Rokwolf nodded and took the clothes, dressing quickly; Klaybear’s spare clothing hung loosely on him. “Maybe he’ll have some clothes that will fit better,” Rokwolf said, trying to grin, but it turned into a grimace.
Klaybear smiled and turned toward the others, who had begun to move across the room. “Kweklo-kenawet-patno,” he sang, holding up his staff; an expanding circle of yellow light cleared the smoke, and the air smelled clean and fresh. The two bodies were no longer there; Tevvy shook his head, then stooped to retrieve his third dagger from the floor nearby and moved back to the desk, searching it quickly. Thal followed, picking up a book and thumbing through it before stowing it in his pack. Tevvy moved around the room, carefully searching, while the others watched and waited, talking softly.
“Have you seen Elanor, or any of the other students?” Klaybear asked.
Rokwolf shook his head. “No, but I heard a pair of them talking about some others they had to check on,” he replied, “but I do not know what that means.”
“We did not find anyone on the dungeon level,” Thal added, “nor in the cells on this level.”
Tevvy came back to where Klaybear and the others stood near the hallway opening through which they had entered. “There’s at least one more room,” he said, “through that door,” he pointed behind him.
“Let’s find out what is there,” Klaybear said.
Tevvy turned and walked back the way he had come; the others followed, Blakstar and Klaybear taking out their weapons. Tevvy listened at the door, and then tried it; when he found it locked, he pulled out his picks, and the lock clicked a few seconds later. He pushed the door open, squatting behind the frame out of view. Klaybear saw a rectangular room, twice as wide as it was deep, furnished as living quarters, and filled with the students missing from the scout school of Tevvy’s late father; they were manacled and chained together, sitting glumly along the far wall. Tevvy, still crouching, slipped cautiously into the room, eyes going all around. He paused for a moment, then stood and waved his companions inside.
“This room is clear,” he whispered to the others, “they have not seen anyone for more than two hours.”
“About the time we entered the fortress,” Thal noted.
Tevvy nodded, then moved across the room to where his fellow students were chained and began to pass around his lock picks. “Where’s Elanor?” he whispered to the nearest.
The awema shook her head. “She was taken from us when we were first brought into the dungeon below” she said, “along with the wetha who was ill.”
“Sutugno?” Tevvy asked. “She had blonde hair, was a green kailu, and she came to the school with me and the seklesi, Rokwolf?”
She shrugged. “I never heard her name, but that was the one.” She finished unlocking her manacles and passed the pick to someone else.
Tevvy’s face, hopeful when he had seen them, fell. “Anyone know anything else?” he asked, but without hope. He fell silent for a time, turning inward.
Klaybear, followed by Blakstar, Thal, and Rokwolf, came into the room, looking around while Tevvy went to the prisoners and spoke softly to them. Klaybear noticed a door at the west end of the room, to his right, that must lead back into the hallway; Rokwolf touched Klaybear, stopping him.
“Look,” he pointed at the floor in front of them, then at the door to their right, “notice how this room is arranged so that there is a clear path along this wall,” he next pointed to their left, “but there is no door over there, so why keep the space clear?” He moved past the others, squatted, and carefully examined the floor, moving slowly toward the wall. He stood up when he reached the wall and turned toward the others, a slight grin playing at the corners of his mouth. “I’d wager that there is a concealed door here,” he noted, “as there are tracks in the dust leading into and out of the wall.”
Tevvy was accepting his picks back from the now released group of students. “We must send you back to the school,” he said to them.
“But Tevvy,” one of the younger students protested, “after what has happened, how can you be sure it’s safe?”
“I can’t,” Tevvy replied, “but I can send you to the safe house, and from there you can make that determination.” He looked at the older students. “You know the procedure, and those who escaped, or were out on assignment, will meet you there.” He waited only a moment for the slight nods, then called out, “Blakstar, I need to use will-giver to send these students back to school.”
Blakstar looked puzzled as he walked over to where Tevvy stood with the group of bedraggled students. “I know where the school is, so I can open . . . ,” he started to say, but Tevvy interrupted him.
“I’m sending them to a secret place that my father prepared,” Tevvy said, “in case anything like this happened, and I cannot allow anyone but my father’s students to see where it is.”
The kortexi flushed at these words and was preparing an angry retort when Klaybear put one hand on Blakstar’s shoulder, distracting him.
Klaybear nodded and motioned toward the awemi. “It will be fine,” he said.
Blakstar reversed his sword and set it point down on the floor, allowing Tevvy to take it by the hilt guard with both his small hands; he turned away giving Klaybear one final irritated look before stalking back to where Thal stood. Klaybear sighed, shook his head, then turned back to Tevvy.
Tevvy drew the circle and opened the archway. “Klevvar,” he said over his shoulder, “take two of the other, older students, go through, and make sure it is safe. We’ll be able to see you through the archway, so give us the sign.”
“But, how is it possible?” Klevvar, a thin, tall wethi, stammered.
“I have no time to explain,” Tevvy replied, “for now, let’s just say that it is one of the benefits of being chosen.”
Klevvar’s mouth opened, but he closed it quickly and touched two others, the awema to whom Tevvy had first spoken and another wethi, shorter than Klevvar with a swarthy complexion and black hair, and then Klevvar stepped into the arch, followed by the two he had chosen.
“The rest of you get ready to move,” Tevvy said, and the remaining students lined up just behind Tevvy and to his right. There were sharp intakes of breath as they moved into place and could see into the gray, shimmering archway.
Klaybear turned away from the awemi. He noticed his twin moving away from the concealed door he had discovered, his eyes half closed. Klaybear moved toward Rokwolf and touched him on the shoulder. “What is it?” he asked. “Are you well?” his face wrinkled with concern.
Rokwolf stopped and turned to look at his twin, but it was a moment before his eyes opened and focused on Klaybear. “I . . . ,” he hesitated, looking back in the direction he had been walking, “I don’t know how to explain it,” he went on, his eyebrows furrowing, “but there is something here that . . . ,” he paused again, closing his eyes for a moment, when they opened again, he looked at his brother, “. . . calls to me,” he finished, his face puzzled.
Thal came up beside Klaybear; the white maghi exchanged a single look with the green kailu, and Klaybear shifted his awareness to the mental plane, scanning his surroundings.
I see nothing, Thal thought to Klaybear.
Neither do I, Klaybear thought back.
I’ll stay on this level and watch, Thal noted.
“What do you mean,” Klaybear asked, as Rokwolf was staring at him, “something calls to you?”
Rokwolf looked again in the direction he had been walking. “I don’t know what I mean,” he admitted, “I cannot tell if I hear it in my mind, or if I feel it in my heart, or . . . ,” and then his face fell, “or if I’m going mad,” he finished in a whisper, his eyes falling, head bowing, and shoulders slumping.
“That’s the signal,” Tevvy said from across the room, “on your way through.”
Klaybear took his twin by the shoulders and tried to look him in the eyes, but Rokwolf would not look at him, so he tried speaking to him in twin. “Wolfman, we
hunt together; show me this creature, madness, so I can help you kill him.”
Rokwolf shook his head slightly and looked up; he looked, not at Klaybear, but in the same direction as before.
Klaybear glanced at Thal, but his eyes were still distant; glancing the other way, he saw the archway wink out, and Tevvy heft the sword onto his shoulder and move toward the kortexi, the sword dwarfed Tevvy.
“How do you carry this thing?” Tevvy asked Blakstar, “it weighs more than I do!” he added as the kortexi grasped the proffered handle and lifted the blade carefully off Tevvy’s shoulder.
Blakstar held will-giver up so he could look at it, then he twirled the blade around in the air before sliding it back into its sheath; golden flames licked the blade as he whirled the sword around. “It feels light to me,” he smiled down at Tevvy.
“I’m just glad I don’t have to lug it around,” Tevvy replied. He turned to where the other three stood, with Klaybear still holding Rokwolf’s shoulders.
Rokwolf made to step in the direction he was looking, noticed his twin’s hands, then looked back at Klaybear.
“Why don’t you show Tevvy where the door should be,” Thal said, coming back to himself.
Rokwolf looked at him a moment before nodding once and turning away.
Klaybear let his hands fall, watching his twin move away. “Anything?” he asked in a whisper.
“Nothing that I could see,” Thal replied in the same low voice, “so whatever it is, does not operate on that level.”
Klaybear looked at Thal. “Meaning that it could be working on another level besides the mental,” he noted.
Thal nodded and moved to follow the others, pulling Klaybear with him. Tevvy was carefully examining the walls and floor immediately around the spot Rokwolf had discovered. After a few minutes of careful examination, he stopped and looked at his companions.
“There is a door concealed here,” Tevvy said, “but the mechanism to open it is not here, which means that it must be . . . ,” his voice trailed off, as he had been looking around for something that would open the door; he moved along the wall, stopping beneath a torch bracket that was in the wall above the near side of the bed. He climbed onto the small table beneath it, examined it for a moment, then turned the bracket sideways; there followed several squeaks and clunks of metal. Tevvy jumped down from the table and pushed on one side of the blank space of wall that should have been a door; a door-sized section of wall pivoted on a center hinge and revealed a small, dark room. Tevvy slipped past the side he had been pushing on.
“Elanor?” they heard him speak in a soft voice, “is that you?”
“Telvor?” a weak voice replied, “is it really you, or another puri imitation?”
“There is someone else with you,” Tevvy said.
“Yes,” Elanor replied, “another prisoner.”
Rokwolf’s eyes brightened and he started to move forward but stopped when she spoke again.
“Her name is Fatawssy,” Elanor went on, “she is a pleugle, related to the morgle.”
“What?” Tevvy exclaimed, and outside, his companions were reaching for their weapons; Klaybear raised a mentalic shield and felt Thal do the same.
“Relax,” Elanor added, “she will not harm any of you.”
“Please,” a hissing, bubbling voice implored, “do not harm me. I wish only to return to my people. I was Motodu’s slave before the others came, and he was destroyed.”
“Tevvy,” Klaybear called, “bring them out here so we can speak with them both after Blakstar gives them both some of the Waters.”
Blakstar touched the flask at his belt, and his face flushed. “I forgot to fill it while we were there,” he admitted, and he left the room to go back to the fountain. His actions caused Klaybear to smile; Rokwolf laughed.
Tevvy came out of the room slowly, carefully leading Fatawssy, who was much smaller than the morgle they had seen, and she was in a pitiful state: her skin was dry, cracked, and wrinkled, and Klaybear could see that moving was painful because of it. The tentacles hanging over her mouth were short and limp, and her head was small, not looking inflated as the others had. She had only managed a few steps from the room when Blakstar returned, carrying the metal dipper filled with the Waters. When the kortexi first saw her, he hesitated, seeing her as an enemy, but then he noticed her condition, and walked boldly toward her. Fatawssy saw what he was holding, and she cringed away from Blakstar and the dipper.
“That is water from the fountain,” she hissed, “Motodu told me it was poison, and that I should never touch or drink it.”
Blakstar shook his head. “No, these are the Waters of Life,” he noted, “they give healing to all who drink them. Look, I will show you by drinking them myself.” Blakstar took a drink from the dipper, and his countenance glowed. “You see, they are healthful, not harmful.” He offered the dipper to her a second time.
Fatawssy shrank from him. “No, I dare not,” she replied. “You may be trying to trick me.”
“Tevvy,” Klaybear said. “Go bring out Elanor.”
Tevvy nodded; he came out moments later practically carrying her, and she was thinner, much thinner, than when Klaybear had last seen her. Her cheeks had lost their rosy quality. Tevvy brought her to Blakstar.
“Here, drink this,” Blakstar said, offering Elanor the dipper, “the Waters of Life will restore you.”
“No, Elanor,” Fatawssy hissed, “it is poison; you must not drink!”
Elanor looked up at Blakstar and blinked in the bright golden glow of his aura, then she looked over at Fatawssy. “A kortexi would never do anything that would harm me, especially not this one,” she smiled, and drank from the dipper. The pleugle shrieked, but immediately, the rosy color returned to Elanor’s cheeks, her eyes no longer focused on them or their surroundings, and her face changed to that intense look of someone about to do something rash.
Blakstar put one hand gently on Elanor’s small shoulder, preventing her from getting up and running from the room. “Peace,” the kortexi whispered, “the Waters of Life are potent.”
Elanor’s eyes re-focused on Blakstar, and then her face flushed. “How did you know . . . ?” she stammered, “I was going to. . . .”
Blakstar interrupted her. “This is how all respond to their first drink of the Waters,” he said, “it is of no importance.”
Elanor smiled shyly; her eyes sought and found Tevvy, then she looked toward Fatawssy. “You see,” she said in her usual, high, sweet voice, “I am quite well, and I feel great,” she added, smiling reassuringly.
But the former captive still was not convinced; Fatawssy shook her head. “I dare not!” she protested, but she continued to stare at Elanor.
Thal came forward at this point. “Perhaps I can help,” he said to the others, then he looked at Fatawssy. “You cannot trust us, as you believe that we cannot trust you,” he stated simply, then paused, waiting for the pleugle’s reply; Fatawssy nodded but said nothing. “However, you have information that we need, information that is very valuable to us, for which we would be willing to trade safe passage to wherever you wish to go,” Thal continued.
This declaration surprised Fatawssy, who was now looking at him curiously. “What do you think I know that is so valuable to you?” she asked, her tone more businesslike.
“You know what happened to the morgle who had the true rod,” Thal said, holding up the imitation dropped by the red kailu. “Is this not the reason you were imprisoned?” Thal asked. “Because you saw what happened?”
Although Fatawssy was alien to him, Klaybear could see her look become wary. “If that were true,” she replied, “why would they keep me alive? Why not just kill me?”
Thal shrugged once and started to pace. “Only you know the reason for sure,” Thal went on, “or perhaps you don’t, but I would guess that it could be for one of two reasons: either you are a very powerful person among your own people,” Fatawssy snorted at this, “or you are a close member of his family or c
lan, which would explain why you were his servant,” the white maghi stopped at this point and turned to look at Fatawssy.
“For a wethi,” Fatawssy said, “you are quite smart; I can see now why Motodu went to so much trouble to try and lure you into a trap: I’m guessing the minds of the others are as sharp, and would increase one of my people’s powers phenomenally,” her voice lowered to barely a hiss as she finished. A bubbling sound that Klaybear recognized as the morgle and pleugle equivalent of laughter issued from her mouth as all their hands moved toward their weapons; but her laughter turned quickly into a choking cough, and she held up her pale-green, two-fingered hand.
Blakstar moved forward with the dipper. “You must drink this,” he implored, “before you die.”
Moments passed before she was able to stop coughing and speak again, but her voice was barely a hiss. “At last we understand one another,” Fatawssy whispered, “and I trust that you will not poison me until you have what you want.” She accepted and drank from the dipper containing the Waters of Life, taking, at first, only a sip and then after a moment drinking what was left. Her eyes closed, and she whispered one word, “more.” Blakstar took the special flask from his belt and pressed it into her hand; she tipped it into her mouth, after removing the stopper and slipping the small opening of the flask between her tentacles, she drank and continued to drink, and the flask, as with the poor of Komfleu, did not empty while she drank. Her color changed to sea green, and as her color altered, the cracks in her skin closed, and her skin began to glisten as if it were wet. Her face tentacles began to twitch and writhe around the neck of the flask, and her entire body followed, starting to shake; her eyes flew open but were looking far away, and she dropped the flask from her face and made a noise that sounded half keening and half bubbling, starting to rise, but the kortexi was ready: he caught the flask in one hand and placed the other on Fatawssy’s shoulder, preventing her from rising.
“Peace,” Blakstar said, “the Waters of Life are potent; thus all who drink them alone die.”
Fatawssy’s eyes focused on Blakstar, whose aura had brightened again.
The Redemption, Volume 1 Page 110
