In the Halls of the Mountain King
By Asso
Chapter seven
(The seventh after the Prologue - The eighth counting the Prologue)
Slowly but surely the story goes on.
I know, I know: I am damn slow and prone to give rise to questions at the same time I try to provide answers to those previously raised.
But, what do you want ... for me writing is like rummaging in a box full of surprises that come into view one after another, all claiming their place in the sun.
I hope you, my dear readers, may understand me.
So, let's see. Where were we? Ah yes, the trials, the three trials that Trip must face to free (maybe) T'Pol. We left him naked and helpless in the desert.
A bad deal for a guy like him who certainly has every reason not to love the deserts.
Then there are Malcolm and Hoshi, who are listening (with a certain degree of impatience) to what His Excellency, the boss of the Bannerdas, is revealing to them about this ancient King and about that poor unfortunate female, that Lil (by the way: not bad their story after all, is not it? Please tell me 'yes'!)
And last but not least, there are our brave heroes (Phlox and Archer and Travis and friends) who (do you remember?) are rushing to certain death. It is a long time that I don't say anything about them.
Well, sooner or later ...
For now, however, other things are boiling in pot.
Would you like to know what I am cooking?
I hope so.
And…
My dear Linda, my marvellous Beta, thank you for the umpteenth time. And let me tell you, certainly not the last.
Just to resume the thread: here we start again from the story of His Excellency, the Grand Chief of Bannerdas.
We had stopped at the time when the Ancient Monarch and his warriors had entered the King's Palace.
They're looking for him.
(And in meantime Trip has lots of troubles; on the other hand, when ever is he not in trouble?)
In the Halls of the Mountain King
Chapter seven
They found him.
In his immense throne room.
He was sitting on it, stiff. Immovable, under the high and empty vaults.
Everyone stopped their steps abruptly. They were seeing in person the living legend of Evil, the one of whom only the Ancient Monarch had knowledge of as the real immanence, with concrete solid memory.
But, somewhat, he didn't seem the Demon he was. There wasn't demoniac fury on his face, or derisive attitude, or ungodly bumptiousness; and his pose... it wasn't the pose of the King of any Evil.
Of The King.
How could this creature, the King, appear spiritless? Crestfallen?
And how it was possible that he hadn't wanted to play a personal role in the mortal and final match that was played that night? That so easily, without a shot being fired, they had been able to enter his dwelling and that he didn't even deign to glance at the warriors who had violated it? Not even the Ancient Monarch, his fateful foe?
And… that the black embers of his eyes appeared as extinguished, that everything in those moments he was limiting himself to do was merely watch, immovable and silent, a body, inert, lying, supine and composed, upon a low marble table, embellished by rich decorations, that stood in the middle of the room, in front of his throne, in front of his blank look?
A man - tall and puissant, even if not like the Ancient Monarch, with a big bushy beard, dressed in shining armour - stepped slowly ahead out from the handful of warriors still on their feet. He stared, without saying a word, at the motionless body lying on the marble, devoid of any trace of breath.
A sigh, feeble, went out of his mouth.
A name."
Once again I am unable to prevent myself from anticipating His Excellency in his recount and I utter the word, the name, that that ancient warrior had sighed and that the Bannerda was about to say.
I know what name it was. I murmur it in a low voice, feeling the hand of my Mal holding mine with mild force.
"Lil".
The Bannerda looks at me and he nods silently.
It is as if he would give body to my thoughts.
"Yes, it was Lil. It was hers, the body lying on the marble table without life and the man, the warrior who murmured her name…"
"It… was her father, isn't it, Excellency?"
The Old Bannerda seems not to care for my ulterior interruption. He simply nods again, while I feel the grasp of my Mal become a little heftier.
"It's so, Ensign. It was her father. He was touching with his own hands that everything was true; that for real his daughter wasn't an ill-willing slave, forcedly oppressed under the power of Evil, as he had desperately hoped, but she had become an active part of the Evil Realm, not to say the most important part, together with the King; that what was told and his Monarch had taken for truth was really the truth; that Evil had played with him the most wicked of games. With him and above all with his daughter. And that even if he had found her still alive, he would have lost her in any case.
For her, there was no salvation.
He watched the richly decorated marble deathbed, fit for a queen, for The queen; the kingly insignias she wore, evident and unanswerable testimony of what she had become. No chains, no signs of violence, which he had together feared and hoped. There were only those insignias, which stood out gleaming on the ashen colour of her skin, on that wonderful face, pale and immovable, on those livid lips, that wouldn't smile anymore.
He watched them at the same time that he contemplated her death; and the end of all illusion.
And, while, in his harrowing acquired awareness, he was walking slowly toward the one who had been his loved child, he felt - like a physical and painful claw, tearing flesh and blood - the bodily and infernal presence of the monster who had been the cause of everything.
He detached his eyes from that inert form and looked at the Enemy, all the love he had had for his lost daughter turned suddenly into hatred capable of consuming the Universe."
Malcolm and I look bewildered at the Bannerda, struck by the flowing of his speech. It is as if he wanted to take us away, far away, back in time. As if the ardour, the heat, the eloquence of his words, sounding weird and inappropriate in this situation, were the means by which he wants us to understand.
What?
That we, all of us, regardless where we are born, are the sons of a past that knows no boundaries, that permeates every world and every people and that from this past will be born our future?
And because of that, we have to comprehend, fully and without the preconceptions of the civilized people we claim to be, what is behind us, if we want to escape the dark traps of a flagitious possible future?
I don't know, but, in spite of all the pressing urgency that calls on us, in spite of the unreal tragedy that swallowed our friends, it is as if the world where we are is dissolving in a more ancient world, disappearing from time immemorial, yet somehow really existed, even if its memory is deformed by the wing of time.
A world where huge tragedies took place, mothers of the tragedy that has engulfed us now; sources of the intangible, unknown Evil that has gobbled Trip and T'Pol.
And all this wickedness, all this evil, originated from love.
From the sick love of a fragile woman for a soulless demon ... and - I know, I feel it - from the love, broken and turned into a violent and rabid hatred, of a father for his beloved daughter, lost in a way that men are unable to comprehend, nor conceive.
My mind goes back in time, to the hands of my father, to the loving kindness of his caresses. I can't even imagine the pain of a father who lost a daughter, and nothing at all the heartbreaking sorrow of a father who lost a daughter in this way, and who hoped, against any reason, to retrieve her just as she had been and he remembers she was, unable to believe she could have really fallen into the obscure possession of Evil.
Only this could a father believe: his daughter, the child whom he has so many times cuddled with the love that only a father can have, will always be for him the daughter whom he had caressed in the days of serenity, of a hopeful future.
And I can perfectly understand how all this love can be transformed in endless and blind hatred, even if I am unable to have an exact perception of the unutterable pain of a father, who…
"From the man's contorted mouth it slid out, sibilant, a few words."
I startle at the harsh tone with which the Bannerda spits out these words, breaking the sorrowful flow of my thoughts and in such an improper way for him. Mal's grip gets harden on my hand.
Hissing and as filled with the same burning hatred that that father had had to feel, words that weigh as stones gush out from the lips of our host.
They are, I know, the words of unknowable fury of hate that that father, crazed by pain, had addressed to the Demon who had engulfed his daughter in the perdition of body and soul.
"The day of your end has arrived, foul beast." – A very brief pause, which increases the tension with which we are listening to, then ... - "And it will be by my hand."
His Excellency pauses again, as if trying to give more strength to his words; and in fact now I, and certainly also Mal, have understood that this is what he wants. His attitude, theatrical one might say, his way of speaking, his peculiar manner to tell us those ancient and mythical events as if it were the words of a Greek bard... maybe all this is part of Bannerdas' way of being. They are old, now I am aware of how they are old, if it's possible to conceive such immeasurable antiquity; they live of their past more than of their present, for them their past is the shade of their future and it is understandable that their manner of speaking can be as high-sounding as, now we know, it's high-sounding their endless past.
But, very more likely, everything is done on purpose, to fully grab our minds and to make us clearly understand that he is not speaking in vain, of empty things, that we must pay the greatest attention to what…
"You have to pay the greatest attention to what I am about to say, my guests." - I must restrain myself. This Bannerda, this very old man, part of a race so old, so antique… Is he capable of reading people's thoughts, by chance? – "Yes, it's needed you do so. You must listen with keen and open mind to what is told that happened in that night of damnation, because from this proceeds all that is happening in our days. And now I know that, even in its formless darkness, the legend… is true."
*Okay, man, okay. How would he say, my Italian co-worker? Ah yes, calm and chalk. Exactly, calm and chalk. Namely, focus and carefulness. Yes, that's the way. Weighting. No rashness. No precipitance. In one word… logic. Yes. Logic. This is how. My... my T'Pol would act so.*
The pitiless sun shines high in the sky of fire. The bare skin burns in its heat. The hot sand is blazing on the soles of the feet. The warm wind, dragging with it countless grains of impalpable sand, takes away breath.
But all this doesn't count.
It mustn't count.
Slowly, with studied nonchalance, the man bends quietly and puts down on the burning sand the hat clearly given him by wicked mockery, and along with it the water bottle, containing – this is evident - a little water, useless in its scarcity.
Then he straightens up and, as if he has the desert in great disdain, folds his arms and looks forward, remaining firm, purposeful.
*Are you watching me, "gracious" beast? Yes? Very well. I am pleased. However, I am afraid what you are going to see will go down the wrong way in your throat.*
The man cannot avoid grinning to himself with satisfaction. Inside his mind he clearly heard the roar of repressed rage of the unknown beast at his risky jeer.
Risky, even dangerous, perhaps. Sure. But how much satisfactory, in compensation.
And then, now he knows; yes, he is aware that the beast is closed in a corner, so to say; at least he has achieved this aim. As much as this horrendous being can be powerful, now this unknown demon - this Devil - has to observe, without interfere, what he, Trip, will be capable of doing. Yeah. Because this is the game without quarter that the two of them, he and the nameless demon, have silently agreed to play. He must show the value he possesses in order to free T'Pol, accepting every stupid rule that the monster wants to impose, and knowing that his end is marked in each case.
Eh surely; because he knows, felt in his brain, in the alien thoughts that whirled in his head, what his end will be.
Of course. What better than a little of "healthy" fun for this "gentle" beast, at the same time that it can get in this way the actual and clear verification that its choice about the recipient of its essence – even if inevitably forced – was a good one, in case he, Trip, passed unscathed through all the ordeals?
An useful and all in all amusing procrastination of the inescapable end of the man who dared defy this deuce without a name.
*Perfect, isn't it, damn Lord of any subtlety?*
But in return, the monster mustn't - shouldn't, maybe it's most proper - interfere. He, Trip, must be able to fully play all his cards. And for that, the beast allowed him to fully recover in body and mind as well as his T'Pol, so that she may be able to have full perception of everything: of his defeat, if he fails. And even of his eventual victory, in case. And of whatever may happen to him.
The smug grin turns off.
Damn evil and soulless beast!
Yeah, because this infernal being knows, as much as him, that in any event, there will be only one winner: the nameless and bodiless monster.
A shadow of deadly fear creeps down, deep down, into the man's soul.
Chilly and black.
Bodiless... until now.
*Oh, hell! What the heck are these thoughts?* - The man rises up even more, against the stifling wind - *At least… at least there is some hope for T'Pol.*
Hope? HOPE?
The naked man shakes his head staring ahead, at the ocean of glitzy sand that wounds the eyes.
To hell, if there is only hope! That sordid creature won't have T'Pol!
That's sure!
*Have you heard, my "courteous opponent"? YOU-WON'T-HAVE-T'POL! And now, you will see why and how!
HAVE YOU HEARD?
Have you…*
The man stops suddenly his futile invective. LOGIC, HAS HE SAID! And not acting like his temper would want him to do. If in the past this could have been considered merely childlike by his T'Pol, now it would be mortal for her!
*Calm down, man. Calm down. Logic, remember? Logic. Like T'Pol would do. She wouldn't waste her time with futile taunts. Even if... * - Sadness clenches forcefully his heart - *... even if, maybe, she would be capable of cracking a joke, exactly like me, even now. Because... because we are one.*
He raises his head in the merciless light and narrows his eyes, attempting to defend himself by the killing reverberation; strained and drawn; looking for.
Looking for the other part of him.
And down yonder, in the depths of his mind, he finds her. She has a feeble voice, it's faint and quavery her presence, surrounded and stifled by the persistent and pervasive buzz of the alien essence. But it is there.
And it will be his guidance.
*We are one, my love, do you feel me? WE ARE ONE!*
A weak contortion in his mind.
*Oh yes, I feel you feel me! This time, the beast can't sever our bond, if it wants me to act without restraints! This Devil cannot risk having wrong responses! I have to be what I am, to give this Demon the answers he needs; and the Bond is part of me. Of us, my love. Of both us! Because we are one! So, help me, my love! HELP ME, AS ONLY YOU CAN DO!*
And there is an answer to his recall. Of pain and terror! And then, a crying, desperate and dumb!
*T'Pol! T'POL!*
Rage! Fear!
*T'Pol!*
Rage! Rage!
*You! You... being treacherous and deceitful! Filthy beast! You cannot! You mustn't ...*
And once again the mental and alien uproar, made of incorporeal and wicked sneer, provides the response.
The devil is a master of deceit, and men are alone, in front of him.
Alone, only with their God and their courage.
Like him. Trip.
No help!
Only his strength and his value!
His despairing absurd courage.
And the stinging lash of the endless pain of his woman.
Of T'Pol!
And so be it!
With effort the man manages to recompose again himself, desperately attempting to ignore the stabbing sorrow inside him at the perception of T'Pol's heartbreaking despair: T'Pol's need is a need of strength from him.
One more time, he straightens to show...
To show...
The moment is come.
There is no more time.
Logic.
Logic.
And control.
Of body and mind.
He closes his eyes, and slowly, slowly, goes down.
He sits on the sand with legs crossed, assuming the lotus position, what T'Pol used when meditating, one that many times she had tried to teach him when she attempted to bring some Vulcan order in this pumpkin of unstable human man.
Invariably yielding to his blandishments of man and lover.
And to her desires of lover and woman.
*So those were all nonsense, right? Silly nonsense of Vulcans own, right? Want you to put the cool composure of the meditation with the warm satisfaction of making love? The calm control of body and mind with the fire of the kisses and passion? Those things were for ascetics, not things for you, for the solid and earthly man that you are, Trip. Making love with my T'Pol! Other than tedious and snobbish meditating! Other than sterile and exhausting control of the body and mind! There mustn't be control in love! *
Breathe. Slowly. Calmly. How do Vulcans to enter into meditation. How does T'Pol.
*Right, right. But maybe a little less about making love - a little less, just a little less - and a little more meditation - a little more, just a little more - would help, now, do not you think, fulgid example of solid and earthly man?*
This way. Quietly. No hurry. Without anxiety.
*But if she can crack jokes just as you do, then – perhaps… correction: CERTAINLY! - you can meditate just as she does. You can control your body and your mind, just as she does. After all, there's the Bond between us! There is, damnit. There is! Even now. ESPECIALLY NOW!*
There, here is. It's happening. Just a little effort yet.
*Yes, you can, Trip. She told you that you were capable, she was proud of your ability, the few times you wanted to do it. She told you that, if you would, you could exceed even her. If… if she wasn't joking again!*
There. There.
*Now you have to exceed her! YOU HAVE TO EXCEED EVEN THE GREATEST VULCAN MONKS!*
Control.
CONTROL!
*It's easy, Trip. It's logical, T'Pol would say. No man, Vulcan or Human or of whichever race, even the best man, even the wisest, even the stronger, even the greatest, has behind him the push of your love.*
There.
Control.
*Your love, Trip! Remember? Your endless love for your T'Pol!*
THERE!
*You controlled your death, Trip. For her.*
THERE.
*Would you not be able to control yourself?For the woman loved by you infinitely more than how a woman could be loved by any man?*
T-H-E-R-E.
*Infinitely more than how Juliet has been loved by her Romeo? *
T-H-E-R-E!
*For her, would you be not capable? *
THERE!
*FOR HER! *
YES! THERE!
"In front of that father, there was no longer the king of all evil, coming from the beginning of time. There was only the monster that had devoured his daughter, and, without thinking, unable to act lucidly, blinded by pain and anger and hate, he rushed upon the infernal sir, with outstretched hands as claws, to grab that alien neck, and break it, forever.
But there wasn't a simple man, on that throne. There was The King. And Evil can appear dormant, sometimes, but its sleep is light.
If it's ever possible that it can really sleep."
Malcolm and I are absolutely silent. We are strongly holding each other's hand, forgetful of any etiquette. Simply, we are hanging on the Bannerda's lips.
"The warrior prince, the doleful father, didn't even reach the King. The puissant hand of the Dark Sir snapped out the élan of the man just when this one was going to grab him.
As an unstoppable fury, he had suddenly leapt off from his apparent and unthought-of torpor without emitting any sound, had jumped on his feet and had grasped the man's neck with his mighty fingers. Now the warrior, even as powerful as he was, was hanging like a puppet from the King's hand. The Black Sir had raised it in high and it was keeping the warrior prince suspended by his neck with the same easiness with which the paw of a Lion could do with a kitten.
The Ancient Monarch and his men suddenly shook at the sight of what was happening and made as if to dash impetuously towards the awakened monster.
At that moment, from the dark, all around them, suddenly sprang out a very large cohort of black armigers, together with a horde of those horrendous beasts, those ghouls, that were the horrible companions, the bloodthirsty and brainless helpers of the dark warriors of the King's armies. They had waited, silent and keeping the beasts quiet; hidden in the darkness of the ravines along the walls; wisely shielded from the detectors of the men of the Ancient Monarch by means of their technology, as advanced as that of their enemies. Now, as one man, urging the slobbering beasts and savagely screaming and steaming with crazy furor, they assaulted the invaders as these were about to assail their sovereign. But before a single shot was fired, before a single flash of deadly energy was sliced through the air, before a single sword was crossed with another, before any ravenous maw could be bolted around any enemy flesh, a high and peremptory order of the King, almost a roaring scream, froze his men and the beasts.
And the men of the Ancient Monarch, too.
And even the Ancient Monarch, even he stopped abruptly.
He had heard – had felt - something in that chilling and inarticulate roar.
Something that was not just wild rage."
The heat does not burn.
*This way.*
The glowing air is sweetly refreshing.
*Keep it up.*
The burning wind is a gentle breeze that caresses the skin. It is mild, on the mouth and in the lungs; it makes breathing pleasant and easy.
*Do not lose your concentration.*
The sand is of a warm beach, whose delightful warmth invigorates the muscles, while in the air rises up the sweet murmur of the sea's waves, glinting, over there. And their music strokes the ears.
*Do not stop. Just like that.*
And the sun... it is the sun, pleasantly warming, shining in the blue sky of Earth, in a mild summer of the blue-green planet where he was born.
*Perfect. You are great, Trip. You could almost stop being an engineer and take up a career as a Vulcan Monk. T'Pol would be very proud of you.*
T'Pol…
Where… where…?
"T'Pol?"
He stands up, in the mild light, in the sweet warmth that surrounds him.
"T'Pol?"
He looks around.
"T'Pol? Hon?"
He seeks her.
"Lovey?"
She is yet in his brain, he can feel her. And she isn't crying anymore, is not in pain. Her fear is yet palpable, obviously, but the stranglehold of terror that had locked her is loose. That means that she is here, in this place of mind where, at least for the moment, the presence of that demonic creature doesn't seem to be. It worked. So?
*Come on, baby, I know you're there, and you know this is not enough. I need you.*
"T'Pol. Baby!"
Nothing.
*Come, darling. Let me see you. I know, this is not the white space that you love so much, but it's worth it anyway, do not you think? Frankly, personally I find this one even better, my love.*
"Trip!"
*Oh my Lord! Thank you Lord! Thank you, thank you, thank you, my God!*
He turns quickly at the sound of the voice so much loved and so highly desired. She is there, standing in front of him, her bare feet sunk into the impalpable and warm sand, golden by the laughing sun, of the beach lapped by the mild breeze.
Intact.
Naked and immensely beautiful.
And immensely amazed.
And if possible, this makes her even more beautiful and desirable.
Everything disappears at this time: reality and fiction, demons intangible and yet real, fear and wonder, fatigue and terror, rage and uncertainty ... everything. EVERYTHING! There is only her. Her! HER! And everything else ... does not matter a damn!
And she won't get lost! NO! She won't!
Suddenly, he leaps forward, runs toward her, spreading his arms to welcome her in his feverish embrace of love.
And she forgets all sorrow, even her astonishment itself, and she runs, she too, toward him, and takes refuge, trembling with incredulous joy, in his hug of salvation.
She remains so, for many wonderful moments, wrapped in the warmth of his arms, her face buried in his chest, surrounded by his heady scent, without speaking, without thinking, almost without daring to breath.
Living joyously the magical happiness of his indomitable love.
Then, everything comes back, inevitably, to her confused mind. But .. there is no need to get loose from his embrace. It is allowed – logically allowed - to stay yet so, to talk and ask still enclosed in the protective circle of his arms, the head resting on his chest, the nose nestled in his scent, with the cheek resting on his strong muscles, the lips hidden in his rough and yet smooth skin, fragrant by him.
"Trip..." - Softly, gently, brushing the lips against his skin.
"Hon?"
How warm is his voice, coming from above her head, from his mouth, that is kissing sweetly her hair with a multitude of small kisses .
"Trip, how... how...?"
It's marvellous feeling the mild trembling of his chest against her cheek, as it shakes with his soft laugh. His laugh! How wondrous is his laugh! How much she wished to hear it again! What a terror to lose it, to lose him!
"Well, darling! Are we bond-mates or are we not?"
"But... but you are not Vulcan! You... you cannot..."
Again, his wonderful laugh. Oh yes, yes! Still so! Buried in his arms!
"Evidently I can, Hon. Don't you think it's… illogical… denying the facts' reality?"
*Oh more, more! Yes more! Tease me again just the way you know to do, as only you can, Ashayam!*
"After all, I've made you able to joke. Why should you not be capable of making me able to build my personal white space to share with you? Well, maybe it is a little different from what one a Vulcan can conceive, but I don't think it is disagreeable, is it?"
*Oh still! Still so, my T'hai'la! Still so!*
"But... T'Pol..."
*No. NO! Don't do it, Ashayam! Don't take this serious tone! Don't tell me what I know. I want to stay so. I want to stay so!*
But it's impossible. She knows it, and knows why her Ashayam is gently forcing her to raise her head and to look into his eyes; his eyes so blue, so beautiful! So glistening with love for her.
"T'Pol, my love ..."
Softly, gently, persuasively. But how hard is it! How he would like to ignore everything and get lost in her eyes; so dark, so beautiful! So glistening with love for him.
But it's impossible. He knows it, and knows that she knows it the same way.
"Hon, here we are safe. No one inside your head, no monstrous creature, no pain, no torture. An oasis of calm where, at least for the time being, that creature doesn't seem to be penetrating, or doesn't seem to want to penetrate. All that he can see or in any way you want to call it his perception, it's me, sitting on the sand of the desert, doing who knows what, and you, chained I don't know where. But you know that this is an unreal place, you know it, and we can't stay here forever. Apart from the fact that I would not be able to support such an effort for so long, that being won't allow us to deceive him so easily. He will understand and penetrate here, and split our minds as watermelons, taking by force what I managed to steal at the moment with guile. You are the teacher, I am the disciple, so it is useless that I talk with you of things you know much better than me, and that I explain what to do. I must find you and free you for real. And only you can make me able to do it. You know it as well as me. For that, I made this mad effort, something that I wouldn't ever have thought I could be able to do and that only I could do, because your mind was totally invaded by that devilish being and because he gave me power to act more or less freely, by accepting my challenge. This was the only way: I had to find you here, to be able to find you even in the real world. If... if that one is truly a world... real!"
There. It is done. He said everything, everything that needed to be said. He would never have thought of being able to speak so long, in such an articulate and complex way. He finds it hard to recognize himself. But he is no longer the man of a time, the rough-and-ready man of just a few words and many facts, and not infrequently of scant ponderation and too impetuosity.
There is the Bond now.
There is T'Pol.
And he must save her. With the facts, but also with words.
In any way he can.
At any cost.
T'Pol…
His T'Pol. His reason to be.
She didn't even notice his way of speaking. It is quite something else that replenishes her brain and her Katra.
Her wonderful face is again buried on his chest. The relentless truth of his words tears apart her mind. No. NO! She cannot go back, cannot again feel that… that thing inside her head. She cannot. She cannot! SHE CANNOT! And… and then...
"My treasure, T'Pol... "
How can one do? How can a man, so in love and so conscious of the feelings, of the perceptions and sensations of the woman he loves so much, be capable of asking her to give her consent to such a great suffering? And yet this must be done. This one, this place, is a notional salvation, useful only to attain real salvation. Her salvation, for real.
The strength of his embrace grows, he holds her tightly to him, kisses her fragrant hair, pushing back, deep down, the tears of despair and pain that he feels emerge in his eyes.
His voice is a faint whisper in her ears. - *Her marvellous pointed ears! * - "Hon, there is no other way, you know it."
She does not move away her head from his chest, huddles strongly against him. She talks, in a very low voice, with her lips pressed against his chest.
"Trip, I can't go back! It is… it is impossible to have the slightest idea of what it is to have that thing inside the mind!"
He feels her bestir violently against him, between his arms. He has never seen her like this.
"Oh my life! I…"
"And then… I don't want you to find me!"
"Hon?"
"If... if you find me... if you free me... you will have won the first ordeal."
"Darling, yes. So..."
"So you will have to face the second."
"Sure, Hon, and..."
"And if you will go through it, it will come the third, the final one."
"It's so, Hon, and if I..."
"And if you will win the final ordeal..."
"You will be free, my love. And safe."
Those splendid eyes of her, are raised once again to look at the face of her love. They are filled with tears.
"Perhaps, my Ashayam. Perhaps, for what we know. But my salvation will be your perdition."
And now? What could he reply? What?
Those wondrous eyes of her shine by tremulous tears. Her mouth trembles.
"How could I live without you, T'hai'la? How can you believe that I can be safe, if you are lost?
Now it is absolutely necessary reply something. And indeed well. It is... it is needed being the Trip she loves.
He holds her to him again, with infinite gentleness - with infinite love - burying her head in his chest one more time.
His voice sounds almost cheerful, like teasing. "I think I should really apologize to you, my love."
Her voice resounds from his chest, feeble and puzzled. "For… for what?"
"Because I have contaminated you with my humaneness, with my human weakness. You must be strong, darling, as a Vulcan woman has to be. You mustn't be weak as a human female."
Her head snaps upwards and she stares at him almost in rage. Her voice mirrors her visage. "I am not weak! I've never been so strong since I became yours! The other Vulcan females don't know what they lose! With you, I am able to be in all my potentiality and to live fully and completely the life we share – this gorgeous life! - without any fear for things my countrymen won't ever have, if not in reason of Humans' grace, Humans like you; things that make life deign to be lived; things as… as your... as your love, my Ashayam! This, your love, our love, makes me complete and immensely strong! With effort and with absurd struggling within, I have learned this, but I have learned, at last! Your love makes me much stronger than any other woman, and... and I can't get along without it!"
He not if it gives of it for understood. But how hard it is! How hard is it! Why must she speak of their love in this way, with such an ardour, with such a sincere and unrepressed élan, just now? Why must she say now - right now - words that in other moments would make him explode with joy, and now just make things more difficult? Just make him die by pain? Why must she speak so now? JUST NOW?
But he must, absolutely must, be adamant and tough. This time he can't be a weak Human; weakness is not allowed for him, this time. And so he goes on, trying not to be deviated from the purpose he must pursue because of the immensity of what she said. - "And because I have contaminated you with all my human illogic."
Her voice resounds again, no longer loud; trembling, once again. She has understood. Logic is her own way, she knows what her T'hai'la means. She knew it since she was sucked into the "white space" that her Ashayam built. She knew - and knows, perfectly - why her Trip did this. And hers is only a rhetorical question, made to gain time. Still a bit of time. Just a bit. "What... what do you mean?"
*Now you must be perfect, Trip. You must show all the speech ability your T'Pol taught you. All the logic she was capable of instilling inside you, more or less consciously.*
"Our only hope is hope, my love. I made a pact: me in exchange for you. If I abide by it, maybe - maybe - there will be some hope also for me. After all that thing has simply said, or hinted or whatever you want to call the way he communicates, that he accepted my challenge, not that he would have wanted to have me in your place in any case. This is hidden in the unknowable will of this being. But we cannot fight against him, we can only go along the path of tenuous hope that he seemed allowing us to go through."
"Trip…" Her face is again pressed against his chest, her tears are wetting his skin. Like his are doing with her hair.
"But if I - we - do not respect the pact, there will be no hope, my Darling. This infernal being will take possession of you and me. If I win, there is hope that you will be safe, and maybe also me, although I am well aware that it is a 'maybe' terribly full of uncertainties, likely only wishful thinking. However, if I don't do what I promised to do, there will be no hope, neither for you nor for me. And we cannot think to stay here, in this artificial place of peace, forever. He will take us away from here, and we will sink back into horror again, without any hope to go out from it. He sees us, he is waiting."
"Trip..." Once again. A faint voice, in the face of truth.
*Hold her to you, man, hold her, tightly! Perhaps ... perhaps you won't be able to do this ever again! *
"I must find you, in that semblance of real world where we have sunk, if we want to have some hope. There is… - *Say it, say it man!* - …there is no other logical choice."
"Logical choice!" - Once again her head snaps aloft, and she looks at his face with unrestrained anger. – "Do not speak to me of logic! You don't even know what logic is!"
*God, help me!* - "T'Pol, please..."
"And not even that horrendous creature knows logic!"
"T'Pol..."
"Trip... oh my Trip!" - Anger fades away; there is imploration, now. She cannot lose him, she cannot! – "You know you will be lost! In any case! He needs you! You! Not me! Maybe at the beginning, but not now! Now I could be his pleasure, but you are his life! He won't let you go away! He..."
"He accepted my challenge, T'Pol."
"But he did this only out of pure malice, Ashayam. He IS pure malice, he is wickedness. I know it very well, he was in my head! He is playing with you as the cat does with a mouse!"
"But sometimes the mouse manages to escape. Sometimes the cat lets the mouse go away."
"He won't do it! HE NEEDS YOU!"
"But there's hope that you will be free!" - Frustration, despair. - *Oh my God, my God! Give me the right words! I must convince her! I must! I MUST! I MUST!*
"FREE?" – Anger again, and dark desperation – "And what's the advantage of being free without you? WITHOUT YOU, MY T'HAI'LA? And then you know: it's impossible for me a life without you, literally. Actually it's not a mere fable that I may really die without you or become mad. Our Bond is..."
"It is strong, abysmally strong, I know." - *Yeah, sure. Incredibly strong, as far as we know. It has made me able to speak like an ancient rhetorician. Even more. It has even surpassed the barriers of death. Oh… holy crap!... Indeed… It's just so! And… and if… Man! Sure! Perhaps... perhaps this is the way. Yes. Maybe it is this.* - He looks at her with lighted up eyes, his face is flushed. He grabs her shoulders, heatedly, with sweet force. - "T'Pol! That's the point! If… if this being needs me, it's possible he won't kill me, I mean my mind, my… essence, in short what the hell is inside me that makes my body something more and different from a simple mass of flesh, muscles and nerves. Maybe… maybe, who knows… I mean… I could somehow continue to exist, within the folds of a body no longer mine. This is horrible, I know, but not impossible and, in some way, it brings us some hope even for me!"
He can feel the horror that emanates from her at the thought that his fate might be this, but he can also feel the outcrop of a faint hope even in her mind, for the first time. Because she understood what lies behind his words.
*Go ahead, Trip. This is the way.* - "I... I think it is not an empty simulacrum what that creature needs; I think he needs everything, body and mind."
He feels grow in her the tenuous shade of hope. - *Yes, yes! This is the way. It is this!* - "But, in this case, if you will be free, if that being will abide by his word in case I will be capable of being victorious in all the ordeals… YOU!... You… with our friends and their help… you - our Bond – perhaps will be able to find the way to make me free too."
Her eyes widen. It's absurd, illogical, and frighteningly hair-raising, for more. Her T'hai'la, his soul, his essence, compelled - inert and impotent! - in some remote corner of a body no longer theirs. And perhaps - no, worst! - most likely... MOST LIKELY!... conscious - helplessly conscious - of everything!
HORRENDOUSLY SCARY!
But… but somehow… if that may be possible… maybe, in some way, he may yet live a feeble semblance of life.
And… and in this case…
It is only a faint hope, a horrible and anguishing hope, actually, but it's still a hope, after all, and there is, it exists.
How would her Ashayam say? As long as there is life there is hope. Not only that: he would add that there must be – always - something to hold onto. Always. That one cannot surrender without a fight. It is true: Humans would never do that. Her Trip would never do that!
Her hands go up, to his face, and tenderly take it between them. Her eyes don't leave his, while his arms hold more and more tightly her to him.
There is a despairing desire of hope in her broken voice, as she speaks.
"It is a huge, steep mountain of faint hopes, that we must climb, Trip. Very fragile, tenuous hopes."
"But they exist, Hon." - *Oh my God, thanks! THANKS! She seems to listen to me, in the end.* - "And we cannot ignore them." - *I beg You, I beg You. Another small effort yet!* - "And then, my life, think about it. What hope there was that I could penetrate in the bowels of the mountain? Infinitesimal? Less than infinitesimal? Yet I've done. And what hope there was that I could oppose the will of that being? Microscopic? Virtually non-existent? Yet it happened. And what supremely little hope there was that I was able to build this mental space so that we could meet and talk and plan and hope? Neither you nor I would have believed it, if anyone had told us such a story. Yet here we are. We met. To talk. To plan. To hope."
"Trip…"
"I beseech you, my love, my life, my everything. Do not deny me the opportunity to save you and, perhaps, to save me too. Having hope is not illogical. Illogical is giving up hope."
How long can a look last of mutual understanding, a gaze of love, a look of hope, between two beings who love each other like no one else will ever do? A moment? A life? A nothing? An eternity?
Nobody knows. Maybe ... maybe the needed time. Perhaps only this can be the answer.
A kiss. Yes, still a kiss. Long, soft, sweet, poignant. Infinite.
A kiss.
Then...
She frees herself from his embrace.
She recoils slowly, staring fixedly at him.
He too is watching her intently. His face is slightly sweaty. And softly hard.
She reads very well his visage and his expression, there's any need to share thoughts: he is her Trip, her Ashayam. She is able to understand everything about him. It is passed an endless time since there were misconstructions and misunderstandings between them.
She sees and feels perfectly how he is; she is able to descry the most deep folds of his soul, as much as he attempts to hide them.
And she reads deeply inside him, reads his deadly fear.
He is afraid. Mortally. The icy grip of fear clenches his heart. He knows what expects him.
And he…
… is ready, has no doubts: he is willing to face the most horrible of fates for hope.
For her.
Therefore...
She will go back in the real world.
She will accept again that horrid presence in her mind.
And she will fight.
Yes, she will. Like him, like her Ashayam.
She will be able to maintain the tenuous thread that he has been capable of creating to unite them, to enable her to guide him to her.
And she will guide him.
And he will free her.
And he will fight again.
And again.
For her.
And he will win.
And when and if he will seem lost ... she will fight for him.
And she will save him.
"What had happened, Your Excellency? What did people see, called by the shout of the King?"
I almost give a start, in hearing Malcolm pose the question.
Definitely, the Bannerda has reached his aim, if this one was to lock our minds to his narration. Even Malcolm has put his impatience behind the need to know how things went, in that ancient night of love and death, and I don't think that's only because we must rescue Trip and T'Pol and the Bannerda's recount seems to be the key to help us.
Slowly and nearly with a sort of restrained lassitude, the old man sits down on his high chaise.
It's coming the heart of everything, I understand it very well.
For a brief moment he passes his hand over his face, as if to gather forces and ideas, then stares at us, solemnly.
And talks.
Again.
Low and seriously.
"The King was standing, vibrating with rage and fury.
He was staring, without speaking, at the man whom he held with his mighty hand.
He had put him down, so that his feet could rest again on the ground, but he was still holding his neck with terrible force. He had approached his face to his, and was staring at him.
Steadily.
Intensely.
Fixedly.
Intently.
He seemed to want to suck his soul, with his look.
He spoke, at last. It was the voice, without time and without soul, of the King. An arcane resound of ancestral fears.
'I know you. I know who you are. I've seen you many times in her dreams.'
The awfully strong hand of the King shook violently the old warrior, while a rumbling of thunder seemed to resonate deep in his throat.
He approached his face even more to that one of the man, so that their visages were almost touching.
No one spoke.
Nobody moved.
Something, tremendous, was coming.
The King roared with low voice on the face of the man.
'You think that she is dead because of me?'
The Warrior Prince showed no signs of any reaction. No matter how strong it could be the King, he too was strong, yet did nothing to loosen the grip that was choking him.
What wanted the Demon to say?
The sparkling eyes of the King seemed to ignite with a dark flame.
'You have to look elsewhere, measly being!'
The King's herculean arms snapped suddenly. They raised as a twig the mighty warrior until above his leonine head ...
'That's who caused her death!'
... and they threw the Warrior Prince with unprecedented violence against the wall behind the great throne.
Under the astonishment of the onlookers, unable to shake themselves from the grip of inexplicable inertia which had seized them, the miserable father, the doleful Prince, came to shatter against the wall. He fell to the ground, broken and bloody, and, under the impact's impetus, a hidden mechanism was put into operation, which was, evidently, just what the king wanted. The wall opened, and revealed..."
"What?"
"What?"
We spoke with one voice, Malcolm and I.
We are completely prey to the story.
His Excellency gazes at us. "Very often I have heard reciting and I have read this legend of love and blood and death and horror. Its dramatic force always grabbed me, making me tremble with the awe that the great literary works are able to instil in their readers."
He gets up, as if unable to stay still, to find peace. "But I knew, I was persuaded at least, that it was a legendary story, that its horror was false, only concocted in order to get hold of the readers' hearts. The fascination of the horror has always been and always will be a subtle and effective means to capture the attention of readers."
His Excellency turns impetuously toward us. "But... and whether, in the light of what we now know, in the light of that thing…" - He indicates the book on the table – "… a thing we thought was legendary and that reappeared from the mists of time and myth, to witnesses to the tangible reality and truth of what is behind this legend..." - It is a look of fear - yes, fear, real and palpable - the one that His Excellency addresses to us – "…whether, in the light of all this, wasn't it an invented horror the horror of those bodies of women, torn and blood-covered, lying in an inert pile on the floor of the hidden compartment that the wall's opening had revealed?"
The Bannerda continues to stare at us, with that look mixed with fear and authority at the same time. "Whether has this been true? Whether has been real the spectacle of those feminine bodies dead in horror and in suffering? The bodies of those women - women of our race and captive in the palace of the King - of whom it's narrated that they wanted to punish the woman who, in their minds, had betrayed them together with herself and their whole breed - our breed - following the sick dream of a love against nature, by killing her with the poison, as her abhorred lover was elsewhere, in the middle of the ultimate fight between us and him? Thinking that they were able to contribute in some way to the final defeat of this personification of evil, without understanding that in this way they themselves were falling prey of the evil they thought to fight, that their action was not right, but only blind revenge, fraught and bearer with evil in turn. For themselves. For us. For everyone."
It is a crescendo of pressing questions, from His Excellency, now. Rhetorical questions, because the answers are clear; and they are disturbing answers, which carry many more questions. Equally disquieting. "If were it true that we, and all those came after us, must pay at the greatest cost, the evil's contamination we fell in during that night, when we haven't been capable of repressing our bad instincts, by slaying without pity all of our enemies at the same time that a handful of women of our ilk - a ilk that should have been the torch of good - has murdered without compassion the one, the innocent female, who, to all intents and purposes, was nothing else than the first victim of an evil destiny?"
The old man bends with his torso toward us, giving more force in this way to his words. "And if were it not a mere chilling tale the appalling outcome of the action of those women? If for real their awful death, the horrendous revenge that the King took on them for what they had done, was only the first manifestation of the harsh punishment, to which the primeval power from which we, and together the King and his people, had taken origin, was condemning those who had demonstrated to be unworthy, incapable of being what they should have been?"
The old man rises up in his full height; his eyes sparkle with intense vigour, they seem wanting to pierce us; his voice bursts out powerfully from his mouth. - "And if this…" - His arm extends in a sweeping gesture, enjoining the hidden servomechanisms to perform his unspoken order. – "…were real?"
I cling to Malcolm, who holds me tightly - VERY TIGHTLY! - to him.
I watch in horror and disbelief the image that appeared in the air, in the middle of the room.
That face ... human and bestial ...
Those eyes ... those empty sockets… those hollow holes of bad...
Chilly and yet flaming ...
Drowned under those bushy eyebrows and shaggy…
That mouth, human and feral, twisted in a malevolent grin ...
Those thin lips that seem to conceal sharp fangs and deadly...
I wouldn't know how best to suggest the image of the devil.
Oh hell! The devil another time?
End of Chapter Seven
TBC