They lifted the bucket far above me, into the inky darkness, but then they cut the rope. At first I could not see, but heard a bumping and scraping against the pit’s side. Down came the bucket from the region of water and ice, falling at my feet with an awful crack!, hitting so hard that the wood split, and I would have died if it had been me. Now the captain and the lieutenant had their choice of the Princesses, and only two men, not three, need share half the kingdom.
I laughed aloud as I peered in the dim light, feeling around for three big nuggets of the gold. Into my wallet they went. I had to laugh, for the clouds had cleared from my mind’s eye. There was no Queen in Tromsdal. There was never a Queen. These Princesses could not be threatened, for how do you harm the sendings of the Bright Ones, creatures spun from the sky and never born of womankind, creatures that can enchant a mighty troll.
For hours or days, I don’t know how long, I wandered in that underworld, searching for a way out. I returned, at last, to the crystal palace, looking from hall to hall, until I lay down and slept on the ice troll’s bed, ignoring the residue of its smell. In my dream I heard a large rustling sound, greater than the noise of a thousand wings, and I awoke.
Through corridor after corridor, I ran — outside to the field with the cattle herd. There I saw a huge, black crow, vaster in body even than the great, nine-headed ice troll, and with wings one hundred feet across to bear it up. Its feathers had a greenish shine, its eyes were like golden topazes, and it smelt stale, like horse sweat. “You called me in your dream,” it said to me in a mocking voice, harsher than thunder, like cutting through iron with a hardened steel saw. “I’ve come, Jorgen. But you must feed me.”
“If it’s food you require, you could slay an ox.” For such a being, with talons as long as scimitars, this would be the easiest of tasks.
The crow shook its head. “I shall not kill. Yet, I feast on the strength of my enemies. Where are the trolls?”
I finally understood. “I have slain them all, just as you wished.”
“Butcher them for me.” It lifted its head and laughed. “I will not taint myself.”
I fell on my knees. “I have not disappointed you, Bright One,” I said. “The Princesses are safe with the captain and the lieutenant.”
“Stand.”
My companions would threaten the Princesses with their swords, demanding that the King’s “daughters” say they — the captain and the lieutenant — were the ones who slew the trolls. Poor fools, poor fools; no human engines could harm those Princesses.
There was a wrenching of being, and I could see right through the crow as it became ethereal, a twisting thing of smoke, sucking inward, as though time itself ran in reverse — smoke returning to its source in the fire. In a moment the King stood before me. I still knelt, flabbergasted. “Stand,” he said again. “Please stand.” When I did so, he overtopped me by more than a head, unburning flames dancing across his garments. “So you are an able man.”
“What will you do?” Whatever monstrous form he took, he would not endure the taint of killing me directly, but nor could I harm him. He could leave me there to rot, if such were his caprice. “What will happen to my companions?”
“They proved to be treacherous, as I foresaw. I shall order them executed.” How brave to enchant a kingdom with tales of queens and daughters; how fine to become a king!
“And me?”
“You would marry one of my daughters?”
I shook my head. “No.” His creatures, his sendings — whatever they were — for all their beauty, I had no desire to marry one.
“And half my kingdom?”
“I renounce any claim. Will you leave me here?”
“You have served me well. But now I crave troll flesh. Butcher me the trolls, and I will take you wherever you wish. This I vow.”
“You will have your meat,” I said.
“So I foresaw.”
It was a messy business, butchering trolls with my broadsword. Their carcasses contained much bloody flesh, but also hair, bone, gristle, wood, and stone. The icy parts had melted away. As the King, again in crow form, ate his fill of meat, I climbed upon his back. I was covered, by now, in troll blood.
If I return, my death awaits me — some indirect and expedient form of death. There is a sea-dragon in the west of your kingdom, so I was told by a raggedy innkeeper’s daughter. “It’s as big as a ship,” she said. “It’s got ruby flames and emerald scales.” I want no part in its slaying. They say that gold appeases it — well, I have two troll nuggets. The third I converted to coin, to meet my modest needs.
One day, trolls and dragons will be words for nurses to frighten little children. Each season, a human child has less cause to fear the old terrors — the harshness and mystery of forest and mountain, of ice and salt sea, and the wild beasts. Something is always lost.
I climbed on the giant bird, and it spread that hundred-foot span of wings. With a single hop, it took to the air. Higher and higher it flew, speaking no more. We met no resistance from the rock and earth above us. Soon we were over the woods, then the wide, foamy sea, heading for the liquid sun. Westward we traveled, and south.
As twilight dimmed, the crow departed, leaving me — here, with my blood and gold, on a far, dark shore. I had become a witness and a mourner of something lost, something strange to tell — of the terror and the pity, of the ugliness and splendor, of trolls.
In Norse fairy tales the usual enemies are not witches, wolves, or wicked fairies, but trolls — powerful, brutal, semihuman creatures who embody the grim and dangerous aspects of nature. In such tales as “The Three Princesses in the Blue Mountain,” on which “The King with Three Daughters” is based, trolls are deceived and slain with no compunction or sympathy whatsoever. The relationship of humankind to the natural world appears very different at the turn of the third millennium, after a history of ecological devastation; hence, Blackford has depicted a troll-slayer who comes to see his victims in a new light.
Boys and Girls Together
NEIL GAIMAN
Neil Gaiman is a transplanted Briton who now lives in the American Midwest. He is the author of the award-winning Sandman series of graphic novels, co-author (with Terry Pratchett) of the novel Good Omens, and author of the novel and BBC TV series Neverwhere. He also collaborated with artist Dave McKean on the brilliant book Mr. Punch. In addition, Gaiman is a talented poet and short story writer whose work has been published in a number of earlier volumes of retold fairy tales, in Touch Wood: Narrow Houses 2, Midnight Graffiti, and several editions of The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. His short work has been collected in Angels and Visitations and Smoke and Mirrors.