Staff of Shigmar: Chapter 12, Part 2

2 June 2026

A good day to all! We return with another installment from the second book of our epic fantasy, Staff of Shigmar, where we discover Thal’s response to Klaybear’s apparent ‘fit’. . . . (30 March 2015) 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 12, Part 2

Thal took Klaybear’s head in his hands, staring intently down at the fallen kailu, his eyes looking into Klaybear’s mind. His hands flew off Klaybear’s head, and he slid away from Klaybear, as if a strong blast of wind were pushing him back. Thal crawled forward slowly, fighting against the forces that had shoved him away. The maghi clawed his way back to Klaybear, jaw clenched, sweat streaming off his face. Blakstar and Tevvy watched, dumbstruck, feeling none of the forces Thal struggled against. The maghi finally got close enough to Klaybear to grab his head again with both hands. Klaybear jerked and shook; Thal panted, gasping for breath as he held tightly to Klaybear’s head. Slowly, Klaybear shook less, then went still; after a few more moments, Thal released his head, and slumped onto the floor beside him, still panting.

Tevvy’s eyes were wild; Blakstar reached for the Waters of Life before he remembered that there were none left. Before either of them could open their mouths to speak, Klaybear opened his eyes and sat up; he looked around, then looked down at Thal.

“What did you do?” Klaybear asked the white maghi.

Thal wiped the sweat off his face before reaching out with his left hand; Blakstar took it and pulled him into a sitting position. “Every time your internal vision has sent you into unconsciousness, I’ve wanted to look at what was happening in your mind, but I’ve always been too far away, or the moment passed so quickly that I did not have the time to see,” he said. “This time, however, it happened twice in a row, so I switched into the mental plane to observe what was happening in your mind.” He paused, for a moment, to think.

“You can see into someone’s mind?” Tevvy interrupted.

Klaybear nodded. “I had forgotten that you were,” Klaybear said, stopping to search for a word, “asleep, for lack of a better word, when we found and removed the compulsion placed on your mind, and Klare’s mind.” He looked at Thal. “What did you see?”

Thal shook his head. “It looked as if your whole mind had been wrenched from all its moorings, and I saw it spinning and rolling in all directions at once. What was amazing about it was the amount of energy released from it, enough to hurl me from you the moment I switched into that plane, but the strangest thing about it was the sound: I could swear I heard many voices singing, and it seemed that the singing was causing your mind to spin and roll, causing the spinning and rolling to increase in speed.”

“Singing?” Tevvy noted. “I’ve heard singing every time we have passed through one of those arches, and I’m sure I heard singing right before each earthquake in the earth realm, and the entire time we were in the fire realm.”

“Singing?” Thal asked, one eyebrow rising slowly.

“I heard no singing,” Blakstar said.

Klaybear touched the kortexi’s arm. “Remember that the awemem have sharper hearing than we do.”

“Can you remember the quality of the singing,” Thal asked, “what it sounded like?”

Tevvy’s brow wrinkled as he thought back. “Well, when we entered the earth realm, the sound of the singing was slow, deep, and very low, so that it rumbled,” he said, “like a group of wethem with very low voices. The fire arch also sounded like wethem, but their tone was higher and faster,” he paused in thought, “and more frantic.”

“What about the archway into this room?” Thal asked.

Tevvy though for a moment. “That one sounded more like many different voices, both very low and very high, all singing different things in harmony.”

Thal got to his feet and started to pace across the room, rubbing his chin. “Didn’t the simulacrum of Shigmar . . . ,” he started to say, but was interrupted by Blakstar.

“What’s a simulacrum?” the kortexi asked.

“The ghostly image we saw when you slid your sword into the altar above,” Klaybear noted.

“Yes,” Thal said, stopping to look at the others. He started pacing again. “Didn’t Shigmar mention that we should ‘sing our ortheks well,’ as he finished his message?”

Klaybear thought for a moment before answering. “He did, and I thought, at the time, that it was a strange way to describe the casting of ortheks.”

Thal stopped and tapped his chin for a moment. “What was that song we used to sing as children, about the boy and the girl running up the hill, didn’t it go, ‘daa-da-dum?’” he asked, singing it.

Blakstar smiled; Klaybear laughed, and added, also singing, “daa-da-da-dum.”

“That’s the one,” Thal replied.

“What are you thinking?” Klaybear chuckled.

In answer, Thal slipped his rod from his belt, holding it up, and instead of saying the word for light, he softly sang it, using the three notes from the children’s song: “maa-glu-ku.” A globe of light winked on at the end of his rod, but its quality was different from the magluku lighting the room; they were brighter, blue-white in color, meant to illuminate the room; his was softer, more diffuse, like sunlight under a canopy of leafy green trees on a summer afternoon.

“Extraordinary!” Thal exclaimed, looking at the others, a grin lighting his long face. He looked back at his light, smiling as it evoked feelings of being young in the summer. “Neki,” he said, canceling the light. “What if I . . . ,” he began, and lifted his rod again, singing the same orthek using three ascending notes: “ma-glu-ku.” A second globe of light blossomed from the end of Thal’s rod, growing brighter and brighter, causing them to cover their eyes. “Neki!” Thal shouted, canceling the second magluku. His grin grew sly. “Let’s go on,” he noted with obvious enthusiasm, “I want to try this out.” He turned toward the archway.

“Wait,” Klaybear said, “you still haven’t told me what you did to my mind.”

Thal stopped and turned back. “He distracted me,” he said, pointing to Tevvy, “with the singing.”

“I didn’t bring up the singing,” Tevvy protested, “you did. You can’t blame me.”

Thal opened his mouth to reply but was stopped by the kortexi.

“He’s right,” Blakstar said, “you did mention the singing first.”

“Never mind the singing,” Klaybear said, irritated, “what did you do?”

The irritation on Thal’s face vanished. “When I managed to get back to you, I slowed the spinning and rolling to a stop, then re-attached your mind to its moorings with the strongest mental threads I could create; that should prevent your, uh, fits, for a while, anyway.” He turned back toward the arch, walking forward and reading the new inscription:

“Correct me if I make a mistake,” Thal said to Klaybear, “but I think it is, the near complete source of life, all are bound to it to sustain them, thirsty are those who lack us, they eat silt, they crawl away, they change into parched earth.” He looked at Klaybear.

“Better than I could have done,” Klaybear smiled.

“Water,” Tevvy said.

“Why do you say that?” Blakstar asked.

“Thirsty and parched,” Tevvy replied.

Thal nodded and smiled. “You are quite right.”

“How do we breathe?” Tevvy asked.

“I would guess,” Thal said, “that like the earth realm, or the fire, we did not pass directly through the stone, but were surrounded and attacked by stone, so in the water realm, we will not pass directly through it but will be surrounded and attacked by it.”

“What if the water simply covers us to drown us?” Tevvy asked. “How would we survive?”

“There is a protective orthek,” Klaybear said, “that will surround us with breathable air.”

The kortexi nodded. “That is what happened when I passed through the water realm on the Mountain of Vision: I was surrounded by air.”

“Only one way to find out,” Thal said, touching the symbol for water on the arch. . . .

Did you hear the singing?” Tevvy asked, but none answered immediately, as his voice echoed and reverberated around them. They stood upon a circle of dark green stone, surrounded by a dome of blue-green water. Thal could see colorful fish of all shapes and sizes swimming around them, but none came near the dome.

“Faintly, I think,” Thal said in answer to Tevvy’s question. He spoke softly to minimize the echoing of his voice.

Tevvy also lowered his voice to a whisper. “They were voices both male and female, singing high and low, respectively, sounding bright and light, like the sound of running water.”

Blakstar snorted; Thal smiled. “That makes sense,” the white maghi noted softly, “since this is the water realm.”

The space was not dark, but neither was it light, the illumination coming from somewhere far above, colored by the water and ever shifting with the movements of the currents around them. A narrow, green stone path was the only way off the circle Thal could see, save for entering the water. They moved toward the path, stopping as they neared it. Thal reached out to touch the dome surrounding the green circle.

“It is solid,” Thal said after testing it, “I cannot put my hand through it to touch the water.”

Thal turned his attention toward the path. Just past the edge of the stone circle, the arched space over the narrow path grew hazy and green, like the water around them. Thal stuck his hand into the space of the path, held it there for a moment, then withdrew it, looking at it closely; he looked at his companions.

“It feels both wet and dry,” Thal noted, sounding puzzled.

“How can it be both wet and dry?” Tevvy asked, skeptically.

“Try it yourself,” Thal replied with irritation.

Tevvy raised an eyebrow, stepped forward, and stuck his hand into the space of the path. His eyes widened suddenly. “I see now what you mean,” he remarked, pulling his hand back and looking at it. “Both wet and dry,” he mumbled.

“Which means?” Blakstar asked.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Tevvy replied.

“Can we walk through there, or do we need Klaybear’s air orthek?” Blakstar said, with some irritation in his voice.

Tevvy shrugged, and before anyone else could answer, the awemi stepped forward into the haze, and his face and form became greenish and indistinct. After a moment, Thal saw him waving to them, but the motion was slow, and saw him speak, but his voice only bubbled.

“This could complicate things,” Blakstar noted, “not being able to understand one another.”

Thal’s brow wrinkled. “What effect will it have upon our ortheks?”

Klaybear shrugged. “We are meant to pass through here,” he said, stepping forward to follow Tevvy.

Without thinking, Blakstar went after him, leaving the white maghi standing there, first to touch the space but last to enter. Thal sighed and followed the others.

Next time we will continue with our tale as our heroes journey through the water realm on their way through Shigmar’s tomb to find Shigmar’s fabled staff. For those who wish to read on, get a full ebook copy from Smashwords for free! If you prefer print, purchase your copy from the link provided. Good reading!