Thal flushed. “I’m sorry, Klare,” he said quickly, “I forgot about your condition.”
“Since you forgot,” Klare hissed, “then find me something!”
Thal moved along the barrels and racks. “There is an open barrel of ale here,” he noted, “but it’s still got . . . ,” he went on, but she rushed past him and stuck her head into the barrel, retching noisily. They could hear it splashing into the ale still in the barrel. Thal felt queasy; Klaybear smiled and laughed.
“That ale just might cure someone of his drinking problem,” Klaybear quipped.
Blakstar smiled and shook his head. “We can always hope,” he added.
Daybor looked from one of them to the other, still hearing the sound of Klare’s retching, echoing hollowly in the background, then looked at Thal’s green face, and started to giggle hysterically. The awemi first leaned against the door frame, then slid to the floor.
“Well, Thalamar,” Klaybear said, still smiling, “since you set both of them off, we’ll leave you to watch over them while we search.”
Thal could only stand and watch them both leave the room while Klare retched noisily into the barrel and Daybor continued to giggle.
They returned five minutes later, having thoroughly searched the tavern.
“Anything of interest?” Thal asked, getting up; he was sitting on one of the barrels. Klare sat next to the open barrel, face white; Daybor was still smiling, trying not to look at either one of them, lest he start laughing again.
“Not really,” Klaybear said. “We found a room upstairs that was used to open our special archways, and by the scratches in the floor, it was used many times.”
“The only interesting thing,” Blakstar went on, “is that they must have been planning this carefully as all the doors and windows facing out are boarded up from the inside.”
“That is odd,” Thal said. “We better let Daybor show us where Tevvy and Rokwolf went.”
Daybor nodded, but did not speak; he hurried past them and back into his school. He led them through the kitchen and the other back rooms of the school’s inn, past the other stairway to the second level.
“They probably came down these stairs,” Daybor noted, then he turned and went through two more rooms and into a third, which looked like the storeroom for some kind of shop and down a set of stairs and into the school cellar. They went down a short, rough-stone hallway to a rusty metal door. Daybor shoved the door open; it slid open silently, belying its rusted appearance. Thal and Klaybear both spoke the word and magluku winked on, illuminating the short hallway and the large room beyond. They moved forward into the long, cave-like chamber, rough-hewn in places to make it rectangular. They saw another metal door directly to their right. Daybor pointed to it.
“That leads into the sewers,” Daybor said. He moved straight ahead, to the far end of the room where there were two more doors, one left, one ahead; he opened the door straight ahead and entered a square chamber, another door ahead and to their left. Their feet splashed into water on the floor. Daybor stooped and touched the water with his fingers, then put one finger to his tongue; he spat.
“It’s salty,” he said, “which means it’s coming in from the swamp.”
“I take it from your reaction,” Thal said, “that there’s not supposed to be swamp water here?”
Daybor shook his head. “Klaybear may be right,” he added, “Tevvy knows about the pumps that keep the passage, and the cellar, from flooding with water from the swamp, and he knows how to reverse the flow to fill the passage, effectively keeping anyone from following them.” He went to the door and pushed it open; he sloshed through the water. After about twenty feet, the narrow passage turned to the left, and they could begin to see the water flowing down the passageway. They followed it through water increasing in depth for about thirty feet before it turned to the right, soon ending in another door, different from the others: it looked thicker and sturdier than the other doors they had passed through, and water was shooting from beneath the door.
Daybor cursed and ran to the door. On the left side of the door there was an alcove with a metal wheel he tried to turn, but, no matter how he struggled, the wheel would not turn. Blakstar strode to his side and grabbed the wheel, strained for a moment, and then, with a squeal of protest, the wheel slowly began to turn. The kortexi kept turning until the wheel stopped. Daybor grabbed his arm.
“We have to get out of here before it gets worse,” Daybor said.
“But didn’t we just fix the pumps?” Blakstar asked.
“Only one of them,” Daybor said, “there is another at the other end of this passage.”
They jogged back the way they had come, making sure that all the doors were closed. They climbed the stairs and stopped in the storeroom.
“What now?” Blakstar asked.
“We should go back and get some rest,” Thal said, “since we still have to meet Delgart and Marilee early tomorrow.”
“We cannot leave Sutugno’s body here,” Klare said, “we should take her back with us and give her a decent burial.”
Klaybear nodded. “What about Tevvy’s parents?” he asked.
“I’ll see to them,” Daybor said.
Klare turned and looked at him. “All by yourself?”
Daybor smiled. “About one third of my classmates and the instructors are out on field assignments at any given time,” he noted, “some of them will begin to return early tomorrow; the others, as soon as we send word.” He led them back up to Elanor’s room, and stopped suddenly when he pushed the door open: the bed was empty; Sutugno’s body was gone.
The half of Delgart’s face visible wrinkled with thought. “And there were no traces of any kind?” he asked. He rode on a chestnut stallion with Klaybear and Klare riding to his right, Thal and Blakstar riding to his left. Marilee had gone ahead of them to make sure all were ready to depart, after the four of them had re-told all that had happened the previous day in Karble and Rykelle; Nofero, Lidelle, Luthina, and all the seconds from the command squad had gone with the second commander. Forsonta, Grelsor, Hrelga, and the rest of the chiefs were following Delgart as they crossed the staging area. The companies of the Seventh Legion were divided into two groups, arranging themselves into two long lines: on the left, the First, Third, Fifth, and Seventh companies lined up, led by the captain of the First, Rellik, and were going to patrol the road, while the Second, Fourth, and Sixth, led by the captain of the Second, Kella, along with a replacement company of regular seklesem for the outpost, were going with Delgart to the Forsaken Outpost. Soon after the four chosen arrived, Marilee took them, using breath-giver, to the seklesi camp on the road, then to the outpost, so that they would know where they would be sending the various elements of Delgart’s army later in the morning. Delgart waved to his soldiers as they passed between the two long lines.
“No,” Klaybear replied, “not a trace of any kind, and no evidence that anyone had entered or left the school while we were there.”
“The doors and windows were all bolted from the inside,” Thal added, “and none had been forced.”
“So the only way in and out,” Delgart said, “would have been using the rod, which means the morgle, but why would the morgle want to kill her, and then steal her body? Their methods require the victims be living,” he noted carefully, one eye on Klare, but she was not paying attention, lost in her own thoughts. He lowered his voice. “Are you certain she was dead?”
Klaybear nodded.
“And our brother’s behavior,” Delgart added, shaking his head, “is quite unlike him.” He fell silent for a moment, still waving to his troops. “The answers all are ahead of us; we all are being drawn to a confrontation with this morgle who has stolen Melbarth’s rod, so I think we should get on with this action,” he finished, kicking his horse from a walk to a trot.
At the head of the two columns, Blakstar and Thal turned to the left, while the rest went right. The two of them dismounted and tied their horses to
a stake driven into the ground; they walked to where Rellik stood waiting.
The captain of the First nodded to them. “We are ready,” he said.
Thal nodded and accepted the sword from his companion; golden flames lit and licked the blade, causing all nearby to shield their eyes. “As soon as I begin to draw the arch in the air,” Thal told Rellik, “you should start your column forward; the doorway will open as soon as the point of the sword touches the ground on the opposite side of the circle. The only thing you have to worry about is keeping everyone on the other side of the archway moving out of the way. Sir Blakstar will stand on this side of the archway, so if you stand just on the other side, we can communicate back and forth easily; he will let you know how many are left.”
Rellik nodded. “It is too bad we cannot ride through,” he noted, “it would make things go faster.”
Thal smiled and nodded. “That would work only at the center of the arch, but those on the sides would lose their heads.” He turned away even as Rellik shouted the order to get ready.
Short stakes with colored scraps of cloth had been driven into the ground to give him reference points for how big to make the circle; he walked to the one on his right, thought of where he wanted to go, then touched the point of the flaming sword to the grass next to the first stake. He walked forward, dragging the sword and drawing the back of the circle first, keeping an eye on the other stake, so that the arc he drew would reach that point. He reached the other stake then started walking and dragging the sword in an arc toward his starting point. When he reached the first stake a shimmering gray line flared to life in the grass wherever will-giver had touched; he lifted the sword straight into the air as high as he could reach, then he walked across the shimmering circle, stepping over the line as he reached the second stake and bringing the point of the sword down to the ground and the shimmering line. The arch shimmered and the doorway opened, and Thal had been so intent on opening the archway that he had not heard Rellik’s shouted command, but he saw the seklesem begin to trot through leading their horses. The drain on him was enormous; he immediately drew energy from the sword as well as drawing energy from the air around him.
“Tell them to move faster,” Thal hissed through clenched teeth.
“Rellik!” Blakstar shouted.
“Yes?” Rellik replied.
“Faster,” Blakstar said, “it is a greater drain than we anticipated.”
“Double-speed!” Rellik commanded, and they heard the command echo down the line and heard the same shouted command from the other column. Having anticipated this need for greater speed, the supply wagons for all four companies had been staged with the first company, so the wagons began to roll through, slowing the progress of the seklesem and their mounts, only because they had to shift into two lines from four. Even so, the First Company was through and the Third Company starting through after the first wagons had passed through. Sweat ran freely down Thal’s face, his eyes closed, and his brow furrowed in concentration. The white maghi gripped the sword tightly with both hands and his jaw clenched as the Fifth Company started through. The last of the wagons rolled past as the Seventh started through, and Thal swayed where he stood. Blakstar put a hand on his shoulder and energy flowed into Thal, which helped him maintain the archway. When the last squad of the Seventh Company ran through, Thal lifted the sword and the archway winked out; he handed it back to Blakstar.
“That was very helpful,” Thal said, wiping the sweat from his face and swaying where he stood.
“What?” Blakstar asked, looking puzzled.
“When you put your hand on my shoulder,” Thal replied, “I suddenly was re-energized; I didn’t know that you could do that.”
The kortexi still looked puzzled. “Neither did I,” he noted, sliding the sword into its sheath, quenching the golden flames. “We better get over to the others,” he added, “it looks like that column is nearly through.”
They quickly untied their horses, mounted, and rode them over to join Klare and Klaybear, who held the door open and was looking as haggard as Thal felt, the eye-shaped emerald atop breath-giver pulsing like a beating heart. Blakstar jumped off his horse and put his hand on Klaybear’s shoulder, nodding to Klare to do the same. Klare’s eyes widen as she realized what was happening.
“I did not know we could do that,” Klare noted. “You better grab our horses; they are almost through.”
Blakstar nodded and lifted his hand from Klaybear’s shoulder; Thal dismounted and held both his own and Blakstar’s reins. The last squad of the replacement company was running through the archway; Thal followed leading two horses, with Blakstar close behind him leading two more. Klare pulled Klaybear through, and the archway winked out.
For a moment, both Tevvy and Rokwolf thought the sounds of guttural voices meant that they had caught up to those who had taken Elanor and the other students, but they soon realized their error. Tevvy hid behind a rock; Rokwolf stood nearby behind one of the tall trees with drooping, trailing branches. Peering around, they both could see a pair of lit torches illuminating the gloom at the near end of a rickety-looking and narrow wooden footbridge. Two of the green-skinned wedaterem stood near the torches, holding large, spiked clubs and grunting to one another; the creatures were not as tall or large as their blue-skinned cousins, but they still stood head and shoulders above Rokwolf. Their faces were flat and brutish, with prominent noses, their heads covered with what looked like scraggly green weeds. Each wore only a loincloth made from the skin of some unfortunate denizen of the swamp. Tevvy and Rokwolf had followed the trail of the captives and their captors from the school’s secret exit into the Mariskal as it wound through the swamp, past the many impassable channels and hidden dangers, sometimes losing the trail completely only to find it after much tedious searching. They had spent the entire day following the trail; both were wet, cold, and tired, but thoughts of the captives and what horrors awaited them kept the klitodweri and the seklesi going. These two swamp wedaterem were the first serious check upon Tevvy and Rokwolf’s progress. Rokwolf pointed back the way they had come; Tevvy nodded, and the two of them moved away. Frogs and crickets croaked and chirped all around them; to their right as they moved, they could hear, in the distance, the waves of the Inner Sea rolling against the rocks and trees along the margin between swamp and sea.
“Can you knock them out with darts?” Rokwolf whispered when they were out of earshot.
“If I can throw the first dart without either of them seeing me,” Tevvy replied. “When the first slumps, the second will investigate, giving me the moment to throw a dart at the second.”
“They must know we are following,” Rokwolf added, “and we still must be a good distance from Morokolu, so there is no other reason to leave sentries here.”
“Maybe if you worked your way a little further southeast, and you made some noise to distract them,” Tevvy suggested.
“That’s fairly risky,” Rokwolf replied, “and would put me a little distance from the bridge.”
“Don’t go very far,” Tevvy said, “just over by that tree and snap a twig or something.”
Rokwolf shrugged and moved without a sound to the tree indicated; Tevvy moved back to the rock, dipped two darts into one of his small bottles, and laid them on the ground beside him, not picking one of them up until he had put the small bottle away. He turned toward the rock and nodded to Rokwolf. He heard a twig snap; the two sentries looked in Rokwolf’s direction, and Tevvy stood and threw the dart at the nearest wedateri, squatting behind the rock as soon as the dart left his hand. The dart struck one of the green creature’s necks, and the creature swatted at the dart, brushing it away as if it were some biting insect. The two sentries continued to stare in Rokwolf’s direction; Tevvy picked up and held the second dart ready, waiting for the drug to take effect. The seconds ticked slowly by, counted out by croaking and chirping. After about a minute, the wedateri hit by the dart swayed, its knees buckled, and it sank to the ground, its club thump
ing dully on the rickety bridge. The other sentry saw its comrade fall and so bent over to shake it awake. Tevvy stood a second time and threw; the second wedateri, like the first, slapped at the annoying insect, brushing the dart away. It continued to shake and poke its comrade until it, too, fell over on top of its supine partner.
Tevvy sprang out of his hiding place and retrieved both of his darts from the ground, carefully wiping them clean on the loincloths the sentries wore. Rokwolf came up before he had finished and the two of them crossed the rickety bridge and followed the trail of the captives to the northwest. They moved in and out of huge cypress and cedar trees, and the wide-bladed sea grass was replaced by torch grass the farther from the sea they traveled. The torch grass grew in clumps; it had long, narrow leaves with torch-shaped heads that turned bright orange in the fall. The heads burst into light fluff carried across the swamp on the winter wind. Since it was currently late spring, burst heads from the previous year were visible all around, and the dry, stringy leaves had sharp edges that would tear through any cloth, leather, or skin that brushed against them. They were more careful as they moved forward, but Tevvy saw evidence that the captives had not been so careful, or had been deliberately driven into the sharp edged clumps: there were pieces of torn cloth, bits of leather, and drops of blood, some not completely dry. The path widened and grew more traveled, and as it did, cover became more difficult to find. In the distance they could see more torches illuminating a great dome of gray granite that sparkled as the torchlight flickered. The closer they came to the granite dome, the fewer living plants there were, until they crossed some boundary and the trees were now twisted, blackened, and dead. The scent of death and decay accosted them, and the sounds of night creatures–frogs, insects, or birds–ceased altogether. Wisps of green mist crawled across the stagnant pools all round them; the pools were covered with a brown slime that bubbled and shuddered as if alive. Most of Morokolu was surrounded by the noisome pools; from where they were hidden behind the trunks of dead cypress trees, they could see in the pool directly ahead, just south of the granite dome, the tops of what must have been watchtowers stuck at odd angles out of the slime, trailing slime themselves. Only on the west side of the Morokolu did any dry ground go up to the gray granite of the dome, and out of this Tevvy saw two watchtowers that guarded the entrance into Morokolu. Beyond these he could see a great stone bridge to the north, well-lit with torches; many of the green-skinned wedaterem walked over the bridge as sentries. There were many more of the creatures around the base of the watchtowers that overlooked the only entrance to the dome. From this distance Tevvy could see many black holes bored into the surface of the dome, and many rickety walkways going around the outside surface of Morokolu, which were the nesting sites of the swamp wedaterem. Looking further west, Tevvy saw thousands of thin black threads crisscrossing tree trunks.
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