ARC 4

CHAPTER FORTY FOUR: FATEFUL MEETING

It was all a blur when they came for him, Calin hardly registered being dragged up from his knees to his feet as they moved him from the temporary cell.

While his boots dragged across the ground, he thought of the look on Evany’s face as they took her away. It tore him up inside.

Somewhere they left the bustling inner courtyard and stepped into a long corridor. It seemed to slowly curve upwards and to the left into a passage that led past a mess hall, but he couldn’t care less as they kept on going.

After a hefty time spent in dark passageways, they entered a room that probably acted like a hub and led to different corridors within the prison. It had several doors around its recesses.

A stone counter came into view and there stood a man cataloguing books. Calin’s guards stopped and dumped him to the cold floor as they requested a key from the man behind the counter. The guards chatted away with the man.

But what was being said was useless to Calin in his state of numbness.

Through it all he vaguely spotted a glassless window that showed the night outside, the moonlit cliffs of the valley in the distance. Apprehension of what was happening crept into him and a silent hope that he would see the light of day again settled in his heart.

After a while, the guards picked him up without much grace and they moved again, leading him towards the closest door to the window. Calin took a deep breath as he tried to ingrain the picture outside into his memories before he was taken through the door and away from that window further up into the building. The keen of the strong wind, howled outside like a sombre farewell.

Through his daze, he remarked that they must be extremely high in the air, considering the five or six hundred metres to the forest floor from the base perch of Yera’s Crossing on the heart pillar; and even now they were climbing higher into the large prison.

After five minutes or so they reached another room with several doors, but this room was stacked with armour of all shapes and sizes. In another time, if he could have come here as a free man, it would’ve fascinated him to see all the shining pieces of armour that ranged from burgundy to some that were a sleek black and navy.

All of them had one thing in common, the crest with a woman holding a rock with a thickset tree growing over it. The clear representative for Yera’s Crossing.

All this only caught Calin’s attention for but a moment. It was then that the guards dropped him painfully to his knees on the stone floor. They said something, but Calin ignored them. After a second they ripped off his steel gauntlets and threw them onto a counter. Lifting him again, they led him through a door on the left.

As he stepped inside, he knew this would be the place he would stay for a long while. On the left there was a row of cells with solid metal bars going all around it to the wall at the back. Calin smirked when he spotted a small window barely half a meter wide at the back of the five by five meter cell.

He hadn’t even realized there was a third guard, but the man came past and pressed a weird looking key into a specific slot of one of the columns that marked each corner of the row of cells.

The other guard surged forward and batted his fellow soldier away from the pillar and said, “Wrong slot you idiot. That one’s for the other cell.”

The first guard grunted a response as the second slipped the strange key into a different slot on the pillar.

For a second Calin swore there bright yellow lights sparking from the column into the ground, but the guards seemed as if nothing had happened.

He shook his head, but it was gone.

In a move that actually caught his attention, three bars of the one cell disappeared into the stone floor within less than a second. He had almost missed the fast movement.

It was a strange event, but not enough to take the numb feeling away.

Without ceremony he was tossed into the now open cell. He didn’t mind, he wanted to forget. Not to forget about Evany, but to forget that he was responsible for her current situation. He desperately hoped the transaction would go smoothly, so that Ta-Reen gets his asked price and lets the girl go free, so that she can live.

Then Calin started to wonder again why all this was happening. Only a slight hint had been given, and it was that they would use him to get his father to come out. But would his father even remember his son? The son, the man had so coldly abandoned. The thought tried to snake into his brain, but he shook it out.

Out of nowhere, Calin remembered something. A dream. That dream was the precursor to all this madness.

He sat up straight in the badly lit cell. It made sense suddenly as the images filtered into his mind.

It had all started on the night his father had snuck him through the World Barrier to the modern Earth. His father had known they would try to use Calin to get what they wanted. What it was though, was a complete mystery. But somehow they had, regardless of what his father had tried, found Calin in the town where he lived. What could I have done?

“What is with these people,” Calin said out loud. “Eight years... Don’t they give up?”

“Hello ... is anybody there?” A dry cracked voice came from somewhere on the side. Calin fell over startled.

As he slowly got back to his knees, he marked the source of the voice. It was a man sitting in the next cell.

The man was dressed in a dirty cream shirt and brown leggings that could once have been of good quality. The prisoner moved from the shadows. A long beard draped over his chest. He had been in there for at least a year, if not many. The man couldn’t have been older than forty, but the long hair and unkempt beard added a few years to the estimate.

“Hello there, young man,” The prisoner said.

Calin relaxed a little and sat down to get more comfortable, his mood was still miserable, but he glanced at the man and said, “Hi, my name is Calin, what is yours?”

The stranger in the other cell swept forward and sat close to the cell. Excitement seemed to bubble from him as he said, “My name was Elizriél once, but you can call me Eli if you so wish.”

A bleak smile settled on Calin before he said, “Nice to meet you, Elizriél. I take it they don’t throw many people in this side of Prison’s Hold?” He had assumed it the moment the man got excited about speaking with him.

Eli laughed out of his belly and sat back. “Indeed they bloody don’t! It’s been years since someone else had been thrown in this block.” The man sat forward then and regarded Calin with an odd little stare.

“So it makes me wonder, young Calin... what you did that was so special that they would deem you worthy to be thrown in the strongest of the prison cells in all of Yera’s Crossing, Hmmm?”

Calin dropped his gaze. His voice came out like heavy rocks. “That’s the thing... I don’t know.”

A fierce chuckle escaped Eli and he said, “Damn hard to believe you don’t know what you did. It must have been big for them to throw you in here. Not something you just don’t know. Let’s try again lad.”

Annoyed, Calin lifted his face and said more forcefully. “But I don’t know, I was just living my life normally as any other person, but then... they came. They came and hunted me like a stray dog with their Nighthounds. Wherever I went they found me and then a week later, here I am.”

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With that the man scratched at his beard thoughtfully before he said, “Nighthounds you say?”

Calin nodded grimly and started to move to one of the cell bars to get more comfortable.

“You got my attention lad,” Eli said. “I’ve only heard tales of Nighthounds being seen and only tales of tales of being set loose to hunt people. The real question then is, why?”

Huffing at that, Calin said, “Don’t think I’ve not ask that exact same question hundreds of times the last week of my life. I am an orphan for crying out loud!”

“What’s an orphan?” Eli asked sincerely.

Glancing at the man Calin said, “Oh, it’s a child that is left without parents.”

The man scraped something against the ground as he said, “Sorry lad, I didn’t mean to pry.”

Calin shook his head, looking at his small barred window. “I don’t mind. The thing is; I think my parents are still alive. I’ve reason to believe, they, the men with the crimson suns on their clothes, want to use me to see if they can flush out my father.”

The scraping stopped. Curious, Calin looked up and could see Eli looking hard at him. It was an uncomfortable stare and Calin frowned. But before he could ask what he had said, the man leaned forward with an intense look in his eyes and said, “Men with crimson suns? Are you sure beyond a doubt lad?”

Confused yet intrigued, Calin crawled slightly closer to the other cell and said, “Yes I am. It was kind of hard to miss that fact.”

Without warning, Eli swept away from the bars, disappearing into the shadows that encompassed the back corner of the cell. Calin could hear the man muttering to himself.

Through it, Calin could hear small bits like, “...how bold of them... cousin outdone himself this time... far into Sambria... what are they looking for... must tell...” The rest was just fragments as the man’s voice got lower.

For a second Calin was sure Eli had started to go mad in this prison. But a moment later, the man came scurrying back scraping his scruffy hair a bit better into place before he said, “Forgive me lad, it is dire news that they have found their way this far. It doesn’t seem possible ... not with the Veil−”

The man rushed to the bars and pressed his face against it, his eyes wild, as he asked, “Quickly now! Tell me, is the Guardians Veil still intact? It is of the utmost importance that I know lad.”

Utterly confused, Calin asked, “What is that?”

Horrified the bearded man sat back.

“No... it just can’t be. This is far worse than I could have imagined. My father told me this could happen one day, why didn’t I believe him...”

But before Eli could retreat, Calin stopped him and said, “No, you understood me wrong sir, I don’t come from these lands. I’ve never even heard of half the things that I’ve witnessed the last couple of days. I don’t know what the Guardians Veil is.”

With questions sparkling in his eyes, Eli came crawling back and asked, “I see the truth in your eyes. Maybe it isn’t as bad as I fear. But tell me young man, where do you come from then?”

For some reason, Calin had an urge not to divulge that particular secret, especially not after the guards from the gate had reacted so severely to Evany’s race.

Suddenly horrified, Calin swore for the thought. Our race. Our race hear me! I AM HUMAN.

His whole body shook in anger as he tried to suppress the doubts that had so easily been planted in him. After a short while, his breathing calmed, with only his heart still beating loudly in his chest. He took a few deep breaths before he said in a flat voice,

“I come from over the seas.”

It was true considering that somewhere in one of the major oceans there laid hidden these lost continents. To Calin’s relief, Eli didn’t press the matter.

“Hmm,” Eli said. “Don’t get many of them Island goers very often. No wonder you don’t know about the Veil. That Veil is what keeps this entire continent free from a war that could far too easily consume it. I just hope it stays that way with those who bear the bleeding suns sneaking about.” The man cast Calin a glance and continued, “But forgive my ramblings, the matters of Sambria always carried some importance to me. I am from a place south west of here. Moons’ Reach is the name of the place. A magnificent city if there ever was one. It is tragic that the current ruler’s roots lay in corrupted waters.” The last was said as the man eased back on his back.

With Eli mentioning the city, Calin sat up and said, “I was on my way to Moons’ Reach for my first time; that is, until I was betrayed and captured, ending up here.”

The man came back onto his haunches and said, “Betrayed you say? Now that I can relate to, it was for that exact reason I’ve been rotting in this twice forsaken prison for no reason whatsoever. By none other than a relative, he wanted to overthrow the good from that city. But he has a cruel heart and well here I sit, betrayed by someone who was once close to me. I just wish he was half the man he pretended to be, but alas the man has a corrupted heart.”

Sorry for the man, Calin said, “I’m sorry.”

A chuckle echoed through the room from Eli at that. “No lad,” he said after calming down. “Don’t be. I have no regrets except for the fact that the people I care for must suffer under that man’s hand. If I get out of here someday I will make sure that changes.”

Calin couldn’t help but chuckle with the man, and said, “I’ll second that, if I get out, I want to help those dear to me to be safe from those people. Maybe if I’m lucky I can take them home someday...”

Not giving himself time, to despair over the small hope of that, Calin wanted to ask a different question, one that had been bothering him with no limit. “Listen Eli, can I ask you a question?”

The man sat up, curiosity splayed across his face as he said, “Sure lad, ask away.”

With no real hope of an answer Calin asked, “This language that you and I speak, how did it happen that everybody in these lands that I’ve come across can speak it; even if it is sometimes rudimental.”

“What an odd question,” Eli said with a raised eyebrow. “It’s the first time I’ve ever heard someone ask that. Let me think a moment, there is a tale.”

Calin was surprised that an answer could be forthcoming. He sat up interested in what would be said, and happily waited for the man to answer. Five minutes passed without a word, he could only guess at the time, but then he looked down and lifted his cloak’s long sleeve only to find his watch still there. Wow...okay, I’m not complaining. So he waited patiently.

At last, Eli sat up and said, “I remember now, my father use to tell me the tale when I was but a little dust hopper. It goes something like this: Once many, many years ago a family from the great nation of Linguists came to our land—”

Calin bit back a laugh, almost choking on it. But as the man looked at him, he motioned for Eli to go on.

“... They impressed the King of the mightiest of cities so much with their unique language and skills to translate it, that he sent out an order like none other before it. To make the King’s Tongue a law in all the cities. Not surprisingly there was great protest for the freedom of languages, but to no avail. And over two turns of the centuries, the King’s tongue was the common language wormed its way into all the reaches. It helped that it spoke and wrote easier than the more native tongues.”

A lot made sense with the news. But Calin let the chuckle out and laughed happily, before Eli sat and demanded. “Do you find it funny?”

Trying to calm himself, Calin shook his head. “No sir, I find it remarkable. Now I understand why people speak English... uh I mean the King’s Tongue over here. Tell me Eli how does your dialect stay um how can I say it... so new, fresh even?”

The man regarded Calin carefully, before saying, “If I hadn’t known otherwise, I would have thought you human young Calin. You sound just like them. But your eyes give you away.”

Calin drew in an intense gasp, as his heart missed a beat. IT’S A LIE; there was no way he could believe it.

But Eli’s face flashed in surprise probably from seeing his reaction. The man brought both hands up and said,

“Ah forgive me, I was prying again. No, the reason for the language’s current state is an age old tradition. The Kings from Moons’ Reach appoint a handful humans from the ones they find at the three spirit valleys every few years. Where they teach at the mighty Arcas Academia, the largest academy in all of Sambria I might add. From there, it spread to the guilds of all twelve tribes. It’s been an unspoken rule to learn the language for far more years than my own. With each new human teacher of the King’s Tongue, the new words from that far away land is moved into the tribes. I last studied there ten years ago... it seems almost a lifetime ago now.” The man went silent and sat down like he was brooding.

So many things about what was said just then distressed Calin immensely, but two things in particular.

He tried to keep his anxiety from his face as he feared the answer for the one, but he asked anyway.

“What happens to those humans after they completed what was appointed to them?”

While he waited for the answer, Calin’s insides twisted horribly. Eli yawned and said, “It was always a rule that humans were sent safely to their own cities on the silver plains to live out their lives normally. Why do you ask lad?”

It was not the answer Calin expected so he asked, “So why then, would the guards from Yera’s Crossing react to humans as if they were the monsters to be feared?”

A surprised look and a deep frown settled on Eli and the man said, “That my friend I do not know, but I bet it has something to do with that traitorous cousin of mine, it sounds just like him. He always despised their race. Even told me once, the only good thing about humans was their knowledge of the Kings Tongue. It is truly disturbing news. If I ever get my hands on him, I’m ...” he didn’t finish the sentence, but the man crawled to the corner and whipped out a crude blanket and said, “But for now young Calin sleep, you’ll need your strength tomorrow.” With that he disappeared in the shadows of the corner.

Somehow Calin found a strange sense of trust in Eli, the man spoke of the right ways, it was a far shot better than what was going on outside.

Yet, he wondered if the people who were taken for teaching ever lived to see another day after they had outlived their usefulness. It made him anxious inside, as Kara’s father popped up in his mind, and the others that had been with him.

As he searched for his own blanket to sleep he couldn’t help but hope his friends were alright; more so for Evany, but in this city he wasn’t sure if there was real safety even for Jerry and the others.

He found the crude blanket in his cell and crawled in the corner to find what sleep was possible in the circumstances.

So many vital questions were still left unanswered.