El-Vador's Travels (41 page)

El-Vador snorted at this. 'It is as easy to disavow your
actions with more words as it is to breathe the air of this cell.
Your actions do not add up, guard Captain. If you truly cared for my
well-being and the destruction of the Orcs, you would not have
imprisoned me as if you were still a servile lackey of your lord.'

Salvarius seemed to absorb all of this without moving a
muscle, as if waiting for the Elf to run out of speech before
continuing what he had been saying previously. 'I know that the game
of trust is one that is easily broken, and from your bearing I
understand that this isn't the first time that your confidence has
seemed misplaced. I want you to know that the general I serve is a
very intelligent being, if he senses the slightest scent of treachery
from me he will have my head without compunction. This is why I must
play the game on both sides, this is why for a time you must exercise
patience, in due course you shall see that it will be to your
benefit.'

There it was again, the man delivered his words without
the slightest hint of d
isingenuousness pervading his speech.
Had he really been echoing a truth that was much more complex than
El-Vador had been initially led to believe?

'You speak of benefits, yet here I am rotting in a cell surrounded by
enemies. I see no beneficiary from this deal other than yourself and
the General you lick the boots of.'

Salvarius shook his head sadly. 'I know that you won't believe me,
but I had to make an allowance for the possibility so that events
about to unfold would not leave you paralysed with indecision or
shock.' He turned then, as if to leave the prison altogether.
'Believe what you will, Elf. A time will come when your words of
defiance will hold no meaning, their clattering against my eardrums
will have as little effect as the strike of a blade upon my cuirass.
When that time comes, I ask of you to be vigilant and ready.'

Before El-Vador could form a retort, the man had gone. It left his
prisoner with more questions than answers.

Few
times have I questioned my purpose, my unerring path toward this
final most complete of goals. Supposed wise men have wasted years of
their lives pondering instead of doing, trapped out of fear of the
consequences. I live with my consequences but I know the subjectivity
of questioning my actions. To some I am a monster, I accept this.
Perhaps I am.

T
ime passed slowly in the darkness,
for it was truly pitch black now that El-Vador had relinquished his
enhanced sight. It was a pointless drain on his energy when all that
stretched out before him was endless nothing and the waiting therein.

He tried to lock things down, to keep his head clear and
focused for whatever Salvarius had been implying. The hours ground
down his vigilance in due course despite his best efforts, leaving
him in a strange daze that bordered between sleep and daydreaming.

He thought back to the past, of his time in the
mountains with his father and mother. They weren't exactly happier
times but they were certainly simpler than the life full of vengeful
wanderings. It hadn't been enough to simply bury Sarvacts under his
fortress, part of him had hoped it would be. That he could go back to
his people and find another village to be part of, assuming that the
Orc had lied and there were villages remaining. He tried to push the
thought down but it ate at him, what if he truly was the only Elf
left from the unseen massacre of the northern peaks?

Thoughts of home and the wreckage that had been left
continued to taunt him in the darkness with nothing else to occupy
his time with. Until now he had been constantly in motion from the
moment he woke until he dropped from exhaustion, always doing
something to prevent death from catching up with him. Now death was
at his feet and surrounding him with steel bars, caging him with an
agonising patience and rendering him helpless to do nothing but wait.
With that prospect in place, his mind took over.

So lost was he in his thoughts that he barely noticed
the blinding light as the guards opened the chamber door cut into the
rock face once more. A torch was carried in and he squinted blindly
out at the flickering luminescence with more than a hint of
trepidation.

'You may leave us,' the voice told the light, and in
response the torch receded, with the sound of a door being drawn shut
closely following.

El-Vador sat in the darkness again, listening to the
breathing of the Orc now in his company and waiting for him to speak.

'You are from the north, I am told,' the voice finally
stated, stupidly. Why would it ask such a thing? El-Vador nodded
experimentally to see if it would generate a response. He suspected
that being left alone in the darkness with this Orc was meant to
intimidate him, and that his companion's sight wasn't entirely
obscured.

'Have you no tongue, Elf? Salvarius has told me
otherwise, raise your head and let me look upon you.'

That voice. There was something familiar about that
voice that seemed to reach into the recesses of El-Vador's buried
memories. Had he not been imprisoned in this place of no light, the
sound may not have stirred any recollection. It tickled the back of
his skull agonisingly as he tried to piece together its true source.

He looked up at the Orc as he had been asked and ignited
his sight, hearing an intake of breath from the figure and watching
as an artificial brightness started to flood the room.

He could see the recognition upon the craggy features as
he in turn recognised them, it had been one of the Orcs that Sarvacts
had tasked with guarding the fort outside his village during the
occupation. It was clear from the look upon the face of this General
that he remembered who El-Vador was too.

'You are the one from my dreams.' he said so quietly
that it was almost silent. 'I am not a great believer in coincidence,
Elf.'

Seeing no reason to respond to this, El-Vador didn't.

'I always hated the chill of those mountains.' the Orc
said, seating himself in front of the bars and staring off into space
in recollection. 'It would leech the warmth from your blood if it
could, and even when we were running for our lives I could still feel
its touch on my joints.'

El-Vador watched as the Orc absent-mindedly rubbed his
knee with a free hand, he knew that a number of them had fled from
the farming communities. He had also assumed that the voice had
enabled him to track them down.

'I ran for many miles, and when I felt that I had taken
my last step forward I would hear the wail of someone else dying. I
have seen a lot of death in my time, but until meeting the Elves in
their mountains I had never been forced into a retreat.

'No, this was different from anything that came before,
I propelled myself on in a blind panic and still I kept hearing the
screams, knowing that I may well be the next victim.'

El-Vador's features hardened at that word. 'You were not
victims, you were hired killers who deserved everything you got from
us.'

The Orc shook his head sadly. 'You are mistaken, young
Elf. Some of us were soldiers, and invaders into your lands. Others
were farmers, families, children. All of them were butchered for
having the audacity to want a new life on the frontier. Did they
deserve it, Elf?'

Was it an appeal to his conscience? Why was his captor
posing such questions instead of exacting his own retribution for
everything that had gone against his forces?

'They were invaders in their own way, Orc. They may not
have brought steel or laid waste to our people, but they did the same
to our lands with pick and axe.'

This brought another shake from the Orc, as if he
couldn't believe what he was hearing. 'You would lump the crimes of
the guilty upon those innocents unfortunate enough to be associated
with them?'

El-Vador shifted uncomfortably. 'An Orc is an Orc is an
Orc. I have not met one that is not worthy of death.'

'Is that what you told the fleeing children that you
shot in the back? Do such vapid rationalisations help you to sleep at
night?'

The Elf frowned. 'We did what we must, to protect our
homeland from those who were not us.'

'My name is Harg.' the Orc said, finally reintroducing
himself. 'I am the General of this burrow, but before that I was the
head scout of the frontier lands.'

El-Vador offered him a shrug, what did it matter what
this Orc was? He was the captive and Harg was the jailer, everything
else was an irrelevance.

'Oh but you see, it does matter. I want you to look into
these eyes and remember this name as you perish. When we were
slaughtered in the mountains, word came from the central burrow that
we were to venture out with a new force led by me. Our mission was
simple, discover what had happened in those mountains.'

This gave El-Vador pause, and the Orc smiled knowingly,
having read the expression on his captive's face.

'Yes, you know where I am going with this, Elf. We found
the frozen bodies of our comrades, including that of my younger
cousin Gurgash. It was his first posting, Elf, he wasn't supposed to
have another. Yet you killed him all the same, just like you did our
women and children.'

He had to ask this Orc the question, he had to know.
'Why do you think it is I that killed your cousin?'

Harg offered him a grim smile in response. 'We searched
long and hard for signs of a pursuing army, the one that had routed
us, what do you think we found, Elf?'

El-Vador remained silent.

'There were one set of footprints, Elf. They were
everywhere, moving at unfathomable speeds, but they were only one
set. There was no army, it was all you.'

The silence stretched out as the two stared at each
other, both of them knowing the truth and seemingly unable to speak
any further.

'They thought me crazed, you know.' Harg finally said,
his voice rising slightly in anger. 'Crazed, in believing that one
Elf could have wrought so much destruction upon even our Champions.
The snow preserves things, Elf. I know it was you that wielded powers
beyond that of mortal ken. I have but one question of you, before I
suspect you will tear this cage asunder and end me.'

Again there was silence, and in that nothingness
El-Vador heard no voice urging him and no power coursing through his
veins. Harg was completely unaware of just how helpless his prey was.

'What is your question?' El-Vador asked, half-guessing
what it was already, but even the Orc's voice was better than the
silence.

'How?'

The single word floated out through the space between
them and El-Vador found a great reluctance in answering this
creature's simple question. Was the voice subtly urging him not to
reveal its presence to the Orc?

'I cannot say.' the Elf replied, though he could tell
from hearing his own words that the Orc would not buy the lie.

'Unrepentant, unapologetic and entirely unreasonable.
You are just like all the others I have seen of your race, believing
yourselves aloof to the genuine concerns of others and moral arbiters
unto the lesser races in your eyes. We shall see if you are more
talkative after a few more days of darkness, if not then I look
forward to personally executing you for your crimes.' The Orc rose,
and turned as if to leave but stopped on the threshold. 'Or I could
just leave you here permanently to mull over all that you have done.
I've heard the Elves have extremely long lives.'

With a slam of the prison door, Harg was gone. He hadn't
even asked for El-Vador's name.

Extinguishing his sight, he lay there in the darkness
once more, pondering over all the Orc had said in spite of his best
judgement.

He needed to get out of here, the voice had been of no
help and Salvarius' hints did not merit trusting. It seemed as if
everything that had once aided him had been turned against him, and
that he was destined to spend all of eternity in this cell.

It slowly dawned on him in the outstretched darkness
that without the Orc realising it, the fate Harg had threatened him
with had been almost the exact same one he had doomed Sarvacts to.

Power.
For all the foes and conflicts that I have faced in my long life, it
has been power that is constantly the greatest threat. It is a hunger
that is never truly sated, an appetite that when whetted continues to
itch away for more. Power is both the tool of my trade and my
greatest flaw, and at such a tender age it was all too easy to be
consumed by it.

T
he darkness sprawled out endlessly before
him, and try as he might to keep track of the time spent brooding
behind the solid metal links encasing him it eventually eluded him.

At first he tried mentally to keep track of when he
required rest, but his enforced inactivity left him pacing the
confined floor like a caged wolf eager to hunt.

Nothing changed in this place of no light, there were no
sounds and what little his senses could pick up soon diminished into
a dull tedium of continuity. He found himself wishing that the Orc or
Salvarius would just come back and take him to the gallows, or
whatever torture they had planned for him. At least then he had a
chance of being free to attempt an escape, however small the
opportunity to do so would be.