The Troll King (The Bowl of Souls Book 9) (32 page)

“
Oh-ho. There’s something important about that story we’re missing, Willy
,” Observed the imp.

I was thinking the same thing
, Willum replied.

Stolz waved his arms over the tanks of slime. “Putrifin! They could very well be the solution to our problem. Now we all know that there are a few varieties of fish that survive in the swamps despite the slime, but these beautiful creatures thrive in the slime. They feed off it!”

Vannya giggled in excitement. “Fish that eat troll slime? But how did you discover them?”

“They didn’t exist so I had to create them,” he said, pausing and waiting for astonished stares. “You’re probably wondering how I was able to do such a thing.”

“Actually, what I was wondering had to do with what you were-,” Jhonate began.

“Puckerfish!” Stolz said.

Jhexin frowned. “You mean those bottom feeders that the farmers have to keep out of the rice patties?”

“The same!” Stolz replied. “Those ‘bottom feeders’ as you call them are especially good at adapting to their situation. I actually started studying them as an attempt to help farmers with that problem you’re referring to. After observing them for years, I discovered that the key to their prosperity was in their eggs.

“You see, the adult female puckerfish carries fertilized eggs in her belly but does not tend to spawn until she becomes stressed. This could be caused by a variety of factors, but most commonly lack of food. When the eggs leave the female’s body, they are already retrieving important information from their surroundings. They adapt to their new situation and by the time the fish hatch, they have developed the ability to survive off of whatever nutrients are available. That is where my grand idea began.”

He patted the side of the first tank. “So! I gather puckerfish eggs and place them in this first vat. It is filled with a swamp water and troll slime mix. Once they hatch, I transfer them to the second vat. Look inside. You can see them.”

He scooted over and the others followed him. The water was a different shade of green than the previous vat. Willum could see hundreds of small shapes darting around in the murky liquid.

“This vat contains a similar mix to the previous one, but I occasionally add minced pieces of boiled troll flesh,” Stolz announced. “Boiling the flesh kills it and makes it suitable for their undeveloped little digestive systems. Once they reach a certain size, I move them over to the next vat and this is where the fun begins!”

The next vat was twice as long as the previous two. The water inside was so green and murky that Willum could barely make out the fish. From what he could see, they were much bigger. One of them came close to the surface and he was certain he saw sharp little teeth. He wasn’t the only one to notice. Vanya, who had a hand on the lip of the tub, jerked it away quite quickly.

“Those do not look like puckerfish,” Jhexin said.

“Yes, they have become putrifin by this stage,” Stolz announced proudly. “Once a week, I add live troll flesh. These beautiful creatures love it!”

“And you just get live troll flesh from the swamp?” Willum asked.

“Trolls are very susceptible to bewitching magic,” Stolz explained. “Whenever I run across one, I make it follow me home. I keep a few in my other cabin in case I need more.”

He waved them down to the last vat. This one was the largest of all, half again as tall as the previous one and twice as long. Willum looked in. The water was a deep green and the shapes inside were large, each one perhaps over a foot long.

Vannya moved up next to him and peered into the water. “Ingenious isn’t it, Willum? What a solution to the problem. Training fish to eat-!”

One of the fish broke the surface. Vannya yelped as it snapped a toothy mouth shut inches from Willum’s startled face before plunging back in. Slime and brackish water splashed over the sides of the vat, soaking Willum’s arm.

“Careful!” said Stolz. “They do not like the taste of human flesh, but it might take a nibble for them to find that out!”

Willum and Vannya both took a step back from the vat and Willum impulsively stuck his soaked arm under Vannya’s nose. “Lick me,” he said.

The mage recoiled, pushing his arm away. “Ugh! No!” she said and laughed. “Gross!”

“
Clever one, Willy
,” the imp said, his voice tinged with begrudging approval. “
Couch it as a joke and the maiden laughs it off.
” He sighed.
“
I shall have to alter the parameters of your punishment next time
.”

Willum felt a sense of relief that Vannya had taken it that way.
We won’t be making any bets regarding her in the future
.

“
You are no fun, Willy
.”

Stolz continued, “The putrifin stay in this tank and are fed troll meat as well as troll slime on a regular basis until they are large enough to release into the troll swamps. They eat and breed and spawn in the foulest part of the swamps, ever so slowly retaking it so that one day, our people can retake it for ourselves.”

“I’m confused,” Willum said. “I understand why eating the slime is helpful for cleaning up the swamps, but what good does it do for them to eat troll flesh? I mean, the troll isn’t going to just stand there in the water and let itself be eaten, right? Won’t it just move onto land and heal?”

 “You have not seen how efficient my little putrifin are. A swarm of these fish can eat a troll complete in mere minutes, bones and all.” Stolz smiled. “There will be no regenerating. Of course, I’m not training them this way just for the odd chance they might catch a troll that decided to take a wade. I mean, how else are we going to . . ?” he trailed off and Willum was pretty sure he had been about to say something he wasn’t supposed to. “Anyway, I have been working on this project for just over a decade and-.”

“What was that you were about to say?” Vannya asked, unwilling to let it go. “You were about to say something there and you stopped yourself.”

Stolz laughed nervously. “Addled, remember? Uh, so as I was saying, I have been working on this project for some time and over the years I have released an estimated thirty thousand putrifin into various areas of the swamp.”

“That is a lot,” Jhonate said with an impressed nod. “Have you seen results?”

“Have I seen . . !” He scoffed and opened the door of the cabin, ushering them outside. He gestured at the calm marshes in front of the hatchery. “When your father helped me build this place, these pristine marshes were just as dead and slime soaked as the rest of the Troll Swamp. Now look at it. No slime for a full square mile in any direction. There are similar results in the other places I’ve released them and I have seen positive activity that tells me that my little beauties have made their way deeper into the swamps.”

Jhonate blinked in surprise. “Then these fish are the reason for the recession of the swamps I’ve heard about?”

“Well, I don’t know that I can take full credit for it,” Stolz admitted. “Why if the source of the trolls was still producing as strongly as it had been in the past, my little fish would barely be making a dent. No, the intensity of the slime has been ebbing for the last few centuries on its own. The putrifin are just helping it along.”

“
Ho-Ho! Another reference to this ‘source’ he’s not supposed to talk about
,” said Theodore. “
Ooh, now I really want to know. He wants to tell us, Willy. I can feel it.
”

“What about your Thull?” Deathclaw asked. The raptoid had been ambivalent about the tour. His focus had been on Stolz’s bonded. The raptoid kept sniffing him and touching him. Bluth hadn’t seemed to be irritated by the attention, but it had definitely seemed odd from Willum’s perspective. “Are you not afraid that he will be eaten by these fish of yours? He was swimming among them when we arrived.”

“I was concerned in the beginning, but as I said before, he is not a troll,” Stolz reminded him. “The slime he exudes doesn’t taste the same. It’s not even very flammable. The putrifin pretty much ignore his presence.”

Vannya chewed the end of the ink cylinder she had been writing with. Her brow was knit in concentration as she looked over her notes. “That is quite interesting. Please, Stolz, tell me more about these thulls. I did a great deal of research on Malaroo before I left the Mage School and yet I’ve never heard of them before.”

“Thulls are ancient inhabitants of the swamps,” Jhonate explained. “Before we were driven out of our homeland, my people did business with them often. The troll infestation wiped them out.”

Stolz snorted. “Ha! Did business? We enslaved them is more like it. The ancient Roo rounded up villages of thulls and used them for heavy labor. That’s how they were able to build the fabled palaces of KhanzaRoo.”

“Then . . . are they a kind of troll?” Vannya asked. “I mean they have to be. There are too many similarities between the species for it to be a coincidence.”

“Well, certainly they are similar,” said Stolz. “Thulls are what the Troll Queen used when she created trolls, after all.”

“
What
?” said the imp.

Stolz looked around at them, surprised at their dumbfounded stares. “What? Don’t they teach this to children anymore?”

“I have never heard that said before,” Jhonate replied slowly.

“Well, I don’t know why. This is part of the basic history of the Roo. Every Roo-Tan child should know it by heart,” he said, flabbergasted. “I need to have a talk with Xedrion, because the dearth of education in our people must be tragic. I mean, the very word troll comes from the word thull. It was the ancient Roo term for a thull that had gone rabid.”

“Let’s go back to what you said about the Troll Queen creating trolls,” Vannya said. “Certainly you don’t mean that she created the race of trolls? Because that’s an incredible claim.”

“Then let’s go back even further than,” Stolz said. “You won’t find a mention of trolls in any of the histories in your Mage School older than about nine hundred and fifty years ago, which is when she created them!” He scratched his head. “Oh my. Look, there is a lot to tell and I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m famished. For mud’s sake, Bluth, go fetch us some food.”

“I had lunch caught earlier, before it was chopped in half,” Bluth grumbled.

“I will help you catch more,” Deathclaw offered. “That one fish would not have been enough to feed us all anyway.”

The thull gave him a dubious look. “Okay, but do not cut me with that sword this time.”

“I will not,” the raptoid promised. “It does not seem to want to cut you anyway.”

The two of them walked towards the marshes. The thull waded into the water, while the raptoid crept into the tall grasses, his senses reaching out, looking for prey.

“What is that strange beast?” Stolz wondered.

“It’s a long story,” Willum replied.

“He is a dragon that was transformed into this shape by a wizard,” Jhonate added matter-of-factly. “He was wild at first, but his bond with my betrothed has taught him much. He is fierce and intelligent and loyal.”

“So you’re betrothed to his . . ?” Stolz shrugged. “You know, I can see how this is a long tale. I believe I can puzzle it out. We have enough to discuss as it is.”

The bonding wizard led them back towards the central cabin. “Are you certain you don’t wish to come inside?”

“I would rather not,” Jhonate replied. “We can speak out here.”

“Then you won’t mind if I sit on the steps?” he asked. “My old ankles don’t like it when I stand in one place for too long.”

“Of course,” Vannya said, giving Jhonate a reproachful look.

“So. Thulls. Peaceful creatures. Strong. Enslaved by our people.” Stolz sat down on the porch steps with a sigh. “This could be a long story. Tell me, do you know much about the Troll Queen?”

Stolz’s question hung in the air for a moment before Jhonate answered him. “We know a great deal about her. The Troll Queen’s original name was Mellinda. She was born one of the Roo, but was banished for having elemental magic.”

The bonding wizard nodded. “Indeed. Good, then I will not have to tell that part of the story. The important thing to note is that by the time Mellinda did finally return to Malaroo, she had incredible powers rivaling those of the Prophet himself. Some even called her the Dark Goddess.

“Upon her arrival in KhanzaRoo, she slaughtered the High Priestess and declared herself ruler of Malaroo. There was nothing the people could do to fight her, but they refused to acknowledge her rule. They cursed her for her evil deeds and she was forced to fight off constant attack by spirit magic users. In the end, Mellinda realized that, powerful as she was, she was only one person. She could not force a nation to heel.

“That was when she decided that she was more interested in revenge than rule. She grew determined to drive her former people from their homeland and to do that she needed an army. So she left KhanzaRoo. The High Priestess that took her place just happened to be Mellinda’s younger sister, but I shall not get into that part of the tale.

“Before leaving the country, Mellinda used her powers to capture and control a group of thulls. She marched them out of Malaroo and into the mountains of Razbeck where she had a palace and controlled a small kingdom of her own. You see, Mellinda had a vicious streak. She had decided that the most poetic way of destroying her former people was to conquer them with the very race that they had enslaved.

“She planned to do so by changing the thulls’ very nature. She used her unfathomable magic to take their every strength and twist it. Corrupt it. For instance, the slime that a thull produces has a purpose, which is to lubricate their skin and keep it from drying out. It is only flammable once it reaches a certain high temperature and it is slow burning. The Roo used to gather it from them for use in candles. Mellinda changed these thulls so that their slime grew thick and became highly flammable. She modified their claws, making them longer. She made their mouths much larger and their teeth more fearsome. She increased their regenerative properties until they would recover from almost any wound.”

He shook his head sadly. “But the most important feature of the thulls and the one she desired most for her army had to do with the way they reproduced. You see, thulls do not have a gender. They are all sexually the same.”

“Weird,” said Vannya with excitement. “You mean they reproduce like trolls do? Just cut off a piece of them and a new thull grows?”

“No. That is not the case. It takes two thulls to reproduce. In fact, they mate for life. What they do is . . .” He pursed his lips. “I realize this may sound strange to you, but what they do is, the couple goes off together and finds a shallow pond. They fight off any predators in the area and then they each take the smallest finger of their right hand and, uh, tear it off.”

There was a collective wince.

 “Like I said, strange,” Stolz continued. “They press these two torn digits together and lay them down in the pond. These fingers grow together into a single mass of tissue. The parents stay at that pond, protecting it until it eventually becomes a thull child,” he said. “Oh, and their torn off fingers grow back, of course.”

“
Huh
,” said the imp.

“But Mellinda changed that, too,” Vannya presumed.

“Indeed. Waiting for regular reproduction was too messy a process for her to deal with. She wanted an army and she wanted it fast. So she modified their reproductive system and tied it in with their regenerative properties. You see, if you cut off a piece of a thull and it isn’t quickly reattached, the piece dies. The thull then slowly regenerates its lost flesh. But with Mellinda’s changes, cut off a piece and you would get a new thull.”

“So she could raise an army, simply by cutting her soldiers into pieces and waiting for them to grow again,” Vannya said. “Mellinda did that in this last war too.”

“She what?” said Stolz in surprise. “What do you mean? What war? Mellinda is long dead. I hadn’t gotten to that part yet.”

Vannya opened her mouth, but Jhonate cleared her throat in warning. “We can explain that part to you later, Stolz. For now, please, continue your tale.”

“Very well. Yes. Don’t confuse me. Where was I? Right. All these changes that Mellinda had made to the physical nature of the thulls created an unforeseen side effect.” He squeezed his hands together excitedly as he told this next part. “You see, she had tampered with the basic laws of nature. In every intelligent species of life, be it plant or animal, it takes two individuals to reproduce. This is one of the requirements for obtaining a soul. Every thinking being in this world is a unique combination of the qualities received from both its parents.”

“
Ohhhh. I think I get it, Willy. Ho! This explains so much
,” said the imp gleefully.

Vannya raised an eyebrow. “So this is why a troll has no soul?”

“It is the beginning of why,” Stolz said. “It was a gradual thing, actually. Each of these modified thulls started out with a complete soul. But the consequence of Mellinda’s meddling was that, when a piece was cut off these complete thulls, part of their soul was torn away and became attached to the new creature that was created.

“Keep in mind that our souls are what give us intelligence and a sense of individuality. Therefore the more that one of these new thulls was cut apart, the less intelligence that remained. After hundreds of generations all that was left were tiny shreds of soul. The end result was the mindless trolls we know today. The only remnant of that original soul that remains is its fierce hunger; the need to give the body the fuel it needs so that it can power its intense regenerative magic.

“Of course, when Mellinda discovered what she had done, she was ecstatic. Her army would now be more fearsome and far easier for her to control with her spirit magic.”

He rested his chin on his fingertips. “There was one more development that came from the process of creating this army. One of the original thulls didn’t react well to the constant soul tearing that came from Mellinda’s harvesting methods. Its regenerative magic went out of control. It swelled up and began obtaining strange growths on its body. The pieces cut off of it continued to become regular trolls, but this thull’s deformations grew larger and larger, and it required more and more food to keep its body alive.

“By this time, Mellinda had an army large enough for her purposes. She set out from Razbeck, declaring herself the troll queen. She left this rapidly growing thull behind and instructed her servants to continue cutting pieces off of it. They did so, and sent these pieces all over the known lands, spreading them like seeds. They reasoned that when Mellinda returned from her conquest of Malaroo, she would surely wish to conquer everyone else.”

“And she would already have armies in every country and kingdom,” Willum replied in awe. “So that’s why we have trolls just about everywhere.”

“Indeed,” said Stolz. “And if she had returned from Malaroo victorious, she may have taken the rest of the world and who knows? She might even be ruling today. Thankfully, she was stopped and the ‘troll seeds’ she sent out everywhere didn’t fully take root.”

The bonding wizard stood. “Ah! They are returning. It seems that Bluth and your friend had swift success.”

Deathclaw was the first of the two to appear, the tall grass parting in his wake. He carried a large silver-scaled fish under each arm. They flapped weakly. He had speared them with his tail barb from the shoreline and they each had circular puncture wounds in their sides.

Bluth emerged from the water a moment later with two fish of his own. One of them was silver scaled like Deathclaw’s catch. The other one was a mottled green and had razor sharp teeth, one of Stolz’s putrifin.

The bonding wizard looked to Jhonate. “Must we build a fire and cook them out here? I have a perfectly serviceable stove and pans inside. Of course they will need to be cleaned.”

Jhonate sighed. “Jhexin and Willum, go help Stolz tidy up his cabin. I will work on those pans. Deathclaw, clean those fish. Vannya . . .” The mage had sat down on the step and was pouring over her notes, every once in a while jotting down notations. “You sit there and be useless as usual.”

“Hmm?” Vannya said, not looking up from her writing.

Jhonate shook her head and ushered everyone to work. Willum and Jhexin grumbled, but tidying up the place wasn’t as hard as it looked. Soiled garments were removed from furniture and dropped into a washbin, and Stolz produced a stiff bristled broom that he used to scrape the mostly dried thull slime from the cabin’s floor.

Jhonate had given herself the worst job. It seemed that there wasn’t a clean plate or pot or pan in the place. She took them out to the water’s edge to work on them and was still at it when the rest of them had finished. It was at that point that Vannya realized she was the only one not helping. The mage ran down to the water’s edge and used a quick spell to clean the dishes on the spot. Jhonate gave her a terse thank you and Vannya blissfully carried some of it back to the cabin, unaware of the glower that Jhonate directed at her back.

The meal itself was quite good, if a bit bizarre. Stolz prepared it himself. The silver scaled fish had a soft, but mild texture and was well seasoned with a local herb Willum was unfamiliar with. Willum, Jhonate, and Jhexin declined to eat the putrifin, but Vannya was quite curious to discover what a fish would taste like after a lifetime of eating troll slime.

In the end, Stolz only cooked half of it, which he shared with the mage. Deathclaw and Bluth ate the rest. Vannya declared it ‘quite fishy’, but bravely cleaned her plate. Deathclaw merely shrugged and said it tasted as he imagined troll would taste. He then picked up one of the leftover fish heads to munch on, before walking out the door.

The rest of the group finished their meal and were cleaning up when Deathclaw returned. He was carrying the leather-wrapped body of the troll thing over one shoulder. He dropped it on the floor and said to Stolz, “I have smelled traces of something very much like this in the grass nearby. Tell me what it is.”

Stolz blinked at him in surprise and Jhexin winced. “Did you have to bring it in here?”

Vannya said, “Actually, Stolz, this is the reason we came here to see you.”

The mage briefly explained their mission and Stolz, his eyes filled with curiosity unwrapped the body. It looked much the same as it had on the day Jhonate had killed it. Vannya’s preservation spells had done their job well.

Bluth bent down close to the corpse and sniffed at it. He looked up at his bonding wizard and something unseen passed between them. The expression on Stolz face changed to one of concern.

“All of these deformities . . .” Stolz crouched beside the body and reached out to touch the creature’s nose. “This creature is partly human.”

 “Yes,” Vannya said. “And what you’re seeing isn’t just cosmetic. I have thoroughly examined it with magic and several of its internal organs are human as well. Perhaps the most compelling evidence, though, is that it was using bewitching magic to control other trolls when Deathclaw encountered it.”

“It also showed expert skill with a throwing knife,” Deathclaw added.

Stolz’s hands shook as he touched various points on the body. “The change from one type of flesh to the other is seamless.”

Vannya nodded. “It is my opinion that the creature wasn’t just magically put together like, say, the rogue horses. This creature was grown this way.”

“I-I see what you mean,” he said, swallowing. He covered it back up with the leather. “This isn’t the only one? You mentioned others?”

“My brother Hubrin was leading a search party looking for Xeldryn when they were attacked by three more such beasts,” Jhonate said.

“Their bodies were quite desiccated when I arrived,” Vannya said. “But each one was a distinct mix of troll and other animals. One of them was part human.”

Stolz backed away and sat down heavily on his wicker couch. He took off his glasses and wiped his brow. “I was afraid that something like this might happen.”

“
Ho-ho! He knows something, Willy. Something good
.”

“What were you afraid of?” Vannya asked.

His voice was shaken. “I do not know how I can explain this without saying things I shouldn’t.”