Part II – Episode 1: Rat In A Cage
Hamar, fifteen years older, tanned once more, was out on the balcony of his mountain cave. Soon it would be another cold Autumn dawn.
This was Hamar composed, excited again, Hamar on the hunt. He bunched his eyebrows at the tall device in front of him and adjusted it precisely. “One more notch, just one more.”
It was a strange instrument he was working on, – an up-ended chariot’s rim cleverly re-secured to its axel, which could be rotated around into various positions. A fist-sized ball of crystal was attached to it. Further down the axel were two discs, each imbedded with a crystal bowl near their edge, each one able to be rotated independently of each other. When exactly lined up the three crystal objects captured a single ray of light out of the air.
Hamar struggled to precisely position the globe, inched the wheel and the discs by the barest degree in readiness for the beam to reach the rock-face behind him. With eagle-eyes he watched for something to appear.
The globe began to mist with a glow as it caught the pale light of the biggest dawn star. When the star burned the brightest the orb magnified it into a flame in its center, and a beam shot out. Hamar swiftly aligned the others behind it, narrowing the beam as thin as a straw onto the cave’s back wall.
There, he watched its pink trail of light inching along across a parchment, but only faintly. And only for the brief moments the star appeared, – before daylight could white out its glow.
The slowly moving bead of light quivered, its ghostly path now holding the key to the rest of Hamar’s life, the key to whether or not he’d have any life at all! With it he just might thwart the Master’s deadly designs on him, but only if he could trace its pathway fast.
– It was only a matter of weeks that he’d known there was any chance of escape left for him. For the decade and a half he’d been in that cave he’d been a hopeless prisoner.
Those years ago he’d got to the cave by accident, or at first had thought so. After that awful night on the hill Hamar had awakened to find he was lying out cold and wet like a drowned man. He’d hauled himself to his feet, his wet cloak clapping tight to him as he stumped downhill. On flat ground again he’d pressed on in a mindless race out across the foothills.
The desert sun had soon baked his clothes dry, his white skin getting redder and redder. Hamar had jogged for no reason other than to never stop running. Constantly he’d jerked his head to check behind himself for a sight from hell.
Three days later he was only able to stagger along as he finally left the barren wasteland behind and entered the foothills of the mountains. Huge boulders were strewn for miles, and he desperately licked leftover dew from pocks and crevices in them. At the day’s end the small rises finally tilted up into the first rise of a mountainside and he followed a narrow animal path that kept going higher. He was heading nowhere, only away, his fevered brain unable to think.
Night fell as the trail carried on higher and higher before scattering out to nothing amongst the rocky crags. Still Hamar dragged himself upward despite the freezing wind shooting past him, despite night scorpions on the move among the rocks, despite his hunger and pounding head and his mouth like papers stuck together, despite his aching legs barely able to push up one more time.
The mountain became mere ledges and outcrops in the dark, shapes for him to keep pushing his fingers and feet into. Finally his hands were too cold and stiff, too weak to grip anything.
The rest was hard to remember, – a head full of air, stones falling down all around him, a final slamming and bouncing. And then nothing.
….
When he gained consciousness his head was spinning and hurt, and when he could focus he slowly could make out he was lying outside a cave. Or rather was on a balcony in front of it.
The cave was no rough opening. His cheek was flat against an ice-smooth floor, and when he lifted his head he was staring at a doorway with light coming out of it. It had ornate pilasters on either side, – an important kind of place. When he rose up and stumbled through it, he was in an uninhabited chamber with tall curtains and lamps burning. He waited for a voice. None came.
Further inside there were cushions and he fell across them, forcing himself to try to think things again. In the silence he became aware of other sounds going on somewhere. None proved to be the echo of steps, nor any words, just the cave making its own moans and whistles from the wind.
No matter. His biggest need was water.
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