“Conlan, it wasn’t your fau—”
“Not now, Will!” Conlan snapped in a harsh whisper and Will knew it was only his anger that was keeping the darkness under control. There was a pause. “Is Arran still alive?” Conlan asked in a stiff, measured whisper.
“Yes,” Will replied. “But I don’t think he will be for much longer. There’s a temperature burning through him. Eleanor and I were having some success pulling him away from his need, but now…”
Will felt another burst of Conlan’s hurt and grief at this news.
“The others got away. Did Eleanor…?” His whisper dropped to a breath, fear flooding the space between them.
“I saw Davlin dragging Eleanor away—not an easy task by the looks of it. He took Meran and followed the others to safety,” Will said, glad he could offer at least one piece of good news, and not wanting to dilute it he did not report Eleanor’s unconscious state as they had fled.
“Do you think they’ll follow the plan?” Conlan asked, worry in his voice. “They’re in no condition to mount a rescue attempt.”
“And you think that would stop Eleanor?” Will asked, stating the obvious.
“Davlin won’t let her,” Conlan replied. “Not if he knows what’s good for him,” he added coldly, forgetting to whisper.
“Hey!” A voice snapped from their left. “You were told not to speak.”
A broad-shouldered figure came to stand in front of them, silhouetted by the fire’s flames. He stepped forward and grasped Conlan’s hair, forcing his head back. Will tensed, expecting violence, and was surprised when the man spoke in a whisper himself.
“Do not attract attention to yourselves. No one has any real authority over Rudd and his men, and they do not like you. I am to watch over you, ensure you receive food and water, but I will not risk my life to protect you.”
“Where is your captain?” Will asked.
“He went to escort Lord Hernas to our other forces, so he can return to the North Tower and report your capture to Lord Daratus. He will be back in the morning. Cai is in charge until he returns,” the guard said.
“Is there a problem?” The voice was hard, mean and sounded a little drunk. A lethal rage pushed its way through Will as he recognised the voice as belonging to the man who had impaled Kip. He might not have been the one who took his life, but he was undoubtedly his murderer.
The Protector in front of them released Conlan’s hair and stood, turning to face the man. “No, Rudd… sir… just reminding the prisoners of the rules.”
“I thought you might be getting started without us…”
“Sir…?”
Rudd laughed, a harsh, nasty sound. “Conlan Baydon is a traitor. This would-be king needs putting in his place.”
“Yes, sir,” the Protector agreed. “But our orders were to bring him back alive.”
“And so we shall. Now stand aside.” The demand was menacing.
“Yes, sir,” the Protector said after only a moment’s hesitation. The dark shadow moved to the side and Will found another silhouette stood before them, with several more shadows on either side. The darkness thickened and the firelight was completely obscured as they came forward and clawed at Conlan. Ropes were cut and he was pulled forward, then punched to the ground. They tore at his clothes like rabid animals, divesting him of his jacket and shirt, trampling them into the mud. Rough hands grabbed him again and he was marched off in the direction of the fire.
Will heard the occasional cries of pain, bursts of riotous laughter and another more curious sound—the heavy clink of metal being struck. What are they doing to him? Forcing himself to calm down, knowing that a burning rage at the injustice of it all would interfere with his ability to make rational decisions, Will concentrated on the only thing he could do. Even with no energy to speak of, an Avatar was still able to send out energy strings; Will knew deep inside him that he would have to be dead before he lost that ability. Perhaps, he mused, Avatars retained this gift because it’s the only way we can pull more energy. But whatever the reason, he used that gift now, reaching out to Conlan’s mind. It was a cyclone of fear, pain, grief, anger and humiliation. There was no way to communicate with his friend, so Will attempted to find what seemed to be Conlan’s consciousness and wrapped it away from the horror being inflicted on his body. There was a slight recognition, a flicker of awareness in Conlan’s addled brain, then nothing as Will wrapped more layers around him.
From the fire came baying howls of frustration, yelling and several conversations held at once about the best way to revive ‘the traitor’. Before a decision was made, Will was dragged out of his concentration by the miserable, gut-wrenching feeling of having his pretty much non-existent energy plucked at by Enforcers. They knew the task was pointless, but they seemed to be enjoyed the pain it caused him too much to stop.
Afraid they would see that he was helping Conlan, Will snapped his strings back and opened his eyes to find the robed outlines of two Enforcers stood in front of him. With a pondering slowness that drove Will to distraction, they drew the last vestiges of his energy back until his lungs strained and his heart started missing beats. And as they did, there were cheers from the fire—Conlan was conscious again. The loss of blood, the pain, the lack of energy, all made Will want to welcome the oblivion he could feel at the edges of his mind—but if he did, Conlan would suffer horrendously, so he fought it. There was more laughing and conversation that Will could not make out, but it started coming closer… men who sounded like children bickering.
“He saw it, said it was in this cart.” Will recognised the voice as Rudd’s, now sounding even drunker than before. Rudd stamped towards the cart, another large figure following.
“Rudd, leave it. You have exacted revenge and then some. I understand that it is good for morale, and I know how many of your men he killed, but you need to stop now. You have made your point.”
Rudd spun round on his companion. “My point, Cai! And what would be my point?”
The huge figure, Cai, came to an abrupt stop, but did not answer.
Rudd snorted. “Have you any idea the threat that Conlan Baydon represents? Kill him and you make a figurehead, a rallying call! No, he must be broken, humiliated, destroyed in mind and spirit, so that those who follow him will have nothing to follow.”
“This is not right. I will have nothing more to do with it,” Cai said. “And neither will my men.” And with that, the large figure moved back towards the fire.
Rudd turned to the cart and marched up the steps. Will could hear the noises he was making rummaging through their belongings as the Enforcers finished their job and left him slumped against the cart wheel, panting and groggy.
Conlan gave another gasping cry, accompanied by more laughter and cheering. Desperate to help him, Will struggled to push an energy string out. He was so drained, it took three attempts to reach his friend with a string that did not disintegrate on impact. Pushing into Conlan’s head, he started pulling him away from the pain again. He was so involved in the task he hardly noticed as Rudd marched down the cart steps and back towards the fire.
“I know what a king needs,” Rudd announced loudly as he approached. There was more laughter, but Will gave it little thought, his concentration solely on protecting Conlan.
“Go on, Rudd, put it on him,” a drunken voice encouraged.
“Let us crown the king,” sneered another.
There was a moment of silence and then, for Will, it felt like the world had exploded. His energy string was bound tightly into something and he could not pull himself free. Conlan screamed, an undulating expression of tormented agony that went on and on. It chilled Will’s blood and caused goose bumps to erupt across his already cold body. Jagged colours sliced through his mind, a cacophony of noise, memories and emotions battering down and through him.
And then a spinning, writhing blackness consumed everything.
Will found himself lying in a vast empty space, the grey-white spreading in a
ll directions, merging to give the impression that while the flat surface he lay on was solid, he was really just floating in nonexistence. Cautiously unfolding his body from the foetal position he was curled into, he saw figures in the distance; they appeared to be talking. Confused and disoriented, Will stood. There was no pain in his leg. Am I dead? This thought did not bring nearly as much distress as he thought it should. He walked towards the group, and as he got closer he could hear the conversation.
“What did you do, Rudd?”
“We are all going to take a flogging for this!”
“Pull it off him.”
The voices stopped as they wrestled with something on the ground before them.
“It is stuck—it is not coming off!”
Will was close enough now to see that the figures stood before him were not real, but merely insubstantial shadows he could see through. What was real was Conlan, lying on his back at their feet. There were numerous cuts, burns and bruises on his face, arms and chest that seemed to glow in the steady ethereal light of the place they occupied. Unpleasant injuries, but none of them were life-threatening; it was the blood dribbling down Conlan’s face and oozing through his hair that concerned Will.
Careful not to touch the dark shadows, although they paid him no attention, Will knelt at Conlan’s side. The crown, the thick band of silver-grey metal that was Conlan’s talisman, was on his head. The runes and symbols carved into it glowed a deep unearthly purple-blue. It was the crown that seemed to be the cause of the injury. On closer inspection, it looked like it had bonded with Conlan’s flesh, burning itself into his head.
“Idiot! Of course it can be removed.”
Will recognised Rudd’s voice coming from the shadow that crouched at Conlan’s head. Gripping the metal of the crown, he began tugging aggressively at it. Conlan whimpered, his head jerking with the shadow’s movements, but the crown did not budge.
“Stop it!” Will bellowed, trying to pull Rudd’s shadow back, but his hands went straight through with no effect. With a sudden startling clarity, Will realised where he was. Conlan’s mind. These men existed for Conlan in the real world, but they were not in his head as Will was, only representations. Yet if this was Conlan’s mind, it was a part of it Will had never imagined existed, so ordered and controlled that Will had the feeling that, had Conlan not just taken a beating, he would have been able to hold a conversation with Will, just as all the Avatars were able to talk in each other’s heads. Is this what the crown is for? To focus Conlan’s mind so we can all communicate?
Rudd abandoned his futile attempts to remove the crown and, giving Conlan’s head a slap of disgust, stood. “This is getting us nowhere. Chain him up; we will work this out in the morning,” Rudd ordered with drunken belligerence. The shadows moved, and it was then that Will noticed the thick metal shackles round Conlan’s wrists. The pins used to seal them closed had been heated, bent over, then cooled into shape. There was no way to remove them without heating the metal again, and heating the pins would mean heating the shackles… and causing irreparable damage to the flesh underneath. Conlan would wear these heavy, uncomfortable reminders of his capture for the rest of his life.
The shadows threaded shadow chains through the large rings on the shackles and, although they looked like nothing, when pulled together behind Conlan’s back, his arms snapped into place, dragging him onto his side with enough force to make him groan. The shadows evaporated into nothing, and there was silence.
“Conlan?” Will whispered, frightened for some reason of making noise in this still place. “I’m here, Conlan.”
Nothing. Conlan’s eyes were closed, and he showed no indication of having heard him. Now what? He appeared to be stuck in the empty mind of an unconscious man. What if he never woke up? What if he was stuck in here forever? Will’s morose thoughts were interrupted by the sound of crying. Startled, he looked at Conlan, but his friend remained still, his eyes closed and breathing shallow.
“Hello?” Will called into the endless space.
The crying became more distinct; it sounded like a child. Will stood, looking all around him, but saw just the grey-white blankness.
“Hello, is somebody there?” Will asked again.
The crying became louder; it seem to be coming from behind him. Will spun round again and jumped back in surprise to find a door in front of him that had not been there a moment before. Just a wooden door, beautifully carved in an equally well-made frame, but it gave Will a strong feeling of foreboding. The crying seemed to be coming from the other side.
Confused, Will stuck his head round the doorframe, but found nothing but the other side of the same door. With reluctance he turned the handle and pushed the door open.
The crying stopped. A room lay beyond, looking like the hotel room they had occupied whilst staying in Drent. Even more confused, Will stuck his head around the doorframe once again, and again saw only the closed door and the grey-white endlessness. The room did not exist unless you looked through the open doorway. He moved back in front of the entrance and glanced down at Conlan.
“Your mind is a little frightening,” Will told him with a smile. “But I’m assuming this door is here because you want me to use it…”
The crying began again. Feeling guilty for leaving Conlan, then feeling stupid when he remembered he was stuck in Conlan’s mind and was actually unable to leave him even if he wanted to, Will stepped over the threshold.
Bapa
It was the room in Drent, right down to the cracked floor tile near the door. The only difference was that the walls here were covered, floor to ceiling, in pictures of various sizes. Most of the pictures were quite small and, as he drew closer, Will saw one of just him and Conlan, standing in the street in Drent. He reached out to touch the frame, and with a strange, stomach-flipping sensation he found himself in the picture, which played like a miniature movie. Will watched himself through Conlan’s eyes, telling Conlan that while hitting women might be acceptable in Mydren culture, he would not stand for it, and if Conlan ever hurt Eleanor in anger again, he would regret it. Will winced at the shame, guilt and remorse that Conlan was feeling, the crushing realisation that he had not only hurt Eleanor, but had also let Will down. The disappointment and anger in Will’s eyes tormented him. He wanted to beg forgiveness, but his pride would not let him.
Unable to watch any more, knowing that Eleanor was about to march into their conversation, Will pushed away. He felt that same stomach-flipping sensation, and then he was back in the room again.
Memories… The pictures on the wall were Conlan’s memories. Stunned by the orderly structure to it, Will turned in a full circle. While he did not inspect every image, he could see that they were all from about the time they had spent in Drent.
Will wondered what was in the two bedrooms that led off the living room. Opening the right-hand door, he found the tent they had occupied whilst being held by the elves, the canvas walls hung with yet more images. Rather than walk through, he closed the door softly and moved to the left-hand door instead. Opening this door and peering through, he found the large domed hall of the dwarfs, the three stone thrones empty in the middle, and again the wall spaces filled with images. The sobbing got louder, echoing eerily around the huge room.
Turn right and I move forward in Conlan’s memories; turn left and I go back in time.
The desolate loneliness of the crying driving him onward, Will walked into the dwarves’ hall. Slowly, careful not to disturb anything, Will moved from one doorway to the next, back through Conlan’s memories, from the dwarves’ hall, to their mountain cave home, to Eleanor’s arrival. Not entirely certain that Conlan really wanted him rooting through his mind, Will tried not to pay too much attention to the images on the wall, but one room brought him up short. Having just moved from the shaman’s sacred space in Millar’s forest, Will stepped through a cloth-covered exit and found himself in a small, dark room, a shiver of disquiet travelling up his spine.
The d
arkness in this room seemed to move, like a veil that brushed against his goose-bumped skin. Despair, desperation and bitter sorrow flowed through him with every breath. Before him were three huge life-sized pictures, the only ones in the room, illuminated by light from an unseen source high above. He knew immediately who they were: Eva, Beth and Emily. The three previous Avatars of Earth before Eleanor had arrived; three sweet, innocent women who had killed themselves rather than face the reality of their new existence. Conlan refused to talk about them, or even fully acknowledge them. Amelia and Freddie had learnt very quickly not to say their names out loud, instead hiding their pain and grieving in private. The only attempt Will had ever made to get his friend to express his feelings about their deaths had resulted in Conlan taking a swing at him, tears in his eyes he had refused to shed.
This dark, miserable corner of Conlan’s mind did not have another exit. It represented a dead end, a trap of wretchedness. Will quietly backed out, returning to the shaman’s space and looking for a different way to go.
Soon he had moved further back in Conlan’s life, to a time before they had met. The rooms Will now entered were unfamiliar, and everything seemed darker, sharper and colder. The child’s crying faded in and out, sometimes loud and immediate, other times distant, occasionally disappearing altogether. Trusting it as his guide, Will moved through rooms where the pictures gave mute evidence to a child’s persecution and torture at the hands of his father. Some scenes Will recognised from Conlan’s occasional stories, but most he did not. How much has he had to endure? Aching for him, Will wandered through the scenes of Conlan’s youth, so shocked he almost tripped over the child when at last he found him.
Another room, a bedroom, but stark, dirty and uninviting; everything seemed hard and uncomfortable. A damp chill crept from the floor and walls into Will’s bones, making him shiver. The images on these walls were harder to make out in the miserable light that filtered in through the small, filthy window, but nearly all seemed to show Daratus, anger in his eyes, standing over a battered child. Will took a step into the room and his foot struck something soft and heavy. There was a whimpering, and then the crying began again. Recognising the sound as the one he had been following, Will looked down to find a boy of maybe ten years old curled at his feet, his thin arms wrapped defensively around his head. Will dropped to his knees, reaching towards the fragile-looking child, resting his hand on the tiny shoulder. The boy was malnourished and pale. Will could see blood and bruises, some injuries starting to heal, many fresh.
Will (Book 2) Page 33