Frank Tuttle - The Mister Trophy

I stepped inside. The candle sported a pale hand and part of an arm; it beckoned me forward and drifted down a dark hall.

I followed. I’d gone maybe ten feet when my candle-bearer reached a waist-high basket and put the candle on the lid. Then he vanished, quiet as the ghost he probably was.

I walked to the basket. My own footsteps crunched and squeaked, loud in the tomblike silence. I picked up the candle and lifted the lid.

There, wrapped in red velvet, was a head.

Liam’s head.

His pale, dry eyes rolled, seeking mine, meeting them. His mouth made empty words I could not read.

I was just about to say something-what, I’m not sure-when the candle flame puffed out, the door behind me slammed shut and a bag with a cord sewn into its mouth fell over my head.

The cord went tight. I kicked back behind me and flailed with my fists and none of that stopped the darkness from dragging me under.

“Wake.”

Something slapped me.

“Wake.”

Again, a slap, and a torrent of cold sour water. I coughed and spat and opened my eyes.

And wished I hadn’t. I was propped up in a chair. Across from me was a desk-a big, dark, polished desk that had no business sitting in a leaky room in an abandoned warehouse-and behind the desk was the Haverlock himself.

I knew him, though I’d never joined him for a glass of sherry or a dinner with the Regent. The few half-dead I’d ever seen before had been the out-and-about variety. The half-dead who’d joined the Army had been the young ones, the ones not yet mad with bloodlust, not yet rendered insane by the very thing that kept them walking.

This half-dead was old. Old and mad and hungry, all dry ashen skin and flexible bones and fingers tipped with claws. His clothes would cost me a year’s work but they couldn’t hide the price he’d paid for a shoddy brand of immortality.

He looked into me with those dead white eyes and tiny black pupils.

My mouth went dry. The Haverlock lifted its corpse-black lips in a smile.

“Came to take my trophy,” it said, its voice a dry airy rustle. “Came to my House to steal.”

I wanted to say something, but found the words wouldn’t come.

“Brought Trolls against my House,” it said. “Brought Trolls and traitors. Did you find the head we left for you, Finder? Will it make your Troll friends happy?”

It giggled. And it reached forward, long black nails at the ends of longer white fingers.

Mama Hog’s bracelet moved on my arm. I jerked back, scooting the chair half a foot.

“Nowhere to run, Finder,” said the Haverlock. “Trolls can’t help you. Watch can’t help you. Friend Liam can’t help you. Did he try to warn you, when you found him? Did he tell you I knew of his treachery, knew of his plot?”

I wondered what time it was. Had I missed the twelfth bell? Was I still in the same warehouse?

The Haverlock saw. It smiled an open-mouthed smile, and where Liam’s mouth had looked almost normal the Haverlock had a headful of crooked, dirty yellow needles.

I bolted, cussed, fell. My ankle was tied to the desk. It wasn’t moving.

Somewhere-it sounded like below us-there was a loud crack, as of thick timbers breaking, and a thud. And then another blow shook the building, strong enough to start a slow rain of dust from the ceiling. And then, muffled but unmistakable, I heard a Troll’s war-roar.

“My Trolls,” I managed to say. “Tired of waiting.”

The Haverlock giggled, child-like. “They die, too,” he said. “We’re ready. Ready for two Trolls, ready for three, ready for ten.” He stood.

“I’ve only got three,” I said. “Three Trolls. At least one of them is a wand-waver. You ready for Troll magic, Old Bones?”

If the Haverlock heard or understood, he didn’t acknowledge me. He just strolled around the desk and came at me, yellow teeth bared, fingers twitching spasmodically.

Mama Hog’s bracelet moved again, spat a fist-sized rain of pale blue sparks. I felt a thousand little tickles, like it had grown feet and was trying to get away. I jerked up my arm.

Mama Hog’s bracelet squirted baby lightning at the half-dead. The Haverlock grinned and his cold, hard flesh touched mine and in an instant he had the bracelet in his gaunt, long-fingered hand. “Stupid little man,” he said, as the bracelet sizzled and glowed. “Foolish little man. You think this trinket can save you?”

He crushed it, flung it aside.

Something still moved on my arm. I chanced a glance and there it was-a long, thin critter like a centipede, but slimmer. It was fast. It scuttled up my shirt to my shoulder, coiled like a snake and launched itself at the Haverlock’s dead face.

You’d have thought I’d thrown a bucket of daylight. The Haverlock’s dead white eyes got wide and he batted the air with those claws and backpedaled so fast he tripped on the desk and went down flapping and kicking.

Then he shrieked, longer and louder and higher than any human ever had, ever would.

I bent down, found the rope around my foot. The knot was tight and hard. I yanked and heaved. The desk was heavy. It didn’t budge.

The Haverlock leaped to his feet. Dark oily spittle was running down his chin. I didn’t see the worm, and from the way he kept turning and looking I knew he didn’t either.

He glared at me, teeth bared, and bunched for a dive. I pulled so hard my shoe came off ahead of the rope.

The Haverlock dove. He broke the arm I raised, but then the wall behind us exploded and Mister Smith snatched the Haverlock up in his massive Troll hands and brought him down head-first on that polished ironwood desk-top.

And brought him down again, and again.

“Go now,” boomed Mister Smith. Down came the half-dead. Black fluid sprayed. “The Misters will see you safe.” The Haverlock still writhed and grappled.

Thunder rang out, right under my fundament, and light flared so bright below me I saw every crack between every board in the floor. Another crack and flash ripped through the warehouse, and a Troll laughed. Tiny wisps of smoke began to coil up and out between my feet.

I got up. My left arm hung limp and numb. Black dots were swimming across my vision. “We haven’t gotten what we came for,” I said.

“We go to House Haverlock,” said Mister Smith, between lifts and falls of the still-twitching Haverlock. “We search there.”

The room pitched and yawed like the deck of a troop ship.

“No need,” I heard myself say. “I know where your cousin’s head is.”

Mister Smith eyed me over the ruin of the eldest Haverlock, gave him another slam for good measure. “Are you well, Finder?” he said.

I laughed. Sizzles and roars under us spoke of Troll magics. More timbers burst, below, and the floor dropped several inches before catching. One of Mister Chin’s tame bubbles floated up through the floor, made a quick circuit of Mister Smith and I, and then sank back through the floor in search of paler prey.

I wobbled my way across tilting, popped floorboards to the other side of the desk.

On the right-hand side were six drawers, all too small to contain a Troll-head. On the left were four drawers-and a single enormous cabinet. A sane man might keep a keg of beer or a wastebasket or a barrel of snacks in it.

The thing Mister Smith was smearing all over the room hadn’t been sane for a long, long time.

I tried the big cabinet door. It wasn’t even locked.

I opened it, moved a cloth and there it was.

“When you’re done with him,” I said. “Help me lift this out. Need two arms, got one.”

Mister Smith grabbed Haverlock by either end and pulled. I turned my head until it was done.

The floor shook. The thunder rolled. I stood there blinking and gasping and sorting out storm-sounds from Troll battle magics. The Misters were making a mess. I hoped they were winning.