Ogden, p.1
Ogden, page 1
Ogden
A Tale for the End of Time
Ben G. Price
Ogden
A Tale for the End of Time

Addison & Highsmith Publishers
Las Vegas ◊ Chicago ◊ Palm Beach
Published in the United States of America by
Histria Books
7181 N. Hualapai Way, Ste. 130-86
Las Vegas, NV 89166 USA
HistriaBooks.com
Addison & Highsmith is an imprint of Histria Books. Titles published under the imprints of Histria Books are distributed worldwide.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publisher.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023938039
ISBN 978-1-59211-313-2 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-59211-328-6 (eBook)
Copyright © 2023 by Ben G. Price
Prelude
A Spell of Words
Dreams are the language of world building and world ending. We live in a dream built on the magic power of words and numbers. We don’t just believe them. We be-live in them.
Not one of us can remember all the combinations of words and numbers that conjure an airplane, a telephone, a city or an empire as big as a continent. The formulae for materializing those apparitions are stashed away in books and files, scribbled and printed, spelled out on the page, and in the form of numbers made static by magnets held suspended in time by copper and cadmium and rare earth metals in machines ironically called “servers.” All that knowledge in the gossamer of symbols that we call information informs our every thought. Like us, the synthetic world we live in is as vulnerable to extinction as a snowflake collected in a box by a child heading indoors to warm up.
We don’t remember how whole we felt when we felt ourselves in — all the way in — nature. We were children then. We had not learned “better.”
Now informed by the spell of history, we divide nature into parcels, resources and property. We be-live in that fantasy world and believe that everything is “better” for the surrender of our true nature to the program of progress.
Seldom do we wonder who it is better for, and who it is not good for. But clearly, it’s not better for the trees, the water, the air, the soil. It is not better for anything not under the spell.
Even the few people who want to don’t know how to save the nature within and without us — without casting a counter-spell to the arrangement that is killing everything. The Spell of Words that creates in our minds false memories and perceptions keeps us separated from the world as it is. The Spell holds us mesmerized. It lets us experience the world as it is mediated to us, through images and half-attended whisperings. It censors our own eyes and ears and hearts, forbidding us to find community with the world beyond the manmade. Generation following generation, we betray our own children to this necromancy.
We need a counter-spell.
Chapter I
Nativity
Upon a time once real but now forgotten…
Final trills of thunder played gently on nearby rocks, then rumbled off into the darkness. The rain was done. A troll kept watch just inside the opening of his cave. His big misshapen ears twitched at every sound, every drop of water that hit the dank cavern floor. His chest reverberated with the blast of each thunderclap that rolled past him and then bounced off the inner cave walls, then echoed back over him where he stood in the outer gallery. His ears rang with the sound of gods speaking louder than his own inner voice.
These weren’t the only sounds Huth could hear as he twitched and shivered. His mate, Tibbs, was in labor and old voices came barging into his right ear from the icons tucked within cavities chiseled into the rock walls. They commanded that he stand vigil until the little troglodyte was born.
Huth looked up at the cave ceiling where, over the years, he had painted images of animal spirits. He waited to glimpse the grandmothers who spoke in his ear from the world of the dead, but they weren’t there among the bison, the single-horns, the great bears and the tree-heads he’d drawn. He could hear the ancient ones, but he couldn’t see them.
The voices seemed to come from the unmoving stony mouths of crude statuary in a fire-lit alcove. Their words were muffled and seemed to come from far away, but their words were dancing in the space between Huth’s ears, and he could not ignore them. He felt their presence as the past crashed into the future and created the present moment. He turned his back on them and tried to silence them, but they demanded his attention no matter which way he turned.
Huth’s stomach grumbled, and he belched in answer to the voices in his head. He repeated that sentiment again, adding a throaty growl to the loud gust from his mouth. He had no patience for this whole birthing thing. It was going on for far too long.
The strong smell of musk and sweat mixed on a zephyr with the aroma of earth and dampness in his big flaring nostrils. It excited and agitated him. All this bother, just to produce an heir!
“An heir to what?!! Bah!” He bellowed all of a sudden, in answer to the unspoken thought. He had nothing and wanted nothing that could be inherited, having no respect for the idea of owning things.
Huth snorted and stared into the fire. Hot tongues lapped at the surrounding cool air. At their base, red embers glowed like living rubies and as he looked their cherry light swooned into visions. Huth’s eyes widened and into their dark centers poured prophetic images.
Straight-walled buildings of rust-colored brick shimmered in the fluid light of the embers. From their uninspired linearity rose up tall tubes also of brick, and out of those tubes swirled thick smoke that spun around the tongues of flame and sent sparks tumbling up into the darkness of the cave’s stone ceiling. Round about the man-factories that danced in Huth’s eyes were forests on fire and withering things once alive. Either from staring too long at the hot glowing visions, or from grief, tears flooded and pooled and trembled on his lower lashes.
“Ruining, ruining, ruining,” he said under his breath.
Then, the voices returned and spoke more plainly in his head.
Last is first and first is last.
The baby cannot stay with you.
The past is present; the present past.
With wisdom old we will imbue
A child of Troggles, a mouth to speak
To men bewitched by their own tongue
To either break the spell so bleak
Or let them dream and die among
The dung and dross their wills create.
We will him to grow fast and learn
The ways of men both good and ill
Into his mind each day will burn
More knowledge than a score of years
Would suffice for a child to learn.
And taller than a boy can grow
Your babe within a season
Shall gaze on men as small and low
Devoid of wisdom, love and reason.
This babe away this night will flee
But you did well to birth
A son of Troggles such as he
Who soon will prove his worth.
“For what?” Huth growled. “We’re dead. That’s that. The days when Troggles walked free on top the ground are done. I smell somethin’ rotten in yer song, old uns. What’s this mischief? Take my boy from me soon as he’s born, will ya? Grow him fast ta let men folk chop him down like a chestnut tree — is that yer plan?”
The only answer that came back was silence, and he knew what that meant. There would be no more talk from the dead.
And then he caught a different scent…not the muskiness of pending childbirth but the minky smell of a deer just beyond the cave opening. It was just one pounce away from becoming dinner!
A branch snapped. Shaking his head from side to side, the big troll paced near the stone archway. He wanted to shout but spat instead. His lolling tongue cracked like a whip against cheek and chin. A large wad of spittle flew through the den’s opening and landed on a bush just outside.
“Bah!”
His amber eyes, unblinking, spun wildly in deep sockets shielded by a heavy brow-ridge. His eyes watered as he paced.
Leaves rustled. Huth froze. He sniffed loudly, then heaved a heavy sigh. Something was out there. It was a buck, just beyond the trees that framed the cave’s opening.
The troll’s belly was empty and wanted meat. He’d eaten little more than mushrooms and dandelions. He was hungry for flesh. But he could not go.
Huth grumbled a curse under his breath and spat again. “By the stone on me pappy’s grave! I hungers!” He kicked a makeshift bench lashed together with bear tendons, crashing the loose boards to bits. A pile of elongated yellow, orange and purple tubers gathered the day before tumbled about in the shadows like scurrying rats. He longed to shout to his mate “Enough! Squirt the Trogglet out! I hungers, and ye not done!” But he dared not. He wouldn’t tempt the Old Ones to speak again. But hunger had a voice of its own.
Any hope of capturing that buck lay in the dim prospect that the whelp would be born soon, and without another bellowing shout from Tibbs. He could see a spindly rack of antlers darting at odd angles with the birch branches just a short leap from the cave’s entrance. Unfrightened, the deer paced nearer. It marked the ground with urine. The wind was in Huth’s favor. But still, he could not act.
F illed with frustration, the troll pulled at a sparse crop of wiry hair on his broad, bony head, then raised his mighty fist and pounded a crude oak table with a thunderous blow. It collapsed to the dirt floor in a heap.
Huth collected himself just in time to hear the buck scampering away deep into the forest. He bellowed just as Tibbs hollered out loudly in pain.
“Agggg!”
Crushed and defeated, Huth sank to the floor, glowering first at the cave’s entrance, then toward the dwelling’s innermost recess, back beyond where his mate lay panting. Then he turned his gaze to the carved stone figures that had spoken softly from the darting shadows of the fire. He knew what they wanted; what they demanded. But he could do nothing to appease their insistent whispers until the little troll was launched into the world. “I’ll do it; I’ll do it,” he muttered to the shadows quietly enough, so Tibbs wouldn’t hear.
Scratching his arse the troll spat again. “She-business!” And he pointed his bony chin toward the stone figures. “And ya’ve gotten me mixed up. All yer big plans. Don’t mean nothin’ to me. Tibbs’ll box me ears fer leavin’ our babe ta the chances.”
He stared at the shadows and wiped his nose on his wrist. He heard Tibbs moan and then fall silent.
“By the stones of me grandpappy,” he bellowed loudly, “Huth will not wait forever!”
Tibbs moaned from her nest. It consisted of little more than a pile of pine boughs and dry grass, but now it was wet and briny, since her water had broken. She panted before pushing again. It had been an arduous affair and the she-troll was nearly spent. The next contraction peaked as Tibbs bellowed, punched the stony chamber wall and grunted. She stood a moment, adjusted her stance, and crouched again.
Tibbs could faintly hear the commotion Huth was making but she had other things on her mind. She was in birth’s final stages. The little one was at long last making ready for its entrance. She grabbed some fresh straw and put it beneath her on the floor.
From the outer gallery Huth heard another loud grunt, then for a moment there was silence. Huth took a breath. He strained to hear some sign. When none came, he stood and kicked the shattered table, making its top spin on the clay floor a full rotation. Then he ambled unsurely back into the cave where Tibbs sat, slumped with her back against the wall and her legs spread across the cold ground.
One final thrust and it was over. A bundle of squirming life appeared on the clay floor in front of her. Tibbs collected herself then leaned forward and gave breath to the newborn, holding it in her hands and shaking it slightly until it squawked for warmth. The baby was larger and more developed than human newborns. It was a boy child, dressed in a sticky red coat from the womb.
Eyes already opened, the newborn troll looked about and settled as best he could amid the mound of straw. He was exhausted and hungry and found comfort in the makeshift bed. Tibbs finished tending to the afterbirth, licked the newborn clean, then grabbed the babe with one arm, nursing him for the first time.
Tibbs ambled from the shadows toward Huth. She was as massive as her mate but shorter and squatter. Her body was covered by a sheen of perspiration. Desperate weariness roamed in her deep-set eyes. She cleared her throat and spat into an already well-saturated pit near the far wall.
Holding out her arm, the female nodded. “Sees you he?”
Dangling by his big toe from Tibbs’ fingers, the newborn swung in space. He was content, his large eyes now fixed upon his poppa.
Huth stared at the ground and seemed not to notice. Tibbs stamped her foot then grunted. She was in no mood for Huth’s stubborn nature. “Sees you he?” she demanded. “Sees you he…your son…your wielder?”
Huth straightened slowly. This was his son who would one day perform the Rite of the Stones when his last day came. But now, in this moment, he shared the troll-babe’s first day. Huth’s eyes filled with visions of distant days…forward and past…of stones in a circle, of more otherworldly voices, of things to come, some evil, some wondrous. He shivered and spat a name that bubbled out of his guts. “Go away, Ventego!”
Tibbs took another step toward her mate. She glared at him angrily. “Huth talks a foul name. This little ‘un’s got days on days comin’. Let ‘im hear good sounds, not foul names his first un.”
Huth wiped his nose with the back of his hand and dropped his arm to swing at his side. Tibbs shoved his chest hard with her free hand and shouted. “Sees you he, Huth’s wielder?” She stood glaring defiantly, waiting for the customary response. Huth’s empty belly went tense, and he couldn’t breathe. The words of the Old Ones caused him to hesitate. Every move he made would bring him closer to giving the child away to fate.
“This!” she shook the newborn, “this, your son!” she barked then let go her grip. The baby tumbled to the floor, landed squarely on his head then rolled to one side, unphased.
Huth scratched his chest. “‘Tis son of Huth. ‘Tis Huth’s wielder,” he said reluctantly.
Satisfied that her task was through, at least for a little while, Tibbs plucked a tuber from the scattered pile on the floor. Biting it like an apple, she turned back toward the rear of the cave.
“Go. Tell the grandmothers,” growled Huth, and Tibbs turned to glare at him over her shoulder. She stepped past the low-licking flames of the fire and into the shadows where open-mouthed figures with gouged stone eyes stared back and listened for word from the world of the living. Tibbs thought she heard one of them ask: “Has the Trogglet made the crossing to your world, Troggle?”
The little troll rolled on his side and looked after his mother, then rolled back the other way, got up on a knee, and scampered on strong legs toward Huth. He latched on, wrapping himself around his father’s ankle, as troll babies are wont to do.
Huth spied the little one wrapped around his leg and swatted him away. “Don’t hang on me. Yer gonna get lost,” he grumbled. “That’s what the old uns want. But Huth ain’t so sure. Stay with momma. Poppa’s gotta hunt. Huth ain’t deliverin’ a Troggle babe to the likes of men. Not even if the trees bark and flies fly and bees be.”
Rebuked, the troll babe crawled over to the ruined table and began to bite things.
Huth was still hungry and there was no need to stay. His son was playing and would be fine. Tibbs would be sleeping soon, and she’d need meat when she woke. Tibbs would hear the baby if there was any trouble.
Just then a twig snapped outside the cave. The scent of fresh buck urine wafted through the entryway.
Huth moved toward the entrance. His son scurried back to his calf and latched on once more. This time Huth didn’t brush him off. He shrugged as he crept out the cave thinking, “If it’s what the old uns want, Huth’s got no say.”
His every sense was filled and focused on only one thing now: bringing that deer down. He turned back to the cave just to yell inside and grab a sharpened antler knife.
“Off to hunting, Tibbs!” Huth shouted as he reached for his club.
“Off to sleeping is Tibbs,” the she-troll bellowed as she tumbled forward onto her fresh straw mat. She knew the baby would be fine. The babe was Huth’s wielder. They had a life and death destiny together. Comforted in this last enveloping thought, Tibbs began to snore.
Moonlight found its way through the thick forest, accenting the haze in the humid air. Huth stood motionless at the cave’s mouth. Scrunching leaves and the sound of hooves scurrying into the woods perked Huth’s senses once more.
“I hears ye…”
Huth ambled outside and covered the entrance with brush and vines. Through all this, he was unperturbed by his precious stowaway. His mind and heart, spirit and blood spoke only of the hunt.
Chapter II
A Babe in the Woods
Branches snapped nearby. Huth’s nostrils flared as they filled with the animal’s scent. A doe in season. Where had the buck gone? No matter. His mouth watered.
The troll babe tightened his grip as Huth scuttled down the slope, picking his steps quickly, but carefully. Moonlight shimmered on dew-wet leaves. Holly bristles scratched the newborn as his father plowed through the underbrush. The baby moaned but couldn’t be heard above the din of blood lust that pounded in Huth’s ears. Clinging on for his so-short life, the little one quickly learned to duck sapling branches and stinging briars.
