The Hammer - Cor Series Book I

Chapter 17

Tsarek's words hung in the dense air of the small cave. Past-father could only refer to Corvan's grandfather. The lizard had lied about how long he watched the doors. He had murdered his grandfather to stop him from returning home!

Anger blazed in Corvan's eyes. "Why? Why did you kill my grandfather?"

The lizard fell on its face on the floor. "It was the task I was given by my master. I was under the band and had to obey."

"That's no excuse! You said you chose the band; you were responsible for your actions."

"Yes, yes, it is true and that is why you must take my life for his." Tsarek spoke into the dirt. "It is the law of the Cor."

The scaly creature groveling at his feet only increased Corvan's frustration and anger. He wanted to punish it for what it had done, but he did not want to kill it. Corvan released the hammer from its holster and held it over the lizard's head. "I am not your judge. The hammer will decide your punishment."

Tsarek rolled onto its back, and a guttural scream escaped its lips. Startled, Corvan stepped back, and the hammer smacked into the large globe. Warm blobs of blue light rained down around him. The room was plunged into darkness as they fizzled out on the floor.

There was a rustle of movement, then a quiet voice spoke. "Please, sir, do not use the hammer. I am afraid of what it might do to me."

The glow in the remaining smaller globes flickered back to life to reveal the pathetic form cowering against the far wall of the storage room. Corvan lowered the hammer. Tsarek had killed his grandfather, but the creature before him was different now that it no longer had the band around its neck.

"I will not take your life, Tsarek." He slid the hammer back into the holster. "I am not bound by your laws. You are free to go."

"Oh, sir, please do not send me away." Tsarek crawled back to Corvan. "To send me away is to send me back to him." He rested a paw on Corvan's right sneaker. "Please, sir, I wish to stay with you. You will need me to get through the labyrinth. I freely desire to serve the Cor-Van and to help him rescue his counterpart and remove the black band. It makes you do terrible things."

Could Kate end up as angry and violent as Tsarek when he had worn the band? She was being drawn deeper into the darkness, and he needed Tsarek's help to find her whether he could trust him or not.

"I will let you be my guide until we find Kate and return."

Tsarek sat up and nodded vigorously. "We cannot reach her now, and she can go no farther until the next shift of the labyrinth. That is also when the first portal will flow open. I must finish packing, and you need to rest. You can lie there." He pointed to a low mound on the floor. "It is my special sleeping place."

Corvan dragged the pack over and sat down. The weariness of the long day and night settled in as he leaned back against his pack. As he relaxed, the mound beneath him grew softer and conformed to his body. He desperately wanted to close his eyes but not with Tsarek nearby.

Tsarek watched him with keen interest. "There is a long journey ahead of us. I will wake you in time to repack your things. Although the first opening is quite large, the others may be too tight for all your belongings."

Tsarek turned away and began to pick through the alcoves cut into his storage room walls. Each hole contained something from the world above: a battered transistor radio with a piece of barbed wire stuck into the broken antenna, a carefully polished bent fork perched on a rock like a thin metal bird, a rusty adjustable wrench with only one jaw, and a scruffy baseball with Corvan's early attempts at a signature scrawled across it. The lizard was an organized packrat.