A Half-Troll and his Fear
Sleep had been long in coming the prior evening. Vath only had to glance about to see the bloodshot eyes of his companions, framed by dark sacks beneath and heavy lids above.
Certainly, slaying the wyvern had been no easy task, and near-death experiences had a way of making rest elusive. Raylin had been bitten, clawed, stung, and nearly poisoned to death. In the hunched corpse of Bishop Herryn of Tarn Cal, Kellus had seen the result of lost faith. Baden had spent a few harrowing moments on the wrong side of a cage fashioned from a wyvern’s clutch. Even Amelyssan’s cool exterior had been indelibly marred; the elf had a purpling bruise on one cheek caused by the stinger-induced rockslide.
But, alas, none of these reasons – compelling though they were – kept the group from sleeping.
It was John. The Pellman kindly offered to take the first watch, then proceeded to talk the entire duration of his shift. He began by reasoning with them – for damned near an hour - as to why they should enter Borbidon’s tomb. When he failed to gain converts, the bard switched to cajoling which proved likewise ineffective. Next he lauded their bravery in the fight and said that such heroics deserved an encore. He attempted to entice them with the surety of jewels and gems and treasures, all carefully hidden away all those years ago by the greedy dwem. When those attempts also failed, John suddenly grew righteous and said that a crypt housing such evil - for all knew the dwem were black to the core - must be defiled or their very souls would answer for their inaction in the next life.
When John began to say how his own, beloved, and achingly-missed mother had been slain by dwem brigands – “torn from our family’s cart and passed around for their perverse pleasure like some wicker doll during a savage Fertility Festival” - Kellus had finally had enough. The former priest told the troubadour to cease his prattling or be silenced forthwith by his inner power. Vath, who had watched the proceedings impassively, had thought the issue settled; they would not, after all, attempt to enter the ancient crypt.
Then John of Pell sang.
The bard had no instrument save his voice, for he had left his lute and reeds in the saddlebags with their horses. He required none. The Pellman began by humming a tune unfamiliar to Vath, who paid little attention to such things. Then he lent the melody words. Some stanzas were in the common tongue, others in John’s native Valusian, still more in the lilting dialect of the Arn elves. All were beautiful.
This morning, as Vath stared at the stone lid leading to the crypt, the half-troll was hard pressed to remember just what it was John had sung about. Indeed, he was uncertain if he ever knew. What he did know, however, was that music was precious. Peace and camaraderie and kindness and heroism - these, too, were precious. And somehow – arcane or otherwise – John had convinced them to a man that they needed to plunder this tomb or those things – those lofty ideals – would be forever lessened.
Only after agreeing with him did John allow the group to sleep. Save for Raylin, for by that time it was the ranger’s turn on watch.
***
None of them wanted to dent their blades from digging, so Vath had used his own weapons – his hands. The half-troll’s fingernails were broken and bloodied by the time he finished his excavation. Yet, finally, enough earth had been removed to allow the lid to be pulled free.
He stood up, his skin glistening despite the coolness of the cave, his scraggly hair lank against the nape of his neck. Outside, it was still snowing, the winds still blowing. His world – their world - consisted of this cave and, more specifically, the old stone plug in front of them.
Vath spat a glob of phlegm onto the ground at his feet. “Are we ready?”
Kellus murmured a word and the head of his mace became suffused with gentle illumination. Amelyssan’s lithe form was already surrounded by a near-translucent second skin comprised entirely of force. Raylin drew both his swords and nodded. “Pull it free, Brother.”
Vath squatted, gripped the edges of the lid with both hands, and yanked. For a moment, the stone did not move. Then, suddenly, it gave way. Vath rolled backward, the stone clutched to his chest, as air was sucked into the near-vacuum beyond.
VESHAK VOTH MEGADIN MIDIN BORBIDON BIKKITH!
The voice boomed outward from deep within the now-exposed entranceway. Vath leapt to his feet and eyed the hole with atavistic fear. Yet nothing stirred. The half-troll sniffed the air like a hound. The smell of ages greeted his nostrils – stale, still, and wholly unremarkable.
John cleared his throat in the stunned silence. The bard kept his eyes on the black hole, but cocked his head toward Baden. “Judging from the impolite tone and the ear-bleeding alliteration, I’d say that was dwarvish.”
The group was quiet. John tore his eyes from the gaping hole and studied the dwarf. “Baden. I assume what we just heard echoed the sentiments you read to us last evening?” The Axemarch dwarf merely nodded.
“Pain, suffering, death,” John relayed unnecessarily. “Someone needs to teach these dwem how to threaten with style. A little creativity, for the love of harp and harlot.”
The Pellman withdrew his rapier and stepped closer toward the hole. Then stopped. He smiled softly at Vath. “This is your forte, no? Into the breach, friend.”
***
Yet Vath did not move. Memory held him immobile.
He recalled the gray-streaked days of his monastic tutelage within the oppressive halls of Kesh. The Brothers taught that Fear was twin to Suffering, and thus both emotions were cherished by Ilmater. Words were never enough in that bleak monastery; lessons must be shown rather than taught. To that end Brother Kulidos the Pale, who had been a furrier’s son, developed a unique method of ensuring his pupils learned.
Vath remembered walking barefoot with the other novitiates as they trailed behind Brother Kulidos at a respectful distance. The quiet troupe, master and his pupils, marched downward. All journeys from Kesh were, by necessity, downward; the monastery, nothing more than a drab stone citadel, was perched upon the side of a dizzying cliff. The fortress looked downward into a blighted valley like an old man staring into a privy hole.
The half-troll left bloodstained footprints on the rock by the time they had descended below the tree line. Two of his companions had been unable to continue the trek – they were left to lie, basking in Ilmater’s suffering. Vath was thankful sharp stones had given way to beds of pine nettles, though even they were painful to the tender soles of his feet.
Finally, Brother Kulidos stopped. He pointed to hundreds of holes in a nearby ridgeline. Each was no more than a foot in diameter. Before each entranceway was a pile of dirt – doubtless thrown backward by whatever burrowing animal now lived within. Protruding from a handful of the dirt piles, like beckoning skeletal fingers, were haphazard piles of sun-washed bones.
Kulidos’ face was pale beneath a sheen of sweat. His voice was edged with orgasmic anticipation, and barely more than a whisper. “Those holes mark the dens of grippers.* Each of you choose one. Place your arm within. Should you be bitten, pull forth the beast and slay it with the skills you have been taught. Should your chosen hole be unoccupied, you may try another with each passing dawn. Otherwise, do not move from your initial position.”
Brother Kulidos lifted his bony arm, the robes falling backward to his elbow, and displayed a vicious scar that encircled his wrist. “The beasts may serve to mark you with Ilmater’s blessing, a red cord around your wrist fashioned from their teeth and claws. Those who are not thusly marked shall remain, here, until such a blessing is visited upon them.”
The Brother had not said what fate waited for those who were not bitten. Vath looked once more at the pale bones outside a handful of the burrows.
So it was that Vath began to learn of Fear and Suffering. He had lain prostrate in front of his chosen hole for the entire night, freezing, terrified his hand would be savagely torn by a yellow-toothed jaw but simultaneously praying for such to occur. The next day and night also passed. His fellow initiates, and Brother Kulidos, left during the dawn of the third day. Only Rendworio, an orphan born in Basilica, was left. The two did not speak to one another – such was forbidden.
Later that day, with the sun at its zenith, Vath believed he heard his God. It was the first and only time Ilmater spoke to him. The words were as enigmatic as they were ineloquent; Vath was told his death would be visited upon him by a burrowing creature.
On the fourth morning, as Vath thrust his arm into his fourth hole, he felt pain lance upward to his elbow. A large female gripper had sunk her mammalian teeth into his wrist. He withdrew his arm, body weak from starvation and thirst. The gripper, of course, maintained its bite. Vath bit through the beast’s hackles and felt warm blood wash upon his swollen tongue. He ate.
Vath returned to Kesh to continue his learning. Rendworio never did.
So it was that now, as John urged him forward into Borbidon’s tomb, Vath hesitated. But then a half-remembered tune – more dirge than melody, he now suspected – hummed within his ears from the night before.
It was enough. The half-troll dropped to all fours and crawled into the darkness.
* The gripper is large Valusian rodent similar in size and temperament to a badger, but possessing teeth much like those of a beaver. Grippers are found throughout central Valusia, and are the bane of farmers’ dogs (and unfortunate initiates of Kesh).
Glad to have confirmation that that day won't be coming anytime soon!
