He gave Morrígan an inquisitive look. “So what else do you think they could manipulate?”
She watched the Geomancers closely, imagining how they must look toiling the earth, great boulders rising beneath their feet… entire mountains at their fingertips….
“The troll,” she whispered suddenly, her heart leaping from her chest. “The petrified troll!”
The stone beast was still there, just outside the village, standing over her family’s farm like a statue commemorating the slaughter. None of the villagers had been able to pick it apart with their hammers and axes. It seemed as if troll-stone was quite stronger than the earthly kind.
“Yarlaith, do you think they could move it?”
The old healer smiled. “Well, there’s no harm in finding out. Why don’t you ask one of the Geomancers yourself?”
“Me? Why… why me?”
Yarlaith sighed and placed a hand on her shoulder.
“Morrígan, you see the way the villagers react to the military presence. We are on the brink of war, but many are reluctant to see their protectors as anything more than strangers who invade their streets and claim their taverns. The soldiers are alienated from the community they are sworn to safeguard, and that must take its toll on morale. If anything, they’d be happy to help, if it aids in having the villagers see them as sharing the same interests as their own.”
Morrígan agreed. Besides, watching the horrible stone troll being disposed of would surely be a spectacle.
She left her uncle at the edge of the gathering, fixed her hair, and brushed dust from her new cloak. Yarlaith had said that the beadhbh feathers didn’t match the theme of the festival, but she had ignored him: it was different, and that was festive enough for her.
As Morrígan crossed the Square, she spotted Sorcha, dancing in circles with the other villagers. She was wearing another one of her mother’s dresses, designed in the style of high nobility. White and spotless, it appeared to radiate with its own light as she leapt gracefully around on the tips of her toes. Her soft, blond hair kept its perfect shimmer and shape while she whirled faster and faster, quickening to the tempo of the music. All eyes were on her, hands clapping to the beat, but Morrígan shrugged and carried on towards the battlemages.
They wouldn’t think she’s so pretty if it wasn’t for her mother’s dresses.
“Um, excuse me?” asked Morrígan as she approached the nearest Geomancer. He stood tall like a statue, moving only his eyes to look down at her. When he spoke, his voice grated with the rough accent of Cruachan.
“Yes, ma’am, is there anything I can help you with?”
“Have you heard about the troll, just outside the village?”
Morrígan surprised herself with how difficult it was to say those words. She began to rehearse the story in her head, but she couldn’t bring herself to even picture the scenes from that horrible morning, let alone describe them out loud.
Fortunately, the mage nodded.
“Yes, it was a terrible tragedy, and we hope our presence here can help prevent anything of the sort from happening again.”
“Would it be possible for the troll to be moved, somehow?” she asked. “With magic?”
The mage frowned pensively and called for another Geomancer stationed nearby.
“Berrían,” he said as the other solider arrived. “The petrified troll out near the Teeth. Do you reckon it could be moved?”
Berrían paused. A thick beard clung to his face like mottled dirt, a stark contrast to his light, sandy hair. “Perhaps, but it’ll depend on a few things….”
Morrígan was more than eager to learn. Her father used to be a jack-of-all-trades, and he had told her before that craftsmen are always pleased to talk at length about their work if you showed any interest. It was one of the few useful things he had said to her, although he’d been trying to justify the amount of time he spent drinking in The Bear.
“What exactly does it depend on?” she asked.
“See, our magic is capable of manipulating the earth,” Berrían began, enthusiasm showing in the speed of his speech. “This lets us bend and shape the earth and Her fruits with ease.
“Now, we can manipulate natural metals, too, but if you take one metal and make an alloy out of it, like steel, then it gets a bit harder to work with. The armour of the Simians is far removed from iron and quite difficult to take control over, though still within the power of any Geomancer worth his weight in dirt.”
“And stone?”
“Oh, stone is easy—far easier than the Simian stuff. But a petrified troll… that may be a matter of flesh.”
“So?”
“None of the Six Schools of magic can manipulate flesh. White mages may heal wounds and cure ailments, but the flesh itself is never manipulated directly. If the troll’s flesh has been petrified, then it cannot be moved. However, if the troll has turned into stone—normal stone—then it could be done.”
The mage was rambling, but Morrígan was enthralled by his words. The first soldier, who had been nodding away as Berrían spoke, added his own pair of coppers.
“We certainly won’t be able to carry it away,” he said, “but we might be able to throw it off the cliff, if we’re near enough. I wouldn’t be surprised if Eodadh let us give it a shot. We’ve little else to be doing here anyway.”
Berrían scolded the first mage, and then assured Morrígan that the entire battalion was busy protecting the village from harm.
“We’ll ask Colonel Eodadh if we can spare some mages to take care of the troll for you.”
“Thank you, sirs,” said Morrígan. “Your kindness is beyond measure. If you’ll excuse me.”
She crossed the Square again, weaving between the dancing men and women, and eyeing those sitting along the cobblestone curb, drowning out the band’s music with their own slurred verses.
Morrígan tried to picture her mother dancing with the others, but she was having trouble conjuring the image. Sometimes she forgot that her mother was dead and had to remind herself that she was never coming back. But on rarer days, she found it hard to imagine what her mother even looked like, as if she were trying to recall a vivid dream fading from memory as morning turned to noon.
Nothing had really been said about her father on the day he left them for dead, but Morrígan couldn’t bring herself to care. “The king is planning on raising taxes,” he had said the morning they had set out to work on the farm before dawn. “We’ll need to open the stall before the greengrocers do.”
That morning, Morrígan’s mother had another black eye.
