~

Chapter Nine

~

“Warm—in here,” I said. And after the last hour trudgin’ in the dark with pitch-fueled torches, didn’t expect electric lights. Could have been at OW, an odd office without windows.

The young troll watchin’ over me, maybe sixteen-years-old, smiled. “We use geothermal,” he said in Standish. “Most efficient energy source anywhere. Forefathers considered fission, but why dirty the Earth when you can tap into Her soul?”

Soul. I’d been told trolls are all about soul. The energy of Life. Or was that an orc thin’?

The youngling leaned back into his armchair, clasped his hands against the back of his head. “You riled some folk,” he said, “enterin’ the way you did.”

He didn’t speak with a Southern accent.

I nodded at the sledgehammer, probably a twelve-pounder, sittin’ on the desk next to him. A bull had shoved it at him before stompin’ away. Handy to bust in my skull. The youngling snorted. Yeah. He probably didn’t think he’d need it much to control a little ogre. Not the typical form of weapon one would see outside, well, anywhere else.

“The older generations,” he said, “stick to the customs of the past.”

This trolling wasn’t what I expected. His hair was hardly dreaded properly, as though he’d brushed it daily until recently, wore it in a tail, currently lyin’ ’cross his chest, tied off with a bright-blue ribbon. Wore a garish yellow-orange button down, but it looked factory tailored, not rough spun, fit well with the jeans he wore, and the Merrell hikers on his enormous feet. Who’s manufacturin’ troll-sized jeans and boots? He wore an expensive-lookin’ watch on his wrist. Before, I’d noticed he wore what looked like a class ring with an enormous garnet on his left hand.

He must have noticed me studyin’ him. He bounced his head left and right. “I spend a lot of time on the East Slope. Just finished my first year of university there.”

“Hasting?” I asked. A lot of Hasting grads at OW, uh, UW, on the Plain.

“No. TIT.”

Ah. Troll Institute of Technology. Even the North couldn’t brag about a better tech school. “Cool. They’ve—got an—amazin’ chess team.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I didn’t make the cut.”

“Maybe—next year. Engineering? Physics?” I asked.

“MIS,” he said.

I explained I was the lead architect at OW. He corrected me with, “You mean UW?” Funny. He asked if I could get him an intern gig next summer. I told him, probably, as long as he didn’t use that sledgehammer on my head.

He laughed. So I gave him my email address.

We spent the next hour talkin’ about our respective schools. No surprise he thought the East Slope schools rocked the boat. I’m pretty certain the South Slope has the academic edge. He raved about TIT’s night life. After sunset, I was always in front of my computer.

“Uh,” how did I ask this? “How long—I have to stay—here?”

“Where you wanna go?”

I pointed at the sledgehammer. He laughed again. I had to admit, I was startin’ to enjoy the sound of the troll laugh. They must have somethin’ like a sound box in their chest. I never took troll anatomy in school. Didn’t take any anatomy class. Not like I was pre-med or somethin’.

~

Nuel

~

I could have been lyin’ on an examin’ table in any Northern ER. Lights, heatin’, medical doodads, white walls. But instead of a stethoscope, the thin troll hen wearin’ the white smock who leaned over me placed her bare hand on my chest and closed her eyes.

“Dehydrated.” We were back to speakin’ Trollish. “Strained muscles out the wazoo.” Didn’t know wazoo was in the troll language set. Did she have a mini x-ray machine built into her hand?

“Marl’s a bright trolling.” She opened her eyes and met my, perhaps nervous ones. “Definite tissue poisonin’ from lack of oxygen. Only time will mend that. I can ease the discomfort it’s causin’, along with the muscle strain.”

“I’ve always been a little sensitive to NSAIDs,” I admitted.

She chuckled. Looked down at my feet which I was wigglin’ with discomfort. She explained, droppin’ into Standish, she’d bandage the blisters before I left. Uh, I hadn’t even mentioned them. How—

“I’m endowed with gifts more valuable than ya’d get from a bottle.”

Had no clue what she meant, but sounded extraordinarily arrogant. She smiled, perhaps readin’ my doubt. Confusion.

“Never met a healer before, huh?”

“Uh, see my doctor yearly,” I said.

Again, the smile, but deeper this time. “I have my medical license. But, ya know we hold with the beliefs of the past a little more religiously in the Range.”

Can’t say I knew that. Just assumed they’re backward in general.

She grimaced a bit, as though she read my mind. Could she read minds beside scan a body without any technical doodads?

“The witches closed the other side down two hundred years ago, but some of us can still reach threads of the ethereal.”

Oh, no. A schizophrenic medical practitioner. Probably believes in speakin’ to dead prophets. Herbs and the like. Which she immediately confirmed.

“I can give ya an herb tea that’ll do wonders for ya too.”

“Ya really have an MD?” I asked. Hmm. That might sound insultin’.

“A little dubious, are ya?” She sighed, deeply. “I can just bandage yar feet and let yar body fix the rest over the next two months, if ya prefer? Though I don’t know why ya’d embrace the discomfort. Won’t help ya when ya’re tryin’ to convince the Council of whatever hair-brained idea Ike’s got goin’ on now.”

Two months? Ike? How’d she know—

“Don’t look so surprised,” she said. “Not like the Black Lake Council has the tusks to come to us for anythin’ directly, through channels. So, ya want me to ease yar discomfort, or what?”

I shrugged. What’d I have to lose? “Like I love pain.”