The Redemption, Volume 1

by Clyde B Northrup

  “The test has already been disrupted!” Tevvy shouted back. “There is no way out of this circle, not even the way we came!”

  Blakstar turned from the tentacles that had momentarily withdrawn, concentrated a moment, and dragged the point of his sword over the stone in a circle, lifting it to form the arch when he had drawn the circle. The gray arch flared to life. “Hurry!” he shouted, “before he recovers!”

  Tevvy leaped through the arch, followed closely by Thal, Klaybear, and then Blakstar, but as the kortexi stepped through the arch, several tentacles reached inside, grabbing him and pinning his arms to his sides, pulling him back through the arch. His sword slipped from his fingers, its golden light going dark, falling to the sand where his stunned companions stood; the arch winked out.

  Chapter 13

  A search must be made among the people over whom we hold sway to find those unskilled persons matching the future quartet who will be called “chosen.” These will be sent, in groups of four–three wethem & one awemi–directly into the tomb of the original kailu; these groups must be placed under compulsions to return to us, should one of them succeed, after obtaining the secret artifact of enormous power hidden within. While it is unlikely that any of them should succeed, the small chance that one might is worth the risk and loss of life, for we could, in a simple stroke of good fortune, thwart the chosen long before they are even born, and enable our master to break out of this prison, enthroning him–the Great Lord–forever and toppling the realm of the usurper. . . .

  from Archives of the Red Kailum, Records of the Magsamel,

  Order#153-7625, issued atno 537

  Blakstar’s sword thudded on the sand; Thal, Tevvy, and Klaybear stood looking at it, stunned.

  “This isn’t right!” Tevvy exclaimed. “He was supposed to open a doorway back to Shigmar’s tomb; where are we?”

  “No idea,” Klaybear replied, looking around. They were on a small island surrounded by green ocean, waves rolling in. There were scattered palm and coconut trees around them; the center of the island was a mountain that disappeared in the sky overhead. The sky was bright, but there was no source of light visible.

  “I think,” Thal began, “that we are still in the water realm,” he finished, looking up at the mountain behind them. He turned back to where the sword lay and stooped to pick it up.

  Klaybear was looking at the beach. “I’ve seen this before,” he said, pointing down at the beach, “in the dream I had before we entered this realm. And . . . ,” he started to say but stopped, remembering clearly what he had seen.

  A brilliant white light flashed far out to sea, growing suddenly bright then winking out.

  “What was that?” Tevvy asked.

  “No . . . ,” Klaybear began but was cut-off by a rumbling sound that grew louder, approaching from the direction of the light. The ground under their feet shook for a few seconds, sending them reeling across the sand, and when the shaking ceased, the water withdrew down the sand.

  Tevvy stood, shading his eyes and looking in the direction the water had gone. He turned suddenly, running toward the mountain behind them. “Run!” he shouted, “a wave is coming!”

  Thal and Klaybear followed, Thal carrying the sword awkwardly. Tevvy scrambled over the rocks, trying to stay ahead of his larger companions; Klaybear caught up to him, scooping the small awemi onto his back, where Tevvy clung to his pack. They managed to claw their way to a shelf twenty yards above the beach when they heard the roar of the wave reaching the beach. Turning, they saw a wave that must have been fifteen feet high, rolling over the beach and nearly covering the trees, crashing into the side of the mountain below them, splashing and soaking them in spray. The first wave was followed by several more, the next few waves larger than the first, then the rest smaller, until the surf returned to what it was before. From their position above, they could see that things had washed up upon the shore, one of them shaped like a body.

  Tevvy slid off Klaybear’s back just as the kailu started back down.

  “No,” Klaybear whispered to himself as he jumped down from the shelf and slid down the rocky slope to the sand. He ran down the beach to where the body bobbed in the surf, grabbing the white cloak with gold trim and dragging it onto the sand. “No,” he said again, then stooped and rolled the body onto its back, saw the face he had seen in his dream. He heard the others coming near and put his hand on the chest; he was surprised to find that it was still warm, and put his ear against the chest, listening. He heard a faint beat, and he immediately rolled him onto his side, pushing on his middle to force the water out of his lungs. On his third squeeze, the wethi started to choke and cough, drawing wheezing breaths between fits of coughing. The wethi sat up, wiping the water and hair from his eyes. Klaybear looked at his pale face more closely, and he realized at once that it was not Blakstar, although the face was similar. He had seen this wethi before, but he could not recall where.

  “There are scorched pieces of tentacle,” Tevvy said, coming up next to Klaybear, “and pieces of the wedoram the kortexi cut in half.”

  “How are you?” Klaybear asked.

  The stranger looked at him, then scrambled backward on the sand away from the green kailu. “Stay back!” he exclaimed, eyes wild with fright. “Stay away, wepanum!”

  “We are not,” Klaybear said, a catch in his voice.

  “Why do you think we are wepanum?” Thal asked.

  “I saw you arrive, popping out of thin air,” the wethi replied, “as all wepanum come and go.” He continued to crawl backward until he came to a coconut tree. “You’ve come to torment me again, as if being trapped here is not enough!”

  “How did you come here?” Thal asked.

  His voice changed; his eyes looking far away. “We came here looking for treasure,” his voice sobbed, tears flowing, “poor sons of poorer fathers. We heard rumors of a tomb filled with gold, and a red kailu who wanted something hidden in the tomb,” his voice became flatter and duller as he spoke. “We all had girls we wanted to marry, but were too poor to interest their fathers. So we went to Belford, and we found the red kailu who started the rumors, hoping to attract someone to enter the tomb for him. He said we had to be inexperienced, and that he would send us into the entrance, with supplies to help us get through it. He told us how to activate the doors, what we would face, and how we could have everything we found, except for the special artifact at the end. We had to swear a blood oath that we would die if we did not bring the artifact to him. He told us that he had sent others, and that none of them had succeeded. While he spoke, he placed an orthek on us without our knowledge, so we could not refuse.” He pounded the sand with both fists, his voice angry, eyes wild. “And what did we find?” he shouted. “Torment! Death! And madness,” he finished, his voice softer, a defeated whisper, his hands grasping the sand, lifting, and allowing the sand to leak slowly out.

  “How many?” Thal asked.

  Tevvy sidled slowly around, taking a small dart and a bottle out of his belt pouch, moving casually away and around behind the wethi while he was distracted.

  The wethi’s eyes focused on Thal, then he went on. “We were four, four fools!” he finished with an angry shout.

  “What happened to the others?” Thal asked, voice gentle.

  “We made it easily through the earth realm,” he said, voice calm, looking away from Thal, “and managed to make it through the fire, although none are sure how. Then we got to this . . . ,” he picked up a stone and hurled it at the waves still rolling in. Again, his voice grew suddenly loud and angry, “this accursed realm! The wedoram came, becoming our girls, promising to fulfill our every wish, but Rax and me were not fooled. When the others started to follow those foul fish, we ran for it, hoping to escape with our lives.” His voice became soft again. “We almost made it.” Voice louder, angrier. “That giant squid got Rax, and I ended up here,” soft voice again. “I found the portal; there’s a trail back there,” he said, pointing over his shoulder.
r />   Tevvy was now behind the man, ready to jab him with his drugged dart, but Thal discretely held up his hand.

  “Why didn’t you leave?” Thal asked.

  The wethi started to laugh, laughter that became maniacal, then trailed off into a sob. “Because the door will only open if all of us are there,” he replied dully, “so I have been stuck here, I don’t know how long. I used to dream of going to some tropical island as a boy, where I did not have to work but could relax and enjoy the sun, sand, and sea,” he said this in a dreamy voice, but then his voice changed again, becoming a whine. “But the sun never sets here: do you know what it’s like to be trapped in the same day, forever? I hate the sea!” he screamed, grabbing and throwing stones into the water. “I hate the sand! I HATE THE LIGHT!” he howled, then his voice became soft again. “I tried to drown myself when the wave came; I had climbed a tree when you wepanum appeared, but you saved me. YOU SAVED ME!” he howled again, leaping to his feet, hands clawed and starting at Klaybear. But Tevvy was waiting for just such an action, and the dart hit the man’s neck just as he started to run at Klaybear; he took three steps and fell into the kailu’s arms, limp. Klaybear eased him to the ground.

  “Is that true?” Tevvy asked, bending to retrieve his small dart, wiping the tip off with the man’s cloak.

  “Is what true?” Thal replied.

  “That we cannot leave if all of us are not here?”

  Thal shrugged. “Probably.”

  “He said that he could not leave,” Klaybear added.

  “What do we do about Blakstar?” Tevvy asked.

  Thal looked for a moment at the sword he still held. “What can we do?”

  “In my dream,” Klaybear said, “I thought I saw him, floating face down in the water on this beach, but it was this wethi,” he pointed at the wethi in front of him. “In my other visions, he appeared alive and well, doing things we haven’t yet done; he and Delgart will rescue you,” he nodded to Tevvy, “from the webs of a monstrous, spider-like creature.”

  “But didn’t you also see a version where no one comes to rescue him?” Thal asked.

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Klaybear replied with resignation.

  “I saw him, too,” Thal went on “in my vukeetu, doing things we haven’t done yet, so I cannot accept that he is . . . ,” he hesitated, “gone.”

  Tevvy held up his arms. “What about these?” he asked, indicating his verghrenum. “Didn’t you use them to find me in the sewers?”

  Thal’s face brightened, and he held up his left arm, touching the symbol for the kortexi with his now glowing right forefinger. He held it there for a minute, his eyes traveling up; his brow wrinkled. He looked back at Klaybear. “You try it, and tell me what you see.”

  Klaybear lifted his arm and touched the kortexi symbol, and his eyes, like Thal’s, traveled up. “The line goes straight up, disappearing far overhead.”

  Thal frowned. He touched the symbol of the kailum, and whispered, “Klare.” His eyes traveled up. He then tried the seklesi symbol, and his eyes traveled up.

  Klaybear recognized what he was doing, tried the same symbols, whispering the same names, with the same results. Then he touched the maghi symbol and saw a thick line going right at Thal.

  “So what are you seeing?” Tevvy asked. “You both look puzzled.”

  “What does it mean?” Klaybear asked Thal, ignoring the awemi.

  “We are present in this realm,” Thal replied, “and he is not.”

  “How is that possible?” Klaybear asked.

  Thal shrugged, looking out over the waves. “I wish I had thought of it earlier,” he said softly, to himself.

  “Why?” Klaybear asked.

  “Will one of you explain what you are talking about?” Tevvy said, exasperated.

  Thal sighed. “I think we explained before that the verghrenum we all wear are connected to each other, so that we can locate one another using them,” he began. “When we touch one of the symbols with teka, we can ‘see’ a white line leading to whichever one of us we are trying to find; that’s how we found you in the sewers.”

  “I cannot use teka,” Tevvy interrupted, “so how does it help me?”

  “That pair was made for you,” Klaybear noted, “so maybe you don’t need to use teka.”

  “Good point,” Thal said, “since the founders knew you would be one of the chosen, surely they would have taken your abilities into account; try touching the maghi symbol.”

  “The one that looks like that?” Tevvy asked, pointing to the chain around Thal’s neck.

  Thal nodded; Tevvy touched the symbol and saw a thick white line going straight to Thal.

  “Try the kortexi symbol,” Klaybear said.

  “The water vessel with the eye?” Tevvy asked.

  The others nodded; Tevvy touched the symbol and saw a thin white line going straight up.

  “Now try the kailu symbol, whispering my wife’s name when you touch it,” Klaybear said.

  “The hand with the eye?” They nodded; Tevvy did as instructed, saw another white line going straight up, then he tried the seklesi symbol, whispering “Rokwolf,” and saw the same thin line going straight up. He looked at the others. “So what does it mean? Does it mean that Blakstar is still alive, but he is no longer in this realm?”

  Thal and Klaybear looked at each other for a moment, then Thal shrugged. “Maybe,” the white maghi said, “but we can only say for sure that he is not in this realm, whether alive or dead we cannot say for sure.”

  Tevvy looked out to sea, then looked up at the sky. “He is alive,” he said.

  Thal laughed. “How can you say that?”

  “Just a feeling,” Tevvy replied. “If he were dead, since he is so important to our purpose, I think I would lose hope.”

  Thal shook his head, then started to walk up the beach away from the sea.

  “Where are you going?” Tevvy asked.

  “To find the portal,” Thal replied.

  Klaybear squatted next to the wethi on the ground and hoisted him over his shoulders.

  “Why are you bringing him?” Tevvy asked.

  “If he is right,” Klaybear replied after standing, “then we will not be able to leave without him. Besides, I cannot leave him here to suffer any more.”

  Tevvy nodded and followed Thal into the shade under the coconut trees.

  As Klaybear stepped through the portal back into the tomb, the weight of the wethi on his shoulders lightened suddenly.

  “Where’d he go?” Tevvy asked, but then his mouth fell open as the kortexi stepped out of the portal behind Klaybear. “How?” he spluttered.

  Klaybear and Thal turned and saw Blakstar; both grinned.

  “What happened?” Thal asked.

  “How did you get here?” Klaybear asked at the same time.

  Blakstar shrugged. “I do not know,” he replied, taking his sword from Thal and sliding it, with a steely hiss, back into its sheath. “After Potwedi grabbed me, I remember there was a flash of brilliant white light, and I was suddenly released. I stood in the light on my feet, how, I do not know, but I heard a voice speaking to the Lord of the Sea, telling him that he had broken the conditions of the test, and that he would be confined to his squid form for an age for what he had done. Then all was silent, and I saw a gray shimmering somewhere ahead. I walked toward it, and stepped into this room right after you did.” He looked at Tevvy. “Who’s gone?”

  Tevvy still stood looking at the kortexi, mouth gaping. “Wha-huh?”

  “A wethi we found on an island in the water realm,” Klaybear replied.

  “Island?” Blakstar asked, looking puzzled.

  “Yeah,” Tevvy said, finally able to speak, “the island to which you opened a archway. I wonder what you were thinking as you opened the door?”

  The kortexi looked puzzled. “This room,” he said, “didn’t I send you here?”

  They shook their heads.

  “We stepped through onto a beach,” Thal sa
id, “you started to come through, but then the tentacles grabbed you and dragged you back, leaving your sword behind.”

  Blakstar’s brow wrinkled, then his face brightened. “I remember,” he said, “I remember thinking that this room was strangely bright, and the floor didn’t feel like stone, and then I lost the sword, and you know the rest.”

  Tevvy snorted and shook his head.

  “Anyway,” Klaybear said, “we reached the island, and we soon saw a great flash of light out to sea, which must of been the light you saw, followed by an earthquake, a tidal wave, and then the wethi, apparently drowned by the wave. We revived him, but he had completely lost his mind. Odd thing, though,” Klaybear paused, “at first I thought he was you, and when I saw he wasn’t, I thought he looked familiar.”

  Thal nodded. “He looked familiar because we had seen him before,” Thal noted, “in the fire realm; it was the same wethi.”

  “Yes,” Tevvy said, “you are right!” Now it was Tevvy’s turn to be puzzled, “what does it mean?”

  Klaybear shrugged. “Must be part of the test.”

  “Yes,” Thal nodded, “it was part of the test, although an incidental part in the water realm, since it seems to me that our virtue, and fidelity, in your case . . . ,” he indicated Klaybear, and he looked at Blakstar and stopped: the kortexi had gone pale, and he turned suddenly away. They heard him sniff softly.

  “Where next?” Blakstar asked without turning back.

  Thal thought for a moment, tapping his chin. “Ice,” he said after a moment.

  “What makes you say that?” Tevvy asked.

  “Well,” Thal replied, “we have been to three of the five elemental planes, first earth, followed by fire, then water, so logically, ice must be next, then air.”

  “Because,” Klaybear added, seeing Tevvy’s next question, “earth, water, and air are the three central and primary elements, fire and ice are secondary elements. We visited the primary element, earth, then a secondary, fire, then primary, water, so next should be ice.”