The Troll King (The Bowl of Souls Book 9) (42 page)

“Worry not,” Locksher assured the others, forcing a smile. “As before, I will use air to lash us to the beast quite securely.”

“Yeah, but what if he slips?” Lyramoor asked.

“That won’t happen,” Qenzic said. He smacked Rufus’s hairy arm. “You’ve never fallen before, have you buddy?”

“Ooh-ooh, yes. Lots of times,” the rogue horse said, smiling broadly. He noticed what little confidence there was slide off of their faces and added, “Uh, but not today.”

Lyramoor mounted up first, grasping Rufus’ neck and the others sat behind him. There was plenty of room on the rogue horse’s broad back for their three slender frames, but his width made the seating a bit uncomfortable. Locksher tied them together tightly with spells and up Rufus climbed.

In the short time they had spent talking, the chill oncoming wind had frozen the cliff face solid. Rufus made his way carefully, adapting to the way the weight of his passengers pulled on his frame. He chipped away at chunks of ice with his thick fingernails when needed and kept steady all up to the point where the cliff face bulged and Rufus’ legs slipped from the rock. He was hanging by his two hands.

The men gasped, but Rufus was unperturbed. He had climbed this way many times over the centuries and knew what he was doing. Then the rock his right hand was gripping pulled away from the cliff face and he dangled there for a moment, rotating slightly, the weight of the enormous rogue horse and his three passengers dependent on a single fissure in the rock.

“Piss and pomegranates!” Lyramoor swore.

Fist and Maryanne could not see them from their vantage point, but they heard the exclamation. Fist felt Rufus’ heart rate increase through the bond.
Are you alright
?

Okay
, Rufus assured him. With some effort, he was able to reach back up and find a better grip. Two minutes later he had reached the top.

“Piss and pomegranates?” Maryanne asked with amusement as the shaken riders slid down from the rogue horse’s back.

Lyramoor shot her a glare. “I was raised by dwarf smugglers. I’ve heard a lot worse.”

Locksher stumbled and Fist reached out to steady him. “Master Locksher are you-?”

“I am fine,” the wizard said in a shaky voice. “I kept my eyes closed the entire time. I have absolutely no idea what happened and I don’t want to know, alright?” He frowned and inhaled through his nose deeply. “Do you smell that?”

“Yes,” said Fist. He hadn’t smelled it when he first arrived at the top, but the wind had whipped around, carrying it over to them. He pointed to the north. “The lake is just over there.”

 They were standing on the flat top of a wide mountain ridge that was covered with a frozen mass of ice and snow. In the center of it was a tall rock mound with a gaping cave in its side. On the far end was a sheer drop off into a deep canyon. The lake was at the bottom.

Lyramoor ran off to check out the cave while the rest of the party walked north towards the edge. Fist could see a mist rising from the canyon below and the smell worsened as they approached. Above the wind he could hear the faint bussing of flies. When they neared the edge, he motioned them down on all fours and had them peek down upon the lake below.

“Holy mother of mud,” said Maryanne. “It’s bigger.”

Much much bigger
, thought Rufus, his large head peering down next to Fist’s.

Fist’s jaw hung open. It was bigger alright. The lake had surged past the previous shoreline and now rose halfway up the bank. The path to the side canyon that he and Maryanne had walked down was now submerged in black sludge. Fist could just see the flat top of the large boulder he had stood upon when facing the dead horde. It looked like a small square island in the black lake of worms.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Locksher said, his brows raised so high Fist thought it should give the man a cramp. “I mean, you described it to me, but . . .”

“This isn’t like it was when we were there,” Maryanne said. “The thing must’ve . . . I dunno, doubled in volume for the line to rise that high up the slope.”

“Are you sure?” Locksher said. “In just two weeks?”

Lyramoor trotted up to join them. “Hey, that cave back there is empty. I don’t know what was living in it, but-but . . . That’s a lot of worms.”

“That’s not all,” Fist said, pointing at the slope. There were more dead scattered about than before, mostly large shapes, perhaps giants and ogres, but other things as well. It was hard to make out from this height. They were laying all about the banks in jumbled heaps. But the thing that drew his attention most was about half way up the slope.

There, seemingly growing out of the side of the cliff was a square building with a sloping roof. A chimney rose from one corner of it and a large stone covered the entrance. Smoke wafted up from the chimney.

“That building was not there before,” Fist said.

Nope
, Squirrel agreed from his perch atop Fist’s head.

“Nope,” said Rufus.

“You think someone built that in two weeks?” Maryanne asked. “Carved it out of the cliff or something?”

“No. That was created with earth magic,” said Locksher. “Look at it with your mage sight.”

Fist did so and saw that the entire building glowed black as if imbued with earth. “That wasn’t there before,” he repeated.

“Hey, Fist,” said Maryanne. “Look at the sludge. It’s moving.”

The gnome was right. Two weeks ago, the surface of the lake had been still like the skin on the top of a pudding. Now it rippled and surged as if large shapes were swimming around within its depths.

“Ooh-ooh. Look,” Rufus said, pointing down with one long shaggy arm.

One of those large shapes reached the shoreline and crawled onto the slope. It stood on two legs, taking on a vaguely humanoid shape as it lumbered up the slope. Fist couldn’t tell what it was. From this distance it looked to be made of the black sludge. It walked up to the stone door of the square building. The stone rolled to the side and it walked inside. The door shut behind it.

“What the hell was that?” Maryanne asked.

“Just a minute . . .” said Qenzic.

“I think we have seen enough,” Fist said, pushing back from the edge. “Tell the academy and the Mage School to just send everybody.”

“Wait. I-I’ve seen this place before,” Qenzic said, his brow knit in realization. “I mean, I’ve been here.”

“You’ve been way up here?” Lyramoor said in disbelief. “How’d that happen?”

“No. Not where we’re laying. Down there,” Qenzic replied. “I’ve been at the bottom of this thing. There wasn’t a lake there then. None of that black stuff, but I remember these cliffs. This canyon. There were trees down there back then. It was at the beginning of the war, back when we didn’t know what was going on with Ewzad Vriil or the moonrat mother. I was with Faldon and his advanced class. We had a group of Dremald soldiers with us and fought a huge battle against a goblinoid army down there. That was the first time I saw a moonrat with orange eyes.”

“Just a moment,” said Locksher. “Did you say a moonrat with orange eyes?”

“Yeah,” Qenzic said. “It was hiding under a rock down there, I think that big one you can just see the top of. We had the thing cornered and we started hearing the witch’s voice in our heads. Jhonate had to knock some sense into Poz and Jobar, and finally Faldon had to chop its head off.”

“Right down there?” Locksher said, pointing, his eyebrows raised. “What did you do with the body?”

“I-I don’t remember. It’s been a long time,” he said, scratching his head. “We threw it on top of the burn piles I’m pretty sure. Faldon was always very particular about that. Why. Do you think it’s important or something?” the man asked.

Locksher blinked back at him. “Well, it’s hard to say. It could be.” The wizard scooted back from the edge and sat up. “This is all too strange and with these new developments . . . Fist, I need your help with something.”

“What is it?” Fist said, pushing himself back.

Locksher stood and brushed the snow off of his robes. “Something reckless I suppose,” he said with a shrug. “But if approached correctly, with the right mental focus it should be perfectly safe. Well, not perfectly, but safe enough.”

“I don’t like the sound of this,” Maryanne said, moving to stand beside them. “What is this reckless thing that you want Fist to do?”

Locksher shook his head. “You misunderstand. What I’m asking Fist to do isn’t reckless at all. It shouldn’t endanger anyone but me.”

“Yeah. I don’t like that either,” Maryanne said, putting her hands on her hips.

“What is it exactly that you plan to do?” Fist asked.

Locksher looked around. “Lyramoor, did you say that cave was empty?”

The scarred elf nodded slowly. “Yeah. It doesn’t smell all that good in there, but it’s vacant.”

“Good. Let’s do this over there, shall we?” the wizard said and began walking to the large rock mound.

Fist felt a tightness growing in his chest as he followed his master. Locksher did reckless experiments with magic all the time, but this was the first time that he had heard the wizard admit it beforehand. For him to do so meant that it was very dangerous indeed.

“You planning some sort of attack?” Maryanne asked the wizard.

“Of sorts,” Locksher said. “I would call it more of a fact finding mission.”

“What kind of facts are you gonna find in a cave that far from the edge?” she asked incredulously. “You can’t even see the lake from there.”

As Fist drew nearer to the cave he realized that it wasn’t naturally formed as he had thought from the cursory first glance he had given it. It had been dug into the rock by some large beast. As the wind and water had eroded the mound it had dug into, whatever lived there had piled boulders and rocks up all around it to protect it.

The interior wasn’t all that large. Their whole party couldn’t have fit inside. Lyramoor had been right about the smell. It was organic and slightly sour, like it had been left by the sweat of the beast that had used the place. Bones and scraps of wood and tufts of long white hair were scattered all around the place.

Locksher walked in, kicked a few bones aside, and nodded his head. “This will do nicely.”

“For what!” Maryanne snapped. “We keep asking and you keep delaying the answer which tells me that we aren’t going to like this plan of yours one bit!”

“Well, it’s not the sort of thing that one likes,” Locksher replied. “I need to do some . . . mental reconnaissance.”

Lyramoor snorted.

“That sounds like spirit magic to me,” Fist said. Reconnaissance wasn’t one of his words of the day, but he had heard it somewhere before. “You’re not going to leave your body are you? That’s how Ewzad Vrill got himself killed.”

“No,” said Locksher. “Or at least not in that sort of way. I need to get inside the mind of this evil and sort out what it’s about. Don’t worry. It should be fine. I saw Jhonate do it once and she came out relatively unharmed from the experience.”

“That is crazy,” Maryanne said.

“I know what he’s talking about,” Fist said. “Justan told me about it. She went into the mother of the moonrat’s mind. By holding an orange moonrat eye.” The ogre blinked. “How are you planning to do this?”

“Frankly, Fist,” Locksher said, removing a slender box from inside his robes. He opened it to reveal a shriveled finger. It moved and Fist realized that there were larvae inside it. “I am going to let myself be infested.”

Lyramoor laughed. “The lake’s right over there. Why don’t you just run off the edge and jump right in?”

“That’s not funny,” said Maryanne, frowning.

“Come on, he’s not serious,” said the elf.

“Yes he is,” said Fist, frowning as deeply as the gnome. He folded his arms. “Master, this is a very bad idea. Rufus went through it. Believe me, it is not a fun experience.”

“Ooh! Bad!” the rogue horse agreed. “Hurts!”

“Oh, I imagine it won’t be pleasant,” Locksher said, looking down at the slightly moving finger in the box. “I don’t undertake this without some trepidation and believe me, I definitely do not look forward to the experience. However, I do think that this is our best option to discover what is going on down there.”

Maryanne walked over and placed a hand on Lyramoor’s shoulder. “Lyramoor could head down to that building. Knock on the door,” she suggested. “If it’s smart enough to build a house like that, it’s smart enough for him to get it to talk.”

Yes
! Squirrel agreed.
I will go too. Like Deathclaw
.

The elf snorted. “As appealing as that idea sounds, I’m not stupid. I’d be swarmed by those dead things.”

“Rufus would run you down there. I’d provide cover fire. Fist and the wizard could throw in some lightning strikes to clear a path.” Maryanne jabbed him with a stiff finger. “It’s the least you could do after the way you nearly ruined everything by killing that ogre.”

“I didn’t nearly ruin everything!” Lyramoor snapped.

“No one is going down there,” Fist said firmly. “We don’t know who or what is in there.”

The elf glowered at the gnome. “Always exaggerating . . .”

 “As I was saying,” Locksher said calmly gesturing with the box. “This is the best option available to us. Fist is correct. The wizard or creature or whatever it is that’s living in that building could very well be the source of this evil, which would mean it has vast bewitching magic. It could very well overpower any of us if we approached it.”

“So you want to try and enter its mind?” Maryanne said in disbelief. “If this thing is that strong, it could crush you like . . . one of those maggots.”

He raised a calming hand. “I am not so unformidable as that. I have a well-trained mind and have done hours of research on the subject. Besides, Fist will be at my side ready to electrify me if things get out of hand.”

“I can see you’re determined to do this,” Fist said, his concern growing. “But don’t do it here where we’re so close to the source of the evil. Why not wait until we are back at the Thunder People camp?” He hoped that the ride back would give him some time to think up a better plan.

“Being closer to the source might be better in this case. Also,” the wizard pointed back over Fist’s shoulder. “I don’t know that we would make it back before that storm hits.”

Fist turned around. While he had been focused on the black lake, the storm clouds had barreled in. The Thunder people territory was hidden from view by sheets of heavy falling snow. “I think this makes it an even worse idea.”

“Nonsense,” said the wizard.

“Aah! Locksher!” Maryanne exclaimed.

Fist turned around to see that the wizard had taken the infested finger out of the box and was holding it in his hand. Larvae were crawling out of the open stump, their little glowing eyes looking around. They surged towards his flesh. Fist reached out, his hand crackling with electricity.

“Wait!” Locksher said, holding his arm out of the way and wincing as they started to burrow into his skin. “I am going to put myself into a meditative trance. This should keep me from going into a rage and attacking you all. Fist, you stay here and watch me. I am bound to struggle a bit from time to time, but be patient with that. Do not shock me unless I attempt any violent behavior.”

Fist grimaced as the larvae disappeared, leaving little holes in the wizard’s flesh. “But Master, sometimes when I shock the ogres, there’s damage.”

The first ogres he had saved had partial numbness in their extremities. He had gotten better at it as time went on, and most of the time now it was okay. But the last one he shocked still had three paralyzed fingers on one hand.

“You’ve had practice since then.” Locksher grunted and sat down in the rear of the cave, crossing his legs and closing his eyes. “Now stop bothering me. These larvae work quickly.”

The wizard was already starting to sweat. Fist had come to know the signs well. The larvae didn’t take over the living as fast as they did the dead, but they caused havoc right away. Sweats and irritability, followed by fever and rage. Fist just hoped that the wizard didn’t start casting spells at them or anything. He started preparing defensive magic just in case.

Locksher trembled a bit, then went still. He was fully in his trance now. The wizard’s lips began to move and he spoke in a monotone voice. “I have cleared my mind of emotion. This will give me more time to work before the larvae’s magic take me over completely. I am now preparing to enter the mind of the enemy. I have a . . .” His voice trailed off and his jaw went slack.

“I guess we have no choice now.” Fist sat down in front of the wizard. “The rest of you should watch the lake and see if you notice anything else helpful.”

I’ll watch
! Squirrel volunteered and scampered away.

“Great,” Lyramoor grumbled and wandered after Squirrel, heading to the edge. “And it’s started to snow.”

Qenzic sighed at the fat flakes that were just starting to fall just outside the mouth of the cave. “I suppose I’ll go with him.”

Rufus yawned and stretched out on his back just in front of the cave.
I like snow
. He placed his large hands behind his oversized head and opened his mouth wide, sticking out his tongue in hope that flakes would fall in.

Maryanne stood there, leaning against the wall of the cave for a few minutes, watching the sweating brow of the wizard. “I should just walk over and kick him in the head right now while he can’t defend himself.”

“That’s not a good idea,” Fist said. “You might disrupt his concentration.”

“Oh you.” She walked over to Fist and surprised him by plopping down into his lap. She put her long arms around his shoulders and gave him a vexed look. “You’re a frustrating man you know? So straight forward and open about everything. Even worse, you expect everyone else to be the same way. Sometimes I just want to-!”

Fist leaned in and kissed her. The gnome was startled at first, but soon leaned into him, letting out a soft moan. Her lips were so different than the lips of an ogress, thinner and softer. Then her hands gripped the back of his head and pulled him in tight and he found out that she was just as ferocious as any ogre female. Fist wasn’t sure how long the kiss lasted, but when she pulled back they were both breathing heavy.

She let out a throaty giggle. “Thank goodness you did that when you did, because I was only going to wait one more day before I grabbed you and did it myself.”

He smiled back at her. “Want me to do it again?”

Maryanne cocked her head and held up one finger. “Just once, because we’re supposed to be watching a wizard.”

Fist looked around her at Locksher, who was still sitting calmly, sweating, but otherwise seeming perfectly uninfested. “Okay,” he said and pulled her in again.

Locksher stood in a mental representation of his mind. It looked like his rooms back in the Mage School, but from before Vannya had reorganized it. Books and items were piled up on the floor, everything in its logical space. He nodded satisfactorily for a moment then cocked his head. It did look a dreadful mess.

He waved his arm and several tall bookshelves appeared. The piles left the floor and everything was much more orderly. He grudgingly admitted, not for the first time, that the mage had been right after all. This was better.

He lifted a scroll in his hands, going over Jhonate’s instructions in how to go into battle against invasive spirit magic. It had taken a great deal of effort to get her to sit down with him long enough to get this information down. There was a checkmark beside, ‘Make a mental representation of yourself’. The next item on the list was. ‘Armor yourself properly before going into battle. By strengthening your mental representation, you strengthen your mind.’

He shrugged. As was to be expected from a warrior woman. Nevertheless, the thought had its merits. His traveler’s robes were replaced by a different set, heavily runed with protective runes and wards of spirit magic nature. They were the robes of the wizard that had trained him, Master Tallow. He didn’t know what all the runes meant, but he had studied them all so closely that he felt he knew them by heart. Wearing these robes made him feel protected. Powerful even.

Next on the list was, ‘Prepare yourself a weapon. You will need it to counter the spiritual attacks of the enemy.’ Locksher had given this one some thought previously. He wasn’t much of a weapons man, but he liked the function and simplicity of the Jharro staff that Jhonate carried. One appeared in his hand. Not quite as long as hers, but sturdy. The perfect height for a walking staff.

He looked at the list again. There were six or seven other items but they seemed to be a bit tedious and he really didn’t have time for the extra preparations. He could already smell the rot invading his space. He stuffed the scroll back into his robes and sought out the source of the smell.

He looked through the aisles of his bookshelves, then moved to the back of his rooms where his desk stood. It was definitely around here somewhere. As Master Tallow would have said, the smell was strong enough to curl his nose hairs. This would be his access point to the mind of the evil.

He opened a few of the small drawers wondering where the larvae’s invasion had begun. The smell grew stronger and he scratched his head until he understood. Of course it would have to begin there. He got down on his knees and reached under his desk, moving a few sacks out of the way.

Locksher nearly gagged on the stench as he grasped the small chest that rested against the wall and pulled it toward him. The chest was made of pine and bound with brass. The name plate on the lid read, ‘Blatche’.

He reached into the pocket of his robes and gripped the key that appeared there. While he watched, the light wood of the chest darkened. The brass corroded. Blackness grew from the seams in the wood. It spread across the floor and up the desk, tarnishing and aging everything it touched.

Locksher took a deep breath and let it out slowly. All things bad came from the family name. He pushed the key into the lock and turned it. The lid sprang open.

There were skulls inside. Black skulls, and they multiplied, spilling into the room. Wherever the skulls landed the blackness spread. The box rotted quickly away and now there was a deep hole where it had been.

Locksher bit his lip. There was no backing down now. He dove into the hole, descending into blackness, the mind of the enemy

He couldn’t see anything at first. Locksher looked behind him and saw the small window of light that was the way back to his mind. A silvery strand stretched from the window and was anchored somewhere along his spine.

This gave him confidence. It was as Jhonate had described. He looked around and as his eyes adjusted, he saw many more pinpricks of light. Those must be the minds of the living infested. He found it alarming just how many there were. As he watched, he saw a couple of them blink out.

He didn’t have time to dawdle. Locksher flexed his mind and the runes on his robe glowed a bright white. His staff glowed more of a gray, but it helped to illuminate his surroundings.

He came to sense that he was inside a large sphere. The specks of light were at the outer edge of the sphere. In the center was an amorphous mass of blackness, even darker than the black surrounding him. It glinted wetly in the light of his staff. Tiny black strands shot out from it into the darkness. He could barely make them out. Thousands and thousands of them, the size of strings. Perhaps millions. He came to realize that each of these strands was connected to an individual larva.

Jhonate had told him that touching these strands might alert the mind he was invading, but Locksher knew right away that avoiding them would be impossible, especially if he was to approach close enough to the center mass to learn anything. So he chose to trust in the spirit magic runes on his robes. Though he didn’t know what each one meant, Master Tallow had told him that they protected him from inquiring minds. He hoped that this would continue to be the case.