Longing Ring

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.

Looking at his father J'role realized that the tired man would, as usual, be no help.

Bevarden sat with his gaze turned away from Garlthik's beating, eyes closed tight. In that moment J'role hated his father. The man could do nothing-not even look! His father mumbled something through tightly clenched teeth. Listening carefully, J'role heard him saying "preparations" over and over again. Bevarden winced each time Garlthik cried out in pain, but his brief prayer continued.

In that moment J'role loathed his father with a clarity that rivaled the ring's pure silver gleam. The man would never do anything! The thought of being like his father in any way repulsed him, and in his father's inaction came J'role's decision for action.

The beating had stopped. Garlthik lay completely still. Slinsk turned Garlthik's body over as if it were a corpse. While Phlaren stood guard over the ork, sword drawn, Slinsk rifled through Garlthik's clothes, searching for secret pockets and ripping the lining out of the wonderful blue cape.

J'role moved his foot slowly, carefully extending it toward the ring on the floor. The movement was awkward, but he could do nothing about that. If someone spotted him, he would deal with it then. His bare toes just reached the ring, but he could not actually snare it and bring it closer. He lowered himself even more, sliding down along the wall of the fountain, gaining the precious inches he needed, when his father suddenly spoke.

"J'role," Bevarden said softly, eyes still closed. J'role drew in a sharp breath and froze. He glanced at Mordom, who stood facing Garlthik's body, and Phlaren and Slinsk, now searching through Garlthik's pockets. No one glanced back; the ork had their complete attention.

"Did you mean what you said?" his father continued. His mouth hung open slightly, the bones stretching the flesh thin. Bevarden's eyes were wide and wet.

J'role had no idea what his father was talking about, unless it was something from some other time. If so he certainly did not remember. Then J’role thought for a moment that his father might be referring to the sounds that had come out of his mouth earlier. But that was gibberish, and he dismissed the thought.

"I'm sorry," his father said again.

J'role nodded, hoping to keep his father quiet. The nod worked, and his father turned his head and closed his eyes once more.

J 'role continued to slide his body down against the fountain, finally managing to get the ring under his toes, and began slowly to drag it back

"What are you doing?" asked Mordom. J'role looked up, surprised to see the wizard's head still facing away. Only the palm of his hand with the eye was facing him.

J'role froze, uncertain what to do. His foot hid the ring, so he wasn't worried about that.

But his body was stretched out as if he was doing something — maybe trying to escape.

The wizard turned his body toward J’role and walked toward him. The scarlet robe fluttered, and the bare tree branches painted on the robe seemed to sway back and forth as if in a mild wind. He walked up to J'role and with his eyeless hand slapped him across the face.

J'role's sight went red, then black, then came back.

The wizard grabbed J'role by the neck and started to drag him up against the fountain's wall. Struggling to keep his face from revealing the effort of his work, J'role tried to curl his toes around the ring. Let me get it, he thought over and over. Let me get it.

As J'role caught the ring under his foot, an extraordinary sensation rushed over him as he touched it. The metal was as cold as the ice a wizard could make with his magic. Yet a heat emanated from it, a warmth of memories-

— of something-

— something J'role could not remember, but thought he should.

"Now stay," said-the wizard, his voice low. J'role realized he had closed his eyes when the strange sensation filled him. Mordom had apparently read his expression as one of fear. "I am in no mood for childish attempts at escape," he said. J'role nodded, and the wizard turned with his strange hand toward Garlthik.

The sensation turned into a low buzzing in his mind as he kept his foot pressed tightly against the ring. All that remained after the initial shock was an emptiness in his chest; a tunnel to his heart filled with a cool wind.

"Does he have it or not?" Mordom asked his companions.

"It isn't on him," said Slinsk.

"He could have put it anywhere," said Phlaren throwing her arms wide. “ Anywhere in the kaer."

"He ran everywhere," said Slinsk.

"But I don't think he would have simply tossed it away in the tunnels," said Mordom. "He would have hidden it carefully … or maybe left it back at the tavern where we found him.

Perhaps he hid it in his room. Is he conscious?"

Slinsk smiled an odd smile. "Not at all."

"Very well. Phlaren, bind him. We'll torture him if we have to when he wakes up. Slinsk, go back to the tavern and search his room."

Phlaren said, “They'll be wary now. We killed at least five of their people in the attack."

"Exactly," said Slinsk with a laugh. "They won't be expecting anybody to come back."

"Whatever you think best," said Mordom. "Just search his room carefully."

Phlaren tied Garlthik tightly. It seemed to J'role she went to absurd lengths to secure him.

Yards of rope were used to bind the ork's ankles and wrists, his arms and legs bent behind his back. Phlaren used complicated and strange knots.

When it was all done, very little of Garlthik remained visible; he was a bundle of hemp.

She dropped him down onto the floor near J'role and Bevarden, and went off to confer quietly with the wizard. Mordom kept the eye of his palm toward them.

Garlthik still breathed; the bundle of hemp pulsed slightly. This gave J'role great comfort, for he didn't know what to do next and certainly could not count on his father for help.

Bevarden was still praying, mumbling soft supplications to Garlen.

Minutes passed, and then, through a slight slit in the rope, J'role saw Garlthik's eye open.

"Do you have it?" Garlthik said softly. He spoke with such pain J'role wanted to reach out and comfort him.

J 'role nodded slightly, casually, as if dropping off to sleep.

Garlthik nodded back. "Distract them. Somehow. With only two of them here, we might get out."

"J'role?" said his father as if coming out of a dream. "Who is this?"

The green eye shifted slightly. "Your father?" Garlthik asked. J'role nodded.

"Listen, old man," whispered Garlthik, and J'role found himself embarrassed, for he realized his father looked much older than he really was. "We might be able to leave here alive. But I need those two over there distracted. I can get free if …” He gasped for air and winced.

"Do you know him?" Bevarden asked J'role.

J'role nodded, this time with his eyes wide, hoping his father would cooperate. He desperately wanted to be able to talk-not make the abominable sounds he had made earlier-but to speak with words, so he could explain everything to his father so he'd be quiet.

But, of course, that was not possible. "I want a drink, J'role. I want a drink so bad."

J'role turned to his father. The man's head rested against the fountain; his tongue flicked over his lips, desperate for beer.

How J'role hated him! He was so weak!

J'role would never be So weak. He would die first.

He rocked his body forward-once, twice-then rolled up onto his knees.

Mordom turned his body, raised his hand. "What are you doing?"

With a deft maneuver J'role dropped his hands low and grabbed the ring off the floor.

Even as he stood up he saw an odd green glow, like blades of grass on a warm morning, emanate from within the knots binding Garlthik's hands. J'role rushed a few feet to the left, neither toward Mordom and Phlaren; but simply away from Garlthik. Phlaren drew her sword.

"J'role!" Bevarden cried. "What are you …" He rolled forward and tried to get up. But with his hands bound behind his back he lost his balance and tumbled to the floor. His chin slammed into the stone, but he continued the struggle to get up. A red smear dripped from a cut just under his lip.

A panic seized J'role. He had meant to put his own life in danger, not his father's.

Looking after his father was too much work.

"Both of you, sit down!" shouted Mordom.

J'role turned and saw Phlaren, her long sword drawn, walking toward him and Bevarden.

Then Mordom gave a cry of warning to Phlaren. Garlthik suddenly loomed behind Phlaren, leaped onto her back and grabbed her neck with his good arm. The two of them collapsed toward J'role, who jumped quickly out of the way. Phlaren and Garlthik crashed down to the floor, Phlaren with Pa cry of pain.

Garlthik jumped up, a bloodied dagger in his hand- where had he gotten that? J'role wondered-and slipped the blade through the knots that held J'role tight. His hands free, J'role scrambled up, realizing that he still held the ring in his hand.

He knew that nothing would make him let it go.

Mordom turned toward him, his ruined white eyes ghastly in the firelight. He raised the eye-hand and a red bolt arced through the air.

J'role stood paralyzed with fear, thinking now he would die, when suddenly his father crashed into him, knocking J'role out of the way. The wizard's bolt caught Bevarden full, drawing a horrible scream from him.

"Run, boy! Run!" shouted Garlthik.

But J'role found it impossible to move. He stared down at his father, who rocked back and forth on the floor, the flesh burned off his right shoulder, exposing red muscle and yellow fat. He whimpered, then said, "Just something to drink, son. A little drink. T

promise, then I'll get everything together. Preparations. We'll make. Preparations. With preparation we can make anything happen."

Garlthik's rough hand grabbed J'role by the back of his shirt and knocked him toward the entrance tunnel. He heard Mordom speak the strange language again, and this time intense fear made him rush for the kaer's entrance. He heard the clatter of metal, a shout, and then plunged into the darkness of the tunnel. He ran and ran, finally arriving on the ledge outside the kaer's entrance.

The night air, cold and damp, crashed into his flesh, and for a moment he felt safe, as if by being under the stars he had somehow left all the troubles behind. He grabbed the rope in his mouth, and pulled it down around his neck. Then he heard Garlthik shouting for him to keep running, the voice getting closer and closer.

J'role rushed for the edge of the ledge and jumped off, balancing himself on two legs for the first few yards of the steep incline. Then he hit a series of rough patches and began to tumble wildly down the hill, totally losing his balance. He rolled into the base of the hill and collapsed among another group of stones. He heard the sound of more stones coming down from above him, and he moved quickly out of the way as Garlthik joined him at the base of the hill.

Without a backward glance the orks grabbed J'role by the shirt and half-carried him to some boulders fifty yards away. J'role bounced along, and the ork breathed heavily with the effort. When they'd slipped into the shadows of the rocks Garlthik slammed J'role against a tall boulder with his good arm. J'role realized that he should have felt pain, but his body was now too beaten and torn to register new shocks.

"Do you have it?" Garlthik demanded with a sharp whisper, his one eye glaring down fiercely. A stench of beer roiled out of his mouth. "Come on. I didn't have time to finish them. They'll be after us in a moment.”

J'role realized that the only reason the ork had helped him escape was to secure the ring-there wasn't a bit of real concern in his face.

J'role had left his father behind to die.

He nodded softly. He let all the rigidity of his body seep away into the night air. As J'role hoped, Garlthik loosened his grip in response. J'role hesitated an instant, then broke free of the ork rushing under his right arm and back toward the kaer.

He'd only gone a short way when Garlthik tackled him, knocking him to the ground. The ring flew out of J'role's hand and skittered a few feet away.

A horrible emptiness crashed into J'role's chest. The tunnel to his heart created by the ring had sealed shut, and he missed the chill wind terribly. All thoughts of his father forgotten, he fought Garlthik desperately to regain the ring. They crawled over each other, kicking and crawling, arms outstretched to reach the moonlit glint of silver. J'role remembered Garlthik's broken arm and slammed his hands into it. Garlthik cried out in agony, and J'role almost got by him. But the thick fingers of the ork's good hand wrapped themselves around J'role's ankle and pulled him back away from the ring. A horrible, deep fury roared out of Garlthik's mouth, and J'role thought the ork might bite him with his massive teeth.

"Speak!" the creature in his thoughts demanded. "Speak! Let me help!"

In his fury to reach the ring, J'role did not hesitate. As he began to breathe the strange sounds into Garlthik's ear, the ork clutched his head and rolled away.

Now freed from the ork's grasp, J'role rushed for the ring, grabbed it, and began running toward the kaer. His mouth kept moving his voice still screeching and uttering sounds.

He ran on another thirty feet. Then, afraid he might drop the ring, he slipped it onto his finger.

And collapsed to his knees.

The moment the ring was on his finger a terrible longing washed over hum. The sensation ripped through his chest; it tore at every dream he ever had, knocking them from his heart, replacing them with nothing but a desire for something he could not identify. It felt like the longing for his mother. Or his desire for a sober and strong father. He thought of his desire to be held. He remembered his friends from when he was much, much younger, none of whom spoke to him any longer. He thought of his desire to live a life of adventure. He thought of so many things, but knew that not one of them was exactly the thing he longed for. The ring suggested something else, something better than anything he had ever dreamed of. In his heart he knew that if he could just find what it was he longed for, he would never, never need or want anything again.

The sensation was so strong in him that he did not immediately realize he was speaking words.

Words!

When he noticed it, he touched his hands to his lips, for he could not at first believe it.

His lips moved without his volition, as when he made the creature's noises. But he was speaking words now. Whole words. He listened to himself.

". . white pillars, as pure as clouds, rising up, supporting arches carved with reliefs showing the splendors of the world. ."

He listened to himself, stunned. At first he did not know what he was saying But then realized he was describing the details of a city-a city of such wonder that it matched the tales his father used to tell J'role as a boy. He remained on his knees, listening to himself speak of gold-plated streets and chariots that flew through the sky, of great temples each supported by a single pillar of emerald-inlaid marble. His words enthralled him, for he could almost see images of the city in the corner of his mind. He sought out the images, desperate for a glimpse of its beauty.

Only because the night air was cool did he realize he was crying.

A shadow fell over him, the light of the moon suddenly gone. He looked up and saw Garlthik staring down at him. The ork looked totally baffled as he stared at J'role with his one eye, head cocked to the side. He-looked at the ring on J'role's finger and then asked quietly, "What are you talking about, boy?"

J'role spread his arms wide as his mouth continued to move without his will.

"Come," he said, leaning down and gently helping J'role up. He glanced back toward the kaer, and J'role did too. They could see no one. "If they haven't come after us yet, it means they'll be after us any minute. Come."

J'role pointed toward the kaer several times.

"He's dead, boy," Garlthik said quietly. "He died from the wizard's spell."

With the ork's big arm draped carefully around J'role's back, the two walked off into the night, J'role's voice a whisper, telling of fountains that poured water filled with small stars and of statues that danced and flew through the air.