Chapter 27. Brumvack Learns a Thing or Two
Brumvack sat, alone, in the middle of the dimly lit cave. He was exhausted and defeated. He had been through the troll caves half a dozen times since his unexpected altercation with Schmatzenbladder. His repeated searches, however, had yielded nothing in the way of a large, round rock suitable for blocking the door. And, incidentally, had yielded no food. He was getting very hungry. The trolls, typically, had eaten every last scrap, leaving him nothing.
This thought of Brumvack’s, of course, was not true. In fact, Brumvack was the one who had eaten the last of the troll’s food, when the rest of the trolls had drifted off into the Big Sleep. But Brumvack refused to acknowledge that memory. What good was it to be a leader, if you couldn’t create your own reality? Besides, that had happened centuries ago!
He was hungry, though. Even if he found the perfect rock at this point, he wasn’t sure he would be up to maneuvering it into place. His muscles shook with hunger. He had nearly used up the last of his energy placing the cutting board rock at the bottom of Dark Water. And it of course had been quite a bit smaller than the rock needed to do the job right.
Still, he hoped, however faintly, for a rock that was spherical enough that it would roll itself into place. The right rock, pushed to the water’s edge, would follow gravity’s downward pull and end up right where it needed to be. He could see it in his mind’s eye.
The hope of finding that rock, however, was coming to seem more and more futile. His repeated wanderings through the cave had had been fruitless. There were no rocks of sufficient size anywhere in the cave. They were all too big, or too small. None was just right. And none, it seemed, were all that round, either.
He sat upon his throne, and pondered the problem. He sat upon Schmoozeglutton’s throne, he amended to himself with a scowl. It was his throne no longer. Schmoozeglutton had won it, by rights of the challenge. According to troll tradition, Brumvack had no right to be sitting on the throne at all. If Schmoozeglutton were to return and see him sitting on the rock he had belched his way toward winning, he would pound him a good one. Brumvack knew it was true, because it was what he himself would have done in the same situation.
Not that it mattered. If Schmoozeglutton returned, the rest of the Rabid Band would follow. All, by now, would have heard Schmatzenbladder’s tale. They would know his treachery, and they would tear him to bits.
Brumvack’s forehead creased as he worked the angles of the problem. How could he block the entrance to the troll caves? No matter how he posed the question, there seemed no way to solve it. The right rock would do it, but the right rock wasn’t available. What else could he use?
But as long as he sat and thought about it, Brumvack couldn’t come to an answer. Nothing, he knew, was big enough, or round enough, or solid enough—rocklike enough—to work.
He began to feel hopeless. There was no way he was going to be able to block the door.
An unblocked door, though, left him open to the barrage of a dozen angry trolls.
And, now that Brumvack was facing facts, he had to admit that most of the trolls wouldn’t be mad just because he had tried to lock them out. Most of them had hundreds of years of resentment built up against him. He might as well face it: he was toast. He could hide in the lower reaches of the cave, but they’d find him eventually, starving and pathetic. It was a tragic tale, he knew, and he was the tragic hero in the middle of it.
He might as well, he thought, sit here on Schmoozeglutton’s rock of a throne. It would be his final act of defiance. Yes, that was it: defiance. This would be his final message to the trolls: I am your true leader. Even if you rip me apart and feed me to the fish, I’m going to sit here on Schmoozeglutton’s throne until the end.
It was a fine throne, too. The biggest and best of the sitting rocks that peppered the floor of the common cave. Over the centuries, it had been smoothed to fit Brumvack’s shape perfectly. When he balanced himself (a bit precariously, he admitted) atop its spherical form, he sat higher than any of the other trolls. They sat on their much smaller rocks, clearly trolls of lesser status. But his rock, through the centuries, had given him an air of authority, of regality, of easy superiority.
He caressed the throne with his open palm. It was a motion of gratitude. Yes, this had been a fine rock from which to wield power, large and round as it was. He patted it a couple of times. Then, with his open hand still held above the rock, Brumvack stopped. Something—some small fact—had caught in his mind. A small and seemingly meaningless fact. It niggled at his brain, much like a piece of mastodon sinew caught between one’s teeth. It wasn’t pleasant, but it couldn’t be ignored. Hmmm…. Something he had just been thinking…. Rock. Large. Round. Oh! That was it! Round! Round rock! Large round rock! He stared at the throne underneath him, as if really seeing it for the first time in years. The perfect rock for barring the door was in the troll caves, and he was sitting on it!
What an idiot he had been! He had been searching for a large, round rock, and all he had seen, during his several passes through the cave, was a throne! One can’t plug up an underwater cavern with a kingly throne. But certainly one could plug it up with a large, round rock. The answer was there the whole time! Right in front of his eyes! Well, right under his butt.
He slid off the throne, suddenly energized by his discovery. If only, he thought, he had the time to move this rock down to the beach. If only. Would the trolls remain above-ground long enough for him to complete his operation? Or, having heard from Schmatzenbladder, were they even now returning to the lake?
But Brumvack’s leaderly ability took over. It silenced the questions. He couldn’t focus on the return of the trolls. He had no control over them. He would have to focus on the task at hand. Time would have to take care of itself. He put his shoulder to the rock of a throne, and began pushing.
Compared to the cutting board rock, the throne was huge, as heavy a thing as Brumvack had ever tried to move. But its most important characteristic—roundness—served Brumvack well. Though it was heavy, it wasn’t as ungainly as a rock with one flat side would inevitably be. It rolled slowly but steadily under the pressure from his taut muscles.
“Interesting,” thought Brumvack. He had never moved the rock before. When one had a cave full of trolls to order about at one’s whim, after all, why should he have moved it? But, even alone, he was doing well. The rock was almost preternaturally round. Perfect, he knew, for the task at hand. He imagined it rolling, as if it had a life of its own, down the rocky beach of Dark Water, down into the water itself, down down down into the entrance of the troll cave. It wouldn’t stop, he knew, until it had plugged up that entrance as tight as tight could be. There wasn’t a troll in creation that would be able to budge it, once it was seated in place. He knew this not just with his imagination, but with a calm inner sense. It would happen that way because it was right that it should happen that way. It would happen that way because fate had woven it into the fabric of history. The trolls would return, all right, and they’d find themselves locked out. Schmoozeglutton, the new leader of the Rabid Band, would be the first to try to move the rock. He would be the first to note that the rock would not budge. He would be the first to realize that his challenge had been in vain. And, just before Schmoozeglutton ran out of air, he would recognize the rock. He would know, just before the last minutes of his pitiful life, that Brumvack had bested him, that the cavern was blocked by his own newly-won throne.
The thought gave Brumvack all the energy he needed to keep the rock in motion.
Soon enough, the rock was in position at the edge of Dark Water. Brumvack held it in place with both arms, and with his heels dug into the beach. He was going to let it go soon, but he wanted the moment to have some gravity to it. He would let it roll after a moment of thoughtful silence.
It had been a bit of a chore getting the rock down to the beach, Brumvack mused. It had required some smarts, which Brumvack had in abundance, and a no small amount of strength, which Brumvack found within himself despite his growing hunger. It had also required the removal of three stalagmites, which had been possible due to Brumvack’s advanced knowledge of physics: if you smash a heavy rock into something enough times, it will break.
Brumvack admired the rock for another moment before letting it go, before watching it roll into the waves, accumulating speed, and corking up the opening below. It was a beautiful rock. A large, beautiful rock. A large, round, beautiful throne of a rock. He smiled to himself. He congratulated himself on having the presence of mind, the physical strength, the sheer brainpower necessary to coming to this point in his life. He was going to serve his comeuppance to the trolls. Then, he was going to go out and get something to eat. Then, he was going to enjoy the rest of his days, alone, with no boorish cave mates for company.
Brumvack let go of the rock.
Just has he had predicted, it began rolling. It was slow at first, but steady. As Brumvack watched, it parted the small waves of Dark Water, and began its descent. Just as he had predicted, it gained speed quickly. It was so satisfying when one’s thought experiment proved to be so accurate. The downward-rolling rock was a beautiful sight.
Soon, it was submerged entirely, though a roil on the surface of Dark Water illustrated its continued forward motion. Brumvack let out an exhalation of pleasure. It was a job well done. In a few moments, he would hear some sound, some geological rumble of completion, as the rock rolled neatly into place. He would wait until he heard that sound, he thought, just to be sure. Or perhaps, he thought, he would trust that the universe was working just as it was supposed to, and go out to get a bite to eat. Maybe catch a few of the small silvery fish. Maybe even venture out upon the land, and see what was available there.
But then Brumvack experienced another of those niggling thoughts. Food. Something about food. His stomach gurgled at the thought it. Yes, food would be good. Just as soon as the rock had firmly closed off the entrance to the cave, he’d leave the cave and get some food.
Wait, though. Wait. If the cave was closed up…if the doorway was plugged…. Comprehension dawned on Brumvack’s unbelieving face. Once the rock had reached its destination, it would be between him and any hope for his dinner. He let out a roar and yelled “Stop! Stop that rock!” as if the rock might choose to stop of its own accord, or as if there might be trolls about eager to do his bidding.
It was his final order, and one that fell not just on deaf ears, but no ears at all.
Brumvack splashed into the lagoon of Dark Water. He had to stop the rock before it reached its destination. He had to get something to eat. He needed some food. A bit of sustenance. Was that too much to ask? Just a little dinner?
As he reached deeper water and began to splash around in a panicked effort at swimming, a thought came to him: “You’re not as smart as you thought you were, are you?”
He took a gulp of air, and descended into the depths of Dark Water. He tried to push the thought away, tried to ignore it, tried to turn it into something he could live with. But he failed at every attempt. Not so smart. Not so smart.
With a tympanic, underwater vibration, Brumvack heard the sound of the rock hitting home, blocking the doorway to the troll caves forever.
He didn’t have time to process that fully, though, before the he saw an undefined dark shape swimming quickly toward him. Were the trolls back? But no, this was too large to be a troll. Whatever it was, it swam with grace and menace. It swam with its mouth agape, showing its dark crystalline teeth. “Oh my gosh, it does exist,” Brumvack thought. Suddenly, every bit of strength left his arms and legs. He could no longer swim. He couldn’t even flail. He floated under the water in shocked disbelief. “So,” he thought, “the Dark Water Horror.” Scenes played through his mind, scenes of the trolls being afraid of this Horror, and he, Brumvack, cynically fanning those fears.
Brumvack was running out of air. Also, he was running out of time. Also, he was running out of strategies to push a final thought out of his mind: “Maybe I’m not so smart as I thought I was.”
And with that realization making its way across Brumvack’s forebrain—not so smart, not so smart, not so smart—the jaws of the Dark Water Horror closed upon him.