Chapter Eight
Deep in the Mountain
Deep within the underground chambers of Thunder Ridge.
Ellanara looked around the rested faces of the young women and tried to not care how it was that they looked at her. So her eyes glowed, big deal, did they have to look at her like she was a monster? Apparently they did, because they kept on doing it. Well at least she could do the right thing.
Ellanara smiled charmingly at those gathered before her. Her heart was briefly touched to see a few looks of self contrition and hope grew within her that perhaps one day she could convince them that she was no monster, but instead a friend.
Ellanara turned to Loric, “So you say that these other Hunters are all Valley Landers too?” She asked.
“Yes.” Loric affirmed.
“Then let’s go rescue them.”
Loric looked from Ellanara to Kana, who stood by his side, and then back to Ellanara, “How are we going to do that? How are we even going to get to the Tranquil Islands. Beyond that the Tranquil Islands are heavily defended and all the Hunters reside within a deep bunker. There is no means of access to either the islands or the bunker that will remain undetected.”
Ellanara smiled charmingly, “Let me be the judge of that, as to how we’re going to bring the Hunters into the fold well that will be your responsibility Loric.”
“Me! What can I do? They see me and they’ll start shooting.”
Ellanara shook her head, “No they won’t. In the tests that I ran on you last night I found the circuit that Zora shorted out and I have duplicated a power wavelength that’ll have the same effect and that can be broadcasted over a large area. The tricky part is that the device that will emit the wavelength has to be in the facility where the Hunters are kept. Once the device is engaged the other Hunters will be lost in their thoughts just as you were.”
Kana raised a hand, “Yes?” Ellanara asked.
“That might be a bad idea to have them lost in their thoughts like Loric was.” Kana said.
Ellanara looked at Loric’s grim face and after a moment said softly, “I see what you mean.”
“It won’t be a problem. I’ll see to it that they come together as a unit.” Loric said.
Kana looked puzzled and Ellanara enlightened her, “The Hunters have a way of speaking to each other in their heads over short distances.”
Kana nodded, but looked like she didn’t quite understand.
Ellanara turned to the group at large, “We’ll be leaving in a few hours, until then feel free to do as you please. If you have need of anything Abby will see to it.”
As the group broke up Ellanara approached Loric and put a hand on his shoulder, “There’s something we should both do before we leave. We should say goodbye and collect some items that have been left for us.”
Loric nodded woodenly and together they started off down a hallway.
Kana looked after them longingly wanting to go along, but she was too timid to ask. Ellanara noticed and motioned for her to follow, and when Kana had caught up Ellanara took one of her hands and Loric’s in her other hand and led them down a hall that didn’t have lights and looked to be of an older construction than the rest of the facility.
The only light was the bluish castoff glow of Ellanara’s eyes, as she led them through the darkness. It seemed like they had gone a long way, when two massive doors ahead of them snapped into movement and pulled ponderously open.
Kana gasped at what was revealed beyond the doors. Natural light filtered down through skylights set high above in the long vaulted ceiling of the room. A row of massive double pillars ran the length of the room stretching a full eighty feet in height, until they met and connected with the vaulted ceiling.
The pillars and the room itself had been carved out of solid rock. The smooth walls were intricately covered with chiseled designs of beautiful craftsmanship. In the side wings of the central walkway between the massive pillars were the ornate burial casks of those long since in the passing. The burial casks were spaced neatly apart along both sides of the central corridor of the long room.
This was the ancient burial chamber of the Ta’lont family.
Kana stepped further into the still hushed atmosphere of the hall completely at awe with the place. She had seen much of death and the finality of it. Once, she had come across a ruined village at the edge of the Barrens. The streets of the village had been covered in the castoff bones of what had once been humans that scavengers had gotten a hold of. The sense of death in that village had been awful and she had run from it as fast as she could to escape the cloying feel of death inherent to the place, but there was no such feel of death in this place of burial.
The burial chamber was beautiful, but that wasn’t what gave the peaceful almost reverent feel that was in the very atmosphere of the place. It must be some leftover blessing of the people themselves that had infused the place with such a peaceful ambience. There was no air of death to the place or dark harbingers of fear for what lay beyond the grave. Peace. Peace was all Kana felt.
The sound of a heavy sob turned Kana around to see that her companions had left her and were interspersed throughout the room lost in their own grief for loved ones that had gone on before. Kana looked to the right and read the first burial chamber’s plaque, ‘Tadias & Evala Ta’lont’. Kana did a double take when she read the dates. The wife, Evala, had lived over six hundred years! Kana glanced at the dates further in shock. Tadias’s dates of existence were beyond astounding. Truly people had lived longer at one point in time just as the Bible had said they’d done.
Kana couldn’t ignore the crying that she heard from her companions any longer and she quickly made her way down the hall toward them. She found Ellanara on the floor before an ornate burial chamber. These must have been her parents, ‘Roric & Krista Ta’lont’. The dates of life, while longer than most were much less than the first casket she had read had been. Kana noticed something else too about the dates. The couple entombed beyond had died the same day. They had left life together, neither of them wishing to linger on without the other.
Kana felt tears come to her eyes as the emotional connection formed in her mind of what a love like that must’ve been like. She knelt to the floor and pulled a crying Ellanara to her, as all reservations about the strange blue-eyed woman had left, at seeing how pitifully lost she was in her grief for her parents.
Ellanara sobbed against her and Kana heard her say something, “It feels like it was just yesterday that I saw them and held them in my arms.” Kana held her tighter, as she heard the broken quality of Ellanara’s voice.
“They must’ve been wonderful parents.” Kana said.
Ellanara drew back slightly and asked curiously, “Why do you say that?”
“Because they had a daughter that loves them so much, such emotion as yours cannot be faked and truly you honor them by your love for them.” Kana said emotionally, as she remembered her own parents only vaguely and how she would’ve wished for the memories that she saw in Ellanara’s eyes.
Ellanara wiped at her eyes and said, “That’s such a sweet thing for you to say. You’re just like her.”
Puzzled Kana asked, “Who?”
“Zarsha, your great maternal ancestor. You’re just like her in how sweet and kind you are. My father adopted her as his daughter. She and I were sisters growing up. I would like it very much if you and I could be like that.” Ellanara said in earnestness.
Kana looked into her eyes and saw the person beyond, “I would like that. I’m sorry I haven’t been friendlier. This place and all this new stuff and well you have to admit your eyes are kind of scary.”
Ellanara smiled and nodded her head, “I know they are, but I had to do it. To sleep so long without my body aging I had to take a metal supplement for weeks before I went under the water. My eyes came out a bit more blue than they went in. Come we need to go to Loric!”
Quickly both women got up and moved toward Loric, who was standing at the far end of the hall. Reaching him Kana and Ellanara went to either side of him and drew close saddened beyond words for him, as he stood there staring at the two coffins that plainly lay on the floor.
There was no elaborate chamber of burial or gilded craftsmanship. There weren’t even names or dates. One coffin had been faceted out of stone, while the other one that sat next to it was crudely made of oddly pieced together boards, some of which were charred in places indicating how they must’ve been pulled out of a fire at some point. Next to all the grandeur of the other resting individuals in the room the sight of these two forlorn coffins was a sad sight to behold.
Ellanara leaned forward and picked up an envelope of paper that lay on top of the stone casket. She read the front of it and then placed it in Loric’s hands closing his fingers about it with hers, “It’s from your father and it’s addressed to you.” She said softly.
A long moment passed before Loric opened the envelope and pulled out the letter that was only a single page in length, but filled with jerky scrawled writing indicating the pain of the one who had written it. “Dear son, I write to you now, while I am still able to. There was so much I wanted to teach you yet, so much I wanted to see you experience in life. If you’re reading this son it’s because you’ve come through adversities that no child should ever have to face that have no doubt made you into a man. I hope that your experiences have not made you too hard of a man. My advice if this is so is to get yourself a good woman. Women have a way of taking the hard edges off so to speak. I know I could never have done what I was able to do in life without your mother by my side. She has always been my ministering angel and a source of comfort in the storm of responsibilities I have faced, as the head of our family. That will all be over soon. I do not know what the world that you now live in is like, only that it’s time to leave it. The worst decision I ever had to make was not to start the evacuation early. Two things stopped me, there wasn’t enough room for everyone and it was not yet time. May God forgive me for the lives that were lost, because of my decision and my hope is that some greater good will come out of the sacrifice of so many of our people. Embrace the future with faith my son and know that I always believed in you, if you in return believe faithfully in our Creator’s ways than nothing will be impossible for you. God bless you son and may your future be bright, as well as that of our peoples. Take the rings. Your mother gave me hers to enclose in this letter just in case something should happen. I hate dying, not because I’m afraid of death, but that I hate to leave my family and people in this moment of crisis, but I must trust my Creator that everything will turn out right in the end. Goodbye son, I love you.”
The Loric pulled the two rings off of where they were tied to the letter by a ribbon. One was big and had an elaborate design transcribed around a coat of arms of the Ta’lont family crest. Loric slipped the ring onto his finger. He held the other ring that sparkled with diamonds, as if unsure what to do with it.
Kana seizing the moment bravely stuck her hand out with her fingers extended hoping that she wouldn’t be rejected, because that would just hurt too much. Call her crazy and maybe she was, but she wanted everything the big reserved Hunter had to offer subconsciously ever since he had hesitated in killing her.
Loric slid the ring onto her finger without hesitation and closed his hand tightly over hers, as he led her back down the hall the way they had come.
Ellanara stopped them with her words, “Loric there’s something else that you should have.”
The couple turned and watched, as Ellanara pressed something under a corner of her parent’s burial tomb. A panel slid out and she pulled a sword of majestic quality from out of the drawer. Approaching Loric with it, Ellanara laid it across her hands, as she extended it out to him and he took it as she said, “Behold my father’s sword. May it shine for you like it did for him and never let you down in battle.”
As she said the words the sword came brilliantly alive with a radiance of shifting colors, even as Loric gripped a hold of it. Loric studied it relishing the feel of the sword that already felt as if it was but an extension of his hand.
He hadn’t seen it before, but his wandering fingers found the little piece of rolled up paper tied to the cross guard of the sword.
He started to read it briefly, but stopped looking up curiously at Ellanara. He pulled the paper and its contents from off the sword and handed them to Ellanara. “I believe this is for you.” He said.
Ellanara took the paper and gasped at the sight of the two ornately scrolled silver rings that slid out of the paper into her hand. Tears came to her eyes, as she recognized Talaric’s and Evangelina’s wedding rings. She opened the little scrolled piece of paper and began to read, “Dear little sister, these rings are for you. Tadias told me to give them to you. He said they were very special and I know that they couldn’t have been any more special to me and Eva than they have been. I hope they bring you as much happiness as they did us. Oh and here’s something Tadias told me to tell you along with giving you the rings, ‘Tell her that they were gifts from an old friend of mine and that it’s fitting that they should be returned to his people. Even as they were given in the bond of friendship let them now unite that friendship, which has been broken so that it might be restored again even stronger and more lasting than before in a special haven that only the bearer of these rings can find.’”
Ellanara folded the paper up as she held the rings tightly in one palm. She met Loric’s gaze and he said, “I believe we can go now sister.”
Smiling tearfully Ellanara responded, “Yes brother, I believe we can.”
The three companions left the silent hall of the honored dead, as quietly as they had come. The chamber would never be visited again.