The Redemption, Volume 1

by Clyde B Northrup

  Atno 3523, Late Spring

  The small room with a simple cot was dark, with only a narrow beam of moonlight entering through a window that was hardly more than a slit in the stone wall. Fast asleep on the cot lay a tall, thin young wethi whose mass of long hair obscured his face. Out of the darker shadows of the room, two cloaked figures stepped through the shaft of moonlight to the head of the cot. One figure raised a rod topped with an eye-shaped diamond that glittered coldly in the moonlight, then burst into life, emitting a sickly green light; the second figure held out his hands, which glowed with bloody light.

  “There are two areas,” Gar, the figure without the rod, whispered, “in which the pattern must be altered, such that, when the time is ripe, those meddling fools will discover my symbol written into the very patterns of his mind and thoughts; thus will he be condemned with the others.”

  “As you wish, my lord,” the figure with the rod hissed, and both of them reached forward with hands and the rod, but what they were doing could not be seen in the actions of their hands: their hands and the rod hovered motionless in the air over the head of the sleeping, young wethi, the rod still glowing brightly.

  After a few moments of silence, the figure with the rod spoke again. “My lord, I thought that this one studied with his master,” he hissed, “not here at the school.”

  “He is here to take their trials and to receive his rod,” the other replied, “which is why I moved to this moment to alter his mind, when he was out of sight of his master,” he added, not disguising his derision.

  The figure with the rod thought about this for a moment and realized something, but he did not voice it, wanting to stay on his lord’s good side, for he knew that the sooner he did his lord’s bidding, the sooner he would be left alone to use the rod for his own purposes. The young wethi on the cot groaned and started to turn.

  “You are supposed to be keeping him asleep, Motodu,” Gar growled.

  “Sorry, my lord,” Motodu replied, “but a thought just occurred to me: aren’t these sleeping cells also protected by ortheks that set off alarms if anyone enters or leaves?” Motodu asked as he used the rod to put the young wethi into a deeper sleep; the question was, he realized, foolish, but it was the first thing that came to his mind to cover his lapse. He focused his thoughts on the question so that his master, if he tried to read it, would see only his concern for being caught in his mind.

  Gar snorted. “We did not enter or leave by the door,” he scoffed, “surely you should have realized this?”

  “But wouldn’t his master have prepared for something like this?” Motodu countered, his voice hissing and bubbling. “He is the best thinker and logician of the wethem since the maker of this very rod . . . ,” he started to say but was interrupted.

  “Be careful, Motodu,” Gar noted, cutting him off, “your words reveal your sympathies, and sympathizing with my enemies will cost you everything,” he finished in a quiet but cold whisper.

  These words made Motodu angry, so angry that, for a moment, he forgot to whom he spoke. “Save your threats for your squealing servants!” he hissed. “None of them could touch this rod, let alone use it!” He stabbed the rod toward Gar; the light from the eye-shaped diamond flared bright green, reflecting Motodu’s anger. “None of them could do what I’m doing to the minds of the chosen! Do not threaten me, my lord!” he finished in a hissing whisper as cold and threatening as Gar’s had been.

  A moment of silence followed, then Gar chuckled and pointed one finger at the dark space inside Motodu’s hood that must have been right between his eyes. “Motodu,” he laughed, “you’d better learn to control your tongue, especially in my presence. The next hint of such insolent behavior from you, and this is the last thing you will ever see: the end of my finger pointing directly between your eyes, because what will follow will be a piece of the Void, and you will be instantly obliterated.” Gar lowered his hand and brought his face to within an inch of Motodu’s before he spoke again. “Understand?” he asked in a barely audible whisper, and when, after a moment, Motodu gave a slight nod, Gar pulled back his head. “Then let’s finish this one so we can move on to the next.”

  Motodu bit his tongue and turned back to the mind of the young wethi, now sleeping deeply on the cot before them.

  Atno 3523, Late Spring

  On the northeast edge of the village of Artowgar, all was silent on the farm; even the large, farm cats sat still, eyes glowing brightly in the moonlight as they watched for vermin. Inside the house, the family slept peacefully, although in one small room, a candle burned on a small writing desk where a thin, dark-haired young wetha sat poring over her lessons, working in secret so that neither her family, nor the young maghi she fancied, and who was the apprentice of her mistress’s husband, had any idea of what she studied, tutored by the matron of the tower nearly twenty miles to the west of her village. The work was difficult, and even more so for having to keep it concealed from all others until the time was right; it made for long, weary days, and longer nights with little time for rest, but she kept herself going with an image of the look on the young maghi’s face when she revealed to him that she, too, could use elemental forces. Her mistress had told her it was important, vitally important, for her to learn the art. She glanced at the candle and saw that it had burned down to her mark; she finished what she was working on, whispered a word to hide her books and parchment, blew out the candle, and got wearily into bed. As she drifted off to sleep, she smiled, thinking of the shocked look on his face the first time she would cast an orthek in his presence. She thought she should wait until after they were joined, and they were alone for the first time; she wondered if there was a orthek to make one’s clothes fly off. . . .

  Two figures stepped out of the darkness and into her room; without a word, the taller of the two hooded and cloaked figures nodded, and the shorter held out a rod that glowed with green light. The two stood for a minute next to her head, silent and motionless; the young wetha sighed in her sleep, the smile replaced by a pained look. The two turned their backs on her, the light atop the rod winked out, and they stepped back into the darkness from which they had come.

  Chapter 1

  Only a great fool, one in utter despair or in absolute desperation trusts the word of a methaghi.

  Anonymous saying among the seklesem.

  Atno 3523, Late Winter

  A tall, cloaked, young wethi looked furtively around the darkened street in the merchant district of Holvar. It was two hours past midnight; no one moved along the dirty street but for a few rats and one mangy dog, sniffing around the refuse dotting the street’s edges. The young wethi looked carefully along the street, eyeing all the windows and doors. Seeing no signs that anyone watched him, he slipped silently into the narrow alley and climbed a flight of rickety stairs. Each board creak caused him to wince and glance around, assuring himself that no one had noticed, that no curtain twitched back so someone could see who or what made the noise. On reaching the building’s second floor, and the door at the top of the stairs, he tapped the door softly twice. A tiny panel in the door slid open, and the young wethi gave the correct response. The door opened enough so that he could slip inside, then the door closed quickly and quietly.

  In the small, dark antechamber, the young wethi stood and threw back his hood; a beam of light from a carefully opened bull’s eye lantern showed his young face with the hint of a beard, sandy hair hanging to his shoulders, and bright blue eyes.

  “Aaah,” a voice hissed, “the seklesi who wanted my master to answer an important question for him. If your superiors knew you were here,” the voice continued in sibilant tones, “you could be expelled.” Although the face behind the lantern was cloaked in shadow, the young seklesi sensed that the wethi holding the lantern was smiling widely. “Follow me,” the voice said, covering the lens and turning away. Now only a small, dark red beam of light illuminated the floor.

  The young seklesi followed the dirty, booted feet down a short h
allway. The light stopped; a latch clicked and a door opened, flooding the hallway with bright light. The young seklesi squinted in the sudden brightness, then moved slowly past the hooded figure holding the lantern and into the room. The door closed behind him with an audible thunk. The young wethi stood still, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the brightness. He sensed that eyes were upon him, examining him from head to toe. Once his eyes adjusted to the bright light, he saw a gray-cloaked figure sitting behind a desk between them; the figure’s hood covered both head and face, so that only a bit of gray beard and the end of a long nose were visible. A silver chain hung around the figure’s neck, with a symbol resting at the center of the figure’s chest, a symbol the young wethi recognized as representing the methaghum.

  “You wanted to purchase my services?” a deep, resonant voice asked.

  “If the price is right,” the young wethi replied.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “The future of my second.”

  “What precisely do you want to know about your second’s future?”

  “Will she marry me?”

  A slow chuckle resonated from the gray figure. “That is a difficult and expensive question to answer, and the chances of the answer being wrong are great. Also, she would need to be here, and she would have to agree with what we do. The fact that you have come to me alone, seklesi, tells me she would not. I can only look into your future, and we might see her in it, or we might not. Do you want me to look into your future, seklesi?” the gray figure asked, the last word spoken almost with a laugh.

  “I have to know,” the young wethi replied.

  “You may be disappointed,” the methaghi noted wryly.

  “How much?”

  “100 ghelwum, all in advance.”

  The young wethi choked. “100 ghelwum?”

  “Yes, and if you are not willing to give it to me right now, you will leave and never return to waste my time. I may even tip off your superiors. . . .”

  The young wethi interrupted him. “All right! Here is your money,” he said and tossed a bag onto the desk.

  The gray figure picked up the bag and opened it, saw the gleam of gold, then slipped the bag into a pocket. He waved his hand and a wooden chair appeared opposite him next to the desk.

  “Sit down, seklesi.”

  The young wethi sat.

  “What is your name, seklesi?”

  “Rokwolf.”

  “Tell me about your family.”

  “I am the younger of twin brothers; our mother died in childbirth; our father died a dozen years ago of an injury, just before I came to Holvar. Our village, just to the north of Hoegart and on the shore of the West Sea, was attacked by pirates; my father was injured in the fight, and my older brother by three years was taken, along with several others. We assume that he has died.” The young wethi broke off.

  “Your twin: are you identical?”

  “No, he is of a heavier build, slightly shorter and with curly hair; he looks, we were told, more like our mother and I like our father. Our older brother also looked more like our father and me.”

  “Is your twin also a seklesi?”

  “No, he follows the order of Shigmar, and he is just finishing his studies there.”

  “Describe the wetha, your second.”

  “She is lithe and well-formed, with dark eyes and blue-black hair, about a head shorter than I am. She is from Dolvert, where her parents still live and are merchants. She has a younger brother and sister; her brother trains to become a seklesi.”

  “That should be sufficient.” A large crystal globe appeared on the table between them. The methaghi reached out with both hands and held them over the clear crystal; purple light glowed from his hands, and the crystal filled with dun colored smoke. “Place both your hands on the crystal and concentrate on your second, the wetha.”

  Rokwolf did as instructed. The dun colored smoke swirled and formed the figure of his second, but there was a patch of darkness shrouding the right side of her face. The view seemed to pull away from her, and he saw other figures coalesce from the smoke: his twin brother stood next to a shorter, green-robed figure with honey-flecked brown hair and green eyes: his twin’s new wife.

  “You neglected to mention that your twin was married,” the methaghi said.

  “I forgot,” Rokwolf replied. “They were married last summer,” he added.

  The gray figure sniffed. More shapes appeared. A tall, gangly, white-robed maghi, with wild red hair, and a thin, beautiful dark-haired wetha stood next to him, also clad in white robes; a shining gold kortexi, with straight, dark hair, and beside him a black-robed wetha with blonde hair and haunted, hollow eyes; a pair of awemem, like children next to the others, both with curly hair, his brown and hers blond, and garbed in black-leather that did not reflect the light; and finally, standing next to his second, he saw his older brother, but like his second, the left side of his older brother’s face was cloaked in shadow. Just beyond them was another figure, hooded and cloaked, but the shadows clinging to this figure made the color of the cloak and hood indiscernible beyond some dark color; it was the figure of a tall, shapely wetha, with golden hair that he recognized as belonging to Klare’s best friend, Sutugno, and her presence and her dark colored robe troubled Rokwolf more than he wanted to admit.

  “I sense that these people are, or will be, extremely important to you,” the methaghi said, “that they will each be part of your chosen group, your family, I think.”

  “Why am I not there?”

  “It could be that we are simply seeing the people who will become part of your family,” he said, “since the place is unspecific. If we were witnessing an actual, future event, we would see a specific place. Here, they are present but surrounded by shadows.”

  The globe and table lurched suddenly, almost pulling his hands from the crystal; the scene flashed and winked out, replaced by a hand–his hand–gripping the handle of a sword shaped like the head of an aperu with brightly flashing red rubies for eyes, thrusting the sword into a skinless rib cage cloaked in black, red and blue flames erupted, filling the globe and bathing Rokwolf’s face in light that alternated between red and blue. The sword exploded; his hand burned away, and his hands on the crystal globe felt suddenly hot. Red light exploded from the crystal, knocking both figures back from the globe and desk. Rokwolf’s chair tipped over, and he crashed onto the floor. The methaghi was slammed into the wall behind the desk. Rokwolf got to his feet and brushed himself off.

  “What was that?” he asked.

  The methaghi sat up in his chair, wheezing and struggling for breath. “I . . . ,” he stammered, “I do not know, nor do I know from whence it came,” he finished, his face having lost its former look of arrogance, replaced by a look of abject fear.

  Atno 3524, “The Great Year,” Early Spring

  “Are the scouts returning?” Rokwolf asked his second, a pretty, lithe wetha with long, blue-black hair.

  “Yes,” Marilee replied, “there is a large group of ghelem and purem to the east of our position. The scouts report that they are led by a skeletal figure robed in black, the robe trimmed in red and gold.”

  “Xythrax,” Rokwolf said to himself.

  Marilee nodded. “They appear to have divided into three groups,” she went on. “One group, the largest and led by a trio of ponkolum, is moving north; the second, led by Xythrax, is moving directly toward us,” Marilee said.

  “And the questing kortexi,” Rokwolf inserted, nodding to the flat-topped mountain rising out of the forest to the southwest.

  “Yes,” Marilee replied, “but the third group, the smallest of the three, is led by what appears to be a morgle.”

  “Are they certain?” Rokwolf asked. “They usually do not move this far from the sea.”

  “This one is odd,” Marilee said. “The scouts say he must be some kind of maghi, as he carries a platinum rod through which he wields great power.”

  “What is the composition of ea
ch group?” Rokwolf asked.

  “The group led by the ponkolum,” Marilee answered, “consists of ghelem and purem only, five and three companies, respectively.”

  “A legion–they must be up to something major,” Rokwolf said. “Can we get a message to the companies around Artowgar?”

  “Not before they reach the village,” Marilee replied, “if that is their target.”

  “Well, let’s hope their scouts give them ample warning,” Rokwolf noted. “They should be sufficient, if they have time to gather. What about the group coming toward us?”

  “Ghelem and purem,” Marilee said, “a company each, plus half-a-dozen black maghem and the same number of red kailum.”

  “And Xythrax,” Rokwolf said, “we are outnumbered, and have insufficient maghem to counter theirs. We will have to be careful, never fully engaging them, if we can avoid it, while whittling down their numbers. We will have to move quickly.”

  Marilee nodded. “The third group,” she continued, “has only a handful of purem and some puram, enough to make a single squad, with another half-dozen red kailum; the morgle is the only maghi among them.”

  Rokwolf unrolled a parchment on the ground in front of him; Marilee squatted beside him, pointing out the location of each group.

  “Karasun!” Rokwolf spat. “They could not possibly be heading to Lufkor,” he went on, “since the city is too well-protected.” He tapped Lufkor on the map with one finger. “Unless there are others already in place that we do not know about. There is nothing else of note in that direction.”

  “Melbarth,” Marilee said, “but they would have to pass through Lufkor to get to Melbarth.”

  “I’d like to send half our group to deal with them,” Rokwolf said, “just so we could put them out of our minds.”

  “They are certainly large enough,” Marilee said, “to deal with a single kortexi.”