Earth - A little while ago

Kane

There was a lurch, and then I arrived, still on my knees, in the centre of a large open plan living area.

Off to one side, Carthia was knelt beside Tomas, who was laid out on a sofa, with Alex stood over her. Jain and Jalholm seemed to be arguing but immediately stopped at my arrival and rushed over.

‘Are you Okay, Kane?’ Jain blurted, as his hands moved in some kind of healing spell.

I pushed up off my knees as I said, ‘I’ll be fine in a few minutes.’

‘What was it? Did Luke find us?’ Alex asked, as she too hurried to my side.

‘How is Tomas?’ I interjected. ‘I’ll tell you all, but first tell me how Tomas is while I think on what just happened.

‘I believe he will recover, Kane. Your doctors did not know what ailed him either, so they gave him some marvellous medicines… what were they called, Jalholm?’

‘Antibiotics, Kane. They gave him very strong antibiotics, and they seem to have neutralise the poison to a point where Jain’s magic is now working. We have more of these antibiotics with us, both for Tomas to take, and in case some such ailment should strike again.’

‘Yes, antibiotics that’s what they called them… marvellous indeed. But back to Tomas, he has not wakened yet, but is much better and will recover completely. But what of you? You were clearly distressed when you just arrived, and obviously in quite a bit of pain, so what happened to you? Why did you tell us to flee? Was it Luke?’

I hesitated, and after a moments thought, said, ‘Luke came, yes, but Dar’cen came… not in the flesh. Thank the gods. He possessed one of the nurses much like he did with the Nargu when you first arrived, Jalholm.’

Carthia stood at my last words, a look of complete terror on her face.

‘There is nothing to be frightened of, Carthia. Truly. He is weaker than he was, and Jalholm could have easily made him retreat as he did before… and that reminds me of the one piece of good news in all of this. He does not know of you, Jalholm… he did not expect any of you to escape. He did not know of the second rod. He sent Luke after you expecting you to all be still in the hospital. So that at least is one thing in our favour.’

‘But how did he find us?’ Carthia asked.

‘Was it all a play?’ Jain asked.

We all looked bewildered for a moment, waiting for him to explain.

‘The poisoning of Tomas. Did he somehow know or guess that we would resort to your medicines and bring Tomas to a hospital?’

‘But how would he know which?’ Alex blurted.

‘Perhaps he had them all watched, or at least the major centres,’ Jain countered.

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘We don’t know how long he’s been here, but he will have followers, or at least those under his sway… the attack in New York, Alex, that is who they were, must have been. But that does beg the question… how did he know where Tomas and I would be last night?’

Again Jain had an answer, ‘Luke was not watching you two. He was watching David, the other you, and all that has happened since has been happenstance… or our misfortune, you might say. He knows that you and some of your followers are here on Earth… Grall told him, but he knows not where. Yes, that is what it is, bad Luke on our part. When he learned that Luke had poisoned Thomas he sent out his watchers.’

‘Sounds plausible,’ Jalholm said, accompanied by nods of agreement from Alex and Carthia.

Just then Tomas groaned and struggled to sit up

Carthia was at his side in an instant. ‘Don’t try to move, Tomas,’ she said firmly. ‘You’ve been ill. Lie still.’

‘No, let him sit up, Child,’ Jain said gently. ‘He needs to burn off the remaining poison… he will recover quicker that way than with rest and sleep.’

Carthia glowered at Jain for a moment and then helped Tomas to sit upright. ‘What happened?’ he asked, his voice weak and shaky.

‘We’ll explain on the way,’ Jalholm replied before anyone else could speak.

‘Way where, Jalholm?’ I asked in confusion, the same confusion written on the faces of the others, save Tomas who was still pondering his own situation.

This place, and perhaps any of my safe houses are too accessible. There is one other that Luke or his henchmen cannot come without being seen.’

‘And where is this place, pray tell?’ Jain asked sarcastically.

‘Better if we all come together now, and move on… then you will see for yourselves.’

Jalholm’s rod, already set for this new destination, took us all, Carthia and Alex supporting Tomas, to a clearing surrounded on three sides by large oak trees, where he said that travelling directly to our destination was possible but somewhat awkward, and also that those who worked for him might be a little baffled when we appeared in their midst.’

‘I’m pretty baffled myself, Jalholm,’ Alex said.

‘Follow me,’ Jalholm said as he strolled from the clearing out into bright sunshine. We walked no more than fifty yards and stopped Below us, for we stood on a bluff overlooking the sea, was a small jetty leading out some twenty yards into the sea, and moored at its end was speedboat, quite a large speedboat complete with crew of two stood beside it.

‘Be a little difficult us all living on that,’ Alex said, jokingly.

‘Merely the transport,’ Jalholm said, as he began the decent from the bluff down a winding set of steps to the beach and to the boat landing beyond.

‘A floating mansion, Jalholm?’ I asked, thoroughly expecting it to be such given the places he had had us stay since we’d been on Earth.

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‘I suppose it could be considered so,’ he answered. ‘And a retreat I have never used, so perhaps safer for more than just its isolation.’

A few minutes later, all strapped in, we were speeding across the wave tops out to sea.

It wasn’t a long journey, but it was windy and very wet as we crested one wave only to crash down into the next.

‘Love this, don’t you?’ Jalholm shouted, above the roar of the huge twin engines, the wind and the spray.

Carthia and Alex, both soaked through and with glum miserable looks on their faces, just glared at his back, and Jain, tightly gripping his seat scowled. Tomas, still not completely back with us, said nothing.

‘Not a great day out,’ I muttered, as I nodded enthusiastically at Jalholm.

‘There she is,’ Jalholm said, pointing into the distance, at what could only be termed a very big yacht

As we got closer it grew until it finally filled the horizon blocking out the view of what was beyond.

‘You have truly outdone yourself this time, Jalholm,’ Alex said, wiping water from her eyes, as we slowed our approach.

‘Oh, I don’t own this. It’s a loan, you might say… for services rendered. A very long term loan… as near enough to ownership as one might get, I suppose.’

Our speedboat pulled up alongside a docking bay at the rear of the ship, where four crewmen, all dressed in crisp white naval attire, awaited us.

The off-boarding was a simple affair with the aid of the crewmen, who all saluted Jalholm crisply, and then we were led to a stateroom by, I assumed, the captain of the vessel. Jalholm made no introductions and I didn’t believe any were expected.

Again, finally alone, I related to all what had happened at the hospital, after first telling Tomas that night after he had first felt Luke’s presence.

It wasn;t a long telling, most time being spent on how we had been located, going over and over Jain’s theory of happenstance, looking for loopholes to be sure that what he postulated was true, and we hadn’t overlooked anything.

Then, Jain again said, ‘What about Jamie and the phone, Kane? There’s still time… just!’

‘That’s done with. The future for us is set… besides even if I wanted too and was prepared to leave you alone, how would I get back? As Jalholm said, to travel here, to this ship, would be too difficult to do directly. No, it is done with… and possibly the other interventions too. I will—’

‘What!’ Jain said. ‘You cannot—’

‘Yes, we can, Jain. Think on it. We do not have the phone that Jamie will ring in the near future, so we cannot warn you and Alex when you are in the alleyway. So some other force will have to step in to facilitate what you two have lived through. And as to the warning you were given at the hospital, that we will all have to think on. Regardless, for now, that is enough discussion on future intervention. For now we need to think on our next steps.’

‘What next steps? What is it that we can do? You will not leave us, and we are safest here on this ship. So what is it that we can do?’ Jalholm interjected.

‘I believe that you will all be safe here for short periods. Do you not agree, Jalholm, after all, that is why you brought us here, to be safe?’

‘Safe as we can be,’ Jalholm replied. ‘But what is it that you propose?’

‘I had believed that we needed to ensure that my other self was allowed to return to Ellas, but if we agree that the future is set, that is no longer a concern. So that leaves locating his whereabouts, and attempting to find Anna if she…’ I trailed off, not able to complete the sentence.

‘The Lady Anna still lives, Father. That I know to be true… I feel it, so do not worry, And when she wants to be found, she will come to us.’

I smiled at Carthia sat across from me. ‘So I hunt for signs of him then.’

‘While doing all you can to avoid Luke!’ Alex said.

‘What of Grall?’ Jain asked. ‘He goes to hunt for Dar’cen, that is what you told us on the day we arrived, when you returned from your walk.’

All eyes turned to me questioningly, as my mind went back to the day we arrived here on Earth.

###

Jalholm had brought us not to one of his mansion retreats, but to a secluded farmhouse in the wilds of West Wales, a place where it seemed to always be raining.

While the others set about making themselves at home, I went outside to view the world I had long ago considered home. It rained from the moment I stepped out of the door, but I didn’t even notice it, I just looked about in wonder at how it really didn’t look any different and to any dozen places on Ellas. I realised then that it was not the world, the places, that I missed, it was the people, my friends, my mother.

I resolved then that I would visit her. I would pretend that I was my other self, David, come to see her again. I really didn’t think that even she would believe what had happened to me since our last visit.

I walked, half climbed, up a step rocky outcrop, and then finally sat on a rock ledge overlooking green fields that filled my view as far as the horizon.

As I sat there in the rain I began to think on what it was we had done, really think.

Based on prophesies, the words of Erithain, Grall’s memories, and the writings of two small children, we believed that Dar’cen had to come here, back here to the place of his creation, so that he could be destroyed. But we didn’t know how. We didn’t know how to defeat him; all we had were fragments from the prophecies’ the Unwitting One, Sisters of the Soul, and something to do with his true name. What did any of it mean?

A dark despair filled me then. What right did we, did I, have to risk a whole world on what amounted to a jumble of nonsense. Yes, I believed it all, but that didn’t make it true. Billions would die because of what we, what I had set in motion to make Dar’cen come here. My hands clawed at the rock I sat on, racking groves in the limestone almost as if I had Garath’s clawed hands.

And then it was gone, the darkness replaced by contentment and a heart rousing melody.

‘Thank you, Grall,’ I said, knowing that it was he who lifted my melancholy.

‘What you do, what we all do, must be so, Kane. In your heart you know it to be true. If we fail, which we will not, he will consume this world, but that he would do anyway at some future time, and then Ellas too will have been destroyed. At least this way the people of Ellas will be safe for he cannot return as long as he does not possess one of your rods. So those you must guard above even your companions’ lives. We will not fail, Kane, that I promise you.’

To my side, Grall as wolf coalesced from motes of blue light. ‘ I much prefer this form for a reason I cannot comprehend,’ he said. ‘I must leave you all now. I go to hunt him and find all I can to help in his defeat.’

‘But—’

‘Worry not, Kane, I will return to you all with what I learn. For I must be with you at the end… my duty in this, the duty of my people, is to protect the Sisters, for without them we will fail.

‘Say my farewell to the others, Kane, for as you know I do not like partings. And as for you, your first duty must be to yourself… go visit with your mother. She will understand more than you believe, for perhaps she too will play some small part in what is to come.’

‘What do you mean?’ I began as the wolf beside me dissolved into motes of blue light.

As the music in my mind began to fade, the words, ‘I will come when needed, Kane.’ And then he was gone.

###

‘I can’t tell you any more than I have already,’ I said. ‘Yes, perhaps I will replicate some of what he has done, but that can’t be helped. It is months yet before David goes back, and I cannot just sit here and do nothing.’

Carthia spoke into the silence that followed, ‘Jain, Alex, and you too, Kane, you all talk of this future, your futures that you have lived through. But for Tomas and I, the future is a blank canvass, and so I am far less inclined to accept that it is set and cannot be changed. Certainly Dar’cen, given that we now believe that he knows of the earlier you, Kane, will do all he can to prevent your return. So, for me, that is the one event that we must safeguard. We must be there when you return, so all is exactly as you and my sister remembers… and as you yourself witnessed, Jain.’

‘Agreed,’ Jalholm and Jain said in unison, both looking bewildered at their shared response.

After a moment’s shocked silence, Jalholm said, ‘It is one thing to have a theory, and another to follow it blindly without proof. You have tested my belief in the future being set to its limits today by not delivering the phone, but I cannot allow your return to go unwatched… unprotected.’

‘I agree,’ Jain said, in almost a whisper.

‘Then we are all agreed?’ Carthia asked, looking first to me, and the to Alex, and finally to poor Tomas who looked as if he had barely followed the conversation so far, but even he nodded his assent.

‘How long before he returns, Sister?’

‘A few months,’ I replied, before Alex could answer, and continued, ‘So for now we stay here, rest, and deliberate as to how we bring him down. Tomas can recuperate, and I will carefully, attempt to learn of his whereabouts.’