The Troll King (The Bowl of Souls Book 9) (23 page)

He laid Esmine’s staff on the ground and lifted the dagger in both hands, holding it at eye level. A look of intense concentration grew on his face and steam began to rise from the dagger’s surface. Tarah had the weighty feeling that something tremendous was going on. The elves leaned forward, their jaws dropping as if seeing an astounding spectacle. Tarah knew that it was happening in the spiritual realm and wished that she could see what they were. It was as if something was happening at the edges of her mind and she just didn’t know how to tap into it.

The steam around the blade intensified and as the gray mist rose from the dagger, the color of it lightened. The metal paled, turning from a dark gray to a light gray and finally a brilliant white. Tarah wasn’t sure exactly what had transpired, but from the pleased reactions of the elves, she was sure that it had been a fight for the ages.

The Prophet sighed, wiping his brow. “There! It still needs some work, but the Dark Prophet’s stain on his blade has been lifted.” The dagger was beautiful, the amber stones sparkling in the filtered light of the grove. “Only Celos, the jade dagger remains.

He walked over to the enormous cat creature, who had watched the proceedings with a curious gaze. He opened a pair of saddlebags that appeared to be the only kind of riding gear on the great cat and placed the dagger inside. Then he turned back to look at them, a smile on his face.

“Thank you for bringing this to me, Tarah. The destruction of this is a splendid victory. See, Tolynn? Her coming here wasn’t such a bad thing.”

She glanced at Tarah, her eyes still burning with suspicion. “This woman did not know you were here. She came uninvited and violated two of the trees!”

The Prophet looked up at the trees around them. “Two of them? Is that so? They don’t seem violated to me. Tarah did you violate them?”

“No!” Tarah said, frustrated that the elf still wasn’t backing off. “Like I was trying to tell you. I just touched them and accidentally talked to them.” She pointed at the trees, finding that she could tell exactly which ones she had talked to. Their personalities showed in the very configuration of their branches. “The first one, the kind lady, and then old cranky over there, they asked me if I would protect them and I said yes. I’m not sure exactly what I promised to do but I’m on your side . . . a helper or whatever you call it.”

“Old Cranky?” The Prophet laughed. “That’s a good name for him. He’s still as strong as any of them, but he has been complaining for centuries.”

“What are you telling me, John?” Tolynn asked. “Should I let centuries of law and tradition fall by the wayside simply because some girl forces a connection to the trees? There are tests of dedication and knowledge given before any human is allowed to touch a tree. Should we abandon all pretense of order and begin letting in anyone who wants to try?”

“Of course not, but what’s done is done, isn’t it?” He bent and picked up Esmine’s staff once again. “Besides, from what this lady told me this wasn’t all Tarah’s fault.” He held the staff out to Tarah. “Aren’t you going to take it?”

“Well, um, sure.” Tarah reached out, but could not quite make herself grasp the wood. Esmine seemed calm right now, but Tarah was afraid of what the rogue horse might do once she was back in her hands.

“John . . .” Tolynn stepped forward, looking closer at the staff. Her gaze grew thunderous. “John, she cannot have that. It is made of dead wood!”

There were stunned clicks from the elves all around. John raised a calming hand and fixed his eyes on Tolynn. “Yes, you are correct. In fact, the wood of this staff came from your tree. It was made just over seven hundred years ago. By your husband.”

“Then give it to me, John,” the elf woman demanded. “I must return it to my tree.”

 “I am not finished with its history,” John said, holding it just out of her reach. “Yntri gave it to a Roo-Tan warrior who was killed in a fight with a rather entrepreneurial Roo-Dan witch. She sold it and other Jharro items like it to a merchant and it ended up in the hands of an imp weapon crafter. He turned it into a blood staff, a weapon designed for the sole purpose of binding powerful souls.”

The elf woman hissed and drew back her hand. “You are right. This wood has been desecrated. It cannot be returned. It must be destroyed.”

“Tolynn,” the Prophet said disapprovingly. “Why do you blind yourself so? Look closer.”

The elf woman’s brow furrowed and she bent towards the staff. She blinked suddenly, raising a hand in front of her eyes as if she had just looked into the sun. “How is that possible?”

A rumble of clicks and whistles rose through the elves gathered above. “Finish your tale, John,” one of them shouted and there were many nods of agreement.

John nodded. “The blood staff was eventually sold by the imp and changed hands many times over the years, but it was never used for its intended purpose. It became a simple weapon and it kept absorbing blood until it turned as red as scarlet.

“Eventually, it came into the possession of a man with many names.” The Prophet paused for a moment, then looked at Tarah and as he continued, she realized that this part of the story was being told for her benefit. “He was a flawed man. A well-traveled man. In Dremald he was known as Ramshackle Rolf, the merchant. In parts of Alberri he had become known as Rolf, the Pincher. But the day he came across this staff he was in his hometown, the city of Dubeck, where he was known by the name of Rolf Beraldi.”

Tarah swallowed. She had a feeling that this was part of the staff’s story she did not want to know. She shook her head at the Prophet, but he continued anyway.

“That day, Rolf had a disagreement with a merchant friend of his. This disagreement came to blows and the merchant struck Rolf down with this very staff. Imagine Rolf’s surprise when he saw the staff suck up his blood as greedily as any leech.”

He lifted the silvery gray staff in the air and, to Tarah’s eyes, it was red as blood once again.

“The merchant, who was generally a peaceful man, was mortified at his own actions. He apologized to his friend, but Rolf was only interested in the scarlet staff. He asked the merchant what magic was in the staff, but the merchant, being unaware of its true purpose, insisted it was of minor magical value. A mere curiosity.

“Rolf did not believe that for a moment. He was a quarterstaff expert and he had never seen a staff do anything like that before. He had seen the strange runes on its shaft and had become sure that this was an item of great power. That belief awakened something else within Rolf. You see, he knew of several wealthy wizards and felt that if he could find the right buyer, this item of power would be worth a great deal of gold.”

The elves shrugged at each other, clicking in confusion. To them, the human desire for gold was a strange and foreign concept. Tarah, however understood it perfectly. She also knew that this desire had burned in her Grampa Rolf stronger than in most.

“Rolf offered his friend a tidy sum for it on the spot. The merchant, who had grown fond of the staff, wasn’t inclined to sell. Rolf left the tent dissatisfied, but over the next several months returned to his friend several times with different offers, determined to purchase that staff.

“Time passed and through a series of bad decisions and bad business deals, Rolf became destitute. His reputation had been soiled to the point where he dared not enter several cities that had once been sources of income for him. It was during this dark period that the staff came into his mind once again. He grew certain that this staff was his best chance at regaining his former wealth.”

“Uh, John,” Tarah said, her stomach boiling with dread. “Mister Prophet, sir? Does this whole story need to be told? It seems oddly detailed.”

His eyebrows rose. “Why Tarah. I have been telling tales for more years than I can count. I assure you that this information is crucial. Especially for you. Now shush and listen.”

Tarah bit her lip. She reached her thoughts towards the staff.
Esmine! Is there a way for us to get out of here? Can you distract him or something
? But there was no answer.

The Prophet continued, “So Rolf returned to his hometown and sought out his friend, hoping that the staff would still be in his possession. Rolf’s plan was to lie to his friend and tell him that he already had a buyer set up for the item. He would assure him that he would split the profits.

“Unfortunately, Rolf’s merchant friend had heard of his misfortunes. He took one look at Rolf and the condition of his clothes and refused him, pushing him out of the tent with the very staff he wanted so badly.”

One of the elves asked a question in his strange language and Tolynn answered him. “The humans you know are different! The Roo-Tan have learned from us, but in most of the world, humans have become ignorant of spirit magic.”

“This is true,” the Prophet said, looking slightly uncomfortable. After all, it was his own fault that spirit magic had come into disuse. He cleared his throat. “Late that night, Rolf returned to the tent of his friend and, using a sharp knife, cut his way in. He found the merchant sleeping with the staff close by. Rolf crept past him and grasped the prize he sought, but in the process, knocked over the merchant’s chamber pot.

“Needless to say, the merchant awoke enraged. Rolf, in a panic, struck his old friend with the butt of the staff and ran. Now Rolf, you remember, was an expert with the staff. In normal circumstances, he knew how to pull his blows, but in this odd circumstance-.”

“He killed him,” Tarah said numbly. She was thinking back to that terrible dream where she had seen a list of Rolf’s crimes. One of them had been murder. She hadn’t wanted it to be true.

“Yes,” John said, giving her a kind nod. “Rolf didn’t discover this until much later, but the merchant died from his wound.”

“So one human killed another over a piece of the Jharro Grove,” said Tolynn with a roll of her dark eyes. “Were we to be surprised by this? You still have not explained why the staff has become so changed.”

The Prophet pursed his lips. “Why is everyone rushing me today? How often do you get to hear my stories?” A few of the elves clicked in response and he said. “That’s right. So listen. I will need to leave again soon and who knows how long it will be before you have another chance.”

“I am sorry, John,” said Tolynn and to Tarah’s surprise, she looked quite chastened. “Please continue.”

“Thank you,” he said, sighing before he began again.

“Rolf Beraldi left his hometown a murderer, something that weighed on him for the rest of his life. But in the meantime, he was determined to sell that staff and regain his fortune. Unfortunately, no one thought the staff was as valuable as he did.

“Rolf traveled from wizard to wizard only to be told that the majority of the runes on it were fake. You see, as Tolynn explained earlier, mankind had become unfamiliar with spirit magic runes and even the ones who still had the knowledge would have had difficulty interpreting the impish design.

“Finally Rolf made one last desperate trip. He went to the Mage School in Dremaldria, having heard that there was a wizard there who, though not extremely wealthy, had a fondness for oddities. But it was not to be. The one wizard that would meet with him only offered a paltry sum, before dismissing him.

“Having exhausted every possibility he could think of, Rolf had little recourse. He couldn’t sell the staff. He could not return to Dubeck, and his merchant friends in various cities would have heard of Rolf’s tainted name. So he traveled to the town of Pinewood, where he had a granddaughter and a son-in-law. Surely his own family wouldn’t turn him away.”

“It was the first time he had visited since momma died,” Tarah said. She was staring off into space, her mind dredging up the memory. “Papa wasn’t happy to see him.”

Tolynn narrowed her eyes. “This is . . ?”

“Tarah Woodblade, granddaughter of Rolf Beraldi, the murderer,” Tarah said, giving her an exaggerated bow. “Though I didn’t know that last part until just now. I knew he had been involved in some shady dealings over the years, but he was always just Grampa Rolf to me.” She frowned at the Prophet. “How do you know all this?”

He lifted the staff in answer. “He told me himself. There is a lot of history in this wood.”

“No there isn’t,” Tarah said. “The history is gone. Any memories of Grampa Rolf’s were rubbed away long ago, replaced by my own.”

John raised an eyebrow at her, as if amused to be questioned in such a way. “Not so. Memories never truly fade, Tarah. They simply stack on top of each other. Just because you have only trained your ability to allow you to see a single layer doesn’t mean the others have ceased to exist.”