Escana (50 page)

Small
strands of light from the air holes offered minimal vision but Gadtor
chose to close his eyes and awkwardly attempt to find a position of
comfort. The effort was entirely futile. If Thom thought anything of
their current predicament he refused to share it.

The
grinding sound of wheels turning signalled the inevitable, they were
off to the front line.

T
he
whiteness veiling her eyes cleared, the orderly line of trees and
well-maintained path suggested that she was on the road leading from
Escana.

'I
am aware of the unconvincing nature of providing you with an illusion
after your dismissal of illusions as means to convince you. I openly
admit that this is brought about by the contents of my own mind and
none of it is reality. Our bodies remain frozen in position where
they have always been, our minds are one on the outskirts of Escana.'

She
watched as a vision of El-Vador waylaid bandits, which in turn
transformed into one of Jimmy, Jakob and herself venturing across
that same path.

She
witnessed the mercy he provided the sole bandit that survived and how
he dealt with the guards that chose to abuse the man's freedom. Then
she saw them walking across the same path completely oblivious to the
events that had occurred.

Then
she saw the Warden attempting to cross the bridge and the resulting
conflict. There were any number of men willing to avenge the death of
Solomon, was he aware that Jakob was the perpetrator of the crime?

'Good,
you're growing accustomed to the visions quicker than I expected you
to. Now try and cope with the following.'

The
visions continued to swirl around her but their pace increased by a
great magnitude, this time they cast her back into a small village as
El-Vador laid about him with a sword, slaying grotesque creatures to
the left and right as they attempted to ravage a terrified and
powerless populace.

She
saw him weeping openly atop a mountain clutching eight bronze statues
and talking to a ghostly figure.

This
vision in particular vanished even swifter, replaced by a dark
dungeon in which El-Vador offered mercy to someone straining to claw
his eyes out. She stared at the figure unblinkingly, taking in the
life-like detail of the shredded gossamer wings as it dispelled the
whimsy surrounding the name 'pixie'.

Giant
pillars streaked upward into the darkness as a vast creature with
wings hurled fire at the dancing feet of a severely wounded El-Vador.

They
soared in free-fall down a white tower leading into a city below, a
small mote in their vision brought forth another figure flying upward
to greet steel upon steel.

A
grotesque monster hacked at the woods beneath it, she watched
El-Vador climb up its leg and bury his sword under its knee.

A
burly man with strange green skin hacked mercilessly at him with an
axe on a desert plain, thousands of miles from civilisation.

Finally
they were sent to a small room together, watching El-Vador pouring
over rolls of velum and scratching endlessly at them with a quill in
frustration.

'It
took a very long time to dredge every memory into ink and onto the
page,' he said matter-of-factly. 'It needed to be said, lest I
finally pass from this world and my collective knowledge die with
me.'

The
vision faded away into whiteness and the marble tiles of their room
swam into view once more. Ella had many questions, this man if you
could call him that had literally walked out of the pages of her
favourite book.

'Do
you see yourself as a hero?'

'No.
I simply tried to do the best that I could with the choices given to
me. The best for everyone concerned. To call me a hero for doing so
would make people that do the same in their own lives heroes. The
only thing that separates me from them is the magnitude of the
choices I was forced to make.'

'The
pixie in the dungeon was the same as the one from the book, wasn't
she?'

He
was very silent then, she hadn't felt particularly threatened by his
presence before but there was a looming menace in his silence that
suggested that she ask something else.

'I'm
so very tired,' he said, cutting her off. 'You don't know what it's
like, you can't know what it's like. To live in such forsaken times
with the entirety of the world demanding you choose and withstand the
burden of those choices for all eternity. It doesn't get any easier
with time for someone sympathetic and no amount of pain and suffering
can harden my heart against the significance when it is brought about
by my own hand.'

Everything
she had been shown was far more detailed than she had ever imagined
upon reading it. Every event had a complexity and nuance about it
that told her he had experienced it all. Or was this some further
effort of his to trick her?

'Why
are you telling me all this?' She asked.

He
looked up at her, his face no longer hidden by fine strands of hair.
'So that you may understand me.'

She
shook her head. 'Why me? Why not someone else?'

He
pressed his head up against hers and started to shake, no visions
were forthcoming though.

'You
are the last latent power I have seen. There are no others left in
the lands beyond Levanin and none with your naivety within these
walls.'

'What
is a latent power?'

El-Vador
lay back and let out a deep breath. 'A latent power is someone whose
mind is adeptly suited to dealing with the energies that elude the
common man. A handful of these individuals are born each year with
varying degrees of aptitude. It is a family trait and those known to
produce such seed were relocated and kept within the walls of
Levanin.'

Ella
didn't like the idea of being kept anywhere. 'Why were they forced to
stay in the city?'

'The
damage an adept power can cause outside of a controlled environment
almost always leads to a loss of life. It will either manifest in
house fires or being hit by lightning or perhaps a malady. An adept
can yield the power but has no control over the execution. Often they
will die in the attempt of taking another life. It is safer for all
concerned to keep them here.'

It
was then that Ella noticed the platter. A thin layer of mould had
grown over the fruit. How long had these illusions taken? She felt
very sleepy.

'Rest,'
El-Vador said, sensing it.

She
did.

I
t
was starting to get a lot hotter, the once lush greenery they had
rolled past in their captivity began to take on a much less desirable
aspect. Looking out on the now-desolate landscape Jakob realised that
he no longer yearned for escape if that was what he had to flee into.

The
cage ground to a halt, sending up odd plumes of dust trailing off in
its wake, the prisoners stared out of the bars to see why they had
been halted this time.

It
had taken weeks in captivity to venture this far, throughout all this
The Hermit had not shown the slightest interest in communicating with
either Jakob or Jimmy.

While
before Jimmy was an insufferable windbag, now his demeanour seemed to
reflect The Hermit's. He responded briefly when Jakob offered
conversation and made no effort to speak to him. It was almost as if
the part of him that kept him so exasperatingly merry had fractured
in the past events. The combination of the botched rebellion and the
long cage journey had sapped him of all joviality. Perhaps it had
dawned on him just how perilous their situation had become.

One
of the Urtaka ducked its heads briefly to search for something to
graze upon in the lull and a collective gasp came from the prisoners
at the front of the cage.

Jakob
had spotted it too. A large stone monument directly in front of them
in the shape of an arch. It wasn't the odd construction that caught
the eye the most, but rather the hypnotic yet translucent glow that
seemed to warp the depth of field beyond it.

The
Urtaka seemed entirely unperturbed by the appearance of it, perhaps
this was a commonplace landmark in their various journeys throughout
the land. The same could not be said for the prisoners, who in spite
of their malnourished state were working themselves up at the sight
of the unknown.

There
was a tightening sensation in his chest then, judging by the
reactions of those around him he wasn't alone in feeling it.

He
continued to look around him, The Hermit seemed unchanged by this
development, Jimmy seemingly hadn't cared about anything for days.

The
familiar grind signalled the inevitable forward motion, his chest
felt further constricted and the edges of his sight started to blur.
There was nothing he could do, he was trapped here. Fighting the urge
to panic he settled himself down upon the cage floor once again and
shut his eyes, hoping irrationally that the sensation would lessen.

The
pressure seemed to move from his chest to the lids of his eyes, they
felt like a pair of invisible thumbs were digging into them.

He
found himself searching for air in a series of short breaths, the
pressure continued to mount, spreading out through every portion of
his body. At least if he were to die now he'd be free of this
accursed cage.

Then
where? The thought hit him, he wasn't afraid to die. Certainly, he
was afraid of the potential pain involved in getting there but the
prospect of leaving this land into an unknown future didn't cause him
any concern. Why was he so sure that nothing terrible would happen?

He
fell into darkness, where previously the light from the cage had
flickered upon the lids of his eyes there now was nothing. Nothing
but the sound of his shallow breathing.

A
wave of heat hit him then and a blazing brightness coloured the
insides of his eyes, he opened them and was blinded by the sudden
light.

The
dark outline of the cage was the first thing he noticed, the bars
solidified in his wavering view. Then he heard the sounds of several
men groggily rising to their feet and staring in disbelief out of the
cage.

They
were surrounded by dunes, stretching out further than his recovering
sight could discern. He blinked several times and the wavering in the
distance didn't go away, he felt a throb in his head upon realising
that it was the sheer heat causing it.

A
guard groggily banged on the side of the cage, apparently they were
worse for wear from the experience too.

'We'll
be rationing your meals from here on in until we get to Greyhawk.
We're in the desert now, so if we've any runts left that aren't being
protected by the cloaked one then you might want to think about
ending them. Runts aside we want the rest of you surviving this
journey so if you kill someone we're going to be coming in and
sticking him in the salt barrels. Anyone who has a problem with that
can join him in the barrels. Understood?'

He
rattled the wall of the cage with his spear and there were some
grumbles of understanding, most of the men were too disorientated to
do anything else.

He
heard a faint voice nearby, harsh from disuse. 'Jakob, where are we?'

He
scanned the horizon and took a deep breath of dry air from his freed
lungs.

'I
have no idea.'

T
here
were long stretches of silence now, for all their efforts at
frugality the supply of food simply wasn't enough to keep them both
alive. Hern was beginning to wonder when Re'tak would start eyeing
him for sustenance.

He
dismissed it as a terrible thought, a spirit of kinship had grown
between the two of them in the dark hours they shared together. They
may not converse much due to the strain it put on both their minds
but there was a sense of mutual solidarity each time they did. No,
Re'tak seemed an honourable beast, he would not devour Hern if it was
only going to draw out the agony as he starved to death.

The
familiar sound of the lock clicking signalled the opening of the
inaccessible hatch high above them. Hern had lost concept of time in
this dark place and knew it may be the hunger deluding him, this
didn't change that the intervals between their feeding seemed longer
than before. Did they not realise just how much a lizard this size
could eat? Were they afraid of feeding it too much for fear of it
somehow sprouting wings and mounting an escape?

Blinded
more by the light now than the darkness, Hern couldn't make out a
thing. What was taking them so long to hurl the food down and close
the hatch?

'You
down there. Grab hold of this and tie it about your waist.'

Why
is the light still here?

Hern didn't know who to reply to
first, being bombarded by two types of communication was
disorientating in this weakened state.

He felt the rope touch his
shoulder and ran his fingers across it, there was plenty of slack.
Tying it around his waist as instructed, he felt it bite into him as
he was hauled upward.