The Ancient

TWELVE

Cold Seat of Power

Tinnikkikkik recognized the sense of dread emanating from his hundred glacial troll forces, and indeed felt it himself, for this place was surely unnerving. It was more than the cold air. This temperature hardly bothered the trolls, who swam in the icy waters of melting glaciers and ran about naked on Alpinadoran ice and snow even in the nights of deep winter. The warm waters of the lake below this glacier made them more uncomfortable than the cold, even this high up on the river of ice.

It wasn’t the almost preternatural cold, it was the aura of the place. Tinnikkikkik had been in many houses sculpted of ice in his five decades but certainly never before in anything remotely like this one. Great crystalline corridors wound about each other in confusing twists and turns, some climbing higher, some lower, and ice or not, this was easily the largest man-made structure Tinnikkikkik or any of his tribe had ever seen, let alone entered. And it looked all the larger for its sweeping stairs, winding up to side towers that seemed grand indeed though they might only contain a couple of rather smallish rooms.

In addition to the size and grandeur of the palace, the simple truth of its construction only added to its imposing aura. For no picks and flat-blades had built Devongel, as it was called, and no strong arms, human, giant, or otherwise, had lifted the blocks into place to form the thick walls. Devongel had been pulled from the glacier upon which it stood through magic.

And no torches lit it, though it was not dark inside. It wasn’t bright, but neither was it as dark as it should have been, even on a clear and sunny day, which this was not. A deep blue light glowed from the structure’s ice, only enhancing the cold and empty feel of the palace.

Ancient magic had built this place and lit this place, earth magic, the power of the Samhaists. A different manifestation of the same magic that had compelled Tinnikkikkik to lead his people here, he knew deep in his heart, and though he might recoil at being so magically manipulated, even that realization had not stopped him from coming. He tried to tell himself that he followed the call despite his reservations because he was the bravest of his people-and indeed he had shown that to be the truth through many, many battles. His rank as boss confirmed that, for it was not an inherited title among his tribe, or any of the troll tribes.

Mumbling and shifting all around Tinnikkikkik, particularly the shuffling feet, warned him that the nervousness was threatening to overwhelm his forces. He stood straight-at over five feet, he was taller than most glacial trolls-and let his scrutinizing, roving gaze sweep in the entirety of the band, holding them with its intensity, though they surely wanted to flee.

The troll boss lifted his hand, palm up, before his chest and face, signaling his charges to stand straighter.

“Where do we go, boss?” the troll next to him dared ask, its tinny voice echoing off the cold and sheer walls and other flat facings. Perhaps it was design, perhaps magic, but the echoes seemed to grow in both volume and intensity above the original for a short while before diminishing to a long hissing whisper of sound.

Tinnikkikkik and all the others hopped every which way, trying to get a handle on the cacophony, and finally, in frustration, the troll boss just turned and slapped the speaker hard.

Strangely, that sharp slap did not echo.

But a single set of footfalls did, suddenly though not seeming so, as if they had been around the band all along but the trolls were only now noticing them. They drummed out a steady and slow cadence, and they seemed to be coming nearer, though from which direction was any troll’s guess. The band huddled together more closely, every bloodshot eye turning intermittently to Tinnikkikkik, their leader, their boss.

He knew that, and so he stood as tall as he could manage, and did not flinch when Ancient Badden at last came into view, walking along a descending and curved ramp. He wore his trademark light green robes, his great beard spiked with dung, and though his footfalls sounded sharply, he wasn’t shod in hard-soled boots, but in his usual open-toed sandals.

He moved slowly but somehow seemed to cover an enormous amount of ground, cleverly stopping just before Tinnikkikkik and the others, which left him higher on the rise. Since Ancient Badden was well over a foot taller than the largest of the trolls, he now towered over them even more, looking like an adult in the process of supervising a band of unruly children.

He spoke to the boss, using the troll language and inflection perfectly (for of course, it was magic that gave him the language more so than practice). “You long in come to me. I call to you long ago. Too long.”

Tinnikkikkik shook his head obstinately. “Long walk.”

“Long time.”

“Only twenty suns.”

“Twenty suns,” Ancient Badden echoed with a sigh and a shake of his head. “In twenty suns I march my army all the way to the big water.”

“Not with fight.”

“With fight. Twenty suns? I call you. You should be here in five!” Ancient Badden found the troll language, with its minimal use of tense, thoroughly exasperating. It made sense to him, though, for the trolls never seemed to quite grasp the concept of passing time and rarely seemed to think farther ahead than their next step.

“No, long walk,” the stubborn boss replied.

It seemed to Ancient Badden that the ugly little creature was gaining confidence with every word. That wouldn’t do.

“Too long,” the Samhaist said slowly and deliberately.

“No, long walk,” the troll replied.

Ancient Badden stood very straight, even seemed to lean back just a bit. His eyes rolled up so that only the white was showing, and he whispered something Tinnikkikkik couldn’t make out.

“What?” the troll boss started to ask, but as the ice floor beneath him melted suddenly to water, it came out as “Wha-aaaaaaaaaa!”

Trolls jumped back at the splash, and Tinnikkikkik went right under-which wouldn’t have been a serious problem for a glacial troll except that the floor almost immediately refroze as soon as he was fully immersed.

The doomed troll did manage to thrust one hand up, the tip of his longest finger just prodding through the solid floor. And there he hung, stuck in the ice, encapsulated by the magic of Ancient Badden.

The other trolls shrank back, talking excitedly as one, and all terrified more than angry.

“Too long,” Ancient Badden said to them, and when he got no response, he said it again, louder.

A hundred troll heads, all pointy ears and thin lips and sharp yellow teeth, began wagging their agreement.

Ancient Badden herded them before him. He would have to appoint a new boss, he knew, and send this force off at once, for there was a town he wanted overrun before the turn to winter, a last excursion by trolls exclusively to let Dame Gwydre and her Abellican playthings understand that there would be no rest through the cold months.

There would be no rest for the folk of Vanguard until they expelled the Abellicans and gave themselves back to the Samhaists.

It was as simple as that, as simple as a troll frozen in ice.

My coat’s not even for fitting me anymore,” Bikelbrin grumbled. He shook his shoulders, emphasizing the looseness of his heavy furred overcoat. “Gone all skinny living on that damned lake, I did.”

“Too much fish and berries,” agreed another of the party of four, a young and muscular dwarf named Ruggirs. “I hate fish and berries.”

“All we e’er known,” agreed Pergwick, who had been birthed from the heart of the brother of the powrie who had served as the donor for Ruggirs’s own Sepulcher-which made Pergwick and Ruggirs true brothers in powrie tradition.

“Ye’ll be feasting on good and bloody meat soon enough,” Mcwigik assured them. “Enough o’ the lake for me. Too much o’ the damned lake for me!”

“Aye, but the season’s later than ye thinked,” Bikelbrin noted. “Long past midsummer and moving to cold fall.” He finished with a shiver to accentuate his point, and to remind them all once again that they were ill equipped to handle the cold of the turning season. Mcwigik and Bikelbrin had the coats they had worn in that long-ago expedition that had brought them to Mithranidoon and had rustled up a pair for their two companions. But though the dwarfs had taken great pains to preserve those original garments, the material had frayed and the fur flattened. They were still in sight of Mithranidoon, moving generally south and east, and already the wind nipped at them through the holes in their coats.

They had wrapped their feet in layers of rags but that hardly helped. Toes were tingling, and night had not even fully fallen.

“We’ll be needing a fire,” Mcwigik remarked, but he ended with a sigh as he considered his words and looked all around, for the landscape, though in full summer bloom, showed little that could be used for such an endeavor. There were a few bushes to be found, though no trees readily available, so the dwarfs broke their march early and began gathering brush. When night came in full, moonless and dark, Mcwigik finally managed to get a fire going. Knowing it wouldn’t last long, they piled rocks about the brush. The flames winked out soon after, consuming the meager fuel; warmed stones would have to do. They huddled about the stones and each other, and it wasn’t so bad.

But the howling started soon after.

“Wolves,” Mcwigik explained to the two younger powries, who had no experience with such creatures.

“They saw our fire,” Bikelbrin reasoned. Pergwick and Ruggirs glanced at each other with obvious concern, something the other two didn’t miss.

On Mcwigik’s orders, they made a cairn of the heated stones and each sat against it facing in a different direction.

“Ye hold yer place,” Mcwigik said repeatedly as the howling circled them and the two younger powries appeared as if they would break and run. Every now and then a darker shadow slipped past one or another’s field of view, or starlight shining eyes stared at them from not so far away.

“Ye think we’ve the weapons to beat them?” Bikelbrin asked his friend candidly.

“I got me Prag’s axe, and that’ll put a dent in a wolf’s skull,” Mcwigik answered.

Pergwick jumped up suddenly and backed a step, which sent him tumbling over the cairn atop Ruggirs, who similarly scrambled to his feet. Mcwigik was about to scold them, but as he turned he saw the cause of the younger powrie’s concern. Not five feet from the cairn, teeth bared, eyes shining, stood a large canine creature.

Mcwigik came past the tumbled two fast and yelled at the wolf, pumping his arm threateningly.

The wolf snapped and barked sharply, and Mcwigik found himself falling back over the other two, who both screamed as the wolf advanced.

But then it yelped as a rock pegged it on the flank, and it ran off.

“I ain’t for fighting that!” Pergwick cried.

“So we seen,” said Bikelbrin, the rock-thrower.

“Mcwigik fell, too!” Pergwick protested.

“Yach, he just caught me by surprise, he did,” Mcwigik said, brushing himself off as if that motion might polish up a bit of his lost dignity. “Ain’t fought one in a hundred years and more!”

“A record ye’re not to keep for long,” Bikelbrin remarked, stepping up beside him, another rock in hand. “The beastie ain’t gone far.”

More howling ensued, as if on cue.

The four spent many hours on the edge of their wits, jumping at every sound, but no wolves came that close again, though the howls and growls showed that the hungry canines were never far.

And if that wasn’t bad enough for the tired and cold group, the rocks cooled long before the night had even reached its midway point, and the wind from the west didn’t catch any of Mithranidoon’s heated mist.

Gradually, they all drifted off to sleep, but so late into the night that the blazing dawnslight awakened them less than an hour after Pergwick, the last to find slumber, had closed his eyes. Even Bikelbrin, who had been the first to manage sleep, hadn’t realized three hours of it.

They all looked to Mcwigik, the chief conspirator in this breakout from Mithranidoon. He certainly didn’t appear as boisterous and determined as he had the previous morning when he had led them to the boat and off their island home.

“What’re ye thinking?” asked Bikelbrin.

“And how many days’re ye saying it’s to take us to find the Mirianic?” Pergwick dared interject, drawing a glare from Bikelbrin, though-surprisingly-Mcwigik didn’t react at all to the question.

“A month to two, he said,” Ruggirs answered. “And each night’s to get colder and longer, aye?”

“Not so,” Bikelbrin replied. “It ain’t like that.”

“But generally so,” said Pergwick, and Bikelbrin had to concede that point.

“More than a month or two,” Ruggirs said.

“But what are ye knowing about it?” Bikelbrin demanded. “Ye never been!”

“But I’m knowing that me toes are hurting, and so’re yers,” the younger dwarf argued. “And hurtin’ toes’re meaning slower steps, and slower steps’re meaning more steps and more days, and I’m not for thinking…”

“We’re going back,” said Mcwigik, and all three looked at him in surprise.

“We ain’t to make it,” the chief conspirator said, looking directly at Bikelbrin and shaking his head, his face a mask of disappointment. “We ain’t the tools, the weapons, or the clothes. If them wolves don’t eat us alive, they’ll tear the skin from our frozen bones to be sure.”

“The lake’s not so bad,” said Ruggirs, but no one paid him any heed.

“I’m wanting the smell o’ the Mirianic in me nose as much as any powrie alive, don’t ye doubt,” Mcwigik went on. “But I’m thinking we’re dead long before we near the place.”

“If we even know where it is,” Pergwick dared interject, and so downtrodden was Mcwigik, and so surprised by the sudden turn was Bikelbrin, that neither argued a point that would have brought them both to fury only a day before.

So they gathered their supplies and turned back to the north, and found their boat shortly after sunset. They returned to the powrie island without any ruckus, without any questions, but a few of the dwarfs who had known their plans did offer a superior I-telled-ye-so smirk.

The bitter defeat stayed with Mcwigik for many weeks.