He remembered touching them… and then.
‘So you remember?’ General Cole asked as he watched Swann step backwards and lean against the wall.
The strange tugging sensation in the pit of his stomach appeared once again. Swann held both hands to his stomach but there was nothing there, and his own hands offered him no comfort to the strange sensation.
‘It’s not possible,’ he stammered. ‘I remember her. I remember her and then being, somewhere else.’
‘Where did she take you?’ The General pressed.
‘Take me?’ Swann asked trying to make sense of not only the General’s questions but also the answers he could offer.
‘Yes, you followed her into the Distortion, where did she take you?’
There was an unmistakable look of excitement now on the old General’s face. His eyes were wide, and he stood awaiting Swann’s answer.
‘Trust. You said you wanted a little trust from me,’ Swann had regained his composure and looked across at the General. ‘I would ask for the same. How about we stop playing games General and you give as much as you seem to be taking from me?’
’ The stern look had returned to General Cole’s face.
‘You clearly want to know about what happened yet I’m the only one sharing. How about a little trade of information?’
General Cole seemed to mull over the concept, if only for a second, and then turned and stalked towards the end of the corridor. Without uttering a word he reached the end of the hallway and slipped a key card into a reader mounted on the wall beside the door.
As the light changed from red to green on the face of the device, he turned to look at Swann.
‘You want answers?’ Throwing open the heavy double doors Swann stepped towards him. ‘Welcome to the Distortion Zone.’
The sight beyond the door was curious, and Swann felt drawn through the open door to make sense of what he was seeing.
What looked to be an old underground reservoir spread out in front of him. The floor was still flooded with water, but nowhere near the depth, it had once been. A large arched ceiling towered above him and off into the dark distance. All lights were dimmed low, and Swann could barely make out the intricate brickwork of the wall and ceiling.
In the darkness beams of light showed parts of the vast cavern that were in use. He could see three columns of light that illuminated a curious sight.
In each section of illumination, a platform was raised from the flooded floor below. A solitary figure stood on each of the three illuminated platforms, but something obscured their movements. Above them, a bottomless sphere of glass stood sheltering them from the cascade of water that poured down from the ceiling high above.
As the water flowed across the surface of the spherical glass, it fell in sheets all around the figures that stood on the platform beneath it. Something filled the cavern with the sound of splashing water but more than that there was something that echoed like an amplified heartbeat echoing in the darkness.
Allowing Swann to take in the strange and impressive sight general Cole guided him through the door and to a set of railings above the splashing water far below.
‘Watch there.’ The General instructed and guided Swann’s attention towards the nearest of the sphere covered platforms.
Behind the shimmering sheet of water, Swann could just make out the figure of a man who stood still in the platform's centre. Hands by his side the man looked to be meditating. For a moment there was no movement until slowly, and unexpectedly the platform rose higher. Undisturbed by the action the man remained motionless as he rose higher and higher towards the domed ceiling.
As the platform settled into place, Swann craned his neck to see everything. The man behind the wall of water moved. His movement was slow and purposeful as he removed a strange mask from his back and positioned it on his face across his mouth and nose. Securing it in place, Swann watched as the light dimmed around the sphere covered platform.
‘What’s going on?’ He asked but fell silent as he watched.
As the artificial light faded, there was still a source of light from the platform. Unlike the white light, this appeared blue and seemed to emanate from the man himself who stood once again motionless. As the white light faded, the blue light grew in intensity until the light flared and the man disappeared.
Quite without warning or expectation, Swann’s mouth was agape, and the blue light faded, replaced instead with tendrils of blue smoke contained within the confines of the falling water.
‘What just happened?’ Swann stammered as he stared disbelieving at the space where the man had been.
‘You recognise it?’ General Cole asked as Swann looked closer at the smoke.
The General knew all too well that Swann recognised what he was seeing. The smoke contained within the walls of water was the same that had trailed around the mysterious woman. It was the same as what had tugged him from the warm cliff-top and into the desolate battlefield.
He was about to speak when the man reappeared on the platform in another flash of bright blue light.
The man was gasping and as he pulled the mask from his face, the falling water slowed until it became only trickles off the edge of the glass. Swann could now see that the sphere was incomplete, the bottom third having been cut off which allowed the man to remain protected by the water yet not sealed within the glass ball.
With the water no longer sealing him inside the blue smoke dissipated into the vast cavern until it disappeared.
With his chest rising and falling, gasping from an unseen exertion, the platform lowered until the man was level with Swann and the General.
‘I take it you were successful Vasille?’ General Cole shouted across to the man.
‘You ever doubted me?’ The other man, Vasille, retorted and jumped across the gap between his platform and the raised gantry on which Swann and the General were stood.
‘Mr Swann this is Vasille, my most experienced Regulator.’
‘The newest recruit?’ Vasille asked as he paid no attention to Swann.
‘Hopefully,’ the General began. ‘He hasn’t been told much, yet; I was hoping you might explain to him what it is we do here.’
Turning to look at him, Vasille stood a little taller than Swann. A head of brown hair peppered with streaks of grey hung to his shoulders. Drenched in sweat Vasille had a greasy look. He wore the same form-fitting black all-in-one outfit the mysterious woman had worn which only added to his imposing stature.
As Vasille looked at Swann, he felt the other man was weighing him up.
‘Do you know what we do here?’ Vasille spat, it was clear he thought Swann was not worthy of his attention.
‘Not yet, like the General says I was hoping…’
Vasille cut him short with a wave of his hand.
‘That up there was no magic show, no trick of the eye or illusion. That was me going to a place you never thought you could.’
‘Where?’ Swann asked, the line had was baited, and he had been hooked.
‘To the past Mr Swann,’ General Cole intoned. ‘Vasille here, and it would seem you, have a unique ability.’
‘Time travel Swanny,’ Vasille continued. ‘Let’s not flower it up any more than we need to hey Cole?’
‘But that’s not possible.’ Swann replied.
‘Then you tell me how you were stood on a battlefield in the middle of the Geat War.’
It was then that Swann realised he had seen Vasille before.
Vasille was the soldier that had ran across the battleground screaming when he had awoken on the barren battlefield.
It all seemed too impossible to comprehend and Swann felt a wave of sickness roll over him. He only just made it to the railings as he loosed the contents of his stomach over the edge accompanied by Vasille’s mocking laughter.
SWANN’S JOURNEY CONTINUES IN BLACKOUT: A TIME-TRAVEL NOVEL AVAILABLE TO BUY NOW
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B079KSW8M5
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From The Dark Page 28