The Emperor Awakes (54 page)

Aristo was not entirely convinced with his mother’s explanation. And even though their rescue was probably imminent, he wanted to further question his mother on why she had kept this project a secret from him.

He waited for her, as she alluded to the possibility of his capture, to concede that the same could happen to her, which it did, but as she did not admit her own vulnerable position in the same situation, he would throw the same argument that his mother used back at her.

‘What about if you were captured and tortured? And you were. And here we are together, unless I’m mistaken and you are an honoured and pampered guest here and free to walk out of here at any time or you are just a hologram and the real Elli Symitzis is at this very moment sitting at home.’

Aristo could see he was taking this too far and that his behaviour was bordering on rude and in front of other people. This was getting out of control. He had to soften his stance and release the tense tones of his argument with his mother.

But he had to ask one final thing that bothered him even though he half-knew the answer to his question before he let it free. ‘Wasn’t the risk higher by not telling me?’

Elli ignored Aristo’s challenge, though his arguments were valid, and decided to end this conversation.

‘Well, you knew Vasilis had been on the lookout for Ruinands wherever they hid around us. That mission was an extension of those duties. Vasilis was assigned with infiltrating the Ruinands’ lair. You had other important things to do. You couldn’t be distracted. If you had known, you might have faced a conflict of loyalties that might have become apparent.

‘Although it would be expected that in the end you would defy me and would not ostracise your brother, but would keep in contact with him, as apart from familial loyalties, you would regard my break with your brother as a personal difference of opinion between him and me.

‘And by behaving as expected you confirmed that the fatal break between me and your brother was true and any doubt would have been obliterated from people’s minds. It was a gamble that has paid off beyond my wildest expectations.’

Elli stopped her evaluation of the success of her plan and waited for the rescue she hoped was coming.”

Here ended Aristo’s hypothetical scenario of his conversation with his mother, but did it? Perhaps it was not hypothetical and only a debate in his mind after all.

Aristo suddenly had the sickening feeling that he did, indeed, actually have that conversation with his mother. When he looked at his mother and saw her intense stare and rebuke, a moment during which only each of them existed for the other and which felt as if they had briefly locked horns, the realisation dawned on him that he had had that exchange with his mother telepathically

Aristo caught a glimpse of the others present and saw them oblivious to anything but their own thoughts, their own little internal world. The others had heard nothing of the exchange that had taken place.

Aristo’s reverie, if that was what it was, after having veered wildly off any sensible course, ended abruptly with the much-anticipated rescue that had, by God, now become reality.

The team in the cells met with little resistance that they easily neutralised. In one cell they found Elli, Aristo, Giorgos and John Halland. The four prisoners heard a commanding voice order them to stand away from the door.

Elli immediately spurred into action. ‘Come on. Let’s get to the other side.’

The door was wrenched open. Before them stood four men in what looked like Special Forces uniforms.

One of them, who must have been their team leader, gave Elli a salute before addressing her.

‘Mrs Symitzis. We are operating under Vasilis’ instructions. We are to get you out of here.’ The team leader briefly held Elli’s gaze, and after looking at the others present, his eyes returned to Elli. ‘Please follow us.’ The four former prisoners obeyed without question. Those four men were their ticket out of their captivity.

Elli turned to the team leader. ‘And Vasilis?’

‘He will be joining us later. He’s dealing with the items in the strong room.’

‘Alone?’

‘Mrs Symitzis, there’s no time.’ They turned towards the door and started to move away. Elli and the others followed.

In another cell they found Giorgos’ and Katerina’s parents, Andros and Anna. The same scene was repeated there. There was only little resistance on Andros’ and Anna’s part, born of being dazed by their abduction and their disbelief at their dramatic rescue from their nightmare. At least a part of their brain was present and clear and was thankful for their soon-to-materialise return to reality.

Their situation was compounded by the deafening sirens and alarms that had unexpectedly gone off simultaneously throughout the city and that had come hard on the heels of their ordeal. But the name “Vasilis” managed to get through the fog of their minds. They resigned to their fate and allowed themselves to be led like lambs to the slaughter.

The rescue team wasted no time in leading everyone to the escape pod. They joined them inside and, immediately the door closed, the pod was launched on its way to the surface.

The team leader notified their waiting plane to come and pick them up. The plane zeroed in on the pod’s signal. Once the pod was sighted, the plane flew low, almost brushing the water, until it was above the pod.

There the plane hovered while it lowered its powerful magnet and lifted the pod into its hold. It flew away to a safe height and distance to wait for the signal from Vasilis.

For Vasilis and Katerina things got a bit complicated. The strong room was well guarded. They had to arrange a distraction for the guards. However, with little time at their disposal, they were faced with three chambers with individual keypads requiring separate codes.

With the danger of the guards returning at any moment, Vasilis used a special device he had brought with him to break the codes. They managed to do it just in time. Once they had managed to get inside the strong room, relief washed over them.

Their face smiled as it reflected all the items they sought that were staring back at them. Within minutes they were out, with the guards catching up as they rounded a corner. The guards had swiftly sounded the alarm and gave chase.

Vasilis called on his internal spies to help them. As they reached their chosen entry point and exit and were getting into their diving suits, Ruinands on Vasilis’ side fell behind them blocking their pursuers’ way and giving them the time to escape.

Vasilis had contacted the submarine that collected them and rushed straight for the surface. It was picked up by their plane’s magnet and was on its way to be lifted into the plane’s hold when the city’s guns started to roar. Bullets and other projectiles rushed past the submarine as it hung in mid-air, but they missed their targets, both the submarine and the plane.

But some bullets hit the plane. They caused some damage, but not to critical systems and the plane’s fuselage held intact. The plane was already accelerating away with the submarine still being pulled in and the back hatch half-open.

* * *

Inside the city, their escape was discovered. Madame Marcquesa was outraged. She went straight to her strong room and, seeing the precious items missing, she almost had a seizure with the amount of blood that flooded her brain. She wanted to punish her new-found sister.

Elli’s memory of the day her parents were taken away from her, forever, chose this crucial time to come back to haunt her once more. She sensed Madame Marcquesa’s hand in this. She was her tormentor.

Then, as if a door was unlocked in Elli’s brain, all the memories from that distant tragic moment in the past came rushing in, and were, strangely, at once uninvited and painfully welcome. Elli remembered everything.

* * *

She saw herself as a young girl playing on her father’s knees, a happy joyful peaceful time, before she grew up and roared into the woman she was today.

In the background, behind the house the mountains were framed by the blue sky and the luscious meadows sparkled in the midday sun, that yellow disc in the sky, merciless to all but this earth and to us, shining down on an idyllic landscape about to be shattered.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, smashing the brightness of another perfect day, a dense fog descended from the upper reaches of the mountains and began to spread quickly. The fog hovered there, just a couple of feet above the ground, and for days afterwards stubbornly refused to lift and disperse.

It was but a harbinger of things to come, and soon, so very soon. If only they had known how to read the ominous signs that unbeknownst to them were slowly choking them. Paradise blinds one to the inevitable and obvious that seems impossible to accept, even if it is looking one in the eye.

One day, soon after the fog’s arrival, her father was taken away and her mother never came back from a journey. On that day she was out in the meadows playing with her friends, the animals that inhabited this realm, and with the people that worked it and tended it with love, a love built and nourished over generations, one after another after another.

Her sister was taken away too. Her brother who was also spared was given to another family to be cared for, a family that did not live far and that allowed the two remaining siblings to grow up together and become as thick as thieves.

Nobody could separate them. Nobody could try to harm one of them without the other coming charging and bearing down on the attackers bend on revenge and protection.

The devastated lonely girl was taken into the care of Demetrius, a friend of her father’s, a gentle man, a man of great intelligence, abilities, prowess and achievement. She lived with him and his wife, Iolanthe, at once the most fearsome and most generous woman she had ever met.

Iolanthe and Demetrius were prime examples to follow for the young girl in her formative years, the best anyone could have wished for, and a catalyst for the development of her personality.

She had few memories of her mother and father and even those few precious memories were vague. There was nothing vivid to satisfyingly grasp for comfort and to cherish. Iolanthe became her surrogate mother and Demetrius her father.

Those two unique individuals influenced and sculpted her view of life and of people and her reactions and interaction with the environment around her. Iolanthe and Demetrius had worked hard to prepare Elli for her future role.

It was they who had initiated her into the secrets and practices of the Pallanians and the Order of Vlachernae and of her family and of the Cypriots and the Greeks, so that she knew her own and her people’s history and had a deep knowledge of where she came from.

They were the ones who helped her reconcile her tragedies with her future responsibilities as head of the Order, the family and the mighty Valchern Corporation. They set her, as best equipped as possible, on her difficult journey, on a collision course with her destiny, with a great enemy, and were instrumental in her becoming the powerhouse and dominant force that she would later become, always using her ruthlessness and fairness for good.

Back to that fateful day, the fog became as thick as soup and stung the eyes and, if you enjoyed doing that almost blind, you could almost swim in it, and you could almost taste it, an earthy buttery sweetness, spiced with bitterness and savour, and spiked with the herbs and coniferous smells and tastes of the forest.

The fog took a life of its own, like a huge beast on an aggressive move on not just her surroundings, but principally her and only her.

Her family was the target and the aggressor was the enemy that did not want her to survive and fulfil her pre-destined and prophesied role. Somehow they knew. What was that fog? What did it represent to her or to anyone else? Did it appear in a unique form to each one that was unlucky enough to cross its path and fall in its lap and become its target and potential victim?

More precisely, who was it? She could sense it was a living breathing being. A human presence, another creature, something else? That she could not say.

Now she finally knew who it was. The Ruinands. Their eternal enemy. Who else could it have been? She knew it deep down, but never really admitted it to herself before now.

She now understood the Marcquesa. But she still could not accept what she had been told. Yet there did not seem to be any doubt. She had to concede that the DNA test put paid to that.

A chill ran down her spine, chilled her to the bone and tickled her sensitive nerve-endings. The sensation was painful. She could not breathe. She was choking, her breathing attempts were almost failing and coming out coarse, troubled and hurried with every laboured breath spiced with pain.

She felt she was choking on the very air entering her larynx and lungs that should have given her relief. Her experience that day, that horrible feeling foretold the future; she knew it now. It was a foretaste of travails, trials and tribulations to come.

Then, this … thing, let go of her but only for a moment. She broke free and ran back to the house with all the strength left to her and closed the door as if that would be a deterrent to that force.

Yet even though she was a child, her mind had in those excruciating moments grown beyond her years and to her the act of barricading herself behind that door, inside her home and sole refuge, was attune to instinctively putting a barrier between her and her pursuer.