Earth

Alex

‘I will explain why I fled, and I will tell you all you wish to know, Alex, but David should hear this, too. He needs to know of the danger he is in. You say he that he has gone, gone where?’

Jalholm had showered and dressed in the clothes I had put out for him, strolled into the living room and sat down next me.

And then he spoke those words, the first he had uttered since I’d set eyes on him at the door.

So what to do now? Should I insist that he tell his story first, or relate all that had happened since he disappeared?

I knew what I should do – I should squeeze every last drop of his story out of him before I gave even a hint of what had happened to us.

But yet again I found myself bursting into tears.

Then, through tear filled eyes, I blurted out the whole story to Jalholm.

Throughout, he sat patiently listening, holding me tightly in his arms. So much for the hard nosed Project Manager who always got her own way.

We both sat quietly for quite some time after I had finished. My tears had long dried up, but Jalholm still held me close. Strangely, I didn’t mind.

After a little while Jalholm eased back away from me, and it was only then that I realised that he had been crying too.

‘I am so sorry,’ he said. ‘I should have tried to warn you, but I was too afraid, too confused. I just ran and kept on running. They followed, chased me, and tried to find me. At first I spent all of my time hiding from them, but slowly I realised that with my rod I could easily evade them, or at least stay ahead of them.

'It was then that I began my search for you and David.’ Jalholm paused then, an embarrassed frown on his face. ‘I am sorry, Alex. I should explain and tell it from the beginning, from that afternoon when you left… not ramble as I have.’

He sighed heavily, and then sat up straight. ‘I was upset when you left. With you there, I felt comfortable somehow. Being near David frightened me… it was not he himself, it was that he brought back so many terrible memories of… of Dar’cen, and what he did to me. When you were there, it somehow made it all bearable.

'You allowed me to trust David, and made me feel safe.

'Just before you left, when you were outside on your phone, David talked of things that brought back those days with Dar’cen. It terrified me… I did not want to talk about those times. I did not even want to hear David’s questions. And so I made an excuse – I said that I was tired and wanted to rest. I knew that David saw it for what it was, an excuse, but there was nothing he could do about it, and so he left.

'You must understand, I did not do it to hide anything from him. I just needed time… time to put aside my fears and to put it all into some semblance of order.

'You see, that time for me, the time after Dar’cen came, was a complete jumble in my mind… I might be myself for a short period and then his voice would take me, and then all that mattered was to please him.

'When David awakened those nightmares in me, I needed time to make sense of all my fragmented memories, and so I sent him away. I am so sorry… If I had continued my story then, perhaps things would have turned out very differently.

'We will never know now, but I do need to make amends, and prove to you that I did not withhold what I knew on purpose… I need for you to believe me, Alex. I want you to trust me.’

It was strange, but I could not stay angry with Jalholm for long. Something about him brought out a gentle side of me that I didn’t even know I possessed.

‘I do believe you, Jalholm. And, for some reason that I can’t explain, I think I trust you, too,’ I said, in a surprisingly sincere voice. ‘But why did you disappear? What happened to make you run? Who chased you?’

‘That afternoon, after you both left, I went back to my room. I did not want to mix with others, I did not want to talk with the doctor, I just wanted to be alone with my thoughts.

I lay on my bed for an age going over some of the things David had said about Falhar, and remembering what it had been like back then, before Dar’cen came.

It was all too much for me, too much to think about, and so very painful.

For the first time since they were last forced upon me, I asked for their sedatives. I wanted to sleep for a little while. Sleep and forget… sleep without dreams.

‘But I did dream. You came to me in a dream. Only it wasn’t you, not really. It looked like you, but was somehow different. You shook me, and tried to wake me. You told me that I was in great danger and that I should use my rod and flee.

'It was a dream… it must have been. How else could you have been there in my room, and speaking in my language, speaking in the common tongue?

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'You pulled at me, slapped me, and then suddenly you turned and stiffened as if sensing something.

'Then, you looked afraid. It was that fear and the desperation as you spoke, that made me think it more than a dream. ‘“He comes,” you said. “You are in great danger, use your rod and flee. Go now!”

‘And then you were gone, just like a dream. But your words, their sense of urgency and the desperate look on your face reached through my drugged stupor and I forced myself to wakefulness.

'Dream or not, it frightened me and I took up my rod. Not a minute too late, for as I splashed water over my face, I felt him appear behind me even before he spoke. People talk of knowing that eyes are upon them, that someone watches them. This was not that, this was fear, instant and almost incapacitating fear.

‘“My master has searched long for you, Jalholm,” he said, but I heard no more for, even as he spoke, my finger pressed down upon my rod’s activation point.

Whatever he said next was to an empty room for I was far away, at a location I had long ago prepared for the day I was found.’

As Jalholm spoke my mind reeled at what he had said. David’s fear had been warranted. They had found Jalholm, and that was why he had run.

There was nothing else he could have done. They had tried to kill David, and would have succeeded with Jalholm if not for his dream.

But that was absurd, it couldn’t have been just a dream, and yet what else could it have been.

‘The woman in your dream, the one you thought was me. What did she look like? Besides looking like me… how did she differ from me?’

‘I could not see her clearly. You must understand, I had taken the sedatives. I was drowsy and everything was hazy. I could only see her face… She loomed over me, her face… your face, close to mine as she shook me. It was a dream, a premonition, a foretelling, call it what you will, but it saved my life.

I kept moving then. For perhaps two weeks, I did not stay more than one night in one place… I had planned long for such a time and had many hideaways ready. Not enough, but I had money, too. A great deal of money.’

The questioning look on my face was all it took for him to smugly explain. ‘I used this rod,’ and he held up his burnished-silver, engraved walking stick. ‘It is not what brought me here to your world; I will come to that later. This rod I made here, on your world, soon after I arrived.’

The smugness in his voice increased as he said, ‘It was not easy. Finding the materials alone was a huge accomplishment, but I managed it. It was essential you see, for if I was to be locked away in one of your hospitals I had to have a way to come and go as I pleased. But before you ask, it cannot be used to take us to Ellas. It is not that powerful. It only permits travel here on your world—’

‘You planned it? You wanted to be locked up? Why? Why would you want that?’ I blurted, in astonishment.

Jalholm’s smugness vanished as he forced a weak smile. ‘I needed to hide to be safe from him. It was all I could think to do. I could have done anything I wanted on this planet of yours… with my magic I could have been a lord, a king even. But then it would have been easy for him to find me.

'No, I needed to hide away, from him and from all that he might send after me.

'So yes, I wanted to be locked away… locked away with my hidden freedom.’ Again he brandished his rod before continuing.

‘Over the years my various night time activities have allowed me to amass quite a fortune… nothing illegal of course, not even unethical, really. I simply used some of my talents, my intellect, and magic sometimes, to my advantage.

'So I set up my escape route, arranged for places of refuge, and arranged my finances such that they were available to any of my various identities and were, to all intents and purposes, untraceable.

'I know that I sound boastful, but what I did, given the circumstances, my incarceration at the hospital, and not being a native of your world, was quite an achievement!’

Jalholm laughed, a short bitter laugh. ‘It wasn’t enough though. All those plans, and yet I had not prepared myself for the fear and sheer panic that would take me.

'As I said, in those first two weeks alone, I exhausted most of my sanctuaries, and I would not return to any of them out of fear that they had been discovered and were watched. They found me again once, or at least I believe they did. Men asked after me, my photograph was circulated, and so I fled again, almost blindly for a while, until I calmed myself and took stock.

‘I know none of it was of your doing, or David’s. But it could be no coincidence that, so close to you visit, his servants found me. The logical conclusion was that they had been watching you, following you and had thus found me. And so I avoided coming to you then, avoided even searching for you.’

‘So what made you finally change your mind? Why are you here now?’ I asked.

‘I tired of running. Out of fear I had hidden myself away for decades, and now that same fear was making me run… run away, like the coward I was.

'Deep down, I knew it was futile. They had my scent and would never give up until they finally caught me.

'So I reasoned that it was better to stop running and do something positive.

'Stand up to them, I told myself. Find Alex and David. Go to them, they will know what to do. It took me a while, but I am here now, and I am yours to command.

'I do not know what to do, how to fight them or how to stand against him. I came to you because I thought David would know what to do. But now that he is gone, I can only pray that you have more wits about you than I do.

'Will you let me help you? I know that you have not given up hope. You cry, but I know you are strong… a fighter. I can see it in your eyes – the fury there will not let you give up.’

‘But what can I do? What can we do?’ I screamed at him. ‘David is gone, to where I don’t know. Ellas, I pray. But we can’t follow him there, and if we could, what could we do to help? It’s hopeless! No matter what you see in my eyes, it’s bloody hopeless.’

‘No, Alex, you are wrong. It is not hopeless. There may be still something that we can do.

'Listen to my story; let me tell you of how Dar’cen came to my world. I will tell you all I know of him, and where I believe he came from.

'Then together we can decide if it is indeed hopeless.’

Jalholm was smiling at me, all sign of smugness gone.

He looked happy, proud even. He was doing something at last, taking the lead and standing up for himself, I supposed.

‘Go ahead then,’ I said. ‘Tell your story… from where you left off the day I left, there’s no need for a recap. God knows, David and I went over it often enough.’