The Prodigal Troll (48 page)

"I'm not a wizard."

"Well, you have the wizard's charm."

"Wait." Maggot wrinkled his nose. He smelled something new, something fragrant with fresh earth and vegetation. His ears caught a tiny humming sound.

"What?"

"Over here, where the wall leaks," Maggot said. He took one step in that direction, and his feet splashed. When he bent down on his knees to search for the trickle in the wall, he discovered stones jutting inward, out of place. "What's this?"

Bran knelt beside him. "It's buckled from the water. We should get back. If it caves in, the rocks will crush us."

"But it will also give us a way to escape."

"Perhaps." Bran pulled at Maggot's arm, laughing as he dragged him to the far wall. "Come, wizard. When Mother Bwnte does her work, mere mortals step aside."

The tide of water soon stretched all the way across the floor to lap at their bare feet. The trickle turned into a fountain of water, gushing and splashing, rising as high as their ankles.

"How much longer do we have to wait?" Maggot asked.

"You're the wizard," Bran said again.

"I'm not a wizard."

There was a sound of Bran scooping and sipping a handful of water. "Ugh! Too muddy to drink."

"Then don't drink it."

Still locked in the murky darkness, the water soon swirled around their calves. The icy cold numbed Maggot's feet. "How high do you think it will rise?" he asked.

"Reach up and tell me what you feel."

The ceiling was barely a foot above his head. He ran his hands over the surface. "I only feel the stone roof."

"About that high then, I'd guess," Bran said. He turned and pounded on the door. "We'll be treading water soon unless Bwnte gives us a little more help first."

Maggot sloshed over to the collapsing wall. There was no breeze or stirring of the air to show a gap to the outside.

"What are you doing?"

"Perhaps Bwnte waits for us to help ourselves." His fingers probed the wall for purchase in the buckled stones. He tugged, but the stone didn't budge. He braced his shoulder against the wall, grunting as he pulled. Suddenly the stone shifted, pinching his fingers against its neighbor. "Ow!"

"What happened?"

"Nothing," Maggot said, gripping the stone with his free hand and ripping it loose. It splashed into the water as he danced his toes out of the way.

Bran shuffled over to his side. "I guess I'd rather be buried in rubble than drown. Where-ah, here. Do you feel the mortar between the stones?"

"The what?"

"The mortar. The gritty, crumbling stuff. Like sand. Scratch it away and the blocks fall out easier."

Another splash announced his success. The two of them worked side by side, one stone after another falling into the water in slow succession. The water sprayed out of the wall, rising over their thighs. Gravel and then mud began pouring in through the gap. Suddenly, Maggot felt something like rain fall across his back. It splattered in the water all around them.

"The ceiling!" Bran cried. "Get under the doorway fast!"

Maggot never lost his sense of direction underground, having learned a long time ago to keep a mental picture always in his head. He dived for the right spot, through water and mud as high as his thighs, and pressed hard against the wood.

Bran splashed around the wrong wall. "Where is it?"

Before Maggot could answer, a rush of little splashes crescendoed with several big ones. Bran gasped in pain and Maggot jumped for the noise, taking hold of his friend's arm, dragging him back to the doorway.

Thick, muddy water rushed in, swirling past their waists, sludge settling in over their feet.

"This is a stupid way to die," Maggot said.

"You would rather-"

A section of the ceiling fell, slamming into the water, splashing it up to their heads, as the roar of a thousand stones crashed somewhere. The outside wall buckled and folded like a big thunderclap, followed by the rush of the wind, not strong but biting cold and filled with the scent of rain, and sharp air, broken up by the cries of people elsewhere in the castle, and muted light, a dark gray luminance in the air that not even all the clouds in the world could wholly extinguish.

"How are you?" Maggot asked.

Bran grinned foolishly, blood flowing from a long raw scrape on his cheek. "I'm alive," he cried. "And free! Let's run while we can!"

They scrambled up the pile of stones, through a cascade of water, and out of the gaping hole in the castle foundation. Maggot looked up and saw the rain pour off a broken section of the roof and fall straight down where their cell had been. A low spot by the wall had caught all the water running down the hillside too. Bran kicked up water as he ran through the remnants of the pool, heading downhill toward the river.

Maggot hurried after him.

"Where are we going?" he asked. He thought of the hills behind them, the shepherd's path into the wild country.

Bran stopped, turning to grip Maggot's arms. The air was so thick with rain it blurred the features of his face even at that short distance. "Into the city to see the Baron."

"Why? Let us go into the mountains."

"I'll go to the Baron and throw myself on his mercy. It's the Dance of Masks tonight. Between midnight and dawn, he'll take on the guise of Verlogh and dispense justice to all petitioners. I'll attend the dance, and go to him, and ask for his mercy, another chance to serve."

"But why? They mean to kill you. Come with me!"

Bran lifted his face into the rain. "This is the only life I have, friend Claye. If I cannot continue as I am, it has no meaning to me."

"I'll go with you, then," Maggot said.

"You don't need to do that. It would be better for you if you go to the mountains. If you climb between those hills-"

"No, I will go with you and will tell the Baron what I know, what I have seen." If Portia was not here because of Acrysy, he would leave and go back to the place where he had seen her last and find some way to talk to her. "And then I will follow my own path away from your stupid people."

"You've saved my life twice already! I beg you-"

Another man came slogging toward them, up the path that led to the damaged palace. Bran tensed. Maggot prepared to fight, but the stranger leaned into the rain, the hood of his cloak pulled down over his face, and hurried quickly by without a word or glance in their direction.

"We can't stand here," Bran said.

"I'm coming with you," Maggot answered.

Bran nodded and resumed his journey with Maggot beside him. The two men slipped, rose, fell again, sliding down the muddy slope toward the torrenting brown river. Across the water, behind the city wall, the steep-roofed houses and narrow streets looked abandoned. On the nearer bank, boats were pulled up high on the shore and there were no demons to be seen. Downstream, the bridge made a black scar across the gray skin of the day. Little figures rushed across it toward the city, stopping outside a guardhouse built atop the span.

Skidding to a stop, Bran looked up and down the river. "We have to cross. We could use one of those boats. The demons'll be buried in the mud, hiding from the currents and-"

"There's a bridge," Maggot said, pointing.

"It's guarded," Bran said. "They'll recognize us."

"In this rain, I can't tell you from my mother."

Bran lifted his head to the sky and laughed. "Yes, the Empress declares that all bridges must be guarded, so this one, under the Baron's own nose, stays guarded. But bridge guard is a dull duty saved for dullards. The bridge it is, then."

The mud squished in Maggot's toes as they followed the drowned road past some smaller buildings toward the bridge. "And if they do not let us pass?"

"If we fight, you take whoever I don't." He made his left hand into a fist. "Then we run like greycats into the city. Stay close to me."

"Fight, run, stay close."

"But just keep behind me, so that I'm between you and the guards. Don't meet their eyes."

Even on an ugly day like this, the bridge was a thing of amazing beauty. Its curving stone reminded Maggot of a wind-smoothed arch he had seen high in the mountains, only this had eleven broad arches instead and was wide enough for two mammuts to walk across abreast. A stone railing ran along both sides, and it widened slightly in the middle, above the central pier, to form two broad platforms that looked up and down the river.

As they stepped onto the bridge, Maggot heard the river surge and bellow underneath them though the stone stood still. A large pillar marked with carvings occupied the center of the bridge, between the two platforms. But just past this halfway point Bran broke into a jog, his head bent forward, arms folded over his head against the rain. Maggot scrunched down, copying the posture. He ran along behind Bran like a shadow if the guardhouse were the sun.

A soldier appeared in the doorway. "Who goes there?"

Bran slowed but didn't stop. One arm was draped across his face while the other flapped in the general direction of the river. "The new palace! "

"What about it?"

Maggot balled his fists.

"The north wall collapsed," Bran said. "Caved in!"

The soldier stepped out under the eaves to look at the massive shape that crouched on the hillside. "We heard that it was sagging-"

Any other words were lost as Bran kept on running across the bridge and into the city. He took a sharp left at the first street, turned right and went past several side streets along a curving road, then made several more turns in quick succession. Maggot ran at his heels, trying to orient himself to the city the way he would in the forest or the mountains-he thought they were headed somewhere with the goldendomed building and the river to their right, and the castle ahead.

Bran slowed down now, picking his way more carefully through a neighborhood of small houses, mostly constructed of logs, with tiny patches of grass or garden in front. The streets were chewed-up mud and sewage. Every step sucked at their bare feet, and the soupy mess oozed between Maggot's toes. They came to wider, straighter streets that didn't smell as bad, with stone houses, and then to a wider street again, with stone houses rising two and three stories high, where the streets were filled with large stones instead of mud, and lined with trees.

The trees comforted Maggot, who grew tenser the deeper they penetrated this strange maze. His eyes darted constantly around, as they had when he first left his mother's side and ventured into the forest in the daytime. Once or twice, he glimpsed people passing in the distance, along cross streets or at the side doors of houses. The drizzle became a dreary mist.

"It's somewhere around here," Bran murmured.

"What do we seek?" Maggot asked.

"We'll need costumes for the dance. I only know one man big enough to trade places with you, another knight. About your age, too. He might be willing to help me-he wasn't with Acrysy when we were captured. He lives near here...."

The street ended in a large paved square, with a circular pool in the center, a small dun-domed building on one side, and an arched building shading a deep porch where small birds huddled in cages.

"He lives there!" Bran pointed across the square.

The second house in from the corner was a plain two-story stone building with wide steps leading up to a double door. The steps were framed by life-sized statues of collared hunting cats, one sitting upright, the other stretched out reclining.

"Just be careful of his pets," Bran said as he walked toward the steps.