Staff of Shigmar: Chapter 4, Part 1

24 March 2026

In today’s installment of our epic fantasy, Staff of Shigmar: Book 2 of The Redemption, we return to Klaybear and Klare in the partially collapsed dungeon of Shigmar’s school. (29 September 2014) We remind all readers that this book, Staff of Shigmar, as also the first book, is free for download from Smashwords! Glossary links: Book 2, Book 1

Chapter 4, Part 1

We have long studied the effects of trauma or violence on the mind; most often, the victim suppresses the memory, such that he, or she, no longer remembers the incident. For lack of a better explanation, which continues to elude us, some have called this forgetting ‘a gift of the One to victims’. . . .

from Annals of Melbarth, Ninety-seventh Series, Guest Lectures
Lecture by Headmaster Sheldu

Klaybear walked carefully down the hall, stopping a moment in the doorway to check Master Wegex’s body, to be sure he was dead. He found that, similarly to Avril, Wegex had broken his neck when he hit the door to the cell area. As he passed further down the hall and approached the rubble blocking the passageway, he began to hear the sounds of moving rock from the other side of the rubble. He guessed from the distance he had traveled down the passageway that the opening where Klare had been imprisoned, and where his master was now trapped, could not be very far from this side of the rubble. He crawled carefully up the pile and started to shift some of the stones on the right side of pile, while keeping a wary eye on what was left of the ceiling. After about ten minutes, he heard the sound of rock clinking to his right, and he guessed Myron must also be shifting rock from his side. Another ten minutes of shifting rubble and Klaybear found the opening that led into Klare’s former prison. He stopped to wipe the sweat and dust from his brow and was surprised when a larger piece moved from the opening, and he saw his master’s sweaty, dirty face through the gap.

“Good morning, master,” Klaybear said. “It’s a strange place you have appointed for us to meet.”

The Headmaster smiled slightly. “You’re in better spirits then when I last saw you, dragged off in chains to a cell that must lie somewhere behind you.” Myron shifted another rock. “How is Klare?” he asked.

“Seeing to Mistress Storga,” replied Klaybear. “Her injuries were severe, but I think we have her stabilized. Klare continues to heal her behind me.” Klaybear shifted rubble on his side; the opening was nearly wide enough for the Headmaster to pass through. “How’s the ceiling on your side?”

“Not very stable,” Myron said, moving more rubble, “so I stayed as close to this wall as I could, thinking it would be more stable.”

Klaybear smiled as he struggled with a larger chunk of rubble. “The Headmaster of Shigmar is known far and wide for his great wisdom.”

Myron chuckled. “Your mood has improved much, my son,” he said, “probably related to the fact that you found your wife whole and well.”

Klaybear’s face fell. “It was a near thing,” he said, shoving more rubble aside and further widening the opening. “If Tevvy hadn’t gotten us out when he did, if Blakstar had not insisted on retrieving his sword, we would not have been looking through the grate and down this hall when Ghelvon and his apprentice came into the hall and opened the door. Even then, if the kortexi had not gone berserk and killed Ghelvon, I do not think we could have rescued her, weaponless. They intended to . . . rape her,” he finished, struggling with the last words.

Myron reached through the opening and touched his apprentice gently on the arm. “Do not dwell on what could have happened,” he said softly, “you rescued her in time by the intervention of the One.”

Klaybear’s face paled at Myron’s mentioning the One. He recalled what had happened after they discovered the compulsion Gar had placed on Tevvy and Klare, the way he and Thal had cut the strings tying them to Gar, and how he had nearly failed to knit the pattern of her mind back together. Had it not been for the One, and those he brought with him, Klare would be. . . . No, he must not think about it; he must follow his master’s advice.

“You look troubled, my son,” Myron’s voice cut into his thoughts.

“We have not told you all that has happened,” he said, “not even Klare knows.”

Myron frowned, then looked at the small passage they had forced through the rubble. “I think if we move a little more, you can pull me through,” he noted, “then we can talk.”

“Well,” Myron said after hearing his apprentice recount what had happened to them after they left the dungeon, “your account has interesting theological implications.”

Klare sat in one of the guard’s chairs, silent and pondering all that her husband had told her, since she could remember nothing of the experience after the compulsion was severed.

“What kind of implications?” Klaybear asked.

“Maybe implications is the wrong word,” Myron replied. “I should have said, ‘interesting facts,’ to be more precise.” Myron sat on the other guard’s chair, one hand on his chin, tapping thoughtfully.

“Facts, like?” Klaybear asked again.

“He referred to you all as his children,” Myron replied, “which had been interpreted figuratively, but the fact that he has a mate implies that we should have taken the reference more literally.”

Klare came out of her thoughts and snorted. “Only a chauvinistic fool could not have reached that conclusion!” she exclaimed.

Myron and Klaybear both looked at her for a moment before Klaybear spoke.

“What do you mean, dear?” Klaybear asked with care.

“Klaybear! I’m shocked!” Klare replied, grinning. “Are you telling me that after a year of marriage, you are still naïve as a schoolboy?”

Myron moved his hand from holding his chin to cover his mouth and hide his grin. Klaybear sat with his mouth open.

“Of course,” Klare continued, “I sometimes forget that you were raised by your father without the benefit of your mother, so things of the ‘female realm,’ as you often call them, are beyond your experience. But surely, your master would have explained these things to you before we were married?” Klare glanced at Myron and saw that he was struggling not to laugh; Klaybear still sat with his mouth open, so she plowed ahead mercilessly. “You know how, often, when we are alone, we start to kiss, and our kisses become more passionate, and you start to disrobe me. . . .”

“I know about that!” Klaybear exclaimed, interrupting Klare. His face glowed red.

“Of course you do, dear” Klare went on, sweetly, “and you have become quite proficient.”

Klaybear interrupted her again, his face pulsing with blood. “Could you get to the point before the soldiers clear away the rubble and rush in here to arrest me?”

“No one is going to arrest you,” she replied, an edge to her voice, “I won’t allow it.” She continued before he could interrupt her again. “You realize, of course, that while intimate play is quite pleasurable for us both, it does, on occasion, have another purpose, which is to produce children, and that act of producing children requires both a male and a female. So that, since we are literal children of the One, he,” she emphasized the word, “ would require a she, to produce us,” she finished smiling wickedly at Klaybear, which caused more color in his face.

Myron could hold his laughter no longer, so he let it burst out. “Klare,” he said after a moment, “now is not the time or the place to instruct your husband in the subtleties of the ‘female realm,’ although I do enjoy a good laugh, now and then,” he said, wiping a tear from the corner of one eye. “It does remind me of my own mate, who has been gone for many years.”

Klare’s face fell, and her mood changed instantly. “Forgive me, Headmaster,” she said, “I did not mean to cause you grief.”

Myron shook his head and smiled at Klare. “The grief is mine; you did not cause it. Remembering is not a bad thing. However, the view you have expressed, Klare, implicitly accepted by most wetham, is not widely accepted among those who hold power, so I would be careful about who you mentioned them to, as also, what you have learned about the One. There are further facts, and maybe these are why I said, ‘implications,’ in the beginning. If we are literal children of the One, as what you have related indicates, then we must be, on some level, divine and immortal. That idea alone could get you put to death in some locales, just like what has happened here.”

Klaybear’s face looked less colored when he nodded; he noticed, out of the corner of his eye that Klare glanced his way and grinned wickedly.

“The other side of this idea,” Myron continued, “that we are his literal children, and so that we are divine, is that He must be, on some level, mortal, which will get you killed almost anywhere. The dogmatic among us down through the ages have constructed an unbreachable wall between the One and his children. So again, I would caution you about where you say such things, or to whom you say them.”

“I understand, master,” Klaybear said. He looked at Klare. “I wonder how the others are doing?” he asked.

Klare, still smiling, touched her now glowing finger to the bracelet on her left wrist, and whispered, “Blakstar.” After a moment, she lifted her finger. “They are northwest of us, moving, probably, back to our sanctuary.”

“We better get back there, then,” Klaybear said.

Myron looked at them curiously. “What did you just do?” he asked.

Klare pointed to her gold bracelets. “These are verghrenum, made by the founders and left for each of us,” she pointed to herself and her husband, “and the other chosen. They protect us from mental manipulation by outsiders. . . .”

Myron interrupted her. “I know what verghrenum are, and what they do,” he said. “I meant, how did you use yours to find where the others were?”

“I’m sorry, Headmaster,” Klare said.

“Yes,” Klaybear put in, “you were preoccupied with your clever arguments to embarrass me.”

“You be careful, dear,” Klare noted, “or I’ll come up with new ways to punish you.” Again, she smiled at him wickedly, causing his face to color for the second time. She turned back to Myron. “Master Thalamar discovered that these verghrenum are connected to each other, so that we can actually locate each other using them.”

“Interesting,” Myron said, rising to his feet. “Shall we go, then?” he asked.

“You are coming with us,” Klare asked, “leaving Mistress Storga behind?”

Myron looked over to where Storga lay wrapped in a blanket and surrounded by a purple nimbus. “Since I know how thoroughly you do your job, I’m sure she’ll be fine until I can send someone to carry her back to the Infirmary.”

Klaybear nodded. “There was one other thing,” he said, pulling a parchment from inside his robes and handing it to Myron.

“What is it?” Myron asked. taking the rolled parchment.

“It is a rubbing Thal made of the original stone upon which Shigmar inscribed his prophecy,” Klaybear replied.

“You never mentioned that,” Klare noted.

“We discovered it while you were sleeping,” Klaybear said.

“And who was right?” Myron asked, slipping the parchment inside his robes.

“Shigmar made the changes to the copy,” Klaybear said.

Myron nodded. “You go first,” he said to Klaybear, pointing to the open grate.

Klaybear started to climb down. Klare moved over to follow him, but she could not resist baiting him again.

“You keep your eyes down, dear,” she said. “I don’t want to embarrass the Headmaster with further displays of your country manners: no leering up at me as I climb down.”

Klaybear opened his mouth to respond, closed it as his face colored, then spoke. “Yes, dear,” he said meekly, starting to climb down the ladder. “I’ll only leer when he is not looking,” he said, then slid the rest of the way down the ladder to avoid her response.

“After you,” Myron’s voice said, “and I’ll turn away, so I do not notice his ‘country manners,’ as you named them.”

“You are as oafish as he is!” Klare’s voice exclaimed, then she climbed down.

When they reached the side passage where they had heard the soldiers enter the sewers, Myron turned aside. “I think I can get the horses to the private entrance in a couple of hours.”

“But how will we get there?” Klaybear protested. “The path by the waterfall has fallen away, so we are still trapped inside the city.”

“Well,” Myron said, clasping one of his apprentice’s shoulders and grinning crookedly, “given the careful preparation of the founders, I’m sure they prepared another way of escape,” he added. “I’ll meet you near the private entrance, outside the city walls in two hours.” He turned, opened the gate, and climbed the stairs into the lower level of the barracks.

Return Thursday to see the chosen reunited and making their way carefully out of Shigmar through the sewers and the kailum’s secret entrance/exit to the city. Get a full ebook copy from Smashwords for free! If you prefer print, purchase your copy from the link provided. Good reading!