Ellas Past

Kane

And so a few hours later I found myself again stood in a room that years later I discovered belonged to Jalholm. Though apart from the huge black slab that covered one wall, and the room’s shape and size, it bore no resemblance to the one I had visited with Jain and the others.

There was furniture – chairs, a desk, cupboards galore, with virtually every surface littered with books, old scrolls and other objects whose function I could not begin to guess at – and every stick of it, it looked some kind of plastic to me though Jain had said it to be some form of extruded vegetable, was pristine, as though brand new or never used.

None of it had existed when I last visited other than as rubble on the floor. The View Wall though was a different matter, it was still the floor to ceiling slab of shiny black, onyx like material I remembered it to be.

‘This is amazing,’ Anna said. ‘Have you any idea how long this would’ve taken to create? How many talented scryers would have been required to donate their magic?’

‘But does it work?’ I asked, bluntly. I wasn’t concerned with the past. Today and it’s outcome was all that mattered. ‘And are you sure that he will not know of its used?’

Anna turned and frowned at me. Then she looked up to Garath, bent almost double with his shoulders still brushing the ceiling of the room.

‘Sit, Father, we may be here a little while, and I would have you at my side while we now direct our forces.’

Three white chairs were arrayed in a row, facing the View Wall. They looked to be hard plastic chairs, the type used as garden furniture, but as soon as I sat, I sank into purely luxurious comfort as the chair moulded itself to my form like a glove.

‘Now this is what I call amazing, Anna,’ I said, as I watched for the surprise on her face as she sat.

But none came, instead her face broke out into a scowl. ‘That man, his indulgences and his supreme arrogance were our downfall. No matter that he was unwitting in what he did, had he only reined himself in, if only he’d had some self control, we would not…’ Her voice trailed off as she shook her head in disgust.

‘We would not have this advantage now, if not for Jalholm, Anna,’ I said, gently. ‘And besides, there is no changing what is done.’ I prayed that that was the truth, otherwise we might well fail to defeat Dar’cen, and then all I knew that was to come would change, and the whole world would be consumed by his evil.

Garath looked at the third chair with disdain, and then pushed it to one side as he sat on what looked to be a wood grained floor, but yet had the same flat smooth texture as the chairs, and every other piece of furniture in the room.

‘I cannot fall off the floor,’ Garath said, grinning. ‘Nor will I break it.’

Gremok retrieved the third chair and placed it in front of Garath. 'I wish to see this magic wall Kane tells of, not just your broad back, Brother,' he said, with a wide grin on his face.

‘Well, Anna? The wise ones await your signal to begin,’ I said, as I waved toward the black wall in front of us.

Immediately, bright colours radiated from the wall as it came to life. It was like a gigantic television screen, but far, far more vivid and life like. In the scene before us ocean waves broke on an almost pure white sandy beach that ran away from us to a cliff face in the distance that was bordered with palm trees and lush green shrubs and bushes.

‘It’s beautiful,’ Anna said. ‘And wherever it is, it still exists like that now even as we look upon it.

But as she spoke the scene vanished and a man’s face appeared before us, a little younger, but the same blond hair and bright blue eyes, and the very same air of confidence and… arrogance, perhaps even more of the latter.

‘Jalholm,’ I muttered, angrily, before I could control myself.

Anna turned and stared at me for a moment, her face thoughtful. ‘How—’

‘Welcome, my friends,’ Jalholm’s voice boomed out from all around us, as if he stood before every surface and announced his words rather than from the mouth that moved on the wall before us.

‘I see that I am not present amongst your group and so, rude though it might appear, I must ask that you present the correct keyword to make further use of this so wonderful creation of mine. A keyword that I myself will have given you should you truly be my guests.’

A smug look then filled Jalholm’s features, and he fell silent and simply stared down at us sat in his chairs.

‘Keyword?’ Gremok growled. ‘What is it that he requires of us?’

Anna sighed. ‘We come all this way and now we must play a guessing game with a talking wall? A supercilious, smug wall at that.’

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‘What is it you require of us, Jalholm?’ I asked of the the man that was not before us.

‘You must speak the keyword,’ came the reply, instantly followed by silence once more.

‘We do not have time for this, Kane. We must be able to see to direct our people.’

‘Anna, only a short while ago we were hundreds of miles away, with no way to help them. So surely we are no worse off now? So please just relax while—’

‘Access granted. You are now free to make use of my marvel… Simple manners are the foundation of our society, don’t you think?’ came Jalholm’s voice.

‘You spoke this keyword, Kane? What was it? How did you know?’ Gremok said, as he looked from me to the wall that now showed the ocean view once more.

I thought a moment, reviewing my words, and what Jalholm had said. ‘Simple manners, he said, so I assume the word was ‘Please’. As simple as that… knowing Jalholm, he probably didn’t give his guests the keyword, at least not directly.’

‘Enough chatter. Let use get on,’ Anna said, as the view shifted to an almost dark corridor, lit only by torches set at intervals along its length. Barred doors led off from the corridor to what I knew were the cells of prisoners held there.

‘The dungeons,’ I muttered. ‘How do you control it, Anna?’

‘Hush! Such questions can wait.’

The view seemed to flash forward in the corridor, and then turn into the first door it came to, and on into the cell itself. Anna hissed at the sight before us. ‘No time,’ Anna muttered, as the view flashed to the next cell, and then the next, each showing similar scenes of tortures and beaten prisoners in various positions of confinement.

Only a moment passed, and yet it seemed an age as we saw fleeting images of hundreds of prisoners, all of the People, men, women and even children, yet no Roken, no Ella’ren.

Then the view moved to the rock wall at the very end of the dungeon corridor, into the rock itself, where it blurred for a few seconds as it seemed to travel through the very strata itself.

The burring stopped, and the face of a Roken came into view, and behind him a wise one I knew as Karath. Beyond Karath I could see dozens of heavily armed Ell’aren and men. Karath suddenly flinched, and then a thin smile appeared on his lips.

‘You communicate with them, Anna? Tell them of what you see, of what they will face’

Anna didn’t answer, as the scene moved from the dungeons to the travelling room, and the poor wretches lying before the travelling stones. As watched, a troop of Nargu vanished from the centre of the stones as they travelled to somewhere else.

Again she directed the view into the walls where our troops awaited her command to attack. Anna shifted the view again and again, each time assessing the target within, and then reporting to the wise one stationed at the entry point.

Five times our forces were redirected, new tunnels driven to secondary locations, because Anna found greater congregations of ‘food’ elsewhere. I had tried to convince myself that that was what these people were, just his food, but I was failing miserably.

Finally, all our forces were in place, and all had been appraised of the resistance and the slaughter that was before them. Anna turned to me, a look of fear on her face.

‘Now I must find him. I must know where he is, and I must follow him when he senses the attacks so that I can warn of his approach. This is the true advantage we gain from this miracle of Jalholm’s, for with it I believe we will save many lives.’

I took her hand in mine, and watched as Gremok reached up and took her other.

‘We are ready, Daughter,’ Garath said, gently.

The view before us blurred as Anna directed the device through the rock that lay hundreds of feet below where we sat in what were once Jalholm’s chambers below Falhar.

Through rock and on through vast chambers, some empty, some milling with Nargu or men, and on through rock again, the view moved, until suddenly it stopped, a view of striated rocks of grey and brown before us.

‘He is beyond… I feel him. He has others with him, perhaps a score. I will move forward into the room slowly, cautiously, as it may be that he will sense this thing of Jalholm’s.’

‘But—’

‘I know, Kane. I said otherwise… I would not sense such a thing, nor any other wise one, but he is different. He is not of our kind, nor is his magic as ours. Be ready, for if he senses what I do, he will come here quickly and we must gone. The order to attack will be given even as we flee.’

The view slowly changed, as it moved forward through the strata and into the chamber beyond. And then, there he was, my old master, stood on a dais, his gaze intent on the dozen or more people prostrated before him, their chains held by the half dozen Nargu guards who also lay prostrated on the floor to either side of their charges.

Gremok snarled and began to rise from his chair, but Anna’s hand tightened upon his and held him back, though I would have sworn she would not have the strength.

Next to, head an shoulders higher even though he sat on the floor, Garath’s reaction was to dig his blades into floor, tearing the wood grained material as if it were butter.

I made no sound, nor did I move, as a slew of emotions filled my mind. Fear came first, pure and irrational terror, truth be told. Following swiftly came anger and hate, and yet as I watched the scene, as I looked upon his eyes and his so very benevolent smile, I found myself filled with love for the so very beautiful creature, the god before me.

Anna hissed then. A sound filled with hate and revulsion that cleared my mind and allowed me to see him clearly without the compulsion he somehow seemed to exert beyond the chamber where he toyed with his pets to where we now sat.

The so tall, muscular, so very beautiful Adonis that I had looked upon only seconds earlier was gone, replaced by a hunched, and frail, gnome like creature.

The Dar’cen I now looked upon was little taller than Gremok, but there the resemblance ended.

He was completely hairless, his limbs were stumps almost, and painfully thin, almost to the point of emancipation, but his face was what wrought the biggest change from the god that had been my master – his face was twisted, gnarled even, the skin stretched taught over a framework of bones that were bent and broken into a horrific parody of a human face.

Garath and Gremok had been remade, but theirs was a functional horror, their looks changed to accommodate his requirement for killing machines.

But Dar’cen, in his true form, for that was what I was sure I now looked upon, was deformed beyond imagining – far worse to look upon than any of the twisted remnants of creatures that were left when he had finished with them.

As we watched, one of the supplicants, a male human, was pulled upright by unseen forces until he dangled from his arms above the floor. His mouth was open wide in a soundless scream and his eyes bulged in terror as piece by piece his clothing fell away, until he hung completely naked by his wrists from invisible shackles, his feet mere inches above the floor.

I had seen this game before. Once, though his second, I myself had played centre stage, as he flayed every inch of skin from my body.

But even as I turned my eyes away in from the horror that was about to unfold, Anna whispered, ‘Now. Attack now. I will warn of his coming.’