“Which . . . ,” Tevvy began but stopped and looked around. “Something’s happened,” he whispered, “I no longer hear the throbbing,” he stopped again, listening and looking toward the east, “I’m sure of it,” he continued a moment later, “the pumps are off,” he added, looking at the others. “What now? Can you restart them?”
Thal shook his head. “I don’t know how they operate,” he replied.
“Then we better get off this level,” Blakstar noted, “and I know the quickest way: the dumbwaiter we found.” He started to move to the west.
“Wait!” Tevvy shouted. “They aren’t big enough to carry us all!”
“This one is,” Thal assured him. “Come on!” he added, sprinting after Blakstar.
“We’d better warn Delgart,” Klaybear said as he caught up to Thal. They turned south, then east around the end of a row of cells and came to a door between the rows. Klaybear touched one glowing finger to the symbol on his verghrenum with his older brother clearly in mind. He felt his wrist warm almost at once. “Let me borrow your sword, Blakstar,” he said as they stopped at the door. “I should have enough time before Tevvy gets the door unlocked.”
Blakstar nodded and drew will-giver and passed it to Klaybear; the kailu quickly drew a small circle on the stone floor, opening the small, shimmering archway. Delgart’s head appeared there.
“What is it?” Delgart asked.
“A warning,” Klaybear stated simply, “the pumps keeping the lower levels of the fortress from flooding have just stopped working.”
“Why?” the commander asked.
“We think that the morgle knows we are here,” Klaybear replied. “We just searched the dungeon and found it empty of both prisoners and guards. When we first entered this level, the pumps were operating; they ceased just moments ago, so do not enter the fortress.”
“We won’t,” Delgart replied. “The morgle has sent his forces to attack us, so we are quite busy, which makes your job easier, little brother. Any sign of Rokwolf or the other captives?”
“None, which surprised us,” Klaybear replied, “as Tevvy is sure they were here during the night, as he saw them in the dungeon just before he was sent into the maze, and from there, into Spenthronsa’s web.”
Delgart’s head nodded. “Klare is still helping with the squads searching for captives. There were actually very few casualties in the fight with the sponsum. The majority were simply carried off, wrapped and tied in webs.”
Klaybear nodded. “I’ll contact you when we know more,” he said and broke contact. He handed will-giver back to Blakstar, who slid it back into its sheath. Tevvy led the way into the dumbwaiter, and when all were inside, Blakstar grabbed the rope and pulled to begin the process of raising them to the next level, but the thick rope went suddenly slack and tumbled down onto the kortexi’s head.
“Great!” Tevvy exclaimed. “Now what?” he asked, and Klaybear suddenly understood the morgle’s plan. He felt the stone under his feet begin to vibrate, then a sound grew from a low rumble to a loud rushing sound, and he knew that the orange and purple lines of force that had been supporting the walls and keeping the water out had been cut: the trickles had become streams, then sprays, then burst through becoming gushing rivers of water flooding this lowest level of Morokolu. He heard hissing, bubbling laughter from somewhere high above them, echoing down the shaft of the now useless dumbwaiter.
Chapter 22
Given the recent disaster in Eklor, flowing as it did from the unrestricted use of elemental Void to power ortheks, we will no longer teach or condone the use of this element among our order; it is hereby ordered that anyone found using this element directly and consciously will be subject to immediate expulsion from the order. . . .
from Annals of Melbarth, 113th Series, Writings of the Hierarchs
Order of Sedra Bhelghon, atno 1134
“If we hurry,” Tevvy began, “we might get out the way we came in,” he finished, starting to move in the direction of the west door. Thal and the others followed him, running west to the end of the cells, but when they turned north, all four halted, seeing water already pouring through the crack under the door, and, even in the dim light where they stood thirty feet from the door, they could see the streams of water were moving up either side of the door as the water level outside the dungeon rose rapidly.
The awemi started to move in circles, like a trapped or caged animal, repeating the same words over and over again: “Trapped! I can’t swim! There’s no way out! I’ve failed,” he sobbed, “and I’ll never see Elanor again! Trapped!”
Blakstar raised one hand to slap Tevvy, but Klaybear caught the kortexi’s arm. “We better let Thal,” Klaybear noted, “since we are both wearing heavy gauntlets, and I think we will need him.”
Blakstar paused for a moment, then nodded; Klaybear released his arm, and the kortexi grabbed Tevvy pinning both arms to the awemi’s sides then lifting him off the ground. Tevvy’s legs continued to move; Blakstar turned toward Thal even as the water flowed over their boots. The maghi slapped Tevvy sharply across the face.
Tevvy stopped moving and speaking, looking suddenly into Thal’s face. “Ouch!” he exclaimed. “That hurt!”
“Back to the dumbwaiter!” Thal exclaimed, ignoring Tevvy’s complaint. “It is our only way out of this mess!” Thal turned and splashed back the way they had come; Klaybear and Blakstar followed, the kortexi still holding Tevvy.
“Isn’t this exactly what Motodu expects us to do?” Tevvy asked, trying to reach his stinging cheek but failing to as his arms were still pinned by Blakstar to his sides.
“Undoubtedly,” Thal replied, raising his rod and singing the words, “steighud-hilumtod,” and he pointed his rod at the floor of the dumbwaiter. With his enhanced vision, Thal saw lines of power, colored red and yellow, shoot from the end of the rod and attach themselves to the four corners of the dumbwaiter, two on each corner, opposite one another, then shoot from the corners into the darkness of the shaft overhead. As he lifted the tip of his rod to point upward, the four lines pulsed, and the dumbwaiter began to rise slowly out of the water that had risen to their knees.
“Then aren’t we moving straight into another trap?” Tevvy asked distractedly, eyes darting from the lines of force back to Thal’s face. “This is really strange: seeing you actually working teka,” he noted, eyes still moving from line to line.
Thal nodded but said nothing, concentrating on his orthek.
“You can put me down, now,” Tevvy said, although without conviction.
“Uh, sure,” Blakstar replied, dropping the awemi.
Only Tevvy’s acutely honed instincts kept him from falling over; he landed lightly on his feet. Klaybear looked up the shaft in the direction the dumbwaiter traveled.
“There is something above us,” Klaybear noted, “some kind of orthek trigger,” he added.
These words drew their gazes upward. “What kind?” Thal asked, beads of sweat sliding down his face, trickling down the small of his back.
Klaybear continued to stare upward through the gaps in the dumbwaiter’s frame for a time before he answered. “I see red, yellow, and purple lines, all converging on a point directly overhead,” he replied. “Mostly red, then yellow, with just a few flashes of purple.”
“A ball of flame, I’d wager,” Thal noted, “meant to incinerate us, should we get that far.”
“That’s nice!” Tevvy exclaimed sarcastically. “So we escape drowning to be burned! How does one get off this crazy thing?” he asked looking around for an exit.
“The burning would not last long,” Thal replied, “only until we fell back into the water.”
Blakstar snorted with suppressed laughter; Klaybear smiled.
“Oh, nice!” he exclaimed sarcastically. “Fried to a crisp and whatever is left gets drowned!” He would have said more, but Blakstar grabbed him again.
“Quiet!” the kortexi hissed. “Keep babbling and they will know we are coming, and maybe drop the
fireball on our heads!”
“Klaybear,” Thal whispered, moving his rod to the level so that they stopped rising, “can you put the fire protection on us?”
Klaybear nodded. “I think I still have enough of the argwiwo,” he replied, “but the orthek is not powerful enough to protect us from a fireball, even enhanced by singing the words.”
Thal shook his head sending beads of sweat flying. “I don’t expect it to,” he noted, “I thought of it just in case someone is stationed at the top to make sure that we are in the dumbwaiter; you also have a more powerful shield against fire that would protect us, do you not?” he asked.
“Yes,” Klaybear nodded, “a water shield, but I’ve never used it. What did you have in mind?”
“We will know for sure when we are closer,” Thal replied, “but if there is someone waiting to report our presence, then the orthek will have a delay,” he added.
“The time element,” Klaybear put in.
“Exactly,” Thal went on, “set to go off after whoever is waiting above assures himself that we are actually in here, so he can report back to his boss that we have been cooked, as it were.”
“I still do not understand,” Klaybear said.
“We let him see us,” Thal went on, “as if we are ignorant of the orthek about to go off; the fireball is triggered and in that instant, you surround us with the water shield, while I allow us to ‘fall,’ giving him the impression that the orthek has succeeded.”
Klaybear’s brow furrowed. “I now see why you suggested the protection orthek,” he shook his head and removed his pack, searching for a moment before finding the small, crystal phial. “That won’t give me much time, or any room for mistakes,” he sighed and held up the phial, looking at it in the light of Thal’s levitation orthek. “There’s not much left,” he noted.
“Enough for the four of us?” Blakstar asked.
“I hope so,” Klaybear replied, opening the phial and putting a drop on each of them, one at a time, and singing the word, “nemfagelu.” Thal saw blue, green, and yellow lines of power grow from the drop of argwiwo, touched by the kailu’s finger; the lines wove themselves into an intricate web of twined yellow, green, and blue lines that surrounded and conformed to the shape of the person touched. When the web completed itself, and the whole process took a moment only, the person pulsed with a faint aura of light that alternated between green, blue, and yellow.
“This is so strange,” Tevvy said after Klaybear had cast the orthek on himself, “actually seeing the elemental forces at work as you cast the orthek.”
Blakstar frowned. “It is a distraction,” the kortexi noted, his eyes constantly drawn back to the pulsating, colored lines of power.
Thal smiled wryly. “That is why we don’t normally enhance our vision in this manner,” he said. “We only use it during moments like this one, when we are under extreme threat.” He again moved his rod to point upward, and the dumbwaiter started to rise slowly up its shaft, all eyes straining through the gaps overhead, hoping to glimpse more of what was waiting.
“Thal,” Tevvy whispered after a moment, “what if I put a dagger through the eye of whoever is watching? Wouldn’t that simplify matters?”
“How do you mean?” Thal asked in return.
“If the watcher dies,” Tevvy clarified, “then there is no reason for you to go through the charade of letting us fall.”
“Except that falling will get us quickly out of the flames,” Thal noted.
“Not necessarily,” Tevvy retorted. Thal could see Tevvy’s eyes, sparkling with the many colored lights from the ortheks, as the awemi turned to look at him. “Look, if the morgle really expects that we will fall when the fireball explodes, then wouldn’t he also let the ball of flame fall with us? Surely he knows that, even if we do not know about the fireball, Klaybear will raise a shield to protect us, so he also knows that his fireball must surround us longer than he thinks Klaybear can hold the shield.”
“He may have something,” Klaybear admitted.
“It is possible, I agree,” Thal conceded, “but I would counter that it may not matter, since it is likely that he had tied the orthek to the dumbwaiter, so that it will stay with this device, whether we let it fall or hold it level. However, that does not change the validity of your suggestion; the counter-argument is that Motodu also knows that you would be here and suggest such a strategy. Therefore, he would have stationed several watchers, at least one of them outside of your possible line of sight, thus ensuring that you cannot simply kill the watcher and avoid the consequences of the trap.”
As Thal had replied to Tevvy, the tip of his rod fell so that his rod was level, slowing the dumbwaiter, and then finally bringing it to a stop. The kortexi had remained silent during this exchange, still glancing upward, especially as he noticed their progress slowing. He finally had enough.
“This debate is pointless,” Blakstar hissed. “I don’t care if there is a legion of purem waiting for us at the top!” He grabbed the maghi’s rod arm and forced both arm and rod to point upward again; the dumbwaiter lurched and then flew up its shaft. Blakstar drew will-giver with a steely hiss, igniting the golden flames; daggers appeared in Tevvy’s hands; Klaybear held up his staff, preparing to sing the words that would surround them with a protective shield of water to quench the flames that they believed would follow hard upon their arrival at the top of the dumbwaiter’s shaft. Thal met Blakstar’s eyes and saw iron hard determination written in them; Thal half grinned at his kortexi companion and broke into a full smile when Blakstar winked back at him. A horizontal shaft of light illuminated the top of the kortexi’s head, moving over his helm and down onto his face. In the time it took Blakstar to blink as the light flashed across his face, a voice, the same feminine voice Thal had heard in the inn at Komfleu, instructed him in what he needed to do once the dumbwaiter reached the top.
“When you reach the top of the shaft,” the voice spoke in Thal’s mind, “the dumbwaiter will lock into place on Morokolu’s highest level. In the seconds before the fireball detonates, you will see the hallway filled with purem and a pair of ponkolum. Release your levitation orthek, move your rod in an underhand motion as if you were throwing it down the hallway, and sing the words, ‘esperu-kruses-kasso.’ This will send a small ball flying down the hallway, and this ball has the same temperature as the Void, as it is a small piece of the Void that will instantly freeze all those lurking in the hallway.”
“But won’t it also freeze us?” Thal thought back.
“You will be protected by the very flames meant to destroy you. Remember, as soon as you hear the dumbwaiter lock into place!”
Thal felt the presence in his mind vanish even as he watched the light move down the kortexi’s face, chest, loins, and Thal turned to look into the hallway; he saw that Blakstar was correct, and he heard Tevvy’s sharp intake of breath even as the dumbwaiter locked into place. Time slowed down; Thal saw purem and a pair of ponkolum smiling at him; he released his levitation orthek, and before the lines of force faded completely, his arm was moving and he sang the words, “esperu-kruses-kasso” and saw blue and black lines erupt from the tip of his rod as his arm moved forward in an underhanded delivery, forming into a double-fist sized blue-black ball, crackling like Marilee’s hair, and the ball moved slowly out of the dumbwaiter and into the hallway. At the same time, he heard both the concussion and saw the flash of red flames as the ball of fire exploded around them, and heard Klaybear’s voice singing “plotoskoit”; an instant after the flames surrounded them, and they felt the unpleasant heat, water flowed all around them, cooling the heat and flames, but Thal’s orthek froze both the ball of flame and the water shield, and when the three opposing forces met, the fireball and the water shield were instantly canceled as the ball of icy Void was the strongest of the three ortheks, although moving away. When the steam and smoke cleared a few moments later, Tevvy’s daggers flew toward the nearest purem, who shattered when the daggers struck them, breaking ins
tantly into hundreds of icy shards that flew into the next closest purem, starting a chain reaction of frozen bodies shattering.
Blakstar leapt out of the dumbwaiter and into the hallway, followed by Klaybear, with Tevvy and Thal stepping out more slowly. Their boots crunched as they walked across the floor.
Tevvy grimaced. “Now I wish I wore boots as you do,” he whispered, stepping gingerly over as much of the frozen remains littering the passage floor as he could.
Klaybear looked intently at Thal. “Where did you learn that orthek?” he asked. “I know we are not allowed to use the Void, and I did not think you maghem were allowed to use the element either,” he added, eyeing the white maghi.
“I’m not quite sure where it came from,” Thal admitted, with a shrug, color rising to his cheeks, “it just appeared in my mind when Blakstar mentioned a legion of purem waiting for us,” he added evasively. “Where to now?” he asked, trying to divert the conversation. The hallway ran north, lit by magluku, with a cell door every ten feet to their left but only three doors along the length of the wall to their right. The first door on the right side was right next to the dumbwaiter and had been made of wood, so between the flames and the freezing cold, it had been reduced to a pile of splintered, burned fragments. Behind this former door a hallway went in two directions: one passage going away from them to the east and the other going north, paralleling the hallway they were in.
“Check the cells,” Klaybear told Tevvy, “and we will follow you down the hall.”
Blakstar followed Tevvy, who began to pick his way carefully past the piles of frozen remnants of purem on the floor to inspect each cell.
“They are all empty,” Tevvy noted, “just like the ones below.” Tevvy looked a question back at his companions who shrugged; Klaybear pointed silently to the center door on the right wall, which was about fifty feet from the dumbwaiter at the end of the hallway through which they had entered. Tevvy moved to the door, found it unlocked, and opened it silently. Blakstar moved next to Tevvy, looking over his head down the hall; he saw that the parallel hallway turned east at this point, going another twenty feet before opening into what must have been a larger room. He could see the room ahead crossed and re-crossed by a multitude of colored lines of elemental forces.
The Redemption, Volume 1 Page 107