Jean Rabe - Redemption

“Grim Kedar was in the Old Quarter,” Donnag corrected ruefully. “Grim was very old, my son.”

“Dead?” The word was a gasp wrenched from Maldred’s throat. “Grim Kedar is dead?”

“He was accorded a fine service. J paid tribute to him. Many dignitaries said kind things. We truly miss him.”

Maldred’s hands clenched the edge of the table, his fingers digging in. “Dead!” The candles in the room made the tabletop gleam, and Maldred saw his wide face reflected. How could he see his image?

How could he touch the smooth wood? How could he feel his breath quicken? “How did Grim Kedar die?”

“I told you, son. Grim was old. Had you been here, you could have spoken at the ceremony, too.

Grim was very fond of you.”

Maldred released the table, clenching and unclenching his hands. “I’ve got to go.”

“So soon? You just got here.”

“I tell you, I’m not truly here anyway,” Maldred returned sharply. “I’m just some vision produced by a crystal ball a long, long way from here.” He got up, walked past the guards. “I’ll be back, Father. As soon as I’m able, I’ll return here without the aid of the crystal ball. And I promise we’ll find a way to stop the swamp.”

Sabar walked beside him past the gate. He didn’t acknowledge her, just kept walking. Keeping a brisk pace, he retraced his steps the way they’d come, turning after they’d passed the familiar tavern. It was still in the hazy time before dawn. The conversation with his father had apparently taken no time at all.

Perhaps time was distorted inside the crystal. Perhaps other things were distorted, too.

“Maybe Grim really isn’t dead,” Maldred said hopefully.

The sky was a pale gray by the time the ogre-mage and Sabar reached the building that used to serve as the residence of Grim Kedar.

“The place looks the same,” Maldred said to Sabar.

“It looks dirty,” the magic-woman said.

The wooden facade was worn and cracked, like wrinkles on an old man’s face, and the front window was shuttered. The door was closed. Still, Maldred hadn’t expected it to be locked. Grim never locked the door.

Maldred’s fingers brushed the latch. He turned and said to Sabar, “You say I’m not here physically, but how do I feel this metal? I ate my Father’s food. I feel the cold. I can see my breath. I don’t understand how this can happen.”

“Your mind is strong,” Sabar replied. “It permits you to feel things that weaker people might miss.

You are fortunate to have so much magic inside of you.”

“Yes,” Maldred replied glumly. “I’m truly blessed to be what I am.” He twisted the latch, broke the lock, and pushed the door open. “Wait a minute.”

His gaze drifted up the front of the three-story building across from Grim Kedar’s. He saw a shape, moving behind the only intact section of crenelated roof.

Can’t quite tell what that is, he said to himself. Maldred remained still, hand still on the door, still observing the gliding shape. He felt Sabar’s cool fingers against the back of his arm. “It looks like….” His eyes narrowed as he darted inside the old healer’s shop. “A spawn. A stinking spawn.”

Sabar followed, closing the door behind them. Maldred held out his hand, muttered a string of ancient ogre words and caused a ball of light to glow on his palm.

“Grim!”

After several moments he tried again: “Grim Kedar!”

The interior of the shop was as neat as always. There were two tables and chairs where Grim’s customers sat and drank his concoctions and sometimes gambled. Behind the counter was a finger-bone-curtained doorway that led into a room where the ogre healer used his herbs and magics on paying patients.

Maldred brushed aside the curtain, the bones clacking together behind him. Sabar slid in behind him.

“Grim! Grim Kedar!”

“He’s not here.” Sluggishly rising from a cot in the back room was as slight an ogre as Maldred had seen. He was eerily thin, with only a hint of muscles along his upper arms, and he was only seven feet tall when he stood. “My uncle’s dead.”

A child, Maldred decided.

The young ogre ran his long fingers through a mass of jet-black hair and fixed his watery red eyes on Maldred. “I know you,” he stated. “Just because you’re the chieftain’s son doesn’t mean you can barge right into….”

Maldred retreated back into the shop, the bones clacking wildly behind him. He went straight to the far wall and to a teetering bookcase. Tossing his globe of light toward the ceiling, he ran his fingers across the book bindings, searching.

The bones clacked again. “Have some respect,” the young ogre demanded. He hurried toward Maldred and made a move to pull the big ogre-mage’s arm away, but his hands passed through the blue flesh. “What in the name of….”

“It’s magic,” Maldred said as he angrily whirled. “I’ve plenty of magic inside me, it seems. Grim had magic, too. Healing magic, though apparently not enough to save himself. He’s really dead, isn’t he? No one else would be sleeping here if he was still alive.”

The young ogre glared. “My uncle—”

“Was a good man,” Maldred finished. “The best who lived in this gods-forsaken city.”

“I know,” said the young ogre sadly. “He’d help anybody.”

“He helped me on plenty of occasions,” Maldred said.

The young ogre glanced at Sabar. She’d soundlessly passed through the curtains behind them. “He was known even to help humans,” said the young ogre. “Said the gods created them too, and we shouldn’t belittle them so.”

“Grim was a good man,” Maldred repeated.

“Even took a human in once, he did.”

Maldred raised an eyebrow. “When?”

“It was a dirty little child he found wandering outside on the street. He took her in so no one would turn her into their slave. That was only a day or two before he died.”

“The child…?”

“Oh, she’s long gone. Someone must’ve taken her right away after he was found dead. A pretty human child like that is worth a handful of coins.”

Maldred felt his throat tightening. “A little girl, you say.”

“Why, yes, and—”

“About this tall?” Maldred’s hand dropped to his hip.

The ogre nodded.

“With hair the color of polished copper?”

“Yes.”

“This little girl, did she have a name that you remember?”

The ogre shrugged. “I never bother remembering human names. I don’t want to be around them long enough to worry about learning their names.”

Maldred returned his attention to the bookcase, tugging out an especially ancient book on the topmost shelf. Paper flakes fell from the pages as he brought it to the counter. A motion, and the ball of light followed him to hover overhead.

“Did they bury Grim?”

The young ogre shook his head. “Burned him.” He leaned over the counter, trying to see what Maldred was reading. “They burned him and the others who died the same day”

Maldred stared at the young ogre, inhaling sharply. “Others?”

“Six more. All died the same day. They said my uncle died because he was old, but I think it was some epidemic. Something that got him and the others all at once.”

Maldred pressed for names. The young nephew of Grim Kedar could only remember two of the dead ones. They had been friends of the ogre-mage from his youth, and they were among those Grim Kedar trusted in the city.

“Nura Bint-Drax.” Maldred muttered the name as a curse.

“Sorry?”

“The child who killed your uncle,” Maldred said. “She also killed my friends. But she will pay.”

Maldred ignored the young ogre as he continued to search through the book, finally finding the passage he sought and frowning as he memorized it. When he was certain he knew the incantation, he moved behind the counter and poked through jars and small boxes.