by Julian Cheek
Ahead of him, Sam noticed a disturbance in the group of men. They were all breathing heavily and many were barechested, blood and dirt mingling freely on their bodies. The group of men slowly parted, allowing an avenue to be formed, through which the author of this carnage slowly approached. Otaktay! Huge, evil looking, tattooed everywhere and with a thick ponytail draped behind him,
Otaktay walked slowly up towards the remaining inhabitants, his eyes scanning the crowd for potential danger. Otaktay stopped at the edge of his group of men, staring into the crowd in front of him, looking, searching… finding.
His gaze fell on Sam and seemed to stay there for an eternity. He moved his arm up towards his mouth, rubbing his chin in thought before he moved away from the crowd and towards Sam.
“So you are The One?” he questioned, his axe held loosely between his two hands. “You are the one who was supposed to have defeated the Bjarke only to be lost to Lord Elim?” He started to circle Sam, as if inspecting a sickly insect. “You are the one,” he continued, “who took the life of Napayshni and all his men!” The crowd of angry marauders started to growl, some lifting their swords in expectation of exacting revenge. Otaktay stopped their movement with a wave of his hand. “How is it possible, little man, that you, who stand here before me, was able to demolish over 20 hardened Bjarke and yet here you are, without so much as a weapon or ability to strike?” He continued his circling. “And, are you the one who controls that demon who decimated some of my men?”
Sam dared not breathe.
“Alas, little thing, your Padme was last seen running for the hills in terror. I am afraid it is the last you will see of him.” Otaktay seemed to enjoy goading Sam and seeing how it pleased his men. They jeered and spat at Sam, their evil eyes dissecting him as on a microscope.
“Have you no tongue?” Otaktay asked. “Are you unable to speak, or are you, after all, nothing more than a wet pup, not worthy of any title other than ‘The Useless One’?”
Sam saw that Otaktay was gearing up to humiliate him, but in front of this huge being, Sam had little to say, let alone challenge him on, so he remained quiet, his eyes downcast and his body sagging into itself in despair at the apparent loss of Babu. He continued to call him, but still, Babu remained silent. A sure sign if ever there was one, that Babu was indeed dead.
Otaktay stopped his pacing and stood in front of Sam, measuring him up. Deciding what to do next. He opened his mouth to pronounce his decision, only for him to be interrupted from the most obscure of places.
“Sam!” A cry from within the shelter of some rubble next to the keep. Sam recognised the voice in an instant, and wished he had never met her. Pania, seeing her closest friend being interrogated and hurt, decided to spring to his aid in the bravest way possible for a young girl just over her ninth birthday. She sprang out from her hiding place and started to run towards him, oblivious to all around her. The Bjarke looked down in surprise as this young thing hurtled past them towards the man standing in the centre. Sam cowered into himself as he heard her voice, wishing she had kept quiet, and therefore, safe, now, exposed, left to the whim of these people who took no prisoners.
“Leave him alone!” she screamed, her hair flowing out behind her and her dirty knees pounding her legs into the ground. “Leave him alone.” The Bjarke stood aside as she past, leaving this whirlwind to be dealt with by their leader. Otaktay, on seeing this new event unfold before him, and sensing the close connection between Sam and Pania, saw his next decision alter into a glorious composition of pure revenge.
“Helushka, grab that whelp!” Otaktay ordered to one of his generals as Pania moved closer towards the group. With one fluid movement, the man addressed as “Helushka” leaned out and swept Pania off her feet as if she was made of feathers. He held her in his iron grip as she fought to be released. He paid her hitting and protestation no mind, looking instead with deep glee at his leader, awaiting further instruction for the tasty morsel now fighting to be released from his steel grip.
“I said to you people before our attack, that revenge would be sought for the loss of Napayshni.” Otaktay looked over the crowd as he spoke, slowly bringing his gaze back to Sam, where he continued. “I longed to taste the blood of the one who had taken Napayshni’s life and those of his fallen braves. But for him,” looking firmly at Sam with steel, dark, dead eyes, “his fate is to be decided by those greater and more worthy than this rag-tag group of warriors, I have the privilege of calling Comrades. We take him to Lord Elim, there to see his life leached out of him by the ancient ways of the soul reaver. There to meet his end.”
Sam shuddered as he began to see what Otaktay was leading up to and he hated him more for it. “Don’t you dare!” he started to say under his breath, gazing sternly at his enemy standing mockingly before him. “Don’t you bloody dare.”
“Kohana, Achak, grab him. He will want to remember this for as long as he still holds breath.” Two pairs of hands grabbed Sam, forcing him bodily to the ground. He could no more fight these men off than he could have flown through the skies.
Otaktay looked out at the people around him and raised his voice in final pronouncement. “I am Otaktay, leader of the Bjarke and clan tribe leader of the people of the mighty Nephilim. We exact revenge on our comrade, Napayshni here today, and leave this place as a sign to the other tribes of your people yet to be visited and defeated. Let this defeat flow down through the ages to your children and your children’s children. Let it remind them that you are but nothing. A speck of dirt to be trodden underfoot. The Bjarke come and go as they please and none will stand in our way.”
“Helushka, come. We take but one today.” He looked at his general, who grabbed Pania and threw her over his shoulder, and together, Otaktay and Helushka turned around and started to walk back out of the wreck that was Watamka. But not before Sam heard his last instruction to those left behind. “Keep that one alive,” pointing to Sam held in the vice-like grip of Kohana and Achak, “the rest are the spoils of battle. Do with them as you will!” And together, they walked away from Sam, Pania screaming back at him in terror. Screaming for Sam to save her as the rest of the Bjarke, with wild, ecstatic glee, shouted out a prolonged battle cry and launched themselves into the terrified villages, swords and axes scything through what remained of the frightened innocents.
Seeing Pania being taken away from him brought an anger up to the surface that he had not experienced in many months. Here was someone he had grown to love despite his fears of letting her down, and she was being taken from him. Just like David was taken from him a few short months previously.
“Nooooooooo!” he screamed. “Drop her now before all hell is let loose on you!” Sam struggled to get out from the grasp of his captors. Pania was slowly being taken further away amidst the carnage around him, her cries of terror echoing through him and grabbing his heart like never before. He could not lose another one so close to him. Not this time.
Heat consumed him from within and his body burst into a white hot brilliant volcano of fire. Both Kohana and Achak recoiled immediately, their hands and arms destroyed beyond repair. Their screams were the last thing they heard before they sunk to the ground, dead before they knew it. The others around Sam, on seeing what had happened, sprang back in sudden shock as this person, who a few short seconds ago was a weak, insignificant youth, was suddenly glowing in front of them. White hot fire pouring out from every pore of his body.
Sam had had enough!
“I am coming for you, Otaktay,” he cried. “Stop while you can for here there is no mer…” The rest was lost as one of the Bjarke, in sheer terror, swung his spear shaft at the head of Sam, hitting him soundly on the skull. Sam’s world exploded in stars, pain, and bright light and he remembered no more.
The Awakening
“Sam. Sam! Wake up. You have been having a nightmare.” An insistent, urgent voice moved into his head. Sam groaned, sending feelers out into his immediate surroundings, trying to regain focus. His head pou
nded in pain and he opened his eyes.
In front of him, stretched the long cold surface of bright, striped linoleum. A number of bar stools were placed next to a counter above him. Two stools were on the floor, one under a table. “Argh my head,” he groaned. “Where am I?” His head throbbed in agony and he stretched up to rub his temples gingerly as he sat himself up off the floor.
“You had a nightmare, Sam. You had a nightmare, and then you threw yourself off the chair and whacked your head on the footrest of that stool there,” said Alice, pointing to the stool now lying under the table.
Sam rocked slowly back and forth, trying to nurse his head and to ease the pain. Without thinking he said, “I need to get back. Pania has been taken.” The response he got back took a little while to register. “Pania is still alive, Sam. Pugs watches over her. We have to get you up and ready, ready to face the world.”
“My head bloody hurts!” His mind had been tracking what had transpired since he came to, and suddenly, as a penny dropped, it stopped him saying anything else. He focussed his eyes, staring straight at Alice.
Alice’s eyes were an iridescent purple! Flecks of red and blue were moving within the depths of them and she made no attempt to blink the colour away. Not this time. Her face was definitely glowing and Sam knew enough to register that no light shone behind her to illuminate her this way.
For a second, Sam just sat and stared, and then his world blew up inside him.
“You are kidding me!” Sam started to struggle to get his feet under him, to get away from acknowledging what his brain absolutely refused to believe, let alone accept. “You are bloody kidding me! Uhh uhh! No way, Jose. This is not real! You are for sure not real. What the bloody hell is going on? Where am I?”
Sam found himself glancing all around him for a quick exit, at the same time, staring with horror at this apparition in front of him, who, only yesterday, was serving him with a “Coke and a bloody normal smile!!,” now sitting there as plain as, eyes bright purple and her face bloody glowing!
“Sam, stop! Please! You must stop, and listen. You know who I am!” Sam was too panicked right now to listen to anything. This was way the hell out of his comfort zone. Distant dream planets, strange folk, people dying for no apparent reason; that was all well and good. Having the dream now start to infiltrate his real world, his bloody world, that was definitely not cool! This simply did not happen, couldn’t happen! Wasn’t bloody able to happen, damn it! His rambling thoughts flew every which way assaulting him with merciless efficiency, the pain in his head now a distant memory, the impossibility of what he was seeing before him, very much taking front and centre stage.
“Look to your self, Sam,” Alice said, with calmness flowing through her words. “Ask yourself how it is possible that I know about Pania, about Babu, Ma-aka and Ngaire. I was the one who sent Babu to be with you in the first place, whilst I came here to get you. If all this is true, then you know that the thoughts you have had about me are true also.”
The scariest of movie scenarios was forcing its way into his world and he was not ready for any of it. Standing up he ran straight towards the café door, grabbing the handle as he approached. It was locked!
“Let me out!” he screamed in terror, looking back at Alice, who now stood by the edge of the counter, as he furiously tried to rip the door off its hinges. Alice blinked once. “It is open, Sam,” she said, and the door flew open in his grasp, catapulting him out onto the street and into a crowd of people out on a typical Saturday morning shopping spree.
“Careful young man!” one of them exclaimed in haughty tones. Sam didn’t care, he just needed to get away from here, from her, as quickly as possible. Run away and hide in the darkest cave if one revealed itself to him. Just get away and not think about what had just happened. What couldn’t have happened, though try as he might, the events of the last few minutes refused to dissipate and instead, they stood to attention right in front of him, refusing to budge.
It’s not possible, it’s not possible, it’s not possible thundered in his mind with every step he took, matching his running with regular cadence. His route seemed to take him naturally up and away from the heart of Greyshott, up the windy roads towards Blacknest Hill which overlooked the town. “It’s just not possible!” he uttered again, to no one in particular. But it was possible. It had occurred and, try as he might, he could not deny it. “This can’t be true,” he tried to argue with himself as he reached the summit of the hill, rapidly running out of steam and slowing down at last.
“It can’t be true!” he screamed aloud out into space, the breeze snatching his words away and flinging them off into the air for a moment, leaving him, finally, out of breath and alone.
With body bent from the exertion and arms pressing onto his thighs for support, Sam gazed down onto the town nestling in the trees below him. He could see the chimney pots and roofs of the various buildings in the centre. The cars, busses and people going about their normal activities for a Saturday. Further afield, the shops and office buildings started to give way for the residential apartment blocks and single houses of the outskirts of Greyshott, and, if he looked closely enough, he could spy his own road peeling off from the High Street and taking his eye to his own home, now camouflaged in with the other houses.
Peace seemed to be the natural bed partner with the area, much like it must do, he surmised, with most towns and villages that weekend. Here there were no marauders intent on maiming and killing, no Lord Elim waiting to send the fear of God into the inhabitants, no strange creatures who could communicate with you over time and space.
Looking down towards the town church, he saw the area in which Timber’s Tea House should be sitting and he stopped to consider further.
Of course, we are not allowed to get away scot-free! he said to himself. Oh no, Sam Gilbert. In this world, we have to live with gods who casually reveal themselves to you with purple bloody eyes and faces that glow of their own accord, all the time whilst serving us traditional breakfasts and cups of tea! The events of the last hour replayed themselves in his head, but now, with distance between him and her, he was able to reassess what had happened.
Well, he said to himself, finding a large boulder to sit on as he gazed down over his town, If she really was all powerful and was out to get me, regardless of whether I was standing right in front of her, or hiding up here like a coward, she could, I suppose, quite easily magic herself from there to here and do whatever she wanted to me! But she hasn’t. She is still down there, and I am safe up here, he continued this line of argument and deliberation in his mind. How she knew about Ngaire and Babu and Ma-aka… He stopped as another name entered his thought patterns. … And Pania. He hoped she was alright. Hoped that the next time he dreamt, she would be there, safe and sound and playing with Pugs without a care in the world. But somehow, he knew he was kidding himself. Anyway, he continued, I don’t know what the problem is. Who has ever heard of dreams being reality? Maybe I said something in my sleep whilst I slept at Timber’s and Alice heard me say their names and used them against me in jest when I woke… He allowed that particular nugget to rotate a few times.
No! That is equally stupid, Sam!
All this time, his eyes had stayed on the area from where he had recently fled. He knew precisely what he was going to do but, for the time being, he refused to give that thought any room for manoeuvre. He could not deny, no matter how he tried, that something weird had just happened. Indeed, he would not have been more surprised if someone in the Saturday crowd had literally grown a third leg right in front of him.
Regardless of how I argue it away, Alice somehow knows about the dreams I have been having. This, he thought, was as good a place as any to start an argument whose outcome he already knew the answer to. She knows what has been happening, somehow, and yet, for that to be true, then the dreams must be real, which obviously they cannot be and therefore… He was working his argument into knots so he stopped and tried again. Her eyes were
definitely purple! He knew that that had not been imagined. He reached up to tug absent-mindedly at the charm necklace, which was no longer there. Ah! And I am not convinced about her story that she gave her necklace to a friend. Hah, likely one, that. So she gives me a necklace which only appears when I am dreaming, has purple eyes and is one of the Anahim of Maunga-Atua. No, correction. She is THE leader of the Anahim! Equally preposterous.
Whichever way he tried to rationalise and cut up this particular cake, Sam kept on coming against a blank wall, forcing a re-think on his logic. He tried again.
OK. I have been having a series of dreams, all seemingly related, which, when you come to think about it, is not normal. I wake up today to see a purple eyed demon woman staring at me seemingly knowing what has been happening. I have been told about this woman in my dreams by Ngaire. Alice knows about Ngaire because I know as sure as hell that I didn’t tell her anything about the place or the people. I have been told that Alice is the leader of the Anahim although she lost her powers to come here, and yet, when I saw her this morning, she definitely was not being normal! She had a necklace similar to the one I wear in the dream world and it has mysteriously disappeared from around her neck. Bloody hell, Sam, if you continue down this route, there is only one solution that is possible, and that, me old mate, is absolutely the most stupidest theory in all this relative world! He threw his hands up in exasperation. “Aargh!” he screamed out to the surroundings. But what choice is left to me? Unless I have been dreaming that I have been dreaming and what I saw this morning was still part of a dream, which would really set me off, then I must accept that somehow, somewhere, Maunga-Atua exists, Alice exists, and I am supposed to be this ONE, ready to save the day and rescue the princess, wherever she may be hiding! he thought in conclusion. He looked down again into the town. Still safe. No angels or demons flitting around causing havoc. No whirlwind of power coming in from the east. Just a quiet town, as it always had been, and probably always would be.