The Last Smile in Sunder City (The Fetch Phillips Archives #1) - Luke Arnold Page 0,89
they said.
“I’ll take it.”
Baxter pushed their bulging, black body back in the seat and the chair creaked like it was going to snap.
“It’s probably nothing. Just a crazy story from the cattle fields out west. Most likely the nightmares of peasants that got passed along as—”
“What is it?”
Baxter’s red eyes looked into mine.
“Trolls are moving.”
Now, that was news.
Trolls were created by a system similar to the Dragon pit. When small amounts of magic built up in the earth, it affected the land around it. Not with enough potency to create a Dragon, but just enough to make things interesting. A sliver of power would seep into a tree, rock or hunk of clay. After a while, that piece of the planet would get up, shake itself off, and wander out in search of breakfast. Trolls could make themselves out of any material but they were just lumps of land given sentience. When the Coda came, they froze up. Most Trolls broke down into the base elements they’d been created from. The ones that lasted longer got stuck in place; chunks of earth, still alive, but unable to move in any way. The last known Trolls faded out after a few non-magic months. They died in an instant or they died after days of pain. What none of them did was get up again.
“That would be a hell of a thing,” I said.
“Yes, it would. Though it’s likely untrue. The false hope of desperate farmers wondering if the crops will ever grow like they used to. Waiting for a sign that nature will adapt.”
Baxter wasn’t wrong. The stories we most like to tell are the ones we hope are true.
“Have you heard of any other species evolving after—”
“Never.”
Of course not. It was impossible.
“Baxter. What do you believe?”
“I believe I gave you what you came for. It’s not new and it’s not magic but it’s…”
“It’s something.”
“Yes. It’s something.”
A long pause let our eyes wander back up to the sad, hand-made vines that threaded through the wall. There was nothing in this garden that would get you up in the morning. No color that an artist would spend a lifetime trying to capture, or a flower to inspire a sonnet. There was nothing here to sing about. Nothing new.
But, out on the plains, perhaps, Trolls were moving.
26
I came out of the museum, shaking. It wasn’t proof but it was just enough to act on if you were as desperate and foolish as I was.
Of course, the idea that magic could leak back into our world should have pushed me straight back on to the case. I needed to find out what the mysterious creature was. I needed to know if Rye was aware of what the other Vampires had been asking him to fight.
But the whereabouts of Edmund Albert Rye stopped troubling me. As did the little Siren and her mother and all the other things that really mattered. All I cared about was Amari. Dry and long-dead and not wanting anything from anyone.
It was the same as the last time. When the Coda came. The world was on fire and the future was lost but nothing else mattered. Just her.
A coda is the concluding passage of a dance or piece of music. The High Elves chose that name to label what happened next. The world had been singing a song since the day it was born, but that was about to come to an end.
We all have our own account of what it was like when it happened. Stories of the Coda have been told and retold around campfires or to kids or into the ears of tired spouses every day since it occurred. I sometimes hear people say it was like a bomb going off. I heard a poet liken it to a lightning storm, and Richie once called it a thunderclap. It wasn’t like that at all. It was like walking into someone’s bedroom right after their funeral. It was the first Monday you didn’t have to go to school and knew there were some friends you’d just never see again. It was sitting in a bar in a bad town where no one knew your name and there was no one to talk to and it was too cold and quiet and you were all alone. It was thinking you’d already hit the last step till your leg slips through the empty air and every bit of your body tells you that it’s over.