A Riddle of Green Read online

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  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  CHAPTER 1 The Harling

  CHAPTER 2 Trapped

  CHAPTER 3 The Severing

  CHAPTER 4 The Sett Owl

  CHAPTER 5 The Guide

  CHAPTER 6 Danger

  CHAPTER 7 The Wander

  CHAPTER 8 The Road Serpent

  CHAPTER 9 The Salten Sea

  CHAPTER 10 Flotsam

  CHAPTER 11 The White Tower

  CHAPTER 12 The Deepest Green

  CHAPTER 13 The Source

  CHAPTER 14 Stone Magic

  CHAPTER 15 The Gift

  PROLOGUE

  Deep under the great human metropolis that sprawled where a forest of singing trees once grew was the fell troll city of Underth. Here the Troll King ruled. At night, he sent his minions creeping through dark, twisting ways up into the human city. There they stole anything whose loss would cause pain, maimed any small creature they encountered, and whispered havoc into the ears of greeps, those fallen humans who lived in crannies about the city.

  The Troll King had many hatreds, but his most bitter loathing was for Little Fur. Not only was she the daughter of an elf and a troll, she was also a healer and especially beloved of the earth spirit. To complete the Troll King’s hatred, Little Fur had thwarted the trolls more than once on the earth spirit’s behalf.

  Little Fur dwelt in a small secret wilderness that had once lain at the heart of the forest of singing trees. Of these trees, only seven remained, but they were saturated with all the vast power of their fallen brethren, and they used it to hide the wilderness from human eyes and minds. They were called the Old Ones, and their roots reached deep into the flow of earth magic.

  The Troll King and his ilk disliked the humans who ruled this age of the world, but they disliked far more those few creatures that, like themselves, had survived from an earlier age of the world—the age of high magic. Little remained of the great powers of that time. Now there was only earth magic, which could not be worked but which nourished all life that accepted its flow.

  Trolls rejected the flow of earth magic, while humans knew nothing of it. Still, humans weakened and smothered the flow by hewing down trees and covering the green earth with their high houses and black roads. The Troll King rejoiced at this hurt done to the earth spirit, and for that reason plotted no great and lasting harm against humans.

  Yet.

  Ever since Little Fur had been to Underth to learn more about the plots of the Troll King, she had often dreamed of the dark, chaotic city. Sometimes she dreamed of a she-troll limping along the cracked black streets, nursing her swollen belly. Little Fur thought these were dreams born of longing to know what had become of her mother—for Little Fur had been left as a baby among the roots of the eldest of the Old Ones. But occasionally the visions were so strong that she wondered if they were not her mother’s memories that had seeped into her.

  Most often, though, Little Fur dreamed of the Troll King. He was huge and pale and ferocious as he gnashed his teeth and clenched his fists, gazing up toward the sunlit surface of the world. Around his neck was a green stone, just like the one Little Fur wore herself.

  CHAPTER 1

  The Harling

  Trolls were the last thing on Little Fur’s mind as she made her way through the human city on her way back home from where the lemmings lived. The white vixen named Nobody and a lemming named Lim accompanied her. It was before dawn on a spring morning, and the air was sweet with new blossoms. Little Fur was pleased to see how many of the seeds she had planted in tiny cracks and crannies had quickened. She thought that even the humans must be able to feel the flow of earth magic, strengthened as it was by all the new growth.

  Certainly all the animals in the wilderness were giddy with joy, and the birds were even more scatter-minded than usual. Only the fox called Sorrow was unmoved. Little Fur glanced at the vixen padding along beside her. Nobody had come to the wilderness in the last days of winter, seeking Sorrow, whom she was destined to love. But Sorrow had rejected Nobody, saying that he was an unnatural fox with no true wildness in him, having been raised and used by humans. He swore that he would never take a mate or sire any kits. Sorrow did not care that Nobody’s white pelt and lavender eyes had made even her own father call her unnatural.

  Nobody had not yet spoken of returning to the ice mountains where she had been born, but the lovely scent of hope in her was beginning to fade. Little Fur was sad to think of the two foxes, destined to love one another but living apart. If only she could talk to Sorrow about Nobody … but she did not know how to broach his ferocious solitude.

  Little Fur sighed and looked up, her eyes searching bits of sky between the buildings for the ragged black shape that was Crow. He was spying out the way ahead as usual, scanning the streets for the furtive movements of greeps. They preferred the dark hours, and the warmth of spring always brought them out of the nooks where they had shivered through the winter.

  A small claw plucked at her tunic, and Little Fur looked down to find Lim regarding her with huge, anxious eyes. “The Teta will be well now?” the lemming asked. Lemmings called all of the older females in their clan Teta, but Little Fur knew that Lim meant the prime teta of his clan. The Teta was a very grand personage, despite her diminutive size, and very dignified and stern.

  “The Teta is not truly ill,” Little Fur explained gently to Lim. “It is only that she is having bad dreams.”

  “Perhaps the Sett Owl will tell the meaning of the Teta’s dreams,” Lim said, with the grave, direct courtesy of his kind.

  Little Fur had advised the Teta to seek the wisdom of the Sett Owl, though the aged seer was in a trance most days, leaving the monkey Indyk to try to explain any words she spoke. It was odd that the ancient Sett Owl had not given way to her small apprentice, Gem, for she spoke often of the moment when the still magic would release her to join the world’s dream. Little Fur thought that perhaps it was time to visit the beaked house again. She could take a tisane to ease the stiff bones and ruined wing of the Sett Owl, and it would be good to see Gem.

  “All quietfulness,” Crow cawed, swooping low.

  The green verge they had been following narrowed to a thin line of grass sprouting between the path and the black road. Little Fur concentrated on stepping along it. She always had to be standing on green and growing things or on good earth in order to connect with the flow of earth magic. Just when the grass ended,
at some mossy cobbles, a hissing came from the darkness.

  Little Fur stopped and turned to see a sleek black mink poking his sharp snout through a narrow gap between two of the human high houses. His beady eyes fixed upon Little Fur, and he beckoned urgently. Nobody gave a low warning growl, but Little Fur laid a hand on her soft pelt before going toward the lane. The passage was too dark for Little Fur to see far along it, but it was also too narrow to be harboring either human or greep.

  “Greetings, Mink,” Little Fur said politely.

  “Greetings, Not-mink! Greetings!” said the mink, blinking his eyes rapidly. “I have been sent to find you. Sent!”

  “One of your brothers is ill?” Little Fur asked, for all minks addressed one another as Brother, whether or not they were male or related.

  “It is not-mink who sickens. Not!” the mink hissed. “It is harling that is hurt. It reeks of sickness. Is sending this brother mink to find not-mink healer.”

  “A harling?” said Nobody, pricking her ears. “I thought they had all died out when the age of magic ended.”

  Little Fur sniffed. There was no stink of a lie, but minks, like most humans, usually cared only for their own kind. A mink would never seek Little Fur to help another creature unless it had been compelled. This made his story easier to believe, for harlings were said to have the power to impose their will on other creatures.

  “Soon the sun will open its eye,” Nobody murmured.

  “It is not far going! Coming quick quick!” insisted the mink, panting slightly in his agitation. He gestured to the narrow passage behind him, which was clogged with grass and human mess.

  Little Fur turned to Lim. “I will go with the mink. You should return to your clan now.”

  The lemming shook his small head solemnly. “The Teta bade Lim accompany healer to wilderness of Old Ones. Lim must obeying or be dishonored.”

  Little Fur sighed. There was no way to convince a lemming of anything once it started talking of honor. They were even worse than ferrets!

  “Little Fur must waiting! Intrepiditious Crow flying bravely ahead to see what at endfulness of passage,” Crow announced. Without waiting for an answer, he circled a high house and disappeared.

  “Not goodly to wait!” hissed the mink after a time.

  Little Fur looked around anxiously. Crow ought to have returned by now, but the link between them told her that he was safe. No doubt he had stopped to boast about his bravery to some pigeons.

  Little Fur nodded. “All right, we will go.”

  The mink turned and vanished into the passage. Little Fur pushed her water gourd and herb and seed pouches behind her so they would not hamper her movements and pressed through the tangle of growth at the dark, narrow entrance. She could hear the rustling of the mink’s progress, and could see the occasional red flash of his eyes as he checked to see if she was following.

  Little Fur tried to remember what she had heard about the great earth dragons known as harlings. In the age of high magic, they had flown through the ground as swiftly and easily as a bird through the air. When the age of magic ended, they lost their power to transform the earth, and it was said that all the harlings had perished. The thought that one of the legendary creatures might be lying beneath the human city made Little Fur’s heart beat faster.

  “Mink?” she called softly, for she could no longer smell its scent. “Brother Mink?”

  There was no answer.

  “He has gone,” the vixen said behind her.

  “Surely mink is waiting, for he has not yet kept his promise,” Lim said earnestly.

  Little Fur did not think the mink would abandon them before bringing them to the harling, unless the creature’s hold upon him had faltered.

  The passage opened onto a small yard covered in thick, soft grass. The yard was surrounded on three sides by the backs of high houses, and on the fourth side by a stone wall partly covered in ivy. In the middle of the yard was a small circular mound built of stone, and half overgrown with ivy as well. No false light shone from any of the looming high houses, but even so, a human glancing out might see her standing there.

  Little Fur hurried across the grass and around the mound. On the other side of the mound was a stout arched door with a window in it. A path of crushed white stone led directly from the door to a heavy wooden gate set into the stone wall. Little Fur could smell that humans did not live in the round house, and yet the smell of human was all about it. She was very curious. The round house smelled very old, and humans were always pushing over old dwellings with their road beasts to make way for newer and bigger ones. Yet the neat stone path and short grass told her that humans revered the mound.

  From somewhere, a bird uttered a few shrill notes and then fell abruptly silent. Little Fur looked up to see that the sky was turning from indigo to a deep clear blue. There were still a few stars to show it was not quite day. Little Fur knew that if she did not leave the human city now, she would have to hide and wait to return to the wilderness at night.

  Nobody was sniffing at a part of the stone wall where the ivy grew thickly. “The mink went over the fence here,” she said.

  Little Fur nodded. “The harling must have lost its hold on his mind, or—”

  “Or it released the mink because he had done what he was sent to do,” the vixen murmured. She was sniffing at a scent along the path of crushed stone now, but when she reached the door to the round house, her brush fluffed. “It is open,” she said.

  Little Fur drew nearer and saw that the bar that ought to have secured the door was propped against the wall and that the door stood slightly ajar. Lim darted forward and slipped through the tiny gap. Little Fur could not follow him, because no earth magic would flow through a solid floor. She looked anxiously at Nobody, who pushed her nose into the gap to widen it and went through after the lemming.

  Little Fur set her hand upon the wall. The moment she touched it, she drew in a breath. Earth magic flowed through the stone! The great age of the dwelling and the lack of humans must have allowed earth magic to reclaim it, Little Fur thought. Then she saw that the round house had no paved floor. The walls rested on good earth. Little Fur stepped inside and was met by a faint, tantalizingly familiar scent, but the sour smell of human that overpowered it was too strong for her to fully make it out.

  “Something is under us,” Lim said eagerly, his small eyes shining with excitement.

  Only then did Little Fur notice that earth magic was pulsing under her feet. She dropped to her knees and pressed her palms to the ground. “It is the harling, but how do I get to it?”

  “There might be a way here,” Nobody said, indicating a fissure running along the floor by the wall. Little Fur saw that there was room enough in the middle for her to wriggle down into it, and her nose told her that the passage widened deeper down. There was a faint scent of troll, too, which told her that the fissure opened onto one of the trollways that led down to Underth.

  “I must go down,” she said.

  “I will come with you,” Nobody told her firmly, for she, too, had caught the smell of troll. She turned to Lim. “But someone must guard our backs. Have you the courage to remain here alone and keep watch, Lemming?”

  Lim rose up on his hind legs and bowed his assent to the white fox with great dignity. Little Fur squeezed into the crack. She was touched by the way the vixen had ensured the safety of the lemming without wounding his small pride.

  Little Fur worked her way down until she reached a narrow path. It ran a short distance, then split in two. She dropped to her knees at the fork and again pressed her palms to the earth. Her heart leapt, for her troll senses told her that the harling was directly under the fork. The crust of earth between the enormous creature and the air was as thin as an eggshell.

  “Greetings, Healer.” The words were like the distant sound of stones being tumbled in swift-flowing water. Little Fur felt them as a vibration under her feet as much as words in her mind.

  “Greetings, Lord o
f the Earth,” she said.

  “Lord no more,” the harling said wearily, the hissing of sand over stone in its voice. “Better say ‘groveling worm,’ for I will fly no more.”

  “You are hurt, Lord,” Little Fur said gently. “I will help you. But you will have to tell me what to do, for I have never had the honor of treating one such as you before.”

  “You cannot help me, unless you will do what you have refused to do.”

  “Refused?” Little Fur repeated, baffled. “I do not understand.”

  “The Troll King is ill, but you have refused to help him, though troll blood runs in your veins,” answered the harling.

  “I did not refuse the Troll King healing, because I did not know he was ill. But if he had summoned me, I would have feared to go to him, for he would rather die than ask for help from one he regards as his enemy.”

  “Can this be true?” the harling rumbled. “That is not what they told me.”

  “‘They’?” Little Fur echoed, beginning to be alarmed. She glanced at Nobody and saw that her brush had begun to fluff out with apprehension.

  “A trick,” the vixen warned, glancing around cautiously.

  “Go back to Lim,” Little Fur bade her. “Get him away from here.”

  “What about you?”

  “I must see what I can do for the harling,” Little Fur answered.

  “The harling lured you here,” Nobody said.

  “He is in pain, and he was deceived,” Little Fur told her. “Go to Lim now. I will be able to smell the trolls long before they get here.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Trapped

  When Nobody had gone, Little Fur knelt and put her cheek to the earth, trying to feel where the harling was hurt. The scent of its pain was strong, but she could sense no wound or broken place. “Tell me how you were injured,” Little Fur urged.

  “I am wounded by this long, lonely creeping that is my life; I who flew through the jewel-encrusted earth. I was near to spent when some trolls came to me and begged me to help their king, who was deathly ill. They reminded me of the great bond between harlings and trolls—if one called, the other could not fail to answer—but that was long ago. I asked what they thought I could do, slowing unto death as I am. They told me a powerful half-elf healer lived who possessed magic from the last age that could save the Troll King. They said that if I would help them, they could dig a passage to the surface of the world, and once the king had been cured, the healer could restore my ability to fly through the earth. But now that you are here, I can sense that you are as much troll as elf, and that you do not possess the powerful magic of the last age.”