‘I do not ‘blurt’,’ said Elkeira, sounding hurt by the accusation. ‘Maxine is right,’ said Tallon, ‘in fact, to be on the safe side, do not say anything at all.’ Elkeira pouted sullenly the way only a teenager can. Max looked again at Haven, his face had turned ashen. ‘You must be in a lot of pain,’ she said gently brushing a strand of hair from his forehead, ‘would you like me to try some healing?’ ‘No,’ said Haven grimacing from the reverberation of his own voice, ‘we must try and keep the extent of our abilities from him, I’m getting a lot of deception from him but I can’t get what it’s about.’ ‘No doubt we will find out soon enough,’ said Gilster, as the door began to open. ‘No one is to tell him Gilster is a singer,’ hissed Haven, ‘that’s vital, something about singers is very important to him.’ They all nodded. ‘All is ready,’ said Benitoff proudly, ‘enjoy.’ Upon entering, their eyes were met with a scene of splendour. The room was exquisitely decorated, more so than the throne room. The ceiling was painted gold with five, huge chandeliers hanging from golden chains, each covered with hundreds of candles. The walls were dark wooden panelling covered with paintings, each depicting a scene from everyday life; from hunting and farming to smiling families dressed in their finery. Two fires blazed in giant stone hearths, one to the left of the table and one to the right, the mantelpieces were higher than the top of Haven’s head. Under foot was a thick, plush carpet deadening their footsteps as the wandered around looking at each treasure. The dining table was easily twenty feet long and covered with a cream, damask table cloth. Gold plates, gold cutlery and crystal goblets were set upon it with military precision, drawing a sigh of wonderment from the guests. But the biggest surprise was the amount of food on giant golden platters covering the table. ‘Surely this can’t be all for us,’ thought Max. ‘I thought you’d like it,’ said Benitoff beaming with pride at their stunned faces. ‘Please, be seated.’ The chairs were ornately carved with a different animal head atop each back-rest. Benitoff’s chair at the head of the table was twice the size of everyone else’s but not as big as his throne. Gilster sat to Benitoffs’ right, next to Max and then Haven, Tallon sat to his left with Elkeira next to him. ‘Help yourselves to whatever it is you would like, there is plenty more where this came from.’ ‘More!’ shrieked Elkeira in shock, never had she seen this much grand food in one place before. She began piling food on her plate, wanting to taste everything. Tallon laughed. ‘Not too much little sister, you do not want to burst.’ Everyone began to fill their plates. Haven just picked, his head throbbing in agony. When the meal was over and servants had removed all the plates they sat congenially around the table, goblets of wine in hand. ‘Now,’ said Benitoff, ‘the time has come for me to tell you a story, it is a story of greed, corruption and murder, the story of my world. But, before I begin,’ he said suddenly staring intently at Gilster, ‘you never did tell me what your gift is. What is it that you do?’ ‘Oh, nothing much sire,’ said Gilster casually, ‘just a small bit of healing.’ He smiled at Benitoff. Benitoff continued staring, the tension around the table mounted, no one spoke. Then he smiled. ‘You must show me one day,’ he said. ‘Of course sire, smiled Gilster.’ He began to tell the story. ‘Millennia ago, two beings arrived, they were not of this world. Their names were Anubis and Epona. Anubis had no interest in this world in the beginning and left everything to Epona, she had a vision of a world filled with light and beauty, a world where all people would be happy and all their worries would be gone. They wouldn’t have to struggle to survive and life would be wonderful and carefree. So she set about building this world for her ‘children’ as she called them. But as is always the way with humans, they weren’t content, they had nothing to strive for, no challenges to face and so they became bored, and with boredom came bitterness. Who was this outsider who had come into their midst and decided how their world should be? Surely it should be up to them what sort of world they wanted to live in. Not everyone felt this way, but they were by far a very small minority. Eventually a conclusion was reached by the masses, she must be stopped, perhaps even removed. They sent a delegation to meet with Anubis and asked if he could accomplish this for them, if he did they would forever be his people and not Eponas. Epona was heartbroken; her children had turned their backs on her. So she fled to a distant part of the world to lick her wounds. The few loyal children that remained to her built small shrines so they could still speak to their ‘mother’, this they did in secret. Anubis agreed to the people’s demands and all law and order was swept away. He then built a large army to keep the people under his control. Later on he trained a smaller number of people to be his eyes and ears, his spies, and he gave them knowledge to build things for his pleasure. My father was one of them. Anubis also recruited energy workers, telepaths, healers, psychics and many other types, but his favourites were the singers for they had great power, more power than all the other energy workers put together. He used them to destroy the works of man. No one was safe from his scrutiny, people were killed for even thinking unflattering thoughts about Anubis. His eyes and ears were everywhere, seeing everything, hearing everything. But this was not enough for Anubis, he wanted all the worlds under his control, so he ordered his chosen few, my father among them, to find a way to break the barriers that separated the worlds and then he would be master of all. They eventually made a small portable device which allowed a few energy workers at a time to transport to other worlds without using the portals, they reported back to him of all the wonderful things they had witnessed in these other worlds, but instead of making Anubis happy, it just made him angrier, now he desperately wanted to see for himself. He tried to use the device but his energy-field was too strong and only succeeded in destroying the little machine. His wrath knew no bounds, he became insane with power, he ordered his singers to track down and kill all energy workers. He wanted not one left alive because they had seen things he could not; this became known as ‘The Purge’. They killed thousands and thousands of people in the most horrible ways imaginable. Very few managed to escape the Purge, but the ones that did, went underground and could never use their powers again in case Anubis found them. The singers then began to fear for their own lives and turned on Anubis, their combined power was mighty and almost destroyed Anubis, but in the end it was the singers who were destroyed, again a few managed to escape but nobody knows where they went. After this Anubis did not want to take any chances and he asked my father to build a machine to stop all energy workers from using their powers. My father tried but he only succeeded in building a machine to dampen their energy but not block it completely. Anubis took my father and tortured him, but there was nothing my father could do, the machine Anubis wanted could not be built. Fearing for the safety of his family my father got a message to my mother to take me and hide. My father was never seen again.’ Benitoff looked like an alabaster statue, his rage barely contained. ‘And that, my friends was his big mistake. I swore to avenge my father.’ His voice rising with each word he spoke, until he shrieked, ‘I will find enough singers and I will kill Anubis.’ He banged his fist down hard on the table making all the crystal goblets jump in unison. ‘But, please forgive me, I do not like angry outbursts.’ The others sat in silence, it was clear to all of them the man was quite insane. ‘I will continue.’ ‘There’s more,’ thought Max. ‘Anubis’ army went on the rampage until nothing was left but smouldering ruins. Anubis decided that if he couldn’t have all the worlds for himself then no one would have them, so his plan was to catch all the Chosen and have them put to death, thus stopping them from opening the final portal. If more chosen came he would just keep having them killed, but later he found out, if all the Chosen were killed together in the same world no more would follow. Then all he had to do was wait until another of his race came to rescue him, annihilating our worlds in the process. My plan is to keep him from finding the Chosen and then help them when the time is right. They sat in silence for many minutes trying to take in all that had been said, until Benitoff eventually spoke. ‘It is very late my friends and I’m sure you would like to rest before the morning and the information about Daria arrives. I have had two rooms made up for you, please follow me,’ he said rising from the table. He led them out through the throne room and down the corridor indicting two doors on the left. ‘I will leave you now, good night.’ With that he carried on down the corridor, turned a corner and disappeared from sight. Gilster opened the door to one of the rooms and they all entered. It wasn’t as lavish as the rooms they had been in but it was comfortable and warm, three four poster beds were made up, looking very inviting and a number of large divans and arm chairs were in front of a blazing, log fire. ‘I think it’s best if we all sleep in the one room,’ said Max. Elkeira made herself comfortable on one of the divans. ‘I am just going to close my eyes for a bit,’ she said yawning, ‘don’t let me fall asleep I want to hear everything you talk about.’ She curled up, her head cushioned on a large, feather pillow. In a few moments they heard her steady breathing and knew she had fallen asleep. Tallon smile and gently laid Havens cloak over her. ‘I cannot blame her,’ he said kissing her head, ‘it is all so new and exciting, unfortunately, she does not understand the danger.’ ‘Well, what do we make of all that,’ said Max throwing herself into an enormous stuffed arm chair in front of the fire. ‘The man is obviously quite insane.’ Gilster moved to stand in front of the blaze, warming his hands and his backside. ‘I agree, he’s quite mad, but as for the rest, I’m not really sure, it was a lot to take in, it’s obvious he hasn’t told us everything, but what are the bits that are missing and how important to us are they. Haven, what do you think?’ Haven was laying on one of the huge beds. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered, ‘you’ll have to work it out without me, I feel like my head is about to burst open like a ripe pod, and before you ask, no, you can’t try any healing on me, I don’t want anyone using any energy unless it’s a matter of life and death. For some reason it’s very important to Benitoff that we use our “gifts”. Now if you’ll excuse me, just let me die in peace.’ Max wished she could help. ‘If you need anything, just let me know,’ she said. Haven grunted. ‘I don’t understand,’ said Tallon, who had been running everything over in his mind, ‘if he wants to destroy Anubis why would he want the portal opened and risk letting Anubis escape?’ ‘My thoughts exactly,’ said Gilster, ‘there’s a lot more going on here than we know.’ ‘Bait,’ said Max. ‘Pardon,’ said Gilster, not following her train of thought. ‘I bet he wants to use the Chosen as bait, to lure Anubis out of hiding so he can get close enough to kill him.’ ‘That implies he has a way to kill him,’ suggested Tallon . ‘Yes it does, doesn’t it,’ said Gilster. Max sat forward in her chair, elbows on her knees. ‘Then what do you think our next move should be?’ ‘I’m not sure,’ said Gilster still standing in front of the fire, ‘we don’t seem to be in any danger at the moment. Perhaps we should just wait and see what Benitoff does next.’ Tallon, who had been wandering around the room checking for anyone in hiding, now sat down on the arm of Max’s chair. ‘Is that wise? I think we should be looking for a way to escape; we need to find the next Chosen and your friend.’ ‘Well they’re definitely not going to let us go voluntarily, we are, effectively, prisoners,’ said Gilster, ‘but if the opportunity to escape arises I think we should take it.’ They all agreed. Max yawned. ‘I think I might have a nap, we haven’t slept much since arriving in this world and I feel totally worn out.’ She walked over to the bed where Haven was sleeping; he was lying on his back, his forearm resting lightly on his brow as if to ward away the pain. She looked down at him seeing the pain etched heavily on his face; leaning forward she softly kissed his lips causing him to stir in his sleep. Climbing up onto the huge bed she threw her cloak over both of them and curled in next to his body. She was asleep and snoring softly as soon as her head hit the pillow. Gilster turned to Tallon. ‘Would you like to sleep? I can stand watch for a while.’ ‘No, you rest,’ said Tallon his eyes on Max, ‘suddenly I don’t feel very tired and there is much I need to think about.’ Gilster followed Tallon’s gaze. ‘Would you like to talk about her?’ he asked softly. ‘My pain is my own to bear, so no, I would not, but thank you for your concern.’ ‘As you wish,’ said Gilster, ‘wake me in a couple of hours and I will take watch.’ He climbed into one of the other beds and was asleep in seconds.