Jean Rabe - Redemption

“These are your people,” Sabar said.

Maldred nodded.

“And yet…”

“I look different from them,” Maldred finished.

“Yes. You are….”

“Blue. Yes, that’s the obvious thing. And bigger.”

“Is it the magic inside of you that gives you your blue color?”

Maldred shrugged. “I guess. Those few of my race who are sorcerers look something like me. Blue skin, white hair. We stand out, even among ogres.” He gave a chuckle. “Though my old friend Grim Kedar is as pale as ivory, and there’s magic about him, too, so it’s not always true that ogre-mages are blue.”

“You don’t care much for your people, do you? Or your homeland?”

The questions caught him off guard. “Down this way” he said, pointing, ignoring the questions, “and then west a very short distance. My father’s palace is there.”

They spotted only one other ogre out on the weathered wooden sidewalks, a hunchbacked youth with a shuffling gate. He was across the street from them, and glanced in their direction, hesitating for a moment, before continuing on his way.

“That one looks sad,” Sabar noted.

Maldred walked faster. “Most of my people are unhappy.” But it wasn’t always that way, he added to himself. It wasn’t that way until the great dragons settled in, and it got worse when the swamp of the Black started to swallow their land. A race of proud warriors and fearsome bullies, the ogres had been beaten down by forces beyond their power to understand or defeat.

They turned west. The buildings in this area were in somewhat better repair, and most of them appeared lived in. A thick candle burned in one window, voices drifted out of another. There was fresh paint on this street and less debris.

“Most of the wealthy live around here,” Maldred said by way of explanation, “if you can call them that. They really don’t have much.” He nodded at the end of the street. “But you can indeed call my father wealthy.”

The “palace” covered an entire block and was well kept compared to everything else they had seen.

However, dead grass stretched up through cracks in a stone walkway and choked out what once had been spacious flower beds. There were two burly ogres standing on either side of a wrought-iron gate, and they snapped to attention when they spotted Maldred. He saw other guards inside the gate, clinging to the shadows. His father had increased security since his last visit.

“The hunchback we passed on the street and now these guards,” Maldred said to Sabar. “If only my mind is here and my body is not, how can they see me?”

This time Sabar didn’t answer readily. She had fallen a few steps behind as the guards, recognizing Maldred, opened the gate and motioned him through.

“The woman…?” One of the guards asked.

“She’s with me,” Maldred reassured him.

He was nearly at the palace door when he heard one guard softly say, “I told you the chieftain’s son prefers the company of humans.”

Maldred rapped his fist hard against the wood and stood, waiting. There were heavy footsteps inside, the fumbling of a bolt. Moments later, Maldred and Sabar found themselves in a spacious dining room, seated in mismatched chairs at a massive oaken table.

“Your father is not expected to rise for a few hours,” a serving girl explained, as she placed bread and mulled cider in front of them.

Maldred drank deep of the cider. He noticed Sabar didn’t touch any of her food. “Wake him,” he told the girl, after wiping his mouth. “I’ll deal with the consequences.”

There weren’t any consequences, and this surprised Maldred. His father seemed genuinely pleased to see him, and he also seemed surprisingly old. The great Donnag, ruler of all of Blöde, always had a multitude of warts, spots, and wrinkles, but the lines around his eyes had deepened, the skin beneath his eyes sagged more, and there was a weariness to the ogre chieftain that seemed uncharacteristic. Maldred suppressed a shudder. He needed his father to be healthy and strong. He would have to rule Blöde if his father became too feeble or died.

Sabar was right, Maldred knew in his heart of hearts. He didn’t care much for his people. He fit in better with humans than with his own kind. He liked the company of humans better, and he had no desire at this juncture in his life to become the ruler of Blöde. “That will be a sad day for me,” he mused.

“What did you say my son?”

Maldred shook his head. “I came here to see how you and Blöde were doing, Father. To see if the swamp had….” Maldred paused as the ogre chieftain approached, placing a hand on his shoulder. The hand passed right through him.

“Trickery!” Donnag cried. He clapped his hands, and before Maldred could speak four heavily armed and armored ogres tromped into the room. “Deceit! We have been—”

“No, Father! It’s really me.” Maldred was as astonished as Donnag that there was no substance to his form. He could certainly touch things. Why couldn’t he be touched? “Well, I’m not really here, physically I’m in the Black’s swamp and….”

Another four guards joined the first quartet. The largest of them spouted orders and made a move to take Maldred into custody.

At the last moment, Donnag waved his men off.

There was something in Maldred’s pleading tone that gave the chieftain pause.

“I found a magical crystal, Father, and through it my mind….” Maldred looked to Sabar, but she’d disappeared. “Look, it’s magic that brings me here.”

Donnag seemed to accept this and gestured for half the ogre guards to leave. After a lengthy silence, the chieftain settled his bulk into a chair at the end of the table, one so opulent, though old and marred, it could have passed for a throne.

“Even on the rare occasions, Maldred, that you… physically… visit our city, you’re not truly here.

Your mind and dreams are always elsewhere. Always elsewhere.”

“Don’t say this to me now, Father. Right now I am… trying to help you and your wretched city. I am trying to stop the swamp and the Black. I am doing exactly what you asked me to do—no matter that it is costing me dearly”

Donnag nodded to the serving girl. “Something warm,” he said, “and tasty.” Then, he said to Maldred, “We know. We know that you have worked to hand your good friend Dhamon Grimwulf over to the naga so Dhamon could fight the Black and save our homeland. But you changed your mind, didn’t you? We understand that you have put your human friend before your kith and kin—”

Maldred was on his feet, chair flying backward, hand clenched around his empty goblet. “I did not put Dhamon before you and your people, father. I betrayed him to the naga and her dragon master. I did everything a puppet was supposed to do.” His shoulders slumped as he met Donnag’s rheumy gaze.

“Things didn’t work out as planned.”

Donnag nodded appreciatively. “Already some of Sable’s creatures have come here. They watch us.”

He nervously fingered the gold rings threaded through his lower lip. “Not many, not often. They just make their presence known.”

Maldred’s eyes narrowed. “This presence….”

“Spawn. Black ones. You know what kind of creatures they are. Our men have spotted a few on the rooftops, watching us.”

“Where?”

A shrug, then, “Across from our palace, and in the Old Quarter. Some were seen a few days ago.”

Not the Black’s spawns, Maldred thought. Nura’s or the shadow dragon’s. He doubted the Black overlord would bother spying on a city of ogres. Perhaps the naga was looking for Dhamon, thinking Maldred would bring him here to see….

“Grim Kedar’s is in the Old Quarter,” Maldred said, remembering. The naga knew a lot about Maldred and might suspect that Maldred would take Dhamon to the famed ogre healer. Indeed he had taken Dhamon to Grim Kedar once, but the ogre healer had not been able to help… though Maldred discovered later that Grim had been ordered not to help by his father, the ogre chieftain.