The Rubbish Realm

Chapter 6

Chapter 6
Alistaire woke up, coughing, to a banging on the front door.
“The shop’s closed!” he tried to yell, before succumbing to the coughing yet again. He did such without getting out of bed, knowing that nobody up to any good would be knocking at this hour, and if one did come, he couldn’t deal with them. However, he couldn’t resist the nagging feeling that whoever was at the door was really somebody he should answer.
The knocking did not cease, to Alistaire’s annoyance. “What are you here for?” he asked. When there was no reply, he sat up in bed, groaning, pulled on his cloak, and went to the door.
Finally, the hooded figure standing outside the door replied, “That is none of your business, Alistaire.”
The password! It must be him! “Coming.” he stated, a hint of a smile crossing his ragged features, his first real smile since a long time prior. “Are you… Evander?” And even if it’s not, it’s still someone I have to open the door for. Or at least should, he thought, remembering his prior anticipation. They were almost always right… but only almost.
Evander, if it was him, did not respond, instead staring placidly at the door, waiting for it to open, but even so, Alistaire could see the relief in his eyes, an observation honed by many years of experience. Many, many years. He sighed, wishing he could still recall his childhood when he was still young and innocent, but those days were long gone. The man cleared his throat, reminding Alistaire of his presence.
Alistaire, startled for a moment, opened the door tentatively, muttering a countermeasure to the charm set up against intruders. “Please, enter!” He hadn’t been so excited in years, as he also hadn’t seen Evander for a similar length of time.
“Yes, I am Evander.” The figure spoke in his deep, dull tone as he entered the room. “And soon, you will wish I wasn’t.” The man’s shoulders sagged, tired from the many miles he had traveled and from the sad message he carried. How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news… and how ugly Evander’s feet must have been. Turning to the darkness outside, Evander spoke, seemingly to nothing. “Melton, you can stay outside.”
“Evander?” Alistaire stepped back, reading the deep sadness in Evander’s tone as regret that he would have to deal with his old friend, or it might have been malice? Either way, he readied a piece of magic in case Evander struck at him. For all my foresight, how could I not have known he would turn on me? Regret filled his voice. “What’s wrong?”
“I bring you ill tidings. There’s a hole in the sky. Also, the Emperor is looking for you, specifically.” Evander removed his hood to reveal his scarred, rueful face. His dull purple eyes were filled with sorrow and determination. “He seems to think you caused it, or at least that is what he is saying. You and I both know it was him behind it, though.”
“A-a hole - in the sky? Surely it cannot be Beresford’s long-forgotten prophecy coming to pass?” Alistaire felt weak suddenly and sat down, shaking. It was getting harder and harder to surprise him in his old age, but that had truly been unexpected.
Evander sighed. “I don’t remember that one. Are we all doomed?” After all, usually prophecies come true are times of great need, he thought to himself, a thought fitting his gloomy mood.
Alistaire nodded sadly before starting to recite the prophecy from memory, one that he had studied quite often along the years.
“‘When the sky begins to crumble,
Fell things upon the earth shall rumble.
Unless the heir from Earth descends,
All life shall meet a brutal end.
The worlds shall break, the heavens fall -
And silence reign, eclipsing all.’
“Or at least that’s all I remember.” He couldn’t shake off the nagging feeling that there was more to it than he knew, which in and of itself was probably more than anyone else on the whole planet, since Beresford himself had died many years ago.
“So yes, we are doomed - unless we can break it. It’s been done before.”
Alistaire stared off into the distance, as if he could see something in the wall that Evander couldn’t. “I know not. But if the emperor has really found me…” he trailed off, his slumped features countering Evander’s determined frame. “Do you know a safe place where I could peruse my tomes to find another prophecy, maybe one with more insight? I need time!” He noted the irony to himself, how for so long he had had all the time in the world and now today he had no time left. But he finally understood why his health was beginning to fail: the sky was failing as well. It was both relieving that nobody had cursed him and worrying that his long life might finally be drawing to a painful close. Everybody else always thought he knew everything on account of his exceedingly long lifespan, but really he knew far less than he would have liked.
Evander lost himself in thought.
Alistaire, with the patience that only someone who has lived many years can have, waited a while before he covered his mouth, overcome by another coughing fit, but this time his hand was red with blood.
Evander returned to reality. “I know of none. The Emperor sees everywhere.”
Alistaire stared deep into Evander’s eyes, but Evander turned away, unable to meet his old mentor’s gaze. “You know of nowhere? Surely there must be some place his gaze does not penetrate.”
“If there were, I would have found it long ago. You know how far I have traveled, the lengths to which revenge has carried me. Sometimes I wonder what I would be if not for Imogen, but-” He mumbled a reproach to himself. “No, nowhere is safe.”
A voice from the doorway jolted them out of their sorrowed musings. “What about the area where the sky fell? The part covered in rubble?” Melton’s gray eyes flashed as they always did when he had a new idea.
Alistaire smiled, something he hadn’t done for a long time. “Very good, my boy! Very good!” He even got up to pat Melton on the back, but sat down when the coughing struck again. “We must move quickly, before our enemies get here.”
“Alistaire, you’re getting old! You wouldn’t survive more than a- Alistiare?” He finally noticed the blood spattered on Alistaire’s handkerchief. “No, no, not now! You wouldn’t last more than a couple of days out there! I need you! You’re the only thing I’ve had left since Imogen died!”
Melton turned away, knowing this was no time to interrupt.
“That doesn’t matter. Would the sky last?” Alistaire interjected softly, and his deep, tired pink eyes met Evander’s for the first time in many years. ”Would I survive that long here?”
Evander caught its implications, the soft words of his old, dying mentor cutting him straight to the heart. “No. Neither of us would.”
Alistaire simply nodded in reply, a regretful frown crossing his features.
“Then we must go. Do we really need all of these tomes?” Evander queried tremulously, his affinity for confidence overruled by the hundreds of large books scattered throughout the messy room.
“Yes.” Alistaire stated bluntly, before pushing back on a bookshelf and revealing a secret passageway. His memory certainly wasn’t good enough to remember them all, and he was a fast reader anyway. “Put them in here, and then from here we can take them where we need to go.”
Evander stared wide-eyed at the portal for a moment, startled by its sudden appearance even though he had seen similar portals previously before regaining his composure, brushing his long hair back, and getting to work, lugging the hundreds of heavy books inside, while Alistaire sat in the chair, coughing blood into a handkerchief, too weak to stand. Melton joined his friend silently, cut to the heart by the pain he could see in Evander’s eyes.
Evander paused from his work, pained to see his old friend hurting like this, and put his hand on Alistaire’s shoulder. “Will you be alright? Is there anything I can do to help?”
“At my birth, a prophet prophesied, as they tend to do, ‘His health will be tied to the world above.’ Since the upper world, Earth, is dying and falling apart, so am I.” He looked down ruefully into the blood-stained handkerchief. “But it has never been this bad before.” As if to prove the point, he fell into another coughing fit, causing Evander to look away in grief.
“All the more reason to get going sooner rather than later.” Melton interrupted. “Everything is ready. Would you like me to pack some food? You… remember more on a full stomach.”
“That would be nice. To the rubble?”
Evander grabbed an emergency pack full of bread, cheese, other basic necessities, and a blanket in case it rained, and tossed it into the portal with the books. “To the rubble. And Melton - don’t die while I’m gone.”
Melton nodded.
And so finally, the two of them stepped through, Alistaire knowing it might very well be the last time he saw his beloved home. And in that space between realms, they were grateful that they had known each other.
“I’ll check on you sometime soon!” Evander noted with forced happiness as he turned back to the house.
Knowing full well they would probably be the last words he would say to his good friend, as he closed the portal, Alistaire left with a soft and simple “I hope you don’t have to.”