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Great Writing - Home > Extended > Unfinished Tale: Chapter 4 (Part 1)
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Extended Work
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| Unfinished Tale: Chapter 4 (Part 1) | |
| By ellipinnock | ||
| 03 October 2006 | ||
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This relies heavily on Chapter 3 (Part 2) Over the long, empty hours Hel-nar's world had contracted, drawing in like autumn nights tiptoeing through the breeze. The cold seeps into her bones as she lies, prostrate, exhausted, breaths coming shallow and rapid. Her cheeks burn with a fire that cannot be quenched yet she feels daggers of ice shattering into her hips where they touch the floor. Her screams for help die before utterance, rasping through vocal cords only to fall leaden from an unresponsive tongue. Vividly she realises that she may die here. This is only a process of softening up after all, severing the tangled threads of reality and fantasy to leave her adrift, in an ocean of her captors' choosing. Worse is surely still to come. She wonders who they are? What they want? Whether she will give it to them? Is she strong enough to deny them, to die protecting secrets she did not know she had? Rescue seems an impractical impossibility. After all, who will find her here, trapped in the construct within her mind. She does not know how much time has elapsed; seconds, minutes, hours, days? It feels like eternity. She can hear whispers, far off, too faint to understand, unintelligible murmurs at the edge of consciousness. An itch she cannot scratch. She yearns to flee, deep into her mind, to hide herself, a tiny mote of brilliance in a universe of darkness. She has tried this and failed. the trap is of her own mind; attempts to flee send her rebounding from the walls; a rag doll, tossed in her own brainstorm. Blood trickles from a shallow wound above her eye, pools and congeals wherever it can. She is, marked now by swirls or crimson black. Suddenly a door appears where she had not thought to see a door. The hinges creak and through the door comes a robed figure, blurred by tired eyes. She forces focus out through weeping, reddened lids and sees the serpent spear, anticipated and dreaded in equal measure. 'Where is the Ranger?' slow, measured tones containing the promise of possible redemption. She breathes deeply, choking on parched lips, swallows and spits. Gobbets of saliva sit, for a minute, on the boots of her tormentor and then vanish, absorbed by the thirsty, clutching, all-pervasive dust. Retribution is swift, painful, deserved even? A boot crashes into her ribs, waves of pain pour over her. Bone cracks, splinters,driven in towards her lungs. Another blow drives the splinters deeper, red-hot agony skitters across her nerves, playing its discordant melody. She blacks out, sinking blissfully into dark pools of silent unconsciousness. Then pain returns, lancing agony as the boot lands against her skull. 'Let us try again now that you have learn some semblance of manners. Where is the Ranger? What do you know of him and his mission?' She lies silent for a while, gathering the threads of her mind together. Forces the words out as they thicken in her throat, 'To damn you and your kind to Hell and back you bastard son of a whore.' Then she stiffens, waiting, ready for the blows that rain down on her and she lets herself fall again, letting go of sanity and pain. As she slides under, she hears a second voice, 'Enough. Try not to kill her. Maybe a little more time will persuade her to cooperate.' More time passes. It is beyond her awareness now as she slips into delirium. She imagines stars, burning balls of gas, dancing across the sky, speaking to her. They speak and sing of miracles beyond her comprehension and she dances out of her cell and across the firmament with them. They chide her gently; now is not the time for her to relinquish her hold on life. Reluctantly she obeys, crawls back into her husk of a body, lying on cold stone. The serpent returns, from time to time with his monotonous questions and bruising beatings. She does not know how many times he comes-time is losing meaning for her now. She spits at him when she can spare the moisture; her words have long since dried up, lost in the dark. For much of the time she slides in and out of her mind, little more than an observer, dispassionate. Eventually the beatings cease, replaced instead by incessant whispering; on and on, echoing around her mind. 'Show me what you know.' 'Take me to that place within your thoughts. the place where you can see his face.' 'Ben-Leret left Dreams for you, did he not? Show me them?' 'Show me the last Dream of your Father.' 'Show me your lover. Where is he?' 'What do you know of the Ranger?' 'Show me the Ranger.' 'Show me what you know.' She felt herself drawn to the places he described, closer to her secrets and so she fled, as far as she was able. She led him down well-trodden, familiar paths, showing him the flotsam of her life. She let him paw through her memories, her childhood, her friends, her lovers; let him violate her deepest desires. Yet always she led him away from what he sought, avoiding the hidden, locked memories and Dreams of Ben-Leret. hus they danced, around and around. A dangerous game. She had to pique his interest lest he abandon her to die. She drew him images of fire, death and destruction, of a hooded figure, a castle on a hill. Fact, blended with fantasy over and over again until he tired of the game and let her go. She slept for a while and soon the beatings began again, cracking ribs but newly healed, pummeling her body until she longed for the return of the whisperer. Eventually he returned and the game began again, more dangerous, more circuitous. She heard him taunting her, whispering, 'You must tell me. You have no choice. A few more encounters with my friend and your body will be irretrievably broken and you will die. Unfortunate of course but ultimately necessary. A simple choice. Yield your secrets or forfeit your future. Choose wisely.' With that, both malevolent presences were gone. Absolute silences prevailed, seeping into bruised and battered veins like cool spring water. Yet again she waits for death which cannot be far away.
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