Snenneq smiled broadly. “I did not think your people ever did this, unless it was necessary for them.”
“Walking?”
“Going out of doors. Your people are seeming to hate it. It is the one thing I least understand. Qina has said the same, is that not right?”
“Perhaps because of smelling,” she suggested.
“Smelling?” As usual, Morgan had been with the trolls only a short time and already he was confused, but in his unhappy, half-drunken mood it did not charm him the way it usually did.
“Because your people throw their amaq and kukaq right outside their homes,” Snenneq explained.
“Yes,” Qina said, nodding. “Into the . . . land river.”
Morgan could only squint, completely lost. “Land river?”
Snenneq and Qina conferred briefly but vigorously in Qanuc. “In the street, she is meaning. The foulness is thrown into the street.”
Morgan shrugged. “It’s a city. That’s how it is in cities.”
Snenneq nodded. “And those who have wealth are making others to clean it away, so their own house does not have such the kukaq smell. But in other places, it is piling high!”
“I don’t really want to talk about . . . kukaq,” Morgan said. “I don’t really want to talk about anything. I was on my way back to the residence. To bed.”
“As we were, but this is a lucky meeting, I think.” Snenneq smiled his broad, yellow smile. One thing Morgan had to admit about trolls, they seemed to have all their teeth. “Because I had questions that I had hoped for answering.”
Morgan felt a strong need to silence his unhappy thoughts. “I will answer any questions if you have some kangkang. Do you?”
Snenneq showed the yellow grin again and pulled a drinking skin from inside his hooded jacket. Morgan took it and allowed himself a long but still cautious swallow. He had learned to drink the stuff, but it tasted like tar water, and too long a drought would send him to his knees, coughing and spluttering. However, it had the sovereign benefit of working swiftly; as he wiped his lips, he could already feel the warm kangkang glow in his stomach, working its way back up toward his head.
He sucked in a breath, felt the inside of his mouth tingling. “Questions?” he asked.
“Qina’s father Binabik has been very busy,” said Little Snenneq. “Not much time he has given to showing us your . . . what is the word? Village? Town?”
“City. Yes, Erchester is a city. Almost the biggest in all of Osten Ard, in fact.” Most of the time he might be heartily sick of what Erchester had to offer, but he did not want it compared unfavorably to some trollish campground in the freezing mountains.
“City. Just so.” Snenneq nodded. “And so we have questions. The first one is, why does everyone here go inside at night? Even in Mintahoq where the cold winds blow, people visit each other’s caves.”
Morgan didn’t have an easy answer for that. “Tonight, many of the guards and nobles are at a celebration in Erchester City. But the rest of the time . . . well, that’s just the way people do things here. Because the streets are dark. I mean, it’s not so much that they’re dangerous, especially not here in the castle, but people here don’t . . .”
“Ah! Because streets are covered in amaq!” said Snenneq, clearly pleased to have the answer at last. “Your people are not visiting after dark because they do not want to walk in the filth. With certainty. Now another questioning, if you are so kind.”
Morgan didn’t bother to correct him. Streets were just empty at night, that was all. “More kangkang,” he said instead. As the oily, burning liquid ran down his throat, he found himself growing less concerned with the ruin of his evening. Perhaps there were still ways it could be salvaged.
“Snenneq, ask Morgan Highness of the big basket,” urged Qina. “What it is?”
Morgan could only goggle until Snenneq pointed past the gate of the Inner Bailey, between the close-leaning buildings. Morgan squinted until he could make out what the troll was indicating: the gray bulk of Hjeldin’s Tower where it loomed above the rooftops, nestled against the keep’s northern wall.
“Basket?” asked Morgan. “Do you mean the tower?”
“Yes, tower!” said Snenneq. “We have baskets that shape at home in Yiqanuc. We use them to cook roots. Tower. Why does no one go in or out of it? We stood before it today, and the doors are all locked and chained.”
First the Granary, now this. It seemed to be a night for thinking about prohibited buildings, for some reason, and Morgan felt a superstitious pang. “That’s called Hjeldin’s Tower.” Kangkang was spreading through his limbs now, bright and warm as sunshine, or so it felt, and the pang quickly subsided. “Nobody goes in because it’s haunted.”
Snenneq shook his head. “I do not know this word.”
“Someone tries to kill it?” volunteered Qina, but she didn’t sound too certain.
Morgan puzzled for a moment, then smiled. “Not hunted—haunted. When ghosts and evil spirits and demons are somewhere, that’s called haunted.”
Snenneq made a gesture with his closed fist. “Kikkasut! But if demons live there, why do your people let it remain like an honored uncle? Each day we are here I see people pulling down other stone buildings and making new ones.”
“Demons don’t live there anymore.” Morgan was quite certain of that now, although as a child, he (along with many of the castle’s other residents) had been less sure. The prince and his playmates had often dared each other to mount the stairs and touch the tower’s great oak doors, or climb on the guardhouse that protected them. He could still remember the terrifying thrill of approaching that frightening, forbidden place. Now, it gave him the beginning of an idea. “Do you not know about Pryrates? I’d have thought Qina’s father would have told you all about him. By all the saints, the others here never stop talking about the Red Priest.” He snorted. “You’d think he still lived there. Some fools think he does.” He reached out for the skin of kangkang and had another healthy gulp.
“We are knowing the name Pryrates, yes,” said Snenneq, making the fist gesture again. “He was a priest who did terrible things in the Storm King’s war, for the queen’s father Elias when he was being king.”
“Yes, but he wasn’t just some boring priest,” Morgan said. “He commanded demons. He was the one who tried to bring back the Storm King.”
“Then why his . . . tower . . . now standing?” Qina asked.
“Yes,” said Snenneq, “this is puzzling me, too. On Mintahoq, if a man does such things, we would be burning the inside of his cave to clean it, then fill it with dirt and rocks, but that is because a mountain cannot be broken up and pulled down.”
Morgan held out his hand for the skin, then realized he was still holding it. He set out through the gate in the general direction of the tower’s squat shadow, waving for the trolls to follow him. “They used to talk about it so much I stopped listening. Who wants to hear old things all the time? But I think my grandparents said there were tunnels all down in the ground underneath the castle. Underneath our feet now, even!” That reminded him of something—a clammy smell, flower petals, wide, angry eyes—but he pushed it away again. “And there were things inside the tower too, dangerous things . . .” He trailed off, uncertain now whether he was repeating things his elders had told him, or merely the exciting stories he had traded with other children. “Poison, and . . . and other bad things. So they chained the doors and boarded over the windows. Where the top opens they poured in rocks to fill the upper story, so nobody could get in.”
Snenneq’s eyes opened wide. “The top opens?”
“Part of it. The bad priest used to watch the stars. That’s what I was told. He had . . . machines up there, too. Special mirrors and scrying glasses, I think. Things.” Morgan waved his hand—the specifics were far away, and the spreading warmth of kangkang was here with him right now, making everything less worrisome. “It’s true. I’ve been on the roof. You can look inside and see all the stones.”
“You have been on it, the tower?” Snenneq asked. “But you were saying it is forbidden.”