Staff of Shigmar: Chapter 6–Part 2

9 April 2026

We return this week with another installment of the second book of our epic, Staff of Shigmar: Book 2 of The Redemption, with the further adventures of the chosen in Kalbant, a northern village that was once the home of Shigmar and Klare. Last time, the chosen arrived in Kalbant and found that the morgle’s troops had already been there and killed everyone; Tevvy now discovers something on the statue of Shigmar in the village’s square. . . . (17 November 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 6, Part 2

“I think I found something,” Tevvy called, cutting off further conversation.

Thal and Blakstar looked over to Tevvy, turned, and walked back to the broken monument.

“What have you found?” Thal asked.

Tevvy pointed to a spot near the top of the pedestal. “It is hard to see,” he said, “since some of the melted stone has partially covered it, but it looks like a keyhole.”

Blakstar snorted. “A keyhole?” he said. “Do you mean like the keyhole on a door?”

Tevvy nodded.

“On a statue?” Blakstar went on, “why would anyone put a keyhole on a statue? That’s absurd.”

Tevvy’s eyes narrowed as he looked up at the kortexi. “People who want to conceal things, protect their valuables,” he noted.

“Oh, well, conceal something in a statue,” Blakstar scoffed, “then put a keyhole in the pedestal: no one would ever notice that.”

Tevvy shook his head and removed a leather pouch of tools from his pack, which he had slung on the ground next to him. He opened the pouch and removed a small hammer and chisel, then started to chip away the stone. “It is quite brittle,” he noted, “so we should not have too much trouble uncovering the hole.”

“Brittle,” Thal said, “that indicates high heat, which would cause the impurities to be boiled out of the stone.” He reached forward, touching the surface of the pedestal; Tevvy continued tapping his chisel with the small hammer. “A powerful fire orthek, which is beyond most purem,” he noted to himself. He looked at the awemi. “Did you see a ponkolu among the purem you saw coming south on the road?”

Tevvy stopped chipping and looked up. “No,” he replied, “but then I did not take the time to look closely at them.”

“Why not?” Blakstar asked. “Isn’t that your job as scout?”

Tevvy looked at the kortexi for a moment, then turned to Thal. “What’s biting him?” he asked. He looked back at Blakstar. “Your pace had increased, because of the attacks of the morgle, which meant that you were very close to the purem, so I thought warning you that you were about to stumble into a legion of purem was more important than waiting to see what other monsters from Kolu had tagged along.” He turned back to his hammering, hit the chisel with more force than he had been using, and chipped off a large piece of the melted material. They could now see the keyhole. The awemi returned hammer and chisel to his pouch, trading them for a set of small picks. “A few moments of silence, please,” he noted, selecting two of the picks and slipping them into the keyhole.

They stood silent, watching Tevvy work; after several minutes, Tevvy started to curse under his breath.

“Something wrong?” Thal asked.

Tevvy paused, looking up. “This is a very odd lock; just when I feel I have got it, something prevents it from opening.”

Blakstar snorted, but Thal put a hand on his arm to stop his retort.

“Something mechanical?” Thal asked.

Tevvy shook his head. “No, not mechanical,” he replied, “at least I don’t think it’s mechanical.”

The kortexi laughed; again, Thal stopped him. “Teka, then?” Thal asked.

Tevvy shrugged. “Maybe,” he said, “but teka locks are usually all teka, not having any mechanical components.”

“I know a simple orthek,” Thal added.

“You can try it,” Tevvy said, “but I think this lock uses both.”

“Maybe,” Thal suggested, “if you work the mechanical part of it to the point where it should open, then I cast the orthek?”

Tevvy shrugged again. “We could try,” he said, slipping his picks back into the keyhole. After a moment, he nodded.

Thal had slipped his clay rod from his belt while Tevvy worked; he touched the tip of his rod to the lock, then spoke the word, “apweryo.”

Tevvy shook his head; Thal sighed.

“It is an oddly shaped key,” Tevvy noted, “ancient in its origin, since it has to go back to the beginning of history itself, and the time of the Founders.”

“If it does conceal the entrance to Shigmar’s Tomb,” Thal remarked, “and the powerful staff he constructed, it is not the kind of key we would find lying around.”

Something about the way Thal said his last phrase sparked a memory in Blakstar’s mind: The path turned to the right on passing the wreck and moved toward a line of underwater hills. At the base of the one nearest to him, the kortexi saw a dark opening, slightly illuminated by the glow of the golden line. His path descended to the floor of this underwater cave, and he felt wet sand under his feet. Looking back he could see the shape of his sandals imprinted in the sand. The glow of the golden line illuminated the cave floor, and his eyes were caught by things sparkling. Looking down, he saw gold and silver coins, gems, bracelets and necklaces, armor, swords, and weapons of every possible type. Their number increased until the floor was completely covered by wealth unimaginable. As he walked along, he felt something hard and cold get caught in the toe of his sandal. Reaching down with his left hand, he removed the object from his sandal and found himself holding an ornately carved, golden key of some ancient design attached to a fine, golden chain. He thought he heard a bell ring somewhere in the distance, and so without thinking, dropped the chain around his neck, felt its coolness, felt it clunk against his chest. The golden line he followed swerved suddenly into the roof of this underwater passage, and the kortexi oozed again into the rock. Blakstar’s hand went to his chest where he felt the key cold and hard against his skin. He touched one finger to the neck of his golden suit, sliding his finger down, opening his suit enough to remove the key. He lifted the chain over his head and held out the key to Tevvy.

“Will this help?” Blakstar asked.

Tevvy looked up, surprised by what the kortexi held; one of his eyebrows raised slightly. “Where did you get that?”

Blakstar looked slightly sheepish. “As I traveled through the element of water, journeying up the Mountain of Vision, the path entered a tunnel that was filled with the wealth of the world. This key,” he held the key up again, “lodged in my sandal. I hung it around my neck without thinking about what I was doing.” He shrugged. “Something about the way you said ‘key’ and ‘lying around’ brought it back to mind.”

Tevvy took the key from Blakstar and looked at it closely. After a moment of carefully looking at both sides of the key, comprehension bloomed on the awemi’s face.

“What is it?” Thal asked.

“This key is incredible!” Tevvy exclaimed. “I have never seen its like anywhere!” He looked up from the key at Blakstar. “Can I borrow it?” he asked. “I want to show it to my father; he will be very interested in it.”

Thal laughed. “What makes it so special?” he asked.

“It is both mechanical and teka in nature,” Tevvy replied, “like the lock.”

Blakstar shook his head. “If it actually opens this lock,” he said, “you can have it.”

Tevvy smiled up at the kortexi, then turned and slid the key into place. “Here goes,” he said, turning the key. The lock clunked audibly, but no hidden door opened. Instead, green light surrounded the pedestal, glowing intensely. Tevvy moved quickly away from the pedestal, taking the key and shielding his eyes; Thal and Blakstar mimicked his action. Even though the light was very bright, they could still see what was happening; the pedestal reshaped itself, the pieces Tevvy had chipped off flew up from the ground, returning to their original place and form. The broken pieces of the statue, strewn across the ground, flew back to the pedestal, were surrounded by intense green light, and reformed into the majestic shape of Shigmar. Once the statue had reformed, a ball of light shot into the air moving swiftly north.

“What was that?” Tevvy asked, still squinting in the intense light.

“A signal of some kind,” Thal replied. He turned to Blakstar. “What is north of Kalbant?”

“Krystal Lake,” the kortexi replied.

“And beyond the lake?” Thal asked.

“The mountains,” he replied, “but no other settlement.”

“Strange,” Thal commented, looking back at the statue. “Was there any writing on the pedestal before?”

Blakstar shrugged. “I’ve never been here, so I do not know.”

“Tevvy?” Thal asked, turning toward the awemi.

The awemi shook his head.

Thal sighed, looking west. “She who would know has gone,” he said, looking back; he stood thinking for a moment. “We better make a copy of it, just in case,” he said, turning to go to his horse. He rummaged through one of his saddlebags, pulling out a piece of parchment.

Blakstar frowned, then looked back at the pedestal.

“It’s in a different language,” Tevvy noted, running his hands over the writing.

Blakstar leaned forward to look more closely at the pedestal, then looked at Thal. “Did you notice the oddity on the corpses we examined?”

Thal moved back to the pedestal and took out his rod. “Do you refer to the mark branded on each forehead?” he asked, squatting next to the pedestal, his rod glowing. He moved the tip of his rod over the writing, then tapped the parchment, muttering. The writing on the pedestal was now copied onto the parchment.

“Yes,” Blakstar said, moving off to look at other nearby corpses.

“Why didn’t you do that,” Tevvy asked, “with the writing in the stasis room?”

“The writing in the stasis room is one that is disputed,” Thal noted, “so I took the rubbing of it to show that I did not create it to say what I wanted it to say. I imagine that, sometime in the future, we will have to take people into the stasis room so that they can see for themselves what the writing says. This one,” he went on, “looks to be written for us.” He paused, and Blakstar heard the rustling of his robes. “On those, too?” Thal asked.

Blakstar looked up and nodded.

“What mark?” Tevvy asked.

“The sign of Gar,” Thal said, “the same sign that appears somewhere on each of the chosen.”

“Why would they take the time to brand corpses?” Tevvy asked.

Blakstar turned back to the pedestal. “Because they knew we were coming,” he said.

“And they want us,” Thal said, pointing at himself, “to take the blame for what has happened here.”

“Didn’t someone say that Klare comes from this village?” Tevvy asked.

Thal nodded. “That is why she ran off,” he replied, but stopped suddenly. “Not Klare, too!”

“We better go and find the others,” Tevvy said, “in case this is a trap.”

Come back on Saturday for another installment of our story; we will return to Klaybear, following his wife, Klare, who ran off to check on her family. Get a full ebook copy from Smashwords for free! If you prefer print, purchase your copy from the link provided. Good reading!