Escana (85 page)

'What is Je'dara?' he finally
asked.

'The largest city outside of the
Empire and that which I call my home. We return there to avenge a
most distasteful slight, once we are within the gates you are on your
own, understood?'

Jimmy nodded, the prospect of
civilisation was entirely welcome however foreign it may seem.

'Fine,' Hern replied irritably to
something that hadn't been said. 'Re'tak says that you will not be
left to fend for yourself in Je'dara and that he will care for you.'
He continued to adjust some makeshift straps on the lizard's back.
'Then we head west, my scaled brother wishes to aid his own brethren
in their war against the pink skins as he calls them.'

The war. In his time at Sah'kel
Jimmy had completely forgotten that it raged on across the desert. He
found that even that was preferable to what he had already witnessed.

They made painfully cordial
introductions and then Jimmy copied Hern in mounting the beast known
as Re'tak. He didn't know what was going to happen to him but he felt
that whatever he ended up facing after the madness of Greyhawk, he
was ready for it.

He smiled, not knowing without a
proper reflection whether it was a boyish grin or a crazed one. All
he knew was that after everything he had faced, he found that he
wasn't afraid any more.

'
W
hat is your
name, human?'

It was the first thing that Torr
had said to him since he had beckoned him to follow in his wake
through the canyon and away from what was left of the army.

'Gadtor.'

This elicited a grunting sound
from the creature, he suspected it was laughter. Was there some sort
of joke that he wasn't getting here?

'You find that amusing?' he
asked, a hint of irritation crept into his voice at having this thing
be so merry in the face of so much death.

The green-skinned brute looked
back at him with a smile crawling over his pointed teeth. 'Very
amusing indeed, that your name would end in Torr, the way that mine
begins. It's almost poetic.'

Gadtor didn't find anything
humorous or poetic about it, he was tiring of running into
super-powerful eccentrics with odd speech, he thought he'd seen the
last of them after his departure from Urial. At least The Hermit
didn't speak, he wondered if he'd be as irritating and obscure if he
did.

'Mothers took to naming their
children after me, the tradition passed on and the name evolved so as
to make it distinguishable. Soon there were many that had Torr at the
end of their name, it was symbolic of strength and fortitude. Or so I
was told.'

He shrugged, not really in the
mood for history lessons even though he knew he had to be diplomatic
to some degree with what seemed to be a powerful new ally, or captor.
Time to change the topic to something he was pondering.

'Are there many of you with the
powers you have displayed? An entire army would overrun the Empire in
short order.'

Torr's smile faded a little. 'I
am the only one, there are no others. I just hope that I suffice.'

'It's just that I know that there
are others, they didn't look anything like you but they certainly
possessed extraordinary power.'

A look of interest flickered in
the creature's eyes now, it seemed that Gadtor had got his attention.

'How many others have you seen
with these powers?'

Gadtor made a show of counting
his hands, much to Torr's disbelief by the time he reached his eighth
finger.

'I'd say about... two.'

Torr let out a hearty guffaw of
laughter that surprised Gadtor. 'You are a funny human! Tell me, what
did these two that you speak of look like?'

He didn't feel very funny, and
couldn't help but wonder what would happen if he detailed one
powerful being to another.

Torr nodded at his eventual
description. 'I know of the one you speak of with distaste, he had
the unfortunate displeasure of encountering me in the depths of
Sah'kel, what he was doing there I do not know as he fled before I
could wrangle the information from him.'

He thought back to the creature
he was talking about, the seemingly invincible whorespawn that had
decimated his forces and nearly cost him his life in Urial. The
creature that had deliberately misguided him into killing his oldest
friend. 'I hope he suffered, you should not have let him live.'

Torr grunted, looking saddened by
Gadtor's tone. 'In due course we shall both meet him once again,
perhaps when the time comes you will avenge yourself of whatever ill
he has wrought upon you. I do not think such actions will bring you
peace.'

'I don't want peace!' Gadtor
shouted, completely unaware of how loud his words were. 'I want the
fucking whorespawn dead, and if I need be your slave for a time to do
so then so be it!'

He caught a flicker of discontent
in the beast's eyes then, it was enough to silence him.

'You are no slave,' Torr said. 'I
expect you to fight alongside me for our mutual benefit. If the
whorespawn as you call him returns, I shall do my best to leave the
killing blow to you.'

Gadtor hadn't expected that, were
these just words or was Torr really that concerned with letting him
have his shot at vengeance? He decided to take the conversation
another route, there was something else of import in those words.
'You do not see me as your slave? I thought you were planning on
conquering the whole Empire?'

Torr's easy smile had returned.
'Conquer is such a brutal word, I prefer the term usurp. I am looking
to usurp the current power structure and those who wilfully uphold
it. I do not plan to hack my way through the entire populace or
displace them from their homes and livelihoods.'

It was as if Gadtor's own
thoughts had been read and recited back to him verbatim, here was a
force that was planning exactly what he had. Where was his army? Then
again, thinking back to what he did to the lizards, was the man even
in need of one?

'So you plan to use the Imperial
army against the Empire? What of those that refuse to follow you,
will you crush them?'

Torr shook his head. 'You are
painting me as a tyrant much too eagerly, I see it in your eyes that
you believe as I do and that you are also trying your hardest not to
believe me when I say that.'

They rounded a bend in the canyon
leading out into the open desert, Gadtor suddenly became aware that
Torr had been leading him somewhere for the duration of their
conversation, to what end?

'If your Imperial army would
oppose me by arms then they will die, if they surrender
unconditionally they will be free to depart. If they choose to join
me then they may augment my own forces.'

'What forces do you possess?'
Gadtor asked, beginning to realise where their wandering was leading
them.

'These forces,' Torr replied,
sweeping his arm out over the sandy expanse as they crested the first
dune.

The basin was alive with movement
such as Gadtor had never seen. Vast hordes of ebony-skinned humanoids
swarmed in a great writhing mass as they made their way toward the
canyons.

'These are my forces. They can be
yours too should you desire it. You are no slave, you are a commander
of men. Will you join us in liberating your people from the
oppression of the Empire, General Gadtor?'

He stared out at the vast
swelling of life as it stretched into the blurry, heat-soaked
distance and smiled. There was only one answer.

T
he
sand was a blur of motion as he swept across the desert floor, barely
touching the tips of the dunes as he propelled himself further into
the heart of this once wretched place.

Torr had granted him the gift and
he had slaked his thirst like a drought-riddled prisoner, now his
body coursed with power and the possibilities seemed limitless. He
knew though, he knew exactly the choice he had been given and what
was required of him. Finally they had Torr at their side, finally
they could strike a blow against everything he had been forced to
serve for twenty long and begrudging years.

First the lizards would be
extinguished once and for all, then the outlying cities would be
freed. After that the inner cities would be liberated and they would
march upon Levanin with a force that would make the world tremble.

Then would come El-Vador, he
would fall under Skullcleaver's wrath and his bones would be
scattered to ash at the furthest point from his wife's grave. Then
the others with their blind institutions would fall, crippled as they
were. The outlying colonies across the ocean would surrender
unconditionally and then finally he would have accomplished all that
need be done.

After he had torn down the
statues in Daelovia and looked the Emperor in the eye as he executed
justice, after all his past mistakes had been vanquished and avenged.
Only then he would begin the search.

He would find the boy that once
was his son and he would bring him to justice for the sake of the
realm.

J
akob stared
at the screen as he read those final chilling words, it felt like
Thom was in the room waiting for him to turn. He swivelled in his
chair and there was nothing there, no stranger or any other
manifestation.

It was done, it was finally
complete. It had taken him the better part of the night to compose
himself and write out the final ending to this particular book. There
were many unanswered questions that he alone held the key to, the
publishers could make what they will of that. Ultimately it was his
way of staying useful to them, he needed to stay useful.

Either he was going insane and
the world he created was dislodging the one he once knew, or some
nefarious force was greedily sucking the thoughts out of his head by
inducing some state. He knew if he tried to explain it to anyone he'd
sound like a wild conspiracy theorist, he probably was. All that was
left to do was save the document and leave it on the monitor for
Brian to find.

He deliberated over whether to
wake his family and present the finished work to them, or perhaps
wait in the house a little longer to see them rise with the morning.
He decided against both, they didn't need to see him here again.

He paused for one last look
around his room and sighed, he thought at one point that he'd never
get away from here. That he'd be trapped eternally in this small
place, his life forever confined to the screen in front of him and
the four walls of grey plaster encasing him. Instead of spreading his
wings he had moved from one small abode to another. The institute
would be waiting for him, they knew there was little he could do
without money or anyone to aid him in his escape.

He walked over to his bedside and
felt under the mattress for the familiar sensation. His fingers
touched upon it and he dug it out, an old passport photo of his
former wife. She had been cycling that day, her cheeks were red and
she'd done her best to wipe the sweat clear of her face. In all
honesty it hadn't been a great picture of her, it was the only one he
had left now and he couldn't bring himself to burn it with the rest.

Giving it a brief kiss he planted
it back under his bed and made his way down the stairs.

Dawn was breaking through the
windows, he had spent much longer than he thought typing away at his
book. Glancing at the clock he realised that the police car would be
here soon to return him to the institute. He found he was okay with
that, the feeling of escape had passed, he just hoped it wouldn't
return with the reappearance of Julia Simmons.

No, he had completed the draft.
Now it would be handed over to a team of expert editors, then a
budding cover artist would slap something on the front and within the
next few months it would be gracing book stores everywhere alongside
the very authors that had beaten him to the punch.

He wasn't worried if it didn't
sell, it had never been about the money or the prestige. It was just
something that he had needed to get out, something burning inside of
him that yearned for an outlet, one that the blank sheet of a word
processor had presented to him.

There was a world inside him that
had yearned for exploration his whole life. For now it had been
silenced and he felt better for that.

The kindly officer gave him a
wave as the police car made its way up the long gravel path, Jakob
walked out to meet it, not wishing to be seen leaving his former home
by his early-bird father. They would know that he had been and gone
soon enough.

Officer Stapleton shook his head
apologetically as Jakob made for the shotgun door. Instead he exited
the vehicle and placed him in cuffs. Purely a formality he had said,
Jakob had to admit that the cold steel was fairly loose on his
wrists.

He leaned back into the car seat
and took a deep breath of the cloying air, closing his eyes as they
began the inevitable departure back to the institute.