El-Vador's Travels

by J. R. Karlsson

  The purging of the Brotherhood had begun.

  When Aliana's door opened he saw her cautious, uncertain expression.

  'Chlodochar is dead,' El-Vador stated. 'We move tonight.'

  She nodded. 'What must I do?'

  He offered her a faint smile. 'Stay out of my way. I will come for you when it is over.'

  'There is nothing I can do to assist you? You wish me to simply play the damsel in distress?' she said, a hint of reproach in her voice.

  He shook his head. 'I have other plans that require you to remain alive.'

  She raised a single eyebrow. 'Other plans?'

  'I shall reveal them after I have dealt with the Brotherhood.' he told her.

  'Brother John was afraid you would take over the Brotherhood if you learnt more.'

  No, not take over, he thought, but obliterate. The reclusive Brother John may have been working against him behind the scenes through Manilus to stifle El-Vador after learning of his power but ultimately he would suffer the same fate as the others.

  'Tonight I shall kill them all.' he stated. 'Stay in your room and you shall come to no harm.'

  She nodded wordlessly, knowing that she wouldn't get anything else out of him.

  'Then I shall finish what I started.'

  'Enter!' the voice of Brother Manilus shouted, clearly angered at being disturbed.

  'Have you come to argue my decision?' Manilus said as El-Vador strode through the entrance. 'You are not ready for the Brotherhood and that is final.'

  'No, Brother.' El-Vador replied. 'I have come to kill you.'

  Realizing the look on the Elf's face, Manilus was quick to speak again, this time it was righteous anger. 'You dare come into my very room and threaten my life because you didn't get what you wanted? I could destroy you in the blink of an eye for such insubordination.'

  El-Vador smiled. 'Chlodochar thought the same as you, he is now dead.'

  The words struck the man like a mortal blow, his eyes widened not in fury but in fear, the transformation took seconds and the anger was snuffed out. 'Now wait one moment, El-Vador. We all knew of your potential, but there is an alternative to killing me.'

  'An alternative?'

  'Allow me to serve you,' Manilus said, dropping to one knee.

  El-Vador stared down at him, his expression a mixture of horror, amusement, and contempt. 'Why would I want a man to serve me that has just threatened my life?' he asked.

  Manilus rose slowly to his feet, a cunning smile on his lips. 'I am not blind, El-Vador. I see your potential. I see how Brother John has avoided going near you since the incident in the arena. I know you have power enough to take over this entire Brotherhood.'

  'What exactly are you proposing?' he asked, a smile no longer touching his lips.

  'If you can end Chlodochar. You can end Brother John,' he declared. 'I will not stand in the way of your ascension. In fact, I want to help you.'

  'You want to help me take over the Brotherhood?' El-Vador laughed; Manilus was as blind and misguided as the rest of them. 'Replace one leader with another, and you and the rest of the Brotherhood continue on as before? That’s your brilliant plan?'

  'I can prove quite useful to you, El-Vador.' Manilus insisted. 'You need infrastructure and guidance should you take control of this Sanctuary, and who better than I?'

  'And therein lies the problem.' El-Vador lashed out with his power, seizing Manilus in an immobilizing, crushing grip. His opponent tried to protect himself, throwing up a field to deflect the incoming assault, but El-Vador’s attack tore through the pitiful defence, wiping it away as if it hadn’t even been there.

  There was a strangled cry of pain from Manilus as he was hurled into the far wall and pinned there by the dark hand of power pressed to his throat.

  'I do not seek to take control of your Brotherhood,' El-Vador explained casually, watching as Manilus struggled helplessly above him. 'I see to destroy it.'

  'I don’t understand,' Manilus gasped, barely able to speak as the breath was squeezed inexorably from his lungs. 'If you wish to leave then we can send for a ship, there is land not too far east of here!'

  'It is not only an exit I seek, fair Manilus. The Brotherhood must be purged. You kept me in captivity like some animal upon this vast body of water, kept me away from all that I had sought to destroy. Then the only reason I had not to kill you all was removed out of your own fear that I would take over. You stopped being useful to me, and now you must be eliminated.'

  Dawning horror spread across Manilus’s long, drawn features, but the snapping and crackling of his bones was the only response he had left.

  Brother John froze as a knock came upon his door, cautiously he opened it and found El-Vador there waiting for him, standing still as stone.

  'May I come in, Brother?' he asked. 'There are some matters we must discuss.'

  Wordlessly and with more than a hint of suspicion, the Brother allowed him entrance into his domain.

  'I have killed Brothers Chlodochar and Manilus,' El-Vador said, his words casual and uncaring.

  Brother John's face transformed into one of shock and anger. 'But … why?'

  'They were holding me back.' El-Vador replied.

  'Damn you for a fool!' Brother John shouted, waving his arms madly as if they were gripped by uncontrollable spasms. 'Chlodochar and Manilus were two of the greatest Brothers the Sanctuary ever witnessed! Their loss will be a massive blow to the war effort!'

  'That matters not to me, nor does your petty invisible war.'

  Brother John pointed an accusing finger at him, jabbing the air violently. 'We all know what prize you seek, El-Vador! You’re here to take over the Brotherhood and usurp my place!'

  El-Vador shook his head sadly, as if schooling a small child. 'No, Brother John. You're wrong. I have not come here to claim the Brotherhood, I have come to destroy it.'

  Brother John crossed the room and slumped wearily into a chair. 'I still don't understand why.'

  El-Vador laughed, a high and musical chuckle that seemed no less sinister for its pitch. 'You lied to me, Brother John. You told me that the Brotherhood would nurture my potential. When you realised just how much potential I had, you feared for your own position. I was entertaining the thought of fighting in your stupid war for a time and then going back to the Orcs. Your refusal to induct me into the Brotherhood through your puppet Manilus was what doomed you.'

  'So now you mean to kill us all for not supporting you.'

  'I will.' El-Vador vowed.

  Brother John sat up straighter in his chair. 'Then have done with it Elf,' he snapped, 'know this though, you will never find a way to escape this Sanctuary!'

  El-Vador shrugged, and with a twist of power he snapped the man's spine.

  He settled himself upon the ground of Brother John's room beside the man's corpse and closed his eyes, willing his body out into the darkness as the lights came twinkling faintly toward him. Yes, it was much like that of the burrow, if anything it was easier than before to concentrate upon the energies that illuminated those fragile lives as they slept. One by one he slowly snuffed them out until every living soul save Aliana's had departed this existence.

  He sensed the wave of dark energy pass over him as he opened his eyes, strong enough to leave him shivering even at this distance. Once it was gone he reached out once more to seek any who might have escaped. As he expected, he felt nothing. They were all gone.

  The Brotherhood had been purged, and El-Vador intended to keep it that way.

  He and Aliana were the last ones remaining, possibly the only save these invisible others who could generate such power.

  All that remained was to journey to the Sanctum and meet the others.

  They made their way deeper into the abandoned Sanctuary in silence, Aliana did not ask how El-Vador had accomplished the total destruction of the brotherhood and he did not provide her with an explanation. The reality of their departure was the only thing that mattered.

  All the rec
ruits had been warned by the Brothers not to stray beyond the crimson door, for therein was the key to their war efforts against the others and they could not afford a recruit to undo the concentration required to wage war against their bitter foes. El-Vador and Aliana stood before this door now and pondered wordlessly as to the contents beyond.

  Dark tendrils of power reached out and clawed at the faint gap between the two doors, causing a creak of ancient hinges as the locking mechanism slowly broke and the entrance was torn asunder.

  El-Vador then stepped through the dust and remnants that the broken doors had unsettled and gazed into the chamber beyond.

  On assorted meditation mats sat the cloaked forms of Brothers he had never seen, they seemed slumped in repose when in truth he knew they were dead. Before them lay a giant pulsing rock encrusted with strange gems of many hues that seemed to glow intermittently with light.

  'What is it?' Aliana asked, eyeing the thing with the same suspicion that El-Vador felt.

  The Elf approached it, to which there was no response. 'I am uncertain, but this appears to be the key to the war effort that Brothers Manilus and John were so keen to foster.'

  A familiar insistence took El-Vador then, in response he tugged away one of the mats from underneath a robed corpse and lay it squarely in front of the lights. Uncertain as to how to proceed, he sank down and ignored Aliana's presence entirely, instead focusing upon the beaming warmth of the pulsing rock before him.

  'It is done,' he heard the voice say, and what followed was an exchange of words that seemed more like a torrent rushing through him unbidden than any means of communication. He caught brief glimpses of concepts and visions but for the most part it was incomprehensible to his mind. When he finally opened his eyes he expected Aliana to be shaking him, instead she remained where she had stood previously, a curious expression upon her face.

  There was no mistaking the insistence of the voice now, even if it did not express it directly. He needed to get out of the Sanctuary before these others arrived.

  Aliana was baffled at his communing with the object but did not argue the point, she was a survivor in the same sense that the Elf was and as a result could act immediately in order to escape danger.

  Together they raced through the Sanctuary, El-Vador occasionally batting doors away from them with blasts of dark power. The urgency of the voice grew with each passing step, whatever was happening here they needed to escape it now.

  As they made it out onto the familiar cropped grass of the inescapable island, El-Vador's hand reached out and tore the robe off Aliana. 'Fly, damn you, fly!'

  She unfurled her previously hidden wings without trepidation and took off into the air, El-Vador clinging to her in much the same way as he had all that time ago in the mountains. He chanced a brief look back in time to see the slowly shrinking island erupt in a conflagration of blinding light, leaving nothing but water surrounding them as it faded.

  'In what direction do we fly?' Aliana shouted over her shoulder as the air hissed past them.

  'Head in the direction of the rising sun, Brother Manilus said that there was land to the east so we must make for it and trust to your endurance.'

  Aliana nodded acknowledgement but did not make any quip about saving the Elf's life once more. They would have lapsed into silence once again but for a sudden intrusion inside El-Vador's head.

  'You have done well, Elf. At first you were but a vessel for me to throw power through ineffectively, now you are a sharpened tool ready to strike. We shall make our move against the Orcs soon, then your vengeance shall be at hand.'

  El-Vador said nothing.

  'No comment from you this time? Why back in the mountains you had any number of things to say! Care you not why the Brotherhood was doomed to fail?'

  But El-Vador still remained silent, and the voice lost interest and faded in time. He was tired of being a pawn to this thing, knowing that wherever he went he remained enslaved. He knew he had no choice though, the power did not come from him but instead from it. He needed it in order to destroy the Orcs, he could only hope that the thing would uphold its end of the bargain and depart once that final task had been completed.

  On the wings of an uncertain ally, El-Vador greeted the dawn of the day with a troubled heart.

  Interlude

  The Scarlet Brotherhood had fallen, and into the world had been unleashed something of which I had no understanding. My actions had pleased the voice in my head, but with that had come a feeling that warned against its celebratory nature. These had not been Orcs that I had slain, it was not a path of vengeance I had taken. I was but a pawn in much larger events to come, and that feeling and distraction from my task infuriated me.

  'On the wings of an uncertain ally, I greeted the dawn of the day with a troubled heart.' the Elf said, then was silent.

  The room fell deathly silent with his secession, as if every mind present considered it prudent not to speak any further to such a dangerous creature. If the details of what the Elf had just laid out were true, then the confinement that the magi had prepared for him may not be enough.

  Sykes realised now that he had been chosen as a spokesperson for the group until the Arch-Inquisitor arrived. This was largely due to his lack of initial reticence when speaking to the creature, an action he hoped he wouldn't regret until the end of his days.

  He hadn't become the Captain of the guard through indecision and regret, and he knew in his gut that something needed to be done with regards to the Elf. Better to have him talking and not attempting to escape than making a break for freedom and potentially succeeding. Sykes knew nothing of magical matters and was loathe to trust them with the captivity of any prisoner. It filled him with an unease, knowing that he had no choice but to rely upon what looked to him an insubstantial field of light encasing the Elf.

  'Have you no questions for me now that my tale has been told?' the musical voice enquired, somehow bouncing about the confines of his skull in a taunting fashion.

  'Why only append the tale with your recollections of this Scarlet Brotherhood? Why not save the entirety for another tale and go into more depth? Clearly you learnt much of your initial power from this place.'

  El-Vador's chilling smile sent another shiver crawling up his spine involuntarily. 'You ask more of me with every question. How would you respond if I were to tell you that I care not to divulge the entirety of my time with the Brotherhood? Would you insist that I not gloss over such an important time out of fear of the Arch-Inquisitor?'

  Sykes knew the answer before the question ended, he would much rather face the wrath of his superior than the unknown that sat before him.

  'I suspected as much.' the Elf replied, reading his mind with an ease that further unmanned him.

  'Your family will think no less of you should you lose this position over my reticence. They will have an equitable future should your prompting continue in the pattern that has unfolded thus far.'

  He sifted through the words, and his heart stopped. His family. The Elf knew of his family. If it was able to read his mind then that would mean that...

  'You need not worry about your daughter, Sykes. She shall come to no harm so long as you provide an adequate foil between each tale that I construct.'

  Sykes felt no relief, it was as if a great yawning pit had opened up underneath his feet and he teetered upon the edge of falling with every word.

  'You asked me of the Brotherhood.' El-Vador continued, feigning obliviousness to the crisis unfolding. 'Their sanctuary and my time there is a footnote in my history simply because it was not they that formed my power, they merely shaped it and moulded it into a channelled focal point. They are only mentioned at all because of the presence of Aliana and the subsequent events upon their destruction. If my memory was not crystalline I would struggle to recall the names of Manilus and Chlodochar, so insignificant are they in the larger picture.'

  It let out a sigh then, a strange sound that held none of the musical tone of before.


  'Yes. I remember it all. All of it. The actions of Salvarius and the inextricable link between his thirst for revenge and the destruction of the Brotherhood are what weave the next tale together.'

  For the fourth time, El-Vador began to speak.

  LIV

  Enforced descent is an unforgivable crime, it must be the choice of the progeny whether to continue in the footsteps of that which sired it. If it chooses otherwise then that must be respected. To force a descent upon one linked vaguely to fate is a terrifying and unnatural experience. For even if the recipient of it manages to break free, it remains forever scarred.

  The hard-packed and dusty roads he had travelled upon were beginning to diminish, giving way in time to scraps of vegetation and the occasional tree amidst the dying grass. He had journeyed far in search of his quarry, and there was no element that nature could throw at him which would prevent him from finding the Elf.

  Everything he knew from his previous life with the Orcs, even if he had not ever loved it, had been destroyed by this creature.

  He could take the destruction of the Orcish burrow, that was the positive to glean out of the Elf's actions, it was one he had actively encouraged and often planned himself. Not at the expense of his adopted master's life, that single agreement he had sought with the Elf had been violated and for that El-Vador must die.

  His hatred alone was not enough to sustain him, and the armour he had clad himself in had made the transition from protection to burden in short order by hampering his search and slowing his movements. What little indication of the Elf's passing had long since vanished, so he was left with nothing but his own intuition, which had seemed curiously strong in the matter.

  He had no indication at all that El-Vador had passed through these lands beyond a wavering belief that it had to be so, that he would search for all of time and to the ends of the very land itself in order to uncover the traitor. With each footstep he took, the fear he had lost the creature diminished inexplicably, as if the very earth beneath his feet assured him that his path was correct.