Witch Doctor - Wiz in Rhyme-3 by Christopher Stasheff

you come?"
    "Not like this," I assured him. "I admit I know some people who could qualify, but they're really human underneath it all."
    "This one is not!" He turned on Gilbert, who had come onto the bridge behind me. "You, squire! Assuredly you must know this land-you wear the badge of the Moncaireans! Did you not warn him of his danger?"
    "I did not speak quickly enough," Gilbert said contritely.
    "Did you not know he was a stranger?"
    "I confess I did not realize the depth of his strangeness." I'd heard that before, from other jocks-but I decided not to take offense, this time.
    The elfin prince turned back to me. "Do you henceforth survey most closely every bridge that you may come to! If 'tis rudely made, and the ends of the logs show the marks of teeth, not axes, be sure to recite a spell for the banishing of trolls ere you cross." I looked and, sure enough, the ends of the logs did look as if they'd been chewed through. "I didn't think to look," I admitted.
    "Even if I had, though, I probably wouldn't have thought anything of it."
    "Not thought!" the elf prince and Gilbert cried together.
    "Yeah," I admitted ruefully. "I probably would have just thought somebody had used logs that beavers had cut down." The prince and the squire exchanged a glance, then turned back to me. "What are beavers?"
    Then I remembered that the flat-tailed rodents with the buck teeth were American fauna only. "Uh, small animals, where I come from, who like to chew on things."
    "Most amazing," Gilbert muttered. The elf prince said firmly, "I would not offend you, squire, but you alone are not protection enough for this ignorant man."
    "Hey," I objected.
    "Not a word!" The prince held up a hand, then turned to snap his fingers at his retinue. "Stand back, and let him rise!" They looked up, startled. "But, Highness "Do as I bid!" Reluctantly, they stepped back.
    "Rise, troll," the elf prince said, with a tone that hinted at dire tortotes.
    Slowly, the troll uncurled itself and stood up to a shaky eight feet, whining at the back of its throat.
    "What is thy name?"
    The troll shrank back, but a hail of kicks and pinches made it straighten up with a howl, "Your name," the prince intoned, in a pitch that wavered like the pattern on a Damascus blade.
    The troll croaked some incomprehensible pattern of gutturals and rachetings-but it was unmistakably language, if one I couldn't understand.
    I stared, amazed that the monster could talk, but the elf prince held up both hands and began to chant something dire. I could tell it rhymed and had meter, but I couldn't have made the first guess as to what the words meant. I only know that it made the troll cower away, hands up to fend off the words, and I caught the grinding and grating of his name in there a couple of times. Then I got a real shock, because the verse ended in my name, "Saul!"
    The elf prince clapped his hands, and the troll straightened up, moaning, his huge mitts dropping to his sides.
    The prince nodded, satisfied, and turned back to me, fists on his hips. "He is tamed now. I have laid a geas upon him, binding him to go wherever you go and protect you from any thing, beast or man or spirit, that does seek to hurt you."
    My mouth dropped open; I stared at the troll, appalled. Then I turned back to the prince to protest that I didn't really want such a gruesome traveling companion, but the prince only held up'a hand, palm out. "Nay, do not thank me, I know you wish to protest that I am too kind, but it is our great amusement to protect good mortal folk from such depraved creatures as this."
    I wanted to protest, all right, but not about his kindness.
    "Your Highness is exceedingly gracious," Gilbert said gravely. I turned to ask him if he was out of his mind, but he was bowing his head to the prince, and I realized anything else might get me in worse trouble than I was in already. No matter what, I didn't want these little guys for enemies. I swallowed my protest and turned around to bow,