Ellas - not so long ago
Kane
Light. Blinding light! No! Let me me sleep. Do not wake me. Don’t take me back there to the pain, to the horror and the so terrible fear.
‘Please. I don’t want to wake.’ I heard my voice say, barely a whisper, a croak almost. Mouth dry, so very dry.
As if in answer to my unspoken thoughts, moisture touched my lips, and I opened my mouth greedily to accept more.
‘You must awake, my dear friend,’ the voice, her voice, said. ‘Sip slowly,’ she admonished, as my hands, my hands that I did not know had moved, tried to upend the cup she held.
To soon, far too soon, the cup was taken from my feeble grasp, and Anna leaned in close.
Her head blocked out the light, and I was grateful for that at least.
‘Don’t wake me, please! Let me be,’ I pleaded. But deep down I knew that she would not heed my words. The time had come, the time she told me of. The time when I would be needed once again.
Her face was an outline only; her mouth and eyes almost all that I could discern through the haze that was my sight. But even so, I knew that she was crying, weeping for what was to come, and for what we must both face again.
A scream escaped my throat at the injustice of it all, the sheer folly of what we did.
Her hand took mine in its cool grip. ‘Calm now, be calm. You are well now. Whole again… and soon all your doubts will flee before you once more.’
Her touch steadied me, took away the fear and dread. But with the easing, the memories flooded back. The memories of that last day, the day I never wished to relive again, never want to even contemplate.
All histories tell of great battles and wars. But they would know nothing of this battle from my lips. None of the horrors, the pain and suffering, and the unending fear. I know that I will never speak of it, not even with Anna who was there at my side throughout.
Yet even as I drag myself from the depths of my sleep, my mind was pulled back to those final, so very terrible days.
‘How many?’ I asked. And then with a shudder, ‘How many did we lose? Who did we lose, Anna? Tell me!’
Anna was silent a long moment, her hand gripping mine tightly. Finally, she said, ‘The actions of the past serve only as an aid to a better future. Dwelling on the errors made, and what should have been, weaken us, and lend strength to him. Come away from such thoughts, Kane, I beg you. Think only on what we achieve… and those that survived. The rest is done and cannot be undone.’
My eyes were closed, yet I knew that I was crying. Tears ran down my face as I listened to her words and pulled away from that terrible day, back to the here and now, back to the waking world.
My eyes opened and all was clear. The haze and blur all but gone. I lay on a cot, a cot in a stone faced room. In the home of the giant’s then. Anna sat in a chair beside the cot smiling, her blue eyes radiant, her never changing face a sight so wondrous to wake to.
‘Welcome back,’ she said. ‘It is so very good to have you here with me. It has been so very long, but the gift he gave you has yet prevailed, as I prayed it would.’
‘How long?’ I asked, curiosity and trepidation both awaiting her answer in their own way.
‘It has been almost a hundred years, Kane… much has changed, and much was lost. But living a day without his fear overshadows all the marvels of the Great Days that are now no more. He is gone… and the world once more lives—’
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‘A century, Anna? But it is as if was yesterday… yet somehow also so long ago, another life even. You gave me this sleep that I might heal, not merely my flesh but my mind also, but how can it be’
Then those last moments came to me again, what he did, what he pushed into my mind. ‘He destroyed me,’ I said. ‘Took away all that I was, and left me drained, empty. Ready… ready for him to take me—’
‘Stop!’ Anna said. A command, yet her tone was gentle and soothing. ‘He did not take you. Could not. We stopped that, and the sleep brought you back. Healed you, body and soul. Leave the past, it holds nothing for us now. You are returned to us, and the world is better for it… I am better for your return.’
I slept then, not decades or years, but for days I am sure, before I awoke once again into the world.
#######
It was almost a week before I could stand unaided. My body was whole, completely mended, and yet the century of sleep had left me bereft of control. What were before unconscious processes now demanded all of my concentration.
A simple step left me unbalanced and tumbling toward the floor. If not for Anna’s insistence, if not for her patience, I would still be abed, wallowing in the memories of what he had done.
But she had pushed me, bullied me, screamed at me even, until I once again tried to regain the control that I had lost. And then, when I stumbled and cursed at my failures, Anna’s gentle words and patience soothed the edges of my anger and drove me to try again.
A week to stand, and yet only two more days and I was once again in full control of my body. And apart from dreams that still had me bathed in sweat when I awoke, thoughts of that day so long ago seldom came to me.
Anna was my only company, my only companion, during my time of recovery, and to my shame, not once did I ask after those that had battled with us that day. All my thoughts were channelled into my recovery and away from all thoughts of the past.
So when the great oak door to my chamber slowly swung open almost before the sun had risen, and Garath’s head ducked under the lintel, a grin fit for a jester on his face, my heart filled with a mix of shame at my failings and overpowering joy.
Red faced, I bounded from my bed, arms wide and tears in my eyes, and in an instant was stood before the giant.
‘You live!’ I blurted, shock and elation filling my mind. ‘How—‘
‘A gift from him. A gift of sorts, my friend. A gift that fills me with joy that I may share my life with my daughter… and that I am her now to se you once again. But immortality's gift, if that what it is, has a sting in its tail that makes memories of friends and loved ones until only we few are left.’
Tears again welled up in my eyes. ‘We few? Did he kill so many?’
‘He took many of us before he fell, Kane. But no, it is Time I talk of that has claimed most. A hundred years you have slept while we watched over you... Gremok, my daughter and I.’
‘Gremok lives too? He is here?’
‘My brother returned to his people after you first woke. He wished to see you but when he learned that you would be well, the call of his people and the trees pulled him away. He will return one day, he said, so that we two might travel the world while it remains free of darkness.’
‘It really has been a hundred years, Garath? Anna said it was so, and yet neither of you have aged at all.’
Garath smiled as he said, ‘A hundred years you have slept, Kane, and a hundred years we have watched over you safe here in the bowels of Mother Ellas, and under the care of Lady Erithain.’
‘Erithain?’
‘Yes, the voice of Mother Ellas. She has visited with my daughter many times, and I too have been honoured by her presence.. It was she who gifted you with the long sleep. You slept for a century, but in the world above almost five hundred years have passed.
‘Do not ask, as I cannot explain it. It is as when we travelled to the home of the Ellaren… a magic of Mother Ellas. Know only that you slept and the world moved on without you.’
‘Five hundred years!’ I shouted. ‘ But that means that he will soon come again. I have woken only to find him again in the world?’
‘Calm, Kane. Be calm. He does not yet touch the world. There is still time.’
‘Father!’ came Anna’s voice from the doorway. ‘This is why I kept you from him. It is too soon for him—‘
‘It’s fine, Anna. It really is,’ I lied, as my heart pounded in my chest.
Looking from one to the other, I said, ‘I knew that he would return, and that I would again have to face him.’ I laughed then as I said, ‘Time waits for no man.’
‘Is he well, Daughter?’ Garath asked. ‘He seems confused.’
Anna pushed passed Garath and pressed her hand to my brow. A moment passed as her magic searched my body and mind for ill, and then she said, ‘He is well, but no thanks you you, Father. He needed to be told slowly so that—‘
‘Enough, Anna,’ I said gently. ‘Garath meant no harm, and I had to find out sometime. And far better to be told by one of you than to stumble onto the truth of our time. Five centuries for the world, a hundred of sleep for me, and yet it feels but a day from his downfall to his coming, were the words I thought even as I said, ‘Tell me, both of you, tell me all that has happened in the world while I slept.’