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.”