Into the Heart of Evil (39 page)

“It’s you…” Mynar whispered.  “Not me…”

Durik looked at him intensely.  “What?  What are
you trying to say?”

“The one who… will gather the stones… of power,”
Mynar rasped.  “The stranger…”

“What does that mean?” Durik asked, shaking Mynar
in his frustration.  At that moment, Mynar’s eyes rolled back in his head and
he thought no more.

^“
S
tay still!”
Myaliae commanded.  Looking at Troka and Keryak as if to remind them to hold
Gorgon down, she looked him in the eyes.  “You were brave enough to stand still
and let them shoot you, now sit still and let me pull the arrows out!”

Gorgon grimaced and turned his head.  He’d been in
a rage when they’d shot him and the adrenaline had made the wounds seem much
less than they were.  Now, however, he had calmed down and did not have the
benefit of adrenaline to help offset the pain as Myaliae worked the arrow out
of his shoulder.

As the healer twisted and tugged the arrow ever so
slightly, Gorgon could feel it moving inside his body, and he was not happy
about it.  Myaliae suddenly pulled gently, but firmly, and the arrow popped out
of Gorgon’s flesh.  Gorgon breathed a sigh of relief.

“Don’t go sighing yet,” Myaliae counseled as she
unstopped a wooden flask.  She looked at Troka and Keryak, who both tightened
their grip on Gorgon.  Holding the flask over the wound, Myaliae let several
drops pour into it.

Gorgon let out a loud yell and thrashed about as
smoke wisped out of the wound.  After a couple of moments, the pain was gone
however, and Gorgon, breathing hard, looked at Myaliae with a questioning look
in his eyes.  “You’re not going to have to do that for the other arrow also,
are you?” he asked between gasps.

Myaliae was of the opinion that some questions
were better left unanswered.  Muttering words of power under her breath, she
unstopped a clear flask of thick, red liquid and dipped her finger into it. 
Plunging her wet finger into the wound, she smeared the liquid around then
pulled her finger out.  Putting a hand over the wound, her voice rose to a
crescendo.  There seemed to be an almost palpable sense of power, then it went
away suddenly.  Removing her hand from the wound, all that was left was a
puckered white scar where the arrow hole had been.

Krebbekar, leader of Lord Krall’s house guard,
lifted one of the conspirator’s heads up by its thin horns to get a good look
at his face.  The gaping hole through the body’s neck was gruesome to behold. 
“Yes, I agree,” he was saying to one of his warriors.  “This has to be
Borgor.”  Standing, he looked down the line of bodies and then behind him to
where the wounded were laid out.  “Quite a high price to pay to capture some of
these riffraff, that’s certain.”

“Yes, sire,” the warrior replied.

“Well, tell the healers not to waste their elixirs
on any of the wounded conspirators,” Krebbekar commanded.  “Tonight we’ll glean
what information we can out of them, and tomorrow we’ll take their heads off
and put them on spears as a warning to any others who might think to do the
same.”

Walking down the line of bodies, Krebbekar stopped
at the last one to be brought out of the great hall.  “Is that…?” he said as he
looked curiously at the body.  Kneeling down, he took the head by the horns and
pulled the snout out from under its chest.  “Well, it is!  Why look here,” he
called to his warriors, “Looks like we won’t have to search for Mynar the
Sorcerer anymore.  Looks like our Kale Gen friends took care of him for us.”

Krebbekar let the head fall back to the deck.  He
walked over to where Durik stood, examining the thin white scar on his arm
where the healer’s elixirs had done their work.  “I suppose I have you to thank
for this one,” he said, pointing to Mynar’s body.

“Aye.” Durik nodded.

“Well, then, tell me.  Did you happen to find a
ball on him; a smooth ball made of quartz to be exact,” Krebbekar probed.

Durik shook his head.  “I know he had it, but I
did not search his body for it.  What is it anyway?”

“Let’s call it a hand-me-down from the first Lord
Krall, many generations ago now,” he said as he walked over to the body and
began opening belt pouches.  After a moment or two, he pulled the fist-sized
ball of quartz from one of the pouches and held it up in the failing light of
the setting sun.  The orange light caught in the ball and seemed to be
magnified as it reflected about the area, leaving little spots of light here
and there.  “It was stolen from our lord some time ago, by this would-be lord,”
he said, pointing to Mynar’s body.

“He used it to read people’s thoughts, didn’t he?”
Durik asked.

“Let’s just say that the ball only allows one’s
mind to travel about where one might not otherwise go, or faster than one might
otherwise be able.  But the ball,” he paused a moment, “it can’t read thoughts,
nor can it see the future.  It does, however, allow you to bring whatever
powers you might have along with you.”

Durik nodded his understanding.

“Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll be securing this
little antique,” he said, hefting the ball, “and reporting to my lord.”  With
one final glance about the area, Krebbekar turned and strode off down the
walkway to the side door of the great hall.

Morigar and Krall, Lord Karthan’s two sons, both
had to undergo a more complex healing process.  As Lord Karthan and Lady Karaba
watched, the aged Master Healer pulled several instruments out of his bag. 
While one of his apprentices assisted him, the old kobold who was the master of
the healing arts in the Krall Gen carefully pulled back the flesh around the
gaping hole in Morigar’s stomach.  Morigar’s entrails were a mess, and the
Master Healer was going to have to use all of his skills, both with magic and
with his instruments, to see this through.

The look on Morigar’s face concerned him,
however.  He’d seen plenty of death, and it was rare to pull one so close to
death back.  Morigar’s father, Lord Krall, had also seen much of death in his
many years and looked on with much concern.

“What do you think, Master Healer?” he asked
gently.

The Master Healer shook his head.  “At least his
brother, Krall, was easy enough to fix up.  After all, once you reseal the
lung, the rest of it can be done with simple healing elixirs.  Good as new
within no time; a day or so if the trauma was particularly difficult, but
physically fine nonetheless.  But this,” he muttered, staring intently at
Morigar’s intestines as he probed through them, “this is the type of wound that
is easy to half-heal.”

Lord Krall had often heard the Master Healer use
strange terms, but he didn’t know what he meant by ‘half-heal.’  “Half-heal?”
he queried.

“Hmm?  Oh, yes.  That’s when you miss things, or
you attach the wrong piece of intestine to the right piece, or the other way
around.  Usually kills a body…”  The Master Healer’s voice trailed off as he
began to focus in deeper on the wound.

Lady Karaba leaned heavily on Lord Krall’s
shoulder.  He slowly led her from the room as the Master Healer continued his
craft, wishing he’d not asked the question.

Outside the door to Morigar’s chamber, Krall stood
talking with an older warrior, one who, by his trappings, must have been of
some importance in the house guard.  Seeing his parents come out of the
chamber, Krall stepped forward to report.

“Father, Krebbekar reports that all twelve
conspirators have been accounted for.”  Seeing the distraught look on his
mother’s face, he looked at his father as if to ask what was the matter.

“Your brother… The Master Healer is not confident
he’ll survive,” Lord Krall said in a soft voice.

Krall bowed his head and just stood there as Lord
Krall escorted his mother into their own bed chamber.  Moments later, the soft
sound of weeping could be heard coming from behind the door.

Redar sat in excruciating pain on the wooden
walkway outside the great hall.  He was the last in the line of living
conspirators.  Beyond him, the dead were laid out in a line.  No longer
thinking himself able to sit up, Redar lay back against the wooden walkway.

“Get up, you!” a guard yelled, approaching with
haste.

Redar didn’t move fast enough for the guard’s
liking, and in a moment Redar saw stars as he felt the butt of the guard’s
spear rap across his snout.  Slowly, but as quickly as he could with two broken
forearms, Redar sat up.

Several moments passed with no relief from the
constant pain.  Redar closed his eyes and tried to control it.  Of course,
Redar had never been one to control any of his passions, much less severe pain.

“Hello.” 

Redar heard a voice through the dull throbbing of
the pain.  He opened his eyes.  There, in front of him, was the kobold who had
broken his arms with a board, the one who, he heard, had killed Mynar and,
therefore, put an end to the Covenant of Royal Blood.

“Redar, right?” Durik asked.

Redar nodded his head, slow enough to not
aggravate the splitting headache that the pain in his arms and the stress of
knowing he was doomed to die a traitor’s death had brought on.

“What did you do with the treaty?” Durik queried. 
“I know it’s not on its way to Lord Karthan in the Kale Gen.”

Redar laughed once under his breath then stopped
due to the pain.  After a moment of trying to control the pain, he asked, “Why
should I tell you?”

“Do you want me to call the guard?” Durik asked.

Redar winced reflexively.  After a moment, he
slowly shook his head.  “I have it here.” He pointed with his snout at his belt
pouch.

Durik leaned down and undid the buckle.  After a
moment of fishing through the pouch, he pulled a folded up piece of parchment
out.  Unfolding it, he saw that it was, indeed, the treaty that both Mynar the
Sorcerer and Khee-lar Shadow Hand had signed with the orc lord, a treaty that
would bring the Bloodhand Orcs and all their senseless violence back to the Southern
Valley.  Durik carefully secured it.

“I’d imagine that the other messenger is dead,
then?” he asked.

Redar nodded slowly.  “I killed him.”

Durik had what he was looking for, but he was not
done with Redar yet.  “What do you know about ‘Kamuril’?”

Redar looked at Durik quizzically.  “I’ve never
heard that name.”

“What do you know of Mynar’s powers?” Durik
pressed.

“He used Lord Krall’s stone to speak with the
dead, and he could make himself appear to be someone else.  That’s it,” Redar
answered.

Durik shook his head.  It was obvious that Mynar
had deceived even his fellow conspirators.  Even they did not know about
Mynar’s ability to read minds, believing instead that he spoke with the dead. 
He had gotten what he came for, but doubted he’d get anything more.

Durik stood up and surveyed the scene.  Lord
Krall’s contingent of house guard obviously had the situation under control,
and Durik’s warriors were milling about, wondering what to do.  He was getting
nowhere with the conspirators.  It was obvious that Mynar had kept much
knowledge to himself, feeding them lies instead of truth. 

“Sire.” Durik looked down and saw that another of
the captives was speaking to him.  Kneeling, he looked the pathetic traitor in
the eyes.