Jean Rabe - Redemption

The raft tipped dangerously with Fiona’s added weight. Ragh tore strips from her tunic to tie her hands behind her, and he ordered Maldred to watch her. However, the ogre-mage had to pay more attention to Dhamon, who was feverish and delirious.

As Dhamon had done, Ragh used the haft of the glaive to pole them along the shallow side of the river. The moon showed the way and provided enough light for him to nervously watch his charges.

“Why in honor of the Dark Queen’s brood am I doing this?” he muttered. “I could be away safe somewhere, away from the demented Knight and this treacherous ogre. Away from Dhamon, who might be better off dead.”

Dhamon twitched, beads of sweat glistened on his forehead, which still showed mostly human skin.

Underneath bandages dark with blood his scales gleamed. As Ragh watched him, he saw a small patch of skin on Dhamon’s jaw darken and bubble. The area, about the size of a small coin, swelled and took on a dark sheen, became a scale.

“It’s my fault,” Ragh muttered. On their first expedition to Shrentak, he had gone into the city with Dhamon, to the old sage’s laboratory. Dhamon had sought a cure from the old crone and fell unconscious during his suffering from the scale. Dhamon never realized the old crone’s cure was working. While he was unconscious she had demanded as a price for the cure that Ragh stay with her as her dutiful pet.

Ragh took offense and killed her, hiding her body when Dhamon woke up, telling Dhamon she’d given up and left.

He had prevented Dhamon from gaining that cure he desperately needed.

It was his fault Dhamon was looking less and less human every day. He told himself now he might have forced the sage to help. Killing her had been the easy way.

“His fever is breaking,” Maldred turned to him and said.

“Maybe we should have let him die. Better that than to live as he is becoming,” Ragh said, watching his friend twitch as if caught in some dream.

In fact, Dhamon was dreaming. He was dreaming of the storm in Fiona’s eyes. He saw Rig trying to find his way through the storm. The dark-skinned mariner called Fiona’s name, then Shaon’s. Raph was there, too—a young kender who had died in Dhamon’s company. Jasper too, and countless nameless faces—Solamnic Knights and soldiers he’d killed on battlefields when he wore the armor of a Knight of Takhisis.

The storm raged wilder, its darkness obscuring all the faces, the thunder drowning out Rig’s cries for help. When the storm finally abated, an enormous cavern materialized, lit in places by streaks of lightning—not from a storm—from the mouths of blue dragons. The dragons flew along the ceiling, around rocky outcroppings and stalactites, swirling closer to the Father of All and of Nothing. Chaos.

Dragons fell, some batted away by the god’s hand. Others rose up and swooped in to take their place.

Lightning continued to streak, sulfur filled the air, and Chaos’ shadow grew monstrous wings.

Maldred pressed his back against the stone wall of the alley. It was dark, well past midnight, heading toward dawn. Though the fading moonlight didn’t quite reveal his presence, nevertheless he stuck close to the wall, curling his fingers in the mortared gaps. The air was chilly, a big change from the humid swamp, and his breath blew away from his face in miniature clouds. He found himself shivering and wishing for boots and a heavy cloak. His bare feet uncomfortably registered the cold that had settled deep into the ground.

He stood there for several minutes, listening to the noises from the street beyond. He heard nothing unexpected—a sudden outburst of raucous laughter from a tavern that was just around the corner, the splash of something being tossed out a window, and the thunk of two pairs of boots against a wooden sidewalk. Two ogres, judging from the heavy footfalls, one perhaps drunk. Maldred waited, watching where the alley emptied onto the street, drumming his fingers.

“Why do we stay here? What is it we are waiting for?” That was the musical voice of Sabar, and Maldred turned to glance at his companion, registering the nuances of the shadows and locating her thin, purple-draped form.

Does she feel the cold? he wondered. She gave no outward sign that she was affected. Sabar seemed real, but he suspected she was just some pleasing manifestation of the crystal’s enchantment. The cold wouldn’t disturb her magic.

Ragh had protested when Maldred pulled out the crystal ball and coaxed Sabar to appear. Although the draconian was occupied poling the raft, he threatened to stop and toss the crystal into the river.

Maldred somehow managed to convince the draconian that he might be able to use the crystal’s magic to find a way of helping Dhamon. Ragh finally had backed off, with a warning:

“I’ll be watching you closely, ogre.”

“Are you watching for something?” Sabar asked the ogre-mage.

Maldred drew a finger to his lips. “Yes.” A pause. “Well, no. Nothing in particular. I just…” His head snapped back as the bootsteps grew louder. The two ogres passed the alley entrance and continued on down the street.

“I am curious. Why did you wish to come here?” Sabar persisted. She put a hand on his arm, her fingers feeling like real, clammy flesh. “To this place….”

“Blöten. The city’s called Blöten. The capital of all the ogre territories.” Maldred shrugged, edging toward the end of the alley. “I needed to see this place,” he said after a few moments. “To see if anything’s changed since I was last here.”

He leaned out, peering north. The street was for the most part dark, for the most part lined with ramshackle buildings perhaps long abandoned. The moonlight showed rubble on the street. It was as if the city was falling down around its inhabitants. There was a light burning in one second-floor window, shabby curtains fluttering. A soft glow emanated from a window in a house on the next block.

The tavern was a few doors down. Light and coarse laughter spilled out, and something that passed for music. The two ogres were down the street, one weaving and gesturing. The drunk one had a wooden mug tied to his wrist so he wouldn’t lose it.

“No place for a lady,” Maldred mused.

“Yet I must always accompany you while you are inside the crystal,” Sabar reminded him.

Inside the crystal. Were they really inside the vision, as she claimed? He shook his head, white mane of hair flying. It felt as if they were in Blöten. He felt the cold gravel beneath his feet, smelled the musky odor of ogres. It was all very convincing, but moments ago Maldred had been on the raft with Ragh, Fiona, and Dhamon. He’d asked Sabar to show him this city. He’d leaned close, trying to see better, and he let the crystal drink in his magical energy, hoping that might brighten the darkness of the image. It was night on the river and dark inside the crystal ball. Before he knew it he found himself in the Blöten alley, the mystical guide at his side. Sabar had to assure him more than once that he really wasn’t in Blöten, that his body was still on the raft, fingers wrapped around the crystal.

“Only your mind is here, O Sagacious One,” Sabar told Maldred again and again, “and I must accompany it on this journey.”

“Then accompany me now to my father’s palace,” Maldred requested, touching the alley wall one last time. It certainly didn’t feel like only his mind was here. His body was cold, as it always was in Blöten. “I need to speak with him.”

They strolled by the tavern. Maldred glanced in, saw a dozen or so ogres around weathered tables.

They were man-like, ranging in height from seven to nine feet, broad-shouldered and muscular, with wide noses, wide-set eyes, and bulging veins on thick necks. They were all Maldred’s kin, yet not a single one looked quite like him. His hide was blue. Theirs ranged from tan or umber to a dusky yellow. Scars and warts decorated their arms and faces. One thing most of them had in common was broken or crooked teeth protruding over bulbous lips.