In the Hall of the Mountain King
By Asso
Chapter Eleventh
(The Eleventh, after the Prologue - The Twelfth, counting the Prologue)
I know, I know. A lot of time has passed and there are a lot of loose ends. Forgive me, my friends. But now, do we want to try to continue to unravel the thread of this story?
Yes? Okay, in this case, please, read below. I and my friend Linda, who helped me to express myself a little better than how I am capable, we'd be really happy.
In the Hall of the Mountain King
By Asso
Chapter Eleventh
(The Eleventh, after the Prologue - The Twelfth, counting the Prologue)
"Okay. Okay! OKAY! We get it. It is clear. Clear! But...but…"
"But how did it happen, Your Excellency?" - The harsh and gloomy voice of Malcolm breaks mercifully my hysterical babble, providing more solid substance to what would have been my question. We are truly united, I and my Malcolm; also we possess something that could be said Bond-like. The road has been long, but now… His hand squeezes mine; its grip tells me with strength and love to be silent, to make him speak for both us. – "How has it happened that Lucifer has turned into Satan?"
There is no longer reticence or inhibition now, in my Mal, not containment. His gaze is taut and vibrant while talking, looking at His Excellency with explicit intensity.
The quizzical look and perplexed of the Bannerda lasts only a moment. Mal immediately gives answer to any possible question he may ask. "Lucifer, the light bearer, the most beautiful creature and bright that came out from the hands of the One Who started the whole, the most lofty of Angels. And Satan, the one who opposes. The adversary. The enemy. - Mal strongly utters these words. - The what into which Lucifer was turned. The devil."
Malcolm lets go of my hand.
I glance at him. I do not speak. He advances. Just one step. Gravely. He stares at the old Bannerda. – "The Great Enemy."
No unwillingness now. No. None. Only the truth, which we, once and for all, want to - have to - know. – "How did it happen, Your Excellency? What happened when the Great Monarch faced the Great Enemy? Why..." - The voice of Mal rises, stentorian. There is no trace of awe or reverence in him. "...why are we here?" - His voice rises even more. – "What is happening – now - to T'Pol, the re-living Lil? And..." - His voice cracks. – "...to Trip, the…" – Just a small, almost imperceptible hesitation – "The re-living Great Enemy? The King?"
That way. In that direction.
There can be no doubt.
He feels her very strongly, inside his head, in his brain, in his mind. In his soul. His ploy worked. The linkage, the Bond, has been restored and it is strong.
And his T'Pol is calling him.
*Here, T'hai'la, I'm here. This way.*
Oh God, God, God! How he perceives her well and loud!
He can see her. She is naked, on her knees. In irons. Chained to a rock wall. A cave. Lit by torches. Wet and cold.
He can feel her suffering. The cold she feels. The pain of the iron bands that girdle her wrists and her ankles. The torment of the rough neck brace that clenches her throat, that prevents her from moving her head, that holds her nailed to the rock, that forces her to stay on her knees.
He can feel her fear.
He can sense the horrid presence that vises her mind.
He can perceive the superhuman effort, even well beyond any ability to control that even a Vulcan can possess, that she is making for not caving in to all that pain, that fear, that inhuman, demonic essence that permeates her body and her mind.
He can understand and experience, as if it was him himself feeling it, the desperate effort of will that she is carrying out not to fall into the abyss, not to fall prey to that demon, to keep alive the Bond that he has managed to restore, to give him a guide, a track, a voice, allowing him to come to her.
*Here, T'hai'la, I'm here. This way. Come to me. And make me free. Free me. I beg you. Free me from Him!*
Free.
*T'Pol. T'Pol T'Pol T'Pol! My love! My treasure, my whole, my everything, my... my...*
Free.
He is free. The damn demon keeps himself out from him. The word of the devil. The… word of the devil.
Free. He must be so, because he must fight, freely and fully, his challenge. He must fully face the first of the three trials.
But she, his beloved love, his T'Pol, no. She, no. She's not free.
She suffers and struggles in the throes of that Being, who goads him mockingly, with the biting, abrasive spur of her pain.
Of her fear.
Of her terror.
But she resists.
She dies of pain and fear, but she resists.
She resists.
She calls him.
She traces the way to him.
She does what she has to do.
He… he must be worthy of her.
He must free her.
And he must help her.
He must help her, he must! He must, he must, he must, he… The Bond!
The Bond. Their strength.
Their weapon.
Stronger and more powerful than anything else.
Because it is the expression of their love.
Stronger and more powerful than anything else.
He has managed to attract her to him before, through their Bond.
He was able to show, de facto, that the Bond is anything but unidirectional, that he is a very active part of it.
But then, in this case, if it is so, perhaps, he can use it again. Yes. In order to...
An outpouring of love and strength radiates sudden and powerful from him. From his body once again intact and strong, by the will of that creature that wants him physically fit and mentally, to face the challenges. And from his soul overflowing with infinite love.
It goes. Goes, goes, goes...
It reaches her.
It submerges her.
It floods her.
And T'Pol rears her head.
In spite of the neck brace which blocks and martyrises her in excruciating agony.
And she smiles.
T'Pol, the Vulcan, smiles.
The most tormented and ailing smile ever seen in the universe.
But T'Pol does it.
*We'll make it, Trip.*
He... he has never felt her, this way! He seems even to be able to hear her words in his head!
*T'Pol...*
*We'll make it, Ashayam.*
"What is happening to your friend Vulcan First Officer? To your Commander Tucker?"
"Yes, Excellency."
"I do not know."
"Excellency..."
"But I can imagine."
I advance in my turn, placing myself at the side of Mal. "And what do you imagine, Your Excellency?"
The old Bannerda throws me a strange look. He averts his eyes from me, almost with shame. He turns to Mal.
"The answer to this question proceeds directly from the answer to that other question, placed from you, Lieutenant, ie., how the transformation took place, because from this it stems all the consequences, including those that led to here the two of you and those that your two friends are undergoing now."
"And then talk, Your Excellency."
The Bannerda nods. "The two opponents stared for a moment. The Good. The Evil. Just a second. Then the swords sang."
I approach my Mal. Its proximity gives me a bit of the security I need.
We are going to know.
The devil - our ... Trip - is about to be revealed to us.
In all his essence.
It is powerful. This Bond is powerful. Incredibly powerful.
Now the King has understood. That Being, that other ... that other Himself, has used and is using, not even knowing how, the force that unites him to that Vulcan, to ... to that new Lil.
He has managed to attract her to him, to create, or rather recreate the connection that links them, for then to use this connection as a guide wire and now, through this Bond, this force, she is leading him to her, just as he is giving her the strength she needs.
He, The King, knows all this, without the need to penetrate the man, because He is inside her.
He encloses her, keeps her, holds her, dominates her. This is useful. Her suffering is like a lash that impels painfully the man to find her, in order to free her - foolish being! It is the more appropriate spur to plunge him, headfirst, into his absurd challenge.
But it is also beautiful. Extremely satisfactory. Fulfilling. Yes. Decidedly pleasant. Intoxicating.
What a wonderful feeling! Being back able to inflict pain and suffering! Certainly, hurting a Being so similar to His Lil carries with it something perturbing, subtly disturbing. But that woman is not Lil, or rather she is not EXACTLY Lil. Even admitting that she is her reincarnation, she is still another woman, in whom her life experience, different from that of Lil, has carved the marble of her essence, making her what she is: Lil and at same time not Lil; which does not mean that, in due time, the marble can not be moulded again, in order to make her marble completely similar to the marble of Lil.
And then, whether it's disturbing or not what He is doing to that woman, it is not that He, the King, has been exactly - The term comes out with difficulty from His memory - tender not even with Lil, His Lil. His race, His life, His essence, were and are force, violence, malfeasance, as it is inevitable – and right - that it is, and, of course, although, it is necessary say, Lil had in some way changed Him, He couldn't change so much that, towards her, He could have been different from what He was and is, nor He had wanted this. Overall, He had been also with her what He was and is and always would be: the King.
But, which had always given Him to think, then as now, Lil seemed to be, and in fact she was, glad, happy of what He was. She did not want Him to be different. She simply wanted Him. The man that He was. And this ... this managed to give birth in Him to that thing... that thing He did not understand and that she called love.
That thing that had led Him to feel for her - and to show her - sometimes... tenderness.
He. The King. Tender. With His Lil.
But that had been before.
Then... it had happened what had happened.
And from that moment, He had no longer been able to feel tenderness. From that moment He had been able to feel only anger. And fury. And madness.
And in that anger, in that fury, in that madness, His enemies had crystallized Him.
Forever, they thought. And disposed to pay, as they then had to do, the dearest of prices just to reach such a result.
But they had not reckoned with His mind, distorted, deformed, reduced to the fury and madness, but still His mind. And had not reckoned with destiny. And with the subtle play of the passing of time, that, in its endless flow, makes all possible, even what appears to be impossible.
Which means, things being this way, that it is definitely possible that, now, for Him, they are opening the doors not only for His rebirth, by now ineluctable, but also for His return to what He had been.
To what, to the one He had really been.
To the one He had been before.
That body, which will be His new body but which is, in some way, also His antique body, and that woman, who will be His new Lil but who is also His true, antique Lil, maybe they could allow Him to feel, again… tenderness.
Such as that that this man feels for his woman, that reverberates so strong inside their Bond.
Yes, it's really powerful, this Bond.
Just like the one that bound Him, the King, to His Lil.
But the Bond is not enough. It is not enough the female's guide, her recall.
There is the desert around the man. Its hot sand. Its scorching sun.
There is the red-hot bleakness which that man hates and which He, the King, picked up in the knowledge the female has of him, and that He created by means of the frigid, dead machineries which have become His world, his soulless existence, his essence itself, just to put the man in the fine midst of one of the things he most loathes and against which he seems to really have poor defences.
What will he do, the man, to resist the desert? And how will he overcome the glowing space that separates him from his own Lil?
Suddenly the King stops in his thoughts.
He…
He is rooting for that man.
And not just because the man's victory will be His own victory.
"Cleaving blows, puissant strokes, moves, feints, pirouettes.
Sparks from the blades clashing against each other.
The last challenge was taking place.
Under the high vault of the King's palace, in front of the mute warriors of the Grand Monarch, of the silent minions of the Dark Lord, of the drooling and monstrous Ghouls; in front of the marble shelf on which the dead Lil's body lay; in front of the horrendous pile of the lifeless bodies of the women who had murdered her, the two opponents have faced the last fight, the final duel.
The death of the one.
Or the death of the other.
The victory of the good.
Or the victory of the evil."
Mal and I listen, fascinated. All this ... has happened. Truly. Really.
It is charmingly packaged and narrated, too, in the manner of a fairy tale, or, rather, of a grim legend of love and death, of a gothic tale. But it is not.
The riveting storyteller, the Old Bannerda, is well aware of that, now. And we too are by now conscious of it.
"But the evil was powerful. The King was powerful. And the death of Lil, his thirst for revenge, increased a hundredfold his forces.
One shot, terrible, and the Great Monarch fell to his knees, his sword hurled away from him, in pieces, in fragments, minutes and dispersed.
The universe stopped.
The Great Monarch lifted his eyes.
In front of him, looming over him, the Dark Lord, motionless and icy, raised slowly his mighty arm.
His burnished sword shone glittering.
Heaved aloft.
To be lowered with disruptive force.
To give death."
Death. The desert will be his death.
The disembodied eye follows the naked man, who advances decided on the hot sand, under the scorching sun.
He knows where to go, now.
But how will he reach her? How will he pass, unharmed, the deadly wilderness that separates the two of them?
How will he escape death?
"But the blade didn't go down."
I realize that I'm holding my breath. And even Mal.
"Suddenly the eyes of the Dark Lord widened in surprise.
In pain.
They ducked to look at his chest, at the black cuirass that covered it.
At the sharp tip and dripping with his red blood, that stuck out from his armour. The tip of the blade that had speared him, from behind, that had transpierced him from side to side."
"The father of Lil!"
The Bannerda nods to the damped exclamation that burst out, unstoppable, from my mouth.
"Yes, Ensign."
"He managed to do what he had said he would!"
"Yes, Ensign. The fatal strife had attracted everyone's eyes and minds, and no one had longer had any attention for him and for his broken body lying on the ground, against the wall. But he was not dead; he was holding back his spirit with teeth, waiting.
The death dance of the two contenders had brought them near to him and when the fate of the Great Monarch seemed to be fixed, he managed to rouse himself. He acted. And he honoured what he had said. By his sharp and long knife.
'Lil is avenged, foul beast.'
Everyone could hear these faint words, that the father of Lil succeeded in saying, exhaling the last breath of life, all eyes now focused on him.
Even the King heard them, while his hand lost its strength and dropped the sword, which fell down, slamming into the ground with a dismal thud; while the blue of his eyes was getting lustreless and his face bleached, quickly, as a gush of dark red blood welled plentiful from his mouth, taking away with it his black soul."
"But, Excellency, that's impossible. The King didn't die. If it had been so, how could he be turned into...?"
"Into that thing, Lieutenant? Into your devil?"
"Yes."
"He died, Lieutenant. It couldn't not be so. The blade of his nemesis, the one from whom he had stolen the body and the soul of the daughter, had split his heart. In one shot. The blade had stopped the King's heart forever."
"Excellency…"
"His body died, Lieutenant. But…"
"But?"
"But not his mind, even though, in reality, what was the true mind of the King, it, too, died, in a sense."
"You can not resurge from death."
"But you can cheat death, if you have enough knowledge. If you know how to do. "
That man, that Human who has His hair, His eyes, His strength and a woman who looks as, could even be, His Lil, might he be Him to such an extent? Might he have even enough knowledge, as He had had, to cheat death? Might he know how to do?
*Okay, man. Don't be distracted by her torture. Focus, try to reason. Now you know where T'Pol is, even if only vaguely. At least, you know in which direction you need to go. The distance, though, that separates you from her, can be an hour or a day or a month or a year. Or a century. And here, in this desert, under this sun, with nothing to protect you nor anything to drink, because you, with your usual foolish impetuosity, have given up even to that asshole hat and the little water you had been granted, well, you'll be dead in less than half an hour.*
Yeah. Just like that. But …
This desert, from where the hell, just to stay on, came it out?
The nightmare planet on which they have landed, has anything but deserts, it is practically covered with forests. There is only that mountain, over the forests and, under the mountain there is, and he has perfectly realized this, what there has to be. Rock, tunnels and caverns.
Of course, if this Being is so powerful as he seems to be, you may think that the desert was really created by him.
However... however, given for true that that Being is really the devil or something very close to the devil ... well, the devil is not the Creator, does not have the ability to create, or, at least, he should not own it. Creating ... hell, creating it is not a no brainer! Who was really able to do it wouldn't have need to stay holed up inside a mountain to wait for a body for him, a body in which to lodge. A body, such a Being could easily create, and certainly better than that of a poor engineer of scanty brain. Such a Being wouldn't let himself be dragged into ridiculous challenges, wouldn't fall to the nethermost level of nethermost creatures like him, miserable, lousy Human. Such a Being wouldn't need to resort to such cheap tricks by third string. By a strolling player. By a vaudeville magician.
Yeah ... sure.
By a vaudeville magician.
By… an illusionist. Like the ones that make you believe things that ...
The desert.
Yeah, the desert. To think about it, why the desert? He hates the desert, he has already risked losing his skin, in the desert. A better challenge to deal with, and most deadly, couldn't have been found. As if ... yes, as if that damn Being were full well aware that he loathes and fears the deserts, from the depths of the heart. And that fiend ... that fiend is inside T'Pol. That demon can know everything that she knows about him. Including his hatred and his fear for the deserts. His vulnerability, his fragility towards them.
And this desert... this peculiar desert… it is... For devil's sake! Just to stay on, again! This desert is the most nightmarish of the greatest nightmare of deserts! Indeed. It looks just like that nightmare of a desert that he has so often had in his nightmares after that nightmare experience. Sure. Just so. Maybe he should have noticed it before, but ... well, after all, he's got some justifications in this regard.
Okay. So what?
The devil… the desert… His, Trip's, own personal desert…
And T'Pol.
In a cave.
Chained to rocks.
The picture he has had of where T'Pol is, it is absolutely clear. But, what the hell could it do there, a cave, in a desert? In the bowels of a mountain, yes, a cave, here - it can stay full well. But in a desert, no. Not at all.
Sure.
How... how also is he called, the devil? The Lord ... yes, the Lord of deceptions.
A vaudeville magician, basically, may the Horned Sir forgive him. An illusionist. Who makes you believe things that… are not true.
Who can make you live your nightmares as if they were real. Fishing them from inside your brain.
Who swindles you with his deceptions.
Deceptions.
Deceptions.
A deception? All this a hoax? The projection of a nightmare of his mind?
Okay, let's see a little.
This desert is damn real. The sand is hot, the sun burns, the heat is atrocious. However, even the white space of T'Pol, appears real. And also his personal white space, the one where he was able to call T'Pol to him, has been damn real. But they are not. And, by the way, he, T'Pol, he did not ever touched her – for real - and has not even seen her – for real - since the two of them are here, in the bowels of this damn mountain. He has seen and touched - and embraced and kissed - her in his own white space. Not in the real world. And before... well, before, he has seen her chained up in the air. An image of her chained up in the air. He has seen... her image. Yeah. Her image.
Just what, of her, he was allowed to see.
But he never saw her in the flesh. He never touched her for real.
*So… in the end…*
So, in the end, to draw the conclusions, if he has to be… realistic, the only things that really can be considered real, in all this unreal scenario, are the mountain, its bowels, its rocks. Just as the rocks to which T'Pol is chained.
The rest… the desert… even… even T'Pol's location, the distance that separates her from him…
May it be true, his suspicion? May it be possible that, in reality, the desert does not exist? Indeed, that it could be that he has never moved from where he was, when he launched his challenge? Standing. In the bowels of the mountain. Or that, at most, he may have moved only a little? That he may have felt walking on the burning sand of a desert, actually doing no more than a few steps on the stone floor of the place where he was? In a cavern into the bowels of the mountain? Maybe ... maybe even the same cavern where T'Pol is chained or in a cavern a few steps from the cave - that one yes, real - where she is in irons, waiting to be found and freed by him? It is ... it is so strong her call, her voice. Her presence.
A nightmare. Is it possible? A nightmare, a nightmare of his own, made real by the Lord of deceptions?
Let's admit it. Yes, let's admit it. Let's carry on in this hope. But, and then? Is there anything to do?
Well, if you think of it, the nightmares... do not kill. Never. They can not. When you become subtly, indistinctly conscious that you're having a nightmare, you wake up. It is a defence mechanism. It can't be circumvented.
Just be aware that it is a nightmare.
Just have the will to wake up.
Just have the will.
*What is there to lose? If this is really a nightmare, a deception of the devil, wake up, man!*
Wake up!
BACK TO REALITY!
Just have the will.
*JUST HAVE THE WILL!*
The bodiless eye could burst wide open, if it were able, while it observes the man who managed to comprehend, who understood the fallacy of the world built around him and how to dispel the fake, mortal desert coming from his subconscious itself and who now, standing in the vast cavern in which he has always been and that is now clearly visible to his eyes, looks around and then, following the strong and clear trace of his woman's call, heads and runs speedily and securely towards the mouth of the tunnel that leads to the cave where she is.
That eye could pop out from its orbit, if it possessed an orbit from which it may squirt out, while it watches the man entering inside; while, bent, he goes through the narrow tunnel.
While he emerges into the cave.
Into that cave.
"Trip!"
"Remember, my friends." - The voice of His Excellency is serious and deep. - "We are talking about times and people whose scientific knowledges were enormous, exceeding our own. Of course, the myth has transfigured everything, but now we know that we are not talking of myths, but of reality, of what really happened; then we must be able to read what is behind and within the myth."
"Excellency." - The voice of my Mal is just as serious and profound as that of His Excellency. - "What tells the myth?"
"That there is always something imponderable in what you do, what you program. You decide something, and your decision, unpredictably, collapses on you. Your good, what you had thought was your good, it becomes your evil. And you will have to pay the consequences."
It is so good not to look real.
Yet it is so.
In front of her, while the desert which had inexplicably surrounded the cave of her imprisonment had completely faded away, naked and tousled - and wonderful! - there is her Trip, her T'hai'la, her Ashayam, her K'diwa.
Her deliverer!
True. Real. In flesh and blood.
Her flesh tight in the chains is burning with pain, her nude body is shivering in the damp and the cold, her brain is getting crazy in the grip of that abomination.
But he is there. Her love is there.
And he would free her.
Not even she could tell how she may be able to do it, but she succeeds. She lifts a little her head, ignoring the pain that such a gesture gives her because of the painful pull of the iron collar that encircles her neck.
She looks at him with eyes full of a weeping without tears. Of pain. But also, and above all, of relief. Of hope.
Of firm and steadfast trust.
Broken and feeble, her voice wafts weakly from her wan lips. "I was sure, T'hai'la. I was sure. We…" - A whimper. Insuppressible. – "…we would make it."
A moment, much less than a moment, and he is at her feet. On his knees. Is embracing her. Is tightly holding her.
Is protecting her. "T'Pol..."
"You've made it."
An aching sigh of reliance and love. "My T'hai'la".
That man, that Human... it is really Him. That man has had the knowledge, as He had had, to cheat death, has known how to do it.
But - a thrill runs through the disembodied essence - as to Him, the King, it happened, he too, that man, that reborn Himself, will have to pay the consequences.
There is always something imponderable in what you do, what you program. You decide something, and your decision, unpredictably, collapses on you. Your good, what you had thought was your good, it becomes your evil.
It happened to Him. The King.
It would happen to this man.
He confronts, fights, battles. But he knows well what end awaits him.
He knows it.
No matter how strong and sagacious and capable and bold and stubborn and combative, this being, this Human, may be. No matter how much the force may be, that the love and the reliance on him that his woman harbours for him, may instill in him. The destiny that has been His, of the King, would also be his fate. The impalpable wire that, from a remote past, has descended from Him, from the King, to that being and that inextricably unites them to one another, now would be unwound in its entirety.
Although by very different ways, although, unlike how it has been for Him, for the King, now nothing imponderable may exist for the man, his destiny is marked exactly as it has marked His.
As to Him, the King, it had happened...
The Old Bannerda reaches again his seat. He sits. He looks at us for a moment, before resuming his talk. The light from the window plays on his visage.
"The silence was broken by a scream. Or, perhaps, by a growl? Or by a howl? Maybe we should say by a sound that had never been heard before. A shriek of a beast that only of a beast was not."
The Bannerda does pause a brief moment. We have come to the point.
"Just as the by now lifeless body of the Grim Lord slumped to the ground, right at that moment, another body stood up to its full height, right next to the Great Monarch, still kneeling on the ground. A Ghoul, a huge, slavering Ghoul, the biggest and most powerful of all of them, had slipped, unnoticed in the tension of the moment, until it was close to the Great Monarch, and, even more and more importantly, to the Dark Lord.
Upright on its hind legs, as if it were something different and more than just a Ghoul, it lowered its monstrous muzzle towards the inert body of the late King, as if it were watching him intently.
Then, still standing on its hind legs, it lifted his snout and looked at - yes, it looked at - the Great Monarch.
And the Great Monarch saw his eyes.
Then it threw in the air, again, that inhuman cry that seemed human.
Then it fell back on its four legs.
And then it burst forth.
Like red lightning it ran through the ranks and the beasts towards the exit door of the Great Hall. It passed through it. Its human and bestial yell was heard getting lost in the corridors."
… also he, this new Himself, would enjoy the pleasure of having his own mind trapped inside another mind.
End of Chapter Twelve
With his mind trapped inside another mind. Another fierce, wild, insane mind.
Devilish, I'd say. You, what do you think, my friends?
TBC