The Girl Who Hunted Trolls
by A. Dennison
Smashwords Edition
copyright 2012 A. Dennison
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PART I: THE GOLDEN OAK
Chapter 1: Sali's Door
Sali wanted adventure. She said as much to her grandmother, who was sitting in the front room of their tiny country cottage, absorbed in writing her autobiography.
“Don’t be stupid, dear,” was her reply. “Adventures are silliness I haven’t time for, and neither have you. Go and do your homework.”
Sali’s homework was long since done, as she had already reported, so it was clear that Grandma wasn’t paying any attention at all. To Sali, that spelled Opportunity.
She went outside and shut the back door quietly, then turned toward the woods and prepared to search out her own adventure. School and her grandmother’s iron hand had left her little free time of late, but now the path was clear. What Granny didn’t know about, she couldn't forbid.
Early Spring whipped the Connecticut countryside with a breeze that made sweaters mandatory. Sali, twelve years old and utterly unconcerned with fashion, had a hideous blue one on as she delved into the forested land behind the cottage. Pressing deeper and deeper into the maze of maples, yews, and birches, she did her best to skip over the last puddles of wet snow. Fresh leaves were appearing on all the trees. They left Sali wishing for full-blown summer and tormented her with the number of blustery months left before she could enjoy bare feet.
No matter, she thought. Adventures were meant to be dirty and uncomfortable.
She headed toward a particularly thick patch of forest that had the appearance of being dark and forbidding. Her grandmother had once forbidden her from going near it. She had warned that the land belonged to a frightening old man who left rusty old bear traps and half-buried barbwire lying about. Today, Sali was in the mood for beartraps and confrontations.
Once she got through a strip of old-growth firs the wooded area opened up a little and the trees became more slender and inviting. Pushing past a tangle of undergrowth and skirting a thick wall of young maple trunks, Sali stepped into a clearing that she guessed was right in the heart of the dense little wood.
A blaze of color tilted her head back and she gaped in open-mouthed disbelief at the foliage overhead. Rising from a six-foot-diameter trunk, the gnarled branches of a massive oak tree blocked out the sky with a billion broad golden leaves. Ripe acorns littered the clearing floor, but not a single of its brilliant goldenrod leaves had fallen from the tree.
The short, brown-haired girl was absolutely dwarfed before the gargantuan tree. She gazed at the sunlit leaves for several minutes, drinking in the color and the smell of Autumn. No moldy leaves littered the forest floor here to generate that distinctive, musty odor, but it lingered in the air nonetheless.
Sali stepped closer and reached up to the nearest low-hanging branch. Snapping a couple of crisp twigs off, she examined the broad golden oak leaves and found that they were natural enough. Just half a year out of season.
She had never seen such a magnificently sized tree in all her childhood wanderings, and peered up through the vortex of huge limbs. This was a tree to be climbed, a tree to be experienced intimately and joyfully. Grinning in anticipation, she circled the huge trunk looking for a branch she could reach.
A twinge of disappointment creased her brow as she realized the lowest branch was still far out of reach. She glanced at the thick roots boiling out of the earth to see if standing on one would get her any higher, and that was how she noticed the door.
Set in the hollow between the two largest roots, a whole section of the trunk on this side of the tree was missing. In its place a hefty wood-plank door was set, well-constructed with a large black-iron handle. It was short, about four feet in height, and it looked like it was made from the same wood as the trunk of the tree. It was weathered and rough enough to blend right in, so that a person might walk right through this clearing and never notice the door.
All thoughts of climbing flew from her mind, and Sali reached out to touch the door. It felt thick and solid, the planks set close together without a crack or a knothole to peer through. She looked around the clearing, suddenly aware that whoever had built this tree-hut might not be far away. Still, she was unable to draw herself away from it. On closer inspection she found sticks and cobwebs in the path of the door showing that it hadn't swung open in at least several weeks, probably years. It looked so old and forgotten that she found herself unable to fathom its builder's origins. She had seen nothing like this outside of storybooks.
Sali had to pull quite hard to get the thick door open, but once its creaking hinges had begun to move the whole thing swung outward and banged against a root, shaking dust down from the top.
She expected to see a dim, musty little hole in the trunk with any combination of spiders, treasure, bones, squirrel droppings, mad step-brothers locked away for years, or imprisoned wood-spirits that would grant her a wish for freeing them. The sight that greeted her eyes, however, was even more surprising: a well-lit, tidy little room with antiquated but stylish furniture and paintings on the walls.
She stumbled back at the sight and caught her breath. She poked her head inside to have a better look around. There were no chairs, only two side tables with fresh flowers in vases, a large cupboard against one wall, and a grandfather clock against another. The features that dominated the hall, however, were three other doors set in the walls around the room. Across from Sali's door to the left was a tall, thin door with an arched top, and to her right was a short one of dark wood, barred and chained shut. Further to her right was a small, roundish door in a nice shade of green paint.
The ceiling of the room was very high, and latticed windows let down plenty of sunlight onto the polished wooden floor. Pleasant paintings, mostly landscapes, adorned the walls, and one umbrella hung from a peg next to the tall thin door, along with a leather case. The grandfather clock's pendulum swung silently from side to side, the face of the clock a mustachioed caricature of a smiling man. Sali found herself imagining that it was slowly ticking away the life of the world, and that if she held the pendulum in place that time would stop.
There was something odd about the room beyond its contents. Just to make sure, Sali pulled her head back outside, looked around the exterior of the trunk, and then poked it back inside the room again. There was no doubt.
The room was bigger inside than the trunk of the tree outside allowed for.
It made a strange kind of sense to her. If there were a mysterious room inside a tree, it was to be expected that it was magically large. After all, there were no exits on the other sides of the tree to correspond to the rest of the doors inside the room.
She had found her adventure. Now that it came to it, however, Sali wasn’t so eager to venture through the door.
To be honest with herself she had to admit that she had been firing up her own imagination on purpose. This very real magical room in front of her required no imagination, and it gave her pause.
She had heard all kinds of tales about frightening things happening to children who ignored caution and tread where they should not have. Sali was a defiant girl, prone to independence and even belligerence, but she was also very shrewd. Curiosity may have killed the cat, she mused, but she needn't let it kill her. This room needed to be carefully observed and studied out before meddling with it. It would be her secret.
The place somehow did not feel as if it were physically a part of the forest behind her grandmother's house. Not only were the golden Autumn leaves out of place, but the decor of the scant furnishings in the room did not fit anything she knew. The furniture was small and old-fashioned with strange features such as knobs in the shapes of animal heads. The grandfather clock stood on webbed feet.
After another moment of looking, she got up the courage to at least walk inside. As long as she didn’t touch anything, she would be fine.
CRASH!
A bang and the clatter of pots and pans tumbling to the floor came from behind the little round green-painted door, followed by the hiss of a startled, angry cat.
Sali, eyes wide, quietly shut the door. Through it, she could hear more clattering of pans and a muffled yell. She crept out of the clearing, wondering who lived on the other side of the green door.
That night, tucked away in her cozy bedroom, Sali put herself to sleep by daydreaming about the possibilities the tree room might hold: magical lands full of exciting, comfortable little adventures she might have there. In all likelihood the person in the tree was friendly and would welcome a visit.
She determined to visit the tree again the next day and learn more about it. She certainly did not intend to tell anyone of her discovery, especially not her grandmother.
After all, it was her own adventure.
Chapter 2: Into the Tree
The next morning was glorious Saturday. After slaving away on house chores and lessons all morning while her grandmother feverishly continued writing her memoirs, Sali finally escaped to the woods.
The morning had been one of gray skies and intermittent rain. This didn’t deter Sali in the least, but her grandmother’s nomadic movements about the house had forced her to slip outside without an umbrella or raincoat. A near-purple rain cloud caught up to her just as she was nearing the oak clearing, and began to pour on her. She remembered the umbrella hanging in the tree room, and broke into a run.
Dashing up to the tree, she ducked under its yellow leaves and grabbed at the rain-slicked iron door handle in the trunk. The drops were coming thick and fast, and Sali no longer cared if someone saw her. She yanked the heavy door open just enough to slip inside and let it close behind her-- but not latch. She knew all about how doors in strange places slammed shut and locked on you the moment you turned your back.
In the stillness of the hall of doors, she realized that sunlight was still pouring in through the windows high over her head. She could hear the rain hammering the ground outside through the cracked door, but inside the only sound to be heard was the water dripping from her hair to the floorboards at her feet.
Wringing her short brown braids out with one hand near the doorway, she stepped farther in and looked all around. There was no sound from the green door. Walking over to the cupboard against the far wall, she opened its doors wide. Inside she was mildly shocked to find several small swords mounted in a rack, points downward. Some were thick and heavy, some light and ornately designed.
She closed the cupboard and moved over to the grandfather clock. It still ran smoothly, pendulum moving from side to side, side to side. She wondered if someone had come in to wind it or if it was enchanted to never run down.
A fat urn full of dazzling glass beads sat on the floor next to the little dark door with all the bars and chains. She picked one up and admired it. They were all different colors and some had little sparkles inside that caught the light. She put it back, remembering from her stories how much trouble stealing a little bauble could cause.
The leather case hanging next to the umbrella contained a brass-plated spyglass. Examining it, she wished she could test it out, but there was nowhere in the confined room to look with such a telescope.
A sound just to her left almost made her jump out of her skin. Outside the tall, thin door, there was a buzzing, humming sound and a yell. She backed away, returning to her own door, and paused there, listening.
Someone was standing just outside the thin door now. A muffled voice was audible, too low of a murmur to make out the words, but definitely a man's voice. Sali stood rooted to the spot, frozen not with fear but with outright, vulgar curiosity coursing through her. Whoever was outside finished speaking and the buzzing sounded again.
She saw the handle start to turn, and she fled. Stopping briefly outside to listen again, she heard the sound of boot-steps on the hardwood floor of the tree's interior. She slipped quickly and quietly around to the back of the tree.
Immediately she heard the door open and then close, and footsteps receded across the clearing. Peering carefully around the edge of the trunk, she saw a man walking away from the tree with his back to her. He wore a long coat and brown leather boots. She couldn't see his face past his long blonde hair and wide-brimmed hat, but she did see what he was carrying on a strap around his shoulder: a large wooden crossbow.
Sali, on high alert and genuinely frightened at the sense of danger the man gave her, stayed frozen like a fawn hiding from a wolf. She held her breath as the man walked purposefully toward the trees. He left the clearing and continued his course through the woods in the direction Sali had come, on a line that would take him to her grandmother's house.
Maybe the man was local, and maybe hunting the wood's rabbits with a crossbow was the next big sport. But it wasn’t likely. And if she trusted the feeling of warning in her heart, it wasn't even close to the truth.
The man had come from Somewhere Else, and something was going on that couldn't be explained away so easily. The adventure had begun, and she was neck-deep in it now.
As soon as the man was out of sight through the trees, Sali stepped out. She heard nothing inside the tree, so she went around to the front after confirming that the coast was clear. The man had left the door hanging open, and she could see the tall thin door with the arched top standing open several inches as well.
Consumed by curiousity, she entered and walked to the tall door to look out. What she saw stunned her.
It was a wild land, so unlike Connecticut that it took her breath away. A path led away from the door down a hill so steep that steps had been carved into the rocky ground. On every side, jagged gray stone jutted from the hill, which fell away into deep crevasses and canyons. In the distance mountains and spiky hills even higher than the one she was standing on rose and blotted out the horizon. Dark greenery coated the cliffs and valleys, and the sky was filled with patchy cloud cover than dappled the dramatic landscape with alternating shade and light. It was a raw, fresh land, with mountains much newer than any she had seen.
And flying away over the craggy peaks was a gigantic dragonfly with a man riding on its back. The man had long silvery hair and was hunched down behind the creature's head as its ten-foot transparent wings buzzed away through the sky. Soon he was out of sight, and Sali was left with her breath caught in her throat.
She brought the brass telescope outside to have a good look around, wishing she'd thought of it in time to see the dragonfly rider more closely. There was plenty to see anyway: lakes, a waterfall, and some big greenish things in a nearby canyon that looked like huge sticks of broccoli. She focused the telescope on them. They were trees, unimaginably high. She could barely make out the trunks for all the foliage, but judging where the canyon floor was, the trees had to be a thousand feet tall and almost as wide.
She breathed in the cool breeze as she gazed around at the spectacular scenery. Her eyes kept wandering back to the giant trees, and she decided she would explore there first.
Several gray objects, large and fuzzy, were flying directly toward her from the trees. When she found the right focus with the telescope, her heart jumped. The gray things were enormous flying squirrels, and as they glided down toward her she saw that each had a small bearded man on its back. They were headed right for the doorway she was standing in.
Panicking at how foolish she'd been to dawdle while strangers with weapons came and went, she dodged inside and threw the spyglass back into its case with a shriek. Then she pushed the tall door shut and spun to get back to her own world. As she did so, she brushed an ornate painting with her shoulder and knocked it to the floor with a loud clatter.
She wasn't sure if the flying men had seen her outside, but she didn't want to leave evidence she had been in the room. Grabbing the painting, she tried to hang it back on the wall, but her shaking fingers couldn't get it to hang properly and it fell on the floor again. She could now hear yelling outside as the flyers landed and approached the tree.
Her mind screamed a warning at her: there was still a man with a crossbow between her and home, and she was almost sure to the run into him if she went into the woods. There was only one other option at the moment: the little green door.
She twisted its handle hard, and pushed it open. There was something in the way behind it, but she forced it open as far as she could, knocking the obstacle over. She leaped inside and shut the door, trying desperately to calm her thumping heart.
She was in a small, cluttered kitchen. Pots and kettles whistled and steamed on stovetops around the room. A big orange cat lay curled up on a countertop near one of the ovens with its tail flicking back and forth as it watched Sali. Directly behind the door, a fat little man lay on his back, eyes bulging.
She had bowled him right over with the door. He got to his feet and Sali saw that he was shorter than her and very round. His eyeballs, which were the size of apples, never stopped bulging grotesquely.
"Don't make a sound," Sali whispered fiercely. "Some men are coming through that room in a second, and if they find us we'll both be butchered!"
The little man, with curvy slicked-back hair and a funny little waistcoat, breeches, and knee socks, swallowed and held very still. After a moment he regained some of his composure and spoke in a whisper.
"I have been watching everything." He pointed to a little spyhole in the door. "We'll be safe in here as long as you lock the door."
Sali quickly slid the dead bolt shut on the door frame. Then she turned to peek through the spyhole, hoping she could trust the bug-eyed fellow not to do anything sneaky behind her.
In the hall of doors, the tall door swung open. A dwarf with a hefty rifle in his hands edged inside, peering first this way and then that. When he was sure the room was clear, the squat fellow signaled to those behind him. Five more dwarves with guns ran past him into the hall of doors. They spread out and aimed their big blunderbusses in every direction.
The dwarves, straight out of a picture-book, all had large beards, cloth hats, and leather boots. They were muscular, stocky men and looked ready for a fight.
The first one went over and gave the chains on the dark door a kick with his boot. Satisfied that it was secure, he continued to the green door Sali was watching from. He tried the knob, couldn't get the door open, and muttered something to the other dwarves.
"Bring a can of that gunpowder over here!"
Sali had to put a hand over the mouth of the round man next to her to stifle his squeal of alarm.
One of the dwarves noticed that the door Sali had first come through was still ajar. Forgetting about the green door, the dwarves excitedly crowded around Sali's own doorway and repeated their tactic of the lead scout poking his gun through, looking around, and then motioning for the others to go ahead.
Soon all the dwarves had left the hall and gone into the woods, following the crossbow man's trail toward Sali's house.
Chapter 3: Fat Little Friends
The little man was huddling close to Sali, trying to peek through the spyhole with her. He smelled of sausage. Sali stood up and stepped back.
"Well, they've gone," she said, expelling the breath she had been holding.
"Entered your own land now, have they?" the fat fellow asked. "Most alarming, I declare. But you're safe enough in here."
"Maybe," Sali said. "But my grandmother is nearby. I hope they don't harm her, whatever they're after."
"I'm sure they'll do no such thing," he replied. Then, brightening, he asked, "Would you like a cup of ginger tea?"
Sali nodded, more to get the man to stop rubbing his hands and staring at her than anything. He busied himself over by the stove for a few minutes while she petted the orange cat. She worried that her grandmother, absorbed in her writing, would not be alert to the encroachment of strange men and dwarves. She could be a fearsome woman when riled, but if she was caught unaware she might be hurt.
The cat jumped up and hissed when the loud thump of an explosion echoed through the woods outside Sali's door, and several loud bangs sounded from close by. Sali jumped as well and stared through the spyhole.
The crossbow man came dashing into the hall of doors and stopped at the doorway, looking back into the clearing. Sali had a perfect view of him now and noticed that he had an eyepatch over his left eye. As he stood at the door his hands nimbly inserted a short arrow into his crossbow, and he bent down to use his foot to cock the string into place. Then he ran through the tall door without firing it, blonde hair streaming out behind him. The door was left swinging on its hinges.
Seconds later two of the dwarves came stomping into the room. They looked out through the tall door the crossbow man had exited but did not follow right away. Instead, they ran back to help as the other four entered the hall. One dwarf was injured and the last two were carrying someone.
As they moved hastily through the room, Sali saw that it was her grandmother. The elderly woman was coughing deeply and her clothes and hair were singed. The dwarves treated her gently, but moved as quickly as possible despite her obvious pain. The two advance guards gave an all-clear signal, and the rest followed them through the tall door and out of the hall.
Sali let a little cry escape her lips. The fat little man, who had run over to the door again, furiously shushed her, but no one was left outside to hear. Both doors were already shut and the hall was as quiet as the first time she had seen it.
The man let out a sigh of relief.
"Well, thank goodness they were in such a hurry. Please step through into the parlor here, and I will explain myself a little better. You'll have to excuse the mess. My cleaning day isn't until tomorrow."
Sali numbly followed the man into the parlor where he politely seated her on a low, squashy sofa mounded with cushions. Her mind was a whirl of emotions. She wasn't sure if she should rush after her grandmother into the strange, dangerous land through the tall door, or if she should go for the police.
Her host brought a little teapot with cups and began pouring. Through a large front window, Sali could see a bustling city street outside.
"My name is Gilrod," the man said as he poured tea. "I'm very pleased to make your acquaintance. Won't you take a couple lumps of sugar? There, I'll do four. Or five.
"I have been spying on that little room with the doors for some time, you know. I don't normally go into it, ever. Well, except to do some dusting and replacing of the flowers every Tuesday, and to polish the floor, of course. You wouldn't believe the state I found the room in when I first saw it! Everything smashed around, swords and things all over the floor. It's nice enough now, wouldn't you agree? Well, until today, that is."
The little man didn't show any sign of wanting to pause in his monologue, so Sali just sat back and took a slow, cautious sip of tea, letting her breathing slow and her mind focus. The ginger tea was quite good, if a little too sweet.
"How did you find your way into the room?" the man asked. "I realized it didn't lead where I thought it should soon after purchasing this house. Gave me a shock, let me tell you, but I usually keep my door locked tight from the inside. No one's ever bothered me until today. Not that it's a bother to have you here, quite the opposite.
"I glanced through my porthole yesterday while I was cooking, and I saw you looking around the room. I said to myself 'Gilrod, you should speak to that young woman. She looks quite nice.' Then a pot I was holding burned me, I spilled hot sauce all over the cat, and when I looked up again you'd gone. I unlocked the door today in hopes that you'd be back, and look at us now, having tea. Did you ever think you'd come through here and meet someone on the other side? It's very exciting. Now what was your name, miss?"
"Sali."
"Ah, Sali. Indeed. Very nice. Well, Sali, you are in the town of Bulmogi, and a very nice town it is, at least this end of it. I confess, we've never seen your like before in Bulmogi. We aren't quite so long and stringy, if you don't mind the description. Where do you come from, then?"
Sali wasn't sure where to begin with the strange, talkative fellow from another world. "Connecticut," she replied without explaining herself any further.
"Sounds sophisticated. If you came from it, I'm prepared to believe any number of good things about it. You're so fine-featured-- tell me, are all people in your country so tall and... lithe?" He made the last word sound gently undesirable.
"No," Sali replied, straightening a little. "Most of them are much, much larger. I'm still a child; adults are usually twice my size."
Gilrod dropped his teaspoon and stared at her, trying to discern if she was jesting. When he saw she was serious his eyes widened even more than they already were, which she wouldn't have thought possible. He went a little pale and hurriedly excused himself to go into the kitchen. She could hear him in the kitchen scooting something very heavy in front of the door.
When he came back and sat down he took a moment to calm himself before continuing. Sali smiled in spite of herself.
"Please excuse," he said. "You see I... oh, my goodness. A land full of giants!"
He choked on a sip of tea.
"They won't come after you here, will they?"
"If I'm gone long enough, they might," Sali replied, watching as the sweat beaded visibly on her portly host's brow. "Not right away, though. Don't be so frightened."
"But all of your acquintances are giants, too? Oh, it makes me shudder."
He shuddered, just to show her.
"Goodness. Goodness. And to think... well, a child, really! Please excuse."
Sali didn't know what he was so embarrassed about, but as he spluttered on he got even redder in the face.
"You see, I was under the impression that you were a mature woman, in need only of some healthful nourishment to turn you into an eligible young lady. I have many bachelor friends that are in the market for a suitable debutante, and I had hoped... but a gangly child! With giants for parents! Oh, it's too much. I shall need a rest holiday to regain my composure. Yes, a little holiday. Perhaps next Wednesday."
Sali giggled out loud and had to set her cup down to avoid spilling. Apparently Gilrod considered himself quite a matchmaker, but he wasn't even aware how rude some of his comments were. Sali laughed again at the thought of him improving her and then trotting her out upon the town to be admired by some round little gentleman.
Gilrod continued haltingly, still trying explain away his embarrassing mistake.
"You will see, if you look out the window there, some examples of our own children. Very much different, you see."
Sali looked over to a group of people near the window, and saw a few foot-tall bundles accompanying some of the adults on the street, all done up in lace and little round shoes. These were the children Gilrod referred to, and Sali smiled at the comparison with herself. They were beyond chubby, and if she squinted they almost looked like bowling balls in doll clothing.
One of the little round-cheeked children was being given a pastry by an elderly-looking woman, who was doting on the child as only a grandmother could. It brought to Sali's mind the image of her own grandmother, injured, and the reason she was hiding in Gilrod's house.
"Listen, Gilrod," she said, turning back to her plump host. "The woman those dwarves took away was my grandmother. She is my only family. I need to find out where they were taking her and go after her, right away."
She surprised herself with the words, but it felt like the only thing to do. The police wouldn't believe her story about a magical tree. They would treat this as another missing-person case and it would be days before she could convince them, by which time anything could have happened to her grandmother. Even though the woman had never been exactly tender with Sali, genuine concern for her sole family member rose like a tidal wave in the girl's heart. Without her grandmother's guiding hand, she wouldn't quite know what to do or where to go.
"Oh dear," Gilrod said. "Well, I am afraid it can't be going well with her now. Those men were so terribly fierce-looking, and with such fearful weaponry. It's much too dangerous for a mere child. You mustn't go."
"It doesn't look like I have a choice at all, Gilrod. I have to go after my grandmother, or I may not have any home to return to."
"Hm-hmm. I suppose you must. It would be a daring bit of reconnaisance, and might be fraught with any kind of danger. I couldn't think of going myself. However, since you cannot go alone, I'll tell you what I can do: I have a nephew, one Gabrod by name, a stout young fellow. He might be just the one to accompany you there. He once set out to circumnavigate our entire city on foot. He gets adventurous notions like that occasionally. I'll go and call for him."
Gilrod ran out of the room without giving Sali a chance to ask if the nephew had actually succeeded in his "adventurous" stroll.
He returned a minute later and said that he had dispatched one of the courier automatons to go for Gabrod. In the meantime Sali excused herself to use the miniature bathroom, which turned out to be an adventure all its own, and by the time she reentered the parlor, Gilrod's nephew had arrived.
He was indeed a stout young fellow, slightly shorter than Gilrod and just as bulky, with no chin and quite a tuft of orange hair. He overcame his initial curiousity at Sali's unusual height as he was introduced, and beamed at her.
"Uncle's told me all about you. I say, in person you're every bit as charming as he made out, if a bit bigger. Highly pleased to meet you."
It took another half hour and another pot of tea to explain everything to Gabrod, but by the end of it he was overjoyed to be entrusted with such an important adventure. Sali hoped that enthusiasm could overcome stodginess.
There was a great deal of paperwork that needed to be completed before a citizen could embark on a journey like the one they were contemplating. Gabrod said that the permits had taken several weeks to come back with the appropriate signatures and stamps of approval for his last jaunt. Sali put her foot down.
"No," she said firmly. "We won't be going through any territory that the local authorities have any concern with, so we shouldn't need their blessing. I need to leave now, right now, and you can either stay or come with me."
She almost regretted her words when she saw how taken aback the two little men were, but Gilrod replied that as long as an official notary and an Assistant Representative of the Town Patrol were present to witness his nephew's departure and get his signature on a document stating that he was taking responsibility for his own life and limb, that would suffice.
The officials came and went, and in a few more minutes Gilrod had outfitted the pair of them with sacks of food, walking sticks, and paper and ink to draw a map with so they could be sure to find their way back to the tree with the doors. Finally they pushed away the big cast-iron oven Gilrod had placed in front of the door in his kitchen.
With a parting word of advice to his nephew to "remember his upbringing and don't eat strange stuff", Gilrod saw them out into the hall of doors. Here Sali stopped at the cupboard to take a weapon. Passing up all the long rapiers and heavy swords she wouldn't know what to do with anyway, she selected a long, thin-bladed dagger. Gabrod wouldn't touch any of the weapons, muttering "dangerous things!" as if it were a curse.
Then they opened the tall door and stepped out into the bright mountain sunshine.
Chapter 4: Off the Mountain and Through the Wood
The was a path down from the hilltop, but it was steep and not at all maintained. Sali had to scramble down some parts using her hands for support to avoid sliding across loose rock patches. Gabrod was surprisingly light on his feet and didn't have as much trouble. As they went, the little man began to regale her with tales of his past exploits. They didn't seem to include any accomplishments of substance, but he hinted at vast stores of knowledge and skill which he could call on at any time.
"So how long did it take you to walk all the way around your city?" Sali asked sweetly.
The reply didn't surprise her, and she bit back a chuckle as she eyed her short companion's girth.
"Ah, well, I did begin it well enough, and made good time too, several miles I'm sure it was, within a few hours. Easily ten miles, I would guess. I got distracted, to be honest, on that adventure. Some things came up, and I wasn't able to finish, but some day. Some day."
Probably lunch came up, Sali thought.
"Keep your eyes open," she said out loud. "We're following six dwarves with heavy boots. They shouldn't be too hard to track."
Gabrod swore up and down that he was one of the foremost trackers in his country and could follow the prints of an underweight fox six weeks after it had passed through in a heavy rain storm. It was actually Sali that found a trampled area in the soil near the bottom of the hill, indicating the direction the dwarves had gone from there. They followed the trail farther into the canyon's bottom, and soon they could hear running water.
Sali couldn't help laughing at her entertaining traveling companion, and she was genuinely glad to have someone along with her to explore this unknown land. Now and then, however, a twinge of worry knotted her stomach as she wondered what lay ahead and where her grandmother was. Her plan for the moment was to follow the trail of the dwarves as best she could until she found someone that could tell her more about what might be going on.
No worry was twinging Gabrod's stomach. The little man had already devoured half the provisions in his bag by the time they had crossed a small stream and gotten past a dense thicket beyond it. Here the trail wasn't clear.
"All right, master tracker," Sali said. "Do we head into those trees that run along the canyon floor, or follow the general direction the trail was going in and hope to find some clear prints?"
Gabrod deliberated for a moment, throwing out impressive-sounding phrases like "angle of declination" and "directional pathway of greatest likelihood".
He didn't get the chance to voice his conclusion, however. Sali knocked him flat on his back as she dived to the ground, throwing a hand over her comrade’s mouth to silence him.
“Freeze, and don’t even whisper if you want to live,” she said close to his ear.
She had seen something moving above them on a ridgeline and had the good sense and cat-like reflexes to hide before they were seen.
Over the ridge a group of creatures rose into view, moving with great strides. They walked like men, but had green-tinted skin and were bulkier, taller, and stronger-looking than humans. Brightly died hair sprouted in thick bunches from their heads, standing up on end like the bristles of a broom, some orange and some bright purple. What little clothing they wore was of leather or some rough knitted fiber mesh, and they all carried hefty spears or axes. Their faces were pinched and mean, with long hooked noses and prominent brow ridges.
“Can I look yet?” Gabrod asked, still lying on his back.
“No. Shush,” Sali said. “They’re coming this way.”
“But what is it? Who are they?”
“Trolls or hobgoblins of some kind. A hunting party, maybe. Just stay low.”
The trolls’ path would take them within yards of where Sali and Gabrod lay hidden, and she wondered if she would even be able to make it up the hill to the door in time to avoid a spear in the back. Before the trolls came near, however, the altered their course and headed down the canyon floor, following the stream.
Once they had gone out of sight into some trees, Sali pulled Gabrod up and ran, keeping her head down, in the opposite direction the trolls had taken. It was hard terrain to run on, with steep slopes and jutting shelves of rock, but she didn’t stop until they were both completely out of breath.
They were much higher now, almost at the level of the hill top they had descended from even though they were standing on the canyon floor. Gabrod was wheezing loudly and Sali started to say something to encourage him, but a loud bang from farther down the canyon cut her off. Another bang and then a series of blood-curdling yells rang out.
Sali and Gabrod ducked down by a rock and stared down toward the epicenter of the noise. They could see motion and some puffs of smoke through the trees.
“It sounds like a battle!” Sali said. “Let’s get up on that crag and watch.”
Gabrod lagged behind considerably and almost missed the whole show. Sali watched from her vantage point as the band of trolls came under attack by a gang of short dwarves with rifles. They had apparently been waiting in ambush near a wide part of the stream, and were taking turns firing their loud guns and reloading. All Sali could see of them was that they were similar in height and looks to the ones she had seen before, but were all wearing mottled green and gray cloaks that camouflaged them among the rocks and brush on the hills.
The trolls, initially pinned down by the surprise attack, were now bounding up the slopes toward their attackers, raising axes high to strike at the dwarves. The dwarf fighters fought back with short bayonets, shouting and retreating higher up the hills to retain their advantage.
It was a brief and bloody fight. Only two trolls escaped, running down the stream and dodging blasts from the guns behind them. A few dwarves had been wounded or killed as well, but they definitely had the upper hand.
Sali finally tore her eyes away from the scene.
“Come on. I don’t think those dwarves are the ones we’re looking for, but maybe they can lead us to where we need to be.”
She started down the canyon again, back the way they had just come, ignoring Gabrod’s protests at the dangers of confronting such heavily armed warriors.
By the time they got to the site of the skirmish, however, not a single dwarf was to be seen. They had left the fallen trolls as they had lain, and disappeared. Sali didn’t stop to examine the dead trolls but hurried Gabrod along in hopes of catching up with the dwarves.
After running down stream for several minutes, they came to flatter land with groves of trees and less rock. Just past a thick stand of trees, the path ended at the bank of a wide, rushing mountain river. There was no opening in the dense underbrush on the far side for a group to travel through, but there were plenty of boot prints all along the riverbank on Sali’s side. Gabrod found a short length of rope in the mud, his first contribution to the quest.
"They got into a boat. Drat."
Chapter 5: Barter for a Boat
Gabrod slumped to the ground. “I’m terribly hungry and worn out, Sali dear. What’s left in your food sack?”
Sali ignored him, using her dagger to slash at the thick willows growing along the bank. It was useless; they would take hours to travel a hundred yards if they stuck to the river.
“This must have been the way the dwarves with my grandmother went, too,” she said. “I didn't see any other tracks. How can we follow them now?”
Gabrod wasn't paying attention to her. He was speaking to someone in the bushes.
Sali, at first irritated and then intrigued, walked over and found him in conversation with a large, prickly-looking hedgehog.
“Yep, yep,” the little creature was saying, “always looking to commit violence, the dwarves are. Go from fight to fight. I seen ‘em jump into two fastboats and they got out of here quicklike.”
Sali shouldered Gabrod aside.
"Hi there, what's your name?" she said, cheerfully addressing the animal with the funny accent as if it were something she did every day. A talking animal was no stranger than the round man she was traveling with, she thought, or the dwarves she was chasing.
The hedgehog took a step back and looked all the way up Sali's body from her knees to her eyes.
"Heavens, you're a big one, aren't you? Don't get many of you in these parts. Eh Gabbyrod, mebbe this'n can tell you where they went."
Gabrod explained that he and Sali were together, and that she didn't know any more than he did.
Finally the hedgehog addressed Sali. "Missy, my name's Bili. You got questions for me? I know most things.”
“Yes,” Sali said. “Did you see any other dwarves pass through this way besides the ones just now? There were six of them and they were carrying a woman with them.”
"Eh, sure!" the hedgehog said in a helpful tone. "If they was six of them, they was ten or twenty. Great-big dwarfish fellows with their boomsticks and beards and all. Those ones got in a big-old skiff they ropes up here sometimes. Not an hour ago. Headed off for some secret bungalow downriver, no doubt. Moving slow. If you had a liddle boat you'd catch 'em pretty quick. You won’t catch the ones in the fastboats, but the skiff goes slow."
“Excellent. Do you know where they might be headed?”
“Nope.”
“Are there any roads around here?”
“Nope.”
“Well, is there anyone around that can take us where the dwarves are going?”
“Nope.”
Sali was starting to get frustrated. She tried to be more clear. “Bili, I want to catch up with the dwarves in the skiff. Do you know how I can do that?”
Bili looked at her with very sympathetic eyes.
“They are headed downriver, right? So if you're to catch 'em, you'll have to go downriver too. Best way to do that’s in a boat. If your boat is speedy, you can catch 'em quick-like. Like a young hog catching up to an older, fatter one, see?"
He spoke slowly as if trying to help a thick child understand math. Sali wondered what kind of people the hedgehog was used to speaking with.
"But we haven't got a boat, Bili. See, there are no other boats in the area. Do you know where we could get a speedy little boat like you said?"
"Well, now that's a fair-enough question, it is. Another boat. A different boat besides the one they left in. Huh."
The brown hedgehog scratched his belly with a paw.
"Lessee, there is another boat. A good-big boat. I've seen it."
"Great! Can you tell us how to get to it, please?"
"Wait just one minute," the hedgehog said, giving a shrewd and suspicious glare at the girl towering above him. "I thought you could fly."
"Fly?" Sali was nonplussed.
"Yeah, fly. You got great big creatures you can fly on, don't ya?"
Sali sighed. "Bili, I wish I could fly, but I can’t. Now, where can we get this boat?"
The hedgehog thought for a minute and then winked at Sali. "Uh, I like that liddle bracelet you've got on. Would make a lovely collar for me, don't you think so?"
Sali glanced at the watch she had on her wrist. It took her a moment to realize that the little scoundrel was extorting jewelry from her. She bit back some choice words that rose to her mouth, and pulled it off. It was a small price to pay to get them on their way.
"I'm sure it will look very nice on you," she said, handing the watch to the hedgehog. "Now, where do we find the boat?"
"It's up the river a ways," Bili replied, chuckling at his cleverness and wriggling his head through the watchband. "Would you be so kind and snug it on around my chin, there?"
Sali strapped the watch on a little tighter than necessary, but Bili didn't seem to mind.
"Thankee. Yup, good-big boat up the river, I've seen it. Only other one on this river. Go along the bank until you come to the old-wood part of the forest, and look for the Old Man's hut. He's a bare-skin like you, or used to be-- he was lookin' pretty hairy last I saw him. You'll be able to talk him 'round all right. He'll lend you the boat, sure."
"How big is the boat?" Sali asked, wondering if this was all just a waste of even more precious time. She didn't like the sound of this hairy old man.
"Oh, carries four, five people. Well, maybe three," he amended, eyeing Sali head to toe again. "Most likely three. Can't be bothered to go there myself just now, got business to attend. Good day all, and thanks kindly for the collar."
As Bili trundled off into the undergrowth, Sali picked up her little bundle of belongings and led Gabrod upriver along the bank. Every step of the way grated on her as it took her farther in the opposite direction her grandmother had gone.
Ten minutes later Sali saw smoke rising from a little hut a hundred feet or so from the river. The trees in this part of the forest were mostly dead, making it easy to see through the twisting, blackened trunks. A thick carpet of rotting leaves squelched underfoot as she approached the hut. She hoped nothing creepy lived here. She knocked gently, afraid that if she pushed hard the little shack might fall over.
A dog barked inside, and then the door opened and an old man looked out at her. He was quite short, twisted and hunched over like the trees around the cottage. He didn't say anything.
A small dog squeezed out past the old man's legs. As he stared first at Sali and then at Gabrod, the short-legged dog ran out into the yard and barked. Sali decided to break the awkward silence, even though her stomach felt like it was in her throat. She could swear there was the sound of a cauldron bubbling inside the shack.
"Hello. We heard you had a boat that we might be able to borrow. It's terribly important that we get down the river right away."
"Boat?" the old man said through toothless gums. His overly large head was thickly matted with wild white hair.
"Yes. We were told by a... by a hedgehog, that you had a boat." She hoped that didn't sound as stupid to him as it did to her.
The old man came outside and shut the door. Sitting down on a nearby stump, he threw a stick at the dog and looked at Sali again for a minute. He seemed odd to begin with, but what he said next threw her off even more and made her wonder if he was entirely lucid.
"If a man carried my burden," he began, pausing for a moment in thought before continuing. "If a man carried my burden, it would break his back. I have always been poor, yet I leave silver in my track."
Sali stood there looking at him, but he didn't say anything else. She didn't quite know what to say at that point.
"Is that a riddle?" she asked. "Do you want me to answer your riddle?"
The old man smiled at her and nodded curtly, as if to say "of course I do".
Sali sighed. "I guess I should have expected something like this. Okay, let's see."
She thought a moment, trying to guess what the old man's shaky logic might dictate as the answer to his bizarre riddle.
"Break his back... poor, but leaves a silver track..." she mumbled to herself. Then she got it, pleased at how quickly her mind arrived at the answer.
"A silver track-- that's a snail! The answer is a snail."
The old man smiled wider and tried again.
"Law says a man must wait a year after losing his wife before he can take another. After that time the father-in-law must offer his next available daughter to the man, to comfort him in his grief. Now if a man's wife had three sisters but each has lost her husband only ten, eleven, and twelve months before, is it possible, according to the law, for the man to marry his widow's oldest sister, provided that the father of the women has a wife yet to take care of him, and no additional daughters to complicate things?"
That one made Sali's head spin at first, but after a few seconds of thought she was able to catch the part that hadn't sounded right amid all the confusing nonsense.
"He can't marry his widow's sister because he is dead." She had heard variations of that trick before.
The old man chuckled and nodded, rocking back and forth on the stump.
"I run without legs. I'm dark underneath and above I am sunny. I have a speechless mouth and inexhaustible banks, but I have no use for money."
"A river," Sali fired back immediately. Banks gave that one away easily. "How many more of these do I have to answer before I get the boat?"
The old man was a little put out now, no longer smiling. Apparently he hadn't come across such a clever girl before, and Sali felt a small thrill of pride.
The man went on. "A blade that is cut by other blades; what is it?"
That one took Sali a minute. She looked down at the ground, and then up at the sky, and scratched her head. Finally a bit of greenery poking out from the sod roof of the old man's shack brought the answer to mind.
"Grass." Very shrewd of him to pick that riddle in the middle of this dead forest, she thought, but his own failure to keep his home well tended well had pulled the rug out from under him.
Huffing a little, the man spun up his finale.
"Alive without breath, as cold as death. Never thirsty, ever drinking. All in mail, never clinking."
Sali was in the mindset now, and mentally thanked her grandmother for constantly sharpening her intellect with books and logic problems. She had an idea of the answer to this one before the old man even finished, but took a second to check it against each part of the rhyme.
"A fish! Now it's my turn, if you please."
She had no intention of spending the whole day listening to the man's riddles. She decided to give him an old favorite she had read once and struggled over for days before reading the answer.
"Are you ready? 'It can be harbored, but rarely holds water. It can be nursed tenderly, but only by holding it against your enemy's heart. It can be carried with you, but not in your arms. You can bury it if you choose, but not in the earth."
The old man's mouth opened and closed several times as he stared at her. She thanked her lucky stars he hadn't heard it before, because she only knew a few others.
"You have five minutes to answer, then I get the boat," she said mercilessly.
He grimaced and scratched his head. Gabrod giggled and the dog ran in circles, barking at itself.
Six minutes later they were standing at the river's edge, looking at the little boat. It was tethered to a tree and bobbed up and down on the current, but the fact that it floated was all the good that could be said about it. It was the most dilapidated little craft Sali could have imagined, a four-foot diameter round coracle with a huge hole on one side, leaky patches in the bottom covered with canvas, and one tape-wrapped pole for steering.
This would not be a fun voyage, Sali thought. With no alternative and time slipping away, however, she gingerly stepped into the little bowl-shaped boat and grabbed the pole. If they both huddled on the side away from the hole, they should be able to keep the hole and the worst of the patch jobs up above the waterline.
Trying it out, Sali found that it wasn't so bad. Gabrod seemed surprisingly light for such a fat little man, and they managed to push the little craft into the current without capsizing.
As the current caught them and spun the boat down the bank and farther out into the river, the old man's dog ran alongside, barking furiously. Sali called back to the old man on the shore "Thanks for the boat, and for the riddle game!"
He waved at Sali, smiling, and then a panicked look crossed his wizened face.
"Wait! You haven't told me the answer to your riddle yet!"
He began to hobble along the bank as quickly as he could.
"Come back! The suspense will be the end of me!"
Sali just grinned and waved back at him as they drifted farther and farther away. At the last second she yelled back at him.
"If I didn't tell you, would you hold it against me?"
And then they were gone around a bend in the river.
Chapter 6: Down the River
Using the pole to push off the banks when they got too near, Sali was able to keep the coracle moving along without too many hangups. Once Gabrod took a swipe at a fish they passed and almost fell in, but Sali grabbed his belt and prevented the disaster. She made him promise not to try it again.
At a swift-moving part of the river they turned a bend around a rocky cliff, and as they came around it a troll suddenly rose to its feet from where it had been squatting on the bank. It was dreadfully close, and Sali could see every detail of its primitive garb. It had a sort of kilt made of strips of leather hanging down from a twine belt, and it wore a necklace of shells and the skull of a small animal. It's mottled green skin was vivid and its bright red hair even more shocking. Its beady eyes were even more startled than Sali and Gabrod's.
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