The Redemption, Volume 1

by Clyde B Northrup

  Klare stood and straightened her robes. “Can we see them?”

  Myron smiled. “That is why I met you here.” Myron tapped his staff once on the floor, canceling the ward surrounding them. He moved to and then shifted one of the dividers separating them from the rest of the room. Klare went forward, her hands already surrounded by green light. Klaybear staggered back when he saw their faces, falling onto the floor as if he had been struck.

  Klare heard him hit the ground and turned back from the bed, pulling the Headmaster with her. She rushed to her husband’s side, and with the help of Myron, pulled him to his feet.

  “What happened?” she asked, concerned.

  “It happened again,” Klaybear panted, his eyes focusing after several confused moments, looking first at Klare, then at Myron then back at her, “as soon as I saw their faces I was hurled back into the vision, seeing again some of the parts related to them, but with more than I saw yesterday.”

  “Can you tell us about any of it?” Myron asked.

  “I’ll try,” Klaybear replied, “but I have to be very careful; if I think of it too closely, I’ll be hurled back into the vision.” He stood on his own and tried to relax. “I saw Delgart crawling across the sand, trailing blood, and dying, but then he was rescued by a red-haired maghi, who tripped a gheli then chopped off the gheli’s head.”

  “That is what happened yesterday,” Myron said, “the red-haired maghi is Kalamar’s apprentice.”

  “What about the seklesa?” Klare asked.

  “I saw her fighting with purem,” Klaybear went on, “then she was captured and forced to drink from a bottle. Yesterday, I saw her healed by a kortexi, but today I saw them both, Delgart and the seklesa, only half of each face was healed by the kortexi, the opposite halves. Then I saw them both fully healed, wearing golden crowns with five points and golden armor, both holding scepters topped with eagles.”

  “Forced her to drink from a bottle,” Myron said, tapping his chin, “that must be how they gave her the disease, but how your brother got it, I cannot fathom. He was in a different wing, and she has been isolated here in this room since she was brought in.”

  Klare left Klaybear’s side and was moving again, hands glowing, toward Delgart. She held her hands out, over and just above, moving slowly from foot to head. She stopped for a moment over his stomach, feeling a wound in his side, then moved on, stopping her hands over his head another moment before turning to the seklesa. She again moved from foot to head, holding her hands over the seklesa’s forehead for a moment. She then altered what she was doing, holding her hands over the seklesa’s mouth. For a long moment she held her hands steady over the mouth, sweat beading on her forehead, and the green light under her hands intensified. More moments ticked slowly past, sweat running down her cheeks now, when, only for a moment, something absolutely black, like a hole opening between Klare’s hands and the seklesa’s diseased mouth, started to rise from the seklesa, putting out the green light under Klare’s hands. She swayed, catching herself on the edge of the bed. She felt Klaybear reach out to her side to support her, but she shoved him away with one elbow and turned back to Delgart. Her hands glowing again and her face dripping sweat, moving to hover over his mouth. When nothing happened, she shook her head and moved down his body, then lowered her hands to his side.

  “Blanket,” Klare hissed between clenched teeth, and waited until Klaybear lifted the blanket out of her way, revealing his bandaged side, just above his hip. As before, the light between her hands and his wound intensified, and for a moment, blackness came out of the wound, then snuffed out her light before sinking back into Delgart’s body. Klare slumped again, and felt Klaybear’s hands catch her before she sank to the floor. Myron moved one of the chairs closer, helping Klaybear get her into the chair.

  “Was that anything like the darkness you saw in my husband’s wounds?” Klare asked Myron.

  “I believe so,” the Headmaster replied. “I would have thought that you already would have known, having examined your husband using your gift.”

  Klare shook her head. “I was so shocked by his appearance and behavior, that I did not think to examine him.” She sighed, then continued. “Now I do not have the strength to make the effort: I spent too much energy trying to draw the darkness out of them,” she nodded toward the beds.

  “Even though I just finished saying that a kortexi heals them both,” Klaybear noted, raising an eyebrow at her.

  “But you told me last night that every person you saw in vision had two fates,” Klare reminded him, “even me.”

  “You haven’t spoken of two fates,” Myron said, and then held up his hand. “Perhaps it would be best if we started at the beginning: what happened to you in the glade?” Myron turned to Klare. “I’m guessing you already heard the tale?”

  Klare nodded.

  “All right,” Myron went on, “I want you to go to the Infirmary’s east wing and find out who was on duty last, and if he or she noted anything unusual in the log. I left Delgart around the 16th hour and he was found with this disease just after the morning bells rang. If you need to get whoever was on duty, find Master Avril, he knows what is happening and can be trusted, as you already know.”

  Klare nodded and sighed as she got to her feet.

  “Of course,” Myron added, “if you are too tired . . . ,” he left it hanging.

  “I can walk,” she snapped. She kissed Klaybear before storming from the room and slamming the door.

  Klaybear cringed when the door slammed then shot his master a sheepish grin. Myron smiled, then led Klaybear to the other side of the room where they sat down. “Now tell me what happened.”

  “Is it safe to speak here?” Klaybear asked.

  Myron tapped the floor between them twice, spoke the words, and the ward surrounded them.

  “When I entered the glade,” Klaybear began, “I forgot how concentrated elemental energy is there, and drew too much, so I sent a bolt of pure power into the sky.”

  Myron chuckled. “Everybody does that.”

  Klaybear went on. “I asked the trees to forgive me and was answered by a voice, which surprised me. I looked up and saw a figure sitting in the stone chair, dressed in perfectly clean boots and ironed robes, perfectly groomed hair and beard, both brown, with bright blue eyes,” and when he said this, the Headmaster’s hands tightened around his staff but he made no other sign. Klaybear continued. “I renewed my connection to the elemental forces, then asked who he was. He replied that he was a messenger sent by no one. He went on to say that he was both message and messenger, to both open and close my vision, along with other contradictions. He then said he was there to give me a vision, cut off my connection to the elemental forces, and I blacked out. When thought returned, I found myself lying in a shadow-world, and a piece of shadow reached out and took my hand, burning me with this mark.” Klaybear held up his right hand. “I tried to scream in pain, but no sound came out. I felt limp in body, mind awake, but unable to do anything. My hand was released and a second piece of shadow touched my forehead, pulsing and stabbing into my head like fire. When the shadow withdrew, I heard a voice, his voice, I think, coming as if from a great distance.”

  “What did he say?” Myron asked, “can you remember?”

  Klaybear swallowed hard, then nodded. He could still hear the voice echoing inside his head. When he spoke the words, his voice did not sound like his own: “Now your waking will be little better than the nightmare of your sleeping. Awake, the sign will mark your separation from those whom you would save. Asleep, the sign will open visions of your future, and the horror of your visions will leave you sleepless. Then, perhaps, you will truly taste the bitterness of being chosen.”

  Myron sat with his hands folded on his knees, holding his staff. He was looking at his hands. “Those are the words you said to Klare and me before,” he spoke slowly, as if the words pained him, “when you seemed to fall into a trance, but the voice was alien, not your own.” He sighed and
fell silent and they did not speak for a time before Myron indicated that he should go on.

  “After the voice, the shadow withdrew and I was hurled into a vision, as I said, with the images all smashed together. After a while, the vision stopped and I seemed to hear a voice calling me. I opened my eyes and saw the altar fallen and the same symbol burned into the surface of its top. I tried to scratch it out, but this action only reminded me of the pain in my hand and forehead, and I was hurled into the vision a second time. But this time, everyone who I had seen in the first vision had a different fate in this second: with Delgart, instead of dying on the beach I saw him rescued by the red-haired maghi, who you said was Hierarch Kalamar’s apprentice. After I saw a different set of fates, I saw the face of a kindly old wethi whose blue eyes seemed deep and filled with stars. He said something about being chosen and bitterness, images I do not understand, then the whole thing repeated, but in reverse, ending as it began, with Delgart on the beach.”

  “What sort of images,” Myron asked, “the ones you do not understand?”

  Klaybear thought for a moment, vision turning inward, trying to recall the images without re-starting the vision. “I saw oceans heaving and mountains rising, trees growing, animals and fish, and then males and females of all races walking. There followed some kind of gathering of many people, someone was confined underground, but managed to tunnel out and steal children. Then I saw purem fighting, followed by the old wethi again, then everything in reverse.” Klaybear focused on Myron. “Does that make any sense to you?”

  Myron looked up and smiled. “It sounds like the beginning of the world, when all things were made, when Gar was forced into the underworld, how he escaped and stole children from all races that he used to create his servants. The kindly old wethi you saw, I suppose, is the face of the One, or ‘Great God,’ as he is named in some early texts. Seeing a vision of the beginning is usually part of what the new kailu sees when he or she enters the glade. Is that all that happened?”

  “After the end, or should I say, the beginning,” Klaybear continued, “I managed to free myself from the vision. It was then I tried to heal my wounds and failed. I crawled to the stream and started to wash my hand, when something strange happened. As I looked at the mark in my palm under the water, I noticed the same mark on my forehead, reflected on the stream’s surface. When the reflected mark touched the mark in my palm, fire exploded out of the water and I was hurled back into the vision, the vision repeating forward, then in reverse, before I regained consciousness. It was at that point that I took one of the sleeping potions, resting without visions until late in the afternoon.”

  Myron thought for a moment before speaking. “You said you saw your brother, Delgart, Kalamar’s apprentice, the seklesa, Marilee, and Klare mentioned herself and the awemi you found. What did the kortexi look like?”

  “He had black hair,” Klaybear said, “and when I saw him healing the seklesa, he was wearing white and gold.”

  “His name is Sir Blakstar, I believe,” Myron said, “the Wesento has mentioned him before as one of the most promising. Did you see anyone else?”

  “Yes, my twin brother, Rokwolf. He . . . ,” Klaybear began, but could not continue for a moment. “His fate was the same in both versions. I saw him leap in front of Hierarch Kalamar’s apprentice, and he was destroyed by a purgle. I think he kills the purgle at the same moment as the purgle kills him.”

  “You’ve already mentioned the double fates seen for Delgart and Marilee, what about Thalamar, Kalamar’s apprentice?”

  “He is killed by the gheli he kills in the second vision, while rescuing Delgart.”

  “What about the awemi?”

  “In the first, he is caught in a web and consumed by a monstrous, misshapen spider-like creature, with a puri face, but is rescued in the second.”

  “And Klare?”

  If Klaybear had trouble speaking about his twin, Rokwolf, then speaking about Klare’s fates was even harder. His eyes filled with tears, and he choked trying to get the words out, so he coughed to cover it. “She dies in both,” he finally managed, “apparently pregnant. But in the second, I saw a staff flare green, a rod flare white, and a sword flare gold, and she came back to life, which is, of course, impossible.”

  Myron sighed and eyed him for a long moment before speaking. “Well, no one has ever been able to bring someone back. Are you sure she was dead?”

  “Yes, quite sure.”

  “There is a legend,” Myron said, “a very old legend, that Shigmar had the power to bring people back to life, but that he refused to use it.” Myron tapped his chin again, thinking. “Did you see anyone else come back to life in your visions?” he asked.

  “Now that you mention it, I think I did,” Klaybear replied. “There was a part, after I see Klare, where I think Gar kills someone on an altar. In the second version, that person on the altar comes back to life, and then Gar is taken by a black whirlwind into the Void. I think, although it is very blurred and hard to discern, that some of us, including me, are there, somehow participating in the event.” Klaybear stopped, then looked directly at his master, Myron. “Do you have any idea what this might mean? Why have I been marked with the sign of evil?”

  Myron sighed and looked away. They sat in silence for a time, and the minutes dragged slowly by. Myron finally turned back to face him. “Klaybear, I . . . ,” he began, but stopped when they heard a knock at the door. Myron tapped his staff on the floor, canceling the ward. He stood and faced the door. “Come,” he said.

  The door opened and a white-robed novice, a young wethi, about twelve years, stepped in. His eyes were wide with fright. “Headmaster,” he stammered in a piping voice, “two young wethem have just teleported into Shigmar. One is a red-haired maghi and the other is a kortexi whose very presence creates awe. They request an audience with the Headmaster. What shall I tell them?”

  Klaybear saw his master’s hands grip his staff, the knuckles going white. “Bring them to me, here,” he replied, and Klaybear noticed a slight quaver in his master’s voice that he had never before heard.

  The novice gave a quick, although stiff, bow then scampered away, closing the door.

  Myron mumbled to himself; Klaybear could just make out a single word, sounding like a question: “Already?”

  Chapter 9

  There exist five known dimensions: three dimensions of space, namely, length, breadth, and depth; add to these time for the four basic dimensions. We discovered, or perhaps created, the fifth, rumepant, through teleportation ortheks, in which all places and telepads are equidistant. We theorize that there is at least one more, in which all places in our space exist in the same place. Thus, travel between places in our normal three dimensional space may be possible by opening a doorway into this theoretical sixth dimension. . . .

  from the Annals of Melbarth, Fifth Series, Early Lectures of the Hierarchs

  Lecture by Sedra Melbarth

  The images glimpsed in his vukeetu danced across Thalamar’s mind as he lay in bed, waiting for sleep to take him. He knew that some of the interruptions to his seeing, flashing in unison with the lightning of the unnatural storm, related directly to the young wethi he had rescued from the ghelem, a wethi who appeared to be related to the twin brothers he had seen. Thal suspected that his master had somehow inserted those images to test him, since he had said that rescuing the fallen wethi was Thal’s job, but Kalamar denied it, falling silent when Thal had asked him about it before bed. The other interruptions troubled him, but he could not tell why. The images seemed related to what he had seen in his vukeetu, for the faces were the same as those he had seen: the twin brothers–kailu and seklesi–the black-haired kortexi, the seklesa with blue-black hair, the awemi, and the female kailu with brown hair. Thal suddenly realized that it was their professions, and oddly enough, their hair color that distinguished them, and wondered why he noticed those details. He knew that they would be his companions, and from what he had seen, their lives would
be, at times, perilous.

  He turned onto his left side, hoping the movement would dispel the images long enough so he could fall asleep, but his mind raced back to the interruptions, trying to make sense of what he had seen, an action that was difficult, as the images had been smashed together in a way that made it impossible to separate them for discrete contemplation. He wondered about the figures and actions he had seen at the end: the red-robed figure with the color-changing eyes stabbing the wethi tied to the altar who had been tortured. Stabbing someone, or something, on an altar usually indicated some kind of ritual, in this case, a sacrifice. He knew that the red kailu order practiced human sacrifice; the victims’ blood spilled to please Gar, Lord of Evil. Gar . . . that was it! He recalled having read somewhere that Gar had strange eyes and supposedly preferred robes dyed by the blood of his victims, but why would he be performing the sacrifice, unless it had some sort of cosmic significance, and further, who was the sacrifice?

  Thal rolled onto his right side, listening to the crickets and frogs, letting their repetitive sounds fill his mind, silencing the images and the questions they invoked. His breathing slowed; the night breeze wafted through his window the scent of roses, growing in the garden below, and the scent conjured an image. The image floated across the now smooth surface of his mind, carrying with it the smell of the flowers after which she was named. He could almost hear her voice. . . .