DARKSIDE CH-9

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Chapter Eight
 

          Troll dungeons aren’t as bad as you might think. They’re actually quite accommodating. We were placed in a cell on the ground floor of one of the low-rise buildings. It was clean and airy, with a large, barred window cut into the wall that looked out over a lovely meadow. Several feather mattresses were laid out in stone alcoves, and the toilet--a hole cut into the floor--even had a short, waist-high barrier around it for privacy. Of course knowing trolls, it could have been a stock pen and not a dungeon. I tried to convince the guard that free-range humans were better eating, but he ignored me.

The troll chieftain had been livid at seeing the way Thomas had been trussed up. Apparently bards are sacrosanct--you know--untouchable. Well, that’s not exactly true either. You can touch them; you just can’t abuse them. Thomas was untied after promising that he wouldn’t try to escape, or aid us in our escape attempts. Come to think of it, that’s probably the reason the cell was so nice. Thomas had insisted on being locked up with the rest of us.

“You are aware that the child is an Innocent?” Thomas had asked Rant, the chieftain.

“Of course.

“If you eat her, you’ll have both sides out for your head. The Daemon won’t take lightly to your having deprived them of the havoc they could wreak if they turned her, and the humans--well, they need all the help they can get.

Rant’s bushy brows climbed his forehead in astonishment. “Eat her? Who said anything about eatin’ her? I’m going ta marry her.”

“Oh,” Thomas said. “That’s different.”

If you think Thomas looked stunned, you should’ve seen Josh’s face.

“Listen here, you sawed-off, wart-covered, garbage-eating, child-molesting little creep...” Parts of Josh morphed spasmodically, sprouting fur and talons, then reverted to normal. “If you think I’m going to let you marry my daughter...”

Rant stepped to within a pace of Josh, who was still bound and on his knees before the troll chieftain. “Youse I’m going ta eat,” he said. “And I am not wart-covered.”

#

          I stared out through the bars and into the dungeon proper. Charlie had been shackled to the wall just across from us because he had been too big to fit through the door that led into our cell. Even so, he had to stand with his head bowed and his chin against his chest to keep from cracking his skull on the ceiling. He looked pretty pathetic, and the glow from the charcoal brazier set in the middle of the room only cast his features in shadow and made him look all the more so. Alex was being kept in the bridal suite. Leanne assured us she was safe there; Rant wouldn’t touch her until after they were officially married. Of course, then all bets were off.

The Blood Moon must be a real humdinger of a Summerland holiday, because Rant had set the wedding date to coincide with the celestial event. It certainly was a busy day for us. We had until nightfall to break out of jail, grab Alex before the nuptials, then hightail it to Tae Con Ra to use her as bait and rescue her mother. Don’t you just hate it when you get invited to two good parties on the same day?

Josh paced back and forth in front of the window, then finally stopped in front of Thomas, who reclined on one of the bunks. “You can leave any time you like. Can’t you do something to break us out of here?”

Thomas propped himself up on an elbow. He looked pained. “I can’t. I promised.”

Josh snarled and stormed back to the window. The snarl sounded worse when he was in human form--it was more contemptuous. He turned on me next. “What about you, Eternal?”

“What can I do?”

“You’re a damned Eternal,” he said. “What can’t you do?”

Leanne approached the frustrated shapeshifter and put an arm about his shoulder. “He’s new, Josh. He doesn’t know what he can do. He doesn’t believe yet.”

Josh stared the vampire in the eyes, his face seemingly harder than even her own. “Then teach him.”

Leanne shook her head. “There isn’t time.”

Josh shrugged Leanne away and went back to the window. We left him alone with his despair.

I went over to my own bunk and lay down, racking my brains for a way out. I mean, how hard could it be? The trolls didn’t seem all that bright, and with my speed, and Leanne’s for that matter, we should be able to overpower the few guards quite easily. All we had to do was get them to open the cell door. Unfortunately, that was the problem. Two guards stood at the bottom of the stone stairway that led up and out of the dungeon--even though we were on the ground floor there were still stairs that led up and out of the dungeon. Go figure.

The guards must have been deaf. I tried every trick I could think of to get them to open the cell. I had the knowledge of past masters to draw on--from the Three Stooges to the Dukes of Hazzard; nothing worked. The trolls must have seen the same shows.

Thomas and Leanne huddled together for a little while in conversation. The bard had to be even worse with women than I was, because he pissed her off in no time. Leanne stormed off in a huff and joined Josh at the window. Thomas came and sat on the corner of my bunk. He just sat there, staring at me. Finally I couldn’t take it any longer.

“What?”

“Like it or not, you’re the leader of this little group. They’re all looking to you for a way out of this.”

He was right, and I knew he was right, but I didn’t have to like it. How in the hell did I get to be leader anyway? “I’m working on it,” I said.

“Work faster.” Thomas shrugged, then looked over to the window where Leanne comforted Josh.

“What’s the story with you two?” I asked. Okay, maybe I was just being nosy, and maybe there were more pressing things for me to worry about than my girlfriend’s old...associations, but my mind was revving in neutral right now. A little distraction couldn’t hurt. Sometimes your mind works best on a problem when you don’t force the issue.

Thomas cocked an eyebrow at me, then sighed. “We go back a long way, her and I.”

“No. Really?”

He blushed.

“Come on, you’re a storyteller; tell me a story.” I could see that Thomas wondered if filling me in on his past with Leanne was a particularly bright idea. I’m sure he didn’t want to, but everyone else seemed to know. In the end, he probably told me out of a sense of fair play more than anything else.

“Like all stories, the tale of Thomas the Rhymer became distorted through the ages. It was Aine that brought me to Summerland, but the Sidhe are a...promiscuous race. I soon found my attentions divided between Aine and Lhiannan. It was Lhiannan who made me the bard that I am, who taught me the ways of power. She had the gift of inspiration, and whoever it was that she loved burned bright with it. As my talents and my fame grew, so too did my standing with the Sidhe. The Queen came to see me as more than just a dalliance, but as a status symbol. She became jealous of Lhiannan, and plotted to send her as envoy to the vampire lord. Vampires have no scruples, and he took Lhiannan her first night in his enclave. Perhaps it is because she is Faerie that the demon failed to win control.

Lhiannan escaped back to her people, but the change had taken its toll on her. It warped her power with its evil. Her passionate embrace still inspired, but it also fed. She found those that loved her soon withered and died, burning bright for only a short time before the light of their life was extinguished. Even here, in Summerland, her power slowly leeched the life-force from her lovers. I found myself aged--as I was when you first met me.

Dianchecht had the power to rejuvenate me, but I refused in protest of what Aine had done to us. If Lhiannan and I could no longer be together, then Aine could only be with me if she accepted me as I was. The Faerie are a vain people. I was still a famed and renowned bard, but I was old, and the Sidhe love young, beautiful things. I was a constant reminder of Aine’s treachery.”

“I wondered why you raised such a stink about rejuvenating,” I said. Then, “Do you mean to tell me that anyone Leanne sleeps with ages prematurely?”

Thomas studied me carefully for a moment, then shook his head slowly. “Not everyone.”

“Meaning me.”

“You’re an Eternal,” Thomas said. “Your life-force is directly connected to the Universal Wellspring, and not just a splintered fragment that returns to the source when the flesh dies.”

“Huh?”

“Your life-force is limitless.”

I looked over to where Leanne was still trying to comfort Josh. “So as far as she’s concerned I’m a never-ending source of food.”

Thomas lowered his head and closed his eyes, as if he struggled with some sort of inner turmoil. Finally, he looked up at me. “Your mere presence--the proximity of you--frightens the demon back into the shadows of her mind. She can be with you, love you, and not kill you. You are the one person who can give her life a semblance of normalcy. Is it any wonder that she is drawn to you the way she is?”

I understood his conflict then. If he still had feelings for her, and I had no doubt that he did, he was shooting himself in the foot by telling me this. He knew that I could give her what she needed most, and what he never could. Still, it meant her interest in me had nothing to do with who I was, but rather what I was. The thought pissed me off.

“Normal? What’s normal?” I said. “Even if she weren’t a vampire--which she is--she’s still not human; she’s Faerie. Give me a break! I mean a Fairy Princess I can handle--maybe even a Fairy Godmother. But who the hell ever heard of a Fairy Vampire?”

Thomas smiled, and I heard laughter coming from over by the window. Leanne had this huge grin plastered on her face, and even Josh looked a little less morose. I keep forgetting that vampires and shapeshifters have finely tuned hearing. At least Leanne hadn’t taken offense at my outburst. For some reason that irritated me even more.

“I’ll admit, she is unique,” Thomas said. “But then, so are you. You are more suited to one another than you know.”

I peered up at the bard. “Are you speaking just as some old fart giving advice, or is this some of that vaunted prophecy I keep hearing about?”

Thomas grinned. “Both. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.”

I was about to reply with a witty rejoinder--honest--when the guards suddenly snapped to attention. I heard the door open at the top of the stairs. The intruder cast a tall, imposing shadow, all jagged points and wispy tendrils, along the far wall. The shadow slowly made its way down the stairs. Something scraped along the stairway, and the rhythmic tap of a cane or walking stick resounded like thunder with each shuffling step. I have to admit it was pretty eerie. The appearance of the four-foot troll was rather a letdown.

I guess for a troll he was an imposing figure. He was thinner and bonier than most, like a corpse too long in the grave, and his eyes were set back deeper into the sockets. His face was narrow and pinched; not the usual oval shape I’d grown accustomed to. Gray-white tufts of hair sprouted out from beneath the tall, dark conical hat he wore, and a scraggly gray goatee adorned his chin. He wore a too-long, purple robe trimmed in ermine that pooled in a bunch at his feet. The billowy sleeves only made his emaciated claws look even more skeletal. An oak staff, tall as he was, was clasped in his right hand, and topped off by some sort of crystal ball set in a four-pronged claw. The staff was inset with ivory runes, and purple haze filled the crystal, obscuring the shapes that wiggled and scurried beneath its surface.

He stopped in front of Charlie for a moment and stared the ogre in the eyes. Charlie returned the favor, and the two of them stood locked eyeball to eyeball for a couple of minutes. Finally, the troll smiled. Even for a troll, his teeth seemed sharper than usual. He walked on and stopped in front of the door to our cage. The guards stood at rapt attention, eyes forward, showing remarkable discipline for trolls, although it may have been that they would have rather looked anywhere than make eye contact with this particular troll.

He glanced around at our little group, then finally settled on me. “You. You are the Eternal?” His voice was dry, cold, and emotionless. At least he didn’t sound like a reject from Goodfellas like the rest of them.

“So I’m told,” I said.

He nodded. “I am Snit, Grande Mage and Advisor, and I have a proposition for you.”

I sat up a little straighter on my bunk. “I’m listening, but if it’s anything sexual...”

Snit’s eyes narrowed. “You are not like the other Eternals.”

“Wow, you can smell my breath from there? You are Grande.”

Snit had no idea what I was talking about of course, but I could hear Charlie chuckling.

“I will forgive your flippancy, as you know not with whom you are dealing. But I would tread more lightly were I you,” Snit hissed, then shook himself and quickly regained his composure.

This was fun. “Listen. I don’t care if you are the only troll who’s had the Emily Post diction course. And that fancy snow globe on a stick don’t impress me none, either. Just spit out what you have to say. If I like it, I’ll have my people call your people and we can do lunch or something.”

I thought Snit was going to have an embolism right then and there. He must have been collecting all his bad mojo together to fry me where I sat, because his eyes took on this green haze, and the crystal globe swirled in agitation. He relaxed suddenly, though, and smiled that crocodile smile of his.

“A valiant attempt. But you won’t get out of the cell that easily.”

Snit was definitely smarter than your average troll. At the least I was hoping he would have had the guards drag me from the cell for a good flogging or something. All I had to do was get that cell door open.

“I assume you are unmarried,” Snit said.

I sighed. “I told you; nothing sexual.”

“Rant has a daughter,” Snit continued. “We feel it would be advantageous if a merger between the trolls and the Eternals could be arranged.”

Thomas’s eyebrows shot up, and he quickly excused himself and walked over to the window to join Josh and Leanne. It seemed they had all developed a sudden interest in something outside in the meadow.

“A merger?”

Snit nodded and smiled. “A...wedding, if you will.”

I think it would be fair to say that Snit’s proposal threw me even more than all the insanity I’d been through in the past few days.

“You want me to marry Rant’s daughter?” I have to give the gang credit. They were trying not to laugh. They weren’t the only ones with sensitive hearing, though. That’s when I learned that Leanne snorted when she laughed. How unladylike is that?

“There will, of course, be compensation,” Snit added. “It’s not likely that Rant would eat the friends of his new son-in-law.”

“He doesn’t seem to have a problem eating his new father-in-law and his friends.”

“That’s different,” Snit said, and left it at that. Apparently the difference was obvious to anyone with any sense as far as the troll was concerned. “He might even consider lending you troops in helping you free his fiancée's mother.”

“It’s a tempting offer,” I lied, “but--”

“You should at least meet the girl,” Leanne butted in.

If she weren’t already dead, I’d have killed her. As it was I quickly scanned the cell for something to make a wooden stake out of. No luck.

“Certainly there is no harm in that,” Snit acquiesced. “I will have her sent for.” With that, he collected the folds of his robe and turned about, then climbed the stairway accompanied by the rhythmic tapping of his staff.

Leanne and Thomas fell into each other’s arms and broke out laughing. Only Josh seemed somewhat sympathetic--at least he didn’t laugh out loud.

“I wouldn’t laugh either if I were you, “I told Josh. “If this goes through, Alex will be my mother-in-law.” That wiped the smile off his face, but it cracked Leanne and Thomas up. Even Charlie chuckled, but when I turned to glare at him he tried to hide it in a fit of coughing.

I threw myself back on my bunk and closed my eyes only for a moment. When I opened them again my three cellmates hovered over me.

"It would solve a lot of our problems," Thomas said.

"So would shooting myself in the head," I answered. Of course I was wrong about that. I'd just look bad in the wedding pictures. I stared at each one in turn as they grinned down at me like vultures over road kill. "You're not seriously suggesting that I marry a...a troll?"

They let me squirm for a second, then Thomas said, "No. Of course not. But if you pretend to go along with it, it might at least get us out of this cell."

You have no idea how relieved I was to hear him say that.

"I don't know." Josh grinned, a little of his old self shining through. "You don't know what you're missing. Troll babes can be pretty hot."

I laughed. "And I was worried what Mom would think when I brought Leanne home to meet her."

Leanne looked at me sidewise, a wicked glint in her eye. "I wouldn't stop worrying on that account yet, Bumper."

I wisely kept my mouth shut.

The guards snapped to attention again, a sure sign that Snit had returned with my bride to be. I guess I should have expected the unexpected. You'd think by now I would have learned.

Snit stopped just outside the cell with Rant at his left side and the chief's daughter on his right. "Mr. Decker, meet Tirade."

Tirade was absolutely stunning. She made Aine look awkward and Leanne clumsy. Flaming red hair hung in neat tangles to the small of her back. Emerald green eyes sparkled above a cute pixie nose and full, pouty lips; her skin was lightly tanned, smooth and unblemished. Her figure was the epitome of the female femme fatal, drawn by Disney and made flesh; Tinkerbell, or more aptly, Jessica Rabbit. Of course, she was only four feet tall.

Tirade studied me, her eyes traveling my body from head to toe, then turned to her father. "Ya wants me ta marry dis?"

I guess she put me in my place.

"But what's wrong with him, my dear?" Snit asked.

She looked back at me and shook her head. "Nice legs--shame about 'is face."

Josh, Leanne, and Thomas ran for the window. Poor Charlie had to bite his arm to keep from laughing out loud.

Rant looked embarrassed. "I know he's not what you'd call handsome, but..."

"Handsome!" Tirade stuttered. "Look at dat tiny little head. And dose beady eyes, like a dead sunfish dey is. And youse call dat a nose? How’s he s'posed to pleasure 'is new bride wit a nose like dat?"

I don't know about you, but that was way more than I wanted to know about trolls.

"But Tirade, he's an Eternal. He can be anything you want him to be."

Tirade stamped her pretty little foot impatiently. "Some Eternal. He can't even break outta jail."

"He's new, dear. He's hasn't developed yet. You could train him."

That perked her up. Telling a new bride she's got a man she can train is like telling a Jehovah’s Witness you're just dying to learn how to make Christ your personal savior.

“But he’s so tall,” she pouted.

“He doesn’t have to be,” Leanne piped up. “He can be as tall, or as short, as you like.”

If I could have just fit her arm or leg through the bars of the window, I’m sure the sunlight would have done wonders for her disposition. “What are you talking about?” I asked.

She smiled sweetly at me. “How tall are you now?”

“About five foot ten,” I guessed.

“And how tall were you when you died?”

“Five-seven.” I saw her point. Once I learned to control my self-image on a conscious level, I could look pretty much any way I wanted to. The thought kind of creeped me out, and frankly I found the whole thing rather far-fetched. Which was probably why I couldn’t do it yet.

“You mean he wanted ta be dat tall?” Tirade stared at me like I was a three-headed goat or something, which probably would have been an improvement in her books. Apparently I’d failed to live up to her low standards on all accounts. She stomped her foot again and crossed her arms. “I won’t do it, an ya can’t makes me!”

“Not even for yer dear old Da?” Rant pleaded. He smiled at his daughter, then picked at the bits of rotting meat stuck between his teeth with a gnarled claw. “If we had an Eternal wit us, we could kick Clan Crag’s butt’s right back to dem mountains dey's always bragg’n about.”

“But Da, I already has a boyfriend.”

“An I love ’im like he’s me own,” Rant said solemnly, “but yer a chieftain’s daughter, and sometimes ya got to put yer own personal wants an' desires aside an do what’s fer da good a da Clan.”

Tears welled up in Tirade's almond-shaped eyes, but her father stood fast. “I won’t do it,” she cried, and ran sobbing up the stairs and from the dungeon.

“It’s all settled then,” Snit said. “The ceremony will take place at the Blood Moon ritual. It will be a double ceremony, after which we will provide you with a thousand troops to march on Tae Con Ra. The chieftain will want his new bride--and son-in-law--well protected.”

Thomas moved from the window to the cell bars to stand before the Mage and the chieftain. “Begging your pardon, but by then it will be too late to rescue our friend.”

“Nonsense,” Snit said. “You will leave just before the reception--it appears there’s going to be a shortage of good food anyway--and will travel by the Hidden Ways. You will arrive in plenty of time to attempt a rescue.”

I tried desperately to think of a way out, but nothing came to mind. None of my friends came to my rescue either.

“We will come fer ya just before da ceremony,” Rant said as they made for the exit. He looked almost as glum as I felt. It seemed as though Snit was the only one happy with our little arrangement.

“But I need time to prepare,” I shouted at their retreating backs.

Snit turned on the stairs to face me. “We will come for you an hour before the ceremony. That should give you plenty of time to prepare.” He grinned evilly. “But none to escape. You’ll never make it to Tae Con Ra without us to take you through the Hidden Ways.”

I lay back on my bunk, unable to believe the mess I’d gotten myself into. Thomas sat at the corner again, trying to keep a straight face. At least someone was enjoying himself.

“It looks like you are to be wed, my friend. There’s only one thing that bothers me.”

“Only one? You’re just not thinking about it hard enough then.” He stared at me expectantly for a moment, until finally I asked, “Well, what is it?”

He grinned down at me. “Can I be your best man?”

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