Chapter 7
At first, Weylan wasn't sure how to react. "Ill?" he repeated, slightly surprised. "Wotcha mean 'e's ill, mate?"
"That's what I mean, he's ill, and may not live." Tess answered slowly.
Disappointment and frustration rushed through the otter, who stared down at his feet. "Can't I still see 'im?" he asked.
Tess shook her head. "He's very contagious." she explained. "Letting you see him would risk spreading the disease to others. And even if he wasn't contagious, he's in no shape to answer whatever questions you might have."
Weylan ran one paw over the portion of tapestry again, then rested his head against it. "Came all this way fer nothin' I guess." he remarked.
"Don't give up yet." Tess encouraged, lifting Weylan's head with one paw. "Maybe I can help."
"Oh, no, the dream was very specific." Weylan said, "It said that if I wanted the reward, I 'ad to come to Redwall, and find 'I Am That Is's' son, then..."
"Son?" Tess interrupted suddenly. "You hadn't said anything about a son before now!"
"Wot, does 'e 'ave un?" Weylan asked, referring to Matthias.
"Yes, and it seems to me that he's the one who can help you." Tess answered.
Toka's horde was on the move again. Mokeet watched it go from the inside of his cage half-heartedly. He knew two things. They were getting closer to the treasure Toka was so bent in finding, and that they were getting closer to Redwall, which Toka was even more bent on taking over than he was in finding the treasure now.
Mokeet knew that Redwall had withstood vermin attacks numerous before over the seasons, and had only fallen into vermin hands maybe once or twice, all of those times being very, very, short lived. But Mokeet knew that Toka's horde wasn't your average vermin horde, and was possibly much more trained in combat than any of the other hordes Redwall has faced before now.
Unfortunately, Toka now knew all of this.
As the otter saw it, Mokeet didn't have much choice but to tell Toka all he knew about Redwall. If he didn't, he'd get killed. Not that it wasn't better for Mokeet that way, he rather be dead than help prisoner like this, but he knew that if he died, Toka would find another otter and put the poor beast through had Mokeet had to endure. And Mokeet didn't want to be the one that brought that fate on anyone. So now Toka now knew what his advantages over Redwall's were and even saw one advantage that Mokeet had missed.
The element of surprise.
Except for the scouting party of shrews Toka's horde had slain, the group hadn't ran into anymore natives. While Mokeet considered that good luck for the natives, he knew that until the shrew tribe found their dead scouting party, word of Toka's presence in Mossflower wouldn't be reaching Redwall anytime soon, meaning that the abbey inhabitants would have no warning.
Not surprisingly, this didn't make Mokeet feel any better.
Around mid afternoon, the horde stopped to set up camp and have lunch, Toka feeling that they had made good progress enough to have a break from marching. While the majority of the group settled down to eat, and Mokeet was brought his usual measly scraps, scouts were sent out to examine the land ahead of them. Noting the lush growth, Mokeet himself guessed there was a source of water nearby, probably in the form of a pond.
After being gone for a few hours, the scouts returned with word of having found just that. But they also found something else. A dwelling.
Toka and a group of about six others went and raided the dwelling. They were gone for several hours, but occasionally one would return with an armload of items that interested the horde and were deposited in a pile near Mokeet's cage. From there, the otter was able to study the items, to get an idea of what or who had them.
His final conclusion was that the items once belonged to a small family of river otters. Mokeet shuddered at the thought of what might have happened to that family.
He got to find out when one of the raiding party was sent to get Mokeet and bring him to Toka for questioning. This surprised Mokeet, because Toka usually left his prisoners out of the loop when it came to raids like these. He'd only bring it up if he felt that Mokeet could tell him something in relation to what he got out of that raid.
That had to be true now, which made Mokeet wonder what it was that Toka had found.
The dwelling in question happened to be a moss covered cave next to a small pond. Toka's beasts were moving in and out of that cave, depositing the remaining things they found in two piles. One was things that could be used as fire wood. The other was all metal, that could be melted down to make weapons and other war devices. There was a fair amount of both, which surprised Mokeet, because he was sure that the dwelling wasn't too incredibly big.
Toka was down in the cave itself, supervising the raid. There wasn't much left that interested Toka apparently, for everything was simply just being chucked around. Mokeet assumed that they were in the final stages of the raid, and were simply looking for anything that might have been overlooked.
"Mokeet." Toka said when he saw his prisoner get deposited at his feet. "How are you doing, mate?"
"I ain't yore mate." Mokeet reminded Toka. As usual, Toka ignored this statement.
"Quite a successful raid, don't you think?" he asked calmly, surveying the destruction before him.
"That's a matter of opinion, I suppose." Mokeet commented. "I'm assumin' ye didn't find nothin' in the way of inhabitants, though."
The otter hadn't seen any dead bodies lying around, so unless they had been ditched into the pond, the cave had been...
"Deserted." Toka said, frustrated. "Ruins part of the fun, you know."
"Not really." Mokeet sighed.
"I did find something that interested me though." Toka admitted, pulling something off a shelf, "Of course, in the end, it'll probably end up being used as firewood, but it's the information that counts."
He held up a wooden sign. Hand carved into the delicately painted wood were two names, probably the names of the inhabitants of the dwelling. They read, "Kesmin" and "Weylan."
"Do you know these two?" Toka asked.
Mokeet stared at the words for a long moment before finally opening his mouth to speak, but Toka cut him off quickly.
"Lie to me, and you're dead." he threatened.
Mokeet gulped, and took one last glance at the names on the sign. "Aye." he answered, "I know 'em."
Mattimeo looked at himself staring back in the mirror's reflection. He was dressed in his father's battle armor, and had put it on long enough to see what it felt like to wear it. Now he knew. It didn't seem right. It should be his father in this armor, not him. Mattimeo even looked like his father in this battle armor, and that only added to the injury Mattimeo felt just wearing it.
Sighing, he pulled the armor off. It wasn't going to be easy getting through this. He wished there was something that would take his mind off all of this.
And as usual, it came in the form of Tess.
"Matti!" she exclaimed, running in just as Mattimeo finished slipping his tunic back on. "Come with me!"
Puzzled, the mouse looked his friend over. She was out breath, like she had just ran across Mossflower to get here. As Mattimeo stepped towards her, he saw that her fur was damp with sweat.
"What is it?" he asked as Tess made sure he was following and ran off again.
"It's important!" she said as she ran and Mattimeo jogged to keep up, exiting the gatehouse cottage. "Weylan will explain it all."
"Weylan?" Mattimeo repeated as they raced across the grounds, "The otter that's visiting?"
"Yes!" Tess exclaimed exasperated, pulling open the door leading into the Great Hall.
No one was there. Mattimeo was about to ask what this was all about, but was cut off when Tess's paw grabbed his and dragged him across the massive room and down the stairs into Cavern Hole.
Weylan sat at the table, swirling his spoon in a bowl of hotroot soup, not eating it. He glanced up as Tess approached, eyeing both mice.
"Wot's all this?" he asked, seeming to be as much in the dark about this as Mattimeo.
"Weylan," Tess began breathlessly. "Meet I Am That Is's son."
Now Mattimeo was really lost, but it all seemed to come together for Weylan, who's face brightened with comprehension.
"Will someone please explain what is going on?" Mattimeo begged.
"Er, well, okay, we'll start at the beginnin'" Weylan stated. "'ello, I'm Weylan."
"I know that." Mattimeo said annoyed, before turning to his companion. "Tess, I'm really not in the mood for games."
"But this isn't a game, Matti." Tess said. "Explain your dream to him, Weylan."
"Er, okay." Weylan began hesitantly. "Well, see, a few nights back, I 'ad a dream, where I was on this 'ill with an otter, older than me. He told me this riddle: 'He who seeks the award, and claim it as 'is, an abbey he must face towards. There, seek I am that is. 'is son will guide the way.'"
Mattimeo looked at the otter oddly. "Is that why you're here?" he asked.
Weylan nodded. "And yore 'im, right?" he asked. "I Am That Is's son."
"Yes." Mattimeo began slowly. "But I don't know anything about a reward."
Weylan looked disappointed. "I don't get it then." he said, annoyed. "Yore supposed to guide me to this award, wotever it is."
"Maybe not." Tess said. "Maybe you're just looking at the riddle wrong."
"How so, Tess?" Mattimeo asked, as he helped her sit down at the table on the other side of Weylan, before sitting down himself.
"Weylan's dream said that you're supposed to guide the way." said Tess, "But the dream didn't say that the way would take you to the riddle."
"Well, whatever the case, it's clear that there's more we need to figure out about this riddle before we do anything." Mattimeo stated. "We can't just race into this. Unfortunately, there really isn't much this riddle tells us."
"But there's more!" Weylan suddenly exclaimed, remembering his dream just last night. "I had another dream, and while it went the same way, but the riddle was different!"
"What did it say?" Tess asked.
"Well, um, let's see." Weylan said, struggling to remember. "'Heed my warning, trouble is coming. To the north, the heir will be disruptive. To the south, a friend will be captive. Both must be resolved, for the award to be procured.'"
"Well that clears a few things up." Mattimeo commented. "These events you're referring to have to happen first, before you can get this reward."
"But wot are they?" Weylan asked.
"The first one is pretty clear to me." Tess said. "'To the north, the heir will be disruptive.' Weylan, you were coming from the south at the time, so when the riddle says 'to the north', it's referring to here at Redwall. Now, who do we know who's a heir to something here?"
"Me." Mattimeo replied automatically. "I'm the heir to Martin's sword and next to take the role as warrior of Redwall."
"An' that's gotten disrupted slightly, 'asn't it?" Weylan asked. "I mean, yore father's ill, and might die, sorry about that by the way, but that's gonna force all of that stuff comin' to ye sooner than ye thought."
"He's right, Matti." Tess said, "We were discussing this just earlier today."
Mattimeo remained silent, and didn't answer.
"So wot about the south?" Weylan asked. "The riddle says a friend bein' 'eld captive is comin' this way."
"How do you know they're coming here?" Tess asked.
"Cause, the riddle says that trouble is comin'." Weylan explained. "Seems to me that anybody holdin' somethin' captive is trouble."
"But there's nothing in the south but desert land." Mattimeo said suddenly. "Past Mossflower, any life that might travel this way is all but non-existent."
There was a long pause.
"Ye sure about that mate?" Weylan asked slowly. "These riddles I've been gettin' haven't lied yet..."