The Shrouded Stranger

Elena Galewind stood on the Splintered Rock landing platform looking out towards the dune sea. The horizon seemed to have moved and where the sky would normally have touched the ground, a vast dusty orange cloud crept along with a menacing procession of murky waves. Dust storms were not unusual on Araxes. The dry air, wind and vast expanse of sand lent itself to the phenomenon. The desert-borns, she knew, would be holed up in their seeqs.  Air traffic would be temporarily suspended, the people in the city told to go indoors, to fasten up their homes as the storm approached. It would pass and the people would return to whatever they were fixated on before. The klaxon had yet to sound so she stood and admired the beauty of it, using her staff as a measuring tool, calculating its trajectory, height and ferocity.

She was lost in thought, her mind imbued with the calculations. She didn't detect the dark, draped and cloaked stranger who emerged behind her.

"Greetings."

Startled, she turned round, suddenly thankful for the staff in her hand. She adopted the defensive pose without thinking.  In a blink of an eye, her thought processes sprung back to life,  assessing the danger. Cloaked, masked, male, no visible weaponry, a piercing red light emitted from a mechanical eye.


Elena straightened, her hand still grasping the staff tightly should she have to use it. "Greetings to you, sir."
"What is that pole you're holding" he asked, examining it closely.
"A ceremonial air staff, it is issued to many of my Order. A primarily defensive weapon."
"And what is your Order?"
Elena pondered the question, tried to foresee the different paths the conversation could take depending on her answer and the motives of the individual.
"You're a curious one", she said finally, "I suppose it does no harm to tell. I am an Adept of the Cognitive-Mentis Order. What are you?"
"I, I am but a soldier. Please, tell me more of your Order, enlighten me."

Again, she pondered the question. She harboured suspicions that he was more than just a soldier. Certainly, her Order was hardly a secret but the universe was a changed place. The Concordat was vast and it's borders touched the realms of others with increasing frequency. She chose the careful approach - "I fear you would find it a rather uninteresting story. Certainly combat is not one of our finer points although some come to the Order later in life having honed their skill in other areas."

The stranger spoke again, his voice slightly muffled by the dark cloth mask around his face - "I study more than just combat. As the ages passed, I have studied many things and harnessed many things".

An esoteric response in kind, she thought.

"I can tell from your attire", she began, "that you have an eclectic history. You do not appear to be the standard soldier common to these parts."

"Well analysed.". A curt response.

"What am I to make of the eyepiece?". She sought information upon which to make a hypothesis. The stranger was being vague. Perhaps the eyepiece will put me on the right path.

"Ancient technology. A memorable device."

Memorable or memory. She didn't hear above the growing winds. "Interesting", she asked, "I presume by the name it records what you see?"

"That's one of its features. It also displays a radar from the results of various scans. Sound, sight, infra-red, satellite."

The information was good but still too vague. She couldn't pinpoint a specific technology, race or planet.

"A useful device to have....why do you hide your face? To protect you from the sand or to protect your identity?"

"Let's just say it's for the sand."

"Understood". She accepted his abstruse nature for now, the wind was whipping up and the sand was starting  to gently peck her face.

He gestured to her staff - "You talked about your staff. What exactly can it do?"

"As I said, it's a primarily defensive weapon. It can project a super-concentrated burst of air to disorientate an opponent. Failing that, it makes a useful melee weapon."

"How does it work? Technological or.....other alternatives?"

Finally, she thought, I detect the person behind the mask. Alternatives to technology mean a belief in mythical or fantastical powers. Elena replied "Technological. We are a scientific people not beholden to the wild superstitions of others, like the Sinisterhood."

Elena noticed the man stiffen. Agitated perhaps. "Through my years, I have studied both. And I can tell you such things are far more than superstitions. Superstitions do not destroy armies."

A simple claim to rebuke, she thought. Scientific, logical thought would prevail. "That rather depends on the army. A primitive race of spear throwers would tremble in fear at 'Gods' with laserguns."

"You lack realisation.".

A firm and strong rebuttal implying she lacked the knowledge to comprehend the matter at hand. Something she was unaccustomed to. She raised an eyebrow but was interrupted before she could respond in kind.

"I have learnt of a true power", he intoned, "greater than any other."

"Tell, what is this power? Can it be studied in a laboratory?". She heard the scorn in her own voice.

"It can only be studied through experience. I do not know of it's word in our tongue."

Damnation, this man has a propensity to be utterly unfathomable. 

"You will learn one day." he said before turning away and striding away across the platform as mysteriously as he had arrived. Elena held her hand up to her face, protecting it from the sand which peppered her skin like tiny fragments of glass. You leave on a riddle.....a disconcerting fact to be true...but I'm rather good at solving them. 






[Featuring "Gordon Freeman"]