Fate of the Fallen

by Darren Lewis

  Help me! Malachite called beyond the darkening tomb. The fire he'd started was slowly going out due to the dark rain of black earth.

  Malachite? Ellie answered. But not the Ellie below him, the one he'd shared his life with.

  Ellie! He said, his relief causing him to revert back to the name he'd known her by for most of his life. Please, Ellie's unconscious and the tomb is collapsing!

  Oh no! Are the talismans in place?

  Yes! Yes!

  Then get out of there. Get back to the army!

  I can't fly. My legs have been damaged as well. I can't move, Ellie!

  Eleanor was silent and Malachite took a shuddering breath as he contemplated his next move.

  I can open a dragon thread and throw Ellie into it.

  Malachite, no!

  It's the only way, Ellie. I don't know what else to do.

  Listen to me, Malachite. Look around and think, what can you do to get you both out of there?

  Malachite looked into the ever darkening tomb. The earth was travelling quickly up his legs and if he didn't act soon he wouldn't be able to stop Ellie from being buried alive.

  Nothing. He whispered and then screamed again as a boulder hit his already damaged shoulder.

  Malachite!

  No, Ellie! No. I can get her out of her but she'll have to find a way out. She can do it. I think she's talented, I saw it.

  Please, Malachite. You can't leave me now!

  I'm sorry, Ellie. I have to.

  The sounds of Eleanor's grief flooded Malachite's mind causing hot tears to spill down the dragon's face to mix with the raining earth. He concentrated and opened a portal to the black thread the dragons used to travel distances in a blink of an eye. He picked up the unconscious form of Ellie.

  “Good luck.” He whispered and threw her into the black. Task complete Malachite's energy vanished and his forelegs collapsed into the earth beneath him. Rocks and boulders hammered down but their impact was less now as Malachite focused his thoughts on Ellie. His Ellie, so many hundreds of miles away, yet so close.

  You made me, Ellie. If not for you I don't know what I'd have been.

  You made me too, Malachite. You helped keep me alive. You helped make me live and not just survive.

  I love you, Ellie and tell that red dragon of yours that I've missed him.

  I love you too, Malachite. She sobbed into his mind.

  The earth continued to rain down and the mercury rivers broke their banks and began to swamp the broken tomb. It raced into every crevice and saturated into the ground. Darkness once again held sway in the tomb of the first emperor and Malachite laid his head down to rest, and the earth consumed him.

  The Institute

  Eleanor swung the small chair at the wall again and again. Yelling and screaming her defiance at death. For her lost friend. Her friend that had stood by her for countless years. Her companion who'd tried to kill her and every human when they first met. The dragon made mad by the race of dragon's collective memories. Eleanor had risked everything to heal him and Malachite had become more than her friend. He was her brother. He was her family. He was dead. She fell to her knees and clenched her fists against her forehead.

  “No. No. No. No.” She whispered continuously, rocking back and forth as she did so. “Please, no.”

  The door to the room opened and cast a light on Eleanor crouched on the floor. She didn't care and she continued to whisper and sob, her grief was too much to bear. She wanted to close her mind off, shut down, hide from the world.

  She felt hands on her shoulders push her back and she looked into the face of the man she'd come to see.

  “I'm sorry, Eleanor. I'm so sorry.” Sloan said.

  Lost

  Ellie. Ellie, wake up.

  No.

  Come on, you have to.

  No, I don't. My head hurts something rotten.

  Okay don't wake up. We'll stay here then.

  What? Where?

  In a dragon thread. Malachite threw us in.

  What? Are you joking?

  No. The tomb was collapsing and he threw us in.

  What about Malachite?

  I don't know. We're not there are we?

  What's this `we' business all about?

  Uh. I'm not sure. I haven't been here long.

  When did you get here?

  You know, when I died. You held me in your arms and I died.

  You… oh my god! Isabelle?

  Yes! Well, no, I don't think I am.

  Will you make some sense!

  I'll try. I moved into your head when I died. Thought I might be able to help against the Institute after what I'd done to you and what they did to me. But the longer I've been in here the more convinced I am that I'm not Isabelle.

  Then who are you?

  I've no idea. I thought I was Isabelle but apparently that's not true.

  So where's Isabelle? Is she dead?

  I don't know. I have vague memories of staring at a woman's face and thinking that's me and then I escaped the Institute.

  So we're stuck in a dragon thread. We don't know where Malachite is. You may or may not be Isabelle and you're roaming about in my head?

  Yes that's pretty much it. Oh, and I saved you from falling down the steps. You can do magic now, through me anyway.

  Can you magic a way out of here?

  Maybe?

  Maybe?

  You have to wake up first. It'll be scary but I'm with you.

  Thanks. Ellie finished sarcastically.

  *

  Ellie groaned as she awoke. There was an awful pain in her head and neck plus a penetrating cold all around. She opened her eyes and stared into the speeding blackness of the dragon thread.

  Ellie screamed and passed out.

  Wonderful, a voice in the dark of her mind sighed.

  Plume

  Plume was exhausted. For the best part of the night he'd followed the light that hopefully was showing him the way to Rox. After wavering and changing its mind a few times the thing had settled down and Plume ran and ran. Not that it was quite that easy. He'd encountered roads, cars, foxes, badgers and every kind of stinging plant or weed he thought, must be known to creation, buildings, houses and cats. If given the choice, Plume would do it all again if he needed to as long as there were no stinging plants.

  Plume scratched his sore ear absentmindedly and cast his tired eyes on the large building in front of him. There was nothing immediately special about it. Just a normal human building that their trucks went in and out of. What caught Plume's attention though was the barbed wire topped fence that ran around the entire perimeter and two large scary looking men who examined every truck wishing to enter through a gate, which was also topped with barbed wire. But, Plume thought, positively, at least the gate isn't electrified. Plume's experience with electricity was limited but when he was young he watched another `normal' rabbit happily chew its way through a cable on a cabin near the woods. The resulting flash and bang of electricity not only demonstrated the awesome power human's wielded but also it wasn't a good idea to chew cables and how widespread a dead rabbit's body could be spread by a short burst of it. Plume was taking a lot on faith which was a new experience for him and not one he was relishing. During the early morning hours when he attempted to skirt the fence and building the light would go out and Plume would get annoyed and start spinning to find the right direction again. It would always point at the building. To be sure Plume doubled back and then circled the fence from the other direction and the same thing occurred again. He knew he'd been forced to rely on a staff with a light on the end to find his partner Rox and their son Flare but with the warren destroyed and all its inhabitants missing he was at quite a loss at what else he could be doing.

  As the dark blue night gave way to early dawn Plume's eyes grew heavy and his head started its descent towards the comfortable, lush grass he'd found to watch the building from. Plume jerked his head up and growled. How on earth could he fall aslee
p now? He asked himself with a great deal of shame. Plume rose and hopped cautiously towards the fence, not so much to find a way in, but to keep himself awake. It was at that moment he heard yet more rumblings of trucks approaching and a large opening appeared on the side of the building. Bright white light from inside the building flooded the main gate and a large part of the field where Plume had been hiding.Plume altered direction towards the gate. The two guards were opening it. Plume couldn't believe his luck. His head darted back and forth between the approaching trucks and the open gate. They were coming at quite a speed but Plume had no other choice, he knew this chance must be taken to gain access to the human building. He crept closer to the road leading to the gate and spied the truck at the rear of the group he would jump under and race with through the gate. Plume guessed the trucks would be heading straight for the opening that lit up the early light in the sky. The rumble and roar of the truck's engines grew louder and Plume prepared to jump and run for his life.

  *

  Rox jumped at the sound of the elevator whirring to life floors above. Despite the tension she was feeling and the bright lights within the room she'd managed to fall asleep for a few hours. She blinked rapidly to clear the sleep from her eyes and saw her mother come bounding over from the opposite side of the room.

  “Well no sign of Ellie yet. What shall we do?” Storm asked her daughter. Rox hesitated momentarily, surprised that her mother was deferring to her. “You are the leader.” Storm advised with a small grin. Rox held back a proud smile and looked for the hundredth time around the room.

  “We can't do much without Ellie. So we can both hide and wait so see if she's successful or do this ourselves.”

  Storm gave the approaching elevator a dramatic look and answered her daughter with a grin. Rox nodded.

  “We'll chase the sky together, mother.”

  “Yes we will, daughter.”

  Both rabbits walked to the rumbling elevator and took a position directly in front of it. Storm squeezed Rox's shoulder and they both set their minds for whatever they would face when the doors opened. The elevator clanked and came to a stop. The large doors rolled open and the rabbits tensed. The elevator was empty. Rox glanced at Storm who shrugged and edged forward.

  “Ha!” The shout was timed perfectly with an animal leaping from the side of the elevator, wooden staff poised for action. “Okay you bast…oh, Rox!” Plume raced forward and caught his partner in a fierce embrace, his staff clattering to the floor beside them. “I don't believe it. Ten different floors I've been saying that.” He said into her fur. “And you wouldn't believe how hard it is to reach the buttons!” Rox laughed and pushed Plume back and held his face between her paws.

  “Thank the White and Grey, I have you back.” She whispered.

  “But Flare?”

  “Is safe at Ellie's house.” She told him.

  Rox saw some of the tension and anger leave Plume and he sighed with relief.

  “Okay. The rest of the warren is above us. I think they'll be bringing them down here. I was sat listening to some of the humans talking about using that contraption.” Plume jabbed a paw in the elevator's direction. “I managed to sneak ahead of them.” He said, then his face became confused as his memory caught up with him. He turned and saw Storm standing a few feet away. Rox leaned in to Plume's ear.

  “Plume, meet my mother, Storm. Mother, this is my partner, Plume.”

  “Pleasure to meet you, Plume.”

  “Is it?” Plume asked and Storm began to laugh, followed by Rox, their laughter becoming loud enough to echo around the sterile room.

  Revelation

  The woman's finger turned the mouse wheel quickly as she scanned the report her operatives had compiled and sent over on the day's events plus the rerouted information the Geek squad had flagged for Sloan's attention. The screen was the only illumination in the large room and it painted the woman's face a stark white, turning her eyes black as they studied the screen. Every few moments she would grunt in satisfaction or tut in dismay while her free hand made notes on a pad beside the screen.

  Finished she leaned back in her leather chair, the creak reminding her of an old oak door she remembered that once led to her bedroom at the monastery. Quite frankly, she was shocked at how well her experiment had progressed but then she should've prepared herself for its success. The woman who thought she was Isabelle was known in Baiulus' files as subject 1138. It had taken five years of immersion in the new blue liquid used to contain the talented people and extensive reprogramming of the subject's brain to make them believe they were in fact someone else. At first it was a curiosity, a test to see how well the brainwashing techniques employed functioned before application began on a larger scale. Unfortunately in this case it went rather too well. The subject broke free and having access to certain memories was able to retrieve the orb before escaping. The hunt for her was of course unsuccessful and because of her treatment this woman who thought she was Isabelle believed the Institute to be her enemy. But fortunately for the Institute the personality was so ingrained when she saw the girl it sparked a whole host of bad memories to resurface and she acted out on them allowing them to find her again.

  The ongoing benefits were startling. The subject had settled close to the young Ellie which had now led to the older Ellie and the orb presenting themselves at the Institute.

  “Remarkable.” The woman whispered. She switched off the screen and sat in darkness, thinking and wondering at the next moves to be made. Ellie, her old acquaintance Ellie, was not someone to be dealt with lightly. This would have to be handled very carefully. The woman pushed herself up and walked in the darkness towards a wall. She waved her hand over it and revealed a massive window that overlooked the city. It was a few hours after midnight and the sky was clear once again after the previous day's storm. It was summer and light would creep onto the horizon soon, and the woman relished what this new day would bring.

  Isabelle smiled.

  Epilogue

  The dimly lighted area was virtually silent but for the hum of air extractor units and the faint buzz of fluorescent tubes. A security guard was making his morning rounds. He yawned as he slid his I.D. card against a black box next to the door. A bulb flashed green and he heard the door unlock. He leaned wearily against the heavy glass door thanking the heavens his early shifts were over at the end of the week.

  As always the large manmade cavern looked the same. Unmoving and quiet. The guard walked to the viewing platform and gazed down at the figures arranged in rank before him. Even after two years he found the sight incredible. He slapped the railing lightly and turned to leave the cavern when a glint on the dirt floor below caught his eye. Frowning he leaned over the railings and saw a metal disc on the ground near the head of the army. Had someone dropped it? Maybe a tourist bought a souvenir and lost it down there. He rolled his eyes at the clumsiness of tourists everywhere and made a mental note to inform his supervisor. He turned again and a bright flash of yellow followed by a huge gust of wind knocked him to his knees. It was brief but it terrified the guard. He jumped up and ran from the room calling for his supervisor over the walkie-talkie.

  Both the guard and his supervisor returned a few minutes later, the guard still babbling in the supervisor's ear. The supervisor waved the guard away and leaned over the railing to get a good view. The ground was scorched and jagged lines like lightning emanated from the scorched area and into the feet of the first rank of the army. He shook his head angrily. Obviously some damn kids had left a firework in here and rigged it to go off at a certain time. He left the railing and this time started babbling at the guard as they left the large, open space.

  The cavern was still. Then, faint creaks and crunches sounded in the dim light, followed by many long cracks, like a whip hitting its mark over and over. After a few minutes the cavern was still once again.

  Book V:

  Enemy of Darkness

  Foreword

  As we're at the last book in
the series I thought I'd indulge myself in a few thank yous, I hope you don't mind.

  The first thing I wanted to say was a big thank you to all those who have followed and enjoyed Ellie's story so far, especially Mary Cade. Your support and encouragement has been vital during those days when I wonder if anything I've written has any value whatsoever. A special thank you to my Mum who read each of these stories before I let anyone else see them, even book five.

  Thanks to Miika, the main man at Creativia Publishing who took the leap of faith and brought me on-board. His enthusiasm, support and good humour are unwavering and he never fails in infecting others with his attitude.

  To my fellow authors at Creativia, you're all brilliant fun and as mad as bag of cats.

  To my beautiful wife Rachel who has to deal with me wandering off to strange and weird places while still in the room and holding conversations in my head with my characters, typing and mumbling all the while long.

  Ellie, this all started when you were six years old and you asked me for a story of your very own. Ellie and the Rabbits was born which led to The Seren Trilogy. The genie had been released from the bottle and the stories have continued to now. I hope when you're older you'll like them just as much.