Ellas - A dozen years ago

Anna

Time passes so swiftly, and yet each day seems to last a lifetime. Life is itself a paradox, who needs time to complicate things?

Morose thoughts and yet they are mine. Thoughts that have filled my mind all the years that he slept, and continue even now as we both await that dreaded day when we first feel his touch upon our world yet again.

I know it must come. We know it comes, and yet it is the waiting, the anxious dread of waiting that overshadows the life we should be living - should be enjoying.

Yes, we prepare. And yet time itself is again our enemy, for no sooner do we add to our ranks, age takes yet another from us.

Some are fortunate, the core of us - Kane, Father, Gremok and I, and so too the very few with magic whose lives are blessed with some longevity.

And yet the strongest that survived the destruction of Dar’cen have long since passed whilst Kane slept, to be replaced by willing yet far, far inferior wielders of magic.

And yet through all of this, Kane goes from strength to strength. He sees how small a force we are compared to the multitudes that fell so that we might defeat him and yet his face, his very being, shows only victory in what is to come.

But he will not talk of it. I know not his plans; not even the slightest detail does he share with me.

I myself know some of what is to come; that which will guide my path, but not what he will do; what he must do to finally destroy the bane of our world.

I trust the man, Kane, the man who has become my friend. But I fear for what I do not know of him, and the silence that lies between us.

My dreams, my dread, hide much, but my deepest fear is that without knowing, without understanding, he withholds from me that which could be our undoing.

‘Daughter.’

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‘Yes, Father, what is it?’

‘You brood again. Have I not told you that all will be well?’

I smiled up at the giant, he who has been father to me, and has always lifted my heart with his very presence.

‘You leave soon?’ I asked.

‘Yes, Gremok and I begin our travels again. And before you speak of it yet again. Yes, we will take a care. It is not long now, I know, before he again comes... truth be told, I fear that he already touches the world, but that somehow he masks what he does.

‘I hear rumours of strange happenings, and of violence being done. And Nargu are abroad in the land. Few are seen, but I fear that many more remain hidden. So, yes, we will be careful, Daughter.’

‘And yet you plan to hunt these Nargu, do you not?’ I asked, already sure of the answer.

My father laughed. ‘You would expect no less of us. Yes, we will capture some, and they will tell all they know. My brother has a long memory, and the pain and torment the Nargu heaped upon him while he was captive he has yet to repay.’

‘And what of you, Father. Do you not seek vengeance?’

‘They feared us even before we were changed, and as we went to him willingly, we were never captives. They dared not touch us lest they upset their master.’

‘Still I ask that you take care, as I too have thought as you of late. I have not felt his touch, and yet my brooding, as you call it, has been with me a while, and I cannot explain it. So perhaps we must all be more cautious.

‘A while ago, Kane said that he thought the time was near. A feeling he said, but would say no more. I dismissed his words… until now. I will speak with him again. Perhaps there is more that he can say.’

‘Kane has left on a journey, Daughter. Did he not speak of it to you?’

‘He has gone? Did he tell you where… and when was it he left? Tell me, Father, quickly.’

‘He said only that he would be gone a while... weeks, months possibly, he did not himself know. He truly did not talk to you of this?’

‘The man is a fool He tells me nothing! When did he leave?’

‘Two full days ago, and if he said nothing to you, then he does not wish you to follow. In this you must trust him, Daughter.’

I sighed loudly. ‘Yes, Father, in this I will heed your words… but I will peel the skin from his body if he comes to harm over his stupidity.’

Kane

It was a long ride, a hard and lonely ride. But despite all that I had lived through, I had to go back to where it had all begun for me.

I had to see that it was all true, that my life as I knew it now, had really happened as I remembered on the day that I was first taken.

I knew that Anna would not be at all happy at my leaving. ‘You should not be alone,’ she would have said had I told her, and she would have bent all of her energy into making me stay, or worse still, insisting that she accompanied me, and that I could not allow.

So I left like a thief in the night, telling only Garath of my leaving so that there would be no search party dispatched at my disappearance.

And so it was that I left left in pursuit of a past that I knew best left alone.