“Followed by the red,” Grelsor added, “not to mention the yellow.”
“And they were precisely the reasons why I acted,” Delgart said, “I could not see us surviving with four aperum attacking us at once.”
“Fool!” Marilee repeated, smiling, then she kissed his cheek. “Don’t ever do that again,” she whispered, releasing him. “Casualties?” she asked, looking around, becoming again business-like.
“Tregla and Guelvik,” Grelsor replied, “they were both hit by the tail and poisoned. We have administered an antidote to each, but it only slowed the poison; both need more aid.”
Marilee nodded to her first maghi, Hrelga, a rail thin female with gray-streaked black hair bound at the nape of her neck. “Send them back to Holvar.”
Hrelga returned her nod, moving off to where their two fallen fellows lay, Luthina in tow, the second maghi glancing back at Delgart, a strange look in her eyes that made him uncomfortable for reasons he did not comprehend.
Marilee turned to Rellik. “Find out what the alarms were,” she said.
“No need,” Rellik said, pointing to a horseman moving their direction, “here comes our captain’s messenger.”
“Report?” Grunsle asked as she rode up; the messenger had gray hair and a stern face.
“We managed to bring down three of the four aperu,” Marilee replied, “the fourth, the yellow, flew off to the north.”
“Casualties?” Grunsle asked.
“Only two, poisoned by the orange,” Marilee replied, “and the poison has only been slowed by the antidote. I have sent them back to Holvar.”
“The Eighth Company is forming up and flanking the enemy,” Grunsle said. “Prepare to move on the signal.”
“Who attacks?” Marilee asked.
“The four legions to which those aperum were attached,” Grunsle replied, riding off to pass the word to the rest of the group and collect more reports.
“Form up,” Marilee said, crisply, “and prepare to move out.”
As they prepared to move, Grelsor spoke in a soft whisper, only heard by Marilee, Delgart, and Rellik. “Those aperum were looking for us,” he noted. “Any idea why?”
A swift looked passed between Marilee and Delgart, but Marilee shook her head. “No idea,” she lied smoothly; Delgart kept his face relaxed.
Grelsor shook his head, turning with the rest of the squad to watch for the signal.
Chapter 12
The symbology of dreams is tricky and ever changing; attaching meaning to the symbols and figures problematic. Many try interpreting their dreams, but dreams in my experience are best forgotten on waking. . . .
from Lectures of the Headmasters, ‘Shigmar’ Volume
Lecture by Headmaster Shigmar
A gentle sound of water falling filled Klaybear’s ears, waking him. He inhaled deeply, smelling water, sage, and pomegranates; opening his eyes, he found himself sitting in the shade of a date palm, an empty gourd by his left arm. Looking around, he saw more palm trees and a clear pool with a small waterfall, but the space beyond the trees was indistinct and hazy. As he stood up, he heard the sound of someone crying, but the sound was hollow and echoed strangely, as if the person were inside a tunnel, crying into a blanket. He moved slowly around the stony outcropping, from which the water issued, and saw a figure kneeling, a figure who had long, honey-flecked brown hair he recognized as belonging to his wife. He rushed forward and saw that she was weeping over a larger than normal white rabbit wearing a frilly pink apron. He saw Rokwolf standing behind her, holding his bow with an arrow nocked; he was speaking to Klare, but Klaybear could not hear the words. The feathers on the arrow were smoking flames. Klaybear reached out to touch his wife, but she blurred and vanished in a cloud of mist, and his surroundings swirled and were replaced by a battlefield, covered with smoking debris and twisted bodies. On a rise that was suddenly in front of him, he saw Delgart, standing over the broken body of Marilee, facing a megatri whose red skin smoldered and smoked, flames erupting from the ends of his hair and beard. With one huge hand, the megatri grabbed Delgart and crushed him soundlessly, tossing the remains onto Marilee’s lifeless form; a broken crown rolled to a stop between their heads. The megatri threw back its head and howled in triumph, but the sound was muffled and indistinct.
His surroundings swirled and blurred and were replaced by a seashore, waves rolling in, but the sky was wrong, like the sea was inside a hollow sphere. A body floated in the surf, and he walked over the sand, approaching the body bobbing in the waves; it was clad in gold with a white surcoat. Waves crashed into him, but he did not feel wet; he grabbed a handful of the surcoat and dragged the body onto the beach, turning it over. He gasped, seeing the bloated face of Blakstar. Staggering back, he tripped and fell through the ground, his surroundings swirling past and becoming a hilltop overlooking Shigmar. A battle raged before the gates. He watched helplessly as a huge iron battering ram, wielded by megatrem and krugle, crashed through the gates, destroying them. Hordes of ghelem and purem ran into the city; the creatures wielding the battering ram held it up in triumph, and Klaybear saw the iron head of the ram, bearing his own face and grimacing in pain, with the symbol of Gar flashing red on his iron forehead. He felt his staff pulsing in his hand, and, raising it, he spoke words that sounded like mumbling in his ears. Light flashed and a wave of destruction moved out from his staff in a circle; the once green valley became a desert, the walls toppled, the buildings leveled, and everyone in the path of the wave, friend and foe alike, turned into dust. He stood on the hilltop, the only spot of green, living vegetation surrounded by an empty desert, and Klare lay before his feet, very pregnant, her eyes open, but unseeing, and dead. He fell to his knees trying to scream, but no sound issued, and he felt as if he were choking. . . .
Klaybear sat up, gasping for breath; he was lying on one of the beds in the room of Shigmar’s tomb with the archway. He looked around and saw Thal, Blakstar, and Tevvy sleeping on the other beds. He swung his legs off his bed and sat up, rubbing his eyes and trying to clear his mind of the images he had dreamed. In spite of the troubled nature of the dreams that had awakened him, he felt well-rested. He searched his memory but could not remember how he had gotten out of the realm of fire and into this bed; he remembered giving the last drop of water they had to the dying wethi; he remembered the wethi dying, but everything that followed was a blank until he dreamed of waking in the desert oasis. The images troubled him; he knew he had seen Klare crying, but over a dead rabbit? He knew that she hated rabbits, as her family had raised them for food, so he could not imagine her crying over a rabbit, which must mean that the rabbit symbolized something else, but what it could be, he could not decide. Then he recalled what they had found when they reached Kalbant, and he wondered if that part of the dream meant that her mother had died. But then her father and brothers were dead, so maybe, by some strange series of connections created in dreams, it meant that she was mourning over her father, or her brothers. What did Rokwolf have to do with it, and why was he standing with his bow ready? Maybe they were in danger. He stretched and stood up, but was prevented from further reflections by the sound of someone yawning. He turned and saw Tevvy sitting up in his bed.
“I just had the most wonderful dream,” Tevvy said as he sat up, seeing Klaybear standing nearby.
“Did you?” Klaybear said.
“I found myself in a beautiful, golden city, floating on the clouds,” Tevvy said, “and all of you were there, with Klare, Marilee, Delgart, and Rokwolf, and all of your masters, with two others, who I did not recognize, one standing next to Blakstar, blonde and beautiful, and one standing next to Thal, her hair was dark, and she was just as tall. We were standing in a courtyard surrounded by shining white pillars, with a fountain at the center. I listened to the music of the water, and the music of many voices; there was another pair there, they must have been the king and queen, but both seemed to me to be more royal and dignified than anyone I have ever seen. I think they were ol
d, but both looked as young as we are, with bright golden hair and kindly faces, and his eyes were blue, like the sky and as deep. They gave me a drink from the fountain, dipping a golden cup; it was the sweetest water I’ve ever tasted.” He paused, his eyes distant. “I turned and saw,” his face flushed, “a friend, who rushed forward and, uh,” he hesitated, “greeted me. I woke up then, but I can still hear the sound of the fountain and the chorus.”
Klaybear smiled, but said nothing. He moved next to Blakstar, gently touching his shoulder. The kortexi’s eyes opened and he sat up, looking around.
“How?” Blakstar asked, puzzled.
“I do not know,” Klaybear replied.
Blakstar’s brow wrinkled. “I remember falling onto the burning stone,” he said, slowly, “and then, I remember feeling arms, strong but gentle arms, lifting me from the stone; their touch was cool, and calming.”
“And then?” Tevvy asked.
“And then,” Blakstar went on, “I felt a touch on my shoulder, and I woke up, here.”
“No dreams?” Tevvy asked.
“None,” the kortexi replied.
“Too bad,” Tevvy said. “I had the most wonderful dream,” and he began to relate again what he had seen.
Klaybear went to and touched Thal’s shoulder, waking him. The maghi sat up slowly, looking around and sighing. His eyes looked slightly puffy.
“Are you all right?” Klaybear asked softly.
Thal nodded once.
“Did you sleep well?” Klaybear asked.
Thal shrugged.
“Did you dream?”
Shrug. Thal turned his attention to Tevvy, who just finished relating his dream.
“She was blonde, you said,” Blakstar said, “the one next to me. Did you see her face?” he asked, sounding eager.
“Yes, but . . . ,” Tevvy began, but the kortexi interrupted.
“What did she look like?” Blakstar asked eagerly.
“Like the queen at the fountain,” Tevvy replied, “fair, beautiful, but her eyes were gray, rather than blue.”
Blakstar looked disappointed by his description. “Can’t you give me more details?”
Tevvy shrugged. “No, wetham all look the same to me.”
Blakstar saw that Thal was up, and turned to him. “He saw a girl next to you, too.”
Thal looked puzzled.
“In his dream,” Blakstar added, looking at the awemi. “Tell him about her.”
Tevvy frowned. “She was tall and thin, like you, with dark hair, and her eyes were deep, deep brown.”
Thal flushed. “You dreamed this?” he asked.
Tevvy nodded.
“Strange,” Thal whispered to himself, his eyes going distant.
Tevvy looked at Klaybear. “So how did we get back here?”
The kailu shrugged. “No idea,” he replied. “Last thing I remember was passing out after the wethi took his last drink. Then I dreamed I was in a desert oasis,” and he started to relate to them what he had seen, but when he mentioned Klare, kneeling on the ground and crying, his voice choked, and the image of Klare crying became Klare pregnant became Klare dead on the hilltop, wave of destruction destroying friend and foe and land and walls and homes and animals and Klare dead howling laughter crashing walls screaming livestock faces flying at him, faces filled with pain and anger, the faces of purem and kailum and farmers and ghelem and wetham and children, all flying at him, all contorted with anger and pain, all rising from the wave of destruction moving outward from the staff clenched in his sweating hands, shouting accusations as each was absorbed by the staff held in his hand. He screamed. . . .
. . . and heard his own voice, echoing in the small chamber. Blakstar, Tevvy, and Thal kneeling on the floor around him, faces concerned.
“What happened?” Tevvy asked. “You mentioned Klare kneeling on the sand, crying, and then you swayed and fell to the floor.”
“Klare?” Klaybear said, blankly, and his eyes lost their focus, his body went limp.
Thal took Klaybear’s head in his hands, staring intently down out the fallen kailu, his eyes looking into Klaybear’s mind. His hands flew off of Klaybear’s head, and he slid away from Klaybear, as if a strong blast of wind were pushing him back. Thal crawled forward slowly, fighting against the forces that had shoved him away. The maghi clawed his way back to Klaybear, jaw clenched, sweat streaming off his face. Blakstar and Tevvy watched, dumbstruck, feeling none of the forces Thal struggled against. The maghi finally got close enough to Klaybear to grab his head again with both hands. Klaybear jerked and shook; Thal panted, gasping for breath as he held tightly to Klaybear’s head. Slowly, Klaybear shook less, then went still; after a few more moments, Thal released his head, and slumped onto the floor beside him, still panting.
Tevvy’s eyes were wild; Blakstar reached for the Waters of Life before he remembered that there were none left. Before either of them could open their mouths to speak, Klaybear opened his eyes and sat up; he looked around, then looked down at Thal.
“What did you do?” Klaybear asked the white maghi.
Thal wiped the sweat off his face before reaching out with his left hand; Blakstar took it and pulled him into a sitting position. “Every time your internal vision has sent you into unconsciousness, I’ve wanted to look at what was happening in your mind, but I’ve always been too far away, or the moment passed so quickly that I did not have the time to see,” he said. “This time, however, it happened twice in a row, so I switched into the mental plane to observe what was happening in your mind.” He paused, for a moment, to think.
“You can see into someone’s mind?” Tevvy interrupted.
Klaybear nodded. “I had forgotten that you were,” Klaybear said, stopping to search for a word, “asleep, for lack of a better word, when we found and removed the compulsion placed on your mind, and Klare’s mind.” He looked at Thal. “What did you see?”
Thal shook his head. “It looked as if your whole mind had been wrenched from all its moorings, and I saw it spinning and rolling in all directions at once. What was amazing about it was the amount of energy released from it, enough to hurl me from you the moment I switched into that plane, but the strangest thing about it was the sound: I could swear I heard many voices singing, and it seemed that the singing was causing your mind to spin and roll, causing the spinning and rolling to increase in speed.”
“Singing?” Tevvy noted. “I’ve heard singing every time we have passed through one of those arches, and I’m sure I heard singing right before each earthquake in the earth realm, and the entire time we were in the fire realm.”
“Singing?” Thal asked, one eyebrow rising slowly.
“I heard no singing,” Blakstar said.
Klaybear touched the kortexi’s arm. “Remember that the awemem have sharper hearing than we do.”
“Can you remember the quality of the singing,” Thal asked, “what it sounded like?”
Tevvy’s brow wrinkled as he thought back. “Well, when we entered the earth realm, the sound of the singing was slow, deep, and very low, so that it rumbled,” he said, “like a group of wethem with very low voices. The fire arch also sounded like wethem, but their tone was higher and faster,” he paused in thought, “and more frantic.”
“What about the archway into this room?” Thal asked.
Tevvy though for a moment. “That one sounded more like many different voices, both very low and very high, all singing different things in harmony.”
Thal got to his feet and started to pace across the room, rubbing his chin. “Didn’t the simulacrum of Shigmar . . . ,” he started to say, but was interrupted by Blakstar.
“What’s a simulacrum?” the kortexi asked.
“The ghostly image we saw when you slid your sword into the altar above,” Klaybear noted.
“Yes,” Thal said, stopping to look at the others. He started pacing again. “Didn’t Shigmar mention that we should ‘sing our ortheks well,’ as he finished his message?”
&
nbsp; Klaybear thought for a moment before answering. “He did, and I thought, at the time, that it was a strange way to describe the casting of ortheks.”
Thal stopped and tapped his chin for a moment. “What was that song we used to sing as children, about the boy and the girl running up the hill, didn’t it go, ‘daa-da-dum?’” he asked, singing it.
Blakstar smiled; Klaybear laughed, and added, also singing, “daa-da-da-dum.”
“That’s the one,” Thal replied.
“What are you thinking?” Klaybear chuckled.
In answer, Thal slipped his rod from his belt, holding it up, and instead of saying the word for light, he softly sang it, using the three notes from the children’s song: “maa-glu-ku.” A globe of light winked on at the end of his rod, but its quality was different from the magluku lighting the room; they were brighter, blue-white in color, meant to illuminate the room; his was softer, more diffuse, like sunlight under a canopy of leafy green trees on a summer afternoon.
“Extraordinary!” Thal exclaimed, looking at the others, a grin lighting his long face. He looked back at his light, smiling as it evoked feelings of being young in the summer. “Neki,” he said, canceling the light. “What if I . . . ,” he began, and lifted his rod again, singing the same orthek using three ascending notes: “ma-glu-ku.” A second globe of light blossomed from the end of Thal’s rod, growing brighter and brighter, causing them to cover their eyes. “Neki!” Thal shouted, canceling the second magluku. His grin grew sly. “Let’s go on,” he noted with obvious enthusiasm, “I want to try this out.” He turned toward the archway.
“Wait,” Klaybear said, “you still haven’t told me what you did to my mind.”
Thal stopped and turned back. “He distracted me,” he said, pointing to Tevvy, “with the singing.”
“I didn’t bring up the singing,” Tevvy protested, “you did. You can’t blame me.”
Thal opened his mouth to reply but was stopped by the kortexi.
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