#AtoZChallenge #GisFor ...Gorg the Troll

G is for Gorg

Following the suggestion of fellow blogger and amazing author Jemima Pett, I'm doing a very simple A to Z with characters from my writing and the books of my author friends! I'm just posting a brief profile, sometimes a quote, and the book cover with links. Though you may also see some of my typical reviews (when I feature other peoples’ books) and the usual Friday Flash Fiction.

In a nutshell: Gorg is, well, a troll. He's a living pile of rock and a leader among trolls in the Vegetative Kingdom ruled by King Celery the Halfwit. He's also smarter than the average troll, especially after an encounter with a misguided human wizard.
His biggest secret: Gorg is terrified of deep water. Stones sink.
Favorite quote: "Gorg gave the innkeeper a blank look—all too easy when one’s face is made of stone."

Gorg doesn't have his own book yet...only a very rough draft of one.  But I'm going to do my flash fiction for the week (yeah, it's Saturday, not Friday, but close enough) by re-running the story in which Gorg made his first appearance, on August 6, 2013.

The Revenge of Gorg 

Gorg the Troll stared at the writing on the ragged bit of wood alongside the road, his lips moving more than his brain.  "Moss-ter-nest-een cit-ee". He sounded it out a few times, studied it a bit more, then his stony face split into a smile.  A few chips fell off, and he repeated, "Mosternestine City!"  He considered the arrow next to the letters.  Gorg was pretty sure it was meant to direct travelers to the city, but he wasn't sure which end of the arrow to follow.

After a few minutes thought, indulged at the risk of becoming a rock once again, he turned toward the pointy end of the arrow and stomped off down the road.  Gorg never noticed the small stone carving of a mounted knight now embedded in his heavy leather boot sole.

Two miles away Snella Swordsinger led her limping mount toward the same intersection.  She cursed the smith who'd shod the horse three days back, in a town so backwards that the iron shoe had no magic in it whatsoever.  The brittle metal had snapped while they were crossing the Plain of Exquisite Distress, and for the last several hours they had been slowed to a crawl.  Meanwhile, the trail grew cold.

Snella sought a sorcerer, revenge burning in her heart.  But the cursed man knew she was coming, and left a taunting trail of chess pieces, each with just enough magic to lead her to the next.  And behind him he left a world sapped clean, for the time being, of all magic.  Which was no doubt why the horseshoe was broken and her mount limping.

An hour after Gorg, Snella and her unhappy equine reached the crossroads.  Unlike Gorg, she had no difficulty reading the sign.  Unfortunately, also unlike Gorg, she didn't know where she needed to go.  There should have been a chessman there, marking the junction and drawing her on.  Instead, there was nothing but a bare stone road surrounded by bare stone ground, and the tiny trace of magic Snella possessed wasn't enough to tell her which way to go.

The sorcerer would go to the city, would he not?  Mergle liked bright lights, or at least some kind of lights, and he liked a tavern at night with a drink and a bed.  But of course that was the way he'd expect her to think.  And she liked a drink and a bed, too.  All the more reason he'd probably gone the other way, off into the desert, just to spite her.  Snella looked from her mount to the stoney ground, and sighed.  She would have to do it.  But not with her horse in this condition.

Two hours later, Snella put out the last of her fire.  The shoe her horse now wore was far from perfect, but it would protect the beast from the desert.  And she could ride again.  Swinging into the saddle, the swordswoman pointed her mount toward the empty lands.

Gorg stomped his way happily toward Mosternestine City, singing a bit of a troll song as he went.  Most hearers would have thought it was the noise of a rockslide or a bison with gas, but Gorg was pleased.  He reached the city just at dusk, and without knowing why, followed assorted twists and alleys to a street where, by its look, any deed could pass unnoticed, and often did.

Pausing, he looked up at a sign over a door.  The tavern was called the Corpse and Coffin.  That would put off most people, but Gorg was no human, and, sniffing the succulent odors of stale beer and slightly spoiled meat, he pushed open the door and entered.

The room was nearly dark, its windows being unwashed since the reign of King Celery the Halfwit--the first of that name, not the current version.  So Gorg didn't see the man sitting at the table in the corner, and didn't see his start of surprise.  Gorg was not who he had expected.

"You!"  The sorcerer sounded slightly strangled.  "How did you get the chessman?"

Gorg scratched his head, raising a small cloud of rock dust.  "Chessman?"

"You must have it.  I can feel its presence, and it would have led you here."

Gorg thought about this a bit longer.  While thinking, he lifted a massive foot to examine it the irritating lump it had developed.  Thoughtfully--for a troll--he picked the scarred bit of carved stone from the boot sole and examined it.  "This?"

"Yes, that!  You idiot of a lump of rock!"  Mergle was nearly screaming now, and with this change in his voice, Gorg suddenly recognized the magician who had returned three of his relations to the stone from which all Trolls are born.  He clenched his fist and the scuffed knight crumbled to dust.

Then he did the same thing to Mergle, before sitting down to a cup of the best stale beer he'd drunk in a long time, with the satisfaction of a job well done.
~~~

Three months later, crossing the desert south of the city, Gorg came across two piles of bones.  The smaller was human, and a sword lay among the bones.  Gorg gave it scarcely a glance.  Turning to the larger, he picked up the skull of the unfortunate horse.

"Poor old thing," he said.  "I told you to come with me."

###

©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2013
As always, please ask permission to use any photos or text. Link-backs appreciated!

And my best photo of Gorg:

NaNoWriMo Update #2

Something happened to my good intentions about weekly updates, and since my first update on Nov. 5, somehow an extra week slipped past.

I'm happy to report, though, that it didn't slip past my writing, and I can report progress good enough to probably carry me through the Thanksgiving weekend with its more limited writing opportunities. I caught up to par on the 14th (so it did take me almost half the month), and have been sailing on ahead since, continuing with 1800-2200 words most days.

I will confess that because I am turning a collection of flash fiction into a novel, I am able at times to lift a paragraph or two from the short stories (far less than I expected, though, and each of them needs careful consideration and reworking to fit the novel). I guess that means I can't claim a "legit" victory. News Flash: I'm not interested in playing by a set of arbitrary rules. I'm interested in writing a novel.

I think that's the text for the pep talk part of this post. The writing is the thing. Whether you are doing NaNo or not, it's not about rules. It's about finding the way that works for you to write and keep writing. Maybe that means locking yourself in a room for a month each year and writing like crazy (and then searching elsewhere for the much greater time commitment involved in revising it?). Maybe it means writing 350 words a day.

Or maybe you fall somewhere in between, like most of us do most of the time. The point is, you write, and then you edit. You don't sweat about anyone else's "rules" because there are no rules about this. You do whatever helps you and inspires you (so I play along with NaNo because it gives me artificial goals and deadlines, which works for me), and you ignore what doesn't. Let no one tell you at the end of this month that you aren't a "winner" if you don't have 50,000 words. If you write anything on any given day or in any given month, you're a winner in my book.

So go forth and write, whenever and however you can.

*******

One week until release day! The Problem With Peggy goes live on Nov. 28, but you can preorder now from Amazon and Smashwords for the ebook. For the best deal, Preorder the paperback directly from this site and we'll pick up the shipping costs--offer only lasts through November 30.
 

NaNoWriMo Update #1

It's November, and that mean National Novel Writing Month--a.k.a. NaNoWriMo, or just NaNo. It's a national challenge to all the writers and would-be writers to put the backside in the chair and write 50,000 words in a month (that's a decent juvvy novel, but well short of an actual adult novel, even a trade-paperback mystery. It's still a good start and a great accomplishment).

I've done it, twice. The first time, the result was Death By Trombone. The second time, I produced a mess of words that's supposed to be the 3rd Pismawallops PTA mystery (and it will be. I'll start revisions on rewriting that in December. But it went so far awry that I can't even use the working title). This time, I'm probably cheating a bit, but I'm working on converting a collection of flash fiction about Gorg the Troll into a novel. So, like Halitor the Hero, it's back to the world of fantasy that can't quite keep a straight face.

I thought I'd throw in a weekly report, along with a bit of cheer leading, each Sunday.

So: Week One.
I got off to a slow start, since I didn't get my final revisions on The Problem With Peggy (release date Nov. 28; preorders available now!) out the door until Wednesday. Then I spent a day pulling together some notes I made last summer and creating the first part of an outline. Of course, the existing stories provide something of an outline, but there is so much more to Gorg's story than is in the 8 or 9 pieces of flash fiction I've written over the last 3 or 4 years.

Since I didn't really start writing until Nov., 3rd, and late in the day at that, the word count as of Saturday night stands at 4759. That's a bit behind the curve, but I'll not have any trouble catching up. Gorg is a delight to work with, and I can write around 2000 words most days. It's so much fun to dive into this stage of the writing journey--always my favorite!

How about you? Participating in NaNo? Tell me about it!

In case anyone's forgotten, here's my favorite portrait of Gorg:

Friday Flash: Gorg and the Mages

As a special treat this week, we return to the continuing adventures of Gorg the Troll!

Gorg and the Mages

Gorg Trollheim stood at the window at the top of the tower and studied the Valley of Baleful Stones. He tried not to notice the scattering of stone trolls. He would bring them back to life if he could. He just had to find Duke Bale, kill him yet again, and force his sorcerer to undo the petrifying spell.

Bale wasn’t in his tower. Gorg had found only three empty grey robes, like the one that had failed to stop him from entering. These didn’t speak to him, but they did stand in their corners unsupported, which gave him a creepy feeling. Were they watching him?

Probably they were. He couldn’t help that. What he had to do, and do fast, was figure out where Bale and the actual sorcerer had gone. A strange idea was starting to tickle his stone mind, and Gorg didn’t like ideas, especially strange ones. To distract himself he broke a bit of stone off the windowsill and put it in his mouth.

He spat out the stone after the first crunch. This was no fine sandstone or foamy granite! The tower was built of the stinking, sulfurous stone for which the valley was named. Gorg tried to tell himself that was only right, but he knew better. The tower he had pulled down a few months ago, crushing Bale under a pile of stone, had been built of a fine granite. Something about this tower was completely wrong.

 With a sigh of resignation, Gorg took a sip of his magic potion. The ghastly stuff had been meant to render a man incapable of intelligent speech, and it did. But it made a troll think faster and speak more wisely. Gorg needed to think just now.

When the potion took effect, Gorg stopped staring out the window, and descended the tower stairs faster than he’d gone up. The smell of burning sulfur penetrated his consciousness and now made sense, giving him the motivation to accelerate his usual deliberate troll’s pace.

He made it out the door as the tower burst into flames behind him, and vanished.

It had been an illusion. Only the mocking echo of the sorcerer’s laugh was real. Gorg turned his attention to the valley. If he could not find Bale, could he reanimate his petrified friends and relations?

Gorg approached the first statue, salt tears etching lines down his face as he recognized his friend Pulgrum Stonelump. He laid a hand on the stone head, and said, his voice the rough sound of stone rasping over stone, “I will save you, my friend.” Then, thinking hard, he uncapped his flask of Confusion Cocktail, the magic potion that had unintentionally given him such quick wits, and let a single drop fall on Pulgrum’s head.

The drop left a wet line as it ran down the stone, but, to Gorg’s disappointment, the stone remained stone. He corked the bottle and sat down, for the moment too discouraged to go one.

“I think you need our help,” said a voice behind him.

Gorg stood and whirled, faster than one would have thought a creature of stone could, and prepared to do battle with the three mages who stood a dozen feet off. He didn’t know when or from where they had materialized, but he knew that none of his dealings with mages had been positive. Well, except when the Earl of Beetroot had given him the Confusion Cocktail, but that hadn’t been meant as a favor.

“Easy, there, Trollheim,” the lead mage said. “We’ve come to help.”

“Why?” Gorg didn’t even try to sound polite.

“Because Duke Bale the Artichoke Hearted threatens this entire kingdom with his greedy, hateful ways. We have sworn to stop him.”

“I no longer care what he does to humans,” Gorg said, his eyes still fixed on the field of statues.

“I understand,” said the second mage, a female. Gorg thought he recognized that voice, and looked closer. He had last seen her at Bale’s tower.

“Have you changed your allegiance, Katerina of the Vale of Kale? You were Bale’s pet when last I saw you.”

“I have changed much, including my allegiance, Gorg Trollheim. You persuaded me to leave. I went to the City of Celestial Celery, and there I learned the extent of Bale’s plans. That included not only eliminating Trolls from the kingdom, but eliminating sorcerers, once we had done his bidding.” She made a face. “I didn’t care for his attitude.”

“He wishes to make all living beings his slaves.” The deep, calm voice came from the third mage. “We can stop him, but only if all his enemies work together. We will awaken your kindred, and you will lead us in the hunt.”

Gorg nodded. He might never fully trust a mage, but he could see their argument.  “Where has Bale gone? And what sorcerer left his empty robes to defend the tower?”

They all turned to look at the smoldering remains of the tower. Katerina scowled. “I don’t know,” she said. “Do you, boys?” She looked at Gorg. “I should introduce my friends. This,” she gestured at the first speaker, “is Brendren, of Mosternestine City. And our leader,” she indicated the deep-voice mage, “is Hort, master of all sorcery in the Vegetative Kingdoms.”

Gorg bowed. “I have heard of your power,” he lied. It was always good to make sorcerers feel important. The truth was that Gorg paid too little attention to human affairs to know the names of their leaders. He made a decision. “You can find Bale?”

“We can. But we are too few to stop him. There are some humans who will follow us, but most without magic are too afraid.”

“So you need the trolls, who are too stupid to fear?” If Gorg sounded bitter, he felt he had reason.

“We need the trolls, who have already lost too much to fear more.”

Gorg thought, took a sip of his potion, and thought some more while the mages waited.

“Awaken them. We will stop Bale.”

©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2016

The Valley of Baleful Stones, with an army of petrified trolls.

Okay, actually this is Goblin Valley State Park, Utah :)

Friday Flash: Return to the Valley of Baleful Stones

With no prompt from Chuck Wendig this week, I rooted through various old prompts, stared blankly for a long time at a page with a glorious title (which I still hope to use, if the story ever comes to me), and concluded that I would return with pleasure to Gorg Trollheim. Gorg has starred in a number of stories, something of a serial, which you can find here. That's a list of all my short stories; scroll to the bottom for the Gorg Saga. I made it exactly 1000 words this time (though that's mostly luck).

Return to the Valley of Baleful Stones

Gorg Trollheim was angry. A careful observer could have seen this wrath, which was great enough to be just visible even on his stone features. A wise observer, seeing this, would have stayed well out of his way. Gorg was large, even for a troll, and a seasoned fighter.

As far as Gorg could tell, there were no observers, wise or foolish, as he strode across the Iron Desert toward the Valley of Baleful Stones. Nor did anyone impede his path.

It was spring, and even the Iron Desert bloomed. Tiny golden flowers misted the flats, and in the cracks and nooks on the edges, flashes of red and blue disclosed larger flowers. It was beautiful in its own way, and Gorg didn’t care. It all looked red through the rage that filled him.

Duke Bale the Artichoke Hearted had trapped him again, and Gorg was beyond fed up. He’d slept through most of the winter and into the spring, under a spell put on him by Bale’s latest pet mage. Had it been Katerina of the Vale of Kale? She had imprisoned him in Bale’s tower, but when last seen appeared to have thought better of her employment and gone elsewhere.

No, the sorcerer who had trapped him in the cave, and whose grey magic had made him sleep for weeks (or months? Gorg had no way of knowing) had been male. Gorg could still hear the villain’s laugh echoing in his ears.

That was odd, come to think of it.

Gorg struggled to think of it. Even in the spring sun, the desert warmth wasn’t enough to thaw and speed his brains enough for this conundrum. He took a sip from the flask at his belt, and his thoughts accelerated. The potion had been meant to confuse, but the inventor had tested it only on humans. Troll brains were different. Now Gorg could work things out.

How had Bale gotten a new sorcerer in place so soon after the last had left him? And so soon after he’d died? For surely Bale had died—again—when Gorg collapsed his tower on him.

Gorg found a rare loose pebble on the desert floor, picked it up, and crunched it in his teeth, the chewing and the flavor helping him think.

Answer: Bale couldn’t have hired the sorcerer after Katerina left. That left two possibilities. Either Bale had anticipated him and had an extra sorcerer lined up in advance, or someone else wanted Gorg dead.

Gorg Trollheim thought about it some more. Or not dead, but delayed? After all, trapping a troll in a cave wasn’t apt to be fatal, nor had the long sleep seemed to harm him in any way. So why would Bale switch from killing him to merely delaying him? Had Bale had this extra—and very powerful—sorcerer all along? Was that how he kept returning from the dead?

If the new sorcerer wasn’t Bale’s man, did that mean Bale might have stayed dead this time? And to whom did he answer, if not Bale?

It was most confusing. Gorg took another sip of the potion. His mind, already whirling through the possibilities, raced from idea to idea until he was dizzy. He sat down on a rock and waited for clarity.

Gorg had reached the edge of the desert, and the entrance to Bale’s valley. He sat and waited for his ideas to sort themselves out and his thoughts to slow enough for him to focus on one at a time. Gradually, patterns emerged in his brain and he worked out one key point.

The wielder of the grey magic couldn’t have known, when he first enchanted Gorg, what had become of Bale.

That led to other thoughts, but they all came back to: either Grey worked for Bale, or he didn’t.

Either Bale was still dead, or he wasn’t.

At least one of those questions would be answered by entering the Valley of Baleful Stones.

Gorg entered the valley.

The Baleful vale looked just as when he had seen it for the first time, not the last time. Steaming vents in the walls leaked reeking fumes, and the castle tower stood as though it had been there a thousand years and would stand a thousand more.

And the valley was dotted with statues of trolls. Statues which Gorg knew to be his friends and relations, returned to the stone from which they were born. That they had been brought here to die could mean only one thing: Bale was alive, and was taunting him.

Gorg’s wrath boiled over.

He would not look at the trolls. He didn’t want to know who had suffered Bale’s wrath. He stormed past the frozen trolls to the base of the tower, where a lone figure stood, grey-caped and hooded, a faceless wizard guarding the evil man within.

“Leave at once, Gorg Trollheim, and never return, and I will let you live,” the sorcerer said, his voice both stern and yet somehow enticing.

In his wrath, Gorg was impervious to enchanting words. He spoke his own: “Bring the trolls to life, and you may live when I slay your master.” His potion still guided his tongue.

The sorcerer laughed. “Why should I do that? You won’t live long enough to harm either me or Bale.”

Gorg’s stone fist crashed down on the grey hood in a killing blow, and passed though, meeting nothing.

The sorcerer’s words, in a mystic tongue that gave them power, echoed from the valley walls.

They faded to silence, and still Gorg stood.

Troll and the image of the mage gazed at one another.

“You are powerful,” Gorg said. “ Why work for Bale?”

The only answer was a laugh that echoed off the hillsides as the spell had done. Gorg pushed past the grey cloak and hood and entered the tower. He would crush Bale himself this time.

The empty grey robe did not stop him.

###

©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2016  

    Left off the other stuff: Don't forget to enter the GR Giveaway for  Death By Trombone, released today!

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Death By Trombone

by Rebecca Douglass

Giveaway ends January 31, 2016.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

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Friday Flash

Still on our own, with Flashmaster Chuck Wendig distracted by his own writing and trying to spare all the NaNers and so not providing writing prompts. I took a random title from a Random Title Generator, and wrote just under 700 words about the too-long-neglected Gorg the Troll. If you haven't met Gorg, you can find links to his backstory here (scroll to the bottom of the page).

It had also been my intention to include feast in each story this month, but Gorg proved too busy to eat much.

Grey Magic: A Tale of Gorg the Troll

Gorg awoke slowly in a chill, dark cave, and remembered. He remembered first that he’d been hiding from a storm. He had been trapped somehow. Then he remembered trying to free himself from the trap created by yet another sorcerer bent on killing him. A sorcerer in the employ of Gorg’s arch-enemy Duke Bale the Artichoke-Hearted. Gorg remembered he had found a way out.  And then he had lain down and gone to sleep before completing the easy, but tedious, task of crumbling his way out.

Why?

He strained to remember. It had been night, and cold. A blizzard. Yes, there had been a blizzard, too cold, windy and fierce for him to go out. It had made sense to wait. It had made sense to take a nap.

Why did it feel now as though it had been a bad idea to take a nap? Gorg’s mind cleared itself of the stone crystals of sleep, and he got to his feet, shaking his huge stone head which felt stuffed with something soft and bland. Light poured into the cave through the small opening he had made before retreating from the storm. He peered out, and knew he’d been right. It had been a very bad idea to go to sleep.

Sleep hadn’t been his idea, it had been a grey coat of magic, which blunted everything and turned his mind to fuzz. It had not been his sleep, but the sorcerer’s. A sorcerer who wielded grey magic, magic which so seldom was seen, not because it wasn't used, but because it wasn't visible.

The storm was gone. Long gone, by the evidence. He reached out his stone fingers and crumbled the edges of the opening until he could put his head out for a good look.

Right. A bad idea. He ate a chunk of the stone, and more of the sleep crystals and the grey fuzz cleared.

It was spring. He’d gone into the cave for shelter from a mid-winter blizzard, and now it was spring, if not summer. It was warm outside, and there were flowers. Spring, then. By summer, flowers in the Iron Desert were burnt to dust and blown away.

He remembered the laughter of the sorcerer who’d caged him, and Gorg Trollheim began to get angry. He ripped the opening wider, pausing only to crunch down more of the creamy limestone and sate his hunger.

His hunger for revenge remained unsated. Was there no killing Bale, and no end of mages willing to serve his nefarious ends?

Probably not. Gorg didn’t care. Bale had killed Gorg’s family. He had commanded them to be turned to stone and dropped into a raging river, where they were ground to powder, until there was no hope of reanimating them. Gorg had to give up the stones of his fathers, but he would not give up his revenge.

Duke Bale wanted the throne of King Celery the Half-Witted, but Gorg no longer cared about that. He had done what he could for the king, but human kings, he now understood, were a human problem. Troll-killers were a troll problem.

Gorg wanted Duke Bale to get dead and stay dead. It was that latter task that was hard, it seemed. Gorg had killed Bale twice. That was once more than should have been necessary.

Gorg strode across the Iron Desert toward the Valley of the Baleful Stones, the home of Duke Bale the Artichoke-Hearted. In midwinter, Gorg had left the Duke buried under the rubble of his collapsed tower. He might still be there. He might have stayed dead this time.

Gorg didn’t believe it.

He would go back to the Valley, and track down Bale wherever he might be now. And he would find a way to make him stay dead. Perhaps grind him to mush, perhaps toss him into one of the stinking sulfur vents that gave the valley its name. Grey magic was tricky. It could be turned on the one who used it, and grey, Gorg thought, was his native color.

Trolls weren’t fast thinkers, as a rule (though Gorg knew how to change that rule, if need be). But they did tend to stick to an idea until it was finished. Gorg stuck to his revenge with the immobility of a pile of stone. Trolls were stone. It was their weakness—and their strength.

Stone never gives up.

©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2015

My favorite portrait of Gorg, spotted in Badlands National Park, South Dakota

Friday Flash: The Continuing Adventures of Gorg the Troll

One of my favorite types of writing prompt this week--the random set of things to include in the story. I knew as soon as I saw my list that this would be a continuation of the Sage of Gorg Trollheim. 1001 words, including the title. The title is the list of story elements. And maybe the weather on the East Coast, far from me, wandered into the story, too.

Betrayal, Assassin, Cave

Gorg Trollheim forced his way through drifting snow and howling winds, away from the ruins of Castle Bale. He didn't look back at the devastation he had caused, but even if he had, he could have seen nothing through the night and the blowing snow. He turned his stone face toward the Iron Desert, and plodded on. Blizzards could not harm a troll, though if it grew cold enough, he would become too slow to move, and would simply stand rooted until the storm had passed and he warmed up again.

Gorg did not want to remain a frozen stone until spring. He pushed on, looking for shelter to wait out the storm. The hills to the south might provide cover, and he veered that way, turning his back a bit to the wind. His thoughts moved as slowly as his body in the intense cold.

With an effort, Gorg pushed his mind back to the castle he had left behind. He would have smiled, except it might have broken his face. That was no castle now. For the second time, Duke Bale the Artichoke Hearted had lost his castle and his life to the troll he'd wronged. After a long time, that thought formed the rest of the way in Gorg's mind. He shouldn't have needed to kill Bale twice. That wasn't right. And he hadn’t seen the body.

Just like the last time. Gorg stopped. He turned slowly. He should go back, sift the rubble until he found Bale's body, and grind it to dust. Or whatever you got when you ground squishy creatures. He took a tentative step back, and stopped. He could not do it. The wind would petrify him, and when a troll got petrified, it wasn't a figure of speech. They were always so easily returned to the stone from which they sprang. He gave a massive shrug and turned his back to the wind once again. Until the storm ended, he could only go forward to shelter.

The wind beat on him less fiercely now, and Gorg knew he was in the lee of the hills. Now to find a cave. He would be safe in a cave, surrounded by rocks, until he could go back and make certain that Bale would never kill another troll.

At last Gorg found the shelter he sought. The cave was not large, but it was deep enough that the rocks in its depths had not frozen, so Gorg sat against the back of the cavern, snacking on a few light stones, and waiting.

"What are you doing here?" It was the voice of a troll. Gorg looked around, interested. He hadn't known there were any other trolls within a four days' walk.

"Waiting. You?" A troll didn't waste words, but he wanted the other to speak so he could locate him. The light was dim, and he didn't see any troll.

"I live here. I was waiting too." The voice was all around him. Gorg was no longer so sure it was a troll. Had his ears deceived him, abused as they were by the storm? But he felt no real concern. In a cave, surrounded by stone, a troll would be secure.

Secure even from a sorcerer? Gorg felt the thought force its way into his still-frozen brain. Could Bale have had yet another minion ready and waiting?  The thoughts were too difficult, his mind too slow. Gorg settled more firmly against the back wall of the cave, and let himself thaw slowly. With greater warmth came clearer thought, and vision. Gorg could see now that there was no one in the cave with him. No troll, no sorcerer.

Which, since the voice continued to speak of long years of waiting in the cave, of patient silence, and a million other things with little meaning to a troll of Gorg’s temperament, meant that there was definitely a sorcerer in the cave with him.

Gorg noticed something.

The entrance of the cave had vanished. He was sealed underground with the voice that would not be silent. The cave, the stones which he had trusted for safety, had betrayed him. He was sealed in with the assassin, the one sent by Bale—before he died, or after?—to ensure that Gorg would never live to see the results of his victory. And the man would not be quiet.

Gorg stood up. “No. You will not win.” He moved to where the entrance had been a short time before, and reached out to touch stone. Stone, but not stone. This was no stone, but magical illusion, and he could feel the difference though he could not pass through. And that meant he was up against a very powerful sorcerer indeed, because it was not easy to make the basaltic brains of trolls see and feel illusion.

“That’s right, Gorg Trollheim,” said the voice. “You are sealed in, and when you have died, as you must when the air runs out, I will collect my fee from Duke Bale.”

“I trust he paid you in advance. Bale is dead.”

“Dead? I fancy not!” The voice laughed, and Gorg fought to control anger.

“Buried in the rubble of his castle, not a day since. Dead.” For now.

He was suddenly alone. The silence in the chamber could be felt. It formed a thick layer, overlying the false stone, the stone he could not crumble and erode because it wasn’t there.

But real stone could not resist him. Gorg felt for the join between the real and the magical, and his fingers found it. They worked their way into the tiny fissures and cracks. Within minutes, he had created a gap, just enough to let in fresh air. Gorg breathed thoughtfully of the cold air, felt the draft, then backed up and sat down again.

He could rest here. The storm would be over in the morning, and he would leave. No need to go out in this weather.

©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2015

Friday Flash Fiction: Gorg in Winter, Part 2

Still no Wendig Challenges, so I'll move right on to the next part of Gorg's story, continuing the episode I began last week.

Gorg at Midwinter, Part 2

Gorg stood by the base of the tower from which he’d just escaped, and let the wind batter icy snow crystals against his stone face. He was cold to his stone core, and far from home, but he was back on the ground and he was free.

And he had a job to do.

Gorg looked back up at the tower. Had Duke Bale the Artichoke Hearted really believed that prison could hold him? Or was it a trick? Gorg pulled a small flask from his belt and took a swig of the Tongue-Knotter. It had been devised to render a person incapable of coherent speech or thought, and it did. It had the opposite effect on trolls.

Gorg felt his thought processes accelerating as he moved away from the tower and into the blinding, swirling snow. If Bale was as smart as Gorg had to believe he was, the latest pet sorcerer would be waiting for him. This sorcerer had been powerful enough to magically lift the stone-fleshed Gorg and imprison him in a sealed tower room.

Mind whirling under the influence of the potion, Gorg ducked his head, turned, and plowed through the storm back toward the castle. The sorcerer would be waiting just beyond the buildings, where the rocks formed a natural shelter. That was the obvious place for Gorg to go when he escaped, so he didn’t go there.

A minute later, in the lee of the castle, Gorg decided he should have taken an extra swig from the flask. There, waiting for him with a look of business-like determination, was the sorcerer.

“I though this would be the night,” the wizard said. “You didn’t really think we failed to notice how you were enlarging the window, did you?”

Gorg looked at the sorcerer. This one was different from Bale’s last two henchmen, with whom Gorg had dealt rather permanently. This one—how had he failed to see it before?—was a henchwoman.

“You can’t stop me,” Gorg said as bluntly as if it were true.

“I could turn you into stone without even lifting a finger,” she said. “As it happens, Bale has merely asked me to relocate you. To one of the sulfur vents.” It would be warm there. Warm enough to melt even a troll.

“But you won’t,” he said.

“Why not? It’s what Bale paid me to do. He seems to be rather fed up with you.”

“As am I with him. I have prevented him from taking over the country, and put the fear of trolls into his soul. And you are willing to let him make you a murderer for a few bits precious metals?”

“Is there a better reason?”

Gorg thought about that. One part of his mind was working on the basic goal of keeping her talking, which would keep her from dunking him into the steam vents. Another part of his mind was working on a good reason why she shouldn’t do Bale’s bidding.

“Are you aware of what happened to Bale’s last two pet sorcerers?”

“Well, yes. And I know that you were responsible for that. So that would give me an extra reason to take care of you, wouldn’t it?”

“Why? Were they kin of yours? The way most of Bale’s victims in the troll world were kin of mine? Why avenge those fellows? They were lousy people and worse sorcerers.”

His words seemed to be making some inroads into her mind, which unlike his was not stone, though it might have been near to ice by this time. That would even matters a bit. Gorg eased a little closer to the castle wall, where it felt almost warm by comparison with the wind-swept valley beyond.

“Don’t come any closer, Gorg.”

“Just getting warmer,” Gorg answered, trying to read her face. That was asking too much. Trolls’ stone faces gave very little away, and that meant a troll wasn’t really equipped to read human faces. “Do you have a name?”

“I am Katerina of The Vale of Kale. What’s it to you?”

Gorg sighed. “Just trying to keep things friendly. Are you going to try to take me, Katerina of Kale? That might force me to do something we would both regret.”

It was a mostly empty threat, but he would certainly make the effort. Could a reverted troll—one who had been returned to the stone from which they all sprung—regret anything? Idly, he let his fingers explore the stones beside him. If he could just get one loose…

All Gorg was thinking of was pulling out a stone to throw at the sorceress, as he had no other weapon. But as his fingers insinuated themselves into the gaps between the hastily-laid stones, he began to smile.

As the smile grew on Gorg’s face, one faded from Katerina’s. She looked long and hard at the hand which seemed to have become a part of the castle wall, and turned pale. If she moved him now, a big chunk of the castle would go along.

“I can still turn you to stone,” she pointed out.

“And when I fall over, because I’m holding myself up with living muscles, not stone, I will take the castle with me.” Gorg didn’t know if it was true, but it felt right. His fingers had insinuated themselves deep into the structure of the wall. “Is there anyone inside besides Bale?” Gorg needed to know.

“No. No one will work for him anymore. He is supposed to be dead.”

“No one but you,” Gorg pointed out.

“Not any more,” said Katarina of Kale, and vanished. Gorg hoped she had relocated herself to the Vale of Kale, and that the wind there was not blowing ice in anyone’s face.

Gorg looked thoughtfully at the wall, where his fingers twined in and through the stones. Then he began to lumber away, letting go of nothing.

###

©Rebecca M. Douglass

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Friday Flash: Gorg at Midwinter

I've finally bestirred myself from my own midwinter torpor, and concocted a new tale of Gorg the Troll. This one, in fact, demands a sequel, so there will either be more soon--or I'll be working on Gorg's own book. In any case, in keeping with the season, here are 998 words about Gorg Trollheim at the turn of the new year.

Gorg at Midwinter

In the kingdom of King Celery the Halfwit, all business stopped at the festival of Midwinter. No one attempted to travel during the week of celebrations that marked the end of the year. Everyone remained at home and marked the return of the sun with family and friends, and a fair bit of food and drink.

At least, that was how Celery saw it. If there were those in the kingdom who had little with which to celebrate, he was far too deep in his celebrations to know of it, even with the half a wit he retained.

Far across the kingdom, in the Valley of the Baleful Stones, Gorg Trollheim celebrated nothing at all.

Gorg was in trouble. He had returned to the Valley of the Baleful Stones, where his greatest enemy had held sway before what Gorg hoped was his death. Gorg had returned to the Valley because events had planted doubt in the troll’s stony mind, and he believed that if Duke Bale the Artichoke Hearted lived, he must return to his home.

Unfortunately, Gorg was correct. Unfortunately both because the kingdom would have been much better off had Bale remained dead, and because Gorg, deep in thought about the portents leading him back, had walked into a trap. Now it was Gorg who languished in a tower prison, with only the smallest of windows from which to watch the approach of the longest night of the year, wishing for family aznd friends.

If Gorg had still had with him the five trolls with whom he had conquered Bale a few months previously, no tower could have held them. But Gorg walked alone. Or, as now, sat and brooded alone.

The trap had been so simple. Gorg had been drawn by the sight of a new tower rising from what should have been the rubble of Bale’s castle. And then there had been a pit. A pit, such as one might use to capture any dumb beast. From the bottom he had looked up to see the loathed face sneering back. Bale’s latest pet sorcerer had sent him by magic from the pit to the sealed room at the top of the tower.

There were no stairs down. There was no opening in the floor at all. Only the tiny window gave light and air.

Bale didn’t bother to send up food or drink. In that, Bale showed he had also forgotten much about his old enemy, for Gorg needed no water, nor did he go hungry. Gorg ate his prison.

The floor, though stone, was too tightly fitted to allow him to pull up any bits from it. But he crumbled the edges of the window, which every day grew slightly larger, so that as the sun shone the less, the gap by which it entered his prison widened and let in more light.

From this prison, Gorg occasionally saw Bale and his new pet magician—the sorcerer had given no name, nor shown his face—about their tasks. Neither acknowledged in any way that they had a prisoner in the tower, and by all appearances he was forgotten. He tried pitching a few stones at them, but they never ventured within range.

Gorg did not believe for a moment he was forgotten. He knew Bale had something in mind for him, though he knew not what. He still had his flask, and the potion that made his mind move with un-troll-like celerity, but he saved that for a time when he might need to think quickly. In the tower, nothing happened. He could afford to think at a troll’s pace.

Nor did Bale seem to be moving fast. In the deeps of winter, the stinking vents that gave the Valley of the Baleful Stones its name stank less, but their warmth kept the ground in the valley free of the deep drifts of snow that make the lands beyond impassible. Only the route across the Iron Desert lay free of snow, and daily men entered the valley by that harsh track.

Bale was assembling an army, Gorg saw at last.

Gorg knew then that he must free himself, and he must stop Bale from marching forth with his army. Midwinter’s Night found Gorg lost in thought as he pondered his course. Idly, he reached a hand into the window and pulled loose another stone with which to quell his hunger. The sulfurous stones of Bale’s valley tasted vile, but they kept the troll alive, and the window grew larger.

Gorg looked again at his window. Yes, it was much larger now. Almost large enough to allow a troll to escape.

Looking carefully about to be sure he was unobserved, Gorg leaned as far out the window as he could and studied the sides of the tower. As he’d suspected, despite the care taken to make the floor of his cell impervious to a troll’s prying fingers, no such care had been taken with the exterior of the tower. The rough stones left plenty of hand- and toe-holds for a troll, who could grip the tiniest crack and would in fact become quite literally one with the rock if not careful.

Whatever Bale planned for Gorg, he was not watching him when the darkest night of the year became still darker in the blowing, whirling snow. As the sun set on that longest night, Gorg ceased fretting for the family he no longer had, and set about escaping from the man who’d killed that family. He no longer ate the stones he pulled from around the window, but stacked them hastily into the corner.

At the midnight hour, when all was dark and nothing still in the howling wind, Gorg pulled himself out the window and began to climb down the side of the tower, twining fingers and toes into the gaps and cracks between stones.  Nothing disturbed his climb, and no one watched as he disappeared into the swirling snow.

###

©Rebecca M. Douglass

Can you see Gorg?

***

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Flash Fiction Friday: Gorg and the Phoenix

Another Friday (well, Thursday), another Flash Fiction!  Chuck's in Phoenix (AZ), so he challenged us to write about a phoenix.  And up popped Gorg, my favorite troll!  For other installments in the Saga of Gorg, check here, and scroll down to find Gorg.  It clocks in at 953 words including the title, comfortably under our 1000-word limit. 

Gorg and the Phoenix

Gorg Trollheim stumped through a devastated land, and whistled as he went.  It was a strange sound, for the troll’s stone lips didn’t lend themselves to whistling.  Somehow he managed it anyway.  Gorg was simply pleased to be on his own, away from the cities of men, and far from the castle of King Celery the Halfwit.

Gorg had wandered far from his home valley on a quest to track down the man behind the slaying of several of his kin.  Now Duke Bale the Artichoke Hearted was dead, along with his pet sorcerers, and Gorg was on his way home.  Pulgrum Stonelump had left the City of Celestial Celery with Gorg, but had since decided to visit kin in the larger troll homeland, known as Goblin Valley.  Gorg came from the less well-known troll home of White Rocks, and it was to that land he now returned.

White Rocks lay closer than he liked to the home of the late Duke Bale, and Gorg moved cautiously, or as cautiously as a giant entity made primarily of stone could move.  He also took a detour through the Stone Desert to avoid the late Duke’s Valley of the Baleful Stones.  Gorg needed no water, only stones to crunch at mealtimes, so this detour suited him well.  And there was no one to be offended when, tiring of whistling, he burst into the grating noise he called song.  Troll song sounded more like the crash of falling rocks than the melody of birds.

It was there, in the heart of the Stone Desert, that Gorg encountered the strangest bird he’d ever seen.  The large bird sported a crown of scarlet feathers, and its plumage shimmered with a multitude of ever-changing colors.  Gorg watched the bird soar skyward from its roost, seeming to touch the sun before swooping back earthward.  Fascinated, the troll settled himself to watch.

Hours later, the phoenix sank once again to its roost, exhausted by the sun-dance.  Even the feathers seemed to have leached their color into the sun, for it seemed now to be a uniform reddish brown, and Gorg saw nothing of the brilliant colors that had first caught his eye.

The troll didn’t know if this bird of myth and mystical powers could speak, but it seemed only right to acknowledge the performance, so he applauded gently.  The sound of rock cracking on rock echoed off the hills as he beat his hands together, and the bird turned to fix him with the stare of a dull eye.

“It was a beautiful dance,” Gorg said.

“It is my last.”  To Gorg’s surprise, the bird spoke a clear answer.  Unsure what else to do, he nodded his great stone head.  The bird’s feathers were growing less brown and more red.

“In the moment of dying, a phoenix may speak to a mortal,” the bird added.

“I am honored.”  Aware that something was happening here that was not to be missed or misinterpreted, Gorg pulled a small flask from his belt.  Uncorking it, he took a swig of the potion that quickened his wits and his speech far beyond the normal lot of trolls.  It was partly because of the potion that Pulgrum had left him, he knew.  The other troll was uncomfortable with Gorg’s rapid thought-processes.

Now Gorg was glad to be ready to understand what he was told, as the phoenix went on.  “I die to be reborn.  One whom you distrust is also a phoenix.”  The bird had become wholly crimson, and its voice began to falter.

“What?!”  Gorg’s mind leapt through the possibilities and he disliked the conclusions he reached.  “You don’t mean—”

The phoenix made no answer.  Feathers now a brilliant crimson, it began to steam and smoke.  Gorg watched, unable to tear his eyes from the bird.  As the setting sun touched the horizon, the phoenix burst into flame, and was reduced to a heap of multi-colored ashes.  Fascinated, knowing what would become of the phoenix, though not sure when, he rooted himself to the spot and continued to watch the ashes.

Nothing happened.  It grew dark.  Gorg considered moving on, but the darkness was complete, and he was in no hurry.  Being more than half stone, Gorg knew how to be still.  He made himself comfortable, and passed the night in considering the words the bird had spoken.  It circled in his mind with the final words of the djinn he had met and dismissed not far from King Celery’s castle: “I told B—”

Had the Djinn being trying to say “I told Bale?”  There was no one Gorg distrusted so much as Duke Bale, though the man should be dead, presumably scraped off the pavements of the courtyard beneath his castle window and buried.  Bale had jumped rather than face five angry trolls.  Had the djinn been sent by Bale, before or after death?  And was the phoenix now telling him that Bale might yet live?

Through the hours of darkness Gorg digested these thoughts, along with a few light but satisfying rocks he picked up for his dinner.

When the first rays of the sun crossed the rim of the valley and touched the pile of ash that had been a phoenix, the pile stirred, peeped, and shaped itself as a fledgling.

“Welcome back,” Gorg said.  The bird said nothing.  A half hour later the bird, now near full-grown, took wing, feathers gleaming in a multitude of colors as it soared high and swooped low, then flew off to the distant peaks.

Gorg, his thinking completed, gave a last longing look in the direction of his home.  Then he turned and began to walk toward Bale’s dukedom.

###
©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2014

Goblin Valley

D is for. . . Friday Flash Fiction

Wait, what?  D is NOT for Flash Fiction (I can spell better than that).  It's for. . . Djinn, I guess.  This week's Wendig challenge involved a list of 10 random words.  Our mission: to use 5 of them in a story.  Here's my story.  The list of words I used is at the end.  (Standing warning: Wendig's blog is not for children.  Also often not suitable for work.  But always entertaining and often filled with great advice for writers).

Gorg and the Djinn

Gorg Trollheim took one last look back at the City of Celestial Celery.  On the wall, three lumps of stone raised stone hands and waved a farewell.  Gorg raised his own in return, then let it fall. Next to him, Pugrum Stonelump sighed deeply.

"It is no use, my friend," Gorg said.  "Daisy has chosen, and not chosen either of us."  The potion Gorg had drunk hours before had sharpened his wits as well as loosening his tongue.  Pulgrum had declined the enhancement, but still Daisy Basalt had chosen his younger brother Krump, less chipped and weather-worn than Gorg or Pulgrum.  The two rejected suitors had left at once for the trollish homeland.

Gorg liked Daisy.  But with the new intelligence racing about his stone synapses, he knew he couldn't cope with love.  His hand touched the flask at his belt.  "Are you sure you don't want to try this stuff?" he asked Pulgrum.  The big troll (bigger even than Gorg) shook his head.

"Maybe sometime.  See what it does to you first."

Gorg smiled, cracking the stone around his mouth a little.  "And they say trolls are stupid."

"Not stupid.  Think slow.  Talk slow."  It was true.  Talking slowly made people assume trolls were stupid.  It was an error that had cost some very bad men their lives.

"Well, let's move less slowly.  I want to get out of this curst farm country and into the stony lands.  I'm hungry."

After that, they didn't talk.  Gorg had his thoughts to keep him busy.  The Tongue Knotter that had loosened his speech had sped up his thinking.  He was used to slow thoughts and the time to think them.  He was an orphan, and had lived alone, almost as a hermit, for many years until revenge had called him into the world.  Now thoughts came thick and fast, like a pack of hounds on the scent.

They'd been freed from prison, thanks to the eloquence he'd gained from the potion, but Gorg wouldn't be comfortable until he was far from the castle of King Celery the Halfwit and his more intelligent (and less scrupulous) councilors.  Gorg would have been happier if he could have seen the body of Duke Bale the Artichoke Hearted, whom he had followed for revenge and to protect the king.  By the time he'd been let up from the dungeon, the casket had been sealed and placed in the crypt.  Gorg heard some of the servants say he'd splatted so hard after his jump from the tower that they'd scarce had anything to scrape up and bury.

Gorg wanted to know his enemy was dead.

"I wish we were to the mountains already," Pulgrum sighed.  "No dinner, no Daisy, no nothing."

Gorg picked up an odd-looking white stone from the side of the road.  Before he could take a bite, a man appeared in the road.

"At your service and all that but please don't eat that stone," he said in a rush, trying to arrange his robes as he spoke.

"What?" said Gorg.

"Huh?" said Pulgrum.

"Oh, blast, I messed up again."  The man took a deep breath, and said in a sepulchral  voice, "Djareem the Djinn, at your service, masters.  Wishes granted, reasonable. . .  no, wait, that's not right," he finished in the more human tone.

"A Djinn," Pulgrum breathed, awestruck.  "What's a Djinn?"

"A fraud for fools," Gorg answered.

"But, what?"

"A Djinn is a magical being who grants wishes to whoever releases him from the vessel in which he has been held captive," Djareem said.  "You have released me from that stone."

"There is no such thing as a Djinn," Gorg said.  He fingered the stone.

Gorg and the Djinn glared at one another.

"Come on, Pulgrum, let's get going."  Gorg tucked the stone into his pouch.  Djareem winced, and followed the trolls as they stumped off down the road.

"The thing is," Pulgrum said after a mile, "maybe a Djinn could get us some good rocks to eat."

"Rocks?  You would call up a Djinn and ask for rocks?"

"I'm hungry."

After another mile, Gorg spotted a pile of stones near the road, where some farmer had cleared them from a field.  They were near enough the edge of the plain now that there were stones in the ground.

"See?  I have produced stones for you to eat," Djareem said.

"Yay!" said Pulgrum. 

"Well," began Gorg, then he stopped.  They could argue later.  He was hungry.  He ate.

Later, after they'd eaten half the rock pile, Pulgrum said, "Why are we walking?  Djareem, carry us to our homeland at once!"

Gorg knew that would never work.  But he didn't say so.

The Djinn, who could not exist, stood and looked at him.  "Well?  Shall I?  I can do it, if you believe I can."

Gorg struggled against the arguments that welled up.  They didn't seem as clear as they had been, anyway.  The words were leaving him.  After a few minutes, Pulgrum repeated the command, and Gorg nodded.

And in the wink of a (slow, trollish) eye, they stood in the rock-strewn Valley of Stone Fruits.  Gorg's home.

But the shift had cleared Gorg's mind again, and he looked at the Djinn.

"You are not real and you cannot do that."

As the landscape wavered and reshaped itself to the Plains of Fruitfulness, Djareem also wavered and faded.

"I told Ba--" he tried to say before he vanished.

Gorg took the odd white stone from his pouch and popped it into his mouth.  It crunched satisfyingly.  And he took careful note of the Djinn's last words.  He didn't like that at all.  He would need all his wits about him on the journey home.  All his wits, and a few extra.  He pulled the flask from his belt and took another sip.

©Rebecca M. Douglass 2014

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My five words were: Djinn (of course), casket, hermit, hound, and orphan.

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Minor Blog Issues

I want to start off by apologizing to everyone who's been cut out of posting comments by my activation of the "Google +" comments.  I didn't read carefully enough to realize that would require everyone who posted to have a G+ account.  I still can't believe they did that--it's so contrary to what a blogger wants, which is maximum engagement, that I didn't even believe it when someone first told me they'd been unable to comment. Someone please test while NOT logged into G+ and let me know if it works now!

Secondly, I have no idea how much I'll be posting through the holiday season.  I am certainly finishing up the "200 word challenge," and have regularly scheduled posts through the 23rd--which just happens to also be the last day to enter the #MGBookElves giveaway.  There will almost certainly be no post on Dec. 25--I'm sure no one is going to want to take time to read one that day!

Finally, since the end of one year and beginning of another is a time for assessing, let me know what you'd like to see more (or less!) of on this blog.  Want more author interviews?  More reviews (probably not happening--reading and reviewing the books as I do takes some serious time)?  More pearls of wisdom on the writing process (always bearing in mind that I am totally talking through my hat).  Speak, O Reader(s) and let me know!


Meanwhile, don't forget:

And a gratuitous photo of a cute small furry animal, because I can:

Oh--and I may have found a photo of Gorg the Troll in my archives:

Friday Flash Fiction: Gorg in the Castle of King Celery the Halfwit

Yes!  Flash Fiction Friday has migrated all the way to Sunday!  I was very busy this week, but I did manage to squeeze out a little time to continue the on-going story of Gorg the Troll.  For earlier segments of his story, see here, here, here, here, and here.  It's not necessary to read them first, but it's probably more fun to let the story develop.  This offering is just under 1100 words.

In the Castle of King Celery the Halfwit

Five trolls moved heavily (the only way trolls can move) through the City of Celestial Celery in the direction of the castle of King Celery the Halfwit.  In one of the thousand rooms in that castle their greatest enemy lounged in the lap of luxury.  Had King Celery only the wit to know it, the man was also his greatest enemy, but Celery was not called The Halfwit for nothing.  Bale played the madman and plotted the overthrow of the man who fed and housed him.

Trolls are not noted for their brains, but it must be said that the five who approached the castle had far more than the king, even individually--a low standard, but one they easily beat.  The five trolls--five friends, to the pleased surprise of Gorg Trollheim, who had been a loner so long he didn't know there was any other choice--had created what they hoped was a plan.  They knew the steps they needed: enter the castle, find Duke Bale the Artichoke Hearted, and reduce him to dust.  The details, however, were a bit vague. 

A good fourth step to have planned would have been “escape alive,” as King Celery considered the Duke to be hopelessly insane and thus harmless and worthy of protection.  The leap from "insane" to "harmless" was a perfect example of his hopeless stupidity.  Bale might have been insane, but he was by no means harmless.

The trolls were less concerned about protecting the king than they were with exacting their revenge.  In pursuit of his own nefarious ends, Bale had turned several of Gorg's kin back into the stone from which trolls came.  Or rather, because even such a small change required magic--trolls are nearly stone even at their most animated--Bale had directed his pet sorcerer to convert the trolls.

Gorg had dealt with Mergle months before.  He'd also taken care of Stenrect, Bale's next magical assistant.  But Bale himself remained always just out of reach.  While Gorg had battled Stenrect, for example, Bale had floated to freedom in a gas-filled balloon.  The five trolls had vowed to put an end to his escapes, in the most final way.

So, with the night well spent, they moved up the cobbled streets, stopping occasionally to snack on a loose stone.  Up, toward the castle that topped the hill, surrounded by high-walled gardens. The first test came at the outer gates.  The guards were unlikely to admit a single troll, let alone five.  But Gorg and Pulgrum Stonelump had come up with a plan.  They loaded Herg Rockling and Pulgrum's brother, Krump, onto a cart along with the fifth troll, Daisy Basalt.  They dragged the heavy cart slowly up the last blocks to the gate, saluted smartly--Gorg rather overdid it and chips flew from his forehead where his hand struck--and said "Delivery of statues for the King's rock garden, sir!"

The guard, sleepy and stupid in the last hour before dawn, waved them in, only vaguely wondering why the king would want such ugly statues for his garden.  Perhaps he figured they would frighten off the birds that ate the young vegetables.  Gorg would have been surprised to know what the guard was thinking.  He considered young Krump, and especially Daisy, very good looking indeed.  They would add a touch of class to any rock garden.

As soon as they were out of sight of the guard, Pulgrum asked, "Where are the gardens?"  That stumped them until Gorg remembered, "We don't want the gardens.  We want Bale!"  That contented them until they realized they had even less idea where to find Bale than the gardens.

"Then we shall all go be statues after all," Daisy suggested.  "We will sit where we can watch as much of the castle as possible and see who goes where. Inside."

They all became still as . . . stone, thinking about that.  Getting inside the outer walls had been easy,.  Could they pass as convincingly as statuary in the very halls of King Celery's palace?

Gorg could.  He would do anything it took to get to Bale.  He looked at Daisy with ever-increasing admiration.  Beauty and  brains.

By down, five new, rather rough, statues of trolls graced the major corridors of Celery Hall.  They did not move all day.  Trolls are very good at standing as though turned to stone.  If Bale had seen them, he might have guessed.  But Bale was locked in his room, pretending to be a madman while he laid his plots.  No one else in the palace paid any attention.  The decor changed so often, according to the whim of the king.

By night, Gorg knew where they had to go.  He, being unfamiliar with the ways of the city and the palace, had sought a dingier corridor where he felt more at home.  This proved to be the servant's hall, and the servants, he found, gossiped non-stop.  And griped.  Two in particular griped about having to carry food clear to the top of the tower for the crazy man, who not only demanded they return for a different kind of wine, but grabbed their bums every chance he got.

That sounded like Bale, Gorg thought.  He was rude to the servants on whom he depended.  And he was more than rude to trolls, who never forgot or forgave.  Well, they had him now.

At midnight, the new statues were on the move.  First they found each other, then the tower stairs.  There was only one stair up or down.  There would be no escape for Bale now.

There wasn't. 

By dawn, the killer of trolls and plotter against kings was gone.  He had leapt from the tower window rather than face five angry trolls.

The trolls, too, found there was no escape.  They had been cornered in the tower, arrested, and now faced the difficult task of convincing King Celery the Halfwit that they had been protecting him.  Gorg didn't know if it was possible to explain anything to Celery, but he would find out.  He had thought that if he punished Bale he didn't care what followed, but he found he did care. He and his friends would talk their way out of the dungeons.  They must, for the others must not suffer for his revenge.  Especially not Daisy.

Gorg began to marshal his thoughts and prepare his arguments.

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