The Return of Maeve 6
**There is a scene in this chapter that might be confusing. The names in (******) are the REAL people; the names before the (******) are the magical double overlapping the REAL person.
***Example: When Sinbad first woke up on the island in season 2, he thought he saw Maeve, but it was really Bryn.
****This is similar except it is magic and more permanent than a simple hallucination.
**((*******)) means Rongar's real memory of this taking place.
***Bold mean either the magic is doing something or it is Rongar's thoughts.
The crew fell silent.
Not a sound, even breathing, was heard from their persons.
What evil had befallen their friend, that even one stumble would end up with them killing her?!
Sinbad felt his heart constrict once more. How much more of this could he stand? First, he had thought he had finally found Maeve. Next, it had been a false lead for Scratch to try and get his soul. Then, just a minute ago, Caipra had given him the hope of finding her once more; now she was likely to be killed because of him.
For if anyone was to fail in their tests, it would be him because he has lost his sense of self and even now was struggling to find it. To go through this test, would surely cause her death.
Scratch would only be too thrilled by the fact that his greatest enemy, and greatest source of power, would end up in his grasp because of his own failure as a man.
Caipra shot his a sharp and slightly disapproving glance, and again Sinbad felt guilty for his loss of self-worth. He had a marvelous ability to place the blame of every wrong in the world on his shoulders, even if it had nothing to do with him.
Where this talent for such blame came from, he wasn't sure; but he was sure it entered his life after Maeve fell over board.
Could he possibly ask the others to do this even though he himself wasn't sure he could? He wanted to help her, make no mistake, but he wasn't so sure he'd pass the test.
Before he could make his concerns known, Rongar, who was sitting there pensively staring at nothing, nodded and stood up.
Sinbad turned his attention to his old friend, and asked hesitantly, "Rongar?"
Rongar turned towards the others; he nodded resolutely; patted his hand firmly over his heart and made a symbol all there recognized as meaning Maeve and raised an eyebrow at both Sinbad and Caipra.
Sinbad allowed, "If you are sure…?"
Rongar nodded once again in firm assurance.
Caipra smiled and ordered gently as she pointed to the hand woven rug in the main room, "Very well, Rongar you'll need to lay down on the floor just there as I gather the ingredients and make ready to cast the spell."
Rongar followed Caipra's finger and saw the rug float up and away with Caipra's simple motion. There underneath the rug was a white pentacle with five white candles sitting on the five points of the star.
Each of the men noticed the candles and wondered what they were for. Maeve had never really worked with candles before and Bryn's powers were so out of control that there was no need for her to train with candles.
Caipra waved her hand and all five candles burst into flames.
She turned towards Rongar and said, "Lay down Rongar."
When he was in the center of the star, Caipra raised her hands and intoned,
"From this hour until your return,
these candles of hope I will let burn.
My lord and lady, watch over you.
Keep you safe, from harms view.
From now until you return to me.
This is my will, so mote it be."
The men watched as Rongar was enveloped in a white light. When it vanished, Rongar was as still as stone and if not for the minute rise and fall of his chest they would have though he was dead.
Doubar asked, "Why did you summon upon the Lord and Lady?"
Caipra smiled and said, "Maeve's childhood gave devotion to…"
Bryn blinked for the spell and pentacle was very familiar to her somehow and ended, "The Green Man and the Lady of the Moon."
Firouz asked with wonder in his voice, "How'd you know that?"
Bryn blinked and replied in an oddly distant and detacted voice, "I don't know."
Rongar blinked as his vision blurred and then sharpened. He was surrounded by darkness and in the distance he heard water dripping down from the top of wherever he was.
The smell was overwhelmingly awful. His nose was assaulted with scents he hadn't experienced since his incarceration years ago when Ali Raschid, the thieving merchant, cut out his tongue.
He spun around and threw out his hands in front of him in hopes of finding his path. With only three steps to his right, he came up on a solid wall.
With practiced ease, he ran his hands over the stone wall.
He frowned; the wall's surface was smooth and blocked off like stones had been stacked to make the chamber he was in. He ran his fingers in the grooves and his frown deepened. It felt like dried mortar. He coppery scent assailed his nostrils with a sudden burst of unfelt but easily heard wind.
He knew this scent;
Blood.
With his hands still grazing the wall in an effort to find his way, Rongar picked a direction and slowly began to walk.
He didn't understand; He was supposed to be tested by something or someone to help Maeve.
Was this a part of it?
Had he failed already?!
If not, would Maeve die because he can't figure out what he is supposed to do?!
As he felt his way around a sharp corner, furthering his belief that this was a man made chamber (dungeon), a sparkle of sharp light hit his conditioned eyes.
He moaned and threw up his hands to block the light.
As he did that, he threw himself behind the wall in case of an unexpected attack. The wall would provide him with some protect till his eyesight returned to him.
His heart was pounding.
If I'm where I think I am…
But that is impossible!
I personally sent Ali Raschid to his death by tossing him over the palace's walls!
How can I be here, now?!
Once his eyesight grew comfortable to the darkness, he slowly edged around the wall, his heart still pounding in disbelief, and chocked a yell of victory.
There he was; Ali Raschid in chains like he had been so very long ago.
Rongar smiled to himself as he gazed at the man who had caused him and his sister, Zora, so much pain.
His immaculate clothes were in bloody tatters.
His proud facial lines were weary and his skin an ash gray of the dead yet not dead.
His eyes had been blackened so much that he could not see out of one and very little through the other.
His lips were bruised a bloody red and even now blood pooled up on his swollen flesh and dribbled out and down his chin and neck.
Three of his fingers were pulled out of their sockets and his entire back was a meaty mess of torn flesh and razor sharp edges of skin where the leather had torn it in punishment.
He was not standing so much as hanging there and Rongar felt a jolt of satisfaction and pleasure course through his veins at the sight.
Rongar, now calm and feeling victorious, (though he had done nothing yet to deserve it) after making sure that they were alone, walked out of the shadows proudly like the Prince he was.
Unnoticed by him, a second wind unseen, unfelt, and unheard pushed by him and made the scene before him tremble under its magic spell.
Rongar (Ali) moaned and pulled himself into a fetal position to protect himself from whomever it was who had come to harm him.
Ali (Rongar) grinned and said, "My, my, my, look how the mighty have fallen."
Though he felt victory in his blood, he also felt a hint of sympathy or was it even empathy for his hated enemy tied up their like he had once been?
Ali (Rongar) blinked and his hand slammed to his mouth in shock.
He could speak!
Elation spread through his soul as he spoke again ignoring his inner goodness, which yelled at him that this was wrong, "How does it feel Ali Raschid too be on the other end of the tails? How does it feel to feel your very flesh ripping and tearing under another power?"
As he said this, he moved to the chamber walls and grabbed the very weapon he spoke of.
In spite of himself, he felt a shiver of revulsion sweep across him at the sight of the leathers and the thoughts that flew through his mind as to how to use it in the most effective and most painful way possible.
The tails were coated in red blood and chunks of flesh were still sticking to the drying blood and leather.
Rongar (Ali) moaned; it sounded like a wounded animal and not human.
Ali (Rongar) gasped.
Ali (Rongar) could easily see that Rongar (Ali's) tongue was no more. It had been cut from his mouth like his had been so very long ago.
Yet again, a jolt of sympathy hit him. He even had the urge to let the man go even with all he had done to him, his sister, and his country.
No one deserved to go through this like he had.
No one.
Still Rongar (Ali) moaned and tried to cover himself as best as he could while shaking and silent pleas went unheard though they were said even without the skill of speech from the wounded man chained to the wooden poles.
As Ali (Rongar) made his way to Rongar (Ali) to let him go, a creaking sound reverberated throughout the dungeons.
Both men froze and turned towards the door.
There in the doorway, was a younger and unscarred Zora. She gasped and flew down the stairs.
Ali (Rongar) grinned and exclaimed, "Zora! I can speak again!"
Ali (Rongar) nearly stumbled over nothing at the evil glare Zora met him with. Her eyes were glazing over like Bryn's and Maeve's did when they used their magic.
Why was she upset with him? He was back and could speak once more! Why wasn't she happy to see him?!
Zora snarled as she tended to the wounded Rongar (Ali), "Why shouldn't you be able to speak Ali? You aren't the one whose tongue has been cut out!"
Rongar (Ali) within Zora's arms moaned in despair and pain as she whispered and shushed and lovingly tended to him.
Ali (Rongar) felt his frozen fingers drop the leather tails at his sister's words.
Ali? She had called him Ali? Why? Why was she helping their tormentor?!
Suddenly very angry at the situation, (what kind of test was this?) he roared, "Why do you help him! He is nothing! You should be helping and loving me! I am your brother not him!"
Zora eyed him like he had lost his mind mixed with extreme hatred that sent a stabbing pain to his chest, and answered in a snarl, "I help him because he, unlike you, is my brother! You are a tyrant who needs to be killed!"
As Ali (Rongar) yelled and made to rip Rongar (Ali) to pieces with his bare hands; Zora through herself before Rongar (Ali), yelling at him to spare her brother's life, he froze wide eyed in horror.
Before him was a mirror.
He wasn't in the mirror.
Ali was.
His lungs burned with their need for air, yet he could not make his body do the simplest and most instinctual jobs that it had always done from the moment he entered this world.
Ali was in the mirror, yet he ((Rongar)) could see, feel, speak, touch, hear, and taste as if it was his own body!
He blinked and suddenly he could move. He felt the air whoosh out of him and looked up to see Zora, a very young Zora, above him holding a long bo staff.
He pulsating side flaring with pain made it extremely obvious as to how and why he moved.
He remembered this part of his history too. He distinctly remembered Zora trying to come to his rescue, but she had been knocked unconscious by her would be love and he had paid with more blood for ((Ali's)) rage at Zora's attempt at ending his life.
Despite his near death, for Zora looked murderous, ((Rongar)) glanced at the mirror one more time and gasped.
The dungeons were awash in an eldritch green glow.
Magic
Then he remembered exactly why he was here.
Maeve needed him!
This hadn't happened!
In fact, like Zora had told him when they were last in Bollnah, had been unconscious for many days after he had escaped from Ali and made his way to Basra.
She hadn't had the chance to be a murderer; to even think it!
He rose to his feet, ripped the bo staff from Zora's hands, took a step back, bowed at the waist to show his appreciation and respect and said, "You are both free to go."
Zora and the moaning Rongar (Ali) froze and silenced themselves as if they had been placed under and freezing spell.
The green eldritch magic, which rolled about his leather sandaled feet and an unseen but slightly familiar soothing, seductive voice, neither male nor female for all its familiarity, was heard, "You are an honorable man Rongar, you have passed your test."
There was another brilliant flash of light.
When he could see once more, he was no longer in the dungeons below the palace of Bollnah, but inside the pentacle in Caipra's house in Basra.
"Rongar! Are you alright!" asked a concerned and fretting Firouz.
Sinbad was concerned as well.
Rongar's pallor wasn't healthy at all.
His normally dark hued skin that gleamed with life was ashy gray and his breath came to him in uneven bursts of life giving air.
Caipra said, "He will be well in a few minutes, he has met and won against that which still haunted him. He has passed."
Rongar looked up from his place on the floor with his knees bunched up under him and his elbows and arms resting on his knees and nodded tiredly.
He made a few signs as he nodded once more: "Yes, I'll be fine, it was just…it was not exactly what I had been expecting…."
Doubar asked, "What do you mean?"
Caipra interrupted, "We must not speak of the trials until they are done. To speak of them as such would tempt Turok's wrath upon Maeve."
That caused the group to stop speaking at once.
But Firouz had to ask, "How could he possibly know what we speak of here Caipra?"
Caipra sat down tiredly on her favorite chair and said, "The same way Rumina spied on you, a seeing pool."
The Nomad crew grew silent once more. What could they say against that? It could quite possibly be true, after all.
Doubar sighed and asked wearily as he wasn't quite sure he wanted to ask this but he wanted Maeve back even more, "Who's next?"
Firouz, though anxious about his own test, was also very curious and replied, "I am."
Caipra nodded and said as she laid her head against the padded back support of her chair, "In an hour, I need to regain my strength."