Staff of Shigmar: Chapter 12, Part 3

4 June 2026

Welcome back and a good morning to all! We return with another installment from the second book of our epic fantasy, Staff of Shigmar, and see our heroes as they enter and travel through the water realm, a realm that tries their virtue, their commitment to their current (for Klaybear) and future (for Blakstar, Thal, & Tevvy) wives. . . . (6 April 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 3

Klaybear found that walking was difficult, like wading through water over his head, with only his feet firmly on the stone path. He saw Blakstar speaking to him, but heard only muffled bubbling, as they tried, like children, to speak to one another underwater. He could breathe, but it was like breathing very thick air, or airy water. The taste was salty, and he found that he needed to spit often, his mouth filling with water as he breathed. Tevvy waved his arm slowly, then pointed down the path. He nodded, and saw Tevvy turn and try to walk forward. After a few moments, the awemi shook his head, then he tried something else, what looked to Klaybear like a combination of jumping, skipping, and floating forward, although his movements were slowed, and his hairy feet were off the stone longer than they should have been. Klaybear tried to follow, but his feet and legs moved faster than his body, and he started to fall slowly backward. He corrected his stance, leaning far forward, holding his hands and arms in front of him, and managing to skip, hop, and float after Tevvy. Blakstar and Thal followed suit, imitating the motions of their companions, and Klaybear soon discovered how difficult and tiring this motion was, for what could have only been a few hundred yards, felt to him as if he had run several miles uphill. Klaybear followed Tevvy and Blakstar into a circular area. Thal did not catch up until the others had already stopped, stumbling into the circular area where the water was thinner. Klaybear turned and watched him skip out of the path.

“What happened?” Blakstar asked, voice audible but echoing sharply.

“Didn’t you notice the fish?” Thal asked as he tumbled out of the pathway.

Blakstar looked a question back at Thal.

“They took no notice of the space over the path,” Thal whispered to minimize the echoes, “as if it were no different from the ocean around us.”

“That is because to us,” a new, female voice spoke from behind them, “it is water, whereas for you, it is air.”

Klaybear turned and saw figures swimming out of the water, into the circle, their forms altering from their fishy forms into the shapes of green skinned, green-haired females, shaking their long hair as they came to rest on the stone, the hair falling to cover their naked breasts and loins.

“Wedoram,” Tevvy whispered, staring in open admiration, “very beautiful wedoram.”

Blakstar flushed and looked down; Thal stood gaping, his mouth hanging open. Only Klaybear was unaffected by their appearance. He opened his mouth to speak, but one of the wedoram stepped forward and spoke.

“Welcome, my lords, chosen of the One,” her voice was pleasant and musical, “to the realm of Potwedi, Lord of the Waters. We are his daughters, and he has sent us to bring you to our caves, to give you refreshment and diversion until the Great One approaches.”

Klaybear raised an eyebrow, and a vision of Klare’s response to this offer floated into the front of his mind. He frowned.

“Diversion?” Tevvy asked, grinning stupidly.

“Yes,” she replied, “it is both our pleasure and good fortune to spend many hours diverting ourselves for our mutual pleasure, before our Father will see you.”

One of the others stepped forward, going to the kortexi and putting her hand on his arm, she said, “I get this one first; he has known the pleasure of mating.”

Blakstar jerked his arm away, backing up, face livid. “Pleasure of mating?” he replied in confusion, and his voiced echoed and re-echoed around them. “I don’t know what you are talking about,” he added, but his face colored.

“That is not true,” the one who had touched him said, “you have mated with a female and you did find it pleasurable; I can see it written in the lines of your face and your stance.”

“Liar!” Blakstar hissed through clenched teeth. He ripped his sword from its scabbard and pointed it directly at the wedora’s heart. “If you touch me again, I will slay you!”

The one facing Blakstar seemed nonplused by the sword pointing at her. “Well then,” she noted, “if my natural wetha form does not please you, then perhaps this one will.” Her form blurred and her skin lightened, turning white, her hair going from green to blonde and shortening, her eyes going gray, her lips full, red, and pouting, wearing a simple, worn and torn, black tunic that hugged her lithe figure.

“That’s her!” Tevvy exclaimed.

“Would you kill me, Sir Blakstar,” her voice had changed, “while wearing this form?”

The sword fell from Blakstar’s limp hand, clanking and echoing dully as it struck the stone; the kortexi staggered back as if he had been struck.

Thinking she had gained an advantage over him, she moved forward, holding her arms up, inviting an embrace. “I am she,” she said softly, “the wetha of your dreams.”

Blakstar took one halting step forward, and Klaybear misunderstood his action, his staff suddenly in his hand and glowing, moving toward the kortexi to stop him. But Blakstar’s halting step and stunned look changed; he leapt at the wedora, hands clawed and a snarl escaping his clenched teeth. His hands grabbed the tunic at the shoulders; the sound of ripping fabric echoed and reverberated around them.

“No!” Klaybear exclaimed, trying to get to and stop Blakstar, but something held him back. He turned and saw the first wedora keeping him from moving, and he was surprised by her strength. When he turned back to the kortexi, he saw Blakstar hurling the wedora from him.

“You’re not!” Blakstar snarled. “Where are the scars from whips on your back?” He turned, bending down and frantically searching for his sword. “Where?” Grabbing it, he rushed at the wedora, who had not fallen to the stone but floated in the air on her back, holding the torn tunic closed over her front and still smiling up at the kortexi rushing toward her with his sword held in front of him.

“You’d rather I appear in her corrupted form, scarred plaything of the red kailum, who raised her to be a kara?” she threw this question at him, still floating away and altering her form so that white lines appeared on her bare shoulders.

The kortexi slowed, but he did not lower his sword.

“I could tell you her name,” she said in a soft voice, “since you do not even know her name: it is Kathi,” she laughed, “because that is what she is: a cheap kara, daughter of a sailor and a prostitute,” and she was suddenly tied with leather thongs to a tree that was bent over, a few feet off the stone. She writhed as if she wanted to escape, screaming “no,” and “please,” and as she writhed, the torn tunic fell open, revealing the red mark of Gar on her chest, throbbing angrily.

Blakstar stopped dead, his sword sliding from his fingers and clanking on to the stone a second time, except that this time, the kortexi crumpled, covering his head and sobbing.

The wedora, recognizing that she had gone too far, blurred into her human female form. “Father, you promised!” she shouted.

The other two, ignoring the exchange between Blakstar and their sister, had changed into other forms: an awema, looking much like Tevvy, with a similar round, innocent face, curly brown hair; and the other, as tall and thin as Thal, with long, dark hair, each whispering to Tevvy and Thal, taking no notice of Blakstar, until their sister screamed. Klaybear did not notice that the wedora holding his arm had become Klare.

“You promised,” she screamed again, “that we could have the males, but the female chosen is not here, as the Great Lord said she would be.”

The stone beneath their feet shook suddenly, causing the three still standing to reel about, while the wedoram simply floated above the stone, resuming their greenish wedora forms, legs merging together to form fish-like tails. The illumination, although faint, was suddenly cut off, plunging them into semi-darkness. A rumbling, bubbling sound came from above them, and the four wedoram looked up, listening.

“We do not know,” the first said. She turned to Klaybear, her eyes green points of light in the darkness. “Where is your mate? Why isn’t she with you?” she demanded.

Klaybear suddenly understood why Klare’s family was attacked, understood why she had to stay behind. “She had things to do, and could not come with us,” he replied.

The rumbling, bubbling sounded again. The wedoram listened intently, then looked back at Klaybear. “Is she waiting in the tomb?”

“No, she could not come with us.”

Rumbling, bubbling overhead. “This is regrettable, for she was promised to our lord.”

“She belongs to me,” Klaybear replied, “and I will not surrender her to you or your lord, nor would she,” he snorted, imagining Klare’s quixotic response. “More likely that she would . . . ,” he went on, but stopped suddenly.

The rumbling, bubbling sound overhead shook the stone under their feet. The glowing eyes looked back at him, tinged with red. “Then your lives are forfeit,” the wedora screamed, lunging forward.

Before he could even defend himself, he heard Thal singing the words, and a brilliant globe of light blossomed behind him, momentarily blinding the wedoram, who were revealed in new forms, large and shark-like, swimming directly at them, teeth-filled mouths gaping. Thal’s light gave them the instant they needed to get out of the way and take out their weapons. As he rolled to his feet, Klaybear heard Thal’s tenor voice, singing another orthek.

“Pleu-gi-pur,” Thal sang in ascending notes, and an arrow of fire exploded from the end of his rod, knocking him backward. It struck the wedora attacking him, engulfed her in roaring flames, and she exploded with a squeal of pain. Thal’s eyes were wide with astonishment.

Tevvy had rolled under the wedora attacking him, slicing open her belly with a dagger that had appeared in his hand as he rolled, her momentum carrying her past Tevvy even as her entrails slid out. Blakstar had moved the swiftest, grabbing his sword and cutting the wedora in two, and before the two halves could separate from one another, the kortexi had leapt toward Klaybear, splitting the wedora attacking the green kailu with a mighty overhand stroke, golden flames encasing the blade as it sheared through her flesh and scales. He moved on, swinging his sword and splitting the wedora Tevvy had sliced open.

“Nice work,” Tevvy noted.

But Blakstar did not look at the awemi; his eyes were fixed overhead, where the light of Thal’s brilliant magluku showed something large and dark floating above them, with many tentacles surrounding the dome of airy water over the stone circle.

“What is that?” Tevvy asked, voice high and frightened.

The rumbling, bubbling sound increased in its intensity, and seemed to be coming from whatever was floating overhead.

“Potwedi,” Thal said, “and I get the sense that he is not happy with us.”

The tentacles, and there were hundreds of them, felt their way down and around the dome, as if they were seeking a way to enter the protected space.

“Great!” Tevvy shouted frantically, “that’s just great! The Lord of the Oceans not happy with us! Boy do you have the gift of understatement! My old granny was right: she said I’d come to a bad end if I took up with the likes of you!” He looked around, panicked, hoping to find a way of escape.

“Keep your hair on!” Blakstar shouted back. “It is not as if we are defenseless.”

Tevvy threw up his hands. “Another one!” he shouted. “Maybe it hasn’t gotten through all that steel surrounding your head that we are at the bottom of the ocean, a dome of air the only thing between us and being crushed and drowned by an angry Lord of the Oceans,” but Tevvy stopped suddenly, hands going to his ears. “Ah!” was all he managed before collapsing on the stone.

“What happened . . . ?” Blakstar started to ask, then felt the pressure around them increasing. “He’s trying to crush us!”

“Over here,” Klaybear shouted, moving over the fallen awemi. “Quickly!”
Thal and Blakstar moved next to Klaybear, who held up his staff and sang, as Thal had done, “kwek-lo-pla-ka-skoit,” waving his staff in an arc over their heads, then tapping the heel on the stone beneath them. A dome made from seamless stone flashed into existence over their heads, easing the pressure around them.

“Keep humming the words,” Thal noted, and Klaybear continued softly to sing the words of the orthek.

After several moments, he inhaled sharply, his singing almost faltering. The stone under their feet shook, and Klaybear could feel the pressure upon his shield ease. Tevvy groaned and sat up.

“Drop the shield!” Blakstar exclaimed, “we have to know what he is doing!”

Klaybear released the orthek, the stone winked out of existence with an orange flash, and they saw hundreds of tentacles piercing the dome of air, wriggling toward them from all directions. The kortexi leaped toward the nearest, swinging his golden flaming sword and hacking off all the tentacles that came near him. Thal raised his rod, pointing it overhead and sang the same words as before. A second time, an arrow of pure flame exploded from the tip of his rod, shooting up and striking the underside of the Lord of the Oceans. The stone under their feet shuddered; the rumbling and bubbling creature overhead roared in pain.

Klaybear smiled. “Let’s try a hotter fire,” he noted, raising his staff and singing, “stal-na-kai-lig-ater!” A pillar of green kailu fire erupted at the apex of the dome, and for a moment, the tentacles faltered. The sound of rumbling bubbling pain increased to a fever pitch.

“Quick!” Tevvy shouted. “Open a door back to the tomb!”

“I don’t think it will work,” Thal said, “as it disrupts the test that we are in.”

“The test has already been disrupted!” Tevvy shouted back. “There is no way out of this circle, not even the way we came!”

Blakstar turned from the tentacles that had momentarily withdrawn, concentrated a moment, and dragged the point of his sword over the stone in a circle, lifting it to form the arch when he had drawn the circle. The gray arch flared to life. “Hurry!” he shouted, “before he recovers!”

Tevvy leaped through the arch, followed closely by Thal, Klaybear, and then Blakstar, but as the kortexi stepped through the arch, several tentacles reached inside, grabbing him and pinning his arms to his sides, pulling him back through the arch. His sword slipped from his fingers, its golden light going dark, falling to the sand where his stunned companions stood; the arch winked out.

Come back Friday and see our heroes struggle with the loss of Blakstar! 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; may we all be better today than yesterday!