Post by zimraphel on Oct 15, 2008 12:32:00 GMT -5
Disclaimer: Same as with Part II: this is a crossover, I don't own Blackstar or MOTU. Some violence, not in this chapter, though. Blackstar occasionally cusses a blue streak. Characters have alternate names. Deal with it. Feed the author.
Battlecat found a road. They followed it, meeting no one and hearing nothing but the sigh of the wind and their own footfalls in that stark landscape.
“Too quiet," Battlecat rumbled.
"Maybe these parts are uninhabited." He-Man tried to convey an optimism which increasingly eluded him. Even without people, even at this time of year, there ought to have been some indication of life, some distant bird-call, some slight movement through the grass, some faint insect sound. But there was nothing.
Pausing to sniff at the air, Battlecat curled his lip and huffed, "I don't like it here."
Not long after, they stepped into an eerily blackened landscape. Fire seemed to have swept through the region--that might account for the lack of life--yet somehow that explanation didn't seem adequate. He-Man and Battlecat stood by the side of the road and watched the wind lazily spin clouds of ash across the ground, but what looked like ash didn't smell like it. It didn't smell like anything at all.
A short distance up the road, they found a village standing amid the ruin, its cottages, outbuildings and barn intact. Moving from one house to another, they found various tableaux suggesting the people had merely stepped out for a moment. Food was on the table in one house. A broom lay propped against a doorjamb in another. A woman's sewing lay draped across the arm of a chair. A little girl's doll lay in a dooryard. Yet there were no people, no animals. What had been vegetable and herb gardens were now dust, and the wind carried ghostly echoes into the streets. After a time, He-Man stopped and squeezed his eyes shut so he wouldn't have to see anymore. A lump rose in his throat. The na'dani had been here. It had killed. The woman with her sewing, the child with her doll, the family just sitting down to dinner--they were not coming back.
He decided then that he wasn't going to tell the Sorceress about this. The mother in her would weep.
Without bothering to see if Battlecat was still with him, he stumbled, half-running, away from the empty houses.
A trail of black, silent devastation led across what had once been a field ripe with winter wheat, then veered off toward the forest. He-Man and Battlecat headed in that direction, knowing now that neither the plains nor the village held any answers for them.
As they stepped in among the skeletons of trees, the air suddenly grew chill and oppressive, the sensation intensifying the farther into the woods they walked. Lifeless animals lay scattered in every direction across what had been the mosses and loose leaves of the forest floor; birds had fallen out of the branches, insects dropped from the air, and here and there were burrowing animals caught above ground. It was like the village all over again; where life had existed one moment, in the next death was already come and gone. So fast. He-Man told himself that neither these creatures nor the villagers would have had time to be afraid. Probably, they had not felt anything, they had not known. More than anything he wanted--no, he needed--to believe that, yet with every step he took the shadow of despair, then of guilt, eclipsed his spirit that much more. If he had arrived but a day earlier, would he now be standing in the graveyard of a forest, on a world where he and Battlecat seemed the only two beings alive?
No, I'm just tired, he told himself. Hardly any sleep at all last night and no rest at all since coming here. How long has it been? How much....?
A low, familiar growl cut through his thoughts. "Up ahead," said Battlecat. "I hear voices."
It was several minutes and at least fifty yards before He-Man was able to hear anything. And then, as the ground before them opened up into a clearing, he not only heard voices but saw shapes moving in the distance; after the day's desolate silence, it took a moment for the realization to sink in and take hold, that these were people. The sight so stunned him that he didn't immediately notice the thing lying at the center of the clearing, the black thing that was the focus of all attention.
It was formless, or seemed so; even in death it exuded a miasma that refused all light and was (he was certain of it now) the source of the oppressive gloom that clawed at his bones.
Growling, Battlecat sharply nudged him back to reality. He started and, shaking himself free of the na'dani's hypnotic miasma, noticed the man striding toward them. Of average height, he had lank, greasy brown hair and a sallow complexion; the overt hostility in his eyes made him seem uglier than he was, and that much more dangerous. He-Man felt Battlecat tense at his side, already prepared to fight; in a low voice he told his friend not to move. They had not come to do battle.
"Who are you?" the man barked. One hand clutched a massive battle-axe, the other was bunched in a fist at the man's side.
In a calm voice, He-Man told him. "We're looking for the Eledhrin."
"Well, he's not here."
"Do you know wh--hey, you can put that axe down. We came to help."
"Nobody asked for your help, stranger."
He-Man opened his mouth to protest when he noticed a second man approaching. Tall and leanly-built, with long white hair, he was plainly dressed and carried no weapons, but in his demeanor He-Man could see at once that he was in charge here.
"What is the problem, Kendric?" he asked in a low voice. His eyes--a grey so pale they were almost colorless--fixed on the two strangers and did not waver.
"They're looking for the Eledhrin."
"We came to help," He-Man added hastily.
"You are too late," was the reply. "This creature is dead and we have all the hands we need."
"That creature is called a na'dani and there may be more of them."
Cloud-grey eyes narrowed. "How do you know this?"
He-Man briefly explained about the Sorceress and the Ancients and the dimensional barrier they had created, one that was now weakening. Some things he held back, things meant solely for the Eledhrin to hear.
But was the man he sought still alive?
As he spoke, his voice carried through the clearing, and it wasn't long before he had an audience of hard faces (was there no warmth at all to these people?) and even harder questions. Drawing a heavy breath, he was about to tackle the first question when the white-haired man lifted his hand for silence.
"Enough talk for now," he said. "There is work to be done before sundown."
The crowd reluctantly dispersed, save for the greasy-haired man with the axe. He wasn't going anywhere.
"You, too, Kendric."
"Lord Camarin, I don’t—“
"Do as I tell you."
With a scowl and a last threatening leer at He-Man and Battlecat, Kendric rejoined his companions as they moved about the dead na'dani laden with ropes, wooden beams and tools. He-Man wondered what they were doing.
"We are trying to get rid of this thing." Camarin gestured to the na'dani and scowled. "It will not burn and we obviously cannot leave it here. So tomorrow we will drag it to an abandoned quarry in the hills and bury it under a rock slide. That is the best we can do."
"It won't burn?"
"We cannot get a torch close enough to try."
The Sorceress had not mentioned immunity to fire, nor the oppressive miasma which suffused the air around the na'dani. What other details had she omitted? "How was it killed?"
"The Eledhrin ran it through with his sword, I am told," came the reply. "I was not here for the battle."
"And he survived?"
"He lives." Camarin's voice grew harsh. "Twelve of his men do not."
Alive. Then there was hope. "Where is he now?"
"He has returned to his house at Dha'Alasia." Camarin regarded him for a moment, then added softly, "You are going to insist on seeing him yourself, yes?"
"It's important, yes."
Stealing a last look at the na'dani, Camarin nodded. "Yes, you did say that."
The fire felt wonderful. Stripping off his gloves, He-Man crouched down beside the grate, letting the heat play across his wind-chapped face and hands. Battlecat hunkered down beside him with a low, contented huff; the fireplace was wide enough that they could share the heat comfortably, with elbow-room to spare.
Their first glimpse of the Eledhrin's residence was the entry hall which they now occupied, a firelit, oak-beamed chamber hung with tapestries to insulate it against the cold. A scuffed and faded carpet, worn by years of foot-traffic, ran the length of the hall. Furniture was sparse; probably it was not needed in this part of the house. A place for waiting, for passing through. Many similar rooms might be found in the Eternian royal palace. And wasn't that what they had been left to do, to wait?
Merely getting inside, however, had presented its share of obstacles. Lord Camarin had been reluctant to permit Battlecat into the house, thinking perhaps that he might claw the rugs or spray the furniture; the implication thoroughly mortified Battlecat, who even as Cringer was fastidiously clean and polite around humans. He was not an animal, he said, and he was not going to spend the night in the freezing cold when he'd already shed his winter coat. Eyes wide (for Battlecat had not spoken before this), Camarin stammered an apology and let the matter drop.
What came next was far more serious. Before he was allowed to step across the threshold, He-Man had to surrender his sword.
"This is our custom," Camarin coldly informed him when he tried to refuse. "A guest does not violate the hospitality of his host by bringing a weapon into his household."
The Eledhrin's household, on the other hand, brandished more weapons than the entire garrison of Eternos; Dha’Alasia seemed more like an armed camp than a residence. He-Man was assured that his sword would be kept in a private, secured place, and that as a guest his person was inviolate. He was entitled to every comfort the house could offer, to the deference and protection of the Eledhrin's people--but not without a catch.
There was always a catch.
Camarin had one final, chilling pronouncement to make. "Violate the peace of this house by doing harm to one of its people and your life is forfeit. If this happens, the Eledhrin has the right to have you executed with your own sword. If it’s serious enough, he might do it himself." His colorless eyes were flat and implacable as he said it. He-Man had no doubt he was utterly serious.
He-Man began to wonder then what sort of man the Eledhrin was. "I'm sure that won't be necessary. We didn't come here to make trouble." And then he handed over his sword.
Crouching now by the fire with Battlecat, he felt strangely empty and vulnerable. His only link to Greyskull and home.... Stop worrying about it, he told himself. But the unwelcome pangs of vulnerability would not leave him alone, so he tried to distract himself by studying his surroundings.
High on the wall opposite the main doors hung a banner, black, emblazoned with a silver, star-crowned tree. He-Man had earlier noticed the same device on a badge worn by Camarin and by the two guards who now warily watched the pair from the entryway.
Sound suddenly drew his attention from the banner to the doors directly below it. They opened and Camarin appeared.
No, not Camarin, He-Man realized half a moment later, but a younger, blurred version of the same. His son, perhaps? The man approached, one wary eye fixed on Battlecat. He nodded politely to He-Man.
"I am Elhanu," he said. "Please come with me."
"To see the Eledhrin?"
"He has asked to see you, yes."
As Battlecat rose and stretched, panic flickered in Elhanu's eyes. "Only you, warrior," he hastily added. "The Eledhrin said nothing about your...your companion."
Giving his friend a reassuring look, He-Man nodded. "He'll be all right here by the fire. What I mean is, he's not going to hurt anyone while I'm gone."
Elhanu regarded him soberly. "My kinsman has already told me that he is somewhat...unusual."
For the time being, Battlecat would be all right, but He-Man nevertheless felt uneasy about leaving him.
Once he moved through the doors leading out of the main hall, He-Man found himself in a part of Dha'Alasia that looked more like a residence than an armed camp. As Elhanu escorted him through a series of candlelit corridors, the smell of beeswax polish, oiled leather and cooking food--the kitchen must be somewhere close by--reminded He-Man of home. And also of the fact that he was ravenously hungry; his last meal had been the night before, as Adam at one of his father's state banquets. If he wasn't offered a meal soon, he'd have to ask and that was something he'd prefer not to do. He didn't want to appear rude in front of these people.
"My lord, the Eternian warrior He-Man. Eternian, the Eledhrin of Sagar, Jhaen Mor--"
"That'll be enough, Elhanu, thank you," answered a voice from within the room. "Come in, Eternian."
The room into which He-Man stepped was a library, small but richly appointed. A fire blazed brightly on the hearth, its flickering light gleaming off polished wood, glass and the brass fittings of a telescope mounted in one corner.
Seated in a chair by the fire was a man plainly dressed in wool and leather. Black hair, drawn back from his face, was pulled into a tight braid. He-Man guessed his age to be anywhere from thirty to forty-five. A young man still, except for piercing eyes which missed nothing.
"Sit down," he said. More command than request.
He-Man took a seat across from him. "Are you the Eledhrin?"
“I am Jhaen Morendil, yes.” He had a weary, clipped voice, with an accent He-Man couldn't quite place.
The door clicked shut, but to He-Man's surprise and dismay, Elhanu remained in the room. His confusion must have been apparent, because his host explained, "It's customary for someone to remain in the room when a stranger is present. The household isn't sure of your loyalties." And neither am I, his eyes seemed to say. "Elhanu's entirely loyal. He won't repeat what's said in here unless I give him permission."
He-Man nodded. "It's all right," he said. There were occasions when Prince Adam required bodyguards, his father even more so, but they were never this intrusive. Well, it could be worse, He-Man admitted to himself. It could be the fellow outside the door.
"Camarin has given me his report," said the Eledhrin. "Do you want to explain?"
"About my being here or about the na'dante?"
"Try both."
"Lord Mor—” He stumbled over the alien syllables until his host, lifting a sardonic eyebrow, corrected himself with a single word: “Blackstar.”
“What?”
“Old High Sagarese must be difficult for you. You can use the translation instead.”
“You don’t mind?”
“Hell, half the people in the hinterlands can’t pronounce my name.” For some reason, the Eledhrin seemed to find this amusing. “Yes, go ahead.”
Flustered, He-Man continued, “I was sent to help. There may be--no, will be--more na'dante." He then revealed what Camarin could not have known to tell the Eledhrin, about the swords and the power needed to close the dimensional breach. And the more he revealed, the more emotion began to show on the other man's face.
"Did this Sorceress of yours know that this...this na'dani would come?" If it wasn't an accusation, it just as easily become one. He-Man told himself to be very, very careful.
"No, or I would have been here at once. The Sorceress felt the na'dani die; she heard a scream across the worlds. It was the first indication she had that a rupture had occurred. Even then, and at such a distance, she couldn't do anything. I'm sorry. I know what the na'dani did. I saw."
Some of the anger left the Eledhrin's face. "You were at Devor, then."
He must mean the village. "I saw the houses and the burnt ground, but no bodies."
"They were removed last night. Elhanu took the survivors to Rocha."
"There were survivors?"
"A handful out of more than two hundred, those who ran and didn't wait to see who the enemy was. Most didn't have even that much of a chance. You've seen the creature, haven't you? Well, you haven't, not really. You haven't felt this thing attack. It tears the life-force out of living things like marrow. I don't think you want to see what it looks like when that gets ripped away."
Seeing the abandoned village and the lifeless forest had been enough. "I've been told the na'dani's corpse won't burn; it still has power, even now." He-Man found himself at a loss to describe the miasma that pervaded the air around the corpse. "But when it was alive....how could you possibly kill it and survive?"
A heavy silence followed, in which He-Man was left to wait and wonder why there was no answer. Something must have happened, something Blackstar couldn't or wouldn't discuss.
"Elhanu," the Eledhrin said, very softly. "My sword. Bring it here, and the glove."
Moving almost noiselessly, the young man brought the two items and set them across the Eledhrin's lap. One was a sword set in a richly-tooled scabbard, the other a cracked, half-charred piece of leather. He-Man was so intent on the objects he didn't noticed when Elhanu once again slid inconspicuously into the corner.
Taking the sword awkwardly in his left hand, Blackstar slid it free, letting the scabbard slide unnoticed to the floor. Under his touch, the metal seemed to breathe with a faint white fire that caressed the blade from its tip upward to its oddly angular hilt.
The room began to pulsate. He-Man blinked, then leaned forward slightly. No, it wasn't the room. It was the sword. It was humming. "Does it always do that?" he asked.
"No, not always. It awoke last night and hasn't been quiet since."
For the first time, He-Man was glad he'd had to surrender the Sword of Power. Two sentient swords in one room would have been too much. "It killed the na'dani, didn't it?"
Rather than answer, Blackstar gave him the scrap of leather. A glove. "I was wearing that when I struck the na'dani." He paused to retrieve the scabbard, clumsily tucking the sword against his body so it wouldn't slide off his lap. He-Man watched him for a moment, poised to help, when his eyes were suddenly drawn again to the glove. He turned it over in his hands, studying it. A glove worn on the right hand.
The Eledhrin was right-handed, but at this moment he was using only the left; when he moved his right side seemed stiff and the arm was immobile. What had he done to it? "Is it broken?" He-Man asked. "The arm, I mean. It looks like it hurts."
"No, not broken, just...sprained. When the sword struck the na'dani, it was a hard blow. The impact went up into my arm."
Which explained the arm, but not the glove. When confronted by the contradiction, Blackstar gazed down at the battered glove with unfocused eyes. "I'm not sure what happened," he murmured. "Perhaps the sword...no, I don't know. There was no light, my men dropping dead all around me--it's difficult to remember." As he spoke, his voice assumed the distant, toneless quality of one describing a dream from which he has just awakened. Perhaps he had, reflected He-Man, and remembered more of the nightmare than he cared to admit.
Battlecat found a road. They followed it, meeting no one and hearing nothing but the sigh of the wind and their own footfalls in that stark landscape.
“Too quiet," Battlecat rumbled.
"Maybe these parts are uninhabited." He-Man tried to convey an optimism which increasingly eluded him. Even without people, even at this time of year, there ought to have been some indication of life, some distant bird-call, some slight movement through the grass, some faint insect sound. But there was nothing.
Pausing to sniff at the air, Battlecat curled his lip and huffed, "I don't like it here."
Not long after, they stepped into an eerily blackened landscape. Fire seemed to have swept through the region--that might account for the lack of life--yet somehow that explanation didn't seem adequate. He-Man and Battlecat stood by the side of the road and watched the wind lazily spin clouds of ash across the ground, but what looked like ash didn't smell like it. It didn't smell like anything at all.
A short distance up the road, they found a village standing amid the ruin, its cottages, outbuildings and barn intact. Moving from one house to another, they found various tableaux suggesting the people had merely stepped out for a moment. Food was on the table in one house. A broom lay propped against a doorjamb in another. A woman's sewing lay draped across the arm of a chair. A little girl's doll lay in a dooryard. Yet there were no people, no animals. What had been vegetable and herb gardens were now dust, and the wind carried ghostly echoes into the streets. After a time, He-Man stopped and squeezed his eyes shut so he wouldn't have to see anymore. A lump rose in his throat. The na'dani had been here. It had killed. The woman with her sewing, the child with her doll, the family just sitting down to dinner--they were not coming back.
He decided then that he wasn't going to tell the Sorceress about this. The mother in her would weep.
Without bothering to see if Battlecat was still with him, he stumbled, half-running, away from the empty houses.
A trail of black, silent devastation led across what had once been a field ripe with winter wheat, then veered off toward the forest. He-Man and Battlecat headed in that direction, knowing now that neither the plains nor the village held any answers for them.
As they stepped in among the skeletons of trees, the air suddenly grew chill and oppressive, the sensation intensifying the farther into the woods they walked. Lifeless animals lay scattered in every direction across what had been the mosses and loose leaves of the forest floor; birds had fallen out of the branches, insects dropped from the air, and here and there were burrowing animals caught above ground. It was like the village all over again; where life had existed one moment, in the next death was already come and gone. So fast. He-Man told himself that neither these creatures nor the villagers would have had time to be afraid. Probably, they had not felt anything, they had not known. More than anything he wanted--no, he needed--to believe that, yet with every step he took the shadow of despair, then of guilt, eclipsed his spirit that much more. If he had arrived but a day earlier, would he now be standing in the graveyard of a forest, on a world where he and Battlecat seemed the only two beings alive?
No, I'm just tired, he told himself. Hardly any sleep at all last night and no rest at all since coming here. How long has it been? How much....?
A low, familiar growl cut through his thoughts. "Up ahead," said Battlecat. "I hear voices."
It was several minutes and at least fifty yards before He-Man was able to hear anything. And then, as the ground before them opened up into a clearing, he not only heard voices but saw shapes moving in the distance; after the day's desolate silence, it took a moment for the realization to sink in and take hold, that these were people. The sight so stunned him that he didn't immediately notice the thing lying at the center of the clearing, the black thing that was the focus of all attention.
It was formless, or seemed so; even in death it exuded a miasma that refused all light and was (he was certain of it now) the source of the oppressive gloom that clawed at his bones.
Growling, Battlecat sharply nudged him back to reality. He started and, shaking himself free of the na'dani's hypnotic miasma, noticed the man striding toward them. Of average height, he had lank, greasy brown hair and a sallow complexion; the overt hostility in his eyes made him seem uglier than he was, and that much more dangerous. He-Man felt Battlecat tense at his side, already prepared to fight; in a low voice he told his friend not to move. They had not come to do battle.
"Who are you?" the man barked. One hand clutched a massive battle-axe, the other was bunched in a fist at the man's side.
In a calm voice, He-Man told him. "We're looking for the Eledhrin."
"Well, he's not here."
"Do you know wh--hey, you can put that axe down. We came to help."
"Nobody asked for your help, stranger."
He-Man opened his mouth to protest when he noticed a second man approaching. Tall and leanly-built, with long white hair, he was plainly dressed and carried no weapons, but in his demeanor He-Man could see at once that he was in charge here.
"What is the problem, Kendric?" he asked in a low voice. His eyes--a grey so pale they were almost colorless--fixed on the two strangers and did not waver.
"They're looking for the Eledhrin."
"We came to help," He-Man added hastily.
"You are too late," was the reply. "This creature is dead and we have all the hands we need."
"That creature is called a na'dani and there may be more of them."
Cloud-grey eyes narrowed. "How do you know this?"
He-Man briefly explained about the Sorceress and the Ancients and the dimensional barrier they had created, one that was now weakening. Some things he held back, things meant solely for the Eledhrin to hear.
But was the man he sought still alive?
As he spoke, his voice carried through the clearing, and it wasn't long before he had an audience of hard faces (was there no warmth at all to these people?) and even harder questions. Drawing a heavy breath, he was about to tackle the first question when the white-haired man lifted his hand for silence.
"Enough talk for now," he said. "There is work to be done before sundown."
The crowd reluctantly dispersed, save for the greasy-haired man with the axe. He wasn't going anywhere.
"You, too, Kendric."
"Lord Camarin, I don’t—“
"Do as I tell you."
With a scowl and a last threatening leer at He-Man and Battlecat, Kendric rejoined his companions as they moved about the dead na'dani laden with ropes, wooden beams and tools. He-Man wondered what they were doing.
"We are trying to get rid of this thing." Camarin gestured to the na'dani and scowled. "It will not burn and we obviously cannot leave it here. So tomorrow we will drag it to an abandoned quarry in the hills and bury it under a rock slide. That is the best we can do."
"It won't burn?"
"We cannot get a torch close enough to try."
The Sorceress had not mentioned immunity to fire, nor the oppressive miasma which suffused the air around the na'dani. What other details had she omitted? "How was it killed?"
"The Eledhrin ran it through with his sword, I am told," came the reply. "I was not here for the battle."
"And he survived?"
"He lives." Camarin's voice grew harsh. "Twelve of his men do not."
Alive. Then there was hope. "Where is he now?"
"He has returned to his house at Dha'Alasia." Camarin regarded him for a moment, then added softly, "You are going to insist on seeing him yourself, yes?"
"It's important, yes."
Stealing a last look at the na'dani, Camarin nodded. "Yes, you did say that."
The fire felt wonderful. Stripping off his gloves, He-Man crouched down beside the grate, letting the heat play across his wind-chapped face and hands. Battlecat hunkered down beside him with a low, contented huff; the fireplace was wide enough that they could share the heat comfortably, with elbow-room to spare.
Their first glimpse of the Eledhrin's residence was the entry hall which they now occupied, a firelit, oak-beamed chamber hung with tapestries to insulate it against the cold. A scuffed and faded carpet, worn by years of foot-traffic, ran the length of the hall. Furniture was sparse; probably it was not needed in this part of the house. A place for waiting, for passing through. Many similar rooms might be found in the Eternian royal palace. And wasn't that what they had been left to do, to wait?
Merely getting inside, however, had presented its share of obstacles. Lord Camarin had been reluctant to permit Battlecat into the house, thinking perhaps that he might claw the rugs or spray the furniture; the implication thoroughly mortified Battlecat, who even as Cringer was fastidiously clean and polite around humans. He was not an animal, he said, and he was not going to spend the night in the freezing cold when he'd already shed his winter coat. Eyes wide (for Battlecat had not spoken before this), Camarin stammered an apology and let the matter drop.
What came next was far more serious. Before he was allowed to step across the threshold, He-Man had to surrender his sword.
"This is our custom," Camarin coldly informed him when he tried to refuse. "A guest does not violate the hospitality of his host by bringing a weapon into his household."
The Eledhrin's household, on the other hand, brandished more weapons than the entire garrison of Eternos; Dha’Alasia seemed more like an armed camp than a residence. He-Man was assured that his sword would be kept in a private, secured place, and that as a guest his person was inviolate. He was entitled to every comfort the house could offer, to the deference and protection of the Eledhrin's people--but not without a catch.
There was always a catch.
Camarin had one final, chilling pronouncement to make. "Violate the peace of this house by doing harm to one of its people and your life is forfeit. If this happens, the Eledhrin has the right to have you executed with your own sword. If it’s serious enough, he might do it himself." His colorless eyes were flat and implacable as he said it. He-Man had no doubt he was utterly serious.
He-Man began to wonder then what sort of man the Eledhrin was. "I'm sure that won't be necessary. We didn't come here to make trouble." And then he handed over his sword.
Crouching now by the fire with Battlecat, he felt strangely empty and vulnerable. His only link to Greyskull and home.... Stop worrying about it, he told himself. But the unwelcome pangs of vulnerability would not leave him alone, so he tried to distract himself by studying his surroundings.
High on the wall opposite the main doors hung a banner, black, emblazoned with a silver, star-crowned tree. He-Man had earlier noticed the same device on a badge worn by Camarin and by the two guards who now warily watched the pair from the entryway.
Sound suddenly drew his attention from the banner to the doors directly below it. They opened and Camarin appeared.
No, not Camarin, He-Man realized half a moment later, but a younger, blurred version of the same. His son, perhaps? The man approached, one wary eye fixed on Battlecat. He nodded politely to He-Man.
"I am Elhanu," he said. "Please come with me."
"To see the Eledhrin?"
"He has asked to see you, yes."
As Battlecat rose and stretched, panic flickered in Elhanu's eyes. "Only you, warrior," he hastily added. "The Eledhrin said nothing about your...your companion."
Giving his friend a reassuring look, He-Man nodded. "He'll be all right here by the fire. What I mean is, he's not going to hurt anyone while I'm gone."
Elhanu regarded him soberly. "My kinsman has already told me that he is somewhat...unusual."
For the time being, Battlecat would be all right, but He-Man nevertheless felt uneasy about leaving him.
Once he moved through the doors leading out of the main hall, He-Man found himself in a part of Dha'Alasia that looked more like a residence than an armed camp. As Elhanu escorted him through a series of candlelit corridors, the smell of beeswax polish, oiled leather and cooking food--the kitchen must be somewhere close by--reminded He-Man of home. And also of the fact that he was ravenously hungry; his last meal had been the night before, as Adam at one of his father's state banquets. If he wasn't offered a meal soon, he'd have to ask and that was something he'd prefer not to do. He didn't want to appear rude in front of these people.
"My lord, the Eternian warrior He-Man. Eternian, the Eledhrin of Sagar, Jhaen Mor--"
"That'll be enough, Elhanu, thank you," answered a voice from within the room. "Come in, Eternian."
The room into which He-Man stepped was a library, small but richly appointed. A fire blazed brightly on the hearth, its flickering light gleaming off polished wood, glass and the brass fittings of a telescope mounted in one corner.
Seated in a chair by the fire was a man plainly dressed in wool and leather. Black hair, drawn back from his face, was pulled into a tight braid. He-Man guessed his age to be anywhere from thirty to forty-five. A young man still, except for piercing eyes which missed nothing.
"Sit down," he said. More command than request.
He-Man took a seat across from him. "Are you the Eledhrin?"
“I am Jhaen Morendil, yes.” He had a weary, clipped voice, with an accent He-Man couldn't quite place.
The door clicked shut, but to He-Man's surprise and dismay, Elhanu remained in the room. His confusion must have been apparent, because his host explained, "It's customary for someone to remain in the room when a stranger is present. The household isn't sure of your loyalties." And neither am I, his eyes seemed to say. "Elhanu's entirely loyal. He won't repeat what's said in here unless I give him permission."
He-Man nodded. "It's all right," he said. There were occasions when Prince Adam required bodyguards, his father even more so, but they were never this intrusive. Well, it could be worse, He-Man admitted to himself. It could be the fellow outside the door.
"Camarin has given me his report," said the Eledhrin. "Do you want to explain?"
"About my being here or about the na'dante?"
"Try both."
"Lord Mor—” He stumbled over the alien syllables until his host, lifting a sardonic eyebrow, corrected himself with a single word: “Blackstar.”
“What?”
“Old High Sagarese must be difficult for you. You can use the translation instead.”
“You don’t mind?”
“Hell, half the people in the hinterlands can’t pronounce my name.” For some reason, the Eledhrin seemed to find this amusing. “Yes, go ahead.”
Flustered, He-Man continued, “I was sent to help. There may be--no, will be--more na'dante." He then revealed what Camarin could not have known to tell the Eledhrin, about the swords and the power needed to close the dimensional breach. And the more he revealed, the more emotion began to show on the other man's face.
"Did this Sorceress of yours know that this...this na'dani would come?" If it wasn't an accusation, it just as easily become one. He-Man told himself to be very, very careful.
"No, or I would have been here at once. The Sorceress felt the na'dani die; she heard a scream across the worlds. It was the first indication she had that a rupture had occurred. Even then, and at such a distance, she couldn't do anything. I'm sorry. I know what the na'dani did. I saw."
Some of the anger left the Eledhrin's face. "You were at Devor, then."
He must mean the village. "I saw the houses and the burnt ground, but no bodies."
"They were removed last night. Elhanu took the survivors to Rocha."
"There were survivors?"
"A handful out of more than two hundred, those who ran and didn't wait to see who the enemy was. Most didn't have even that much of a chance. You've seen the creature, haven't you? Well, you haven't, not really. You haven't felt this thing attack. It tears the life-force out of living things like marrow. I don't think you want to see what it looks like when that gets ripped away."
Seeing the abandoned village and the lifeless forest had been enough. "I've been told the na'dani's corpse won't burn; it still has power, even now." He-Man found himself at a loss to describe the miasma that pervaded the air around the corpse. "But when it was alive....how could you possibly kill it and survive?"
A heavy silence followed, in which He-Man was left to wait and wonder why there was no answer. Something must have happened, something Blackstar couldn't or wouldn't discuss.
"Elhanu," the Eledhrin said, very softly. "My sword. Bring it here, and the glove."
Moving almost noiselessly, the young man brought the two items and set them across the Eledhrin's lap. One was a sword set in a richly-tooled scabbard, the other a cracked, half-charred piece of leather. He-Man was so intent on the objects he didn't noticed when Elhanu once again slid inconspicuously into the corner.
Taking the sword awkwardly in his left hand, Blackstar slid it free, letting the scabbard slide unnoticed to the floor. Under his touch, the metal seemed to breathe with a faint white fire that caressed the blade from its tip upward to its oddly angular hilt.
The room began to pulsate. He-Man blinked, then leaned forward slightly. No, it wasn't the room. It was the sword. It was humming. "Does it always do that?" he asked.
"No, not always. It awoke last night and hasn't been quiet since."
For the first time, He-Man was glad he'd had to surrender the Sword of Power. Two sentient swords in one room would have been too much. "It killed the na'dani, didn't it?"
Rather than answer, Blackstar gave him the scrap of leather. A glove. "I was wearing that when I struck the na'dani." He paused to retrieve the scabbard, clumsily tucking the sword against his body so it wouldn't slide off his lap. He-Man watched him for a moment, poised to help, when his eyes were suddenly drawn again to the glove. He turned it over in his hands, studying it. A glove worn on the right hand.
The Eledhrin was right-handed, but at this moment he was using only the left; when he moved his right side seemed stiff and the arm was immobile. What had he done to it? "Is it broken?" He-Man asked. "The arm, I mean. It looks like it hurts."
"No, not broken, just...sprained. When the sword struck the na'dani, it was a hard blow. The impact went up into my arm."
Which explained the arm, but not the glove. When confronted by the contradiction, Blackstar gazed down at the battered glove with unfocused eyes. "I'm not sure what happened," he murmured. "Perhaps the sword...no, I don't know. There was no light, my men dropping dead all around me--it's difficult to remember." As he spoke, his voice assumed the distant, toneless quality of one describing a dream from which he has just awakened. Perhaps he had, reflected He-Man, and remembered more of the nightmare than he cared to admit.