Redemption

Chapter Fourteen Ghosts in the City

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.

“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.

“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.

“You can’t take any of those things. This is my shop now.”

Maldred brushed by him, glancing down at Sabar. “You say we’re not physically here. Then how can I keep these things? I might be able to use them to help Dhamon slow down the magic that’s turning him into a spawn.”

She took from him a collection of preserved leaves, tiny feathers, and a packet of coarse red powder.

“My magic will keep them for you,” Sabar said.

“We’ve got one more stop,” he told her. “Across the street. That spawn I saw, I’m going to—”

The young ogre opened his mouth to say something else, but no words came out.

“Give me that crystal ball, ogre.”

In a flash Maldred found himself back sitting on the front of the raft. The first rays of the morning sun were stretching across the river, setting it to shimmer.

Ragh snatched away the crystal ball on a jeweled base, and thrust it into his pouch, tying the pouch to a belt he’d fashioned of a strip of cloth. The raft tipped precariously. Ragh shifted his balance and resumed poling with the glaive.

“I’ll take care of the lady and the crystal for a while,” Ragh said tersely.

“I wasn’t finished!” Maldred fumed.

“You were at it plenty long,” Ragh returned. “Too long. I shouldn’t’ve let you use it in the first place.

Not without Dhamon up and watching. How do I know what you’re up to?” After a moment: “Did you find anything to help him?”

Maldred glowered at the draconian, debating whether to fight him. The draconian would be a formidable foe, but Maldred considered himself smarter and stronger and was certain he could best the creature. But to what end?

“I found something where I went,” Maldred finally answered. In one meaty fist he held several feathers, leaves, and a small pouch of powder. “But we have to wait for Dhamon to regain consciousness.

He has to accept the magic for the spell to work.”

“He might never wake up,” Ragh said sadly. “If he does, I’m not sure he’d accept any magic from you.”