Legends of Belariath
Kuromaku
”Is Safe to talk? Nobody round, Kuromaku means... Is Good.”
The troll looks around as the door closes.
”Great. I'm glad that's done with.” He smiles at your faint surprise. “Oh, this? Yes, I could always talk like this. I just prefer not to let on how smart I actually am. Once you hear my story, I think that you'll come to understand why...”
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”Grandmother was insane. I know that statement means nothing to you right now, but I felt it best to preface my story with it. You see, she was what the other trolls would call 'ghost-touched'. She was more than just a shaman; the spirits didn't just answer her call, they made calls of their own right back.
The spirits of the dead, of the lakes and the hills, of things not a one of us would recognize if we saw it... Every waking moment spirits spoke to her, whispering in her ear things I can't even begin to imagine. And every few days when she slept, the whispers became screams, as they filled her nightmares and made demands of her.
One voice in particular, one of the Great Old Ones, was heard over all the others. It spoke only one word, over and again... Revenge.”
Kuromaku sighs, remembering the long-ago times, then continues.
”This is where I come into the story. Lots of people have noticed that I don't quite look like most other trolls. My features are symmetrical and in proportion... Well, they say that's a sign of a strong bloodline, one that can be traced back to the Great Old Ones. Those are the ancient progenitors of the more well-known 'strains' of troll.
Once upon a time, before the treachery of the ogres, the Troll race was One people; Powerful, and Terrible to behold. I won't go into what happened to change that just now. Only know that it was after the Great Betrayal that the Great Old Ones faded into history, and the strains of Swamp, Mountian, Rock, and others took shape.”
Kuromaku flexes his huge hands, pale gray flesh like flexible stone.
”Obviously, I am of the Rock Trolls. As I said, most of my kind are rather more mishapen than I am. And so it comes as no surprise that when I was born to my parents, and they saw that I looked as I did, they took the only logical course of action... They threw my tiny newborn body over the falls near our home.”
The large troll chuckles and shakes his head. “I honestly don't know if they intended to drown me or not... All I know is that it was the dead of winter, and the water of the falls and the pond below it were frozen over as they had been for months. Of course, though small I was still a Rock Troll, and my body small though it may have been smashed through the ice of the pond and I sank... Yes, you might say 'Like a stone'...”
”Trolls aren't natural swimmers, the way that many humans are. Rock Trolls even less so. But by the Spirits, I must have been, for I am told I gasped and wailed from the hole in the ice, treading water until I was rescued by the wizened crone I would know as Grandmother.”
The troll smiles as he nods his head in your direction. “I've already spoken to you of her, remember?”
”Grandmother plucked me from the icy river, and carried me away from the Mob that I was born into. Mob, that's a group of Rock Trolls, by the way. Grandmother told me later that the Spirits who spoke to her constantly told her where to find me, and that I was important enoough to be worth saving.
I didn't know if that was true or not. These days I'd love to believe it, but as a child I knew only that I loved Grandmother for saving my life, and for all that she did for me.”
Kuromaku seems to grow more pensive as he relates the next portion of his tale. “Some of what she did for me, I wouldn't understand until much much later. My body, for example, was modified. Stretched, studded with stones, branded and scarred by fire and steel, to make me 'more of a man'. It was a long process, taking years... But I still thank her for it.
My body isn't the only thing she worked to improve. Despite her madness, Grandmother was an accomplished Shaman and she had done much travelling in her long lifetime. She taught me to read and to write not only in the Crown's tongue, but also in the languages of the Barbarian tribes.
My command of those languages is admittedly not fluent, as Grandmother mostly muttered to herself in those tongues, adressing me in the more familiar language of the so-called 'High Humans'.
But it was from Grandmother that I learned how to perform the Markings, ritual symbols designed with a variety of purposes. Symbols carved onto the backs of one's feet as a prayer to the Spirits for a swift journey. Depictions of animals or mystical beasts, to entice the Spirits of such creatures to lend me their strength.
Trolls mature quickly. I would say it's about three times the speed of human growth. But even after I became a 'man' according to the standards of my people, I remained with Grandmother, living in isolation and study for many more years.”
”But eventually, it was time for me to strike out on my own. Grandmother sent me on a journey far away, to a land where Ogres dwelt. You remember what I told you before? About how the Ogres and the trolls were enemies ever since the Great Betrayal... It puzzled me, the notion that Grandmother would send me into the hands of our ancient enemies.”
”I wasn't a warrior, I bore with me no weapons. What few spells I mastered were of something more utilitarian nature than combat-oriented. But I loved Grandmother so much that, I can see now, I was blind to her madness. I tursted every word that she told me, about seeking my destiny in the land of our foes. And so I went.”
”I was met with outright hostility as soon as the first Ogre of the tribe laid eyes on me. I was driven away with sticks and stones, my body battered and broken even beyond my ability to repair. I managed to escape, drag myself into a small out-of-the way thicket of trees, and collapse. That's where they found me.”
Kuromaku chuckles faintly with a rueful smile. “They, in this case, were two young ogre females. Apparently, I looked rather pitiable laying there, barely breathing, limbs broken and face halfway bashed in. They brought me food and water, kept the secret of my location from the other Ogres. Their father was the chieftain of their tribe.”
”Every day for a week, they came to see me, feed me and check the progress of my recovery. I loved the attention, a predilection I'm afraid I've yet to outgrow. But more intriguing was when the elder of the two would come to see me in the middle of the night... She was my first. Her sister soon followed.”
”Before the week was through I was fully healed and ready to travel again, but I remained. I had discovered something wonderful with these Ogre women, those who should have been my enemies. Another week passed. And another, followed by a season. And every night I was visited by one or the other of these two, and learned to pleasure them rather expertly, if I may say so myself.”
”All things come to an end, and this was no exception. Their father, the chieftain, became suspicious. He had a vague inkling that something was amiss with his family and he had one of his mates, the mother of the younger daughter, speak with his darling girls. Unable to keep the secret, they confessed to her immediately where it is that they went and... to the doom of our 'relationship' .. what exactly we did together.”
”It was a moonless night when I heard the sound of footsteps through the underbrush, and sensed a figure approach. I smelled her body, familiar yet unknown, and I thought perhaps one or the other of my playmates was wearing a new scent. She came to me willingly enough, wordlessly aking my member in hand and helping me rise to full prominence.”
”It wasn't until I was buried in her hot wetness that I realized this was neither of the Chieftain's daughters, but a different, more mature and experienced Ogress. My shock and dismay at being discovered and so easily caught unawares was... Short-lived... After this newcomer recieved her pleasure and I mine, she wordlessly left under the cover of darkness...”
”And through all of this illicit pleasure, something disturbed me... One coupling with a single Ogress could satisfy me, but not for long. The more often I fornicated with these women, the young or the older, the more I wanted. I became insatiable, and in return the women felt the need to tell a few more of the chieftain's wives, daughters, his sister and mother about me...”
Kuromaku laughs as he remembers. “At quieter times, as I lay in that little hideaway amidst two or three of the Chieftain's female family members, I would wonder whether he was still able to get any affection from any of them.”
”Jealousy soon set in among the Ogresses of the chieftain's household. Though I could satisfy many, I loved none of them. They were, in the end convenient playthings, providers of a pleasure I had never before known. Each sensed my feelings, but wrongly assumed thatthe reason I didn't love one was because I loved another... but which one?”
The troll moves to the window of the small room and looks outside pensively. “The poison was distilled from wild mushrooms... snake venom, and the glands of a certain rare swamp-toad. A slow onset, followed by excruciating pain and later, death...”
”To this day I don't know which of my 'harem' resorted to this drastic step to assure her place in my heart. Ogres are such vile treacherous creatures. It's in their blood. No matter who used the poison first, it set off a wave of deaths through the household of the chieftain, affecting men and women both.”
”Two of them, the cheiftain's fourth wife and eldest daughter, perished beside me as we lay together. Panicked, I ran. I kept to the darkness, hiding by day from the sun's rays, and fled back to Grandmother. I told her all that had occured.”
Kuromaku moves toward the door and makes certain it is locked tight. he turns back to you and shakes his head slowly. “Grandmother laughed... Horrible laughter... In that moment the scales fell from my eyes, as they say, and I saw the meaning of it all. Grandmother was a madwoman... She had rasied me to be a sort of sexual weapon, and sent me into the hands of our enemies.. her enemies... The chieftain's father had slain Grandmother's sons in some long-ago battle.”
”I was used as a convenient replacement for her own family line, given the means both mental and physical, to drive a solid wedge between members of her old enemy's family line. She explained this all to me, how she had reshaped my body for her task, and fed me a steady diet of mystical powders, potions, and tinctures... all aimed at increasing my virility to ungodly levels.”
”After she revealed all of this to me...” Kuromaku pauses, grasping for the words. “I hesitate to say that she died... Rather her soul simply left her body behind, right at that moment. She turned her face to the sky, wild-eyed and grinning madly... And she was gone.”
”Grandmother had won her vengeance, and departed this world for the next. But that left me alone and more firghtened than ever. I took a few things, a robe to keep the wind off my nethers, and the small sickle Grandmother used to gather herbs. I wandered the wilds for a while, communing with the spirits and seeking answers.”
”Eventually I found my asnwers... Recalling the legends of the Great Old Ones, in the days before the Great Betrayal, I decided that it would fall to me to restore the glory of my people. Yes, the same people who rejected me at the minute of my birth...”
”So, I travelled the lands, learning about the ways of the smaller people, who farm, and craft, and forge. These things Trolls never learned to do, always only scraping by, surviving. I will one day return to my people with all that I learn here, and put that knowledge into their hands.”
Kuromaku stands tall and proud. “When that happens, the Trolls will once again be a great race, not scorned by others, not hunted with hounds and flames. We will be Powerful and Terrible to behold.”
”You might be wondering why I'm telling you all of this.” The troll says as he moves closer and places a large hand on your shoulder. “Indeed, if my plans are to succeed, it's best that no-one knows I even have the intelligence necessary to spell 'Agenda'... let alone to have one. Unfortunately every now and then, the secrecy gets to be too much, and I feel the need to confess everything to someone.”
”More Unfortunately...” Kuromaku's large hands close on your shoulder, gripping tight. “My plans take precedence over friendships. Now that I've told you about myself, I can't let you leave.”
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A muttering of a spell. A flash of light behind your eyes, then your vision grays out. Then darkness...