Her eyes flew open and she flung the rock into the air as she jumped back. “It talks!"
"Of course I talk,” Maggot laughed, ducking as the stone landed with a crack and chips of it flew in his direction.
"Aaaaahh!” she screamed, retreating around the corner of the pyramid, and climbing to a higher level. She stopped, craning her neck out to see him, as though she half-expected him to disappear.
He sat up, smacking his lips. “Got anything to eat?” It was a traditional troll greeting among strangers. Since this was her territory, she should have offered first, but he asked anyway. He was hungry.
Her brow ridge twitched like a snake caught in a hawk's talons, until she stuck out her tongue and shook her head for an answer. Then she turned, screaming, and loped lengthways across the steps on three limbs, slapping the top of her head with her big, flat hand.
"Wait!” Maggot started after her. She disappeared around another of the monument's sides, but when he rounded the corner a moment later she was gone. He looked up the steps and saw nothing. The pool stretched out like a long, dark hole below. On the far side of it he saw the shaggy mound of the big-clawed creature, and heard the cracks as it stood on its hind legs to tear a branch from a tree. But there was no sign of her among the deer or anywhere below.
On the next ledge, however, he saw a rough hole. He jumped down to investigate and found himself standing before a broken wall that led into the carved mountain. Eyes peered out at him from within, a pair of ovoid amber gems that glinted in the faint light.
He crouched non-threateningly, leaning forward on both arms. “Hello,” he said, politely tapping his chin with his fingers. “My name's Maggot, of Deep Caves Band."
It was a truth of sorts. His mother had been forced to wander from band to band because of him, and the other trolls’ lack of acceptance, so that he had no real band as a child. But that was an odd thing, as usually trolls wandered for only a few seasons upon reaching adulthood. And wherever they went, the two of them had been known as “that troll and her animal, from Deep Caves Band."
The troll stepped forward until Maggot could see her face. Her large nostrils dilated, sniffing quizzically, then squeezed shut in disbelief. She leaned back, and slapped her face repeatedly with both hands, then bent her neck forward to look at him again.
"Hello,” he repeated.
"Go away!"
"What's your name?"
She took another tripedal step forward and then sat down.
"Holly."
"Hello, Holly.” He hunkered back on his haunches, resting his arms on his knees. Trolls were slow thinkers, and he'd learned to get on well by not rushing them.
She sniffed again, and lifted her brow questioningly.
"Yes?” he prompted.
"Your name is Maggot?"
"Ragweed, Windy's mate, he named me that because I was small and white and they found me crawling on a dead body."
"Hee!” She grinned, rocking in amusement.
"Windy was my mother, a troll from Deep Caves Band many nights’ travel north of here. She's the one who found me when I was a baby and she raised me as her own."
She snorted. “Sometimes I hear things that aren't really there. The voices of other trolls echoing from the ridges. Tonight, when I heard the warning beat,” she lifted her knuckles and tapped the tattoo on her chest, “I thought I was hearing things again. But that was you."
"Yes."
"I made the greeting call when I heard you.” She thumped out another pattern. “Why didn't you answer me?"
"I didn't know it was you, Holly. I just thought I heard it wrong, that it was the sound of my own warning coming back to me. My thoughts were elsewhere, on the man I chased."
"That other man?"
Like a turn in a deep cave, that suddenly took him out of the light and into total darkness, Maggot had a realization. He'd forgotten who he was for a moment. She saw him only as a man and not as a troll. The trolls he'd grown up around had eventually come to see him for himself, as part of their bands even if he wasn't like them. But she didn't. She couldn't.
"The other man,” he answered. “I need help catching him. Where's the rest of your band? If you take me to your First, I can explain why. He can ask for a vote."
"There are no other trolls."
"What?"
"No other trolls, only Holly.” She tapped her eyes lightly, then slapped her head back and forth between her big flat palms, until she stopped to stare at him again. “Crazy Holly, who hears things and sees things. Lonely Holly."
"Why don't you return to your Band?” asked Maggot.
"For winter after winter after winter after winter, Holly is the Band, Holly is the First. Holly is a band of one."
"What happened to the others?"
She made a sour face, sticking out her tongue several times in a row. “I don't know. We were Piebald Mountain Band, just nine of us there at the end. The summer before winter before winter before winter before winter—"
"Four winters past,” said Maggot. Adding things precisely was very important to trolls, as was verifying the number, because everything a band did as a whole was decided by a vote.
"You can add?” she said incredulously. Her voice lost the slow cadence used by trolls when talking to someone whose head had been damaged. She studied him sideways. “I didn't know if you could count, that's all. You—"
"I belonged to Deep Cave Band, before I started wandering.” It was common for trolls of a certain age to wander a year or two, perhaps visiting other bands in search of mates. He didn't mention that he had gone wandering in search of people.
"How was I supposed to know you could count?” she said finally, but mostly to herself. “So you understand then? My friend Myrtle and I went wandering away from the band the summer before four winters ago, looking for mates. There were no unmated men in our group. They were all old men."
Maggot grunted, rapping his knuckles on the ground in acknowledgment. “And then?"
She started rocking, and sucked on her knobby fingertips briefly before she continued. “We didn't find anybody. I don't know what it's like in the north, but around here people are moving into the mountains, all over them, and passing through them all the time, and we found traces of people everywhere but no other trolls."
"It's the same where I come from. A lot of sickness too, a coughing sickness, caught from people."
"Yes, that's what it's been like. We had a hard time finding carrion, because animals scavenged first. Food was hard to find, harder than it is now. So one night Myrtle and I stayed out too long. We lost each other, and she didn't meet me back at the cave before dawn. I sniffed for her every night for weeks and couldn't find a scent. She was just gone. When I finally returned to our home to get help, the Band was gone too. No odor to indicate where they'd gone or why."
The final words trailed off. She continued rocking. Her nostrils were flared wide open.
Maggot grunted again. “That's worse than sunlight. I'm very sorry to hear about that."
"Now Holly lives here all alone, in these people caves."
"So you've been here for a while?"
"Since midwinter, four winters back, when I was searching for my band. It's not a bad place. You see Big Stinky?” She waved a thick finger in the direction of the tree-eating giant.
"Yes.” Big Stinky was a good name for the beast.
"He doesn't bother me much. When the lions come in, or the wolves, they might kill a deer, but Big Stinky chases them off. Then I get to eat what's left. Sometimes he kills a lion or a wolf, rips them open with those big claws if they come too close. Then I've got that to eat too. I ate four wolves last winter, and a lion the summer before that, and a deer about three moons back after Big Stinky chased off—"
"Holly,” Maggot interrupted softly. “I need help. Do you have a hoard here? People things you've gathered?"
She stared at him suspiciously. Trolls treasured their hordes, counting the items over and over again
, comparing their counts with each other. “What kind of things?"
"Shiny, sharp things. Big claws, to fit in my hand. Little claws on ends of branches, that I can send flying through the air.” He needed to give her a reason. “With them I can bring us fresh meat."
She perked up, rubbing her belly. “I've only eaten meat once since the last no-moon.” Then her joy subsided, and her shoulders sunk again. “But I don't have any people things."
Maggot sighed. It was too much to hope for.
She bent forward, sniffing and peering closely at his shoulders. “What's been eating you?” she asked.
He touched the blood caked on his face and neck. “A panther. He tried to eat me, but I showed him a troll is no easy meal."
She smacked her lips vigorously. “That's the truth."
"I need your help, Holly."
"Me?"
"It'll take two trolls to do it."
"There's only two of us here."
"That's the truth of it.” He picked up a piece of stone and tapped it on the weather-worn rock. By troll custom, he ought to groom her as he asked the favor, picking over her skin for ticks and other parasites. But he thought she was still too skittish to approach that closely. “That other man?"
"Other man? Oh. The man who fought you."
"That man, yes. I need your help to find and catch him. I thought he was a friend of mine, but he just tried to kill me."
"A friend?” She stood up, walked in a wide circle, slapping her hands on her chest.
"What's wrong?"
She turned and smacked her hands on the terrace, right in front of him, baring her teeth. “You said he was your friend, but if he's no troll, then you're no troll."
Her hot breath washed over his face, but Maggot didn't flinch. “You're my friend too, Holly. Does that mean you're no troll?"
"Ai!” This confused her. She threw her arms up in the air, spun, returned to her original spot, and sat down again. “Sometimes I think Holly is no troll. There are no more trolls. Only loneliness."
"I've felt that way too."
She preened the wrinkles on her face and said nothing.
It was getting late into the night. She'd have to seek cover before dawn, or be turned to stone by the sun. If he was going to get her help it'd have to come soon. He wanted the man's weapons more than anything. “Help me capture this other man, and I will give you fresh meat."
Her head lifted. “Meat?"
"Let's take a vote,” Maggot said. “Everyone who wants to catch the man first, and then eat fresh meat, raise a hand.” He held his up in the air.
After a second's hesitation she raised her hand too.
"Let's go get him then.” Maggot rose, his muscles aching as they unbent and stretched.
He hoped that Holly's help would be enough. Because while he was sitting here, he'd realized what the flash of light meant. Ehren was a wizard. Maggot had met wizards before, had seen them bespell demons and use their charms to shake the earth.
This would be the first time he went hunting one.
* * * *
8.
Maggot trudged to the structure's peak to retrieve the sword. He should not have squatted so long. He should have gone immediately to get some water to drink. But he did, and he hadn't, and now he lived with the consequences.
Holly followed him. A cool breeze swept over the broad, square platform. She lifted her head to the wind and sniffed.
Maggot felt the balance of the weapon. It was short, leaf-shaped, with the tip a good weight for thrusting. More to his liking than the longer swords Bran had tried to teach him to use. He looked out from the height and imagined that one could watch the entire valley from here. His admiration for the people who'd built this edifice increased in proportion. “Do you smell anything interesting?"
"Cherry blossoms, over that way.” She licked her lips, leaned on her knuckles, and took a few steps toward the edge of the platform. “A couple months, they'll be ripe to eat."
"What about the man?"
"Him too,” she said.
"Can you lead me to him?"
She snorted. “Aren't people easy to smell? I sniffed it earlier. Knew where it was, even before you gave out the warning to let me know it was here."
Maggot considered this. So the stranger was an it and he wasn't? He thought about asking her to explain the difference, but he knew the answer, having heard it from others so many times before. You're not like them. You're not a troll, but you're not a man either. He thought about confessing that his display wasn't an attempt to warn her, because he hadn't known she was there. But he decided not to. Better not to antagonize her, not when he needed her help.
"Where is he?” Maggot asked, with the slightest stress on the last word.
"Beyond the cave of stone trees, over by the nine mound. Or the four mound, if you're counting from the other direction."
"Good. Can you lead me there? I'll draw him out, get his attention on—” literally, in the troll's language, get his nose aimed at—"me."
"Then what?"
"Can you jump on him, pin him to the ground? Like you were wrestling him."
"Sure.” She smacked her lips eagerly, then furrowed her brow. “Will it be that easy?"
"No. Probably not."
She waited for him to explain.
"If he's not drawn out, then we go back down the cliff and look for a new route to the top.” An old troll saying. “If he comes out and attacks me, then you jump on him from your hiding place, just like we said. If he turns on you, I'll bite him hard with this tooth.” He held up the sword. “How does that smell?"
She grinned. “Like rotten meat."
"Good,” he smiled back. “I'm glad you like it. Now you show me where he is. Let's go quietly. Remember that people hear better than we do."
The last phrase slipped out of his mouth without thinking. What was he? A person or a troll? Was he one thing with Bran or Ehren, and another with his mother or Holly?
Big Stinky and his herd of deer grazed farther away, under the trees. They left behind them a swath of shredded vegetation. The ground was torn out, the little trees were stripped bare, and the big trees were shorn of lower branches. Maggot saw suddenly how the plaza, and the area around the mounds, remained clear. He went down to the pool for a drink. The bottom was thick with muck; even if he did not stir the water, it was unfit to drink.
"Don't fall in,” Holly warned him.
"Don't worry,” Maggot said.
"It has no bottom. Anything you toss in there sinks and sinks and sinks, no matter how big."
"That's not possible,” Maggot said.
"I upended a tree trunk in there, not one of those,” she said, indicating the giants that rose two hundred feet into the sky. “But big. It sank down and down and disappeared until nothing showed."
With that, she knelt by the edge and cupped big handfuls of water into her mouth, until it ran down her neck and across her breasts. Maggot walked to the fountain in the wall at the end of the pool. Four squat creatures, strange mixtures of familiar beasts, toad and lion and eagle, like the statues that lined the steps upon the pyramid, were carved in the wall where the hillside met the pool. Their heads were raised at various levels, with holes for mouths. Water trickled out of one of them, though by cracks and stains it appeared that it had come from the others too at one time. Maggot stepped out on the sculpture's feet, and sipped from its mouth.
"Giving it a kiss?” Holly giggled, making a sound like gravel rolling down a hillside.
Maggot spun to hush her, and almost fell in. He saved himself by grabbing onto the monster's stone tooth, but Holly laughed, as loud as a landslide. She pursed her wide lips, as if kissing, and giggled again.
He jumped back to the shore. There was nothing he could do about the noise now. And the wizard already knew they were there. “That was good,” he said quietly, wiping his mouth on his arm.
"Not as good as something to eat,” Holly said, rubbing her stomach. She l
ooked to the east and sniffed the air. “Sun the Killer will be coming soon."
Maggot acknowledged this. “Let's go. Show me where he's hiding."
Holly looked at him seriously. “You act like the First."
He turned and led the way, as though he was. He'd tried to become the First in Deep Cave Band, to do what he could to save his mother and those around her, but he'd been outvoted in favor of Ragweed, his stepfather, and afterward he'd left. How strange to be First now in this Band of the Lost.
They snaked their way through the irregularly spaced mounds. The big structures made the size of the city deceptive. It was larger than he had guessed. They came to a low structure in another open area, a stone platform with tiers of broad flat steps on one side. The top contained a rectangular building, open with columns facing the steps.
Hiding behind a small group of prickly shrubs, oblique to the open front, Holly sniffed the ground and the air several times. “He's in there,” she whispered, in a voice as loud as Maggot's normal tone.
"Are you certain?"
She pressed her lips together quietly. It looked more like a kiss than a yes.
"Can you sneak around behind, and climb on top of the building?"
"I've done it before. But why? There's nothing up there."
"Because I'm going to draw him out. I want you to jump on him."
Her nostrils flared. “That's a good idea."
"If he doesn't come out, then we'll meet back here and make a new plan."
This time her mouth was unmistakably kissy.
He ignored it. “I'll give you a few moments to go, and then I'll approach the front until he notices—” literally, until he smells—"me coming."
She crept away quickly.
Even before he saw her dark bulk ease onto the stone roof, he walked toward the main entrance. He stopped at the bottom of the steps. “Are you awake in there, Ehren?"
No reply came from the darkness.
Maggot stepped up onto the first, then the second platform, calling again. “Could you pass some wind, please, just to let me know you're there?"
He stepped up two more of the platforms. The top of his head now rose high enough to peer into the shadowed room behind the pillars.
FSF, October-November 2006 Page 15
