle one and walk to the centre,” Rowan said, his voice rough with excitement and the effort of speaking Trollish with his little guide. He didn’t dare believe that they might be close to finding what he’d sought for so long.
They all hurried into the centre, counting carefully. The flagstone there looked exactly the same as all of the others - a perfect square of whitish stone a bit less than two paces across, set flush with its neighbours. Rowan poked at it with his fingers.
“It doesn’t seem to be any different from any of the others,” he said, disappointed, “And ‘tisn’t loose, either.” He gave it another shove for luck, but the stone stubbornly refused to do anything but sit there.
“Try this...” said Cris helpfully, handing Rowan a knife with a strong thin blade and a wickedly sharp edge. At Rowan’s look of amazement that he should possess such a dangerous weapon, he added defensively, “It’s my best ratting knife.”
Rowan laughed. “Well, rats or not, I think it might be just what we need,” he said as he carefully inserted the blade between the close-set flagstones. He loosened the soil and little plants that had accumulated in the narrow crevice and cleared it all out with a few movements of the blade.
“I can’t quite get my fingers between the stones though...” he muttered to himself, “Maybe if I just sort of...” his own daggers would fit into the narrow space better now and he dug about more deeply with the strong g’Hakken blades, then shoved at the stone experimentally. “Bugger me...!”
“What...?” several voices said at once.
“I think it moved a bit... but...” hoping it hadn’t just been wishful thinking he dug more deeply still, feeling a bit like a deranged terrier. Then he pushed the stone again, harder. He shook his head in frustration. He simply couldn’t move the smug bloody thing, he thought bitterly. He muttered some useful words and phrases in various tongues, but they made no difference.
“Let me help thee, Rowan,” Moss said, as he knelt beside him. Even with his great strength, encouragement from Varla and Venn and helpful blasphemy from the onlookers in several languages that the little trolls couldn’t understand, the stone sat there defiantly. Eventually though, it had to admit defeat and it suddenly moved downwards with a reluctant shriek and disappeared sideways beneath its fellows.
They peered down the gaping black hole in amazement. Marna grabbed the little trolls quickly; she certainly didn’t want them falling into it and they were just as fascinated as everyone else.
“What a stupid old fool I am, to be sure!” Basalt said mournfully, “How could I have forgotten this?”
“And I don’t recall it either,” Shale said doubtfully. In fact Basalt had never shown it to his son. He’d only shown it to Varla and Venn one day for something to do to get them out from under everyone’s feet when they were learning to walk. They’d been unimpressed at the time as Basalt hadn’t been able to manage to move the flagstone and actually show them the mysterious manhole. The wonder of it was that the little ones had remembered it at all.
“It matters not, now, and I think thee would have remembered it soon enough,” Moss said kindly.
“Maybe... or maybe I would not... perhaps young Venn should be our First...” Basalt replied with a sad little smile. He knew as well as anyone that Shale was First in all but name.
Rowan was on the ground leaning far into the hole and his voice echoed oddly back up to them.
“I think... aye, there are... there are footholds cut into that side.”
“Rowan, wait!” Rose cried as she grabbed at his arm, “Wait... you can’t just go down there like that!”
He turned and stared at her in bewilderment, then shook his head and laughed ruefully.
“No, of course I can’t! You’re right, Rose,” he said, jumping easily to his feet, “I’ll need a rope and some torches and...”
“But...”
“Rose...” he said gently, smoothing her hair back from her face, “I’ve come this far, love, and I’m not about to let a miserable little hole in the ground stop me.” He smiled at her. “Besides, all I’m going to do is see if this really does go up to the stairway; then I’m going to come back here, and we’ll make some proper plans, and... and I think perhaps Mica will dance for my good friends Venn and Varla, to thank them for their help.”
It took much less time than Rose had hoped for them to gather the things they needed.
“Cris is much smaller than I,” Moss said, “I think it might be best if he went with thee.”
“No wonder it was called a ‘manhole’,” Shale said with a laugh, “Most trolls would not fit easily down there, I think.”
Cris looked at the troll’s massive frame and chuckled. “It’s funny you should say that...” he said, “In Gnash we’d call this ‘a real troll-hole’!”
Only Rose didn’t join in the laughter. She didn’t like the look of the gaping black hole at her feet – she’d been prepared for a good honest tunnel in the mountainside, and she’d been unworried in the underground trollhall, but the idea of descending into this mysterious shaft filled her with horror. Rowan looked at her pale face, then stepped closer and hugged her.
“It’ll be all right, Rose, you’ll see...” he said in her ear so only she might hear, “We’ll just go down there now, and we’ll be back really soon. And we’ll be careful, I promise.”
He swung himself easily into the shaft. As he’d thought, there were footholds cut into one side, and he found no problems as he descended. Some four or five manheights below he found himself standing on the paved floor of a square chamber just wider than the spread of his arms, its roof about an arm’s length above his head. On three sides there seemed to be small alcoves, but all were empty as far as he could see; on the fourth side a smaller tunnel led off into blackness. He released the rope that Moss had tied about his waist, and a short time later Cris stood beside him. They both looked at the alcoves as best they could in the faint light from above, but there was nothing in them. Then they stood together and contemplated the tunnel for a few moments.
“Well, shall we...?” Rowan said, with as much of a flourish as he could manage in the confined space.
“Yes, why not? After you...” Cris replied politely, his eyes shining with excitement, “Er... I think perhaps we might need to light the torches.”
Rowan laughed at him and lit a torch for each of them with only a few uncharacteristic fumbles. He was trying very hard not to let his enthusiasm run away with him. Nor his imagination.
The tunnel ran straight before them, its paved floor level. The sides and roof were made of closely fitting stone blocks, as the shaft had been, and there were unburnt torches set in brackets at regular intervals. They didn’t bother to light these as they could see well enough by the light of the torches they carried.
“This is amazing!” said Cris, looking about him as they walked along the tunnel, “I can’t believe we’re actually here...”
“No, neither can I,” Rowan said soberly, looking around as Cris was, “You know, this roof’s barely a couple of inches above my head. Look, I can touch it easily, and I can touch both sides too. ‘Tis a good thing that Moss isn’t as big as Shale... otherwise I truly don’t think he would fit through here. I think it’ll be a fairly snug fit even so.”
They walked on for a distance of several hundred paces. The tunnel finally opened into another chamber, and the light of their torches didn’t reach the opposite wall or the roof.
“We might as well light some of these old torches around the walls, I suppose. I wonder where they came from? ” said Rowan, “Well, no matter, at least
we’ll be able to see a bit better...”
“Great Bloody Gods! What the hell have we found?” Cris gasped as the light flared.
On one side of the chamber there were broad stone steps that spiralled up around the walls, and the chamber itself was an enormous octagonal shaft that disappeared upwards into the heart of the mountain. They couldn’t see how high it was by the flickering torchlight, but somehow it had a feeling of great loftiness.
“At least Shale would be all right in here...” Cris said, a little shakily.
“Aye, so he would,” Rowan replied thoughtfully, trying without success to see how far the steps reached, “Do you think we should go up these now... or do you think we should go back to the others?”
It wasn’t a hard choice for them to make. They decided to go up the stairs for two hundred paces, but at the end of this they found themselves suspended between the inky blackness above and the ring of torchlight below, with no indication of how much further they might have to go to the top. They decided reluctantly to return to the others.
“Rowan,” Cris said quietly as they retraced their steps, “Did you notice that there’s twenty-nine steps between each landing?”
“Aye, I did... I did indeed notice that.”
**********
The trolls had fashioned a stone wall around the hole so that no-one - neither little trolls nor other beasts, as Shale had darkly said - would fall into it and injure themselves; then they’d returned to the trollhall to prepare to entertain their new friends. Rose and Moss remained behind to wait for Cris and Rowan. They were silent for a time, each busy with their own thoughts as they watched the little herd of horses grazing nearby.
“Rowan would not want thee to go down there if thou didst not wish to...” Moss said quietly, apropos of nothing.
Rose started, then looked at the troll closely. How had he managed to read her mind like that, she wondered.
“I know...” she said softly.
“... And the trolls would be happy for thee to stay with them...” he continued.
