Twenty-Two: Blue Moods

  “Well then,” Ko-Rethal told us. “Our meal will be on the far side of our little lake. Over there. Where my people have already taken your bags. Let’s walk over.”

  “Our friend here will need her crutches,” I said.

  “Ah yes.” He then whistled – very loudly, the sound rebounding around the cavern – and a korred fetched them.

  *

  To gather for lunch, the korreds hauled out three chairs and a table they possessed, for some reason, which were our size. Well, more or less; the chairs were small for us, and the table didn’t rise as high as our knees, but still they were much larger than what the korreds used: firm cushions for sitting, and tables with tiny legs that raised them just inches over the floor. Freydis, Caiside and I sat down.

  A crowd of the korreds surrounded us. As they had crept out of the pool, they had all donned robes of many different colors – reds, blue, yellows, greens. It was quite a contrast to the browns they had worn outside. Many also wore pointed caps of the same colors. It was a very colorful and buzzing crowd.

  Four servers brought out a covered platter. They set it on the table in front of us and pulled off the cover with a flourish.

  This was indeed a very large roasted newt, just as their song had promised. It was about the size of three of the korreds.

  It was whole, with its head, legs, eyes still all attached. The lifeless eyes were shrunken. The legs were small. It must have been a dark green when it was alive, now roasted to a sort of brown patina. It lay with its shoulders pushed forward over its front legs, looking . . . defeated, I would say.

  “This is just a regular – newt?” I asked.

  “We call it a giant eel-newt,” Ko-Rethal answered. “Sort of midway between the two. Quite tasty.” He had joined us at our table, standing on a large chair like ours to do so. He reached over and ripped off some meat from the side of the animal.

  “Have some,” he encouraged us. “This is for you.”

  Given that we had been captured and bound, I didn’t feel any need to be polite to these hosts of ours. I pulled off a small bite from the roast newt. It tasted every bit as good as it looked. Freydis refused to try it at all. Caiside, for her part, did eat, just as lustily as she had with the fine cooking that Collina had presented.

  “Being in prison in Wastemoor gets one in the habit of eating whatever is placed on the table,” she explained to us.

  The korreds filed by to rip up and devour the unfortunate giant newt. We were relieved to see the servers then bring out platters of some odd deflated, but perfectly edible, grapes. The three of us took a lot of those, Caiside tearing into them just as she had with the meat.

  “And now,” Ko-Rethal announced. He rose off his cushion and stood, although that did not leave him very much taller at all. The tables quieted.

  “Bring forth the bags of the travelers, and let’s see what we have gained for ourselves!”

  Some others hauled our bags forward and started disgorging the contents.

  “A fine tunic!” Ko-Rethal exclaimed, holding up my spare. “And well-made cloaks! These could be cut down to fit probably nine of us. Here’s a camp knife. Here’s a packet of food. And another. And – ” he opened the bag of what we had left of the tack from the kobolds and peered in.

  “And, well, here we have what looks like dog food,” he said. “You had one with you? No? Well, we’ll leave them that, certainly. Or maybe this is food from kobolds? Anyway. And here now – an Elven knife!”

  He pulled mine out of the bag and again raised it so all could see.

  “Now we are finding some true valuables!” he said. “As I had expected we would.”

  He continued to extract items. It was mostly clothing, and what food we had. Also flints, the few pots we carried, and our large tarp. Caiside turned out to be well-provisioned, with items including a large bone needle and a fine smaller steel one, heavy thread, spare cloth, spare leather, and a candle. He found Freydis’s Elven knife and laid it next to mine.

  “That looks to be everything,” he said. “Let me check – ” He peered into the bag and it nearly swallowed him up.

  “No, there is more!” he shouted. “I thought it was the bottom of the bag, but it’s – a map!”

  He unrolled the treasure map. It was wider than his wingspan, so another korred came to help him display it to everyone.

  “A map of Drearwold!” he said. “And some lesser places. Gray Mount, Death Crags. Very good. The Rupestrine. The desolate lands up near Foraestande. What’s this here – ‘Cursed Massacre Agony DeathHole’? Way up and over there, eh? Hmm, never heard of that one. Very interesting. Almost makes me wonder – but anyway, it’s a lovely map, and I would imagine it’s dear to you,” he said, addressing us directly again. “It looks like quite a lot of work went into it, doesn’t it? I’d say so.”

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  He and his assistant rolled the map back up.

  “So, listen,” he continued. “We are going to keep all of this, for the time being. We need to talk to you about what your labors will be in order to get all this back. But I think – ” and here his voice suddenly became quieter, grave, a contrast to the ebullience with which he’d been speaking – “I think that would be better left until morning. It may well be easier to explain, then.”

  Many of the kobolds gathered around nodded. They seemed just as grim as their leader, now.

  *

  Later, in the evening, a few of the korreds did at least bring our sleeping rolls to us. We had been sitting near the edge of the pool, right where we had lunch. All the tables and chairs had been taken away. This came as no surprise to me – I hadn’t expected we’d be shown to guest rooms – but it did strike me when all the korreds started to trickle back into the great hall to turn in, themselves. Several passageways emptied into that hall, and most of the korreds had walked into them and disappeared, after lunch. I had assumed they would stay there, and sleep in the chamber that must lie within; but now they all came out, and with bedding of their own.

  One of them, a female, laid down her tick and blankets close to us. She looked somewhat older than Ko-Rethal. She had the same formidable eyebrows as the rest of them. She wore a very cheerful lavender-colored robe, but she seemed quiet and withdrawn.

  “You all sleep out here?” Freydis asked her.

  “We – have been,” she answered. “For some time, now. We didn’t use to.”

  “Where did you sleep, before?”

  “In our rooms. Back in those passages. There are many.”

  “Why don’t you do so now?”

  She did not answer, for a moment, but rather focused on straightening a blanket on the tick she had carried out.

  “You may see why,” she said. “I hope not. But I suspect you will.”

  *

  The three of us were left more or less alone, or at least ignored, for the first time since our capture.

  “I suppose we are lucky that this wasn’t just a simple robbery,” Freydis said. “They could have taken everything, the way they sneaked up on us. And just left us out there.”

  “They certainly have a plan to use us, for something,” I said. “I never even knew if korreds were real. I’d only heard tales of them. And I’d heard of them appearing just one, two at a time.”

  “Same with me.”

  “Caiside,” I asked, “have you seen these creatures before?”

  She shook her head.

  “Barely even heard of them, out in the west,” she said. “They’re more of a local race, native to your area, I believe.”

  “And you know,” Freydis said, “I had heard that they had – it seems foolish to say it, now – ”

  “Hoofs,” I said.

  “That’s right.”

  They all had just regular feet, however.

  *

  The korreds stayed awake long after the sky – visible through the aperture above us – turned deep blue, and the stars came out. They were lying down, but many continued conversations. But bit by bit they drifted to sleep, perhaps reluctantly. The last I could remember, before falling asleep myself, was the hum of many of their voices, still.

  Once again – just as had happened two nights before – I woke due to some sound I could barely, barely, remember; again, something like a crack, or footfall in the nearby water. I raised myself up – made a bit more difficult because I was still bound – and again saw, nearby, an apparition. A pale blue ghostly form. It was the same one I had seen before; the same person. This was a human, not a korred nor a giant nor anything else; but it seemed larger, this time. Perhaps it was just relative to our small hosts I was getting used to looking at.

  Freydis and Caiside were already awake.

  “That’s your apparition?” Freydis asked. “Same one?”

  “It is,” I said.

  Many or most of the korreds had woken up, also. All of them regarded the vision in silent terror, excepting a few who outright hid beneath their blankets.

  The apparition drifted there, somewhat off the ground, silently, for a moment, and then it began to sing. Again its voice sounded hoarse, and it seemed to come from behind me, or perhaps right over my head, as opposed to emanating from the vision itself:

  Walking through gnarled trunks that look like the Drearwold

  Come across korreds who cower in their rock hold

  I see them watch me with silence and terror

  How could a walker like me be the bearer

  Of fright that will pin them all night with their eyes tight

  These creatures so fearless outside – it’s a tragic sight.

  Can this one here see the travails of a specter?

  I know how my visage and voice will affect her –

  Is it so frightening to have me at your bedside?

  Why must you rise robbed of slumber, and red-eyed?

  Look at this one shake! In tears, and a near retch –

  I’m tempted to reach out and smother the trembling wretch!

  The specter actually extended its right arm, then, and with that a great number of the korreds cried out in shock and fear, understandably. The screams seemed to give it pause, and it took a step away, singing:

  I will leave you in your sad pile.

  I won’t lurk down here again.

  If my walks range close to korreds,

  I’ll eschew this hidden den.

  And then it faded away, dissipating slowly but completely, just as it had the first night I had seen it.

  .

  .

  Alfred Weczerzick, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons