Chapter Eighteen
Trapped
Three weeks later.
Ellanara sat still on the seat she was tied to by the force of magnets. It was an effective containment practice she mused idly to herself, as she inspected the magnetic bracelets and anklets that held her bound to her seat. The door opened and the two Orlandian’s, who had been interrogating her earlier stepped into the room. The interrogation was about to become much more serious, if the aggressive looks in their eyes was anything to go by.
“So sorry to keep you waiting my dear. Did you miss us?” The one asked.
Ellanara’s tongue came out and ran over her split lip in response to the question and they both laughed. One of them stepped forward and backhanded her again hard. Ellanara shook slightly, as a trickle of blood spilled down her chin from her badly split lip now.
“Did that hurt? I’m sure it did, but we can do much worse than that! Tell us what we want to know!”
“It doesn’t matter what I can tell you, which isn’t much. You may have this ring, but without the other ring you are still just as far as you have ever been from being able to unlock the relic of Perth.” Ellanara finished pointedly before adding, “And you know he won’t be happy that you caught me either. Where do you think it is that you’ll ever be safe from the wrath of the Guardian?”
The two Orlandian’s shared a look and Ellanara could detect the underlying fear that her words had brought them. They tried to cover it up with anger and one hit her again, but she remained quiet.
“You’ll talk, but not here.” The door opened and the older of the two men said to the guards outside, “See that the prisoner’s transported to the vault. We will question her further there, as we examine the effects of the ring on the relic.”
Ellanara interrupted them with a snort of derision, as they turned back to her she said, “Do you really think a vault is going to keep you safe from him? He’s killed how many of your people over the years?” She asked leadingly.
The younger of the two men said, “You underestimate our vault. No matter how he tried to the Guardian would never be able to penetrate our vault. It is in a word impregnable.” The man finished confidently.
“We’ll see.” Was all that Ellanara said in reply.
The older of the two men looked nervous though and he gave the order to increase the security without alerting anyone to the presence of the vault on the outskirts of a distant city. Ellanara was then forcefully dragged along by the guards through the labyrinth of underground rooms of the Orlandian base, until she was once again out in the daylight.
An airship hovered overhead and she was caught up into it and thrust into a holding cell in short order. Several hours passed, until she felt the ship touch down. She felt herself gripped in a vector lock and the next instance she was going downward from the ship into the ground beneath the city that they had arrived at. The downward motion never seemed to stop.
Blinking her eyes Ellanara squinted against a sudden harsh red glare all around her. Magma?
Where were they taking her?
She came to an abrupt stop and the inertia of her fall had her slammed to the floor wanting to throw up, but she held it in not wanting to show her captors even a moment of weakness. Lifting her head Ellanara saw the same garishly motiffed walls and equally garnished people that she had come to symbolize as everything Orlandian.
The Orlandian culture had left tasteful style behind in exchange for an over-the-top fashion that in her opinion left them looking more silly than serious. The strange vibrant colors and the dark skewed makeup didn’t add much to their appearance in terms of either appeal or taste. Beyond the clothes and the makeup they looked hollowed out as a people. Like there wasn’t anything new to be known that hadn’t already been done by them.
A woman was approaching the welcoming committee. She had a ridiculous costume of leather and painful looking metal trinkets on. Her eyes were hard and full of darkness. She spread her taloned fingers wide and said, “Welcome to my personal playground straight from the pits of hell.” She followed her grandiose statement with an evil laugh that seemed to encapsulate her condition, as being a worthy denizen of hell.
Ellanara’s two interrogators from earlier stepped forward. “She might tax you a little more than the others Tyra. We split her lip wide open earlier and she barely made a sound.”
Tyra threw her head back proudly and stared contemptuously at the two men, “Some last longer than others, but all eventually fall to Tyra’s forms of encouragement.”
Tyra grabbed Ellanara’s hair and jerked her upwards from the floor, “First I think we’ll start with cutting the pretty princesses hair off!” She pulled a wicked looking knife out with her other hand and made to slice through the red auburn tresses, but hesitated as she stared into the black eyes that showed no sign of fear of her.
Tyra’s brow creased in a sudden frown, “I thought you imbeciles said you split her lip wide!”
“We did! Look I’ll show you!” The older of the two men said as he stepped forward, but he started to quiver as he stammered out, “It was there before I swear! Her eyes were blue too!”
“You expect me to believe that her eyes changed color on the way down here you pair of sick little weasels?” Tyra said angrily, but even as her words ended the hair she held onto turned into black plated braids.
Tyra jumped back in stunned disbelief, as the form before her grew measurably in size. Tyra turned to scream an alarm, but a massive black forearm came up to choke off her cry, “Time to die little viper!” I said before I snapped her neck.
The two interrogators stood frozen in the moment, as in sheer terror they watched the lone arch nemesis of their people materialize out of the body of a woman. Together they turned to run, but I leaped forward slamming their heads together in unison, with enough force to crush both men’s skulls. Not bothering to watch them fall I took off down the hall, because I could feel the vibration of the ring on my finger. I had never been this close to finding the relic of Perth in all the long years that I’d hunted for it.
I ran around a corner and abruptly stopped.
Ellanara let Loric and Satago help her up from off the floor. She clutched at her head and the headache that had blossomed to full life within its confines. It had been beyond strenuous to superimpose an image of her and her emotions over that of Salanicus’s and shield him from view, but he had taught her well. She had been doing a pretty good job of it, until the link between them had grown weak and she’d felt the projection of herself onto Salanicus start to unravel.
“Do you think he made it to where they were keeping the relic?” Loric asked her.
“I don’t know.” Ellanara whispered past the pain that was throbbing in her head. She truly didn’t know and not knowing was killing her!
“Keep him safe Lord!” Was her whispered thought plea for the man she was starting to fall madly in love with.
I’d found it! After all these years I had finally found the relic. I had stumbled into a giant hollowed out space of a cavern and at the far end of it sat the relic on an upraised dais. The idiots had been worshiping it, as if it was a god of some kind!
I ran down the stairs and across the floor of the cavern to the dais, which I climbed up in leaping strides. The relic was an oval shaped box with rounded off sides. Two grips that curved out from the sides of the relic were where the ring bearers grasped it in unison. I grabbed the relic up and carefully stowed it in a bag, which I then slung over my shoulder, even as I sensed a flurry of activity all around me.
Guards were pouring into the room from all corners. I pulled a purple round crystal from my belt, which immediately elongated out to become my staff, which I pounded the end of down against the ground of the cavern. A shockwave of ultraviolet light pulsed throughout the room in all directions leveling everybody. When the guards had recovered it was only to see that I was already gone.
“There I feel him again! He has the relic of Perth, but I sense a lot of oppositional forces close to him!” Ellanara said addressing those gathered within the control room.
Loric looked around at the warriors gathered. It was an assembly of his own countrymen and hand chosen warriors picked out by Salanicus of his own people.
“You know what to do. Get ready to disembark.” Loric said firmly, as he unsheathed his sword.
Each warrior laid a hand to the sword at his side and prepared to be transported off the ship. Every sword was a light sword such as the one Loric had. Salanicus had opened up his workshop on the moon to Sallaconese and Vallians alike. He had made many such swords in order to fill his time over the long years.
I stepped away from the elevator shaft, even as I tossed a red glowing crystal back down it. I made my way uncontested out of the building and out into the busy thoroughfare of the city. To say I stood out was an exaggeration. I strode down the street towards my pickup point, as civilians fled in a mass panic away from me. In their eyes I was the stuff of nightmares. A lingering haunt of a bygone era come to drag them down to pay the price of Hell’s eternity for a life spent in excess and without compassion.
Enemy fire coursed across the air to slam into my shield of swirling violet colored light. I’d been busy over the course of a thousand years and no Orlandian technology was the superior of mine in terms of armament. I disregarded the enemy strikes to my shield of violet color and made my way to an open area and stopped.
The last of the civilians had fled and the security forces closed in firing upon me as they came. Their weapon blasts of focused energy only seemed to strengthen my shield and so they gave up on trying to breach it with their weapon fire and closed in to fight with me melee style.
With relish for the coming struggle I tossed my staff up into the air and caught it mid staff. It abruptly changed into my favorite weapon, a double-edged sword staff with a wicked spear head on the downward side that glowed red. As the ranks of the enemy converged on me I swung my sword staff in arcing strikes that sprayed ultraviolet light, as the sword end cleaved through the ranks of desperate Orlandian soldiers.
If I escaped with the relic their lives were forfeit, which they well knew, but even knowing that their fervor wasn’t a match for mine, as I piled up their broken slashed bodies to a depth taller than I was myself in the area of the open square that I had claimed as mine. Suddenly there were whirlwinds of color all around me and I had help, as warriors with flashing swords cleaved into the bewildered Orlandian security forces with a vengeful gusto.
I forced myself to leave the scene of the slaughter of my enemies to be drawn up into a whirlwind of color that retraced me back up to the bar-Trinity that was hovering cloaked overtop the city. I would have rather stayed and helped kill more of the enemy, but the relic’s safety was paramount.
I appeared on the bridge and caught the brief look of relief that crossed over Ellanara’s face before it returned to its normal studied calm. It was nice to have someone that cared about me. She hadn’t let me down either! She’d done a masterful job of linking with me and superimposing herself overtop me in order to deceive the enemy. It hadn’t been her fault for the disguise falling apart a little prematurely.
I felt jubilance rise up in me. We had the rings and the relic!
My jubilance was checked, when I saw the sudden concern of Ellanara’s features.
“Bring them back on board now Abby!” Ellanara called out commandingly.
In various forms of fighting pose the warriors, who had covered my retreat appeared on board, some of them still in the process of swinging their sword.
“What is it?” I asked, even as I connected with the ship to ascertain what had Ellanara worried.
“A huge fleet of ships is bearing down on our position fast! I think this was a trap!” Ellanara called out in reply to me, as the bar-Trinity shuddered and dropped some in elevation, as its shield absorbed several direct hits.