Dawn of the Immortalis: Volumes 1-3

Chap. 8: Give and Take

Talis ran up to meet his parents, embracing them with all his strength. The three of them hugged as only family does, that hug that seems to wash the world's problems away.

"We thought you were dead, Talis," Mr. Thrund said, as they all stepped back from each other, "we thought - well nevermind that now. We are going to be all right son. Don't worry, everything will turn out for the best in the end, you will see."

Talis simply smiled, absorbing this moment, as if he knew it was their last, for sadly it was. A cattlent came up from behind his parents, it was Bulwark the bullheaded. It grabbed his mother and father and threw them to the ground. Bulwark plunged its cruel, rusty sickle into them. They were dead.

"No!" Talis screamed at Bulwark, beating on him with his fists, "You have no right-"

"No right? No right?" Bulwark thundered back, kicking Talis to the ground, "You have slaughtered us for centries. You are cruel beyond imagine. I have full right - in fact I'm entitled to this. As a calf I watched my father be slaughtered; smelt his burning flesh and then witnessed you gorge yourself on him. Vengeance is sweet, yes. You filthy murdered. Mooard and Cartle, take him to the cell and give him his sword. I am generous, I will let you end your own existence. Be gone."

As Bulwark walked away, he simply vanished, as if eaten by nothingness. Only Talis noticed; the workers kept their heads down and the two cattlent were coming for him.

"No," Talis murmured to himself, he invited unconsciousness to come for him. And obediently it came. He knew not of what was happening as he was dragged away into greater depths.

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It was a dark, stone cell, with a vein of iron running through its side. Talis noticed, as with the room he was in when he first arrived in this stonebound inferno, there was a boulder fashioned door blocking the only exit. An eerie glow filled the room. Quicksilver lay at his feet, alongside a platter of glowing mushrooms.

"Are you alright Talis?" Mutt, Talis' ring, said cautiously.

"Yes, I-I guess so," said Talis, wrapping his arms around himself.

"Don't fret Talis, we will get out of here. This is not the end," Quicksilver uttered.

That is what they believed, day after day, hope slowly dying as a candle that flickers out. They tried at every opportunity to escape. When cattlent came to feed him, he tried to fight them; to escape. Yet every attempt was of no gain. The three of them talked; discussed every possible discussion discussable. It was that that kept their sanity. The cattlent were not the worst of jailers, once every few days they cleaned out his cell; they fed him regularly.

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Twenty years passed. Time was unfathomable for Talis, being underground for so long has that affect. Hope was dead, yet Talis held on to life. He reasoned that his life was still worth living, there is no benefit in death. He kept grasping on a rogue thought, a thought not of his own, a thought that said salvation will come; and so it did.

Talis heard clammering outside; metal on metal. He rose to his feet, scratching at his long mangled beard. He grasped quicksilver in his hands.

"Salvation," he muttered to himself, "salvation."

The stone door whisked out off the way and shattered somewhere down the hall. A black cloaked man walked through the doorway. He leaned on the wall, a grin spread across his face.

"It is time."