A great smile swept over the faces of the Trolls, tusks gleaming greenly, and Cham Olot raised a taloned fist and said, “Then I name the terms: combat to the death.”
Rage in his eye, the Bear reared up on his hind legs and roared, his black claws ready to strike.
Goblins shrieked, and Dre’ela cried out in fear. Chamum Te’efoon leapt up to flee, her throne crashing over backwards. Olot quailed, thrusting his hands out before him, to ward off any coming blows.
And, lo! Scruff struggled up out of Camille’s pocket and took to wing! The tiny sparrow flew! Camille gasped in astonishment as up and ’round he circled, and then shot through a high window slit and away. Yet Camille had no further time to wonder, for even then the Bear took a step toward Olot.
“Remember my curse, Bear: if you kill me, then you die,” shouted Olot.
Camille reached out a hand, trying to stay the Bear, and she cried, “Oh, Bear, oh, Alain, I would not have you die. Better that it be me.”
But the Bear was not to be deterred, and took another step forward.
Olot threw up both hands. “All right, all right, not combat to the death. She can name the challenge, but I shall name the terms.”
At that, the Bear looked back at Camille, and she nodded.
The Bear dropped to all fours.
“One of the terms,” said Olot, looking at Camille, “is that whatever you choose, the means for such must be in this chamber.”
Again the Bear looked at Camille, and again she nodded, all the time her mind racing: What can I possibly challenge him with? A singing contest? No! Remember Chemine’s warning: “Let not this girl sing to Goblins and Trolls.” Besides, Trolls and Goblins no doubt think that croaking or roaring is splendid singing, and I can do neither, hence I would lose were one of Olot’s stipulations be that goblins would judge.
What about echecs? I am a fair hand at that game. We could use the squares of the stone floor as the squares of the board, and slaves and Goblins as the pieces. Ah, but the Goblins are the only ones with weaponry, and they would slay a slave every time Olot captured a piece, and surely he wouldn’t let the slaves bear weapons on their part. No, not echecs.
“Come, come, girl,” growled Olot. “Name the challenge.”
Camille looked at the Bear and then at the slaves, then turned to Olot and said, “Riddles. A game of riddles.”
The Bear settled back on his haunches, even as a murmur whispered through the slaves.
“You have named the challenge,” said Olot, “and these shall be the terms: again I say the riddle must concern something within this great throne chamber.” Olot laughed, his gaze sweeping about, for well did he know the room, free of debris though it now was.
A murmur of dissatisfaction rumbled through the slaves, for these terms meant that many a riddle could not be posed.
But Camille looked about the chamber and agreed.
“You ask; I answer,” said the cham.
Again Camille nodded, then she said:
“To and fro does it go,
A long thread trailing after,
Leaving weaving in its train,
The tapestry of the crafter.”
Olot looked stunned, glancing back at Chamum Te’e-foon and Chamumi Dre’ela. And Dre’ela held up the shuttle dangling about her neck and said to Camille, “This, you stupid girl: a weaver’s shuttle.”
Camille frowned and said to Dre’ela, “It was your father’s to answer, but this once I will accept interference.” Camille then turned to the cham. “Is that your answer, too?”
“It is,” said Olot, both cham and chamum beaming proudly at their very ugly offspring, Dre’ela simpering at Olot and Te’efoon in return.
“Perhaps you shouldn’t have listened to your daughter, sire, for you lose,” said Camille.
“ What? ” Roared Olot and Dre’ela and Te’efoon together. “What else can it be?” shouted Olot.
Camille pointed to the base of the overturned throne and said,
“To and fro does it go,
A long thread trailing after,
Leaving weaving in its train,
The tapestry of the crafter.”
And there under the throne a spider was repairing the last of its web, weaving back and forth between the legs of the upset chair of state. “The answer is a spider,” said Camille. “Now I’ll take my Bear and leave.”
Some of the slaves laughed at the cleverness of this chit of a girl, many of those from the household of Summerwood Manor clapping. But at growls from the Goblins and the brandishing of swords and spears the mirth was swiftly quenched.
“Three!” roared Olot. “You must pose three altogether, and should you lose even one, then you lose all. Those are the terms.”
At this the Bear growled, and so did some of the slaves, but Camille nodded her agreement, saying, “Three it shall be, my lord, yet this time and the next you and you alone must answer.”
The Troll cham glanced at his daughter and wife, and then at the golden-haired girl he would most dearly like to bed. Finally he nodded his agreement.
Camille again glanced about the chamber, and then she said:
“ ’Round and ’round ’tis spun,
On which the thread is wrapped;
’Round and ’round ’tis spun,
Until it is fully lapped.”
Chamumi Dre’ela pulled the golden spool on its cord from ’round her neck, and she began tossing it up and catching it, even as she stepped in front of her sire and glared at him and jerked her head toward the bobbin.
Olot looked at her and growled, “You were wrong the last time, daughter.” He gazed about the chamber, and then laughed and said:
“ ’Round and ’round ’tis spun,
On which the thread is wrapped;
’Round and ’round ’tis spun,
Until it is fully lapped.”
And then it was the cham who pointed at the upset throne, where the spider turned a captured fly ’round and ’round as it wrapped it in webbing. “The answer is a fly,” crowed Olot. “The fly is spun up in webbing for the spider to hang in his larder.”
As slaves groaned, for surely Camille had lost, Camille said, “This time you should have heeded your daughter, sire, for she had the answer all along: it is a spool, a spinning-wheel spool.”
“See!” shrieked Chamumi Dre’ela in fury.
“Spool?” roared Olot.
“Indeed, my lord,” replied Camille.
The slaves now hooted aloud at clever Camille’s second outwitting of the cham of Goblins and Trolls.
“This is trickery,” roared Olot. “No more riddles with double answers, answers which you can pick and choose the one I do not guess.” The cham flexed his great thews and said, “For the third and last challenge, I want a physical contest, not one of twisted words. And recall, should you lose this one, then you lose all.”
Camille was stunned, for although she was keen of mind, what could she physically challenge the Troll with? And it had to be something within the chamber.
’Round she looked, and ’round, but nothing came to mind. Finally, in despair, with tears in her eyes Camille looked at her beloved Bear, her beloved Alain. And there, matted in the Bear’s fur was a great blob of candle wax, the wax she had spilled on Alain that terrible night when all had been snatched away, the wax a sign of her betrayal of him. But then she realized that the very thing which had doomed him might also be his salvation.
She turned to the Troll cham and announced, “The third and last challenge, sire, is to clean the Bear of candle wax, but no single hair of the Bear’s fur may be harmed, else you lose.”
