Ellas Past

Kane

We sat around a small campfire throughout the night. Barely a word was spoken and none of us slept.

Garath had eyed me with what was a mix of suspicion and pity. I would have preferred that it had been solely the former; that I could deal with.

Dawn was still an hour away, when Anna started as Gremok appeared at her shoulder.

I had felt his presence long since - he had been sat out in the darkness, a little way off, watching as the three of us sat around our small campfire - and had wondered when he would make himself known.

From his lack of reaction, Garath, too, had known that Gremok was near. It was a thing of Dar’cen’s, I believed - we three had all felt his touch. Besides, little escaped my heightened senses, my awareness of all that surrounded me.

From where she sat on the grass, Anna’s arms went wide in an embrace. ‘Gremok, you have returned! They treated you well? Your brothers, they did not… reject you?’

Gremok bowed low. ‘Wise Mother,’ he said, humbly, even as a grin, albeit a hideous grin, split his face, and he rushed into her arms.

‘They did,’ he said, excitedly. ‘Not a one is left doubting… and all are with us.’

Towering over us, even seated, Garath let out a huge sigh, a sigh to a giant, that is; to us it was as if a blacksmith’s bellows blew over glowing coals.

Gremok gently pulled back from Anna and looked to Garath. ‘My brother, my kin wish to meet with you… a bargain between us is required.’ Again, the hideous grin filled his face. ‘A small thing… worry not, it is but a trifle.’

Before Garath could reply, Anna said, ‘When will they be ready? When can we meet?’ Impatience was clear in her tone, something that was rare indeed.

I smiled as Gremok, arms outstretched, said, ‘They are ready now, Wise Mother.’

With a puzzled look on her face, Anna said, ‘Now?’ And almost as if on queue, a hundred, a thousand, more even, eyes shone out of the darkness that surrounded us, reflecting the flames of our fire a hundred fold, almost as though before, they had been lidded. Ella’ren could hide in plain sight, and approach where none, save perhaps I, could detect.

Anna smiled. ‘Could they not wait until daybreak, Gremok? If a bargain, one beyond that we have thus made, is to be made, I would like to look upon those I barter with. As would you, Father, I am sure.’ Her tone was serious, and yet somehow also amused.

Again, on queue, a thousand lights filled the clearing, illuminating row after row of Ella’ren sat in circles surrounding where we sat.

This time, Anna’s eyes widened in surprise, and Garath’s seemed to fill his face.

‘How?’ Anna asked, as she rose to her feet and turned full circle to peer out across the sea of Ella’ren before us, each and every one with a hand outstretched and an orb of light floating inches above.

Garath remained seated, but he, too, craned his neck around in awe at all those that had sat but a stone’s throw from us.

I grinned at Gremok’s as he saw in my eyes that I had known of his brothers’ approach.

‘This light?’ Anna asked.

‘A gift from the Wise Mothers, that we may never again be lost in the dark,’ Gremok said, as he held out his open palm and a ball of pure white light, no more than an inch across, appeared from his very skin, and rose to hover in the air an inch above his hand.

‘This close, I feel it,’ Anna said, with a smile. ‘I feel what you do… and how it is that it is done.’

Two of the nearest Ella’ren stood and approached until they stood directly in front of Anna, where they bowed low.

‘We are forever in your debt, Wise Mother,’ the one said, bowing even lower.

The other, straightened, and glared up at me. ‘And you, Bellowing One. You have passed the test set you, and we come to you now to fulfil the bargain agreed. But first, we would speak with our adopted brother.’ Smiling, he looked up to meet Garath’s eyes, even though the giant still sat.

Garath’s face, lit by a thousand magic lights, looked puzzled, even as he smiled back at the Ella’ren.

‘I am not sure that I understand your words, little one. You speak of me as adopted… how is that so?’

‘Ah,’ said Gremok, ‘it is the trifle that I spoke of… the bargain… the bargain that we… that I did not—‘

‘Gremok is a youngling still amongst our people,’ the Ella’ren before Gremok interrupted. ‘He has grown much in the months that he was away from us… but still he has much to learn.’

Surprisingly, Gremok looked abashed and lowered his eye to the floor. But his shame, if it was indeed shame, lasted only an instant, as his eyes wide with anger, raised once more and turned on his fellow Ella’ren.

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‘Darok, here, an Elder of my people, speaks true, brother Garath.’ His voice, calm and melodious, did not fit with the anger burning in his eyes. ‘I am young… young for my people, Brother, and there was much that I did not speak of when…’

His voice trailed off as Garath slowly stood to tower over him and his fellows. The murmur that had begun at Gremok’s interruption fell to total silence as the giant looked down upon the two before him, and then slowly cast his gaze out across the thousands sat across the clearing before him.

‘No words are required, Brother. Our peoples are as one now… all brothers in this fight, and for all time. Gremok will always be as my first brother, but all you,’ and his arms went wide as he turned to take in all the Ella’ren before him, ‘are my kin.’

Then he smiled widely at Gremok as he again looked down upon him. ‘I felt it settle upon me as we adopted each other, Brother… and knew it to be more than words, though I knew not then what it was. But even so, I knew that it was a good thing, as did my brethren. Roken and Ella’ren are kin now and forever more. No words, no explanations are necessary… it is done, and I would not have it undone.’

At Garath’s words, the Ella’ren rose as one, each shrieking with the debilitating laugh that I remembered from so long ago.

In unison, Anna and I clapped our hands over our ears, but Garath merely stared wide-eyed at the throng before him. And then, with a nod from Gremok, began his so very inferior attempt at mimicking his new brothers. Even through hand covered ears, he sounded like a trumpeting elephant.

Slowly, as the screeching died down, a chant rose from the Ella’ren, all now standing, before us. ‘Gremok, Gremok,’ interspersed with, ‘Garath, Garath.’ Louder and louder it grew until the names themselves merged almost as one, and only stopped when Darak held up his arms in a silencing gesture.

And as I had seen long ago, in a time yet to come, when Gremok himself had made such a gesture, silence descended immediately.

‘Now Wise Mother, brother Garath… Bellowing One,’ laughter sounded at the last, but again silence fell the instant Darak raised his arms, although a grin spread across his face as he continued, ‘we must talk of what is to come… what we will do, what we must do to defeat the one who seeks to destroy us all.’

‘My name,’ I said, and then hesitated, not sure really what I should name myself.

Anna smiled. ‘My friend here, the one you name Bellowing One,’ and even she grinned as she said the name, much to the delight of the instantly laughing Ella’ren, ‘his name is Al’kar. It is he who truly leads in this war we face.’

All laughter died at her words, and silence once more fell, a pronounced and uncomfortable silence. I frowned at Anna as I spoke, ‘You lead, Anna. I advise… that, we agreed upon when—‘

‘That was before… when we were few. When there were only my followers… and we feared to loose them. Now, we are many, and more will come when they learn that you are truly here amongst us. Look out upon the Ella’ren,’ Anna swung her arms wide indicating the Ella’ren, still silent before us, ‘and see the awe on their faces. They, too, know of you… they have heard the prophecies that tell of your coming. As have many others across our world. There are still Wise Ones in hiding, those who escaped his purge, and they will come once word of you reaches them, and they will be as a magnet to all who would oppose him. And then together,’ and again her arms went wide, ‘we will take back our world.’

Cheers rose from the Ella’ren – they whooped, threw their arms in the air, leapt, dance and cavorted around like mad things.

Anna laughed, Gremok and Garath grinned their evil, leering grins, and I made my best effort at smiling. Lead? What did I know of leading, let alone directing a war? Not a thing, and yet neither did those before me. I at least knew Dar’cen and his evil. I sighed, a long and resignation filled sigh. It must be me.

The war council, if it could be called that, consisting of Darak, Gremok - because he had first hand knowledge of Dar’cen, as did Garath and I, and Anna, deliberated for three whole days over how we should move forward.

Most of that time was wasted by Darak’s argument against the Ella’ren, all the Ella’ren, relocating to the abode of the Roken, rather than address the issues that chaffed at my innards - how we were to gather the Wise Ones to us and, more importantly, devise a battle strategy, a campaign that would ensure our victory against my former master.

History, the little history that I knew of and the future world of Ellas that I had lived in, told that we would triumph against his evil, and that we would vanquish him, if only temporarily. But even if the histories had given a blow by blow account of our struggle, which I very much doubted, I had shown little interest when it was presented to me.

I only knew the little Setia had spoken of, and what she had told was vague; a small part of a world’s history to aid a stranger in her land, and when Jain and I had visited the great libraries my only interest had been to find a way back to my home.

Strangely, throughout our discussions, Anna also seemed to avoid the issue of the war to come, deftly turning talk back to the mundane whenever I brought up my concerns, and even more strangely, though we spoke, debated and argued, never did her eyes meet mine. Always she looked away, down at the grass, anywhere but directly at me.

A juncture in our brief relationship where she should have been overjoyed by our small victory over him and the gathering of our allies, she instead seemed sad and almost, I thought, guilty. And yet, even when pushed, her response was that nothing was amiss. It unnerved me considerably.

At the close of the third day, Garath stood and announced, ‘My brothers come to escort you all to our home. Gather all you wish to take, little ones. But know that it is you who will bear the weight of your load. Little food will be required for the journey, as we will travel swiftly this day.’

Then, almost as if on queue, Ella’ren shrieked in alarm as, mere yards from where they sat, giants erupt from huge holes that appeared as if from nowhere, encircling our encampment.

‘Be at ease,’ Gremok said, his voice quiet and yet carrying to the thousands of his brethren before us – a gift of our master, but modified to remove the terror that it was intended to carry.

‘Are not those that now appear before us our brothers?’ His wide grin, filled with horribly sharp teeth, gave his face a wicked caste, almost as if he enjoyed his fellow Ella’ren’s discomfort.

Slowly the shrieks died away, fading to mere chatter, as Ella’ren stared, pointed and gapped at the hundreds of giants that encircled them all.

I didn’t think that I would have calmed so quickly had I been subject to such a fright.

It took surprisingly little time for the Ella’ren to return to their homes among the Great Greys to gather what they needed.

So only a few hours later, I again found myself trailing behind Garath, the rock face in front of him continually melting away to reveal the huge tunnel that we walked along.

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