Chapter 96: 96. Jalholm Unmasked - Jain

Ellas

Jain

Jain looked to the three sat with him around the fire. The stranger, the one Kane failed to name, refused to name, the one Jain was sure had saved them from the demon lord, and the two women – two virtually identical women, sisters they said, sisters from two very different worlds.

The third tome talked of sisters – the Sisters of the Soul, the harbingers of the end to come, the end that is the doom or salvation of all that is.

A log cracked in the flames and embers leapt out showering Jain’s legs. With a sigh he brushed his trousers clean and again took up his contemplation of the man. If Carthia and this woman, Alex, really were the Sisters of Soul, then who was this man. He accompanied Alex, obviously cared for her deeply, and more importantly was a man of strength.

Jain could feel the strength that surrounded the man; it surged and pulsed almost as if in time with his life’s force. Setia had been strong, but this man outshone her as a blazing fire next to a dying candle. Who was he? Kane had introduced him as merely a friend of Alex’s, and would say no more.

Two days had passed since and the man had not seen fit to add any more to what David had said. His only conversations were with David or the woman Alex on those very rare occasions that she had been apart from Carthia. To the others, to Jain, the man said not a word.

Even now, Jain felt that he was an interloper – he had joined the three of them at the fire, one of many fires he could have warmed himself at in their camp. He had not really interrupted anything though, the girls had been talking whilst the man silently looked on.

But even as he sat Jain knew that the man scrutinised him, took him in from head to foot as one evaluating a potential threat. And after that so very thorough scrutiny the man had relaxed somewhat, though his eyes still watched all, watched Jain’s every movement, and those of his companions and, it seemed, everything that moved beyond the firelight.

This man, this stranger, was afraid, Jain knew, though of what, and what terrors he had seen to make him so, Jain did not know. But then, he thought, who other than Dar’cen himself could instill such fear in a man as strong as the one sat before me.

The log cracked and again spat embers over Jain, startling him from his thoughts.

Carthia laughed. ‘You’ll have no trousers left if you don’t move from there, Jain. The breeze carries the embers straight to you… perhaps it knows some ill of you and seeks to punish you for it,’ she laughingly said. ‘Come sit this side, by us.’

As Jain moved to take up her offer, the stranger too moved, as if to stand and leave.

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‘No, don’t go, Ja—’ Alex said, abruptly cutting herself off before she completed the man’s name.

She flushed with embarrassment at the slip, and yet the man showed no anger, he merely smiled at her and said, ‘It is okay, Alex. It really is. It is long past time that I began to pay for all that I have done.’

And before Alex could respond the man stood and held a hand out to Jain. ‘Here, let me give you a hand up, Jain. Then perhaps we can find a place of solitude where we might talk. I have much to tell and, somehow, it seems fitting that you should be first to hear what I have to say.’

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Jain sat on the hard, brittle bark of the fallen log, his backside long since numb from the cold and lack of movement.

He was silent, had been since the man before him had proclaimed himself to be Jalholm, the very same Jalholm who had brought doom upon the world.

And even the last was a silly thought. No one would name a child thus; Jalholm was a curse, a profanity used when ill befell one. Not a name, not anymore, not since the last Jalholm, the man stood pacing before him.

And what the man, this Jalholm, had said had been a harrowing tale in deed – a tale that brought a dread upon Jain the likes of which he had not thought to ever feel, even when upon his death bed.

And yet it wasn’t the horror of this Jalholm’s tale that made him feel so, though that too had its effects. It was yet again the words, the words that ever predicted the end. An end Jain had hoped would come long after he had left his mortal remains.

But it could be no other way, he knew – the Soul Sisters had come at last, and so this man, this stranger could be none other than the one foretold.

And yet the words were ever vague, always needing interpretation and knowledge of what had gone before. Never clear, never explicit.

‘The Unwitting One will return,’ the words said, ‘and he will bring all that is needed for the End Day. He will unite the Sisters, proclaim the name that must be known, and bring and end to all that can be foreseen.’ So vague, so very vague.

And yet those so very vague words screamed that Jalholm, this stranger, was indeed the Unwitting One – he had to be. He had unwittingly unleashed Dar’cen upon the world, he had brought Alex with him and thus united the Soul Sisters.

And then there was Kane. What did he know of the man, why had he refused to name him? Was it simply because he knew that the man was Jalholm, or was there more? But if Jalholm was the Unwitting One, then what did the rest mean – Proclaim the name that must be known, what name? And what of the last line – Bring an end to all that can be foreseen.

‘So why do you tell me this, Jalholm,’ Jain uttered quietly. ‘You have been silent for the two days since you so suddenly joined us. Neither you nor Kane were prepared to give your name, and yet now you tell me this.’

‘It was only a matter of time before one such as you reasoned out who I was, Jain. Just a matter of time. At first, I was afraid… afraid to tell you, or any of the others. Afraid for my safety… and ashamed of what I did to you all, what I brought upon the world.

'I almost named myself that first day when I purged him. If not for David, you name him Kane, in my elation at that so small a triumph I would have named myself to you all. But David was right to stop me; such a revelation fast on the heels of what he almost did would not have been taken well… So why do I tell you now, you ask – because I have had time to consider my words… and because I can no longer bear the pain that my silence brings.

'I do not expect forgiveness, nor do I want your pity. I want your understanding… your understanding and your leave to stand at your side in this fight against him.’