The Redemption, Volume 1

by Clyde B Northrup

  “Something is coming toward us!” he shouted. “It looks like . . . ,” he started to say, then shouted, “row!” He sat quickly down grabbing the tiller with both hands. Blakstar and Klaybear were startled by his command, and took an extra second to respond. “Together!” he shouted. “Hang on!”

  As the kailu and kortexi started to row again, the boat started going up and down in the water, then started moving up as a huge wave came toward them. Tevvy turned them directly into the wave, and the rowing enabled them to climb up its steep front, then fall sharply over its back side, speeding them up. As they crested the wave, they were struck by a roar of sound that howled over the top of them and rumbled beneath them. The boat rose up and down several times after the first wave, their rise getting smaller and smaller; they heard the sound rolling away from them. The surface of the water smoothed; the boat slowed back to its previous speed as the rowers lifted their oars looking stunned.

  “That must have been some orthek,” Blakstar said, “if it could cause a wave like that, as far away from it as we are.”

  “So what was it?” Tevvy asked.

  “Shock wave,” Thal said, “and Blakstar is right, from an incredibly powerful orthek.”

  “Have I lost my hearing,” Klaybear noted, “or did I hear what sounded like many voices singing in that roar of sound that passed over us?”

  “I thought it sounded like singing,” Thal replied, “but the voices were . . . otherworldly.”

  “Know any ortheks that would cause a shock wave like that one?” Klaybear asked.

  Thal rubbed his chin. “Maybe if ten of the most powerful maghem linked together,” Thal said, “the way the black maghem and red kailum do, but the problem with linking is that we cannot construct a rod or staff capable of channeling that much power, which was some kind of light or lightning explosion . . . ,” his voice trailed off; Tevvy continued to tap the cadence with his free hand; Klaybear and Blakstar rowed on in silence.

  Blakstar shipped his oars and turned over the body floating in the lake; the face was contorted, as if the black maghi had died in great pain. “What do you make of it?” he asked.

  “He didn’t drown,” Klaybear noted, “or the body would be bloated with water; he died before he was hurled into the lake.” Klaybear looked around; there were other shapes floating in the lake nearby, more black-cloaked figures, some red-cloaked, and bodies of purem and ghelem. They could just see the north shore, and on the nearby hill, could see the spot of green-white light growing brighter, illuminating the white marble front of a building. They could see the strip of sand at the shore in front of the hill, and the dark spots strewn across it.

  “There are more bodies on the beach,” Tevvy noted.

  “Yes,” Thal said, still seated in the prow looking forward, “someone has sprung the trap for us.”

  “But who?” Tevvy asked. “And why?” He looked at Klaybear. “Do we dare land?” he asked.

  The kailu lifted his oars and turned to look at the shore they glided toward. “Is it me, or do those bodies form a pattern on the beach?”

  “I had noticed,” Thal put in, “and was wondering about that myself.”

  “It does look like an arc,” Tevvy said after standing and shading his eyes to look, “an arc whose center is . . . ,” he began and Thal finished his thought.

  “That building,” Thal said. A thought suddenly occurred to him. “You don’t suppose that building was the source of the teka explosion we saw, whose shock wave hurled the bodies into the pattern we apparently see, nearly swamping us several miles away?”

  Klaybear shrugged, dipping his oars to continue rowing. “Unless there is some powerful being hiding in the shadows of the building we see.”

  Tevvy sat down and grabbed the tiller. “I take it by your rowing,” he said, “that we are going forward?”

  Klaybear nodded. “The staff is inside of that building,” he noted, “and we are supposed to retrieve it, so we have to land the boat and approach the building.”

  “Is it safe?” Tevvy asked. “What if the building, or whoever might be hiding up there, decides to attack us too?”

  “We are the chosen,” the kortexi said simply, looking back and frowning at the awemi, “we are meant to approach it.”

  “How do we know that?” Tevvy asked. “How do we know that building is Shigmar’s tomb? Didn’t you say, Klaybear, that you have been to this spot before and have never seen a building? How do we know that Gar did not create this as an illusion to trick us into landing here, so that he could capture us?”

  “I’ve been to this spot several times with Klare and Rokwolf,” Klaybear said, “and we have never seen a building on that hill, but that does not mean that the building is an illusion created to trick us.”

  “He has a point, though,” Thal said. “If we assume for a moment that the morgle is acting on his own, then he might have sent these troops here to wait for our arrival, without knowing that Gar had placed some sort of lethal trap to prevent us from entering. So it is possible that these troops of the morgle accidently set off one of the wards placed by Gar to keep us out of Shigmar’s tomb.”

  “All the more reason,” Klaybear noted between strokes, “for us to approach with caution, but we cannot determine what it is without approaching it to see if it is real or illusion.”

  Tevvy shook his head, mumbling to himself. “My grandmother was right.”

  When they reached the shore, Tevvy went forward first, to examine the area around the hill while the others beached the boat and removed their packs from it. The awemi moved east across the beach, carefully examining the tracks and the bodies strewn across the sand. He left the beach and entered the woods northeast of their landing point. The others took a tarp from the boat and used it to cover the boat, securing it with long, thin metal stakes driven into the sand. The kortexi moved toward the west when they had finished, also examining the sand and the bodies.

  “It does look,” Thal said, watching Blakstar, “like the explosion centered on the hilltop.”

  The kortexi looked up from the corpse he was examining. “These were not climbing the hill,” he said, “I think they were moving toward the woods that surround the hill.”

  “So you don’t think,” Klaybear said, “they were trying to approach the building on the hilltop?”

  Blakstar shook his head. “I’m no seklesi,” he noted, “but that is what it looks like.”

  They heard a whistle from the direction Tevvy had gone. They looked in that direction, saw him wave them over.

  “What is it?” Klaybear asked as they came to the edge of the trees.

  “Follow me,” Tevvy said, turning away from them and the beach. “I think these troops have been here a while.”

  “What makes you think that?” Blakstar asked.

  “There is a camp all through these woods,” he noted, “just beyond sight of the beach. The fires are all out, but it looks like they were put out suddenly, and only a few hours ago. As if they received some signal that we were approaching.”

  Thal stopped suddenly. “A signal?” he said, “a few hours ago?” he added after a moment. The others were looking at him, wondering what had occurred to him. His face lit up. “Of course!” he exclaimed, “so simple, now that I think about it.” He looked at Tevvy. “You sent them the signal.”

  “What?” the other three said in unison.

  “Not to our enemies,” Thal added, seeing Blakstar’s suspicion growing. “You signaled the building on the hill, which we believe is Shigmar’s tomb.”

  “You are not making sense,” Tevvy said, looking puzzled, “how did I signal that building that wasn’t there before?”

  “When you turned the key in the statue,” Thal said, smiling.

  “Are you saying,” Klaybear said, “that when you turned the key in the lock on the statue pedestal, and the statue shot a ball of light this direction, that light was the signal?”

  Thal nodded. “Yes,” he said, “that lig
ht activated the building on the hill, making it visible for us to see and enter. Gar, or the morgle, it really doesn’t matter which one, knew where the tomb was located, and also knew that it would not become visible until we activated the statue in Kalbant. So, Gar sent troops here to wait, knowing that we would be coming here soon, telling them to watch the hilltop and when a building appeared, conceal themselves and wait for us to arrive. The ball of light from the statue was not moving very fast, so it would have taken some time for it to arrive here, not as long as us, of course . . . ,” he stopped, interrupted by Klaybear.

  “But about the time,” Klaybear noted, “we saw the flash of light.”

  Thal nodded. “The troops here saw the ball of light, saw the building appear, and started to move into the woods around the hill. But Shigmar knew, when he created this place, that Gar would know where his tomb was located, and so put in place a teka explosion that would clear the area of Gar’s troops, allowing us entry, so that we would not have to fight our way past Gar’s troops to enter his tomb.”

  Tevvy looked skeptical. “That is a lot to deduce, from what little we have found,” he noted. “I still don’t think that means it is safe to approach the tomb, if that is what it is. Nothing we have found here precludes the possibility that there is a powerful creature hiding in the shadows of the building, waiting for us. If the morgle sent the troops to catch us, without Gar’s approval, he could have sent someone, or come himself, destroyed the morgle’s troops, and is now hiding in the shadows waiting for us to blunder up to the tomb. We still need to be very careful.”

  “I don’t think we should not be careful,” Thal said, “since there may be other wards protecting it from any approach.”

  “Right,” Tevvy said, “then I’ll go ahead and make a sweep around the hill, to see what I can find; you three can go back and wait by the boat. It shouldn’t take more than half-an-hour.”

  Blakstar was shaking his head. “I’m coming with you,” he said.

  “You’ll only slow me down,” Tevvy objected, “so I’m going alone.”

  “No, I’m coming with you,” Blakstar said, “I’m not so trusting as the seklesi.”

  Anger twisted Tevvy’s face; he looked up at Blakstar. “Fine,” Tevvy said, “but stay a good distance behind me, so I can act without worrying about the noise you are making.”

  “I won’t make any noise,” Blakstar said.

  “Maybe not that you can hear,” Tevvy retorted, “but even when you are only breathing, I can hear your chain mail tinkling.” He turned and strode off without looking back.

  Blakstar looked to the others for support. “I move as quietly as he does,” he said, “and my chain mail does not ‘tinkle.’”

  “Have you forgotten,” Thal began carefully, “that the hearing and sight of the awemem are sharper than ours?” he finished slowly.

  “I haven’t forgotten,” Blakstar said. “He’s a thief; I don’t trust thieves.” He turned and followed Tevvy.

  Thal and Klaybear exchanged a look, then both sighed, turning to go back to the beach where their boat was concealed.

  “Not a soul anywhere nearby,” Tevvy said.

  “Any bodies?” Thal asked.

  Tevvy shook his head. “None beyond the beach.”

  “That is odd,” Klaybear said.

  Blakstar nodded. “Very odd, since they were waiting for the signal that we were about to arrive. I would think that they would only put a few soldiers on watch, while the others would be in their camps, waiting. But it looks like there was no one left in the camps, that all had come to the beach, which doesn’t make sense to me.”

  “Nor me,” Tevvy said. “There is something else,” he said, looking wary.

  “What?” Thal asked.

  “The shock wave that hit us on the lake,” he said, “was very large. If it came from the building on the hill, I would think that an explosion of that size would also flatten the nearby trees. Yet, not a single tree around the hill has lost even a needle.”

  “The teka explosion could have been directed only this way,” Thal said, “so the trees would not have been affected.”

  “There is still a problem with that,” Tevvy went on, “if it was directed at the troops only on the beach, where are those who would have been waiting in their camps?”

  Thal thought for a moment. “There are three possible explanations,” he began. “Those remaining in the camps could have seen their comrades destroyed by the teka, and been so frightened that they ran away.”

  “Why would they put out their fires before leaving?” Tevvy asked.

  Thal shrugged. “There could have been something that attracted all the troops from their camps when the building appeared,” he went on.

  “Again, why would they douse the fires?” Tevvy said.

  “In that case,” Thal replied, “because they knew we were coming, the signal of the building appearing, then they went to investigate whatever appeared afterward.”

  Tevvy shook his head. “You’re stretching, I think. And the third possibility?”

  “Some kind of teka that does not affect plants,” Thal answered, “that only targets the creatures of Gar.”

  “Have you ever heard of such an orthek?” Tevvy asked skeptically.

  Thal shook his head. “I cannot even imagine how to weave the elements together to create an orthek that was selective in its destruction.”

  “So, what you’re saying,” Tevvy said, “is that there still could be someone hiding in the shadows above, since that is the simplest way to explain what has happened here?”

  Thal shrugged. “We used the time while we were waiting for you to return,” Thal said, ignoring Tevvy’s question, “to look for teka wards around the hill, and we did not find any, at least up the slope of the hill.”

  Tevvy shook his head and went to the pile of packs, pulling out the smallest and strapping it onto his back. He started up the hill, looking for any non-teka traps. The other three put on their own packs and followed him to the top of the hill, where they crouched.

  “Wait here,” Tevvy whispered. He dropped his pack and moved to the left, staying just below the brow of the hill.

  From where Klaybear, Thal, and Blakstar waited, they could see the white marble building directly in front of them, the green light shining from the center of its front. The hilltop was flat without trees; brown grass, flattened by the snow, covered the hilltop, although they could see new green shoots just poking through last year’s growth. There were several short, scrubby bushes growing randomly around the hilltop, with old grass growing up and partially covering the bushes; dead brown leaves, blown there by late fall winds, lay piled around the bushes, now stirred by a light breeze breaking the calm, blowing from the south.

  “It is a place of great power,” Thal whispered, “but I do not see any wards preventing us from approaching.”

  “Nor I,” Klaybear said softly.

  Blakstar stood and started to walk toward the building.

  “What are you doing?” Thal hissed.

  The kortexi paused and looked back. “You do not see any wards,” he said, “and we are the chosen. I say that it is safe for us to approach.”

  “What if someone is hiding out of sight?” Thal whispered.

  Blakstar shrugged. “I expect that you will put me back together, if he leaps out and blasts me apart.” He turned and walked forward; they could see Tevvy approaching from the other side, so they got up and froze, seeing one of the clumpy bushes shaking and not from the breeze. The kortexi passed the bush, and a huge figure rose up out of the leaves and grass, many aspen leaves clinging to his dark red skin, but Klaybear could see the horns and wings of a huge ponkolu, head and shoulders taller than Blakstar. Before the kailu could shout a warning, the ponkolu slammed into Blakstar from behind, knocking him to the ground and sending will-giver flying in another direction. The huge ponkolu knelt on top of the kortexi, knees on his back, and pulled back his head with one hand, pressing a wic
ked-looking, curved dagger against Blakstar’s throat; the huge figure pulled the fallen kortexi around, turning himself at the same time while keeping one knee on Blakstar’s back to face Klaybear and Thal; Blakstar stopped struggling, the dagger scratching his throat at the edge of his mesh suit and beneath his chin, his head was bent back so far by the figure.

  “Drop your weapons!” the ponkolu hissed, his voice sounding oddly slurred. “Put your hands on your heads!”

  As Klaybear and Thal complied, they saw that the figure’s face was covered in blood, as were his arms and torso, and his features looked strangely blurred, as if they had endured a great heat; leaves and grass covered the figure, sticking to the blood covering him.

  “Where is your rat?” the ponkolu growled, looking quickly around. “Show yourself, rat, or I will slit your friend’s throat!”

  “He, uh, left to scout the area,” Thal lied.

  The ponkolu made a choking sound that must have been laughter. “You are a poor liar!”

  “You’d better run!” Klaybear said, nodding toward the white building. “I think the tomb is about to finish what it started–see the light is increasing in brilliance, you have only moments before it strikes again.”

  The huge ponkolu laughed again, a choking sound. “Then we will all burn!”

  “I don’t think so,” Klaybear replied, “since we are meant to be here, and you are not.”

  The figure growled and shoved Blakstar’s head and face into the ground, removing the dagger from his throat and stabbing the kortexi in the back between his shoulder blades; the blade snapped, foiled by Blakstar’s golden chain mail and mesh suit. The ponkolu hurled himself backward away from Blakstar, throwing the handle of his now useless dagger at Blakstar and hitting him on the back of his head. Blakstar hissed in pain; the ponkolu opened a black archway and disappeared into it just as a green beam of elemental force shot from the tomb and exploded against the closing archway.

  Klaybear sighed audibly. “That was close,” he said, looking over and seeing Tevvy moving cautiously out of the shadow of the white building, the green light now concentrated in a single star-like point at the center of the side facing them.