To Hell and back!

[Hjolnai]

Warning: excessively lengthy blocks of text in some paragraphs

 

 

 

“To Hell and back! To Hell and back!” the soldier chanted, as the huge column marched through the ancient Gate. I stood in the shelters erected by archaeologists around the sides, to preserve artefacts which were dug up with remarkable regularity, and tried to avoid deafness as I waited and watched the column, while the archaeologists toiled on, despite the thundrous (and unusual) war chant.

 

I am one of the Ten, a council of leaders each with unique powers and remarkable longevity. Not that we’re much of a council anymore; though many years ago we were united, I can hardly remember a time when we stood not in conflict. It is this place which did it. Somehow, though the memory fades now, all ten of us found ourselves here, among many others from wherever we were before. The normal people multiplied over the centuries, but almost as soon as we arrived, the conflict began.

 

Friction came, of course, from the one who has mastered it. His vast strength and manipulation of external friction (to stand on ice, or stop an arrow in midair) may have led to his ambition, but I think he simply saw that in this land we were free of the restrictions placed on us before. Certainly, he could no longer tolerate the master of cold leading us, though I don’t remember whether they had any animosity prior to our arrival. A thousand years, after all, dulls the memory, though not my senses.

 

At one point, very recently, they came to blows. Spheres of frost were shattered, and icy wind threw great strength back. Friction could not get close enough to destroy the cold, but was left almost unharmed in his turn. Names, of course, are absent among the Ten. In any case, I think the end of that battle was the destruction which threatened us at the Gate, or perhaps it caused the destruction itself. Perhaps I knew, perhaps I saw, for observation is, after all, my talent, but my memory has long been crippled; when you see too much, you are overwhelmed... or perhaps, in looking too far into the darkness, it looked back. I don’t remember.

 

The land we stood on is a great, floating island; nothing but air beneath it, and I forget how we got there. Perhaps it was through the portal I so recently stood beside, as soldiers marched through; or perhaps one of us, one of the Ten, did it. In any case, I’m getting side-tracked again. What should I tell of next? Ah yes, the soldiers and their unique cry of “To Hell and back! To Hell and back!” which still rings in my ears. They were not all soldiers, in fact very few of them were. The destruction I mentioned earlier was a strange thing. Rocks falling from nowhere, the island shaking in its airy space, splitting apart in places and forming hills in others. As I said, I’m not certain what the cause was, but it may have been the battle between the divided Ten. And now I’ve forgotten which side I stood on, not that it mattered that much. The Ten are mostly too direct for an observer to have much impact on our internal battle; mostly everyone knew where everyone else was, with exceptions. Friction made a compelling argument against maintaining our structure from the time before, while the cold led us back there, and did so with icy judgment and logic; that makes him sound dark, in a way, but he wasn’t like that really. We trusted him. And now it must sound like the Ten are all male; but that is a false impression. Unfortunately, I cannot remember any of the other seven right now, but we are a varied group, and at least one of us must have died and been replaced. I digress, I have lost the thread again.

 

With the destruction tearing apart our land, we knew we had to flee. The divided Ten put aside our differences for the first time in centuries, and I searched for a way of escape. I took but days to find the Gate which must have been buried for almost as long as we’ve been here, if not longer. I’m not completely useless, no matter how bad my memory is, and how weak my grasp of names. Anyway, with our small world collapsing, hundreds dead already and what precious time we had almost gone, the Ten decided to arm everyone we could, even if they’d never lifted a sword before. Beyond the gate might have been anything, and hence the warcry: “To Hell and back!” If we went prepared for Hell, we just might survive. And now I come to the time when I stood by the portal, overseeing two or three decrepit archaeologists gathering the last of our history to take through after the rest of the populace took the Gate, when perhaps it might be safe beyond. Most of the Ten were on the other side, ice and friction working together again, charisma and shadow (whom only I can see when cloaked in shadow), though I think healing was still at the back, helping stragglers. These are not their names, of course (I think, perhaps they are though), but their spheres of influence. My memory is too damaged or overflowing for names, which are but words unrelated to the people they detail.

The column was very long, and I must have stood for hours as they marched through, two by two, in perfect step despite our almost complete lack of military outside the Ten until about a week ago. The gate was too small for more than two at a time. The day before the march, fires had come from the ground, marking an extension of the previous destruction, and haste was absolutely essential. Only I saw the fire, for it devoured a town several miles from the city, which had already been evacuated in preparation for leaving. Still, my words lent the necessary urgency. Finally, the column abated. My team of aged archaeologists stepped through with their barrows of history and powerful relics, and then the Ten healer (who must have been at the back, as I thought) shook my shoulder and ordered me sharply through the portal, sharply so I would cease staring at sand, seeing the individual grains, and the tiny parts within the grains, smaller and smaller... Oh, sorry, that’s right. We were the last two to step through the portal, and seconds later were somewhere else. I may later have gone looking with my mind for the island on which we spent a thousand years, or perhaps not. I think I did, but I don’t remember whether it’s still there or destroyed, so... I shall look when I’ve finished speaking, I suppose. Now, on the other side of the portal... the Gate... we were standing... in a forest, I think, not much different from the island itself. The portal exploded, vanished, froze over, was destroyed somehow. I followed the column which had continued to march through for a while, and after a bit of following I found myself in a castle or tower ruin. Distracted by something your senses could not comprehend, I sat down and stared deep into the pile of rubble which must have been a stone wall. I saw... something important, but I’ve lost what it was. Some sign that the Ten had been there, nothing important really. After all, some of us had been here for hours. But then, I stopped looking and thought, why would our power be buried in rubble? And why is the moss intact? I looked again, and found that the power was old. Very old. Perhaps this was a ruin from a war we led, but I don’t think we fought that much before we were on the island.

 

Later, we had a meeting of the Ten. There was plainly still some frozen conflict between a few of us, but little. There was war. We fought the inhabitants of this place for some reason, maybe to do with having somewhere to live. The battle was bloodthirsty, so perhaps the war cry was accurate: perhaps this truly was a hell. I looked straight at whoever said they ambushed us; I saw right through him. We had initiated combat, why? I told healing, whose name I should remember; with the shattered remnants of my memory, he or she helped me most. After all, is not a healer’s way to help with injury? Regardless, healing launched an accusation, I forget who was accused, but it was the liar. Perhaps it may seem strange that healing was more able to be aggressive than I, but a cancer must be cut out, so perhaps not so strange. I am too passive an observer anyway. I do not remember what happened next, but I think at least one of the Ten died that night.

 

The next morning, it must have been, a great speech was given, something about how the enemy must be destroyed so we could survive, and this was the test of Hell of which they had chanted. I remember nothing for at least another week, I think.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is loosely based on a dream I had this morning, but the dream was mostly in chronological order and I only really remember 2 scenes; a fight between someone using magical ice and a gigantic figure with strength and endurance and some visible magic, and a gate with people digging at both sides (archaeologists) while a long column of soldiers marched and chanted in impressive unison, “To Hell and back!”

I do remember some background from the dream, such as being somewhere else a long time ago and being on a floating island, but those weren't images in my memory.

 

I just realized that there are some huge blocks of text there, so I'll try some editing to break it up a bit, I think.

Edited August 29, 2009 by Hjolnai