“They take their mottoes here that seriously, huh?” I asked.
Panuk glanced around before continuing, still in a hushed voice, “Honestly, they take everything too seriously.” He straightened up. “But don’t let me scare you off. Everyone takes it seriously because what we do matters, and there’s nowhere else in the world you can get the education you get here.”
“Well, that’s why I’m here,” I told him.
“Perfect.” He took a step backward, heading toward the door. “You’ll be working with Calder Nogrenn in the archives, and if you love history, it’s a good gig.”
He went out into the hallway, holding the door open for me as I followed him. “The only bad thing about the archives is that they are way, way down in the basement.”
We walked along, and Panuk listed the various amenities as we passed them—restrooms, nearest cafeteria, the rec room with the “good foosball table.” In fact, he talked the entire way, helpfully explaining as much as he possibly could, so that when he finally stopped, it felt eerily silent. It didn’t help that by then we had started the long descent down the winding stone staircase into the basement.
“So, Panuk?” I began, attempting to restart the conversation so we wouldn’t be trapped in an awkward silence. “That sounds Inuit.”
“Everyone calls me Pan, actually,” he corrected me gently, then sighed. “Sylvi’s not so great with names.”
“Yeah, I figured that,” I admitted with a laugh.
He waited a beat before finally saying, “My grandfather was Inuit.”
He said it softly, but not in the conspiratorial joking way he’d spoken before. This was quiet, restrained, like a reluctant confession. He didn’t look directly at me as he spoke, instead only peering at me from the corner of his eye.
“Ullaakuut,” I said.
He gazed at me with dark eyes, pausing on the step for a moment, until he finally replied with, “Ullaakuut.” A slow, crooked smile spread out on his face, and he fell in step beside me. “How do you know Inuit?”
Inuit refers to the indigenous humans of the Arctic regions in North America and the language they speak. In the past, the Inuit may have been called Eskimos, but now that term was generally considered a pejorative. Their people had lived here even longer than the trolls, before we came over with the Vikings, and at various times in our long history we had united with them against our shared enemy of aggressive colonialism.
As such, trolls held a slightly higher opinion of the Inuit than they did most other humans, but that didn’t really mean much, considering how little the troll tribes thought of humanity as a whole. But we had managed to fall into an uneasy alliance with the Inuit, working and living together in the Far North when we needed to, and we respected each other’s privacy and independence.
“I grew up in Iskyla, so I spent a lot of time interacting with the native humans.”
Pan shook his head as he chuckled to himself. “I have to say that is the most unexpected response I’ve ever gotten to someone finding out that I’m a quarter Inuit.”
“How does everyone else react?” I asked, even though I suspected I already knew the answer.
“Well, most trolls aren’t so kind when they find I’ve got human blood,” he answered, rather diplomatically.
“I’ve been here for about two years now, and it has been downgraded to a grudging skepticism from outright disgust, so I guess that’s an improvement.” Probably realizing what he’d said, he hurried to reassure me with a strained smile. “Don’t worry, though. It’ll be easier for you because you’re a TOMB. The real trouble is when you’re a half-TOMB. I’m a KanHu half-TOMB, to be more specific.”
“Kanin and human?”
“Yep. And if I recall correctly, you’re a Skomte?”
“Yeah.” I paused and shook my head. “I mean, I think so. I never even met my parents, so I honestly can’t say for sure.” When trolls saw blond hair, they thought Skojare, but my strength and facial asymmetry was almost certainly Omte. So, the Tulins had assumed I was Skomte.
“Tomorrow I’ll get you set up with a blood test, and then you’ll know for sure,” he said as we reached the basement. “But we’re finally here.” He hooked his thumb at two massive arched wooden doors. “Are you ready to see where you’re going to spend the rest of your time here?”
11
Archival
It was a room of shelves. Floor-to-ceiling—roughly ten feet, ladders needed to reach half the shelves—with archways cut into the bookcases, creating tunnels that ran through row after row of files, boxes, and papers. Most shelves ran parallel to each other, but a few of them crossed this way and that, creating random dead ends and giving it a rather claustrophobic and labyrinthian feel.
The doors opened to the largest of the tunnels, which led straight to the desk at the center. It was a circular desk, and the front side had been intricately carved with scenes from troll history. Vines and trees weaved together in a delicate lattice and connected the various events, bridging the gaps between the ships escaping Scandinavia, to the first settlements in the Arctic, to the battles between the tribes.
Scrolls were set in small piles around the desk, with a man sitting hunched over one in the middle of it all. His right hand was buried in his salt-and-pepper hair, while he used his left to hurriedly scribble onto a pad of paper. The long sleeves of his burgundy caftan hung over his hands, and smudges of black ink stained the golden embroidered designs that ran along the hem.
“And this is where your adventure begins,” Pan said to me with faux bravado as we approached.
The man looked up, his eyes crinkling as he smiled, and he set aside his pen. “Well, hello, Pan. What brings you down to the depths of the dungeon?”
“Ah, Calder, you know I can never get enough of your happy face.” Pan leaned against the desk, then nodded at me. “But right now I’m showing around the new recruit. This is Ulla Tulin, the intern who’ll be helping you. Ulla, this is Calder Nogrenn, our resident history expert, heritage buff, and regular aficionado on all things that go bump in the archives.”
“I look forward to helping out and learning from you,” I said.
“Then let this be my first lesson to you—beware of Pan’s silver tongue,” Calder said with a smirk.
Pan rolled his eyes and warned me, “Flattery gets you nowhere with this one. But he is genuinely one of the smartest guys around, and you’ll be in good hands with him.”
“Now, that part is true,” Calder agreed with a wink. “What languages are you fluent in?”
“Fluent?” I sucked in air through my teeth. “I’m only truly fluent in English, but I know quite a bit of Inuit, and I’ve studied all of the old Germanic languages.”
“Old Germanic is exactly what we deal with down here.” Calder shifted around the scrolls. “Do you think you know enough that you could help me organize these?”
“I’ll do my best,” I said, hoping I sounded more confident than I felt.
Calder pushed one of the scrolls across the desk toward me, the old paper unrolling to reveal faded black letters scrawled across the parchment.