Chapter 23
We cannot take anything for granted. . . . We are unwise to depend upon sight alone to judge any situation but must use all of our senses, including intuition and feeling, lest we be caught making a hasty, and wrong, decision. . . .
Tarlana, Headmistress of Shigmar, 167-194
Silence followed the morgle’s declaration; Tevvy froze in the act of moving, hoping someone, or something, would speak or make some noise so that he could continue his slow progress through the shadows toward a position behind the morgle. He glanced back toward where his companions stood, dumbstruck by what had happened, and his awemi vision that allowed him to see in the dark told him that things in the room were not quite right: the figure of the morgle did not look, in the dim light, exactly like the others of his kind that the awemi had seen, and the figure that had been, until moments before when the kortexi had removed her head, on top of the reclining figure of Rokwolf, did not look at all like other wethem should to his eyes in the dark. From all that he heard, he did not think his companions had any idea of these anomalies, and he wanted to tell them, but that would give his position and presence away, and he could not afford that. He had to keep his mind on his own business; he had to concentrate, or he could end up dead, or worse. He had almost made a mistake when he, like the others, was surprised as the wetha’s head flew back to her body, which, under normal conditions, would be impossible. Surely his companions realized that? If they could just keep the morgle distracted for a little longer . . . , he smiled when he heard the conversation begin again, heard the maghi laugh, and he tuned them out, starting again to inch his way slowly through the shadows.
Rokwolf struggled to break free of the manacles that held him bound, and the sound of the chains broke the stasis that held the others silent and still; he howled in frustration.
Thal laughed, which caused Klaybear to look at him in shock and surprise; the kortexi continued to stare at the figure on the floor at the feet of the bound seklesi, as the pool of blood around the corpse’s shoulders grew and steamed; the wide, staring eyes and look of ecstasy mingled with surprise held Blakstar in place.
“Did your superiors warn you of the consequences of trying to take the sword or staff?” Thal asked, trying to stall for time.
The morgle paused momentarily before making a bubbling sound that must have been a scoff. “Do not try to play games with me,” the morgle hissed, “I know more about the keys than you ever will.”
Thal raised one eyebrow. “Do you indeed?” he replied. “Then you will know, of course, what happens to anyone who tries to take one of them from their rightful holders, even if one only tries to touch one of the keys?” Thal paused for only a moment. “Let me tell you what happened to a fellow kortexi, who believed himself worthy to wield the sword of Sir Karble: he is now a stone statue guarding the entrance to the kortexi citadel. However, since you believe that you know better than the chosen,” Thal continued, and as he spoke, he moved to where Blakstar still stood motionless, stooped, and retrieved will-giver from where it had fallen, then he carried it to where Rokwolf was shackled, “then I will lay the sword here, on the chest of our fellow chosen and step away. Then feel free to take it, if you dare.” He laid will-giver on Rokwolf’s chest and stepped back. A green light flickered in the morgle’s eyes; the creature took one step forward, eager to take the prize, but stopped suddenly, as Rokwolf let out an ear-piercing shriek. The pommel stone glowed brightly, surrounding the sword with golden light as it lay across the bound seklesi’s chest: his skin had begun to smoke where will-giver touched it. He struggled to free himself from the torment but to no avail; will-giver shone even brighter, and the skin visible around the edges of the sword blackened while the screaming grew louder. Sooty black smoke and the scent of burning flesh permeated the room; the face and features of the figure chained and burning were blurred in the hazy red light. The morgle watched this suffering with fascination but remained motionless. Klaybear tried to rush forward and save his brother, but Thal stopped him.
“That is not Rokwolf,” Thal said simply.
Klaybear looked frantically from Thal to the figure shackled, burning, and screaming in agony, trying to see past the smoke, then back again at Thal. “What do you mean?” he exclaimed, trying to get past the maghi and see through the haze obscuring the figure.
Thal shook the kailu. “Look at him!” he retorted. “Where are his verghrenum? And, would will-giver burn one of the chosen?” He let this sink in for a moment before going on. “And where are Sutugno’s verghrenum? You know that no one but one of us could remove them: those two are not who they appear to be!”
Klaybear tried to see, but there was too much of the sooty smoke now obscuring his view. “I cannot really see!” he shouted, pushing past the maghi.
Blakstar turned and looked closely at the figure he had killed, who appeared to be Sutugno; he shifted his gaze to the other figure whose face and features were blurring and shifting, losing the appearance of Rokwolf. In a movement that seemed too smooth for one of his height, clad in heavy armor, the kortexi stepped forward, grabbed his sword, which was still glowing brightly, and put the creature, now obviously a puri, out of his misery by chopping off his head; the room fell instantly silent.
Tevvy, taking advantage of the obscuring smoke and noise, moved up behind the morgle, climbing onto the morgle’s desk so that he would have a close and easy target. The awemi was about to place his hairy foot on the surface of the desk when Blakstar chose to act and silence the noise. Although Tevvy was acting with the care of his kind and profession, a loose sheet of parchment moved, making the slightest rasping sound. The morgle heard and jerked his head around, ducked, and turned to avoid the missile. Tevvy threw the instant the morgle’s head jerked around, but he knew it was already too late; the dagger imbedded itself into the morgle’s right forearm, causing it to drop the rod. The second dagger hit the creature’s left shoulder, even as it started to reach down to pick up the dropped rod. Tevvy pulled another dagger from a sheath at his calf, stepped onto the desk, and hurled it; the morgle twisted around, protecting its more vital areas, and the dagger grazed his left thigh. The morgle left the rod and ran into the smoke toward the north.
“He’s getting away!” Tevvy shouted, and as he did he jumped off the desk to follow. “To the right of the entry hall!” he added, grabbing another dagger from a sheath down the back of his neck. Klaybear followed Tevvy and heard the strangest sound: the sound of running water; he glimpsed a figure moving through the smoke, and heard Thal coughing. In two more steps he moved out of the smoke and saw a fountain in the room’s northwest corner of a kind that he had seen before: in the tomb of Shigmar. On the floor he saw drips of blood moving to the fountain, then moving away to the left; a door slammed shut in that direction. He heard heavy footfalls coming from his left, and saw in the same moment he saw the door, Blakstar and a coughing Thal.
“He went through there!” Tevvy exclaimed. “And he dropped the rod!” he added excitedly.
Klaybear looked at the others. “You better go and find the rod,” he directed. “We’ll follow through here.”
Tevvy shook his head. “One of you should go back into the outer hall,” Tevvy said, “the door at the end!”
Blakstar turned and ran back the way he had come.
“He might be too late,” Tevvy said, watching him for only a moment before trying the door; Klaybear had his mace and staff held ready, both glowing brightly with green light. The door would not open, but it was not locked. “It must be barred or blocked!”
Klaybear nodded, then held up both mace and staff. “Frong-thuro,” he sang with the same ascending notes; both staff and mace flared brightly, surrounded by yellow light, and Klaybear slammed both into the door, which exploded inward. In the flash of light, both saw the rectangular room for a moment, and both saw two figures, one dressed in rags struggling to get away from the other, who wore red and black robes, vanishing through a black archway.
/> “NO!” a voice shouted from the dimness that now filled the room, lit only by a feeble ray of light coming in through what must have been a very grubby window on the room’s north wall. Klaybear immediately recognized the voice as Rokwolf’s; he rushed into the room toward the sound of the voice. The feeble ray of light fell on what must have been an altar at the center of the room; near the altar in the place where they had seen the two figures disappear, they saw a discarded metal dipper and Tevvy’s two daggers. On the south wall of the room sat Rokwolf, naked and filthy, smelling of offal, sobbing, and chained to the wall. A set of empty manacles lay discarded on the floor near where Rokwolf sat sobbing. Another door, opposite the one they had come through, opened; Blakstar came into the room looking around.
“Where is he?” Blakstar asked.
“Disappeared into one of those black archways,” Tevvy said, “at least I think it was him, but he looked more like you wethem then a morgle.”
“He wasn’t a morgle,” Rokwolf choked in a hoarse voice, “he was a red kailu, transformed to look like a morgle,” he sobbed again before going on, “and he took Sutugno with him,” he added, hiding his face in his hands, his body wracked with sobs.
“Where’s Elanor?” Tevvy asked.
At that moment, Thal walked into the room, still coughing slightly. “He did not have Melbarth’s Rod,” he noted, holding up the rod the pseudo-morgle had dropped.
“But she was . . . how do you know?” Klaybear stammered, looking from Rokwolf to Thal.
Blakstar reached for the special flask at his belt, but then his hand dropped to his side. “I don’t have any of the Waters to give him,” he said apologetically, sliding his sword into its sheath and rubbing at the bridge of his nose with his free hand. “Is there some kind of insect in here? Something keeps landing on my face!”
“I tried it,” Thal said, “tried to use it on the mind of the escaping morgle, but I was unable even to touch the patterns of his mind.”
“Sutugno was here?” Tevvy asked, going to Rokwolf’s side and beginning to pick the locks on the manacles, “did you see Elanor?”
Rokwolf shrugged but did not look up. “I woke up chained here,” he replied in a dull voice, “and she was there. I was sure I must be dreaming, because I have often dreamed of her, here. I’m not sure you are here; this must also be a dream.”
The kortexi knelt on the other side of Rokwolf and gripped his shoulder. “I assure you,” he said, “on my word as a kortexi, that I am real.”
Rokwolf lifted his head; Klaybear saw deep, dark circles beneath his gray eyes, his cheeks were pale, haggard, and drawn. “That is what she said,” he croaked, “that is what she said.” He rested his head again upon his knees.
Tevvy succeeded in unlocking the manacles. “There is a running fountain in the corner of the room we were in,” he whispered to Blakstar, “he might feel better if we wash him,” he suggested.
Thal held the rod out to Klaybear. “Take a look at it,” the maghi said, “also, if it were the actual rod, don’t you think he would have used it on us the moment we entered the room?”
Blakstar pulled Rokwolf to his feet, and led him, limping slowly, toward the other room. As soon as he turned toward the doorway, he scratched again at his nose. “Anyone else been bothered by an insect?” he asked, as he helped Rokwolf limp past the altar, going slowly so that his barefoot companion could step carefully and avoid the shattered remains of the door.
Klaybear still felt shocked, but he turned the rod in his hand, trying to focus on what Thal had been telling him. “But it looks like the real thing,” he said, “doesn’t it?”
“It is a very good imitation, yes,” Thal replied.
Tevvy came up beside him, picking up his two daggers and wiping them clean with a cloth pulled from one of his many pockets. “I remember that we looked for the rod with the staff and sword,” he said, “and didn’t the thread from both point in this direction?”
“It did,” Thal replied, “but recall, also, that many things have happened since then, and we have been running from crisis to crisis and have not checked since.”
“That’s not true,” Tevvy said, “because we checked before Rokwolf and I left our sanctuary to go to Rykelle, and we saw that it was still here, but there was something else,” he added, looking at Klaybear. “Didn’t you see something you called an ‘echo’ that looked like another thread, thinner, fainter, pointing toward the east?”
Klaybear thought for a moment, recalling the incident, then nodded. “Yes,” he replied, “it looked like the rod was in two different places: one was here, and the second to the east, but it was faint, barely visible.”
“There is one way to find out,” Thal said, catching up to Blakstar. “We need to use will-giver to check the location of the rod,” he said, and when Blakstar nodded, Thal pulled the sword out; he held it point down, resting it on the floor, his eyes going out of focus for a moment. His eyes went wide with surprise and refocused on Tevvy and Klaybear. “It’s gone.”
“What?” Klaybear and Tevvy said together.
“I see the green thread to the staff,” Thal replied, “but the white thread to the rod,” he paused for a moment, thinking, “I can see that it is still connected, but I cannot see where the thread leads.”
“Which means?” Tevvy asked, slipping one of the daggers into the sheath at his calf and starting to clean the other.
Thal shrugged. “I don’t know.”
The awemi cleaned and slid the second dagger up his sleeve. Blakstar led Rokwolf through the doorway; Thal, Klaybear, and Tevvy followed the kortexi after the awemi stooped and retrieved the discarded metal dipper. He stopped them suddenly. “Wait,” he said, holding up the metal dipper up, “I’ve seen one of these before: in Shigmar’s Tomb, hanging next to the fountain of the Waters of Life . . . that’s how he managed it!” he exclaimed face brightening.
“Managed what?” Klaybear asked, not making the connection.
“Of course!” Thal snapped. “That is why your two daggers were here on the floor, even though he was gone before you arrived: I’m guessing you hit him with them in the other room; he grabbed the dipper and drank while fleeing from you, poured some onto the wounds after removing the daggers.” Thal hurried after Blakstar. “That insect annoying you,” he said, catching up to the others, “is it getting stronger, the closer you get to that fountain?” he asked, pointing to the small basin in the room’s corner, with a simple pipe coming out of the wall.
Tevvy came up on the kortexi’s other side and handed him the metal dipper. “Does this help solve the riddle?” he grinned impishly; Blakstar’s face went from puzzled, to surprised, and finally, to understanding.
Blakstar took the dipper from Tevvy, filled it from the fountain and offered it to Rokwolf. “This will help,” the kortexi said.
Rokwolf drank eagerly, having been given only a single cup of stale water on a good day, and those had been few. When he drained the dipper, he took it from Blakstar, knelt, refilled it, and drank it; three more times he refilled and emptied the dipper, then he began to laugh hysterically as he used the dipper to dump the Waters over his head, face, and neck; he plunged his head into the basin, still laughing while under the water. In seconds his hair, which had been dirty, greasy, and caked with dried dung, was again glossy and sandy brown; he threw his head back, splashing the Waters all over himself, and the others.
“Watch it!” Klaybear complained, but he was smiling at his twin. Tevvy slid behind Blakstar, who did not attempt to avoid the splashed Waters of Life, and the Waters made the kortexi shine, as if his armor were newly burnished.
The streams of the Waters running over Rokwolf’s skin made the filth vanish, so that, not only was his skin pure and clean, but also the floor was clean. Twice more, he dunked his head and splashed the Waters over himself, laughing the while, and when he stood, the cuts and bruises had all healed, and his verghrenum shone as if newly made. He turned toward them, and his cheeks were wet, no
t with the Waters, but with tears that continued to fall, the pain was still visible in his brightly-shining, gray eyes. He started to shiver. “I don’t suppose you have any spare clothes in my size?” he asked. “And some spare rations?” he added. “I cannot recall the last time I had anything decent to eat.”
Klaybear eyed his twin as he dug his spare clothes out of his pack; Rokwolf did look thinner than before. “These are a bit large,” Klaybear noted, handing him the bundle, “but they’ll work until we get out of here; Delgart is outside with the gwenakso, and in fact, he is the commander of the legendary legion.” Klaybear added this last part to cheer up his twin, but he saw instead, a spasm of pain and anger in Rokwolf’s eyes. “He’ll have spare boots, since I don’t have any.”
The Redemption, Volume 1 Page 109