Duncan was a small, sad little fellow. His surrounding environment and the situation that put him here didn’t help his attitude much either, for that matter, but every time he looked outside, he dreamed of a better day, a day like before his life as a bridge troll.
Thunder echoed from above, and hidden within the roar was the soft thudding undertones of a horse crossing the bridge above him. Duncan grabbed his sword and stepped out in to the wet gloom that reflected his life.
He climbed the muddy bank, not having any trouble thanks to his large oversized feet. He noticed his hands, something he did every time he climbed. They were gray and leathery, overly large, with short, stubby joints. There was such power there, compacted within his fingers and hands, but for all the power and strength he held, he would trade anything to have the delicate fingers and hands of a human once again.
He made it to the bank and peeked around the splintered wood of the covered bridge. It was a single horse and a single rider, and she looked to have stopped to take shelter from the raging storm. Some shelter, Duncan thought, knowing that the roof of the bridge leaked water almost as hard as the clouds dropped their raining tears.
He watched her dismount, shaking the dampness from her golden tresses. At just that moment, the clouds broke for only a second and a stream of light fell through the holes and cracks of the bridge, illuminating the woman in a golden halo of light. She was the most beautiful creature that Duncan had ever laid eyes on. He didn’t want to have to kill her.
She turned, obviously realizing that she wasn’t alone. She took a startled, taking a step backward away from him, her breath catching in her throat.
Duncan lowered his head in shame at his ugliness.
“Who are you?” Her voice was weak and her eyes wouldn’t stay off the sword in his hands.
“I must collect one gold piece for you toll.”
“Toll? Why should I pay a toll for passage over a bridge I own?”
“Own?” She had thrown Duncan off.
“How can you own this bridge, you’re barely out of your teens? And unwed at that.” he said, noticing the absence of a ring.
“I’m Aileen Sterling, daughter of Edward Sterling, king of this land. This bridge belongs to my family. So I don’t think I owe you any toll.”
Duncan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Only moments ago she had obviously been afraid of him, but now her title and status had given her new strength.
“Please ma’am. I don’t want to have to kill you.”
“Kill me?” The clouds closed again, leaving her in a gray, wet gloom.
Duncan lifted his sword for emphasis. “I was charged to collect a toll from every person to cross this bridge. If you don’t pay, I must take your life. If I let you cross without payment, my life will be taken from me.”
She took thought in his words for a moment, then reached into the folds of her wet dress and pulled out a coin purse. She approached him and dropped two gold coins into his stubby hands.
“There’s one coin for my passage, and the other is for the next one who comes along that cannot meet your requests.”
Duncan lowered his head, ashamed no longer of his ugliness, but of her kindness for someone she would never know. There were many in the past that couldn’t pay the toll, and many more to come, and this magnificent woman had saved the life of the next on to come.
“Now. May I pass?”
“Yes. You may pass.” Duncan stepped back into the rain, but didn’t go back under the bridge yet. He wanted to watch her leave.
Aileen mounted her horse and passed across the bridge. She watched the little troll as he watched her leave and as she entered the rain and the mud trail, she stopped and turned the horse back toward the little troll.
“What is your name?”
“Duncan, ma’am. Duncan Finley.”
“Why are you here, Duncan? Who was it that put you here?”
Duncan lowered his gaze again. He saw his oversized feet and looked back up again, he couldn’t look at them either.
“The sorcerer, Alister Blackwood. I was an apprentice of his and failed a test he had given me. My punishment was to live the remainder of my years as a bridge troll, collecting tolls from all who crossed and giving my profits to Alister as payment for my failures.”
“Alister Blackwood is dead, my little friend.”
It was Duncan’s turn to take a step backward. Hearing of Blackwood’s death was like being punched in the stomach. Duncan panted for breath and asked, “How long ago?”
Aileen didn’t answer right away, but asked, “How long have you been here?”
He met her eyes. “I don’t know. A year? Two?” He really didn’t know. Out here in the woods, time seemed to stand still and one day melted into the next.
Duncan saw the hurt in her eyes. “How long has he been dead?” It was almost a shout.
Aileen lowered her eyes and Duncan watched the individual drops of waterfall off her cheek in slow motion. Her lips quivered at the knowledge she was about to share. “Six years, Duncan. He’s been dead for six years.”
Another mental blow to the stomach put Duncan on the ground. Six years he’d been here and could have left at any time, the bonds of his curse broken with the death of the sorcerer that put those bonds on him.
Aileen crossed to him, putting her delicate hand on his grotesque head with no qualms about his ugliness. He felt compassion from Aileen. She rubbed her hand across his back like an old friend, comforting him.
“I’m trapped now. Trapped by a curse that can never be broken.” His tears of anguish collected with the rain. “I’ll never be free again. I want to be human again.”
Aileen cried then too. “You were human?”
“A long time ago, yes.”
She couldn’t comprehend the complete pain Duncan was feeling, but she could see it and hear it in his voice, and felt a stirring in her soul that she couldn’t quite explain. She no longer saw the troll as a troll. But saw the ugly, leathery creature in front of her as a shell, hiding within its brown, cracked skin, a creature of beauty that longed for release. Duncan was a butterfly, waiting to escape the bonds of his cocoon.
Overcome with emotion, she kissed his brow.
Duncan jerked away from her, as if struck from a bolt of electricity from her tender lips. He stumbled back into the bridge.
“What’s wrong? What is it?” She asked as he doubled over with a pain so excruciating that he couldn’t contain his screams.
She watched him in his anguish as he fell to the wooden floor. His leathery skin began to smoke and smolder wherever the drops of water touched him. He screamed again and she rushed over to him.
“No!” he shouted. “Stay back!”
She stood two paces away, hand to her face as she cried. Duncan was in such pain that she knew he was dying. She could do nothing but cry.
Duncan’s skin burned away his clothing and Aileen saw that a large seam was running up his back, where the skin was separating from itself. Underneath the gray, lumpy skin was another layer of pink, fresh skin that started to press through and out the skin of the troll.
Then, like a shattering jar, the skin of the troll broke away and fell to the wooden floor of the bridge and there, lying naked, shaking in the rain, was the true Duncan Finley, the human Duncan, someone who had been in hiding for a long, long time.
He looked up at Aileen, his long black hair spilling over his face, barely hiding the blue intensity of his eyes. “Thank you, Aileen.” His voice was hurting, but strength was returning to him.
Aileen ran to her horse and removed a blanket from the saddlebag then rushed back to Duncan and draped it over his shoulders. She helped him up off the floor and walked him to her horse.
Duncan climbed into the saddle, slumped over with weariness and repeated the words, thank you, over and over again. Aileen led the horse and Duncan into the forest, away from the bridge that had enslaved him for so many years, and into a new life that Aileen hoped would include her.
Copyright February 2001 by Christopher J. Thomasson
