The Darksteel Eye by Jess Lebow Page B

gone, taken from this place as Chunth was. As you can see, there are only a very few of us left. We cannot face Memnarch and his armies of devices alone. We are too few.” Drooge paused, taking a deep breath. “We are too afraid.”
    “What does that have to do with me?”
    “Your destiny has been set in motion. There is no longer time to debate ‘if’ or ‘when.’ It has come. The time is now, and events will continue forward whether you are ready or not.”
    “I still don’t understand.”
    Drooge raised his bone staff. “We all have kin who have fallen to the Guardian’s armies. We want to see you succeed.”
    “Are you saying you’re going to help me confront the Guardian?”
    Drooge once again scratched his chin. “When the time is right. Yes.”
    Slobad pulled on Glissa’s arm. “When that be, huh? We come back then.”
    The troll laughed in the back of his throat. “I’m afraid I cannot tell you the future, only that the trolls will participate when all has been prepared.”
    “Prepared?” Glissa shook her head. “What are you talking about. You make it sound as if there is some sort of predetermined course that we’re all destined to follow—that I’m the one leading. Am I missing something here?”
    Drooge rose from his chair and ambled forward. The quickness of his words and the sharp intelligence in his eyes had distracted Glissa from noticing one important detail about the troll chieftain.
    He had only one leg.
    The bone staff he had been holding was a crutch, and he leaned on it as he moved forward. His steps were awkward and metered, very much as Glissa expected from a troll.
    When he came close enough to touch the trio, he stopped and smiled. “I am sorry, I do not mean to confuse you. I forget that all this information is new to you. For the trolls, it has been a way of life, a belief.” He leaned down, lowering his face so that he looked into Glissa’s eyes. “We do not belong on Mirrodin. The trolls—” he waved his hand around, indicating all the creatures seated in the bleacher seats—“we are not from this world. We do not wish to stay here any longer than we must.”
    “Wait.” Glissa sank down on the metal floor. “You’re from some other world?”
    “Yes.”
    “How is it that I can help you? It’s not as if I can lift you to some other plane.”
    “You can help us escape from the tyranny of the Guardian,” explained the troll. “That is the path you will travel. That is the destiny that has been chosen for you.”
    “You speak as if I don’t have any choice in the matter.”
    “You do not.”
    The elf snorted.
    “If all of you—” Glissa ran her gaze around the room, taking in the entire troll tribe—“with your big muscles and strong fists, can’t stand up to Memnarch and his devices, what makes you think I can?”
    “Because you are not afraid.”
    “Of
course I’m afraid!
” Glissa shouted. “In fact, I can’t remember more than a brief instant of my entire life when I
wasn’t
afraid of something.”
    The troll nodded, apparently unperturbed by her outburst. “Yes, it is something that transcends the racial boundaries. Fear binds us together and makes us all the same.” Drooge placed his huge hand on the petite elf’s shoulder. “What makes us different, you and I, is that despite that fear you go on.”
    Slowly Glissa nodded. Now she understood.
    Drooge turned and limped past his seat. “As I said, when the time is right, the trolls will come to your aid.” When he reached the far wall of the chamber, he placed his crutch aside. Flattening his palms against the metal, he spoke a single word, and a cabinet appeared.
    It was a square box, about the size of a small goblin, the same color and texture as the surrounding wall. If Glissa hadn’t been watching, she might have thought it had been there the whole time. It blended with the rest of the chamber as if it had been carved from the tree, just like the steps. Drooge reached into this