by The troll was not especially large, as trolls go: six feet and a bit, maybe seven at most. He had a run-down look about him, like he hadn’t washed in a while and had no plans to do so anytime soon. He wore a ratty zip-up jumper with the air of a charity-shop purchase about it; had it been only second-hand when he’d bought it, or already third? Its faded navy colour did nothing for his sallow complexion, and the tracksuit bottoms and trainers he wore with it were no better. His bulbous eyes rested a moment upon me, took in my coiffed hair and silk dress, then shifted to my colleague, Jay, who stood nervously unsmiling beside me.
I expected an enquiry of some kind. A greeting, maybe, or even a challenge. But he said nothing; only stared at us with dull, incurious expectation.
I tried to look past him into the Enclave, but he’d opened the stone slab of the door only just wide enough to talk to us. Obstructive. Not a good sign. ‘Morning,’ I said brightly, and it was a bright morning: mid-April and balmy, sun high in the sky and rosily smiling. A perfect day for a drive into the hills. ‘We’re from the Society for Magickal Heritage,’ I told him, using my official voice. ‘We have received word of a pair of unregistered alikats in these parts. Would you know anything about that?’
The troll’s answer was to slam the door on us, setting up a fine, booming echo that reverberated along the grassy hillside.
‘He knows nothing,’ Jay translated.
‘They never do.’ I stepped back from the door, or what had once been the door, and surveyed it speculatively. Now it appeared to be nothing but a slab of bare stone in a rocky cliff face, patches of heathery grass scattered above and before it. We were deep in the Yorkshire Moors, not far from the town of Helmsley (or so Jay informed me). I wondered if the powers back Home knew how far the South Moors Troll Enclave had deteriorated. Considering the state of their Doorkeeper, the signs were unpromising.
‘Ves,’ said Jay, eyeing me. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I am wondering if there is another way in.’
‘There won’t be another legal way in. You know the rules.’
I rolled my eyes. Jay was only a few years younger than me, I judged, so he was no wide-eyed intern. But he was fresh from the Hidden University. The tutors there spend a lot of time drilling the students in The Rules, of which there are many. For example, one does not chatter about magickal stuff to those without the Vision to see it for themselves. And, one does not visit the private spaces of Hidden Communities without their express invitation, which means one is only allowed to use their front door. With one of the residents on the other side of it, politely holding it open.
‘All very true,’ I said. ‘But that’s the official policy. In our line of work, it is sometimes necessary to bend the rules a bit.’
‘Aren’t there complaints?’
I smiled mirthlessly. ‘They try that, once in a while. It rarely ends well. In this instance, I’m pretty sure these fine folk are illegally holding at least two alikats, and if it’s a breeding pair that’s even worse. How are they going to report us for misdemeanours without revealing their own transgressions?’
Jay narrowed his deep brown eyes at me. ‘That does not make it all right to freely break all the Rules.’
‘No? How else would you like to get those kats out of there, then? I make it about half an hour before the first one gets eaten.’
‘I’m sure we can come up with… wait. Eaten?’
I couldn’t help sighing. These fresh graduates, so… naive. ‘Why do you think Trolls are generally discouraged from keeping alis?’
‘Because… because alikats are considered endangered.’
Jay obviously hadn’t thought that one through. ‘Exactly.’
‘Ah.’ Jay stopped arguing and joined me in searching for a way in. We proceeded to spend half an hour or so inspecting the hillside for something conveniently resembling a back door, and came up with nothing. We ended up back in front of that stone portal, which was still firmly closed.
‘Oh well,’ said I. ‘We’ll have to do it the fun way.’
‘The fun way?’
‘I, um. I meant the questionable way.’
Jay folded his arms and stared me down. ‘After you, then.’ I do not know why he insists on wearing leather jackets but I do wish he would not; they suit him far too well.
I rang the bell again. It wasn’t a bell at all, in the usual way of those things, but the expression’s apt enough. I laid my right hand, palm-flat, against the stone and politely requested entrance.
As per the Magickal Accords, the inhabitants of the South Moors Troll Enclave — if they weren’t known to be in Recluse — were pretty much honour bound to answer the door. They were required to co-operate with Jay and I as well, of course, but that hadn’t held much weight with them, so who knew? Jay and I waited in hope, and our patience was rewarded. Eventually. About four long minutes later, a thread of dull topaz light raced around the cliff face, tracing the outline of a door, and that door creaked open.
They had changed their Doorkeeper. Mr. Tracksuit and Trainers was nowhere in evidence; replacing him was a larger, lumpier, and rather more belligerent fellow — no, lady — who wasted no time whatsoever in demonstrating how matters stood between us. She bared her yellow teeth and I waited for the spectacular roar of displeasure, most likely preparatory to tearing off our heads, which would undoubtedly follow.
Trolls have a certain reputation, do they not? Not only among those with the Vision to see them. Even the Magicless tell stories like The Three Billy Goats Gruff, in which trolls are hideous beasts who’ll eat practically anything.
Usually, they are wrong. I’ve encountered trolls whose manners, tastes and general refinement would put the finest of the British aristocracy to shame. Trolls whose delight in beauty, culture and the arts go virtually unrivalled across the world; trolls whose academic aptitude and scholastic achievements far exceed my own.
Then again, I have periodically encountered the other sort, too. The ones the Norwegians were talking about when they began telling that story about the Gruffs. Those trolls really will eat almost anything, provided it’s fresh, and in a pinch that would certainly include yours truly.
So I had to forgive Jay for his obvious unease, faced as he was with a displeased Doorkeeper who possibly hadn’t eaten for an hour or two. He backed away, leaving me to face the good lady alone.
In his defence, it did look like an involuntary step back. Those survival instincts, they’ll put paid to your manly courage any day of the week.
Fortunately, nothing put paid to mine. I smiled my nicest smile at the Doorkeeper — who had not, after all, chosen to treat us to a vocal display of displeasure — and said, in my friendliest tone, ‘We’d really like to come in. Just a quick visit, nothing to—’
I stopped because the Doorkeeper was opening her mouth. She was probably preparing to shout at us, or roar at us, or something of the kind, though her movements were peculiarly slow. It seemed to cost her a lot of effort merely to part her lips, which was odd indeed, but convenient because it presented me with a wide open mouth to throw my neighbourly offering into. My gift was a tiny pearl of a thing, all pale, lustrous beauty and lethal potential.
Well, not really lethal. It was a sleep draught, the kind of thing that was once served oddly-coloured and bubbling in peculiar glass jars. The technicians at Home have started compressing them into these bead forms instead. It’s the same potency, only smaller, and easier to deliver. Every bit as fast-acting, though; the jelly-type shell that holds everything together dissolves in the mouth in seconds.
It took only slightly longer than that for the Doorkeeper to evince a promising swaying upon her boot-clad feet.
‘Back a bit more,’ I warned Jay, who’d begun to show signs of plucking up his courage for an advance. I wandered back a bit myself, and waited.
The troll pitched forward, and landed upon her face. All ten feet of her hit the ground with a thud, which resonated so powerfully I was even moved to hurry a little.
‘In we go,’ I said, and grabbed Jay by the arm. ‘You can study her later, if you like, but just now we need to get on with the job.’
‘I don’t want to study her,’ Jay retorted, pulling his arm out of my grip. ‘I was just interested. I’ve never seen a troll like her before.’
‘You can admire her later, too. Maybe she’ll take your phone number.’
‘I didn’t mean—’
‘Alikats,’ I reminded him. ‘Quickly.’
He muttered something inaudible, then added snidely: ‘I just find it hard to take you seriously with that hair.’
I tossed the hair in question, undaunted. Just because it was cerulean-blue, and arranged in impossibly perfect ringlets; did that give him any excuse to question my authority, or my expertise? ‘I know you are jealous, and I can’t blame you, but this is only our first assignment together and I’d like to survive it intact. If you help me retrieve these kats without anybody losing a limb, I’ll get you a Curiosity all of your own. A wardrobe that spawns a new, jazzy leather jacket every morning, say. Or a mirror that shows only your best features.’
All Jay’s features are his best features, in fairness. He flicked his pretty, pretty eyes at me in annoyance — they’re the colour of dark chocolate, those eyes, and they have that velvety quality, too. It’s all decidedly unfair, and I can’t decide yet whether or not he knows it. ‘Lead on,’ he said, choosing (perhaps wisely) to ignore my facetiousness.
I led.
The Enclave proved to be much as I expected: a jumbled mess. The town was built in circles — they do like curves, trolls — and formed of tall, imposing block stone houses built in sinuous lines. Those houses were probably handsome, once, but they’d been allowed to deteriorate. Some of them had lost their original carved oaken doors, and had others tacked on in place; the new ones looked as though they’d been ripped off some shoebox of a concrete dwelling, probably from a local housing estate. Nothing had been painted in at least ten years. Rubbish lay stacked in piles in every corner, and discarded refuse lined the cobbled stone pathways.
The aroma of the place might best be termed Unpleasant. Let’s leave it at that.
There weren’t too many residents about, which was fortunate for us, though I wondered where everybody was. I saw a few listless-looking souls trudging purposelessly hither and thither, their heads covered with cheap knitted hats. They wore the same fashion of frayed, mismatched clothes as the Doorkeepers.
Nobody stopped us. I’d half expected the noise of the Doorkeeper’s fall to attract some kind of attention, but either they had not heard (was that possible? The woman fell like a tree!) or they did not care. Nor did they question the sudden appearance of a pair of humans, one all improbably-coloured hair and spectacular fashion sense, the other all cinnamon skin, chocolate eyes and tousled cuteness (should I stop making Jay sound edible…? Okay then). I suppose they had no particular reason to interfere with us. If they were unaware of what we’d done to their Doorkeeper, they’d assume we had been given clearance to enter.
It did not take us long to find out what had become of the alikats. The Enclave was eerily quiet; the sound of a distressed yowl carried nicely. Jay and I veered as one, and made for the alikats at a run.
There proved to be a little square in the centre of the town (or shall I call it a round? For it, like everything else in the place, was pleasingly curvaceous). A cluster of trolls had gathered in an eager knot around a fire pit — or what passed for eager around here; they were at least visibly breathing, which gave them the edge over the rest of the townspeople. The leader of this little group was unquestionably the hunch-backed one in the middle, whose broad shoulders and massive hands looked more than capable of ripping me to pieces. He held a cleaver. To his left stood a troll in a candy-striped jumper that looked like it was knitted by somebody’s grandmother. For his convenience, she was obligingly holding out one of our missing alikats. The poor creature’s indigo-shaded fur bristled with fright, and it fought mightily to free itself, but to no avail; nothing could dislodge the fierce grip in which it was held.
I noticed that its captor had painted her fingernails a charming cerise, which was a nice effort, even if the lacquer was rather chipped.
‘See the other one?’ I asked of Jay as we approached.
‘Nope. You do this, I’ll do that.’ He veered off, went around the knot of trolls and disappeared.
I didn’t argue, even though his desertion left me to deal with six or eight trolls unaided. Two alikats were missing, only one was in evidence; I felt a stab of fear, for those kats are more than merely endangered. Like many magickal creatures, they feed off magickal energies (in a manner of speaking), and there are blessed few of those bouncing around nowadays. Things were different back in, say, the middle ages. In those days, practically everybody was Magickal and alikats, and all their ilk, were a dime a dozen — or comparatively, anyway. Here in the early twenty-first century… well. I can’t even guess at the approximate value of a breeding pair of alis, they are that rare. The Powers would have my head if Jay and I returned with only one.
And these idiots were trying to eat them.
‘Stop!’ I barked. The trolls’ absolute obliviousness to my presence — and Jay’s — was curious, and I had to repeat the word twice more at increasing volume before one of them finally looked up at me. This alert, lively specimen fixed his muddy grey eyes upon me with a dull spark of awareness, and nudged the hunchback.
But too late, because that cleaver was already swinging down, aimed unerringly for the yowling alikat’s neck.
