The Troll King (The Bowl of Souls Book 9) (29 page)

He responded with anger of his own and this time it didn’t even hurt his face to frown. “We have souls because the Mother gave them to us, of course!”

“Yes, but where did she get them from?” Mellinda growled.

“Enough!” he shouted. “These questions stop. You come very close to blasphemy and I will not have you spouting such nonsense in front of my people!”

For a moment she met him glare-for-glare and he wondered if she was going to force him to kill her. From the looks on the faces of her burly trollkin followers, he thought he might have to kill them too. The crowd watching held their breath.

Suddenly all anger left her face. She curtseyed again, this time apologetically. “I am so sorry, King. I let myself get carried away. It’s just that I have been so absorbed in trying to find a way to stop something like this fire from happening.”

“That is a commendable goal,” he said hesitantly.

“I realize, though, that I need to seek answers to this elsewhere,” she added.

“What do you mean?” Murtha asked.

“My king, I need to travel away from here for a time,” Mellinda said.

“Away? Why?” he asked.

She smiled and stroked his arm. “To discover how to solve your fire problem once and for all. Now won’t that be nice?”

“What of the children birthed while you are gone?” he asked. “They will need your help.”

“Save the ones you can,” she said, putting on a sad face as she addressed the rest of the crowd. “Oh, I know we will lose a few, but if I am successful, not only will you not have to worry about fire, the Mother will birth more of your people than ever before!”

Once again, the snake woman soaked in the adoration of his people. This time the Troll King understood Murtha’s fears.

*          *          *

“
I don’t understand
,” Arcon said. “
After all these years and all your experience manipulating people, why are you such a terrible actor
?”

Excuse me
? she asked in surprise.

“
You came off as so deceitful back there
,” he said. “
There is no way he was fooled by your story
.”

Nonsense. It was a perfectly good story. Besides, these people are nearly as stupid as trolls themselves
.

“
No, they’re not. As you proved today
,” Arcon said.

She had come to Thurgle’s room curious because of the Troll King’s remark about him having a human soul. She wanted to inspect him further and had offered to use her magic to make his face less frog-like. The foul creature had been offended. She’d had no choice but to freeze him with a paralyzing spell and that’s when it had happened.

Flames had shot from Thurgle’s eyes, burning holes in her beautiful white dress. She had caught on fire. The whole damn room had caught on fire. Thank goodness she had reacted quickly. A frost shield had kept her from further harm while the rings had healed her and she had spent the next several minutes repairing that dress.

That wasn’t proof of non-stupidity. That was simply proof that the thing had a human soul
, she replied.

“
I’m not talking about him. I’m talking about the Troll King
,” Arcon said. “
He may be a bit naïve, but you pushed him pretty hard. He’s not going to easily go back to trusting you after that. Was it worth the answer to your silly question? Which you didn’t even get, I might add
.”

It was a crucial question
! She scowled.
Still, you may be right. I’m pretty sure I have it figured out anyway. I was just hoping he would confirm it for me. Oh well, if things go right on this trip it won’t matter if he trusts me or not
.

Arcon seemed pleased that she had admitted he was right for once. “
So where are we going, Mellinda
?”

Well, Sweet Arcon, it’s time I went and met with Scholar Aloysius. He is going to want to help me with this plan
.

Willum scowled as the kobald sitting across the table from him, his “partner”, threw down a blue ‘AA’ card, taking the trick. The kobald snickered in triumph and began gathering the cards. It was squat and muscular, his skin covered in rock-like scales. Its head had an angular shape, with yellow eyes, a stub of a nose and a mouth with two large front fangs. As impressive as it looked, its personality was thin as paper; a caricature. Willum wondered if the imp had patterned it after a kobald he knew.

“Hah! Take that, Garson,” the kobald enthused. The dwarf that sat across from the imp grumbled and shoved his cards towards the kobald so it could deal the next hand. The kobald seemed to take great pleasure in its reaction. “See, Wilhelm? We will win this time!”

“It’s Willum,” Willum reminded him for perhaps the hundredth time since Theodore had started these game sessions. “And we were trying for a zero hand! You should have sluffed that card off a while ago!” Taking that trick had cost them a hundred points. He turned his scowl on the imp. “Why do you always partner me with this idiot?”

Lightning scattered through the smoky walls of the room and the accompanying roll of thunder punctuated the offended look on the kobald’s face. Big fat tears began to roll from its eyes. Willum groaned.

“
Willy
!” the imp chided as he reached over to pat the kobold on the shoulder.

Whereas both the dwarf and the kobald were wide, muscular creatures, the imp had thin arms and a potbelly. He was wearing clothes in the Roo-Tan warrior style, a breastplate that bulged out to contain the contour of his belly, and a pair of tan trousers. His thinning black hair had been tied into a single braid that ran down the side of his white face. The ribbon in it matched the yellow in his teeth. It wasn’t a good look for him.

“
Be kind
,” Theodore said. “
Ho-ho! Bofus has a tender heart
.”

The kobald sniffed in agreement and Willum rolled his eyes. “I’m just saying we play games at least three nights each week. Why not change partners once in a while?”

“
Willy, Willy, Willy
,” Theodore said, shaking his head. “
I’m doing you a favor. Bofus is far more clever than Garson over there
.”

The dwarf, who was wearing strange platemail that looked as if it were made of glued pottery shards, had raised his hand in front of his face and was staring at it. He waggled his fingers and chuckled. “Heh. Thumbs are like . . . the toes of the hand.”

“
See
?” the imp said.

“I still think this is a stupid game for us to play in here, Theodore,” Willum said. “I know that Unity is your favorite game, but there’s no way that you can prove to me you aren’t cheating.”

That was the trouble with spending time inside the axe while his body slept. He was in the imp’s territory. Everything that happened in this place was a construct of Theodore’s mind, including their partners. Theodore swore that he was able to separate the parts of his mind that controlled the additional players so that he didn’t know what their cards were, but Willum had his suspicions.

“
Cheating
?” The imp placed an offended hand on his chest. “
Willy, you wound me. Ho! Why thanks to Bofus here, you win nearly as often as I do
.”

Willum raised a finger. “Ah, but you are just smart enough to let me win from time-to-time just to fool me. Don’t think I haven’t noticed that I have yet to win a game when there are major stakes involved.”

“
Major stakes! Ho-ho-ho
!” His face grew serious. “
Willy, you won’t play for major stakes. The ledger gathers dust. These stakes are mere amusements. Nevertheless, I am bound by ancient rules. An imp never cheats when there are stakes
.”

“Right,” Willum said with a sigh. Since playing games was the imp’s favorite pastime, Willum had agreed to an alternate betting system. Something the imp called winner’s perks. The winner got to choose a punishment for the loser; nothing major, but something uncomfortable enough to make the games more fun for the imp. “So what’s the score now?”

The imp cleared his throat and opened a scroll that sat on the table beside him. He reached under the top of his hide breastplate and pulled out an impossibly long feathered quill. As he spoke, he made adjustments to the score chart. “
Team Theodore now has four hundred and forty points
.”

“Team Theodore!” shouted the dwarf with a laugh. Bofus growled at him, exposing his large fangs. The rivalry between the two illusions was another of the imp’s amusements.

“
Team Willum
,” Theodore continued. “
Who had formerly been in the lead before Bofus’ little error, now has three hundred and fifty points
.”

Willum groaned. They only played to five hundred points. Overcoming such a deficit would be nearly impossible. “Alright, Theodore, so if you win I have to say something embarrassing to one of my friends, right?”

The last time Willum had lost a bet like this had been during their first week in Malaroo. Theodore had commanded that at some point in the day, he ask one of his companions for a thigh rub. Willum had put it off until the end of the day, then as they were preparing to sleep, he had asked Cletus. The imp thought this was hilarious, but Cletus had just shrugged and done it. After a long day of riding, it hadn’t been half bad.

“
Two syllables is all, Willy
,” the imp said, raising two claw-tipped fingers. “
Ho! Two syllables of my choosing and I get to specify who you say it to
.”

Willum’s eyes narrowed. “Not curse words and whatever it is, I’m not saying it to Jhonate.”

The imp raised a bush black eyebrow. “
You don’t get to change the parameters mid-game, Willy
.”

“Yeah, well it’s late. Either you agree to my changes and we finish now or we wait and continue this tomorrow night,” Willum said. Even though his body was technically asleep, nights spent gaming with the imp left him mentally tired. Every minute of true sleep he could get between now and morning would be very helpful. “And if you lose, there will be no more gaming nights until we arrive back in Roo-Tan’lan. I’m tired of staying up late and having a full day’s journey the next day.”

His body was currently asleep in a Roo-Tan campsite next to the road two days away from the city. He was travelling with Jhonate, Vannya, Deathclaw, and Jhonate’s brother Jhexin. They were headed to the outskirts of the Troll Swamp where an old friend of Xedrion’s lived, evidently studying the swamp.

The imp waved a hand. “
Fine. Your chances of overcoming this shortage is slim anyway
.” He leaned forward and a grin spread across his lips. “
What if we make this more interesting
?”

Willum’s shoulders slumped. “What?”

“
I will make you a deal. Ho-ho, this is much better! I will allow Team Willum to bid blind zero
!” said Theodore.

“Blind?” Willum said.

“
Indeed. Either you or your partner can bid zero without looking at your hands
,” the imp explained. “
Instead of receiving a hundred points, as with a regular zero hand, you will receive two hundred
.”

A zero hand was hard enough to accomplish. Unity was played with a thirteen card hand. With the help of your partner it was possible to avoid taking any tricks, but a zero bid was only attempted if you had a truly awful hand. To bid zero without looking at your cards and succeed was a long shot.

“So basically it comes down to this one hand,” Willum said. Win or lose, the game was over. “What is the catch, imp?”

Theodore chuckled. “
I get to add one stipulation to your punishment. You cannot tell the person why you said my little two syllables to them
.”

Willum nodded slowly. He thought it would be something like that. He tried to think of what two syllables would be all that bad. There were several nasty possibilities. Still, he supposed it was worth the chance.

“Okay then. We’ll bid blind zero.” The only question was which one of them should do it. He looked into Bofus’ bland eyes. Either way was tough. In the end, he decided that it would be easier to cover any of the kobald’s mistakes with his own hand. “Bofus will be the one bidding zero.”

The kobald grinned in anticipation and began dealing out the cards. He stopped when there were only two left and turned over the top one to determine which element would be trump. “Blue again,” he announced.

Willum sorted through his hand. It wasn’t bad. He had plenty of high cards in each element. Now it just depended on Bofus.

“Uh . . . Wilhelm?” said the kobold hesitantly.

“Willum,” Willum reminded him.

“I don’t think were gonna make it.” The kobald pulled a card out of his hand and turned it around. On the face of the card was a vertical infinity symbol colored in blue and gold. It was the high universal card. No matter what happened, he was going to take at least one trick. They had lost before they even began.

“Blast it!” Willum swore, throwing down his cards.

“Ha ha! We win!” shouted the dwarf. He pointed at Bofus. “”Once again, kobalds prove to be the inferior race!” The kobald cried out in shame and began repeatedly slamming his face into the stone table.

Willum stood from his chair. “Okay, Theodore. What are those two syllables?”

The imp’s grin spread from ear-to-ear and he snapped his fingers. The smoky ground underneath the table opened up. The dwarf and kobald gasped as they fell into nothingness. Theodore rubbed his pale hands together as he approached Willum.

“
Ho-Ho! Two words. Six letters
,” he said with a giggle. “
You will approach Mage Vannya at some point of the day and say, ‘lick me’
.”

“Ugh! No way,” Willum said. “Lick me? That’s childish.”

The imp gave him a dull look. “
We’re talking about a two syllable punishment. Of course it’s going to be childish. That’s what makes it so amusing
.”

Willum put his face in his hands, trying to think of a way he could say that and not have it come out as vulgar. “I can’t do it.”

“
Rules are rules, Willy
,” the imp reminded him. “
Now I believe it is time you should be going. You only have about two hours before sunrise
.”

“No, Theodore. Make it something else. We should renegotia-!”

“
And no sneaking those syllables into the middle of a sentence either, Willy
!” the imp added as the smoky ground beneath Willum’s feet disappeared and he fell into blackness.

Two hours later he was wakened by a booted foot.

“It is morning, Willum Oddblade,” said Jhonate, giving his ribs a firm nudge. “Wake now if you wish to eat.”

She moved on, carrying her loaded pack over to the packhorses and Willum sat up with a groan. The rest of his companions were up and moving. Jhexin was joining his sister at the horses, while Vannya fussed over the breakfast. Willum didn’t see Deathclaw anywhere, but the raptoid was likely already scouting the road ahead.

“
How are you feeling, Willy? Rested
?” the imp asked.

“Shut up,” Willum grumbled as he climbed out of his bedroll. He pulled on his boots and began putting his things away. One thing he had learned quickly on this trip was that Jhonate didn’t mess around. She hadn’t been kidding when she said he might not get breakfast. She followed through.

Willum brought his bedroll and pack to the horses and loaded them up, next to the wrapped body of the troll thing. He noted the amused expression on Jhexin’s face and nodded at the man. “Morning.”

“Good morning to you, dry foot,” Jhexin replied. “You look tired. Is it because you carry that bed around with you?”

“No. It’s my axe,” he replied.

It wasn’t the first time Jhonate’s brother had given him a hard time about his bedroll. The Roo-Tan didn’t often use horses, preferring to run everywhere they went. As a result, they traveled light. Both Jhexin and Jhonate had left their colder climate gear behind and slept in a sort of mesh sack at night. It weighed very little and kept insects off of them as they slept.