Strickler stared at the creamy expanse of Vendel's hand as the elder troll examined him for the second time that evening, feeling very much like an ant beneath a magnifying glass. Their first meeting had been little more than a cursory glance. There had been time enough to set his arm and guess at a possible cure for the wound and that was all. Next thing he knew he was being thrown into a cage, trapped like the rabid mutt they thought him to be. The next hour was filled with a constant barrage of threats and jeers from his captors before Vendel finally entered the room. Strickler stood as they lowered the cage, brushing himself off as best he could before another bolt of pain shot through his neck.
Vendel helped him to another room that served as a medical bay and sat him down on the nearest stone slab.
"Show me your true form, changeling," Vendel said sternly, though with more kindness than the rest of his kin. Unlike the others, the older troll didn't poke or prod or jeer, and he didn't speak harshly-there was a rigidness there, but it was gentle, patient, understanding. Vendel treated him like a child and he felt like one after the mess he had made.
Strickler didn't say anything. With a flash, his skin darkened, greened, limbs and body lengthening as he turned into the very thing Barbara now thought him to be-a monster. He looked away, focusing on the cold, hard stone of the floor, ashamed of what he was. Too stringy to be a troll, to gnarled to be a human, bred for violence, raised in chaos, he was unacceptable in either realm.
"Hmm," Vendel intoned as he ran a careful finger across the half-breed's neck. Saying nothing, judging nothing.
He lifted the changeling's arm, granting another cursory hum when Strickler winced.
"Oh just say something already," Strickler quipped, annoyed at himself, more than anything, but unable to stand the silence any longer.
"You take pain well, changeling, I am acquainted with trolls five times as large who would be clinging to the ground in tears with this sort of damage. I know not what Angor Rot has poisoned you with-his potions are unfamiliar, his magic even more so-but it has nearly crippled the fleshbag woman and yet you are still standing. Her pain is your own. I am frightened to think of what might actually bring you to your knees."
He looked to Vendel, yellow eyes glowing with severity. "I was engineered to endure it," he said plainly, letting his unnatural upbringing speak for itself. "And besides, I deserve my lot."
"And who are you to decide what you deserve and what you do not?"
"No one, I suppose." He felt entirely too much like one of his pubescent students, angsting over the most infantile things.
"It's tricky business, caring for humans," Vendel spoke a as he began to gather a mixture of remedies to grind beneath mortar and pestle. "When the troll hunter first came to me I was anxious to see him fall. I wanted him squashed like a goblin and for this ridiculous fleshbag business to be over with. A human trollhunter," he huffed as though still surprised, "it's absolutely appalling."
He made another sound, and Strickler could not tell whether it was a grunt or a laugh. "But I have come to care for the human child as I would my own. I can see now why the amulet chose him; why we need him in this time of great change." He poured something into the bowl, grinding it into a paste.
"I fear for the human, and his people." The older troll dipped a heavy finger into the bowl, testing the ointment's viscosity. Pleased with his work, he lifted it to the changeling's neck. As he smeared an even line across the wound, he looked pointedly at his patient. "How much greater that fear would be if it were love."
Strickler winced, though not from the sting of the ointment. Vendel had somehow scryed his truth. Had he been that clumsy? That evident? What a foolish creature he was.
The changeling closed his eyes, concealing their yellow glow. His shoulders fell, caught between shame and embarrassment.
"Is it really that obvious?" he almost whispered.
"Only to an old, blind, fool." Vendel spoke with warmth in his voice. "I am well trained in the healing arts and have a particularly strong sense of smell, besides. Trolls release a certain pheromone when they're around someone they wish to claim as their own. To the untrained nose, it is just another scent in the wind, but to those who know what they are looking for, it is a telling marker. You were practically swimming in it when you arrived."
Strickler looked into Vendel's old, clouded eyes. "And what do you think, great doctor? Can I be cured?"
"I don't know about that." He responded, "But I do know that you have a chance to save the one you care about. I didn't just come to ease the pain, you know. Tobias and Claire are soon to return with the incantation. Your participation will undoubtedly be necessary in order to break the binding between you and the human woman. I need to know how willing you are to help with that process. I would force it out of you, but I can't. Gumm-Gumm magic is not so different, these things are sensitive to emotion-both participants must be willing to part in order for the spell to break, just as both were willing to be linked when the bond was formed in the first place. I can already guess what must have happened. You needed to make her care for you in order to perform this magic. You didn't expect how you would feel in return."
"No, I wasn't aware of the emotional element. " Strickler shook his head. "Angor Rot never told me to seduce her. I...I already felt for her when he concocted the enchantment. But you're right, in some ways." Walter admitted, "I was trying to get to young Jim by getting close to his mother, and in the process, I suppose…" He shook his head, ivory horns swaying through the air. "It was a weakness. I've been in the human realm too long."
"To love is not exclusively human," Vendel corrected, "whoever taught you otherwise has poisoned your mind. It is too bad; you changelings have great potential. A link between the two realms; human and troll. I might have thought of it myself, had the process of your creation not been so violent. Changelings," he remarked as he re-tied the sling on Strickler's arm. "I could hardly believe it at first. It is difficult for me to imagine our kind being so cruel to its young, but you are a living example."
Strickler's eyes were slits when they looked to the Elder troll, "I do not feel sorry for myself."
"Maybe not." Vendel said, placing his large hand on the changeling's uninjured shoulder, "but the female to whom you are bound has never known the cruelty of that realm. Will you extend that malice to her?"
"I..." the changeling hesitated. "I must. You wouldn't understand."
"So you won't help us?" The larger troll took a step back.
"I can't," he said, and in a moment he was human again, more comfortable in the guise than he was in his own skin. "Once the bond is broken, by your own code of honor, you cannot deny the flesh your people so willingly seek to tear apart. My very existence is treason to them. I wouldn't survive a day past the separation. Your people want justice, and I want to live, however selfish that may be. My work is not complete, and there is more going on outside these walls than you could possibly know." Strickler blinked up at him. He wasn't about to spill his guts on the Janus order, but he had to grant the leader some sort of warning. "If I'm not there to guide my own kind, then I don't want to know who will be."
"Enlighten me then," Vendel crossed his massive arms, "tell me what is happening beyond these walls."
"Let's just say," Strickler offered, "that Barbara is as good as gone if I'm not around to vouch for her. To surrender my life for hers would be futile, in the end."
For a great many minutes, the leader said nothing. He leaned against the stone of the wall, stroking his great white beard.
"You are right." Vendel said, his old voice shaking through the cavern, "I cannot deny my people their right for justice."
The changeling nodded in agreement.
"But I do know someone who can." the elder continued as he began to make his way toward the door. "The trollhunter has not always played by our rules. In fact, more often than not, he creates his own. Perhaps he can offer you a bargain that I cannot. Guards!" he bellowed, "take this changeling back to the stronghold."
Two heavy trolls entered the room; they grabbed Walter's arms him roughly. He could almost feel Barbra squirming in response.
"Be gentle," Vendel commanded, "he is still linked to the Trollhunter's kin." They grunted and loosened their grips.
"Consider this," Vendel spoke before Strickler was led away, "your refusal is a paradox. If this 'Barbara' dies as a result of your injuries-and she very well may, despite her strength-then you will be destroyed as well-either through the bond or by the hands of the Trollhunter himself. You have no choice but to help her. I have a proposition, however: I will let you strike whatever deal you may with the boy, play off of his ignorance, as it were. In return, I expect my kindness to be repaid in the future. I am giving you and out. Go. Hide. But you will help us at a later date."
Strickler nodded. It was the best he was going to get in such a precarious situation. He'd been aware of the paradox, but was hoping, in the panic, that Vendel had forgotten. It seemed that the old troll was not as slow as his gait suggested.
With nothing left to say, the guards tugged at him (gently this time) and he offered no resistance.
"For the record," Strickler added as an afterthought, uncaring of what the guards would think, "despite my lack of options, I really do want to see her well again.."
"I know," the great troll said as he shuffled into the darkness toward a different exit passage. His voice echoed from somewhere within the dense, black void. "I told you, I can smell it."
The changeling smiled as he was dragged away.