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“No. Come.” The troll lowered her club, turned, and strode into thetunnel.
“Are we invited in?” Momasked.
“Something likethat.”
I started to go first, but she lifted a hand and caught my arm. “Rocket and I have been here before. I stumbled across this place when I was searching for a kid who’d gone missing from acampground.”
“The troll didn’t eat him, did she?” Reluctantly, I let her lead, but Sindari and I followed right after her. Which made Rocket nervous—he kept glancing back, not ready to accept a tiger as a hiking buddyyet.
“No. An orc who’d lost her own child found him and wanted to adopt him into theclan.”
“There’s a wholeclaninhere?”
The passage we’d entered looked like the other lava tube caves I’d seen in the area, wide with a high curving ceiling and veering slightly downhill. The ground was covered with flat sandy dust, packed down from the tread of countlessfeet.
“Among other things,” Momsaid.
The temperature dropped as we walked farther from the entrance. A shadow fell behind us, the solid rock reappearing and blocking out daylight. Magical torches sputtering in holders on the rock walls provided light, but the uneasy feeling of being trapped crept into me. I reminded myself that I had the key to thedoor.
A small, round shape on the ground against a wall came into view as the passage curved around a bend. My first thought was that it was a skull and that we would soon pass all manner of discarded bones from some predator’s meal—some troll’s meal—but it was a ball. Rocket trotted forward and sniffed it, but it was too large for a dog’s mouth. Sindari could have picked it up in his teeth if he were so inclined, but he was probably too regal to play with a ball. Or play at all. Once, I’d shown him a video of panthers, lions, and tigers in a big-cat rescue having fun with boxes. He’d been unimpressed. Someday, I was going to find a box big enough for him and see if it temptedhim.
Another bend took us past a natural pool against one wall, droplets of water dribbling down from a crack in the ceiling to fill it. On one side, a pair of swimming pool noodles bobbed, along with an inner tube that might have escaped from someone doing the river float throughtown.
I sheathed Chopper. Whatever this place was, I didn’t think I was walking into a warzone.
What I didn’t expect was for the tunnel to end and open back up into the outdoors. We walked into a valley filled with a surprising variety of wood, stone, and hide dwellings, everything from one-room huts to sprawling complexes surrounded by fences. The path turned into a road that meandered down the middle of the valley, past the residences and also a number of service tents and marketstalls.
There were magical beings everywhere, the most orcs, trolls, dwarves, gnomes, kobolds, and goblins I’d seen in one place. There were a few more exotic beings as well, ones I’d heard about but never run into, such as firbolgs, a satyr, and a minotaur. Mom looked toward a handsome elf who looked like he’d walked off the set ofLord of the Rings. A wistful expression crossed herface.
Interesting, Sindari remarked as we followed the troll down the road, almost all of the beings turning to watch our passage.These people represent several different worlds and wouldn’t usually be found together. Historically, many of them have made war on eachother.
It’s got to be a refuge of some kind. Maybe someone powerful—this Greemaw?—keeps the peace.What was more surprising to me was how this place could have avoided notice from the outsideworld.
Though the trees along the steep valley slopes were massive, with branches that stretched much more expansively than normal over the valley floor, sunlight filtered down through the leaves and needles. It was hard to imagine that this wouldn’t be visible to the various helicopters and planes that flew around the area, taking visitors over the mountains and volcanoes. I’d seen a pamphlet for a tour that flew people around to remote locations to look forsasquatch.
But as I eyed the branches, I noticed a hint of magic about them. It was hard to pick out, since the auras of magical beings and artifacts bombarded me from all sides here, but an enchantment was definitely up there, hiding the valley from outsidedetection.
A few beings whispered as we passed, and with my translation charm still active, I picked outRuin Bringer, Slayer,andDeathstalkeralong with other less flattering names I’d heard before. Even so, I hadn’t realized I was this notorious among the magical. A few of the speakers were children, gnomes and dwarves wearing the tattered clothing of true refugees. I decided I didn’t want this fame—this infamy—and wished I could let them know they had nothing to fear from me, so long as they didn’t prey onhumans.
One boy called out a semblance of Rocket’s name, the accent putting the stresses in odd places, and threw a grubby tennis ball. The dog bounded off to get it. Mom lifted a hand, as if to call him back, but she dropped her arm and let him retrieve the ball. He brought it back to her instead of the skinny gnome kid who’d thrown it, but she passed it along to the owner. Rocket wagged his tail for the first time since we’d encountered thewerewolves.
“There she is.” Mom pointed to a cave set into the back of the valley and framed by a pergola made from wood and the porous lava-rockboulders.
The huge golem sat on a stone bench the size of a conference table, her dark gray skin almost matching the surrounding rock. She looked like she’d been carved from it, with waves of green hair akin to moss falling to her broad shoulders. Very old eyes like polished pieces of obsidian gazed at me as weapproached.
I would not wish to fight a golem,Sindari informed me.Their skin is as hard as the rocks of their nativeworld.
So I shouldn’t piss heroff?
I recommend against it. She is a lava golem. They are slow to anger, but when they lose their temper, it is as bad as a volcano erupting. They can melt pieces of their stone flesh and throw flaming lava balls at enemies, assuming they don’t simply grab you and crush you topieces.
Our troll guide bowed to the golem and backed away without a word, heading back to herpost.
“Hello, Greemaw,” my mother said. “I apologize for intruding in your world again, but my daughter has a mystery it’s important for her to solve, and I thought you might be familiar with a sigil that’s her onlyclue.”
“Your daughter is the Ruin Bringer?” The golem spoke slowly and precisely, her deep rumble reminding me of a cementmixer.
“Apparently.”
