Syncopated beats vibrated from the ground beneath Odin’s bare feet. He recognized the rhythm; it was a signal from Punga. He lay down, pressed his ear close to the ground, and listened to the coded song. Odin explained the message to Manti; they must meet Punga in the south end of the hollow as soon as possible. Odin spread his strong arms and hugged the noble tree. As he bowed low in respect, he promised to help and then bid his farewell.

  Vapors of blue swamp gas illuminated Odin and Manti’s way through the tangled woods. Within a hollow, they heard nasal grunts similar to a horde of hungry hogs. In hushed movements, they followed the vibrations of Punga’s “calling-song” until reuniting with their little friend. Punga, grateful to see his friend, hurriedly crawled onto Odin’s extended hand and up to his shoulder.

  Wild and provocative drumbeats rumbled throughout the bog and held a heightened tone of madness. The primeval stink of burning crude oil weaving in and out of the night air stifled Odin and Manti’s senses. Following the smell of oil deeper into the hollow, they heard, beyond a grove of dwarfed trees, a tribe of trolls speaking in a strange language. Their tongues and gestures spewed snorts and crazed laughter into the night. Moving closer, Odin saw red betel juice bubbled on the males’ swollen lips while they spoke in slow, gruff voices. This contrasted with the females, who also chewed the stimulating nut, but whose speech was fast and piercing. The combination created a din of disharmonious noise.

  Upon seeing this mass of flesh, bones and hair, Manti feared they were a tribe of mutated oil trolls. She suspected they gathered to celebrate their “rite of passage” ceremony, an ancient custom of destroying what they considered weak trolls. Once a year, this sinister ritual exploded at midnight. Planet Ode’s second moon, the wicked one, slipped out of her black cape and exposed a full, naked body that dominated the sky. Her plump round face smeared red, glowed like a harlequin. She appeared in her brazen theatrical performance for the sake of the oil troll’s rite of death.

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  Fueled by the moon and her gravitational powers, hysteria reigned over the oil trolls’ initiation. Using leg bones from dead trolls, they savagely beat on drums covered with otter hide. Wild-eyed trolls danced around a fire; in the middle of the blaze sat a cauldron of crude oil. As they danced, the trolls placed their feet wide apart and, by an extraordinary exertion of their thigh and leg muscles, they moved their knees in a trembling and very surprising manner. Their naked bodies, greased with black oil, glistened in the moonlight.

  From primitive times, the rite of passage and its rules demanded that young trolls swim in a cauldron of crude oil. Oil trolls who were sickly or unable to swim sank to the bottom, disappearing into the black blood of the evil oil. Their flesh and bones became part of the petroleum the oil trolls worshiped.

  Those who survived the deep cauldron of oil now wore layers of thick oil. Like wearing a second skin, if not danced off, the heavy film would asphyxiate the troll. Only the strong in body survived this rigorous and merciless ritual.

  The oil-slicked bodies, twitching and leaping around the cauldron in their insane manner, outraged Odin more than any vision his imagination could conjure up. Though repulsed by the oil trolls’ ritual and noxious odors, he wondered if this tribe of trolls could yet be of some help. Possibly the fiendish trolls might lead him to Zote’s secret tunnel. Their customs and bizarre behavior intensified his concern for Laelia.

  The truth, if known, would have tormented him even more. His sister was in the bowels of planet Ode, a prisoner inside a refuge for the dead. In Odin’s innocence, he held on to hope.