Escana (46 page)

New recruits? What was the man
talking about? Were they planning to build some sort of convoy of
soldiers to traffic toward the war zone?

Shrugging on his clothes he
straightened up and opened the door just as Mayer was poised to knock
again. If the Colonel lost his balance he did well to mask the fact,
behind him stood the other soldier with a handful of young men. There
was no sign of their driver, apparently he had the good sense to get
to bed early.

'Recruits, you say?' Garth said,
putting on his best authoritarian voice in the hopes of getting to
the bottom of this.

Mayer snapped a salute. 'Yes sir,
the new recruits that have volunteered to fight for the good of the
Empire to win the war.'

Now he saw it. Mayer was just as
he had suspected, a recruiter. Touring up and down the various
villages and hamlets and towns, acting the part and glorifying the
conflict and speaking of duty and honour and courage, virtues he had
probably never seen in his lifetime given that he'd never been in a
fight beyond basic training or a conflict beyond peering at military
maps.

Garth didn't deny that the army
needed men behind the scenes. He remembered being told that for every
single soldier in an army there were seven hard working individuals
that enabled him to battle. The camps he had seen in his time
attested to this as the majority involved were non-combatants.

Mayer though, this was a
different side to the army that he didn't like to see. If a man was
going to risk his life and limb for an ideal then he should do so
well-informed, lest he die for something that never existed.

Garth walked up and down the line
of men silently, meeting each of them in the eye. They were the
absolute dregs of humanity, many of them even gave him an insolent
look back. They simply didn't care for rank. Others were far too
young to be involved in war, their bright eyes filled with nonsense
and hope and glory.

'How many of you men have been
involved in combat of any sorts before?'

A tough looking thug on the end
spoke up. 'Been in a fair few fights in my time.' Garth didn't fail
to catch the frantic gesture Mayer made with his wrist. '...sir,' the
thug added, as if it were an afterthought that left a bad taste in
his mouth.

'So you've fought a few times,
have any of the rest of you fought a single day in your lives?'

No response.

'Well? None of you?'

The silence was exactly what he
had suspected, Garth turned his attention back to the thug at the
end.

'I didn't ask you if you'd had
any experience fighting, I asked you if you had any experience in
combat.'

The thug shrugged insolently.
'Same thing, innit?'

Garth's arm shot forward and he
pinned the man by the throat to the wall behind him.

'It is not he same thing!' he
bellowed, tightening his grip measurably.

He let go as the thug started
clawing for air, letting him gasp to the floor and turned as if
nothing had happened. His gaze terrified them, he didn't want to do
this but it was the only way they'd learn.

'Combat is nothing like a fight.
A fight is a few foul creatures clawing and spitting at each other.
Combat is an art, a living and a death sentence. Combat is the heart
of a long and complex strategy beyond any of you. The battle you are
so eager to sign up for is a massacre.' He eyed Mayer unfavourably.
'Though I am sure you have been told otherwise by less reliable
sources.'

The Colonel had the good grace
not to look affronted when his General was in such a foul mood, he
was used to this game even if the outburst had surprised him.

'None of you are fit to lick the
boots of the men and women I have seen give their lives freely for
the cause, get out of my sight before I start to get angry.'

The line of men excused
themselves quickly, not willing to tempt Garth's wrath any further.

Mayer didn't say a word, he was
waiting for the same treatment no doubt. Garth would deal with him
another time.

He slammed the door behind him
and settled into his bed once more, slowing his breathing and trying
not to think of what sort of fate he had set in store for him by
powers unseen.

T
he whiteness
subsided from her vision and she found herself draped over a
luxurious double bed. She sat up and immediately regretted her
decision, her head spinning as if it had been turned inside out.

'Welcome to Levanin,' the
increasingly familiar voice of El-Vador said. 'This is the largest
known inhabited capital in the Empire.'

She blinked twice as her sight
came back to her, apparently the whiteness she had been blinded with
was compounded by the colour of the room itself.

It was utterly minimalist in
nature, the tiled floor was made of white, smooth stone and the
unadorned walls appeared to be the same. A round archway led out onto
a balcony from which a bright mid-day sky greeted them. That it was
light here further disorientated her, had she fallen asleep in this
bed upon their arrival? How far had they travelled?

'You have many questions, I can
see them playing upon your face. Today we need not concern ourselves
with the daily grind of those beneath us, today you recover from our
journey and learn what it is you need to know.'

She made another attempt at
propping herself up, this time with a degree of success. She eyed him
suspiciously but...

She stopped herself mid-thought.
Had she just referred to this creature as 'him'? A warning voice
inside her head suggested that she not get too complacent with
its
congenial attitude toward her words.

It was with more than a touch of
guilt that she found she had forgotten entirely about Jimmy and Jakob
in her initial thoughts. She had no idea what had befallen them in
their departure from Urial, her previous attempt at finding out had
been met with an abrupt change of topic.

'What has happened to my
friends?'

He came a little closer to the
bed before responding and she saw his face properly for the first
time.

His features were gaunt and
pallid, his brows strangely elongated in a way she had never seen
before. He sported no scarring or evidence of hard living and his
form was slight but lithe in movement. His hazel hair was cropped
around shoulder-length and shimmered as if newly-washed. For all his
distinctiveness, it was his eyes that drew her in.

In them she saw something
entirely alien to her, an endless well that she perched on the lip of
as it beckoned to send her tumbling for eternity.

She had been told as a young girl
that you could know the nature of someone by staring into their eyes
long enough. What looked back at her was incalculably old but not
blunted by the passage of time. Words seemed ineffective at
describing the strange and immediate keenness of thought she saw and
had to reconcile with the feeling of great age.

'So you finally see me, the first
to do so in a very long time indeed. To you my walls are down, my
conceit is disarmed and my semblance of self is as clear as it was in
the world's prime.'

He, and of this Ella was in no
doubt about,
he
was standing there and allowing her to drink
in this sight, cautiously edging a little bit closer to the bed. She
made no move to stop him, not wishing to test the idea that if she
did he would accept the rejection.

'In the last act prior to his
execution, Justice Kelgrimm ordered that they be sent into the
Sah'kel desert, a harsh and largely inhospitable tract of land. No
doubt they will be sent to the fort in that region. Ordinarily this
would be the death of most people but in this case they have
attracted the sympathy of an unknown individual.'

A look of distaste spread upon
his face then. 'I would have interceded out of curiosity but to do so
against the Justice's orders would have resulted in an unwanted
conflict. The powers I serve detest unwanted conflicts, they are
altogether too messy.'

Ella was confused at this.
El-Vador seemed capable of innumerable things yet he in turn had a
master to serve?

'I see the look on your face, the
concept would fill most with confusion. I serve the Emperor like any
other good citizen would, my capabilities do not set me above him in
that matter. I have no desire to rule over humanity, a ruler must
deal with an infinite number of complaints and issues. I leave such
concerns to those who desire it.'

She didn't know what to say to
that, so ventured another question. 'Did you really do all the things
the book claimed you did?'

He nodded. 'It was... unexpected.
Discovering that you had a detailed knowledge of my past history in
addition to your own unique aspects. I do not believe I would have
opened up as quickly to you if you hadn't possessed it. Are you
sympathetic toward the orphan?'

She considered the question
carefully, after all if he really was the orphan out of the story
then this was a deeply personal matter. 'It's been a long time since
I read the stories. I was sympathetic initially to his cause, it all
seemed very black and white. Then in the later stories he started
doing the wrong things for the right reasons.'

El-Vador nodded, abruptly sitting
at the foot of the bed. 'Hindsight dictates that I should acknowledge
this. I have had many a year to ponder over my actions back in those
earlier times. Though I acknowledge that I was wrong it matters not
as I cannot change what is done.'

He seemed open to her questioning
for the first time since he had taken her away from Urial, she
decided to risk another.

'How old are you, El-Vador?'

In the ensuing silence Ella
became increasingly paranoid. Had she presumed too much in asking him
that question? Or was it the mention of his name?

'I resided in these lands before
the city we're located in was populated by your kind. The dawning of
the Empire happened mid-way through my existence and at great cost,
that was thousands of years ago. I do not perceive the passing hours
as your friends do and have long lost count of the seasons. As you
may also have noticed, I am not human. Would you care to guess as to
what I am?'

He was staring at her intently
now, the book had contained a wide bestiary but no reference as to
what El-Vador's people considered themselves. She also had no way of
knowing how he would react to her response given his interest in it.

'Are you... some kind of pixie?'
She ventured, knowing it was the wrong thing to say as soon as it
left her lips.

He chuckled, this time it didn't
seem to resonate inside her own head. The sound echoed off the walls
of the bare room and continued to grow in volume. She nervously
started to laugh with him, thinking she had inadvertently made a
witty remark.

The laughter died.

'You think of me as some sort of
pixie?' he said in a measured tone, entirely unreadable.

'I... I don't know what you are.
I just took a guess.'

He made as if to look over his
shoulders. 'Do you see any wings on my back, Ella?'

She shook her head rapidly, a
growing fear clutching at her.

'No,' he said, his tone softening
as if noticing he had startled her. 'No, I am not a pixie.'

He shifted his legs onto the bed
and lay adjacent to her. 'I am Elven. My kind are a race from the
dawn of time. Of my kin I am the only one to possess the skills that
you have seen thus far. Had it been otherwise mankind would not hold
dominion over this land.'

He waved an arm out at the
archway. 'Everything beyond this door was built by Elven hands in
servitude, you will not see anywhere like it in the known world.'

Her curiosity at this revelation
got the better of her fear. 'You mean there are others of your kind
out there in the city?'

He peered up at her and shook his
head, she didn't know what to make of his position on the bed.

'They were in servitude to build
this place, not inhabit it. My people have long since departed it.'

'And you stayed behind to serve
the Emperor after your people left?'

'No, I was not present during the
construction of this city. I came to serve the Empire long after its
completion.'

Ella didn't feel like she was
getting the full story. 'So who forced your people to build the city
if they pre-dated the Empire? I thought you always had good relations
with the early men of the world?'

El-Vador nodded. 'They were a far
more simple people than this humanity that exists today. A better
people altogether that have not fallen far. It was not they that
ordered the construction of Levanin as you call it. I do not wish to
speak of this any further.'

She knew from the reluctance in
his voice that she shouldn't press him any further. She had almost
forgotten Jimmy's trepidation regarding what he saw as a malevolent
creature. It was strange, he seemed almost ordinary in his gestures
toward her and speech, yet at the same time there was an undefinable
essence to him that warned her of his lack of humanity.