Book III
Chapter Nine
SLEEPERS in the WAND SHOP
Pa’ka watched, shocked, as Ul’druk swiftly knocked Brun out. Brun’s sword fell out of his hand, clanging to the cobblestones, but the Death Knight’s attention went from Na’la to Ba’ku’ra.
Ul’druk heaved his lord over one shoulder, easy as a sack of carrots, and fled out of the Noose Court district.
Nal’kuth’ra followed, swiftly, and Pa’ka followed her.
He wished he had done something. Could do something.
More than anything, this year of (had it been a year? less? more?) had made him feel what he truly was : useless.
Pa’ka coughed, choking on smoke. Everyone, the taste of smoke ambushed him. He wished he could see better. Wished he still had his glasses, his original glasses. The glasses he’d gotten way back at the Parched Perch Inn were fine, certainly better than no glasses, but…
Don’t need them anyway, Pa’ka thought bitterly. He hadn’t even had time to read his own mother’s clayscrolls, before he’d spilled the lot and heard them crack against the wet street.
There were still a few scrolls left in his bag. He felt them jostling awkwardly as he ran after his friends. Though he was used to running and rushing and pushing his body beyond what its limits thought they were…
He was still starving.
So none of his muscles had grown much.
It was this wallowing, this pity, this despair, that made him slowand stop somewhere in the early streets of Goblintown.
“What are you doing!” said Nal’kuth’ra, stopping to scold him.
“Not done yet, kid!” shouted Ul’druk, panting, impatient.
“What’s the use?” Pa’ka muttered.
Neither of them heard Pa’ka, and Nal’kuth’ra continued to scold him. He wasn’t really listening, though.
It was about that time that Pa’ka caught a glimpse of something.
“Impossible,” he muttered.
In the doorway of some shop, the half-orc from J’ar’num was sitting on the steps. He grinned his green grin, and waved at Pa’ka with two fingers. Pa’ka mirrored the motion, though he could not bring himself to ape the half-orc’s grin.
“If you don’t move (now!)” Nal’kuth’ra was shouting at Pa’ka, “then we are all—! All four of us, all four that are left! We are all… going to die! So, please, please, pretty please, would you—”
Pa’ka walked past her, toward the door.
As he approached the step, without even blinking, the half-orc was gone. Pa’ka went up the single step, and knocked on the door.
* * * * / * * * *
Kaye heard a knock on the door, five times, rapid, all in a row.
He still couldn’t hear any of the screaming, or the flames, or the suffering from the outside.
But he could hear the knock.
He looked around. The Keeper was nowhere to be seen.
Kaye slowly got to his feet, leaning heavily on his staff. He went as quickly as he could to the door, and opened it a crack.
The realities outside came tearing in. The din was so sudden and intense, it physically hurt Kaye’s ears to hear.
Pa’ka’s face screwed up in confusion. “Kaye?”
Kaye gritted his teeth. “Pa’ka.” He examined those that followed him : a goblin girl, and an orcish man, who was carrying a knocked out orcish man.
“Now letting in us, or no?” said Pa’ka, in broken Ne’ju’mesh.
“What are you doing?!” Ul’druk said, adjusting Brun’s weight by lifting him up, and shifting the body higher up onto his shoulders. “We’re… hngk! It’s… The city is on fire, Pa’ka! Going into a building is not—!”
“Come in,” Kaye said, who was happy to interrupt a stranger speaking Orcish.
Kaye pulled the door open and stepped aside.
Pa’ka rushed in, as did Nal’kuth’ra. Ul’druk stayed outside a moment, as he tried to decide what to do, where to go, where he could even go.
“It’s quiet in here,” Nal’kuth’ra said.
“Get in!” Pa’ka commanded. He was not one for commands, but he just wanted to lay down. Even if that meant burning alive in this little goblin shop (that Kaye was in for some reason?), at least he’d get to lay down.
Ul’druk came in, and Kaye shut the door behind him.
Silence followed.
Blessed, blissful, simple silence.
“Whoa,” said Nal’kuth’ra. She whipped her head around, examing everything. “What is this place?”
“No clue,” said Pa’ka.
“You should ask your friend,” grunted Ul’druk. Then, he set Brun down on the floor, laying his head down gently.
“He’s not my friend,” Pa’ka didn’t say. He and Kaye exchanged a look that rivals give one another, before they know what they’re rivals about.
Pa’ka knew a fair amount of Ne’ju’mesh, but it was simply too much to reach for at the moment.
“Why did you bring us here?” Nal’kuth’ra asked Pa’ka.
Pa’ka shrugged. “You remember the half-orc? From that glade, just before we appeared by those boats?”
She nodded.
“I do,” said Ul’druk.
“I saw him,” said Pa’ka. “Outside of this shop.”
“Creepy,” said Nal’kuth’ra.
Pa’ka shook his head, though. “No. No, I think he was… I think he’s trying to help us.”
“I am,” said the Keeper.
Nal’kuth’ra yelped, and they all flinched, even Kaye. Ul’druk went to draw his sword, but the Keeper put up a hand, and said, “Shhhh, shhh now… It’s alright.”
Ul’druk kept a hand on the hilt, but did not draw it from its scabbard.
The Keeper grinned. “You are safe here. You are my guests. My honored guests, all of you. It is all going according to prophecy.”
Ul’druk raised an eyebrow. “Prophecy, huh? Whose prophecy?”
The Keeper shrugged, and said, “An excellent question. Whose prophecy, indeed. Does a prophecy belong to the person who saw it? Or the person it is about? Does it belong to the god, that made that prophecy possible? Or is it none of these things? Can one ever own such a thing as the future? Because each life and death has a role to play in that future, does the future belong to all of us? What does it even mean for an idea to belong?”
He shrugged again.
“Impossible questions,” he smiled, then disappeared.
“I’d recommend,” the Keeper said, appearing right in front of Pa’ka, and looking deep into his eyes, “resting. Resting a long, long time. Long as your bodies will let you.”
He appeared before Ul’druk, who flinched, and bumped into one of the wand racks. The wands clattered to the ground in heaps and piles.
“And once you are rested…”
He appeared before Nal’kuth’ra then, who was delighted by the trick. His smile widened at that delight.
“…we can speak of whys, and whens, and discover the hows that will pull that future to us. Once you are all very well rested, we can begin to discuss the important things…”
He appeared behind Kaye then, who could not understand the Orcish that was being spoken, and wasn’t paying attention anyway. The Keeper gazed deep into Pa’ka’s eyes again, from behind the young human man.
“…like how you’re going to save Na’la.”
“And Rowan,” Pa’ka said. “We have to save Rowan.”
“Of course,” said the Keeper, as he disappeared. “Only Rowan can save Na’la, my Or’lj’thaj’uh child.”
A shudder went up Pa’ka’s neck, at the mention of his home village. Those were distant, dead memories now.
The Keeper was gone, but his voice echoed on.
“Tomorrow, children… Tomorrow… For now, you must rest.”
They all began to get sleepy, at the exact same moment, in the same breath.
“Rest… Rest… Don’t worry ; you won’t… dream… much…”
* * * * / * * * *
Link to Orcish-English Dictionary
Wanna hear the music of NALA SAGA?
* * * * / * * * *
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