Ella Past
Anna
He is here after all those very, very long years of waiting. He has finally come. After all the dreams, and my years of loneliness in this fight, he is here at last.
But is he up to this task? My dreams tell me he is, but from the first I met him, a doubt began to creep into my soul.
He is not ready for this; he knows nothing of what is demanded of him, knows not what he must face.
The dreams have shown me what is to come and what he must achieve if we are to survive. Yet he knows none of this.
And I have been shown what he must overcome, but nothing of how it is to be done.
The dreams give no clues, no advice, no help or guidance. I fear for my people. I fear for us all.
This man has finally come and I am to call him Al’kar. None but I am to see his face, and yet even I know nothing of him… from whence he comes, who he is, or what lies in his heart. I pray that I will see more in the dreams to come, but for now my patience lies thin.
This man is no saviour, no god or king. He is but a man.
He walks behind me now, draped in the robes from my dreams, masked as a demon, and yet seemingly as innocent as a babe.
Those he will meet are seasoned in this war, in the conflict that has reduced their numbers to insignificance, and their spirits to despair. What will they see? Will they rally to this man, support him, fight and die for him as the prophesies demand.
I prey that they will, for it seems there is nought else save enslavement, pain and death.
As I take him into the room a hush falls. Even Gadrid, my greatest opponent and doubter of both the prophesies and my dreams, falls silent.
All look to me and the spectre that stand behind in the shadows.
The silence lasts a lifetime. I have nothing to say in this, no part to play; the dreams have shown a myriad variations of this moment and in all I remain silent.
It is his time, and though he knows it not, all our futures await upon his next few words.
The silence stretches on and on, so much so that I fear that when it finally breaks it will be from the tension in the room, and that Gadrid will speak first.
Then my dreams of dread will come upon us all.
####
David(Al'Kar)
Nothing could have ever prepared me for this. The life I have lived, the pain I have felt, the wonders and horrors I have seen, are all meaningless compared to the astonishment and bewilderment I now feel as I stand before these people.
The girl, Anna, stands before me. That it is Anna I have no doubt, but she does not know me.
She does not know who I am or who I was, and yet she has waited for me almost her whole life, waited for Al’kar.
Yet she has said very little - ‘You must not be seen. No one is to see your face. Wear this cloak, this mask. The others await.’
My mind reels - Al’kar and a child Anna. What foolishness is this now?
I had been ready to kill those that pulled the strings, kill those that murdered my friends, those that yanked me to and fro, those that took away my life.
Was this what it was all for? Was it all to ensure that I came to be here now, to this place and time, to be the one called Al’kar?
But if so, why not send me directly, why send me first to my home? What was the purpose of that? Was I to find something, to learn something, something that would help me to defeat him? If so, what was it? Did they who sent me even know?
The faces before me are filled with despair, a despair I myself have known for so very long.
And those faces are all turned to me, pleading for something they believed that I will bring them.
The girl told me she had waited a lifetime for my coming, and that those faces that stare at me now, they too have waited.
This is no trick, no game being played. They waited for Al’kar’s coming. Al’kar, the one man my master hated; the man who had defeated him so very long ago.
Inside I laughed; a weak and feeble laugh. Al’kar, the man my master strove so very hard to create in me.
###
Anna
The silence still holds but he moves now, eases past me, and walks to the doors.
My people part as he moves among them, each staring as he passes, and each silent in their hope.
Stolen novel; please report.
Gadril tenses, but his silence too holds, as even he steps back to let Al’kar pass.
He crosses the room to the balcony and looks out across the desolation that is our world.
From across the room I feel his pain, as through the silence I hear the words he tries to utter and fails as he chokes back his tears.
I feel his pain, understand his pain, and a very small flower of hope begins to bloom in my heart.
He is the one. He must be, for he is all we have.
###
David(Al'Kar)
I choked in astonishment as my eyes scan the view before me. I have seen this place. I have been here before.
A wave of confusion almost overwhelms me. I have been here before, years ago. But now the buildings are whole, at least some of them.
They are damaged, some destroyed, and yet still far more whole than when I first saw them, years ago, and yet years to come, as it must truly be.
My mind had on one level accepted her story, accepted where I must be. But to have the proof of it thrust before me, to see this place as it had been, adds to my confusion, adds to my doubt. Do I dream? A dream far, far worse than the reality my life has lived.
I stand on a balcony, many levels above the ground. A wide river bounds the eastern horizon and before me stands what once must have been a magnificent building.
It still stretches high into the midday sky, but stops short of where it once must have, its pinnacle gone, its walls pock marked with the ravages of war.
This place was the school, the school I visited so many years ago with Jain, so many years ago in the future.
Panic almost overwhelmed me. This is madness. It cannot not be!
Moments passed as I battled to regain some degree of control. I forced myself to look, to think.
Jalholm had named this place Falhar; when Jain took us there it was in ruins. Now much still stands, but the desolation here now is raw, so visible, so terrible.
Time had hidden the true effects of the hurt he had inflicted on the world.
The scene before me now is worse than any of our time could have possibly imagined. And yet, I alone here know that worse is to come. Far worse.
My situation both astounds and terrifies me.
As I stand and stare my eyes no longer take in what is before me as my mind strives to understand how this could be.
What hands now guides my life, and what is it they expected of me?
I needed time, time to think, time to speak with the girl, Anna, and find out all that she knows.
I know that I am at Falhar and that it is hundreds of years in the past, in the time before Dar’cen was vanquished. And I know that the girl, who was the woman I had known as Anna, believes me to be Al’kar, the one who the histories say defeated Dar’cen.
But it is all so very overwhelming. Too much to take in. Too much to believe.
And that last thought, that last silent utterance, spawned two new thoughts, memories really, that pushed forward to my consciousness.
Anna had said, written in her final letter, so long ago, ‘We will meet again.’ I had thought it a reference to some afterlife, a religious belief.
But of course, she had known – she had already lived through what this girl, Anna, would now face; what I, too, now faced.
The other thought was of my mother. What I had told her of my captivity, of my life on Ellas, was unbelievable; a ridiculous and fantastic story that most would not even sit through. Yet I had expected her to believe what I said. And she had; she had accepted what I said and believed me, really believed.
And she had known that I would return. Not to here, not to this, but she had expected me return and to do what was right.
Then, I had needed my mother to believe in me. And these people here, they need me. They need me to believe in them, in their cause, and to lead them against the one who had already once made my life a living hell.
The one who, paradoxically, has made me what I now am; made me ready, I hoped, to face him. Face him and defeat him.
###
Anna
He turns back to the room, his emotions hidden by the mask, but he has changed; there is purpose now in his stride as he walks toward me.
Again my people part; all watching him, waiting for some sign that all is not lost. He takes my arm, turns me so we face my people together, side by side.
Then he speaks. I do not think he himself knows, but his voice resounds, reverberates throughout the room.
‘You people do not know me. Yet Anna tells me that I have been expected. Your prophesies, her dreams, told that I was to come, that I would lead you, and together we would destroy him, the one who has enslaved your people, the one who has brought ruin to your world.’
He paused, and my heart lurched as he pulled back his hood, and removed the mask that the dreams said would be his protection from the demon.
Despair again filled me. In only one dream have I seen this, and that dream had ended here, here at this moment as he unmasked himself.
It showed nothing of what was to follow, nothing at all. I had dismissed the dream; it was one amongst hundreds.
And yet here he is, standing unmasked before all. He does not stand proud, does not exude power, he is no saviour nor a god. He stands here, just a man.
‘I do not know your prophesies, I only know that you name me Al’kar. But I do know some things of this woman, Anna, here beside me, though I doubt that that which I know has yet entered into her dreams.
'I also know a great deal of your enemy, the one you name Dar’cen. If you wish it, I will aid you in your fight against him, but …’ and again he paused, and looked at each face before him, before finally turning his head to look upon my face, his gaze fixing my eyes.
‘I will have no deceit. No lies. That is what he is, what he does. If we are to defeat him, there can be no lies between us. There must be no lies, for lies are the seeds he sows to create dissent, and fear is the harvest he reaps. And he feeds on fear, it is his food.
'So I will not hide behind this mask, and I will not hide from you who I am, who I was… and what I have done. I will tell you my truth, my story, and then you can judge if I am the one to fight beside you.’