I was sat in the study, at least that was how I had always thought of the room. It was really the spare bedroom, with a single bed for the odd visitor, my computer, a desk and a book case. So it was the study, my study, and since my return I had spent a fair amount of time here thinking about what I should do – should I try and fit back into my old life, become the old David again, or keep my promise to the woman Carthia and find a way back to seek revenge.
To appease the guilt that filled me over the latter, I had spent a great deal of time on the Internet researching disappearances similar to my own, trying to find others who may have been taken as I had. I told myself that if I could find others who had been taken, then possibly other ways of returning to Ellas could exist.
Around the world thousands of people disappeared every year, and some of them could have suffered the same fate as I did, some of them might even have escaped and returned as I did.
Today however was different, today I was brooding. Maggie and I had argued yet again, but this had been much worse than the other times.
She had been really determined to find out what I was hiding, to find out the truth.
She pulled no punches, some of what she said had been really hurtful, and my staying calm had only made things much worse. The things she said and the venom in her words hurt, but the worse was when the tears came – I had never been able to hold out against Maggie's tears.
In all fairness, throughout all that had happened since my return, Maggie had stayed strong, strong for me I suppose, always concerned for me and what I had gone through, even though she had no idea what it was. Oh she shouted at me, screamed even, but until today she had held back the tears when she faced me.
When I saw her tears I knew how much she was hurting, and could deny her nothing. So I promised to tell her what she wanted to know, and to hold back nothing.
The only concession I had gained was time – time to put my thoughts in order, and time for us to both calm down.
I had until morning. And so I brooded. Not because I had promised to tell Maggie, but because I didn’t know why I was still here in the first place.
It was not going to work between us, so why did I continue to ruin both our lives by remaining.
What I was going to tell Maggie was not going to change the situation. She had not listened to me before, let alone believed me.
So my promise to tell her the truth and hold back nothing was pointless, and would gain nothing for either of us. At best it would only enrage her further.
No, the outcome was already set, I had put it off for far too long already.
Our break up was inevitable. I could lie to her and make something up that was acceptable to her – that would be the only way we could have some kind of life together. But I could not do that, I could not contemplate a life with her like that.
So, I would tell my story again. Maggie did not believe the little I had said so far, and so she would walk out again. This time I would need to row with her over it, have a real bust up and leave, leave Maggie with her belief that I had betrayed her. She would hate me for a while, but she would be able to get over me that way, and then eventually move on with her life.
My brooding was interrupted as the door opened and Tony came in. I had heard him arrive a little while ago and assumed that he'd stayed downstairs with Maggie to console her.
"Hi Dad, had a bit of a bad day so far," he said, as he came in and sat on the edge of the bed. "So you’re finally going to open up and tell us what really happened."
Maggie was clever, all right. I had promised to tell her, and now Tony was a part of it too.
I supposed Maggie thought that I would be more likely to open up to Tony, and that now she had backed me into a corner, I would have to tell him the truth.
But, except for in the detail, that story would not differ from what I had told them earlier. I had already promised to tell Tony all that happened to me, but I had done my very best to put it off for as long as possible, always having an excuse as to why now was not the right time.
There was one glimmer of hope, though – I knew it would be easier telling the story to Tony, far easier than to Maggie.
And there was a very, very small chance that Tony would believe me. Whether he would understand and accept the things I had done was another matter.
"How long have you got?" I asked.
Tony smiled as he said, "As long as it takes, Dad."
I stood and walked to the door. "Not here, Maggie won’t be able to leave us alone for more than five minutes if we stay here. Let's go to where it all began for me… it might set the scene somehow, who knows?"
We grabbed our coats and left. I insisted that we walked, partly because I’d not driven the car since I'd returned, I was ten years out of practice after all, but mainly because it would give me more time to think. Besides it wasn’t far, and hadn't Maggie berated me so many times in the past for taking my car when I went for my walks.
Neither of us spoke until we were well away from the house, both lost in our own thoughts I suppose – Tony on pins with expectation, whereas I wondered how the hell to even start.
I finally spoke just as we reached the area where I used to park, "How do you want me to start with this Tony? I can give you a summary, an overview of all that happened, or I can start right at the beginning, and give you the whole sorry tale blow by blow. The summary I can probably do in fifteen minutes, but we certainly won't be able to cover the whole story today, in one sitting so to speak."
Tony didn't answer for a moment, he was obviously thinking it through. "I think that I would rather that you just dived into the full story. If you give me the summary first it might bias me before I hear the detail. And anyway, after what Maggie and I have been through, I think we deserve to hear it all…. So start at the very beginning, and leave nothing out. That way it will be easier for me to keep from interrupting you all the time, trying to fill in the gaps."
We walked in silence again until we reached the clearing where I first saw the creature, the Nargu; I didn’t know what it was called back then of course.
I told Tony everything I could remember of that day. Of how I first sighted the creature, how it had chased and captured me, and of the beating, the first of many, many beatings.
If Tony was surprised or disbelieving he didn’t show it. He just listened, looked where I pointed, and seemed to pay attention to every word.
For me it was as if I was two people – one watched for Tony’s reactions as I told my tale, and the other was back there in the middle of the story I told, living it all over again.
***
After the beating I must have lost consciousness, because the next thing I knew I was somewhere else.
I was still sprawled on the floor but it was different somehow. It was hot for one, very hot, and I was lying on rocky ground – it had been grassy woodland.
Slowly I raised my head and cautiously looked around. I was lying in an area surrounded by huge stone pillars that seemed to thrust straight out of the rocky floor.
Those in front of me rose ten or twelve feet into the air, and dark ominous shadows crept from their base across the rocky ground – all seeming to converge on me at their centre.
They were made of a jet black and very shiny stone that looked something like basalt. Each had silver veins of some other material crisscrossing all over their surface, forming rune like shapes and what, from my vantage, looked like diagrams, rather like the hieroglyphics used by some of our ancient races.
The pillars I could see were in varying degrees of decay – all were worn and cracked, and one ended in a stump about seven feet off the ground, its top sheared off and lying on the stony floor at its base. In front of me, outside the area of the stones, everything was flat and barren for as far as I could see, broken only by occasional, equally barren, low hills.
The ground itself was baked hard and cracked, with nothing to break the monotony of it all the way to the horizon, nothing except that, there, stood directly in front of me, not twenty yards away was one of those creatures. Thankfully its back was to me, otherwise it would have seen my movement.
It was seven to eight feet tall, covered in leather and what looked like dull steel or iron. Where it wasn't armoured its skin showed through, a pale, lifeless grey colour. It was urinating, or at least that was what it looked like.
If I had not been so terrified, I would have laughed at the scene – an eight foot, hairy Ogre like monster taking a piss.
I did not laugh, I just slowly lowered my head back to the ground and lay there as still as my pounding heart would allow.
The thud of heavy footsteps behind me told me that my deception had been in vain, they had seen my movement.
My heart raced as hands grasped me from above and yanked me to my feet, and my mind screamed at me to run, to hide, to do anything rather than just stand there and face those horrific creatures again. But my traitorous body did none of those things, it just stood there, trembling and shaking as tears streaked down my face and my trousers grew warm and wet, and stuck to my legs.
The creature before me shouted at me, words that I did not understand, words I could barely hear for the screams that escaped from the throat of my immobile body.
Run fool. Run! my mind bellowed at me. Yet my mind had no control here, and my body continued to tremble, shake and scream.
A hand shoved me forward, knocking me off my feet to the floor, and then immediately yanked me once again to standing, where the creatures shouts and gestures began anew.
Twice more I was pushed to the floor, after failing to understand the commands it screamed at me. On the third standing, comprehension dawned. Its arm pointing, and the shoves it gave were to reinforce the words it spoke, the words it must by now realise I could not understand – it wanted me to walk, to walk in the direction it pointed and shoved.
Too late though came my understanding, for I was violently shoved and fell to the floor yet again.
It wants you to walk, fool, I thought, and by sheer power of will I forced my almost petrified body to stand and stagger in the direction the creature had indicated before its hands could strike me again.
The torrent of abusive screams stopped, and looking back I could see that the creatures followed, making harsh, guttural noises that I assumed to be conversation in their language.
Every so often one of them would shove me hard in the back, and I would stumble and fall, then I would be slapped and kicked until I got to my feet and started walking again. Each time I fell it would be followed by what I could only assume was their version of laughter, cruel and bitter laughter.
I walked for what seemed like hours, every so often getting shoved or stumbling, and then being dragged to my feet only to be shoved yet again two minutes later.
I had cuts and bruises on knees, hands and elbows from the falls, ached all over, and was in dire need of water. It was so very hot, a dry and arid heat that sucked all the moisture from the air – I had stopped sweating a long time since. The creatures drank something from skins they carried; they passed them round taking turns to drink. If I watched as one drank, another would shove me to the floor and laugh as it did so.
Eventually, after hour upon hour of this forced march, I fell to the floor. And when they pulled me to my feet, I immediately collapsed again.
Obviously frustrated, they yanked me to my feet a few more times, but eventually began to argue amongst each other.
Finally one of the creatures bent over me and carelessly sprayed liquid all over my face.
Immediately reflex took over, and I opened my mouth to catch the flow – the liquid, whatever it was, was warm, smelt rank and tasted awful, but I continued to swallow as much as I could.
The flow stopped far too soon, ending with the creature immediately kicking me with its metal shod boots, once, twice, continually, until I made the effort to stand and stagger forward.
We made slow progress. Every few yards I stumbled and fell, and one of the creatures would then slap or kick me until I stood and walked forward again.
Eventually two of them caught hold of me, one under each arm, and began to jog along with my feet dragging behind kicking up a storm of dust.
Not long after that I passed out.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
***
I stopped at that point. I hadn’t told Tony a great deal but it was such an unbelievable story that I wanted to know if there was any point in continuing at all.
I had hoped that he would listen to me, hear it all through to the end.
But listening to what I was saying, how ridiculous my claims sounded, I was beginning to doubt that he would, that anyone would.
We were standing in the area where the creature had beaten me. Tony had said that weeks after I vanished he had visited here.
The police crime scene tape had still been in place then, and I think he was surprised that I had been able to take him to this very spot.
In some small way it corroborated my story, but I wanted more, much more. I needed him to believe me, to trust me. "Well, what do you think so far?" I asked.
He hadn't expected the question. I could see that he had been listening intently to the story and my question had taken him by surprise.
"I don’t know what to think," he said. "It’s all so very far fetched. It could almost be straight out of one of the fantasy books you used to read me as a kid. But then, everything about your disappearance and your return is really far fetched. The knives and all the other contraptions you had on you for one, and how the police just mysteriously lost them. Absolutely nothing about this makes any sense at all. So I think that we keep going as we are. You talk and I’ll listen, then we can see where that leaves us when your story is finished."
We both sat down on a fallen log alongside each other. My gaze took in the trees opposite as my mind mulled over how Tony knew of the police losing the knives. They must have contacted him or Maggie, and yet neither had spoken to me about it.
Unconsciously my hand wandered to my forearm, clasped it, holding around the knife beneath the jacket.
I considered showing Tony the knives, demonstrating what they could do – that would certainly convince him and prove my story.
But I didn’t want to have to prove it to him. I wanted so very much for him to just believe what I said. I wanted him to trust me.
The knives were the easy way out – a last resort perhaps.
“Obviously I didn’t know then, but the creatures were from a race called the Nargu,” I said. “The ones that took me were mercenaries of a type, or bandits even I suppose, or at least that was what I was first led to believe. They did not actually work for anyone, but rather they speculated. Took sides where there might be a profit, undertook hardships when there might be something in it for them, and maimed and murdered just for the fun of it.
"In my case, they marched five days out into the desert, to the Stones of Achra, the standing stones where I arrived in the world, in an attempt to capture someone just like me.
“It was said that in years gone by, the standing stone sites were travelling grounds that people used to move from place to place, crossing vast distances in an instant. Back then, there were many more of them, all located in key hubs of their civilisation. But now, very few are known of, and even though some might well be functional, those that knew how to use them have long ago perished. And records of their use were either destroyed during the Dark Years or were lost in the intervening centuries.
"Anyway, all of that I found out later and I'll come to it in a while. There is much more to tell before then.
“I came to again when they dropped me to the floor. The sun was setting and the heat beginning to fade. I sat with the creatures, the Nargu, sat around me.
"They amused themselves by prodding and poking me trying to get a reaction. Any motion from me prompted roars of laughter from the four of them, followed by increased goading.
"Once, only once, I swung back at the one that had hit me. The backhanded slap I got for that, sent me flying, split open both my lips, almost broke my nose, and caused the Nargu to laugh louder than ever – it was a very long night.
"It took me a while, but I eventually learned not to react at all, to take everything they did to me and just sit there. Slowly they got bored and one by one lay down to sleep.
“I did try to escape. That night was the first and only time. They had not restrained me at all – my hands and feet were free – and they had set no guard.
"In hindsight, I could see that there was nowhere to go anyway. But that night, I waited until they all seemed to be sound asleep, and then slowly stood and crept away from them.
"I had no plan, no direction to go in other than away from them and to avoid travelling in the direction they had been going.
"It was really dark, only the stars to give light, and I walked, or rather, stumbled for what seemed like hours before the sun finally started to come up. All around, the ground was flat and lifeless, a barren waste. No trees or any kind of plant, just endless flat baked rock.
“As the sun rose my predicament became abundantly clear – there was nowhere to go. I could walk for days but, without a destination in mind, all I would achieve would be a very slow death.
"I sat down on the hard rock, despair settling deep into my every fibre. That time, that time sat there, was really the first opportunity I’d had to consider everything that had happened to me.
"Fantastic as it sounds, I had so far accepted everything. No questioning, just acceptance. I had no other choice really, it had all happened so quickly. The fear, terror even, then the beatings, the forced march and the exhaustion that followed, left little room for thought.
"In those moments alone, when all that had happened came flooding back, I began to seriously question my sanity. It was just too much to comprehend, too much to take in and accept as being real, and I had to conclude that it was either a very bad nightmare, or that I had gone completely insane, and that it was all a product of my own mind.
"Once, long ago, I had experimented with LSD, a single tablet. The hallucinations from that had been terrifying, but absolutely nothing compared to this. And besides with the LSD I knew that I had taken a drug, knew deep down that the LSD caused what I saw. Here I had no such mental crutch to lean on to give a reason for what I was seeing and what was happening to me.
“Not long after the sun cleared the horizon, I heard a sound in the distance. After only a few seconds of listening I knew what it was, it was the rhythmic stomping of heavy feet, metal shod feet on the hard stony ground. As I scanned the horizon, in the distance I could make out a single Nargu pounding its way towards me.
"Its pace, without me to drag along, was astounding. The creature was huge, eight to ten feet tall and must have weighed half a tonne, and yet it covered the distance to me in mere moments.
"I just sat, resigned to whatever happened. I had nowhere to go anyway. In a really strange way I was grateful to the creature – I would certainly have died out there if it had not come for me.
“The Nargu stood towering over me and glared. I suppose it expected me to scream, run or at least do something. I didn't, I just sat there, impassively staring back up at it. Then suddenly, its hand shot out striking me across the side of the head and sending me flying across the ground.
"It stomped over to where I’d fallen, grabbed me with one huge hand, threw me over its shoulder and lopped off back in the direction it had come.”
“It was a five day trek across the desert before the landscape began to change. Every day had been the same gruelling march, and I had been dragged or carried more and more as the days went by.
"At least now they regularly gave me water, or whatever the foul smelling liquid from the skins they carried was. No food at all. I didn't see them eat either, though.
Later I learned that the Nargu, much like our camels, can go weeks or more without food.
"Slowly the rocky ground gave way to more fertile land. Small shrubs started to appear first, then gnarled old trees, until finally grasslands and extensive woodland became the norm. In the far distance the peaks of mountains were just visible, and toward those we seemed to be heading.
“I can see all this clearly now in recollection, but at the time most went unnoticed. I was absolutely exhausted, desperately hungry and bruised from head to foot. All I could think of was the aching of my empty stomach, and wanting to lie down and sleep. At least asleep the hunger went away, and in my exhausted state, my sleep was that of the dead – no dreams just complete oblivion.
“Towards the end of that fifth day we saw our first signs of civilisation. We passed buildings, what I took to be farms. They were small affairs, single storey, wooden dwellings, some with outhouses and what looked to be barns and the like. From a distance I could make out people working outside in the fields or in the yards around the buildings, and from the little I could see of them, they seemed to be human.
"It really upset and disappointed me that, as soon as they caught sight of our party, they would all quickly retreated back into their homes. Bitterly, I realised, that I could expect no help from any of them.
“The Nargu, however, seemed greatly amused by the people’s hasty retreat back into their dwellings. They laughed loudly every time it happened, and there was much slapping of backs and shoulders. After the first time, they took to roaring loudly and rushing forward as soon as any people came into sight in an effort to scare them even further.
"We passed through miles of countryside, and as we did so the dwellings became closer and closer together. Barely moments after one disappeared from sight another would take its place.
“Eventually as dusk fell we came upon the outskirts of a small town. A single street really, just like something you tended to see in the old wild west movies, half a dozen houses on either side of a packed dirt street. Only these houses were made of stone, roughly hewn large blocks of stone, with what looked like stone shingle roofs. Most were single storey but one, almost in the centre of the town, stood out. It was three storeys high, and much larger than any two of the other buildings.
"The Nargu were making for that building.
“People milled about in the street, some starring openly as we approached, but most quickly disappeared into one building or another.
"The Nargu ignored those that stayed to stare, seeming to have given up on their attempts at frightening the people as they made for the large building.
"Those that had not fled, watched us from the sides of the street or from the narrow alleyways between the buildings.
"The people, for people they were I could now see, looked exactly like you or me, but their dress was like something you saw in period plays or indeed what you saw the townsfolk wear in those same western movies. The women wore long, ankle length skirts of some coarse material, with shawls draped over plain, unadorned blouses. The men wore, what looked to be heavy cotton trousers and shirts, all of the same drab brown colour.
"The large building was an Inn, at least that is what we would call it. The whole of the lower floor was devoted to food and drink, mostly the latter, while the upper floors held the bedrooms.
"I didn’t get to see firsthand that night though, because, as we reached the wooden boardwalk in front of the Inn, the Nargu stopped. I was shoved to the floor in the street, and after much gesturing and a slap, I realised that I was to stay there.
"One of them took a large metal spike and chain from his backpack and, with a few thumps from his massive hand, drove the spike deep into the floor of the street. The chain was attached to the spike and then around my arm, and there they left me for the night.
“I lay back exhausted, just glad to be able to sleep. I was thirsty and almost starving, but apathy had set in and I was too tired to think, too tired to even sit up and ask for help. Besides if I could just sleep I would be free of the nightmare, at least for a little while.
“That was not to be though, for within moments of the Nargu leaving me for the Inn, the townsfolk slowly began to cluster around. As I looked up I could see that men, women and children surrounded me, all chattering away to themselves and some to me, with much gesturing, waving of arms and pointing. I could not understand any of it, and was far too tired to even try and make myself understood to them.
"But suddenly they all grew quiet as someone made their way through the crowd towards me. The front row parted and a hunched, wizened old woman stepped through to stand directly in front of me.
“She was short, bowed over by a hunch back, with long grey, almost white hair hanging down in braids over her shoulders. The skin on her face was so wrinkled that it looked like dried, creased leather.
"Without a doubt she was the oldest person I had ever met, ever seen even. Yet her eyes told a completely different story; they were a deep, deep blue, I had never seen eyes so blue, so intense. And yet it was more than just the colour, there was an intensity behind those eyes that was so very full of life – it seemed that once you looked into them, they held you, and you could not look away.
“She spoke to me then, her eyes moving from me to the spike that held me captive and back.
"What she said I did not understand but the sounds were so familiar, as if I only needed to concentrate and I would know their meaning – they dangled at the edge of my reach, it was like straining to recall a forgotten name. Yet still on some level, I understood her – thoughts drifted across my mind, Relax, do not struggle. Be at peace, all will become clear the thoughts said, repeated over and over, slowly ebbing away to nothingness as my mind did relaxed.
“The old woman turned and spoke with a large man behind her. I had not even noticed him, so strong had her gaze held me.
"Again as she spoke, I thought that I should understand what she said, it sounded so familiar, and though the words eluded me, I thought I understood what she had said and what would happen next.
"The man's face took on a look of concern, worry even, and his head shook vigorously from side to side.
"She spoke again, not louder but the tone was somehow different, firmer, almost commanding, and the man slowly moved forward towards me, his eyes darting between the old woman, me and the spike that held me.
"He knelt, his eyes now fixed on the old woman, as he reached out and took hold of the spike, and began to pull and worry it from side to side.
“Almost as he touched the spike a roar bellowed out from within the Inn, and one of the Nargu burst through the Inn door out into the street.
"The man let go of the spike as if it were red hot, and scrambled backwards away from it, struggling at the same time to get to his feet.
"As the Nargu stomped towards us the crowd backed away on mass, all but the old woman. She hobbled forward to meet the creature, putting herself between it and me, and the poor man still frantically trying to move even further away from the spike.
"The Nargu stopped a yard short of the woman, towering over her. It must have been eight feet tall to her five and easily four times her width, yet stop it did.
"It screamed over her head, waving its arms manically at the still retreating crowd.
"And yet the old woman just stood there looking up at the creature, almost patiently it seemed, as if waiting for a child to stop its tantrum.
“Finally the Nargu stopped its tirade at the crowd, and looked down at the woman. There was something different about its face, its eyes, it looked concerned, worried almost. As it spoke to the woman the tone of its voice seemed to be deferential, almost pleading.
"I was astonished and, from the noises behind me coming from the crowd, I think that they were too.
"The woman spoke back in the Nargu's own tongue and immediately the Nargu fell silent and listened, nodding and shaking its head in response to whatever she said.
"As soon as she stopped, the Nargu started up again, but it seemed to me that the tone was less deferential, and it had began gesturing with its arms again, almost threateningly.
"The woman spoke again, this time the Nargu did not fall silent, but the woman continued and spoke over it, again using the firm, commanding voice she had used earlier.
“To me it seemed that they were bargaining and that the old woman, incredibly, was getting the better of the monster that stood before her.
"The argument went on for some moments until finally the Nargu threw its arms up into the air, bellowing something as it did so. I did not know, but it seemed to me that it was cursing the old woman in frustration.
"It then turned and stomped back to the Inn, only looking back once, and again bellowing its frustration, or so it seemed.
“I sat there amazed at the spectacle I had just witnessed - a tiny, wizened old woman standing her ground and getting the better of a gigantic Nargu warrior. It was absolutely unbelievable. But then what that had happened to me over the last five days, had not been.
"The townsfolk were just as astonished as I was, for as the argument had progressed, so their retreat had slowed and eventually stopped. Some had even begun to take a few steps forward again, to stand closer to the old woman, as if to support her.
“The woman continued to stare at the back of the retreating Nargu as she next spoke. She addressed the man who had tried to free me, and he immediately moved forward towards me – gone was his concern and doubt from earlier.
"He took hold of the spike and worked it to and fro until it came free of the ground.
"My heart soared, I was going to be set free – the old woman had bargained for my freedom and won. But then she turned, and her face told me otherwise.
"Her eyes now looked upon me pityingly, and her whole demeanour was one of defeat, someone who had battled hard, tried their best and lost.
"She spoke again and the man, Tarad was his name as I later learned, gathered up the spike and chain that was still attached to my arm, gently helped me to my feet and walked me down the street, almost to its end to a small cottage, that I somehow knew belong to the old woman.
"Over my shoulder I could see the woman speaking to the crowd, and as they dispersed she turned and followed.”