Chapter 68: 68. Sleep - Anna/Kane

Ellas Past

Anna

When it was over, I wept. I cried for those we had lost. I cried for those with terrible injuries that even our greatest healers could not mend. I cried for Kane.

Dar’cen was gone. Not destroyed, but what we had done would give our world a respite, and time to prepare for when he would come again.

But at what price. The man Al’kar, Kane my friend, had paid a price that few would ever consider.

I cried not because our magic had obliterated his body, I cried because he had risked his soul, given his very soul, to destroy Dar’cen. The part of him that so long had held back Dar’cen’s gift had prevailed as I had hoped, as I had prayed it would. It had held Dar’cen, wrapped itself around him and confined him as it had his ‘child’.

And trapped within Kane, we had destroyed them both. Dar’cen would return one day, that I knew for fact, but as to Kane I could only pray that the immortality he boasted of would bring back the man I had grown to love as a brother from the minute particles that, even now, I and the remaining dozen wise ones gathered from the blasted land that was once Falhar.

Thunder rumbled from the dark, almost black clouds, and lightening bolts flashed down in their hundreds, blasting all they struck, completing the destruction of the place that long ago had been my home.

‘We cannot stay overlong in this place, Daughter. Already our people grow sick with the evil that fills the air and the seeps from the very ground they stand on. He is gone… you must accept that. I grieve him, too… but we have lost many this day.’

I looked up from the fine particles of ash that made up the small mound that had once been my friend. ‘You are hurt, Father. Your hands—‘

Garath frowned as he held up one hand. What had been wickedly sharp, foot long blades extending from the remnants of his fingers, were now blunt, dull stumps of black metal, reminiscent of the fingers they had replaced.

‘A blessing, my daughter. As I struck at him, my blades blunted… with each blow they wore away. All my brothers have been blessed so. So worry not.’

Reaching out, I took my fathers hand, marvelled at the smoothness of the metal that would now serve a fingers. ‘You must go… all of you. You are right in what you say… this place hold nought by poison and death. Take them, Father, all of them… our dead, too, they must not be left in this cursed place.’

‘And you, Daughter? You will stay?’

‘As you know I must. What lies here is not all that he was. I will gather him to me and then… I will pray.’

‘But this… dust, this is not Kane. This is not who he was, nor will it be again. His soul is not here, it has departed, gone to the care of Mother Ellas,’ Garath said, his voice low and filled with sadness. ‘Come with us, daughter. I beseech you.’

‘No, father, I must stay. I must do this thing… I must try. Go now please. Gather the others and take them home. Worry not for me, my magic protects me from this place. I will follow when I am done, I promise.’

Garath touched my cheek, the smooth metal of his fingers surprising warm as though blood flowed through their core, and then he turned and walked to where the others had congregated – a pitiful few remaining from the hundreds that had began this day of reckoning.

I lowered myself to the floor to sit alongside the small mound that was once my friend, as the survivors, some aided by companions, others reverently carrying our dead, filed into the tunnels created by my father’s brethren.

When they were all gone, when I was alone at last, I took my head in my hands and wept.

For what seemed an eternity, tears flowed down my face, as grief, and rage at the price of our victory, consumed me.

A gentle voice broke through my despair, a familiar voice, a voice I had know much of my life.

‘It is good that you grieve, child. No victory come without loss, and he who does not grieve has won nothing.’

‘Erithain?’ I said, in wonder as I looked up.

She stood before me, a half smile upon her face, her body a translucent glow. I made to stand but Erithain’s upheld hand stayed me, as she sat on the ground opposite, Kane’s ashes, a small mound between us.

As I watched her face, waiting for what she would say, her eyes fell to look upon the pitiful remains before her.

‘Such pain you have suffered in your short life, Ka’in. The burden you carry should belong to no man let alone…’

She left unfinished what she would say and looked up to me. ‘We must work quickly now, child, his soul will not remain in this place overlong. Open yourself to me and lend your strength, for it is I that must do this thing.’

‘What is it that that you would have me do?’ I asked, urgency filling my voice at her hearing her words.

Erithain held out her one hand toward me, whilst the other reached down gently to touch the small mount of ash.

‘Give me your hand, and then bend your will to its touch such mine will become reality in your world… Thus we create a bridge that his soul may return from Mother Ellas’s care to the body that forms here even as I speak.’

I gasped as motes of light flashed and sparkled in the ashes before me, and a dozen or more wisps of sparkling particles coalesced in the air between us and flowed down in a steady stream to join those on the ground.

‘Your hand!’ Erithain demanded. ‘Time is short.’ Although her tone was serious, a smile filled her eyes as her open palm beckoned mine forward.

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My face fell as I reached forward for Erithain’s hand, and grasped only air.

‘Slowly, child. Use your power to feel for me… believe that I am here in the flesh as you believe in the truth of my prophecies and your dreams. No more than that is required.’

I stared at the woman, feeling for the touch of her flesh and opening my mind to her words, to the truth of her words. Kane held her. She was real for him… for a short time she was here in our world. I can do this!

And then her hand was there, firm and warm in mine, even as the rest of her seemed insubstantial and ghost-like.

‘Good,’ Erithain said. ‘Now, do nothing, say nothing. Ka’in will resist for he is at peace now, and to return will cause great pain… for a time. But return he must… for such is his destiny, and this he knows deep in his soul.’

Erithain clutched my hand tightly as I began to pull away, and I saw that her eyes were wet with tears. ‘This must be! Now be silent and do nothing, as I have instructed. Time grows short.’

I nodded my acquiescence, and in a ragged voice, I said, ‘I will do as you ask, Erithain, but I will know more of what you know when you are done this day.’

Erithain did not respond to my words, her face had taken on a look of extreme concentration, and the hand that now rested mere inches above the ever growing mound of ashes was filled with an almost blinding white light.

Moments passed with the only noticeable change being the size of the mound of ash between us. Then, slowly the streams of ash slowed to a trickle, and only a moment later stopped all together.

Erithain smiled. ‘Now take my other hand, child, and together we shall return him.’

As I took her hand, light, incredibly bright white light, filled the space between us, almost blinding me. Squinting through water filled eyes, I could barely see anything of Erithain even though she sat but an arm’s length away, and brighter still was the light that, I could now see, emanated from the ash that that had lain between us. Ash that was now pure light, and a mound that was changing, elongating, becoming the outline of a man.

Erithain’s grip on my hands tightened as the blinding light disappeared as if it had never been. For an instant, I couldn’t see. I blinked furiously trying to dispel the tears from my eyes and the purple after image left by the blinding light. Seconds past, but still I could only make out an outline, an unmoving man-shaped purple outline. ‘Is it done—’

‘Hush, child. Now is the time that you must be silent… and strong,’ Erithain interrupted, and then lowering her voice, ‘For though he cannot speak, he will hear your words, and from them will know what it is that has become of him. So stay silent. If words are required, let it be I who voices them.’

I nodded silently, and then again looked down to where Kane lay. Slowly, as my eyes dried, the image before me cleared until I finally saw Kane, or what it was that Dar’cen’s magic reformed of the man that was my friend.

Pulling free of Erithain’s grip, I raised a hand to my mouth as I almost gasped in shock, that was only held back by Erithain’s warning. He was whole, a man’s form in outline, but nothing else of the horrifically burnt and disfigured creature before me resembled a man, let alone Kane. Only patches of blackened skin remained, the rest raw flesh and exposed bone. No face remained, only a cavity for a nose and empty sockets where once his eyes had been.

Tears again filled my eyes as they raised to meet Erithain’s face, a thousand questions silently posed in their gaze.

Erithain’s form seemed to dissolve almost and then she was standing over me, her hand held out to help me to my feet, and then she led me a few short steps away from where Kane lay.

In almost a whisper, she said, ‘With our combined magics I have slowed the healing that was being forced upon him. Left to his dark magic, even after such destruction, Kane’s body would be whole again, completely healed, in mere weeks, perhaps days even. But his mind would never recover… his soul would not be his own again. He would be forever changed. Now, if he is to regain himself fully, he must sleep. 'What Dar’cen…’ Erithain’s hand tightened on mine, and I could feel a fury in that grip.

‘Oh, how I detest that name, that name that he took upon himself. He…’ She began, but then, releasing my hand, she turned away and was silent.

I waited, my hands shaking as my mind screamed at me to turn back and look upon Kane, praying that he would be whole again, and yet knowing that that would not be so. Never, not even when my parents were taken from me, had I felt so despondent, so beaten.

As if knowing my thoughts, Erithain spun around to face me, her hands once more grasping mine. ‘Worry not, child. He will be well again… both in body and soul, I promise you. Time is all that he needs. His body will recover, but still he must be allowed to sleep. His body was destroyed, but the greatest hurt was taken before the destruction, when that foul creature entered him. For in that instant he saw all that was Dar’cen… he almost became Dar’cen.

'If not for… No, I will not talk of that. That is for you to seek later. For now, know only that he must sleep so that all that he saw, all that he felt, in that instant, is forever forgotten. You alone must be at his side until he wakes, for though his sleep is deep and dreamless, part of him is yet aware of all that surrounds him.

'Even now he quests outwards, seeking that which may be a threat to him, and in this changed state that his mind now occupies, his reaction to to the slightest of perceived provocations could be fatal to any near him. Take him, sequester him… let him sleep.’

‘How long? How long must he remain asleep, how long before he awakens and is healed?’ I asked, hope and dread waring in my mind.

‘A very long while, Child. Months perhaps for his body, given the slowing that I have used against his magic, but for the healing of his soul, I cannot say. Years… longer, perhaps centuries. But if the creature is to be finally defeated, Ka’in must recover. He must be the man he was always destined to be… and for that you must give him this time. Take him now, Child, for I am done here this day. It is for you now to guard this man as he sleeps into the future.’

'But centuries... who will look over him when I am gone?'

'You will ever be at his side, Child,' Erithain said in a whisper, and then, as had happened when we first met, she was gone.

Kane

‘Rest now my dear friend. Worry not, for I am with you. Your part is now done, and I will watch over you until you are well again… whole again.’ The words came to me as in a whisper from so very far away, barely breaking through the walls of pain, the agonising pain, and the memory of pure and unrelenting terror.

But relief rode on those words, her words. Relief and a balm that eased my fear if not the pain. Her words echoed over and over, ‘Your part is done… your part is done.’And I knew that she spoke true. It is done, he is gone. Defeated.

Al’kar, they said, a man to lead the fight, a man who would save the world. Yet I remember nothing of that, of that so brave man who was to save the world. I saw only Anna as she faced him, battled him, offered up her life to destroy him… as she had once given her life to save me. And of that even, I remember but fragments, small insignificant pieces of what happened.

And to even think on those memories is to live again through the terror of what he did to me… and what he would have done.

No, better not to think at all. Better to listen to Anna’s words… and sleep. I could not feel the tears, yet I knew that I cried.

Tears of relief that it was finally over, mingled with tears of dread for the future when I must face him yet again… alone, without Anna by my side.

Her hand touched my brow, cool and gentle through the agonising pain that lingered despite the balm that was her words.

‘Sleep now,’ her words said, as the pain fled from her touch, and my conscious mind left the world for the rest that my body so desperately craved.