The magician and the warrior escorted them to the Atrium, where they sat J'role and his father against the fountain. Torches ringed the area, casting huge shadows along the walls. The magician had removed the spell, and the warrior had bound J'role and his father with ropes. A strip of cloth gagged J'role.
The magician had half a dozen allies who entered and left the Atrium in the search for Garlthik. It seemed from the shouts that echoed through the corridors and the constant regrouping that took place-in the Atrium that the magician's companions were constantly finding Garlthik's trail, only to lose it again. The magician, the woman warrior, and two other men armed with swords remained in the Atrium, determined to prevent Garlthik from leaving the kaer.
While the other men and women hunted the tunnels, the woman warrior roughly searched J'role and his father. She found the coins from Garlthik-J'role thought she would certainly take them-but only tossed them aside, and they clattered against the stone floor. J'role glanced at the money. Had it been only a few hours ago that he'd met the ork, received the money from him?
Whatever she was looking for, the warrior did not find it, and when she was done, she stood and turned away.
The magician remained seated on the edge of the fountain. "Who is this?" he asked Bevarden, gesturing to the statue.
The reply came dry and tired. "Garlen. Our protector.”
"Ah. Interesting. I'd heard that people had made statues of the spirits during the Scourge."
He looked at the statue for a few moments. "And how did your people fare? The village nearby-I assume the people came from here."
"Yes."
"And did Garlen keep your people safe?"
Bevarden's voice cracked. "Some."
"You lost someone?"
"Yes."
"Spirits are for the weak. Why depend on the force of another? I'd rather depend on my own wiles. If I fail, I cannot sit and blame another and be bitter."
"Some of us," said Bevarden, his voice suddenly sober, "are very weak."
"Yes," answered the magician. "I depend on that."
The sound of shouting echoed through the corridor, then a scream, and cries for help.
"Ushel! Chie! GO, go!" said the magician harshly. The two armed men rushed down the tunnel from where the cries sounded. J'role could just make out the sound of metal striking metal. Another scream. And then another. The woman warrior started for the corridor. "No," said the magician. "Not yet."
Silence fell. The warrior's body tensed. The magician turned and faced the corridor his hand raised a blue crackle around it. The tension swept J'role up: What would emerge?
Footsteps approached, slow and staggering. Then Garlthik stumbled out of a tunnel and collapsed to the floor. A short man with a stocky- build and curly black hair followed.
Blood dripped down his temple.
"Where are the others?" asked the magician
"Dead."
"All?"
"All."
"Garlthik," the magician said softly, his voice icy with anger, "you have cost me much time."
Garlthik raised his head from the ground. "You should have let me be. Easier for all of us."
"And leave the lovely ring with the likes of you? I think not."
The ork tried to rise up to his hands and knees, but the small man rushed up and threw himself onto Garlthik's back. The ork collapsed to the stone floor with a great sigh. I'm not going anywhere, Slinsk," he gasped.
"That's what you said outside of Harash."
Garlthik smiled, his huge teeth arching up from his lower jaw. "Yes. I did. Very well."
He paused, then said, "I don't have it, you know."
The magician said, "Did you search him?"
"Not yet," answered Slinsk.
"I lost it during the chase. Don't really know where it went. Somewhere in the tunnels."
He coughed and blood came up over his lips.
The magician turned to Phlaren. "Help Slinsk search him." She wakled over to Garlthik and hoisted him by the neck. As soon as his body was erect she slammed her fist into his stomach, doubling him over. Then she jerked him back up.
Garlthik remained still while Phlaren held his neck and Slinsk approached to begin his search. Suddenly Garlthik moved quickly, his right arm seeming to vanish as it moved behind him, grabbing something from his cloak. A dagger appeared in his hand. Just as Garlthik was swinging the dagger toward Phlaren, the woman brought her hand down on his arm. His arm's bone snapped sharply as she broke it.
J'role saw a glint of silver-small as a firefly-rush toward him. Distracted by the appearance of the weapon and the pursuant struggle, no one else saw the silver ring fly across the room from Garlthik's free hand toward the fountain.
It fell to the ground with a light tink and rolled to a stop a few inches from J'role's outstretched legs. J'role glanced toward the ork. Though Garlthik grimaced in terrible pain as Phlaren and Slinsk drove him back down to the ground, his one eye met J'role's gaze and he nodded slightly.
4
Some memories did come clearly to him while he slept, but these memories were the pleasant dreams. He remembered how his father would make him laugh when he was a little boy. His father had the improbable ability to juggle colored stones, up to six at a time. He could also do cartwheels and handstands and backward flips and could fall on purpose but make it look like an accident.
J'role was the envy of all the children his age, for his father was a clown-and who would not envy having a clown for a father?
J'role's father was the kaer's clown. When he worked he wore a costume of black and white, with bells on the tips of his boots. They jingled softly through the rooms of their home when he was getting ready for work.
Everyone in the kaer knew Bevarden. At that time only a few hundred people lived in the kaer, families who had lived together for generations, so this was not strange. But of all the people in the kaer, J'role's father was the most beloved. "Jolly Bevarden,” the adults called him, as did the children who were old enough. The youngest children of the kaer simply called him the Clown.
In later years J'role dreamed of following his father out to the Atrium, where his father would tell stories and juggle and fall. Against the bleak non-memories of so much of his youth, such thoughts gave him comfort.
But they confused him as well. How was it possible to remember the past so fondly, yet feel so bad when thinking about childhood?
Garlthik met J'role's gaze for just a moment, then Slinsk, the nimble man, and Phlaren, the strong warrior, slammed the ork's head into the smooth stone floor of the Atrium.
Phlaren and Slinsk beat Garlthik's head repeatedly-Slinsk with a particular joy, J'role thought.
The attack riveted his attention-it seemed more real than real-an intensity of violence J’role had not seen since his mother's stoning nine years earlier.
But the sounds of flesh punching flesh and Garlthik's cries finally forced his eyes away.
He could not tolerate watching the pain. Turning his head, J'role saw the ring Garlthik had thrown to him. Silver and smooth, it rested only inches away from his feet. He knew immediately that when Garlthik had stopped on the stairs and stared secretively at the object in his hand, it was the ring he'd been looking at.
And undoubtedly it was the thing Mordom and his companions sought.
He looked to his father, uncertain how to proceed, desperate for counsel. Should he hide the ring, and thus help the generous ork? Or perhaps try to escape with it and sell it? He knew it must be valuable. Or perhaps he could claim it, cover it with his foot, and then use it to barter for his and his father's life?
Or maybe he should simply ignore it.