The Liar's key

FIFTEEN

“Wake up!”

“What?”

“Wake up!” Kara’s voice.

“No,” I told her. “It’s still dark and I’m comfortable.” Well, almost. Something I was lying on kept digging into my back.

A hand shook me. Hard.

I yawned and sat up. “I know why they call my grandmother the Red Queen.”

“Because she’s Queen of Red March.” Tuttugu, somewhere behind me.

“You’d think so. But no.” I touched the ground around me. Unyielding, damp, gritty. “Why does it smell so bad?” I rubbed my aching spine and patted the ground behind me, finding the long hard object I’d been lying on. “What the hell is this thing-”

A sudden light showed me Kara’s face, Tuttugu’s hinted at dimly, further back, and some larger shape in the deep shadow that must be Snorri. The light came from Kara’s hand-a glowing bead of silvery metal.

“Orichalcum,” I said, shaping my mouth around the word. Suddenly I remembered. “The arch!” I glanced around and saw nothing but darkness. “Where the hell are we?”

“I don’t know,” Kara said, which was disheartening, given that she was the one who is supposed to know things.

“Nowhere good,” Tuttugu offered. Spoken in the dark it sounded true. “Where did you get the spear?”

I looked down and found that the object I’d been lying on was indeed a spear. Kerwcjz’s spear. I’d taken it from the warlord in my dream. . or in Grandmother’s memories. “How the hell did I-”

“I don’t know where we are. The works of the wrong-mages are beyond me,” Kara said. “But without guidance we should have come out as close as possible-we’ve fallen back somewhere where the world grows thin. Somewhere cracked by recent magic. Powerful magic.”

“Isn’t that going to take us closer to the Wheel?” Recent powerful magic didn’t sound good. “Why isn’t it ever ‘somewhere with cheap booze, expensive women, a race track, and good views of the river’?”

“The arch is designed to serve the will of the user. I led the way and I was trying to get us out of there. .”

“Where’s the boy?” I remembered him as the last dregs of dreaming left me and the fear started to settle on my shoulders. “Snorri! Have you seen. .” The name escaped me. “. . the boy?”

“Snorri’s not here either,” Tuttugu again-closer to my ear than I’d expected. “I hope he’s with Hennan.”

“But. .” I was sure I’d seen him. I shook my head, decided the dream must still have had its claws in me. “What is that smell?”

“Trolls,” said Tuttugu quickly.

“You smell trolls every time the wind changes-Snorri told me you’ve never even seen one.” Please don’t let it be trolls. I’d never met one either and didn’t want to. The scars Snorri had showed me from his own encounter told all the story I needed to hear.

Kara moved in closer and we huddled over the glow of the orichalcum, three pale faces illuminated in a sea of darkness. “It sounds as if we’re in a cave,” she said.

“We should get out.” I hoped somebody else would supply the how.

“Before the trolls eat us,” said Tuttugu.

“Shut up about the damn trolls!” Fear raising my voice. The darkness seethed with the bastards now, put there by my imagination-which took some doing since I didn’t know what the things looked like. “Snorri says you wouldn’t know a troll if one-”

“He’s right this time!” Snorri’s voice, a way off but coming closer.

“Snorri!” I tried hard not to sound too much like a damsel in distress.

“Is Hennan with you?” Kara asked. I could see she was relieved too, though she kept it from her voice.

“Yes.” Snorri came close enough for the glow to catch him, a smaller figure just behind.

Hennan hurried across and attached himself to Kara’s side. I can’t say the same idea hadn’t occurred to me. “Don’t suppose you’ve got a tinderbox in that sa- Wait. Tuttugu’s right? Is that what you just said?”

“Yes.” Even Snorri didn’t sound pleased about it.

“No tinderbox,” Tuttugu said, rummaging as if he might find one even now.

“Let’s have a little more light,” Snorri said, holding out his hand.

“He just said we didn’t h-” I broke off as Kara dropped the orichalcum into Snorri’s palm. “Oh.”

The glow became fiercer, pushing back the shadows to the margins of the cavern. The floor beneath us lay level, hard-packed mud left by some underground river. Lower down, the walls had been smoothed by ancient currents; higher up they became rough, the ceiling studded with stony icicles like so many of Damocles’s swords depending above our heads. Some of these had already fallen and lay in pieces across the floor. They had a blackened look to them. In fact so did the walls. . and the ground beneath our feet. . as if a great fire had burned here, filling the place wall to wall.

“There,” said Snorri, gesturing with his axe to a clot of darkness that resisted the orichalcum’s glow. “And there.” He indicated another further around the cavern wall.

“There what?” I squinted at them.

“Trolls.”

An oath, sharp with terror, escaped Tuttugu before he mastered himself. I retreated toward Kara, gripping the spear tightly and wondering if I would ever be safe again.

“You beat a troll, right, Snorri?” I asked, mouth suddenly dry, cracking my voice.

“One,” he said. “I got lucky.” He nodded to a dark passage leading off from the far end of the cavern. “Two more there. The only thing I don’t understand is why we’re still alive.”

One of the creatures detached itself from the wall and moved a few paces closer. Even so it remained hard to see, its hide swallowing any light that fell upon it. A black creature, taller and more powerfully built than Sven Broke-Oar who had hardly been a man at all. Long inky limbs, a face so black as to deny all features. Another step closer and I saw the gleam of its eyes, dark as Aslaug’s, and a wide mouth opening to black teeth, black tongue, now stretched in what should be a roar though only a hissing reached me, running along the edge of hearing.

Snorri held his axe ready for the swing. He and Tuttugu wore other men’s blood. The scent must be calling more of the things and driving those before us wild. I considered dropping my spear.

“Who are you, truce-breakers?” A voice rolled out behind us, the kind of deep voice that sounded at home here among the roots of mountains.

We turned to see the speaker. With so many enemies it became impossible not to aim your back toward at least one of them. Not that my front would help fend off a troll. The spear was a magnificent weapon but I had the feeling these trolls might just bite the end off. As I turned I saw for a heartbeat that small smile the Silent Sister offered me in the dream. Had she seen this moment with her blind eye? Was this the source of her amusement?

The thing that regarded us through eyes slitted against our light might once have been a troll but something had twisted it. I doubted God would touch such creatures so that left a darker hand altogether, reaching up from the brimstone to warp the beast. His rib bones erupted from his chest like long black fingers, almost coming together above his heart. An image of Aslaug and unfolding spider legs skittered across my mind and I shuddered. This one stood maybe seven foot, perhaps a little more, a foot shorter than the others, but considerably more solid, and clad in a hide that the shadows whispered might be red. Cat’s eyes, teeth a direwolf might envy, and in place of the other trolls’ long fingers ending in black claws, his fingers were thick as a child’s arm, three to each hand, ending in blunt red nails. Also, unlike the others, he wore a robe of some sort, more of a toga really, of dark highland tartan. I had plenty of time to drink in his details while waiting for one of our number to overcome their astonishment and answer his question.

“We’ve broken no truce.” It was Kara who at last found the wit to answer him.

“You may not have intended to break it, you might be wholly ignorant of its existence, but you most certainly have broken the truce.” The monster troll spoke with remarkable calmness for a savage beast, and with a degree of culture that wouldn’t be out of place at court if it weren’t spoken in a voice deep enough to cause nosebleeds.

“A great magic was worked in this cavern,” Kara said. “It called us here. What happened?”

“Two fire-sworn disagreed.” A terse reply as if the memory pained him.

“What place is this? And what is your name?” Kara asked, perhaps hoping to keep the conversation from the topic of broken truces.

The monster smiled, a broad thing revealing many sharp teeth but not unfriendly. “You stand beneath Halradra, a fire-mountain within the Heimrift. These caverns were gifted to my brothers here by Alaric, Duke of Maladon.”

“Maladon!” I couldn’t keep it in. “Thank God.” If it weren’t for all the trolls watching I’d have sunk to my knees and kissed the mud.

“And I,” the beast continued, “am Gorgoth.”

“You rule here?” Snorri asked.

The monster shrugged and I could swear he looked embarrassed. “They call me their king, but-”

“Prince Jalan Kendeth, grandson to the Red Queen of the March.” I thrust out a hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

Gorgoth looked down at my hand, as if uncertain what to do with it. I was about to pull it back in case he might snap it off or take a bite, but he folded it in his three-fingered grip, and for a moment I felt a hint of his strength.

“So,” I said, reclaiming my hand and making it into a fist to keep the ache at bay. “So, I hope as King of Hal. . uh. .”

“Radra,” Snorri supplied.

“Yes, Halradra.” I shot Snorri a sour glance. “As King of. . beneath this mountain. . I hope you’ll extend the courtesy due to another Empire royal and have us escorted to the borders of your land.”

Gorgoth made no indication that he’d heard me. Instead he sunk to one knee and extended his open hand toward Hennan. “How is it that you have a child with you, and blood upon your axes?” Then focusing those cat’s eyes of his upon the boy, “Come.”

I’ll give the little bastard credit, he showed as much courage or foolhardiness by dark as by day. We met him racing back into the teeth of a Hardassa raiding party and now he came forward on steady feet and put his small hand into the palm of the king of the trolls.

“Your name, child?”

“Hennan. . sir.”

“I had a little brother,” the monster said. “He would be about your age now. .” He released the boy and stood. “My new brothers are preparing to march to a new home, seven hundred miles to the southwest. It lies in the Renar Highlands. You may travel with us for any part of your journey that takes you in that direction.”

“That would be gr-” I mastered my enthusiasm. “That seems acceptable.” I couldn’t bring myself to call him sire. But it did sound great. As long as they didn’t eat us I could think of no bodyguards better suited to keeping the Dead King’s servants off our backs. Men tend to stay dead if you eat them! “When do you plan to depart?”

“The Duke of Maladon is providing an escort to prevent any misunderstandings with his people. They should be here within a week. The truce states we are to travel after the feast of Heimdal. And that no human is to set foot upon Halradra until that time. . The duke’s men patrol to ensure no one wanders this way.”

“We came by paths beyond the duke’s ability to guard,” Kara said. “Can we impose upon your hospitality, King Gorgoth, now that we are here, and stay until you’re ready to depart?”

I bristled at this-enduring the stink of trolls and staying in a dark damp cave when I could be supping ale at the duke’s table. I saw the Undoreth frown too. But in the end I hadn’t it in me to slog through mountains and forests to reach the duke and his halls, not even if the ale were nectar served by naked goddesses: I just needed to lie down and sleep, wet floor or not.

“You may stay,” Gorgoth said. And that was that.