El-Vador's Travels (52 page)

'Have you no questions for me now that my tale has been
told?' the musical voice enquired, somehow bouncing about the
confines of his skull in a taunting fashion.

'Why only append the tale with your recollections of
this Scarlet Brotherhood? Why not save the entirety for another tale
and go into more depth? Clearly you learnt much of your initial power
from this place.'

El-Vador's chilling smile sent another shiver crawling
up his spine involuntarily. 'You ask more of me with every question.
How would you respond if I were to tell you that I care not to
divulge the entirety of my time with the Brotherhood? Would you
insist that I not gloss over such an important time out of fear of
the Arch-Inquisitor?'

Sykes knew the answer before the question ended, he
would much rather face the wrath of his superior than the unknown
that sat before him.

'I suspected as much.' the Elf replied, reading his mind
with an ease that further unmanned him.

'Your family will think no less of you should you lose
this position over my reticence. They will have an equitable future
should your prompting continue in the pattern that has unfolded thus
far.'

He sifted through the words, and his heart stopped. His
family. The Elf knew of his family. If it was able to read his mind
then that would mean that...

'You need not worry about your daughter, Sykes. She
shall come to no harm so long as you provide an adequate foil between
each tale that I construct.'

Sykes felt no relief, it was as if a great yawning pit
had opened up underneath his feet and he teetered upon the edge of
falling with every word.

'You asked me of the Brotherhood.' El-Vador continued,
feigning obliviousness to the crisis unfolding. 'Their sanctuary and
my time there is a footnote in my history simply because it was not
they that formed my power, they merely shaped it and moulded it into
a channelled focal point. They are only mentioned at all because of
the presence of Aliana and the subsequent events upon their
destruction. If my memory was not crystalline I would struggle to
recall the names of Manilus and Chlodochar, so insignificant are they
in the larger picture.'

It let out a sigh then, a strange sound that held none
of the musical tone of before.

'Yes. I remember it all. All of it. The actions of
Salvarius and the inextricable link between his thirst for revenge
and the destruction of the Brotherhood are what weave the next tale
together.'

For the fourth time, El-Vador began to speak.

Enforced
descent is an unforgivable crime, it must be the choice of the
progeny whether to continue in the footsteps of that which sired it.
If it chooses otherwise then that must be respected. To force a
descent upon one linked vaguely to fate is a terrifying and unnatural
experience. For even if the recipient of it manages to break free, it
remains forever scarred.

T
he
hard-packed and dusty roads he had travelled upon were beginning to
diminish, giving way in time to scraps of vegetation and the
occasional tree amidst the dying grass. He had journeyed far in
search of his quarry, and there was no element that nature could
throw at him which would prevent him from finding the Elf.

Everything
he knew from his previous life with the Orcs, even if he had not ever
loved it, had been destroyed by this creature.

He
could take the destruction of the Orcish burrow, that was the
positive to glean out of the Elf's actions, it was one he had
actively encouraged and often planned himself. Not at the expense of
his adopted master's life, that single agreement he had sought with
the Elf had been violated and for that El-Vador must die.

His
hatred alone was not enough to sustain him, and the armour he had
clad himself in had made the transition from protection to burden in
short order by hampering his search and slowing his movements. What
little indication of the Elf's passing had long since vanished, so he
was left with nothing but his own intuition, which had seemed
curiously strong in the matter.

He
had no indication at all that El-Vador had passed through these lands
beyond a wavering belief that it had to be so, that he would search
for all of time and to the ends of the very land itself in order to
uncover the traitor. With each footstep he took, the fear he had lost
the creature diminished inexplicably, as if the very earth beneath
his feet assured him that his path was correct.

The
first merciful rains greeted him, pattering down upon his helm with a
steadily rising intensity and ringing loudly in his covered ears. He
would need to find shelter if he was to avoid the conditions from
eventually deteriorating his armour.

A
small outcropping of rock suggested itself to him and he found enough
cover to avoid the worst of the sudden storm, there was no sense in
pushing on against such conditions and he knew the Elf would be doing
much the same so there was nothing to lose from resting either.
Hunkering down amidst the shale, Salvarius shut his eyes and prepared
to wait out the worst of it.

'The
Brotherhood has need of you, Salvarius.' a choir of voices sounded
from within his own head, causing him to rise swiftly and draw his
blade.

'Who
goes there?' he called out to the falling water, thinking somehow
that the voice had been thrown. 'Show yourself!'

'We
have no physical form, we speak to you from beyond.'

He
had seen this before, men speaking of voices plaguing their heads,
usually after being cracked with a heavy blow that should have killed
them. Had he pushed himself too far in his journey? He had marvelled
at his own endurance and put it down to the emotion that had driven
him, but he had lost count of the leagues long ago.

'We
are the source of your haste, we have a mutual enemy in the Elf. We
wish to aid you in our own way.'

'Who
are you?' Salvarius repeated, pulling the helm from his head and
rubbing at his temples. A burning sensation ran through them unlike
anything he had previously felt, causing the unease he was
experiencing to multiply.

'We
are the Brotherhood, Salvarius. We desire that El-Vador's life be
extinguished, and through much searching we have uncovered your
hatred, a hatred much akin to our own.'

Salvarius
was by nature a deeply superstitious man, and while the thought of
such strange beings contacting him directly seemed odd, now that they
had stated their claims it made some kind of sense. Then again, did
he have a choice against that which he could not see or fight?

'What
would you have me do?' he finally asked them, curiosity overwhelming
his fear of the voices.

'Firstly
we require a conduit, a being of flesh and blood to infuse ourselves
within, from there we can further augment your powers. After this we
shall forge an army, then draw the Elf to us, so it is written and so
it must be carried out lest the forces that oppose us take root.'

He
did not question the need for an army, or whatever a conduit was. All
he cared for was the opportunity for vengeance, if he need be a pawn
in the game of some other force then so be it.

The
rain continued to pelt down upon the shale outcrop, and beneath that
Salvarius listened to the voices and conspired to accomplish their
bidding.

They say that if you leave it unchecked, and do not
savour every living moment, that time will eat up your life before
you have even realised.
That epiphany came to me as I hung
helpless in that moment, trusting another as I was winged through the
air. She could have dropped me at any given moment, with any ill
chosen word. Instead she bore me as she had once before, stolidly and
without question to the shores beyond. The shores that harboured
another familiar face.

T
he strange near-silent beating of
her gossamer-thin wings now that she had been divested of her robe
would have been hypnotic to El-Vador, were it not for the fact that
it was masked by the storm as he was carried thousands of feet above
the raging seas below.

Brother Manilus had assured him under duress that escape
from the isle of the Scarlet Brotherhood was entirely possible, what
if the old man had lied?

Time passed on without any reckoning and still there was
no sign of any shore, and El-Vador could not help but notice that the
distance from the watery depths was decreasing with every passing
moment.

They did not speak as she flew, shortly after their
ascent from the isle she had informed him that any attempt at
communication would be too much an expense if they had some way to
travel. Apparently taking him any distance was a test of her
endurance, and he knew that she would drop him to his grave rather
than perish with him.

Then without warning it appeared, a small promontory or
isle jutting out of the heaving storm. He called out to her but
clearly she had already seen it, weaving her way through the winds in
its general direction with an all-too uncertain trajectory.

For a time he feared that their impact with the cliff
face would dash them upon the rocks, but with a final heave of
exertion Aliana rose above that and landed unceremoniously upon the
spray-soaked ground.

El-Vador stood and spied the land before him, it
stretched out endlessly in a fashion reassuring only to those who had
seen nothing but water for a long time. He looked back to see the
Pixie sprawled on the ground before him, and only then did a tinge of
guilt touch him. The sight of land and opportunity had caused him to
completely forget about the woman who had borne him there.

'Are you okay?' he asked, offering her a hand and
bringing her up into a sitting position. The rain made her fingers
slippery and cold, they would need to find shelter soon.

'I'll live, I'm just very tired. Looks like we made it
to land at least, can your Elven eyes see much through the storm?'

El-Vador cast his gaze out upon the landscape, igniting
his night vision and studying the surface of
the
ground unimpeded by the darkness and rain. 'There looks to be a cave
roughly five miles from our position, no signs of civilisation
beyond.'

She blinked at him, her face incredulous. 'You can see
five miles from our current position in this weather?'

'I have Elven eyes.' he replied, offering her a smile,
she had earned much more for saving his life. Some sense of honour
within him dictated that he now owed her, he just hoped that the
price she asked for to repay the debt wasn't too steep.

They traipsed through the rain as best they could, the
constant water mostly ran off the surface of the cliff and made their
footing treacherous at best until they finally encountered soil. From
there it became a muddy slog through the grasslands that preceded the
cave.

It stood out from the rest of the land, a large rent in
the earth that reminded El-Vador uncannily of the destruction he had
left behind in the burrow. He did not spend long pondering over what
had caused such a conspicuous opening in the ground, the rain waited
for nobody's idle thoughts.

As soon as he entered he knew they were not alone, there
was a marked change in the temperature of the cave that he could not
attribute to anything but life. The stench which presented itself as
they made their way further into the shelter only clarified his
suspicions.

El-Vador was no longer the frightened interloper that
timidly skulked into the entrance of greater creature's lairs, that
much had been changed irrevocably by the actions of the voice and the
Scarlet Brotherhood. Whatever lived in here would not do so any
longer.

Planting his feet apart, he motioned to the Pixie to
stand back. She quickly caught on to what he was attempting and gave
him as wide a berth as she could while remaining within sight.

He channelled within himself then, bringing the power
coursing out in blackened gouts from his extended fingertips, letting
it pool and well upon the cave floor, spreading out over the surface
like sticky tar and slowly rising into an undulating wall of
darkness. It grew in stature even as he faded in strength, drawing
deeper from his core than he suspected was wise in order to
accomplish a feat of this magnitude. He could rest after, this needed
to be done.

Finally the towering structure pressed against the
ceiling of the cave, wavering as if unbalanced and ready to buckle
under the slightest miscalculation on his part. He pushed against its
weight now, urging it with a singular command to go forth and devour.
The dark wave spread down into the recesses of the cave, now entirely
self-propelled. El-Vador crossed his legs and half-fell into
position, drifting outward from himself and witnessing the
extinguishing lights of whatever lay in the tunnels beneath them.

Finally, when all was darkness, the Elf found sleep.

The overarching theme of my trials is dispossession
of the self, to be placed upon the whim of powers greater than your
own
. In his own way, none knew this better than Salvarius, I
did not weep for where his lack of self took him.