Plan in Vain

by

Christoph Seifert

It was very early in the morning for R'ollan, a young troll from the black mountain in the west of Goldor. Standing on the place where he slept one could not fail to see this massive mountain called R'Kazar by the trolls which meant just the ancient one. R'ollan had the habit to sleep the sleep of beauty, when others were already at work. His name meant just that - sleeper - and he was a vain troll for sure. A fly inspected his massive nose-holes, which are very attractive attributes for a troll by the way, and thus caused him to finally stop dozing. Slowly, but graceful as a tumbling boulder he stood up erect and stretched his muscles producing grinding noises. This sound was soon topped by the hungry growling coming out of the abyss of his huge belly, which, a superfluous thing to mention, was a very sexy thing for a troll. The dew was already being swept from the river's meadows by the rays of the sun and the birds were singing merrily. But this beauty didn't impress him as he was already watching himself in the perfect mirror of a calm part of the blue river, which divided the Ragar valley in the shadow of the black mountain. He was a huge troll with copper coloured skin stretching over well-proportioned muscles. Emerald eyes pierced the shadow of his face, framed by a huge curly mane of long black and copper hair. A short beard lined his chins a bit disorderly. He felt unlucky that he couldn't trim the beard anymore and in general he felt unlucky, that the fancy of the troll maidens was it to only take troll men with full beards. Legend had it that the strength of a male troll was in the length of his beard, but R'ollan felt it was the other way round and that a beard just hindered him in his daydreaming when he was too fondly playing with it. He could not understand either that female trolls shaved their heads in order to have fancy tattoos on them. But anyway, he liked what he saw in the river and did let go a hearty yawn. Another grumble from his belly made him rub his belly appeasingly. His rite of passage had begun a week ago and he had to survive on his own for six more weeks. Suddenly he heard a sound some hundred strides away. His pointed ears located the direction to be on the human made path going over the bridge he had slept under. He curiously put out his head from under the arch to see the source of his hopes. He immideately withdrew his head and ordered his hair again. Unlike other troll families from the mountains in the east of Goldor, which had the bad habit to turn to stone in the sunlight and to be abused as scarecrows on the fields of these pesky humans, only the hair would curl and mess things up. This was even worse R'ollan contemplated and source for endless laughter and jokes by members of other twilight races, who already found trolls to be unfashionable. If you remember, R'ollan was a vain troll. He put up his sombrero made of reed and got the crude club, which had been his pillow. In fact it was a toy and rather ceremonial thing and that was why he had been allowed to take it along. It's use was to kick around the head of a R'Ceo, the name of a troll leader, after he had done a bad decision for the tribe. Whoever could put the head into one of the trash holes with one hit was allowed to drink a mug of R'iskey. The winner was the one who managed to get to the 18th drink first and thus became the new hard drinking leader. Anyway, we digress from the story and in the time R'ollan had remembered all this merry celebration, the sound was only some strides away. But R'ollan was a thinker and had a cunning plan. In fact, it was the same he always had when he wanted to eat. He jumped on the path, his growling even louder than his belly's roaring and made a really ugly face, whirling his club around wildly. To his surprise the two humans on the wagon didn't make a move to leave their lunch behind unlike the other troll children when R'ollan had done his show back then.

On the wagon sat master magician Eredan VIII and his apprentice Sopan. The reason for Sopan not to run away was quite simple - he was shivering and quivering so much that he was unable to move or say a thing. The reason for Eredan was too complex for R'ollan to comprehend - scientific curiosity. 'Interesting, interesting a trollus monte nigro down here', Eredan mumbled to himself. 'Sopan, give me the grey pouch I bought on the fair in Rahisa.' R'ollan down there was getting uneasy but stuck to his cunning plan and distorted his face even more wildly, but couldn't keep up his growling to match his belly really. 'Sopan, where is the grey pouch?'. Eredan himself finally rummaged in the bag under the bench and got out the pouch with a satisfied grin on his face. He hurled it at the puzzled troll, who only could see the pouch explode on hit and then nothing anymore.

Now what happened to barely 30 years young R'ollan? Several versions one could offer. Rumour had it that trolls steal cattle - a thing R'ollan would have liked to do really, if the cattle had not been driven down the valley already. Eredan could have sold him to the city of Rahisa for a bounty. R'ollan could have been caged in the tower of Eredan to serve sinister experiments. But then again, truth was much more unspectacular than this.

Every morning, Sopan had to enter the room where R'ollan was caged to bring some food and he was happy that R'ollan was such a long-sleeper, even for a troll as his master said. Every morning he had to exchange the mirror in the room, which R'ollan used in his vanity. He didn't quite comprehend, but Eredan did know all the better.

Eredan counted the many gold coins he had earned lately, stopped by short breaks when he just grabbed into a pouch for a handful of coins which he let rinse back again with clinging and jingling. Vanity ruled the world and creating magical mirrors was his speciality. Since he had added the troll shock treatment to the creation process, the caged spirits in the mirrors were much more co-operative and showed the mirrored one in the most favourable light. The mirrors had become priced tokens of affection, which on the other hand helped his affection for money quite a lot. Eredan had to grin into his first thus treated mirror. A quite handsome smile was reflected - the spirit knew what he had to do.