When All the Leaves Have Fallen

by Mark McCabe

  “But . . . but Golkar, he . . . ”

  “Let’s get one thing straight,” interrupted Rayne, turning around and looking about the room as if he were searching for something. “I know we have to hurry, but I’m not leaving here without you. Where are the keys to those manacles? I’ve got to get you out of that chair.

  “By all the demons in Kornok,” he suddenly exclaimed as he caught a better look at the man shackled to the chair beside her. “What’s he doing here? Th . . . that’s Josef.”

  “I don’t know. He’s still alive, I think, but he can’t last much longer. Oh, Rayne,” she cried, losing control once more. “They did terrible things to him.” She was sobbing again. She could feel her eyes filling with tears, the fluid quickly blurring her vision.

  “It’s okay,” she heard Rayne say as she felt him take her hand in his.

  “I wish I could hold you,” she cried plaintively as she pulled at her manacles in a futile attempt to free herself. “I’m so scared, Rayne.”

  Rayne gave her one last squeeze with his hand and then began to move around the room, turning over everything he could see as he searched for the keys to her bonds. There was nothing Sara could do but look on helplessly. It’s useless, she thought as he roamed about the room, methodically examining every possible place the keys could be. It just isn’t meant to be. I’m not going to get away from here. I know it.

  “Think Sara, think,” cried Rayne, as his search became more frantic. “They’re not here. Who locked you into them? What did they do with the key?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t remember, Rayne. You don’t know what it was like. I just can’t remember everything. I don’t want to remember everything. Oh please, please go. Please, Rayne. I beg you. I don’t want to see you die too.” She knew she was in no state to think clearly about anything. What was Rayne doing here, anyway? Then, all of a sudden, she remembered.

  “It was Tug,” she shouted excitedly. “Tug had them. He put them in his pocket.” She could picture him doing it quite clearly now. They must be still in his pocket.

  “Excellent,” replied Rayne, with a broad grin on his face. With that, he rushed over to Sara and kissed her passionately on the lips. “I’ll be right back,” he said as he rushed from the room. “Don’t go away.” With a final wave of his hand, he disappeared around the corner of the door.

  Sara laughed madly at his playfulness, realising as she did so how long it had been since she had last felt able to feel anything even approaching joy. It had been in Novistor, at The Spreading Fig, she remembered. The happy mood quickly dissipated, however. They weren’t in The Spreading Fig now. They were dicing with death here. How long did they have? How long would it be before Golkar returned? And even if they did get away, how far could they hope to get?

  Try though she might to not get excited, however, she couldn’t suppress the sense of hope that began to grow in her heart. She had got away from this place once before, she reminded herself. Maybe she . . . correction, maybe they could do it again. She wasn’t alone this time.

  As the feeling of hopefulness began to take hold of her, Sara lifted her head and began to look round the room. Josef, she thought suddenly, feeling her heart sink back into a pit of despair. What would they do with him? How could they possibly get away with him in tow? That would be almost a certain guarantee that they wouldn’t get far. And yet, they couldn’t just leave him there.

  Just at that moment, just as her newfound hope reached its zenith, and peaked, she heard a sound from the other side of the room. Sara turned her head, seeking its source, and as she did so, she opened her mouth in horror. A leg was emerging from the surface of the mirror that hung on the far wall. She recognised the golden slipper and rich maroon of Golkar’s pantaloons instantly.

  There was nothing she could do but stare, horrified, as the wizard stepped into the room and stood for a moment, eyes downcast, breathing deeply, obviously allowing himself to become accustomed once more to his own chamber. He looked tired compared to when she had last seen him, drained in some way, exhausted.

  Appearing to compose himself now that he’d had time to adjust to his new surroundings, he took a few deep breaths, then slowly raised his head and looked about the room. He stopped when his gaze met Sara’s. Though obviously tired, he returned her stare with a look of bemusement, and eyes that blazed like crackling fire.

  As their eyes locked, Sara finally found her voice, screaming out her fear in one long, loud, piercing shriek. It was the sound of terror, sheer, unadulterated, terror. She knew that their doom was upon them.

  Golkar stood silently, staring at her malevolently but otherwise patiently, as Sara screamed her lungs out. When she finally had to stop and draw breath, he spoke.

  “Calm yourself, my dear,” he drawled, in his usual patronising manner, giving her one of his phony smiles as he did so. “You have a little while yet. Right now, I’m tired, and I’m ravenously hungry. Taking command of this plane of existence,” he continued as his facial expression slipped greasily from a smile into a smirk and the fire in his eyes began to slowly diminish, “is very demanding work, don’t you know?”

  Recovering from her initial surprise, Sara strained to rein in her own emotions and keep her own face expressionless as he spoke. She knew that Rayne had to have heard her scream. What he would do as a consequence was yet to be seen. She hoped to God he wouldn’t come rushing blindly up the stairs to save her. Not that she had any idea what she did want him to do. She was too busy trying to cope mentally with the wizard’s sudden reappearance to think that far ahead.

  “I . . . I’m sorry,” she responded, deciding that her best move would be to try to delay the wizard by engaging him in conversation. “You startled me. Where did you go? I mean, just now, when you left us. Wh . . . Where did you go? What have you done? Why can’t you just leave everybody alone? You have all that power. Isn’t it enough to know that everyone is so scared of you? Why do you have to hurt anyone?”

  As she finished, she saw the wizard turn suddenly towards the open doorway. “Nooooooo,” she wailed as she turned her own head and saw Rayne standing there, with what appeared to be a long spear in his hand. Before she could warn him to run, Rayne drew back his arm and threw the weapon with all of his strength, straight at the wizard’s chest.

  Sara wasn’t surprised when Golkar batted it aside with a simple twist of his arm. She watched despondently as the deflected spear flew past him harmlessly and thudded into the wooden beams of the wall behind him. Rayne showed no sign of any similar disappointment, however. Apparently undeterred by the ease with which the wizard had repelled his initial attack, he drew his sword and stepped cautiously into the room.

  “No,” she shouted, sensing her plea would go unheeded but determined to try to stop him just the same. “Run, Rayne. It’s too late now, just run.”

  Rayne showed no sign of heeding her advice. With his sword arm up, he began to advance cautiously towards the wizard, crouching in a fighting pose as he did so. Sara couldn’t bear to watch. As she swung her head away from the scene being played out before her, she heard the wizard’s voice once more. He was laughing now as he spoke.

  “Well, now I’ve seen everything,” he chuckled disdainfully. “This little sprite comes with a most impressive entourage, I must say. What shall I do with this one?”

  When she heard Rayne gasp, she knew that she had to look back. She had to know what was happening. Turning to face the two combatants again, she watched in amazement as Rayne’s body lifted up from the floor and then was flung with some invisible but incredible force against the wall beside the door. Sara sobbed as she heard him cry out in pain as his body hit the wall and then dropped limply to the floor. It was there for only a second or two when it lifted again and was then flung across the room and against the opposite wall, just missing by inches being impaled on the hilt of the spear which still protruded from the timber beams. As he crashed to the floor for a second time, Rayne looked more like a rag doll
than a human being. His crumpled and twisted form looked broken and lifeless as it lay slumped where it now lay, against the wall of the chamber.

  “No” Sara screamed when she saw his body begin to rise into the air for a third time. She felt the fury rising within her and this time when she screamed at the wizard she did so with all the intensity of her being, hurling her rage at him in frustration as she desperately tried to pull herself free from her bonds.

  “Leave him alone you monster,” she shouted in her rage.

  Sara watched in surprise as, inexplicably, Rayne’s body suddenly came to an abrupt halt only a metre or so above the floorboards. Golkar, who had been directing the motion of his victim’s body with his own right arm stretched out in front of him, stopped and slowly turned his head in her direction. Though the suddenness of his change of behaviour surprised her, the look of consternation on the wizard’s face was even more perplexing.

  Sara’s surprise soon turned to apprehension, however. As rapidly as it had appeared, Golkar’s look of consternation was quickly displaced by one of wrath. In the blink of an eyelid, the wizard swung his right arm around and flung it towards her, throwing it out in front of him with his flattened palm facing directly towards her, as if he was trying to push her away, though there were easily some four or five paces of floor space between them.

  Sara gasped in alarm as she suddenly felt both her body and the chair it was manacled to forced joltingly back across the chamber, the wooden legs scraping noisily on the floorboards as it did so. She gave a little shriek when the chair’s backwards motion was brought to a shuddering halt as it slammed against the wall behind her.

  Though her backwards motion was thereby halted, however, Golkar made no attempt to release her from the extraordinary power he had somehow managed to bring to bear against her so quickly and so unexpectedly. Sara winced as she felt her body being pressed back uncomfortably against the frame of the chair by the unnatural force the wizard was now bringing to bear against her. It was as if a fierce and almighty gale had suddenly sprung up and swept through the chamber, pinning her to the wall, though the air in the room was both dry and still.

  “Don’t dare to interrupt me . . . ever,” the wizard roared, after a moment of silence had passed. The quivering of his outstretched palm was a clear indication of the barely contained rage that had fuelled his change of attack from Rayne towards her. Sara felt herself quailing under the combined impact of his scrutiny and the bizarre force which pinned her to the frame of her chair more securely than any bonds ever could.

  Golkar’s face had taken on a contorted look, his chest was heaving and his eyes were flickering, dancing with an infernal fire that seemed to her to be not of this world, as if it was sourced from the bottomless pit of some nameless and unspeakable hell. Though he had, for the moment, stopped what he had been doing to Rayne, clearly, she had now become the sole focus of his malice. Having seen what he had done to Rayne, Sara dreaded to think what he might now do to her.

  Just as she began to brace herself for the onslaught she felt sure he was about to unleash, Golkar lowered his hand once more and the pressure he had been applying to her was suddenly released. When the chair she was bound to suddenly rocked forwards alarmingly before settling in its upright position, Sara felt a surge of relief rush through her body. She allowed herself to breathe in deeply. Without realising it, she had been holding her breath the whole of the time the wizard had had her under his terrible scrutiny.

  Unfortunately, her relief proved to be short-lived. When Golkar turned away from her again, satisfied that he had cowed her into silence once more, and obviously intending to finish what he had started with Rayne, she felt her own anger rapidly returning, despite her foreboding.

  In the brief interval her confrontation with the wizard had allowed Rayne, he had somehow managed to roll over onto his back. To Sara’s surprise, though he was clearly injured quite badly, he was still conscious. He was in the process of struggling to raise himself up on one elbow when the wizard renewed his attack. Sara sobbed as she watched Golkar send him sprawling to the floor again with a simple wave of his arm.

  “No,” she cried out defiantly, silently cursing her impotence in the face of Golkar’s awesome power. “Leave him alone.” She knew that her demands were pointless, but they had sprung from her quite involuntarily. The sight of Rayne being toyed with so cruelly was pressing buttons she seemed to have little or no control over.

  For the second time, the wizard abruptly stopped what he was doing and spun round to face her. Sara recoiled as she waited for the force of some spell to hit her, mentally steeling herself to absorb whatever punishment he chose to dish out, thinking that this time she was prepared to endure whatever she had to if it would buy even the briefest respite for Rayne. Closing her eyes as tight as she could, she pushed back at the wizard with all of her might in an instinctive attempt to fend off his anticipated blow. The result surprised her even more than it did Golkar.

  Something very strange began to happen. Sara sensed that a wall had suddenly arisen between the two of them. Not a wall that could be seen; this was an invisible wall. But she knew for a certainty that it was now there. How, she couldn’t explain.

  It was as if two storm fronts had met and collided and were vying for ascendancy, each determined to supplant the other. Sara could feel it swaying back and forth between them, moving slowly towards her at first, then back towards Golkar again as she pushed back at it, trying to repel the wizard’s attempt to hurt her. She didn’t really understand what was happening, but she realised that it must be something she had done. In some strange way, her anger at what Golkar was doing . . . no, more than that, her determination to stop him from what he was doing . . . that was it, that was what was fuelling this wall. And it was if they were both buffeting it with their will now, probing it, looking for a way to break down the other’s defences.

  The realisation that she might be able to resist the wizard’s efforts as long as she focused her mind and all of her will to that purpose suddenly flowed into Sara’s consciousness like a stream of light flooding into a dark room through a suddenly opened door. Though she had no idea how this could be, the evidence before her seemed clear and undeniable. Where Golkar had easily thrown her back against the wall in his earlier assault, this time he seemed unable to achieve his purpose. She had somehow stumbled on a way to resist him.

  Unfortunately, the very act of considering this discovery only served to weaken her capacity to maintain it. As soon as she began to think about it, about what it was and how she could use it, she felt the wall giving way before the wizard’s mental onslaught. Hastily, she resumed her focus, pushing any extraneous thoughts from her mind and striving to rebuild the barrier that had almost crumbled as swiftly as it had first arisen. Once again, the forward progress of Golkar’s assault came to a grinding halt.

  What now? she thought, tentatively trying to maintain her resistance while simultaneously exploring the prospects before her. To her surprise, this time she managed to achieve her purpose. It was actually possible to partition a small part of her mind away from the grim mental duel she was otherwise engaged in. It wasn’t easy though, and she quickly realised that anything but the simplest of thinking would probably be totally beyond her if she hoped to maintain a reasonable defence against the wizard’s attack. She didn’t even really know exactly what it was she was doing. She was just doing it, that was all, and she dare not allow herself the luxury of questioning how it was so.

  A groan from the direction that Rayne lay in distracted her attention and suddenly the wall between her and Golkar was down. In an instant the full might of Golkar’s will swept over her, both mentally and physically, slamming the chair she was bound to back against the wall behind her again with a loud crack. Her whole body shook with the jar of the impact and she felt the wizard’s mind sweep into hers before she could even begin to think how to resurrect her mental defences.

  All of a sudden, her head was fille
d with ghastly images, mental pictures of the destruction Golkar promised he would inflict on the people of Ilythia once he took full possession of the power she held within her. Sara gaped at the horror unfolding within her thoughts, wanting desperately to close her mind to the atrocities being laid out before her but knowing she was utterly unable to do so. She watched with mounting dismay, wondering at the sickness of the person who could have conjured up such evil thoughts.

  While her mind was powerless to resist the onslaught, forced to look on like a helpless observer, her body was under no such constraint. Sara felt her stomach begin to churn as the images being forced upon her moved from one hideous scene to the next. She felt the gorge quickly rising within her throat. With a slight jerk of her torso, she suddenly retched, then gasped and retched again, absently aware of the dampness across her blouse as the contents of her stomach spilled out of her mouth and ran down her chin and onto her heaving breasts.

  Golkar’s wicked laugh only added further insult to her injury as Sara’s chin sagged against her chest. She felt drained, both physically and mentally, broken and beaten in a way she had never before experienced. Resistance was pointless, there was no longer anything left to cling to. Nothing, that is, except her despair. Bound as she was, she couldn’t even wipe the remnants of her vomit from her chin. Her soft little whimpers only seemed to goad Golkar into further laughter. Then, just as suddenly as they had begun, the nauseating display of mental images ceased.

  “Had enough, my pretty?” she heard Golkar sneer from across the room as she hung her head in shame, despising herself for how quickly her resistance had crumbled. Her most fervent wish now was that he get it over and done with, that he finish her once and for all, and quickly.

  A moment passed and not a sound could be heard in the room. Sara felt herself jump as the roar of Golkar’s voice shattered the silence like a hammer smashing a pane of glass into thousands of pieces. “I SAID, HAD ENOUGH, MY PRETTY?”