In the Hall of the Mountain King
By Asso
Chapter Five
(The fifth after the Prologue - The sixth counting the Prologue)
Author's Notes
I know, I know!The previous chapter of this story was published on February and now we are on December. I am really an unforgivable idler! But please, you who were so gentle to enjoy this story, try to forgive me. I swear that I will be more hardworking from now on!
Please, be still willing to read this story. I think that, all in all, it may have some worth. And - Oh my! What kind of a chutzpah that's me! - make, please, the effort to cast a glance at the previous chapters so as to have an idea of what is happening here.
Mamma mia, mamma mia! Fortunately, there is Linda, who once again wanted to help me. Thank goodness there is she!
Anyway, here are some reminders, that maybe can be helping.
1)Trip and T'Pol are really in a big trouble, especially T'Pol, I think, with that infernal Thing who (Mh... or which?) was about to... Well! Maybe it's better if I don't say what the hell that damn Thing was about to do!
2)Hoshi and Malcolm are on the Bannerdas' planet. Why? Oh well, the Bannerdas' boss has spoken of a book. Just so! A book!
3)And Enterprise, with the Captain and all the crew, was about to get destroyed, falling headlong against the Mountain, without energy and without hope.
In this chapter, Enterprise's fate won't be yet revealed; here we will try to understand what will happen to Trip and T'Pol by means of the Bannerda's explanations. Malcolm (it is him the first one who speaks) wants to know!
In the Hall of the Mountain King
Chapter Five
(*To the devil, bloody hell!*)
I violently rouse myself from my dumb astonishment. Violently; because now I am angry.
I don't give a damn if Methuselah would pale from shame facing this man, or if the age of Mesopotamian ziggurats is only an imperceptible chirrup in time likened to the antiquity of the youngest of youngest objects in this room. We are here for a job. We must rescue our friends and His Excellency wanted us here because he thought that we might better be of help for our two Commanders, rather than being with our colleagues darting to their aid at this moment. Well then enough with these damn riddles; I don't want conundrums, I want explanations, damn bloody hell of a bloody hell! I want Trip and T'Pol back! Unscathed. That's what I want, for Pete's sake! I don't want to waste our time chasing after abstruse enigmas.
I disentangle myself from Hoshi's grasp and take some steps towards to the old Bannerda, quickly and forcefully, looking at him with a fierce scowl. I am fed up; old or not old, wise or not wise, great or not great, it's time that this man tells us why we are here and what we have to do to save our friends.
I know my words come out very harsh and perhaps I will likely regret doing that, but I am really beyond keeping my splendid British self-control; my stark poise is a little too much put to hard a test, now; my patience has evaporated.
And… does this very wise Bannerda know how dangerous it can be to freak out an English Bomber?
The man's voice resounds in the dead and closed air. It resonates under the high vaults, wrapped in the dark, concealed to the sight; slips into every burrow crossing the mountain, into the bowels of the earth themselves; bounces against the rock walls, rolling along their steep and craggy reliefs; spread puissant far and wide, through the narrow and obscure corridors.
The crazy scream of defiance dies away, little by little, until only its echo remains, vanishing in the darkness.
And then there is only silence.
The man is standing, gasping, with his chin raised, with his arms turned aloft, towards the vault that he can't see. Waiting. Wrath and fear, fury and despair, rending his chest.
The moments pass. Nothing happens.
And his mind has become deaf and blind; he is no longer capable of sensing either the abhorrent presence or his lost love.
Lost...
No. NO!
NO!
The beat of his heart seems to become slower, feebler.
It seems to die; like his insensate hope. Like his soul is dissolving into the frost and into the black hopelessness.
And then... abruptly... all of a sudden... there is no longer anything.
Neither rock walls nor terrain, neither ceiling nor ground. Neither darkness. Neither light.
There is a void, without end and colourless, neither white nor black nor gray nor green nor blue nor red nor aught; indefinable. And heavy. And immovable. Empty.
And in the middle of the void nought, there is him, a minuscule point in the endless hollowness.
"Decidedly interesting, Your Excellency. Now, if you allow, could you explain what all this has to do with...?"
"The false friends!"
I nearly startle at the shrill shout of my Hoshi.
Damn women! Always incapable of following nothing else but their own thoughts. Suddenly I feel very respectful of the enormous forbearance that Trip had and has to have with his T'Pol, considering that Hoshi's behaviour is a pale shadow of the stroppy conduct of T'Pol, although T'Pol is – only apparently, that's for sure, if what Trip mischievously suggested me in front of a bottle of Scotch - the Queen of Freeze, whereas Hoshi is like the hot wind of the Desert. These two women are so distant from each other. Mh... or maybe - the thought of how many times T'Pol was able to wrong-foot Trip comes to my mind – maybe not too much?
I remain mouth-agape with my words dying in my throat.
I start to turn toward my unpredictable Ensign when the Bannerda stops me in his turn.
"Very well, Ensign Sato. It is evident that you are not only a great translator, but also a very clever person."
"But that's impossible, Your Excellency."
"Do you have a more logical explanation?"
"But the probability that such an unbelievable circumstance can occur..."
"Give up, Ensign. Not even your Vulcan First Officer would be capable of calculating it."
"Excellency..."
"Or maybe it is not the case."
"Eh? Excellency! Are you saying that..."
"And that's the reason you two are here."
"What… what do you mean, Excellency?"
"I mean..."
"What bloody hell do you mean, both of you?"
His arms come down slowly to his sides.
His breath becomes bated, as his mind.
He sinks his eyes in the nil which surrounds him, and slowly turns all around him.
He seeks.
He doesn't feel either marvel or fear; now, nothing is minimally able to catch him. Nothing, but his purpose.
Magic? Wonders? Unreality? Impossibility? Who cares for all that?
T'Pol counts! T'Pol! Only T'Pol! ONLY T'POL!
And she has to come back! Unharmed! Safe and sound! In his arms!
At any cost!
So, there is only one thought inside him: what does all this mean? What? Does it mean that his challenge... - He hearkens and scrutinizes attentively all around - …that his challenge has been taken?
Hoshi's eyes met mine, with puzzlement painted into them, while the echo of my voice gets lost around us.
I look alternately at her and at the Bannerda, who is silently staring at me.
I take a deep breath and speak loud and clear, not at all ashamed of the harsh way I interrupted this hermetic exchange between them.
My voice resounds absolutely calm; it is phlegmatic and cold just as one of a true English Officer. "Excuse me, but I would like me to be made aware of what there is underground."
I pause, then I add sarcastically "I know I am not very quick-witted, I am only a poor Security Officer; but maybe, who knows, if you two would be so kind as to acquaint me with what you are arguing about, I might be of some help."
A thrill. Or maybe not. It is impossible defining it, but something is happening.
A thrill, yes, a thrill.
All around.
Suddenly I understand; Malcolm is right. Struck by the enormity of what came to my mind, I completely forgot that he was here and that we have to act and not to get lost in futile discussions,
And then he is right twice: he is intelligent and foxy, as well as a man of action. Even in the situation we are, I can't help but smile to myself: isn't this, among other things, the reason which made me fall in love with him?
I admire the straight-faced way my Malcolm is showing himself, relishing the not at all fearful tone he expressed even in His Excellency's presence, the decidedly British taste of his behaviour.
He is my man, the man just for me, exactly... I lower my eyes in sadness - ... exactly as Trip is the man just for T'Pol, and... - I feel ashamed that in my bewilderment I have almost forgotten our task - ... and we are here to make sure that she, T'Pol, can come back with us, safe in the arms of her man. We are not here to waste our time.
Yes, my Malcolm is damnedly right.
I cast a sidelong glance at His Excellency, apprehensive that he can have been hurt by the conduct of my Mal, but I swear that his eyes seem to smile and with an unnoticeable nod of his head he encourages me to talk.
I try to put in order my thoughts; then I speak, staring at Malcolm's face, who meanwhile is intently gazing at mine.
"Malcolm, language is not a dead thing; it changes and evolves. Even in a very short lapse of time, it inevitably becomes different from what it previously was, and that is true even if some races are devoid of frequent contact with other species, even if they tend to isolate themselves."
A flash of understanding crosses my Mal's eyes.
"As the Bannerdas."
"Yes, Malcolm. So..."
"So, it is impossible that in that very ancient archive, there was something expressed in their language of today."
Pride inflates my chest. Which sort of moron might ever say that my Malcolm is nothing more than as simple man-at-arms?
I step forward and softly place my hand on his arm.
"Just so, Mal. That phrase, those words we believed were the coordinates of the world where T'Pol was kidnapped and where Trip has disappeared to her rescue...
Malcolm excitedly interrupts me. His visage becomes visibly tense. "They are words coming from a very distant age; they cannot mean what we thought that they meant. Is it so, Hoshi?"
"Is it, Mal."
"But..." - My love's voice betrays his puzzlement. – "... but they mean it! They display the road to that world!"
I let go Mal's arm and I turn toward His Excellency, who is perfectly motionless, all engrossed in following our words. Then I turn around again to look at my Mal. "Malcolm, remember what His Excellency said, about the False Friends."
Malcolm blinks, then speaks in a low voice. "Are you saying that the meaning was different and that it was a mere case that those words were indicating the road? Because they are False Friends and they mean different things in Bannerdas' today's language and in their ancient parlance?"
His Excellency's low-pitched voice resounds in the air, drawing our attention.
"All that you say, Lieutenant, matches the truth, except that..."
This time it's me who speaks, interrupting what the old Bannerda is going to say. "Except that it cannot be a mere case."
His Excellency gazes gravely at us. He lowers his head for a brief instant, then he brusquely lifts it. His words ring loud and determined.
"Ensign, Lieutenant. It's time that I explain why you two are here."
Something, like a sort of contraction in the nil's weave, perfectly perceptible. It comes from a well defined point.
His eyes focus on it.
His Excellency beckons to the writing still shining over the table. "The young scientist who retrieved this, understood that it was impossible that there was, in that ancient data-base, something written in the language we speak with today. She didn't think to find an explanation about the fact that it seemed written in our current language, but comprehended that that could be very important. She immediately transmitted this item of information to us and our linguists set to work right away. We knew when that outstation had been built, even if we have lost the science we had at that time, as you can understand from what I said. So we supposed it was a reasonable approach that we tried to see if that writing, read and interpreted as it was written in the language that was spoken at that time, could have taken us to some outcome."
The old Bannerda makes a brief pause to let us absorb his words. Then he resumes his talk. "As you may understand, it wasn't easy. Immemorial ages have passed since that time and the language, or, rather, the languages dating back six hundred thousand standard-Earth years ago are now dead, completely dead. But our time is longer and proceeds slower than yours, both in regard to our lifespan and our history, and the memory of our history. Yes, our memory is long, maybe not as long as the existence of our race, but enough to allow us to translate the writing to give it the meaning it really had."
I can't help but ask, again, squeezing Mal's arm, "And it was...?"
His Excellency looks fixedly at us, then begins to speak, in an uncertain voice. "Naco do ber Cata Tanach."
I turn my head and watch Mal. He is questioning me without speaking.
I don't know why my voice is quivering, while I translate to him what the Bannerda pronounced in his own language.
"Under the Ancient Monarch's throne."
And at this point, my phlegmatic British love explodes.
Something is appearing.
"Do we want to stop speaking by means of enigmas?"
I try to calm down Mal, but he seems to be really pissed off. I never saw him like this.
"I am really fed up, now, Your Excellency."
"Mal..."
"Hoshi, do not try to quiet me. Trip and T'Pol are in need, we not even know if they are alive, maybe they are suffering the pains of hell, and we are groping in the dark."
"Mal, please…"
"Stop it, Hoshi! And stop it, you. Your... Great Excellency. Enough riddles and mysteries. You cannot finish any explanation with a new conundrum. Do you want to tell us how things are and why the bloody hell we are here and what we should do? Once and for all?"
I gasp. What will the Bannerda do, now? But... yes... my Mal is right. What... what the bloody hell are we awaiting for?
I squeeze my man's hand, both to appease him and to make him aware that I share his mood and at the same time I look at His Excellency, searching for his expression, to know how he is responding to Mal's harsh tone. But he doesn't seems to be angry, on the contrary he seems compunctious, I would say... apologetically. He leans backward against the table, looking tired and worried. Then he speaks, almost... almost humbly.
"I apologize, Lieutenant. You…" - His Excellency smiles a little sadly. –"… you are the bloody hell right. We must act in great haste, sure, but..." - Another sad smile. – "... but you must understand that we have not the same time perception you have, and then it's needed that you know all, in order to understand how things are and to help your friends." - His Excellency smiles, sadly, one more time. – "And us. And, most likely... all the living species."
I breathe harshly, grasping spasmodically Mal's hand. He ruggedly addresses the Bannerda.
"The King. He exists, doesn't he?"
"It seems, Lieutenant."
"That book. It speaks of him, right?"
"It does, Lieutenant."
"And by means of that writing, translated in its real language, you found it under... "
"...Under the Ancient Monarch's throne."
"Which means?"
I listen to what has practically become a true interrogation, admiring my man and his ability in his job. The tough and determined action man, who conquered me, is back and is in full light. I can't help but think of T'Pol and of what she revealed to me about her and Trip, opening her soul to me with a confidence that honoured me; of how much she had found unpleasant - that had been her definition - her man at the beginning, just the opposite of her, an opposite of whom she now isn't able to get along without, all that she had found unpleasant in him having become reasons of her love for him, exactly as it happened to Trip, in regard to her. Just like what happened to Malcolm and to me. Maybe it's really true that opposites attract, and, at this moment, my heart bounces with proud love for the one I once felt as my opposite, what I disliked in him now having turned into cause for attraction. He wants to know and to stop losing time. And he doesn't let go of the bone. Malcolm is clamant now, pressing; he took the initiative and went into the lead.
The Bannerda seems to have understood that Malcolm wants answers. He replies with precision, rapidly, without getting lost in futile baloneys or useless circumlocutions. Without further riddles.
"We were ruled by Monarchs, once. They stood sitting on a throne that is said to be built for the Monarch who guided us before we closed ourselves in our dominion. A Monarch who comes from the depths of yore and who is only known by this appellative, The Ancient Monarch. A legend, obviously."
"Yeah, obviously. Like the King."
"Exactly, Lieutenant. Like the King."
I am unable not to speak." Malcolm, I remember the Captain saying that Commander T'Pol once told him, referring to the Triannons, that perhaps their mythology had a basis in fact."
Malcolm nods and speaks in his turn. "Perhaps all mythology has a basis in fact, Hoshi." Then he addresses again His Excellency in a unceremonious tone. "Isn't that true, Your Excellency?"
It is like a sort of point made of nothing, that seems to pulsate, as trying to acquire consistence and reality in that inconsistent expanse of unreality. It seems to be getting bigger, its contours take shape. An image. It is indistinct, but little by little it gains sharpness and clearness.
Something. No, someone.
It is as big as it has to be, now, just in the front and not distant, even if that amorphous void doesn't allow the senses to confidently judge.
Suddenly the vision changes, it acquires a true solidity, it no longer looks like an image, it's really a person, in the flesh. And it gets perfectly clear.
It is...
"T'POL!"
"Our mythology, Lieutenant, is a mixture of reality and of ancient myths, that are nothing other than the distortion of the many realities concealed in the depth of our lack of knowledge, exactly like all people, only extremely complicated by the length of history and time that are behind our shoulders."
His Excellency doesn't seem to want to change his new frank and open behaviour. He goes on unveiling things, as Malcolm's determined conduct has made clear that it's needed.
"The throne is a real and precious manufact, that really comes from a very old past, as our tests have demonstrated with conclusive evidence. It was the command armchair of the Monarchs who ruled us before we acquired our present political setting, where they were sitting when they had to or wanted to show the puissance of their majesty; the symbol itself of their power, even more emblematic in reason for its being the tangible sign of a power which sinks into the mists of time immemorial. As for the Ancient Monarch, he is a legendary figure, who is remembered as the Monarch who guided our people in its last fight against the..."
I can't help but do it. I exclaim the name. "Against The King!"
His Excellency brings again his eyes upon me. "It is one of the most fascinating legends of our people, Ensign. The Ancient Monarch managed to win the King, the true embodiment of evil, but the King's power was too great for him to be destroyed. He was plunged into an endless sleep, like death, but that was not a real death."
"The facts, Excellency! The facts, please!"
His Excellency looks at Malcolm with strange eyes, after his latest demonstration of impatience. "You want the facts, Lieutenant?" Then. Almost with rage, he says loudly, "What do you think of these facts?"
His voice rises, cavernous.
"They say HE is sleeping a sleep, which is vigil.
They say HE is watching, and hearing, and listening.
They say He's observing,
That no thing,
No creature
Can elude him.
They say HE is sitting,
Inert and remote,
Twisted in chains,
On his ice throne,
In the deepest frost,
In the blackest dark,
In the most leaden hush,
Yonder in the depths.
Alone.
Outlying.
Stirless.
Silent.
They say HE is thinking,
The Black Sire
Who no longer has heart,
About his past,
Which won't ever return.
The Obscure, Sinister, Grim Lord.
The Shadows' Monarch.
The Gloomy, Tenebrous, Doleful,
Miserable Death's Sir.
Yonder.
In the depths.
In the dark.
In the frost.
Where there're no moves.
Where there're no sounds.
Where all is dead.
They say HE is waiting.
Not dead, not alive.
With inhuman patience.
He is waiting.
For his moment to arrive."
Why do I shudder to hear this, that evidently sounds as a silly piece of literature, like lots of others, that all peoples have? And why did Malcolm no longer show any sign of impatience?
She is naked and hanging by the wrists, pulled up over his head and tied together with a chain that extends up, fixed to something that is not seen. Also her ankles are enchained with each other, as the wrists, and are tied down to an invisible anchorage.
Stretched between these two painful means of restraint, she is hanging like a rag doll, limp, her head bent forward, between her arms forced upward, her chin on her chest. She breathes with effort.
The man is motionless, unable to believe what he sees.
His horror exceeds his wrath. At the first heartbreaking recall of agonizing awareness, another follows, lowly sighed in a stunned incredulity.
"T'Pol."
There is an unendurable pain, inside him, made of her own pain, amplified by a feeling of impotent and miserable humiliation, the same that she feels and consequently he too. It is a pain, an unbearable anguish, physical and mental, which abysmally increases by the love he has for her.
A pain that can't be told, nor restrained, nor bridled.
A pain made with a love which nobody and nothing can keep inside of any boundary.
There can't be any force to prevent this heartbroken love from reaching the essence of the object of such an indomitable feeling, from penetrating the suffering and doleful soul of the woman writhing in the agony of the aching torture to which her body and her mind are subjected.
It delicately touches her mind, caresses her soul; awakes her. Makes her aware that he - HE - is there.
With her!
She lifts her heavy head with the greatest of efforts; she tries to see.
And through the veil of tears and pain, she sees.
It's him. It's real. It's true.
She struggles, in her impotence. She desperately endeavours to speak, weakly wriggling in the chains that clamp her, against the alien satanic presence that imprisons her mind.
His name, finally, erupts out from her bloodless lips.
"Trip."
It is a feeble sigh. But it rings as a scream.
It's a hope, an exacting claim, a heart-rending request, a despairing cry for help.
Save me, Trip. Free me. - This, her sigh means. - Take me away with you. - This. And... -Take me away from HIM! TAKE HIM AWAY FROM ME!
The man can hear the voiceless desperate yell of her harrowed soul.
CHASE HIM AWAY FROM MY MIND!
His Excellency crosses his arms on his chest and looks at us with what sounds like an air of excuses and contemporaneously of impatient need.
"Lieutenant, I apologize if I have let myself be pulled into what may seem an unnecessary and silly literary citation, and just now, just in the urgency of the present situation. However, in these rhymes, although it may seem incredible, there is the heart of everything. This is a well-known piece of one of our greatest epics, written by many hands during the ages, which tells of the legendary cycle of the fights that the Ancient Monarch and the Monarchs who preceded him fought against The King since the beginning of time. It can be taken as cultural baggage of our race, to such an extent that children recite parts of it in every apt occasion. This one that I just told you is the last passage of this epic, its finale, and It is so part of us that it is used by grandparents as a sort of nursery rhyme which they are in the habit of telling our children when they want to sweetly warn them they must stop acting badly. I don't know how I can explain to you, something like… Cease to act so, little child, if you do not want the Black Sire to wake up and grab you."
"The bogeyman."
His Excellency watches me with puzzled eyes. "The bogeyman?"
"An unsettling and dark figure, Your Excellency. – I swallow ill at ease. – "But a nonexistent figure. A bugbear for children. We say: Be quiet, if you do not want the bogeyman to come."
"Yes, just so. An unsettling and dark figure, but absolutely nonexistent." Malcolm is very next to me, now, while he speaks. I am glad he is so close, because.. I don't like what his words mean. "Unlike this King, it seems, Hoshi." Yes, oh yes. I am very glad my Mal is so close to me.
The Bannerdas nods at my Malcolm's words. "Actually, Lieutenant, we have to think you are right, even if it is hard to believe that such an entity may be real, above all in relation with all that implies."
The old Bannerda takes a short pause, as if he were collecting his thoughts; then he goes on.
"As with all people, as with the Vulcans themselves, even with all their logic," - I don't think I am deceiving myself: there is a hint of teasing half smile, shining in the eyes of His Excellency, while he says that – "we too have our legends and our popular tales. The most popular and most loved cycle of legends is the one which turns around the figure of The King and of the Ancient Monarch, or, rather, of the Great Monarchs, of whom the Ancient Monarch would have been the last epigone. He was, in reality, the last depository of all the knowledge of yore, and of all that this knowledge implies." - His Excellency's eyes show themselves thoughtful. – "To tell the truth, it appears very meaningful, in the light of the recent events and of their significance, the attachment we have for these myths, dating from the dawn of time and lacking of any scientific basis, in relation to the extremely old species that we are and to our advanced science. This cycle, of which that Epic is the literal and poetic sum, narrates of a war begun very antiquely, in night of times, when the Universe was nothing more than a handful of galaxies born from the energy explosion that had started it all, by an unknown hand."
His Excellency takes some steps up to the window, stopping in front of it, and looks out, through it, crossing his arms behind his back. His profile enlightened by the terse light that comes from outside, he keeps on with his narration.
"The King was a wicked entity, the leader - the dominator - of a people that had been vomited from the abysses of evil. His power was immense, and he wanted to conquer us and the whole universe. And we - the Great Monarchs - were the bulwark against his dreams of puissance."
The old Bannerda turns slowly, towards us.
"The Ancient Monarch, the greatest of our antique Lords, succeeded where his predecessors had failed. As I said, he managed to defeat The King."
The eyes of His Excellency shine with a mysterious light.
"By means of something The King could not even think might exist."
The light in the eyes of the Bannerda sparkles meaningfully. Triumphantly, I would be tempted to say.
"The love of a woman."
The love of a woman.
The love of a woman can do everything.
Everything!
Even to push the bleeding and torn body of what is now the faint shadow of a man to fling as a fury into a hopeless fight for her.
There is only one thought, only one need, only one categorical imperative: he must free her!
In that endless void without form, the little, ridiculous squit throws himself forward, toward the only reason of his life, toward the doleful woman, tortured, enchained to the nil.
He will free her! Yes, oh yes! He will free her! He will cut her chains with his bare hands, will break them with his teeth!
He is almost on her, can almost touch her. Some steps yet, only one last effort in his mad running through the nothing.
A dazzling light suddenly spreads through the void, ghastly. It enlightens everything.
It can't be endured.
But it must be!
A deafening noise cuts the void, deep and still strident. A horrendous cacophony.
It can't be endured.
But it must be!
Blinded and deafened, the man doesn't cede. He cannot! He mustn't!
He can endure, he must endure all that!
Some steps yet.
Another one, the last.
He is there, at her feet, he raises his arms.
There we are! There we are! There we are!
And like a dummy without forces, he suddenly feels grabbed, lifted, launched far away.
He falls down on a soil that doesn't exist; he rolls all along that soil, like a cordless puppet; finally he manages to stop his painful rolling, and he is able to turn his eyes toward her, from the invisible ground where he lies.
He squints, trying to see in the dazzling light, which, though, begins to trail off, as the noise. A suspended silence takes the place of the previous uproar.
The man stands up laboriously, staring at the hanging woman in the dim light that there is now, at the silent plea in her eyes, a plea which lacerates his soul.
From his parched lips it escapes a feeble sigh, full of all the pain, all the frustration, all the despair he feels.
"T'Pol…"
He raises his flayed hands toward her, as in a hopeless pray.
His searing eyes become misty with tears.
And suddenly in his eyes two other eyes are mirrored.
There, aloft, before his love. Two enormous eyes, without colour, without cilia, without pupils, sparkling with unworldly inhumanity.
They watch him, stare at him, oppress him.
Seconds pass, while the eyes look each others; the alien eyes that observe the human creature who was able to shake his mind; and the human eyes that observe the monstrous entity who has in his clutches the heart of his heart.
Then, words without sounds, sounds without words, ring out ear-splitting in the man's mind.
The woman, on her invisible rood of torture, starts to jolt wildly, as under a pain without name.
The sound replenishes everything; it shreds the fibers of her being and permeates the brain of her man.
Then everything stops.
The woman falls exhausted and panting on herself, on her chains, while the man absorbs the meaning of the speechless and nevertheless eloquent sound, now fading away from his mind. Its echo resonates inside his brain, while he understands in a stunned silence that his desperate battle hasn't been futile.
The alien eyes seem to mockingly watch him, while total comprehension makes its road inside him as inside his woman.
Behind the gigantic eyes without body, the tearful eyes of the enchained woman dive with an inexpressible hope into the equally tearful eyes of her man; two eyes, though, now again determined, flaming with an indefectible strength.
The man pulls his arms to his sides and breathes deeply and vigorously.
Something new is born inside him, a mighty awareness, that gives him a new confidence, even in the hallucinatory nightmare world in which they are. Those eyes without soul can even sardonically look at him from behind the immense power of the one to whom they belong, but he has been able to bring the possessor of those eyes just where he wanted. Now he knows that he can win, that he can reach victory in his desperate fight, because as he has been able to get what he wanted, so he will be able to get his aim.
The meaning of the unsaid words that have resounded in his mind is perfectly clear.
The challenge is accepted.
END OF CHAPTER FIVE
Oh well, well!
At the end of the previous chapter, Trip threw his crazy challenge, and now we know the challenge has been accepted.
And now? What bloody hell will happen, Malcolm would say?
TBC