The Redemption, Volume 1

by Clyde B Northrup

  “You know what the price is for betrayal?” a voice rumbled from behind him; bottles fell from the shelves around the room; the ponkolum grinned up at him, as they reeled back and forth, trying to keep their feet while the floor of the room shook. “I might have forgiven your failure, but I cannot tolerate betrayal.”

  A hand reached from behind Motodu, catching the two-fingered hand gripping Melbarth’s rod. White light exploded from the diamond atop the rod; the hand trying to grab the rod was flung back. The last sound Motodu heard was a scream of pain and anger joined with the sound of crunching bones, followed by darkness and silence.

  Thal sat up in bed suddenly, hearing again a strange humming, and he knew instantly the source of the sound. He swung his legs out of bed, grabbing his clay rod and whispering, “magluku.” A globe of light blossomed from the end of the rod, and Thal saw that Blakstar had also sat up.

  “What?” the kortexi said, then he realized what the sound that had awakened them both was, their eyes drawn to the glowing pommel stone of Blakstar’s sword, leaning against the wall next to the head of his bed. He reached out and grasped the hilt of his sword, drawing it from its sheath with a steely, hissing sound. Sickly green flames surrounded the blade, pulsing weirdly in the dim light. Then the green flames were lashed by red flames that engulfed the green for a moment, then the green flashed more brightly, extinguishing the red, and as suddenly as it started, the green flames winked out, the sword resuming its golden glow when held by one of the chosen. Blakstar looked up from the sword at Thal.

  “What was that?” the kortexi asked.

  Thal did not respond right away; instead, he reached out with his right hand and touched the hilt of the sword, shifting his awareness. He saw a thick green thread pointing behind him to where he knew Klaybear lay next to his wife, breath-giver lying beside them. Since they had heard no other sounds but the sword, he guessed that neither of the green kailum had noticed, both still in deep shock over what had happened to them. He saw the thin, white thread that he knew pointed directly to the rod, looking like it was directly south. He held up his rod, whispered, and the rod lifted off his hand and turned to point directly north: one point west of south, he thought. He sighed, dropped his right hand and gripped his rod with the left. “I’d say that the morgle,” he noted softly, “was attacked but managed to repel his attacker.”

  “What were you doing when you touched the sword and with your rod?”

  “Seeing where the rod was,” Thal replied.

  “And?” Blakstar asked.

  “One point west of south,” Thal said.

  Blakstar’s head turned automatically in that direction, looking at one wall of their room. “Any idea how far?”

  Thal thought for a moment of the other times they had seen the threads connecting the three keys. “Farther than it was when we were in the tomb and the morgle was here, I’d guess.”

  “We need a map,” Blakstar said.

  “There is one among the scrolls left by the founders,” Thal said, “but much has changed in more than three thousand years.” Thal thought for a moment. “Wouldn’t Marilee, or Rokwolf, have a current map?”

  “Probably,” Blakstar said, sliding his sword back into its sheath and throwing his white and silver cloak around his shoulders; will-giver’s golden light winked out the moment he released the handle. He pushed open the door, Thal close behind him, and Thal saw Tevvy and the three seklesem sitting around the central table, talking quietly. They looked up, hearing the door open. “Anyone have a map?” Blakstar asked.

  “I have a small one,” Tevvy offered, hands going to his pockets. After a moment, he pulled a folded parchment from inside his cloak. He unfolded it and flattened it on the table.

  While Tevvy pulled out the map, Delgart asked, “Why do you need a map, now?”

  “We were awakened by the sword,” Thal said, standing behind Blakstar and looking over his shoulder.

  The three seklesem and Tevvy exchanged a glance.

  “How did it wake you?” Rokwolf asked.

  “A humming sound,” Thal went on, “then when he pulled out the sword, it was surrounded by green light, then the green was lashed by red, then the green extinguished the red and winked out. We think the morgle must have been attacked and repelled his attacker.”

  “We have heard strange rumbling sounds from above, but no humming,” Rokwolf said, his eyes traveling up to the ceiling.

  “Why do you need a map?” Marilee asked, repeating Delgart’s question.

  “What is one point west of south from here?” Blakstar asked.

  Tevvy took out his dagger and laid it over his small map. “Holvar,” he said, “the Mariskal, and Lufkor. How far away?”

  Thal looked over Tevvy’s shoulder. “Farther than Holvar, I think, but I don’t think as far as Lufkor.”

  “Isn’t there an ancient fortress in that swamp?” Marilee asked, pointing to the map.

  “So legend says,” Rokwolf noted, “but as far as we know the only feature in that swamp is a round dome of granite, like a small hill, near the center of the Mariskal.”

  “Morokolu,” Tevvy nodded, “the locals call it Morokolu.”

  Rokwolf nodded. “The story goes that the fortress was once the home of a kindly lord, who took care of his people; the swamp was not then a swamp, but rich farmland, and the people happy and well-protected by their lord. But the lord married late, so had a son in his old age, a son he indulged, allowing him to have everything he wanted. It was never enough for the boy, so he sought out others of the rising generation who, like him, wanted more than their idyllic life. It is said that they met a lady, who was a ponkola in disguise; she taught them many things, most of them evil. This group of young wethem enticed others to accompany them to these nighttime rituals, becoming either converts or victims of the sordid rites practiced by this ponkola and her followers. They were discovered by the kindly lord, who confronted his son; the son, of course, killed his father and took his place, killing those who refused to join them, replacing his father’s advisors with his own. His fortress became a center of evil, and the legend says that the evil was so great that the fortress itself began to sink into the ground. The great weight of evil, and the displeasure of the One, caused the whole area to sink; the sea rushed in, turning the once fertile farmland into a salty marsh. The sinking of the fortress left all the entrances under water and earth, preventing anyone from entering and discovering the great evil practiced there.” He stopped and shook his head. “I’m not sure I believe the legend–it is a story told by old seklesem to frighten the green members of their squad.”

  “Don’t all legends contain a grain of truth?” Marilee asked.

  Thal nodded. “That is the supposition,” he said, “although we have to understand that there is always another purpose behind the telling of the story in that way; in this particular case, I would bet that the story is told to young parents, to frighten them into being less indulgent with their children, or maybe to explain the errant behavior of rebellious youth.”

  “There is wisdom in that approach,” Marilee noted.

  Tevvy shook his head. “Not to break your reflections here,” he said, interrupting, “but it sounds like a perfect place for the morgle to hide, close to the ocean, since his race comes from the sea.”

  “Not precisely,” Thal said, “remember that the morgle are corruptions by Gar of the wedorem.”

  “True,” Tevvy admitted, “and the purem are corruptions of your wethi ancestors, but my point was to get you back on task. Don’t we need to track down this morgle and retrieve the rod?”

  “Obviously,” Thal said.

  “We cannot do anything,” Delgart said, “until my brother and sister-in-law recover.”

  “We have other work to perform,” Marilee noted, “that we will very soon need to return to.”

  “Yes, mistress,” Delgart smiled, “and so I think we will take Tevvy with us on our return, leaving the rest of you here.”


  Blakstar shook his head. “I must return to Karble and report what happened on the Mountain of Vision, delayed when I was sent north to help retrieve the staff.”

  “Why Tevvy?” Thal asked.

  “I can travel south and gather information,” Tevvy said. “My father might have more information on the area, since his school is in Rykelle, which is on the edge of the Mariskal.”

  “Shouldn’t one of us go with you?” Blakstar asked skeptically.

  “To keep an eye on me?” Tevvy replied, anger rising.

  “Someone should, thief,” Blakstar spat back at him.

  “Enough!” Delgart exclaimed, slapping his hand on the table. “You two need to put your prejudices aside: we have work to perform.”

  Thal cleared his throat. “I need to return to my . . . ,” he started to say, a stab of pain causing him to stutter, then went on, “my tower and enter the geuskeldu there, in order to advance. Also, my parents may have left information for us, to help us with our work.”

  Delgart nodded, then thought for a moment. “I think that Blakstar and Thal should travel to Karble, and then Thal’s tower. Tevvy can travel with us back to Holvar, then on to his father in Rykelle.” He turned to look at each of them in turn, then looked at his younger brother with a wry smile. “That leaves you, Rokwolf, to stay here with Klare and Klaybear.” He held his eye for a moment until Rokwolf shrugged and looked down. “The only problem I see is with communication.”

  Both Thal and Tevvy shook their heads.

  “That is no problem,” Thal noted, “we learned that with the keys we can communicate by opening a small archway to whomever we want to communicate with.”

  “Tevvy does not have a key,” Delgart noted.

  “Nor is that a problem,” Tevvy said. “We can also signal each other through our verghrenum,” he went on, holding up one arm. “We can set up a time each night when we will check our verghrenum: when I have information to communicate, I can signal either Thal or Klaybear, who can then open the small archway to me, that way I can share whatever I find.”

  “What if my twin brother does not wake before you have information to share?” Rokwolf asked.

  Tevvy thought for a moment. “I could contact you, instead.”

  “How will I know?” Rokwolf asked.

  “I’ll show you,” Tevvy said, raising his arm and preparing to touch the proper symbol on his verghrenum. “Just wait a moment, and you’ll understand,” Tevvy instructed, then he touched the symbol and said, “Rokwolf.”

  Immediately, Rokwolf’s eyes widened. “Can I do that?”

  Tevvy shrugged. “I guess, although no one else has tried.”

  Rokwolf looked down at his verghrenum, then touched the symbol for the klitodweri, then said his name.

  Tevvy nodded. “Yes, it seems to work.”

  “How will you return?” Delgart asked.

  “I can contact Klaybear or Rokwolf,” Tevvy said, “either one can bring me back here.”

  Delgart’s brow wrinkled. “I think we need to be very careful about whom we talk to or share information with. Remember what happened here a few days ago, and that some of us are under the sentence of death.”

  “From what we saw above,” Thal noted, “I doubt there is anyone alive who will remember that sentence.”

  “It was unjust,” the kortexi said.

  “Nevertheless,” Delgart said, “word of what has happened here, and who is responsible, will travel faster than we will. We must be very, very cautious.”

  Thal nodded. “Shigmar said as much,” he said, then went on to explain what they had seen when the staff and sword were inserted into the altar of Shigmar’s tomb.

  “We must enter the city above and look for survivors,” Delgart said, “before we go anywhere.”

  “Yes,” Marilee said. “When Rellik returns with our squad, we will be doing exactly that.”

  “I don’t think we should share the knowledge, or the location, of this sanctuary with our squad,” Delgart said to Marilee.

  Marilee nodded. “That is why I said we would meet them at the gate. Then we can enter the city through one of the sewer grates, or the main sewer entrance.”

  “I can show you where that is,” Tevvy added.

  Marilee nodded.

  Several hours later, Thal and Blakstar were awakened again by the sword; the kortexi pulled out his sword and held it up, green flames touched the edges of the blade, then red flames lashed at the green, and soon extinguished the green. Thal opened his mouth to speak, but as he did, white light erupted from the sword, causing both to squint, and the white light consumed the red, winking out as suddenly as it appeared, plunging them into golden silence. For a moment, both of them sat silent and still, then Thal reached out, as before, and saw the white thread going in the same direction.

  “What does it mean?” Blakstar asked.

  “I don’t know,” Thal replied, “maybe the rod itself lashed out at both the morgle and whoever attacked him.”

  “Right at the point where the green,” Blakstar said, “appeared to have been overcome by the red.”

  Thal sighed and sank back into bed. Blakstar returned the sword to its sheath, plunging them into darkness, and lay down. Moments later, his breathing slowed and Thal could tell he had fallen asleep for the third time that night. Thal continued to think and wonder about what had happened to the morgle holding the rod. He had survived the first encounter, but what about the second? If he had been operating, as Thal believed he was, under orders from Gar, Thal wondered what the price of failure was to Gar: is that why the morgle was attacked? Agents of Gar, or Gar himself, come to punish him for his failure? And what had happened at the end, when the white light consumed the red and green flames? Who had won? Or did some other power intervene? These questions continued to trouble Thal’s mind as the white maghi fell into a fitful slumber, red and green flames, and brilliant white light, flashing across the surface of his troubled thoughts, punctuated by a rumbling sound as enigmatic as the lights.

  “We cannot go up this way,” Tevvy said, “the stairway is blocked by rubble.” They were looking at the stairs where the two city guards had entered the sewers. Marilee, Delgart, Rokwolf, and Blakstar, along with the kailu, Grelsor, and the maghi, Luthina, from Marilee’s squad, stood behind Tevvy. All had their faces covered with cloths, not because of the smell of the sewers beneath Shigmar, but because the air was choked with dust. Tevvy reached out to touch the bars of the iron door, and the door crumbled at his touch, raising more dust in the passageway. The group was surprised to find, when they reached the bridge to meet up with the rest of the squad, that the sewers were empty of water, and Rellik reported that water was no longer falling outside. The reason why no water flowed was easy to see, as all the passages, including the river, were blocked by rubble, as if the entire ceiling had collapsed. Only the passage that ran past the entrance to their sanctuary was open, and only to a point a few yards past the entrance.

  “You could send someone to check the dungeon entrance,” Tevvy said, “see if they managed to clear the section that collapsed: we could enter the school that way.”

  “Where is it?” Rellik asked.

  “About fifty yards east,” Tevvy replied, “a ladder on the right side.”

  Marilee nodded to Rellik. “Take two others and go up into the school dungeon.” Rellik nodded and pointed to Grelsor and Reena, who followed him east.

  “There is still the grate I used to enter the sewers the first time,” Tevvy said, “at the west end of this passage. It is near Klaybear and Klare’s home, in the southwest quarter of Shigmar.”

  “We can go there after Rellik returns,” Marilee said. “Delgart, why don’t you go with Tevvy, Rokwolf, and Blakstar, and take Lidelle, Hrelga, and Kreega, and go check the grate. Wait for us there.”

  Tevvy and Delgart nodded, moving west with the others.

  They found the ladder; Tevvy climbed up and picked the lock in less than a minute. He waited silen
tly at the top of the ladder, listening for any sounds from above. After a few minutes, he climbed back down.

  “I can hear more rumbling sounds from above . . . ,” Tevvy said.

  “We can hear them down here,” Blakstar interrupted.

  “Yes, of course you can,” Tevvy replied, trying to keep his voice level, “but I hear no sounds of people moving around.”

  “It is still very early in the morning,” Blakstar said.

  “True,” Lidelle noted, “but this is the quarter of the city where most of the students who live outside the school are housed; many of them have duties that should have them heading from their homes to the school by this time.”

  “If any still live,” Tevvy said.

  “I saw what it did to anyone who it touched,” Blakstar noted.

  “So did we,” Lidelle put in, “we saw our fellows from other squads, along with the purem and ghelem that were in the sewers, literally consumed by the wave. And you say it was caused by Shigmar’s staff? Not the staff of his office, surely.”

  “No,” Blakstar said, “it was a staff he made after leaving the school, one that was hidden with him in his tomb.”

  “It is called, ‘breath-giver,’ or the staff of life,” Tevvy said.

  “Yes, and what has the power to give life, also has the power to take life,” Blakstar added, “and that is precisely what it did.”

  “Did you have any idea what would happen if you used this staff?” Lidelle asked.

  Both Tevvy and Blakstar shook their heads. “We only knew,” Blakstar said, “that it would save Shigmar.”

  “By destroying everyone?” Lidelle said. “That seems to be an odd usage of the word, save.”