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.