Ellen was at a loss for words. If the strange man was right, then that meant there existed a dream world occupied by humans several centuries old, who sat waiting for people in her world to use their essences as fuel to create magic weapons, which they would then use to fight monsters that had also been created using their essences. There was no way such a place could exist, yet here she was now, speaking pleasantly to one of those very humans.
All this new information was a lot to take on. She looked to her wine glass. It was empty, so she grabbed the plump woman's bottle, filled her glass then gulped it down. She considered filling it up a second time, but opted instead to drink straight from the bottle. The wine was as pungent as ever, and she didn't care.
Once the bottle was empty, she faced the strange man. "I think you're right about everything."
The wine wasn't kicking in fast enough. She held the bottle above her glass and shook it, hoping to find a few more drops of its sweet, relieving nectar, but it was completely drained.
"But if all of that's true," Ellen said cautiously, "that means you and everyone here aren't human. You're... I don't know, but you're not human."
The strange man gave her a sad nod then lowered his head. "I've suspected that this whole time, and after our talk here, I know it's true." He slumped into his seat. "I don't know what we are. My best guess is that we're the spiritual remnants of people affected by some great catastrophe that happened hundreds of years ago. I don't have the foggiest idea what might've happened back then, but it seems to have reshaped the world."
Ellen's heart sped up. What if she had become like the strange man and his kind? Did her body still exist back in the waking world, or was she just a spiritual remnant who'd eventually be used as fuel for someone's weapon?
"You can relax," the strange man said. His voice was surprisingly steady despite having just discovered he wasn't human. "Us lucid types are very rarely pulled away. It's the hollows who are usually taken."
"I need to get out of here," Ellen said, her voice racing. "I'm not like you. I still have a body back in the waking world. And my friends-" She wanted to believe they were still alright, but she couldn't know for certain until she left this place. "How do I get out of here?"
"I don't know," the strange man said. He quickly added: "But you're not the first human from your world to visit us. If that man who came here before could find a way home, then I'm sure you can as well."
Despite all the wine she'd drank, Ellen felt perfectly lucid, more so than she had in days. "I'm not the first?"
"You're the second," the strange man agreed. "A few years back, a man calling himself the Autarch appeared outside Ain Sof Absolute. He marched up to the front gate and started shouting about how he'd unleashed a horrible monster upon the world. None of us knew what he was talking about. We just assumed he was one of our own on his way to becoming a hollow-everyone becomes a bit unhinged as it happens-but after our conversation here, I'm positive he came here from your world."
"I think I even caught a glimpse of his monster," the strange man added. "It was far off in the horizon, almost too far off to see, but it was there. Briefly, anyway. It didn't stick around here for long."
Ellen managed to relax a little, or maybe the wine was finally taking hold. "What sort of monster was it?"
"Big, with lots of, humph, arms I suppose I'd call them. Much bigger than this mansion. It could probably wipe out this whole area with one swing if it wanted to, assuming it noticed us. We probably looked like a speck of dirt in its eyes. That's assuming it had eyes."
His monster sounded uncannily similar to Amadeo's monster. That very same monster was about to find her friends. Despite the wine coursing through her veins, Ellen felt anxious.
The strange man snapped his fingers several times, looking excited now. "It's all coming back to me! When the Autarch first showed up here, there was a massive upheaval inside Ain Sof Absolute. Tons and tons of hollows vanished. Even some of us lucid types disappeared. We lost almost half our population that day, maybe more. That giant, humph, monster appeared soon after, then the Autarch came running to the front gate. I'm positive it was his entrance into our world that caused all that to happen."
"But I'm here," Ellen blurted out. "Is another monster like that-"
The strange man shook his head. "The hollows never leave Ain Sof Absolute, which I suppose you could say is the heart of our world. This place is just a small pocket world." He paused. "Now if you were to visit Ain Sof Absolute-"
"I can't," Ellen interrupted. "My friends, and my body-"
The strange man gave her a very stern, very serious look. "I think you should go."
"But why?" Ellen asked. The world had enough monsters in it already. "Why would I go there?"
"Because I think you can stop all of this. You can set us free from this purgatory we're trapped in, and you can free your world from monsters forever."
Ellen wanted to argue with him, but all her words ended up caught in her throat. Could she really save the world from monsters? It sounded too good to be true, but considering everything she'd experienced over the last few weeks, anything seemed possible.
The strange man sat upright. "Us... whatever we are, we can move between pocket worlds and Ain Sof Absolute with ease. I doubt you have that same power, but you don't need it. I believe there's another entrance you can use, one that'll deliver you straight to the front gates of Ain Sof Absolute."
"Where is it?" Ellen asked.
"A throne."
What did that mean? Ellen watched him intently, hoping for more information.
"Does that make any sense?" the strange man asked, and Ellen shook her head. The strange man gave his temples a furious rubbing. "All of this happened so long ago," he complained. "I wish the others were awake. I'm sure they could tell you more." He took a deep breath. "When he was pounding on our gate, the Autarch said something about a palace that existed between the old world and the new. He called it the White Palace, and he said there was a very special throne inside."
"What else?" Ellen demanded. She couldn't believe she was really having this conversation. She'd always dreamed about a world without monsters, and it was starting to look like her dream could become reality.
The strange man shrugged. "That's all I know. I think this throne is some kind of portal to Ain Sof Absolute. It might be similar to the portal you used to come here. I'd like to imagine that if you simply sit on it, you'll end up there."
Ellen's hope started to wane. She'd never heard of the White Palace before. The throne was even more of an enigma.
"But if you can enter Ain Sof Absolute," the strange man said, "your presence should cause another massive upheaval. If you're lucky, you'll completely wipe out my kind."
"You'll die though," Ellen said. "Doesn't that... bother you?"
The strange man smiled and laughed. His voice echoed all over the dining room. It was the happiest Ellen had ever seen him.
"I died a long time ago," he said. "If you pull this off, I might finally be able to rest. So will everyone here," he added, gesturing to the sleeping bodies around him, "as well as everyone in Ain Sof Absolute." He raised his right hand and gave Ellen another stern pointing to. "You too can rest, because your world will be free from monsters. Well, not completely free, I don't know if the old ones will disappear, but there shouldn't be any new ones." He paused. "So what do you say? Will you give it a shot?"
Ellen wanted to say yes, but one thing still bothered her. "What about the monster that'll appear? One of my friends told me about the monster the, um, Autarch created, and it's the worst monster in the entire world. It's so massive it exists in several dimensions at the same time. Even if there aren't any smaller monsters appearing anymore, the giant one I create will still exist."
The joy drained from the strange man's face. "That's an issue, I'll admit."
He lowered his gaze and started drumming his fingers on the table. Ellen watched him intently, hoping he'd come up with somet
hing. Simply surviving against the last few colossal monsters she'd encountered had been a struggle. Killing them was out of the question. A monster sent at her straight from the heart of this dream world was bound to be a thousand times worse than anything she'd ever encountered before. Thinking about it made her shiver.
"About this magic of yours," the strange man said. "Aside from that time you tried calling on me, and aside from the incident with the Autarch, it's very rare for lucid types like myself to disappear. It's always the hollows that are taken."
"What does that mean?" Ellen asked. "Do you think I can use you and your friends-"
The strange man nodded. "You seem to be the only person in your world who's capable of calling on us lucid types. You're oddly in tune with us, and I don't have the faintest idea why."
He stared silently at her, presumably waiting for an explanation, but Ellen could only stare back. She didn't have any idea either.
After a moment she said: "My knife. I've been carrying it with me for as long as I can remember. Well, everyone calls it a knife, but I'm not sure anymore. It has a power that no other weapon in my world has. I think maybe... Maybe it was created using someone like you, and that's why I can reach you." It was an outlandishly farfetched explanation, but the world she lived in, she knew now, was an outlandishly farfetched place. "And the mysterious stones I keep finding! What if they're also-"
Despite her excitement, the strange man looked more confused than ever. "Mysterious stones? I don't have any idea what you're talking about," he said, giving Ellen a shrug. "Now I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I'd like to think a weapon created using the, humph, essences of lucid types like myself will be much stronger than one created using the hollows." His eyes lit up. "If you can summon all of the lucid types trapped here and inside Ain Sof Absolute to your side and make us into a weapon, you could become the strongest human to have ever existed. It doesn't matter what sort of monster pops out at you, you'll be able to cut it down with ease!"
He was on the edge of his seat, but Ellen still felt skeptical. "Can I really call on all of you at once? The last few times I tried to reach you, everything blew up on me."
"You probably weren't ready to handle that much power, and I wasn't ready to leave yet, but next time we meet you should know what to expect and I'll be ready for you. So will all the other lucid types." The strange man stood up so fast he knocked his chair over. "I'll tell the others about our plan as soon as they wake up. Then we'll head to Ain Sof Absolute and spread the word."
The twinkle in his eyes vanished.
"You will search for the White Palace, won't you?" the strange man asked, sounding pitiful. "I'm sure you don't like having your world torn apart by monsters, and none of us here, not even the hollows, want to spend another thousand years trapped in purgatory."
Ellen watched him. His forehead was covered with wrinkles she didn't remember seeing a few minutes ago, and he looked like he might break down and cry if she said no. And she didn't want to say no, but if she did agree to help him, she'd have to spend several months, possibly years, searching for the White Palace. The search could easily kill her and her friends, assuming they actually believed her crazy story and followed her, and if it didn't, then the giant monster that was bound to appear when she reached Ain Sof Absolute probably would. However, if everything went well, she'd never have to see another monster ever again, plus the strange man and his friends could finally rest.
She suddenly felt very tired. All she'd ever wanted was a safe place where she could live alongside her friends, old and new, and her guardian and his friends.
But there were no safe places in the world, and there never would be so long as the denizens of this dream world continued giving birth to monsters. Someone had to set them free, and since she was the only person from her world who knew of their existence, it had to be her.
It was a massive burden to carry. Already her shoulders were starting to ache. Everything she'd ever done in her life felt utterly insignificant compared to the task that lay ahead. Hunting monsters with her guardian? Protecting the Monad Fortress from monsters? Wandering Amadeo's castle with Tear? Saving the Village of Majula from the mysterious sickness? Utterly insignificant, like comparing a single spec of dirt to the entire world.
Ellen sighed, then answered: "I don't know if I'll be able to find the White Palace... but I'll search for it."
In an instant she felt more miserable than she had in weeks. It was going to be a long time before she saw Ludendi, Barry or Trevor again. And her guardian. By the time she was finally ready to start her search, it was likely they will have all forgotten about her. That was assuming they lived that long. That was assuming she lived that long. The path before her was going to lead her straight to one of the worst monsters to have ever existed.
The strange man clapped his hands together in excitement. "You need to get out of here," he said as he rushed around the side of the table. "Gather all your friends together and build an army if you can. From what I remember, the Autarch is a very disturbed man, and if he's still occupying the White Palace I don't think he's going to hand his throne to you without a fight."
He was beside Ellen in a flash, urging her to stand, then once she was up he immediately started shoving her forward. He shoved so hard that for a moment she considered fighting back, but she was very eager to leave this strange place and return to her friends, assuming they were still alive.
The strange man ran ahead and opened the front door for her. "You arrived outside, right?" he asked, and Ellen agreed.
Before she could step outside, the strange man shut the door.
"There's one more thing," he said, sounding very serious again. "After you enter Ain Sof Absolute and the monster appears, you have to face it right then and there. If you run away like the Autarch did, the monster will escape and run wild through your world. You might never catch up to it, or maybe you will, but months or possibly even years will have passed and a lot of us lucid types will have become useless hollows. As much as I'd like you to save myself and everyone here, I can't in good conscious ask you to doom your world for our sake."
He gave Ellen a stern look.
"Will you be able to face this monster? This monster that's more powerful than every other monster in your world? Can you look it in the eye and cut it down before it wipes out everything and everyone you care about?"
For someone who wanted her help, he sure was giving her a lot of reasons to turn him down, but there was still a brief glimmer of hope shining inside her, so Ellen answered: "I can."
The strange man patted her on the shoulder. "You're a brave girl. So very brave. It's easy for me to talk about monsters, I'm already dead and they can't hurt me, but you..." He opened the front door again. "Let's go."
Ellen slipped outside and hurried down the stone walkway. The sky was still black yet the mysterious retreat remained well lit.
The gardens outside the mansion looked and smelled as pleasant as ever, but the niceness of it all was lost on her. How could she enjoy anything with such a massive burden weighing down her conscious?
In a moment she was back at the edge of the world, staring into an endless black void that seemed to stretch out forever. She hoped the strange man knew something she didn't, because there didn't seem to be any way out of this world.
The strange man stopped behind her. "So you just, humph, floated in here and-"
"I landed right here," Ellen said, giving the ground beneath her a soft tap with her foot.
"That's peculiar," the strange man said. "Very peculiar. I've thrown myself off this platform before, and so have the others, but we always black out and end up back here." He shrugged. "It looks like you truly are different from us. Or rather, we're different from you."
Ellen wanted to tell him that he was still human, maybe not in body but in spirit, but before she could speak a word one strong hand clamped down on the collar of her tunic. A second hand grabbed onto her trousers' waistband, then the
strange man lifted her into the air above his head.
"Wait!" Ellen pleaded.
The strange man hurled her off the side of the world and out into space. "Have a pleasant journey!" he called out. "Hope to see you in Ain Sof Absolute soon! We'll all be waiting for you!"
"Hold on!" Ellen was spinning so fast she couldn't see straight. "How long will it take you-"
"Don't worry about us. Just focus on finding the White Palace. We'll take care of the rest."
He made it sound so simple, yet he was not the one who would have to scour the whole world in search of a palace that might not exist anymore.
The mysterious retreat disappeared into the distance, and for a moment she was surrounded by suffocating darkness, but then the vortex reappeared. Ellen had never been so glad to see a swirling mass of lights with a seemingly infinite depth before. She closed her eyes as it pulled her inside, then she waited, hoping desperately that her friends were all still alive and that she'd see them soon.
Something changed. One side of her body felt uncomfortably warm, and the other bitter cold. There was something heavy pressing down on her, constricting her.
Ellen opened her eyes. She was back in the underground chamber again. Sycamore's face was so close she could feel his whiskers pressed against her cheek. He had his arms wrapped around her torso and was laying on top of her, why exactly she couldn't imagine, but it didn't matter right now. She was finally home.
She smiled. Hopefully the rest of her friends were nearby. She had much to share with them.
"Can you let go?" Ellen asked, but Sycamore didn't respond or even move. "What are you doing?" she asked, more forcefully.
Sycamore still didn't react. She tried squirming free, but his hold on her was too tight.
"Let go of me!" Ellen cried. "What's wrong with-"
Something warm dripped onto her right hand. Ellen leaned her head to her right and looked down.
It was blood; Sycamore's blood. A monstrous axe stuck out of his lower back.
Chapter 23
Scouring Majula (Ellen's Friends Book 3) Page 22
