Eye of Darkness (Part 28: The Long, Long Conclusion)

 

“NO!” Raksil roared, releasing the Ivra in his anger and sending a red whiplash of power across the big Morg’s face that sent him reeling backward with a spray of blood. The Yorn bent over the wounded creature, crooning to it desperately, extending his power to draw the blade slowly from Ferrik’s skull, knitting the wound as he went, until at last the knife clattered to the bottom of the stony bed.

Raksil looked up, relieved that his creation still lived, and turned to vent his rage on Belmok. But his prisoners had fled.

 

The three companions fled heedlessly back through the dark corridor, Leren in the lead, Belmok helping the winded Thron along as he leaned on his staff. Even through the blood streaming from his face and his squinting eye, the big Morg could tell that the Ivra was weak and wounded somehow, its light flickering and flaring erratically.

Still, as they reached the lighted levels once more, he could feel the muffling Ivran cloak descend over them once more. Leren’s voice echoed faintly in his head.

“That was well done, friend Belmok. It was a risky chance.”

“I don’t think I killed it, though,” the big Morg panted as he ran. He hitched Thron’s arm up a little higher on his shoulder. “I’m not used to that kind of slaughter. Do you think he’ll follow?”

“I think not. Outside the chamber the Yorn would draw … higher attention. He will not want that. He must tend his Ferrik. But he will alert other guardians soon, if he has not already. Ah. See. It begins.”

By now they were reached the nurseries, and even the hatchlings were mewling loudly in terror, their nurses jumping around in agitation, as at some subtle and silent alarm. Down the elevated pathway, weapons clattering in their hands, a troop of Ogres came streaming through the archway, staring wildly in all directions, eyes glowing with anger. The fleeing Morgs were just able to squeeze past them, even occasionally jostling a warrior as he went by, the careless brush with his enemies ignored in the eager rampage ahead.

“That was very close. We shall not speak any more,” the Ivra as they scurried through the door. “I must ... preserve my concentration.”

As they retraced their steps Belmok felt his anxiety, but also a frantic hope, growing ever greater. If only they could make it out of the mountain! He tried not to think about it, but only concentrated on navigating their escape, room by room, level by level, dashing the blood from his eyes, struggling to see their way. When Thron seemed to recover a little and catch his wind, his hope rose. As they encountered groups or single sentries, his heart fell. When they passed a troop of guards in their way and Thron managed to push a straggling Ogre blocking their way into a spider-pit, Belmok almost barked aloud at its squeals as it was swarmed by a horde of spiders. Then he felt a rush of guilt. Besides, there was neither time nor energy to spare as he hurried on.

They were on the level that they had entered on, though still far from the gate, and Belmok’s expectations had been frantically rising, when suddenly Thron broke away from him, shattering the Ivra’s fragile concentration. In an instant both Morg’s were visible, and Belmok cried out as he saw the soldier plunging into a side chamber. He lurched after him but was almost instantly met by Thron emerging again from from what he now saw was an armory, a black Ogre scimitar in his hand.

“Lost my sword back there,” he answered Belmok’s wild questioning stare. “I ain’t going forward without a weapon.” He grabbed the disbelieving scholar by the arm again. “Come on, let’s go!”

They scrambled forward together and felt Leren engage the cloak barely in time to avoid a hurrying line of lesser Ogres trot past them and into the just-vacated room.

As they approached the front gate and possible freedom, the Ogre patrols grew less frequent, but more orderly, disciplined and wary. The Morgs had to slow down and move more carefully themselves, and Belmok noticed nervously that he was beginning to hear his own gasping breath or the odd footfall from Thron’s iron-heeled boots ringing through the hallways. Leren’s power, it was obvious, was failing, and with it their protective cloak. If the Ogres noticed, or if it failed completely … the big Morg shuddered and hurried his companion on.

They passed the final tunnel and rushed into the gateway hall with a desperate burst of speed, and then halted in dismay. The gigantic iron gates were shut and barred, certainly immovable by two tired Morgs, and the foot-high open space twenty feet at the top showed that it was the early morning again, and hours before the doors would be opened and the hordes go swarming in and out once more.

Belmok stood for one despairing moment, gazing longingly up at the sunlight. Then Leren whispered into his ear again.

“There, to the right.”

Belmok looked. On either side of the great gate there was a door, only big enough for one of the smaller Ogres, that he hadn’t noticed while they had been slipping inside. He tugged Thron’s hand, and the soldier must have gotten the message too, for he immediately followed his lead.

Inside the doorway there was a spiraling stairway going up. They started to climb it, one exhausted step at a time, and at the first turn out of sight of the hall, the Ivran cloak dropped, and the wan figure of Leren appeared.

“Rest a moment here. When we go forward again … do so as quietly as you can. I … must retain energy for our final escape … if escape we can. I shall not … desert you … but I must … conserve…” He was suddenly gone.

“Well, that was reassuring,” Thron complained,

“Save your breath,” Belmok husked. “We’ll need it.” He tried to put his hand up to his right eye but couldn’t, only wincing away at the touch. His weak left eye was blurry, and he reached down for his ocular that still bounced unheeded on its ribbon. As he drew it up, he saw that its crystal had been cracked across but had not broken. He stashed it back away in his tunic regretfully.

“Are you ready?” Thron whispered. “Daylight’s wasting, I think.”

“Yes. Quiet now.”

It was hard to stifle their grunts and groans as they trudged up steps not for Morgish legs, but they did so well that they surprised the sentry at the room on top so much that it had no time to make any noise before Thron sprang forward and slit its throat. The soldier watched the Ogre thrash briefly in a puddle of its spurting purplish blood. When it was dead, Thron looked up at Belmok in wan satisfaction.

“Told you I needed a weapon.”

“Very good,” came a whisper, and Leren was with them, the palest of outlines in the sun that came streaming into the shadowy room. “There is a rope ladder, see, bundled in the corner. Climb down, and I will cloak you from the sight of the watch-room on the other side. Make for our camp of last night, and then we will … we will … rest again. Go. Hurry.”

The Morgs needed no urging but had soon unfurled the knotted ladder and almost sailed down, the rough iron-silk knots slithering through their claws as they spurned the rungs in their haste. The moment they touched the ground the Ivran cloak closed around them, but patchy and tattered and growing thinner as they sprinted for shelter, and dropping completely as they dove into the rocky turnoff that hid the approach to the shelter they seemed to have left so long ago, safer for the moment but in danger still, in the shadow of the looming Ogre mountain fortress.

Belmok and Thron crawled through the tumbled rocks to the camp and found Leren there before them. Belmok was shocked to see the Ivra sitting on a stone, hands on knees, staring unblinking at the ground. He had never seen it do anything other than stand. The long tendrils of hair were barely moving. Thron cast himself panting down to the ground, but Belmok moved slowly over to Leren, leaning on his staff, and looked at him in concern.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

The Ivra looked up.

“As a matter of fact, I am not,” it said, stoically as ever. “I have been trying to replenish my energy, but the Yorn’s attack seems to have … undone something in me. I estimate that this one shall endure only a few minutes more, at most. I am sorry to leave you in such a place.”

Leren suddenly reached out and touched Belmok’s arm. This, too, was a first. It felt as light and cold as the brush of a butterfly’s wing.

“You must return,” the Ivra said sternly. “Somehow return. Tell the Dunwolf all you have seen; perhaps he can find a way to tell my people. And warn your own people about this new … plot.”

“You know I shall do my best,” Belmok promised gravely.

“I have found that to be … considerable.” Leren lapsed into silence.

“Leren, my friend.” Belmok hesitated to break into the Ivra’s last moments, but he had to know. “This other Ivra … your friend … that’s why you really came here, isn’t it?”

There was a pause.

“I must reveal it,” Leren said, almost sighing. “It is why a took up an interest the Ogres, and in this area, after the disappearance … this was my friend’s interest. No, friend is too pale a term. Quellentelliqtairentair” – Leren’s voice lingered over every syllable – “Was my … there is no word, in any tongue. When I found that hidden eye of darkness and had the hope and fear that it might be that one’s prison … I had to know. And now I do.” Again, the fading voice almost sighed. “Soon, we shall both be together, past hope and fear. It is well.”

“It was truly done,” Belmok said gently, smoothing his tousled, bloody beard with one claw. “And good shall come of it, I trust. This journey will not be in vain, but will help many.”

“I thank you for coming,” said Leren, looking up into the scholar’s face. “Your eye. It is wounded.” The hand went from the Morg’s arm to his head, and Belmok felt a slight tingling. The hand dropped away, exhausted. “There. It is knit together, but I do not … I do not think it will ever see again …” And then the Ivra was gone, in a sigh of wind and a cloud of mist that dissipated into the dry chill air.

 

Belmok and Thron left the camp as quickly as they could, after an uneasy rest and a hasty meal. Before night fell they found the best shelter they could and spent an anxious night watching in turns as increased Ogre troops went tramping through the darkness, obviously stirred up by the recent assault on their mountain. Belmok wondered how much they knew, and how Raksil communicated orders to them from his shielded hiding hole. The Yorn must have been quite angry, if the number of squads that raked the dark foothills that night was any way to judge. Three times that first night there were Ogre patrols not a foot from the Morgs hiding place, and it seemed that only the will of Mog kept them hidden. Never had Thron wished so much for the presence of their Ivran guide again.

The month after that it was still touch and go, even in broad daylight. Never on their trip to the mountain had the scholar learned so much about covert movement, about scavenging food, about sleeping in a sort of trance only to be ready to awaken at a moment’s notice. Luckily Thron seemed to have kept a map in his head from their journey before, and he took the lead, guiding them surely on the road, threading their way back whenever another pack of hunting Ogres drove them from the track, and scrounging whatever sustenance he could find along their course. Belmok learned the taste of five different kinds of beetles, all nasty. He ate them stoically.

They spoke very little during that time, at first because of the hazards, and then, it seemed, because of a growing reluctance to face the consequences of their journey. Much depended on their return, they both knew it, and there seemed little to discuss. But Thron watched the one-eyed scholar uneasily as the big Morg grew daily more morose and distracted. It was a month or so after their escape from the mountain, and they were just out the riskiest region of danger though still not out of reach of Ogre claws, before Thron ventured to speak more than a word or two of instruction.

They sat on a fallen tree-trunk in a washed-out gully, huddled with their cloaks wrapped over every stitch of clothing they had, not daring yet to have a fire against the growing evening chill.

“Fall’s well in,” Thron finally said. “The nights are only going to get colder.”

“Yes,” Belmok said.

They sat silently for a while.

“Hey, do you know what today is?” Thron asked jauntily.

“No.”

“It’s the Autumn Festival!” he cried, with a ghoulish approximation of jolly cheer. He reached down for his forage bag and started digging around in it. “And look what we have for our feast!” He began pulling items out with one grimy paw.

“We got more lovely journey-root! Better enjoy it, ‘cause it’s getting rarer. And look! A snake that’s not actually poisonous. That’s right, we got meat! But the crown of our repast, for dessert, we got not ten, not eleven, but twelve elderberries! I’m glad there weren’t thirteen, for I’d hate to have to fight you over that extra berry,” he grinned.

Belmok reached out and snatched a lumpy journey root without a word. Without looking he took a bite, and impassively began grinding away. Thron’s face fell.

“Ach, you’re no fun anymore,” he said in disgust. He stuck one sharp black thumbnail into the snake and began peeling off the scaly skin. “Well, what did I expect of the brother of old Greedyguts Gortus?”

Belmok stopped chewing and looked up.

“What?”

“Oh, yes, I knew him,” said Thron casually, attention all on his skinning. “A mediocre warrior, at best. Probably had risen as high as he was ever going to get, before he choked himself. Given to black moods, it seems. Bad for morale. Just as well he went out when he did.”

“What?” Belmok squinted angrily with his one good eye.

“Fat, just like you,” Thron went on, holding up the pale naked snake and examining the flesh. “Well, the family’s dying out anyway, what can one expect.”

“I’ll have you know,” Belmok snarled, “That my family’s not dead yet, and my brother was a great warrior!”

“Oh, sure, sure,” Thron said, in a sarcastically soothing tone. “But I do know one saying the Ogres have. ‘The best enemy warrior is a dead enemy warrior.’ I guess by that standard, Gortus was the greatest warrior there ever was.” He threw the snake skin over his shoulder. “And the Ogres never … had … to lift … a finger.” He looked up smugly.

With a roar Belmok’s hands were at Thron’s throat, and the two Morgs went crashing, rolling to the ground. They were lucky there were no enemies nearby, for the sound would have surely brought them swarming. The two grunted and thrashed, turning and struggling until the big Morg sat towering over the prone Thron, weight on his chest, claws tightening around his neck.

“My brother was a good Morg and a fine soldier!” Belmok said fiercely through gritted fangs. “Better any day than an assing taddach … like … YOU!”

To his bewilderment, Thron went limp and started to chuckle weakly. Belmok nearly let go of the soldier in his surprise.

“There’s the old arrogance,” Thron wheezed in satisfaction. “I was beginning to think you’d lost it with your other eye.”

“What?” said Belmok, puzzled, but not letting go of his grip. “What?”

“I did know Gortus,” Thron said, getting his breath back. “And he was a fine soldier and a good fellow. But after a victory he was given to dark moods, moods he tried to shake with feasting and … other indulgences. Lacking such means, I thought I’d try another approach.”

Belmok let him go and stood up slowly. Thron lurched to his feet and looked around shakily. He took a few steps and picked up a sticky object covered with leaves and filth.

“Hope you like your snake with a seasoning of dirt.” He patted at it with his paw. “’Cause we’re not wasting this.”

They went back to the log and sat down again, Thron still picking at the snake, Belmok humbly gathering up the scattered food. They divided the stuff in silence, and then the big Morg said, “Thank you.”

“You can’t be moping and mourning right now,” said Thron. “Plenty of time for that when we get home. Right now, we have to think about surviving, not giving up.” He started chomping on his portion of snake, tongue curling and muzzle grimacing at the taste.

“That is true,” said Belmok. He looked down at his share of the meager fare. He reached down and grabbed a gobbet of the meat firmly. “I thank you for reminding me, Thron.”

The soldier paused in his chewing.

“You’re most welcome, Belmok.” He swallowed. “Hey, I got to get you back in one piece for your Grand High Mastery, eh? For the glory of the Empire!” He raised a fist in salute.

“I suppose,” Belmok muttered. He picked up a berry and studied it. “What do you think King Vez will say about all this?”

“Well, he won’t like it.” Thron took a chaw of journey-root, to take the taste of reptile out of his mouth. “After all, he was chosen as a Peace King, and all our skirmishes since then have been branded as policing, not battle. The idea that there’s a big war brewing will not go down easy, but I think he’ll have to swallow it in the end and start preparing for an assault in the future.” He took a sip from his half-empty water skin and cut his eyes at Belmok. “I may need you to come to Morg City to help persuade him.”

“I’ll do that,” the big Morg said. His brow grew stern. “Do you think they’ll march on the Norkult and kill darling little Ferrik before he’s all grown up?”

“I wouldn’t advise it,” said Thron after a moment’s thought. “Too costly. Preparation, sure. Build up the army, keep it close to Morgish cities, yes. But an offensive strike? We’re certainly not prepared, and from what I saw in their caves, they are. But that Ferrik-thing? After what you did to him, he may never be ready.” He grinned. “You saved all our bacon, back there. And after you seemed just about ready to lick Raksil’s bottom.”

Belmok smiled back at Thron.

“Oops, I lied to our enemy. How evil of me.”

They laughed together at that, gruffly, as only Morgs can, but when they stopped, Belmok sighed.

“Even so, I don’t think we’ve seen the last of Ferrik. You know, in the face of that abomination, I still couldn’t bring myself to strike hard enough. I suppose I’ll never be the warrior Gartus was.”

“Maybe not,” Thron agreed. “I suppose you’ll just have to be the kind of warrior you are. A thinking warrior.” He picked up his share of berries and knocked them back all at once. “Say, do you think that what that Raksil said was right? Do you think there’ll ever be a good Ogre?”

Now it was the scholar’s turn to ponder.

“If what the Yorn said is true, I guess it must be possible, if unlikely. It conforms with what we know of moral philosophy. But if ever such a decision is made, it will come from within, not imposed from without. Even if we conquered or captured the Ogres and tried to impress our ways upon them, they would have to decide for themselves, and freely. Until an Ogre comes across the Waste with his hands out in friendship, I guess the only way we can influence that is by modeling our behavior. And with our constant clashes, and their masters’ influences, the chances are infinitesimal.”

“Thought not,” said Thron. He dusted his claws together. “Still, one never knows, eh? Maybe even that Ferrik could be the turning point. After all, he does have good blood in him!”

 

The nights grew more bitter even as they struggled southwards, but with less and less chance of the cold-blooded Ogres out so far from their sheltering caves. Forage grew scarce, but Thron had a knack for finding the holes of hibernating creatures, rolling with winter fat, and even of trapping the scavengers that came sniffing around the bones. After another chilly month and no sign of Ogres they dared started lighting fires again, and a hard six weeks after that Dunwolf stepped through the trilith stones to find them camped around a good blaze, swathed in capes of wildcat skins and chewing red gogen wood with scarlet teeth.

The wizard journeyed back to Tronduhon with the Morgs, where they were welcomed enthusiastically, and, after warm baths and cooked meals, they went to the School Council to report. It took three days before they could tell all, with Dunwolf attending closely to what was said and offering his advice and insight where possible. He nodded in confirmation at what he heard about the Ogres’ conditions. He listened with grim worry as they recounted the story of Raksil and his experiment. He looked grave at the news of Leren’s death and promised to do all he could to contact his people. As forthcoming and as encouraging as he appeared, Belmok sensed that there was something deep worrying the old wizard, that he was deliberating a worry in his mind that never reached his lips.

Whatever it was, Dunwolf took it away with him when he left with Thron to report to King Vez in Morg City. The last time Belmok saw the Lieutenant was at the end of the Council. They said nothing, just shook hands, raising their brows and wrinkling their foreheads meaningfully. And that was all.

Belmok returned to his mother’s house that evening for the first time. He had sent her a message when he had arrived back in the city, but they had not seen each other until now.

She rose as he entered the dining room, his dark-gold robes cleaned and freshly pressed, the pearl rosette of Grand High Mastery pinned at the shoulder, red sash cinching his newly-trim waist. His hair and beard fell in a combed, clean cut. A new ocular winked in his left eye. The old cracked lens had been put safely away in honor; after all it had saved what was left of his sight. But his right eyed stared sightlessly out of its scarred socket as if blasted by lightning.

“Good evening, madra. I hope you’ve been well?”

“All the better for seeing you, son,” She said shakily. Her eyes were glistening. She gestured. “Shall we sit?”

“After you.”

They sat down.

“We have all your favorites tonight,” she said brightly. “Look. Tova has taken special care with the eggs.”

Belmok glanced down at the mounded dish, and for a brief second his mind flashed back to a dim chamber and a stony nest.

“Perhaps not tonight,” he ventured. “But those cinnamon apples smell very good.” He began heaping his plate and tucked in with an appetite. It appeared it wouldn’t be long before he was back to his old shape again. 

His mother selected some food distractedly, almost at random. She picked at it while Belmok ate but couldn’t seem to tear her gaze away from his face. He looked up and saw her expression. He swallowed his mouthful.

“It’s the eye, isn’t it,” he said. He raised his glass of wine. “I must admit, it takes some getting used to. I’ve been practicing, in the mirror.”

“It looks very … distinguished, Belly.”

He lowered the glass.

“I know you’re trying to console me, madra,” he said gently. “But it’s not necessary. I found out that I have been going through life with one eye shut, anyway.” He screwed the ocular in more tightly, the remaining blue orb gleaming in determination. “I simply find that I must now keep the other eye open all the wider, to see everything that there is to see, which I was ignoring before. That’s all. A dark eye is a small but dear price to pay, for such knowledge.”