To use his power as sparingly as possible, he laid both hands on Thrugg’s bloody back. He closed his eyes, concentrating . . . He saw a couple of cracked ribs, but the rest was just bruising, a massive battering. It must have been done quite recently, too. Could anything have justified this? Perhaps he was a killer. A crazy troll would be a human earthquake.
Rap turned his head to look up at the girls. They were both fully dressed now, swathed from neck to ankles and wrists in the all-encompassing cover they needed for protection from sunlight. Their huge, vague shapes loomed over him in the gloom, only their frightened eyes distinct.
“Urg? What did Thrugg do? Why did they beat him?”
Urg nervously wiped her nostrils with her tongue. “Masters . . . helping me. Thrugg . . . was very . . . bad.”
“Helping you? Help you to do what?”
“Help . . . make baby . . . Thrugg got . . . angry.” Evil of evils! Rap turned back to the victim.
Andor whimpered. “Rap! What in the Name of Folly are you doing?”
“Be quiet!” Heal! The ambience shivered and flared. There was so much damage! Heal! He would have to use more power—there!
Thrugg grunted, and then began to move like a horse rolling over. Rap jumped up and backed away quickly, conscious of those enormous muscles and hands like dinner plates.
“Thrugg? I’m Rap. I’m a friend. Feel better now?”
The big, bestial face stared up at him blankly. Thrugg’s woolly beard was caked with blood, black in the moonlight. “Friend? Master? You . . . stop pain?”
“I’m a sorcerer. I want to find Witch Grunth. Have you ever heard of her?”
“For the love of the Good, Rap!” Andor screamed. “He’s a savage! A slave! What can he know of a warden?”
Trouble was, Andor was absolutely right. The chances of this unfortunate churl being able to help were as close to zero as chances could be. So . . . So a sorcerer could play hunches, couldn’t he?
“Get dressed, Thrugg.”
Another huge shape moved in as Urg approached with a coarse-woven shirt as big as a tent. Thrugg took it and pulled it on. It was a snug fit.
Andor grabbed Rap’s arm, and Rap shook him off roughly. “Thrugg,” he said, “a year ago, some slaves escaped from here. A sorcerer helped them. I want to find—”
The ambience flared with an eerie light. Rap whirled around to give battle and screamed aloud as he was engulfed in fire.
It had been a trap all along, of course. That was why the troll pen had not been shielded.
The sorceress stood there in the same ill-fitting gown she had worn at dinner, gloating. Although triumph brightened her pinched, foxy features, it did not stop her being nondescript. Yet even that unappealing aspect was a glamour. Rap had caught a brief glimpse of her true form in the ambience, and she was far, far older than she seemed. She could never be the mother of Nya and Puo—grandmother’s mother, maybe.
The battle had been brief, for her power was immeasurably greater than his. He would have made a better showing wrestling Thrugg. She had crushed him easily, then wrapped him in a shielding spell, just as he had once encapsuled Zinixo. He was as completely mundane now as he had been for most of the last eighteen years. The loss felt a lot different when it was not of his own choosing.
Having taken care of his occult powers—and probably Ardor’s, also, just to be certain—the sorceress had then nailed them both into the walls. Their arms were behind them and their legs bent at the knees. They hung there like a couple of decorations, shoulders and backs against the stone, their limbs within it. Rap’s elbows and feet felt so cold that he assumed they went all the way through to the cool air outside. He could move his toes, but not a single finger. It was very effective restraint, but it threw all his weight on his knees and shoulders. The pain was already making him sweat, and increasing steadily.
“Sit!” the sorceress snapped. “Over there! Sit!” The trolls stampeded over to the corner indicated. They sat down in a close-packed heap, huddling together nervously.
Ainopple turned her attention to Andor. “Just a genius, aren’t you? Well, you’ll use no charisma now. The rest of your magical baggage I shall leave for my superiors to investigate.” She sniffed, cloaking anger in disapproval like a schoolmarm. “I had assumed that you were under a compulsion, but I see no signs of one. A faun I can perhaps understand. We must make allowances for such people. But how an imp could behave as you have is quite beyond my comprehension. I hope you enjoy your stay here.”
Andor howled. “Ma’am, you do not understand!”
“I understand perfectly well, troll-lover!”
“No, no! I was—”
The sorceress was not interested in his denials. His voice stopped abruptly, half of a dirty washrag hanging from his mouth.
She turned to Rap, smirking up at him. “Well, you weren’t nearly the threat we were expecting. A pushover!” Her scraggly mouth puckered sulkily. ”After all this time I wish I had a more worthy catch to report.”
Rap felt a faint surge of hope. She did not know who he was, obviously.
She shrugged. “I shall report the news in the morning. I expect his Omnipotence will drop by in a day or two. Until then, do try to enjoy the company. Just remember you chose it.”
“Your master is Zinixo?”
“Certainly not! If you mean the former West, he died years ago.”
“Olybino, then?”
“Of course!” She smirked again. “And yours is Bitch Grunth, I expect. His Omnipotence may well decide to keep you here as bait for a while, and see if she attempts to rescue you—or put you out of your misery, perhaps.”
“No!” Rap said. “Listen! You don’t understand! You haven’t talked with the warlock yet, have you?”
“That’s not your concern.”
“Don’t go away, ma’am! There’s something very important I must tell you. First, I’m not Witch Grunth’s votary! Second, I had nothing to do with any other trolls escaping. Third, I—Arrgh!” Rap’s elbows and shoulders moved closer together, bowing his back out from the wall like a cup handle. His arms and legs strained in their sockets. The pain increased tenfold.
“I have no wish to listen to your imaginative droolings,” the sorceress remarked. She was testing him, of course, in case he had been faking earlier. He could not ease his agony without using sorcery, which meant first ripping off his layer of shielding—and that was as immovable as the Mosweeps, or his hands.
His head was jammed against the wall, twisting his neck so tightly that he could barely speak. “Not lying!” he gasped. “You can see that!”
But of course she couldn’t. The shielding worked both ways, so she could not read his mind. Without that guidance, why would she believe a captured felon’s wild excuses?
Rap could not speak through the pain. Just as he thought he was about to faint, that strangely plastic wall adjusted itself again, easing some of the pressure on his head and spine. The sorceress had apparently decided that he was as feeble as he seemed.
“Ma’am, you are in danger. . .”
“Whatever you have to say can wait for your trial. I expect the Four will give you a hearing eventually, or the warlock may just decide to dispose of your case himself. Meanwhile, I shan’t wish you a good night. I disapprove of hypocrisy.” The door closed and locked itself. Ainopple vanished.
Gods! She had left him to endure this?
Andor said, “Unnnnnnnnng? Unnnnnnnnnnnnnng!”
“Thrugg,” Rap said, forcing the word through clenched teeth. ”The other man needs help.”
The trolls were bait, of course. Obviously, when the Four had turned down Olybino’s complaint, he had taken the law into his own hands. The warlock of the east should not be meddling here in Grunth’s sector, but he had set a trap for the culprits, perhaps several other traps also.
“Unnnng! Un-unnnng!”
“Thrugg!”
The male troll scratched dried blood out ,of his beard and smiled a bushel of ivory across at Rap. “Hot in . . . here, Master,” he growled. Apparently he saw nothing unusual in a man being fastened to a wall. Without rising, he began to strip off his shirt. The woman and girl followed his example.
Yes, it was still hot in the cell, but outside the temperature was dropping rapidly. Rap wondered if his feet would freeze before morning.
“Thrugg! The other man needs help. Go to him, Thrugg.” Thrugg clambered to his feet—but only so that he could take off his pants. Andor was becoming more and more urgent. “Thrugg! Come here!” Rap bellowed. Oh, to have his sorcery back!