Temporal Knight/VCR

(Writer's note: This is the epilogue for my first attempt at a novel. In the previous scene the main character has just been revealed as a memory of the knight Illidan and cast away, as how could a memory compare to the real thing? Trying to end the book on a comedic note. Not sure if it works or if I should show the main character having to deal with being sent to the void.)



"Tell me, captain: why are we hiding amongst these rocks while this blasted wind constantly blares around us all day and night? We've been idling here without a thing to do since those featherfolk dropped us off into this vale—and that was over a fortnight ago! Please tell me something is about to change."
Illidan swung to face his second-in-command; his crowned helm veiled his chiseled features, which were appropriate given the strong gales that sounded next to him and churned through the Daggervale: the process that weathered into being the twisting maze of razor sharp rocks they presently inhabited.
“I’ll tell you why we’re hiding in these rocks, Cyril. For here is where Adrianna wants us to be until she gives the signal for us to leave,” Illidan answered as yet another burst of wind arrived from atop the mountain and sounded through the Windy Vale, sending one more shiver down the spines of Illidan and the remainder of his two hundred brave temporal knights.
“By chance, did she give you an inkling of when that might be?” Cyril asked, leaning against hard rock for cover. His hand slipped on the scraped down vegetation of the place.
“Cyril, I may be a temporal knight, but that doesn’t mean I can perceive the future,” Illidan answered with a noticeable sigh. “That’s why we have clairvoyants and this clairvoyant happens to be one who doesn’t share her mind so often.”
“Well, I for one, wish she would stop measuring every grain as they tumbled down the tube. Paradise may be fleeting but so is this wind. Can’t she see the men are getting restless?”
Illidan grimaced inside: Cyril was the most restless of them all.
He shot a glance at the others, having to crane his neck to do so. There they stood, alit in all the glory of a knight’s majesty, with their full gold plate and shouldering on their arms the triangle shields bearing the emblem of Ither Timeholder himself.
But now, it was the emblem of their future descendants and the city Adrianna said was called Alexandria.
His knight's sword sheathed, unlike the vine-encrusted versions emblazoned on their shields, in the back of his mind, Illidan recalled the events that had brought them to this place.
The temporal charge, his beacon of light, hurling towards the vanguard of Cyan Darkbane before they crashed into their cloud atop their regal mounts. Steering their mares back and forth inside the domain of the enemy, sending necromancer and dark knight to their doom, back to the void where they belonged. Battling the enemy! Before Cyan Darkbane himself arrived at the scene.
They were then forced to gather their arms and protect Illidan's beacon of light at all costs for Cyan Darkbane had come to extinguish the hope it represented, the last of their kind atop the mountain pass Ither Timeholder himself had weathered into being. Them preparing to cast the spell that would keep them all safe.
And all he had to do was keep his sword held high.
Though endless throngs of enemies came their way his sword remained high until at last that spell came down on them. And they, Cyan Darkbane and the kingdom they named Palador was frozen in that moment of time.
Although they remembered being surrounded by countless, untold numbers of Cyan Darkbane’s minions before being frozen in time, when they had woken up they found themselves in a different place entirely. They had mischievous featherfolk to thank for that—and for mending their wounds, the impish bird-like creatures having dragged them through almost the full scope of the Veil before booting them down into this light-forsaken place.
“Watch them become even more restless if Cyan Darkbane finds out we are here before Adrianna is ready,” Illidan decided to tell Cyril. “Which I remind you is another reason why we’re here.” Unnoticed by Cyril, Illidan's gloved hand hovered over the spot the dark knight had thrust his sword into his soulshard.
For a moment, but only the briefest of moments, Illidan merely heard the sound of the wind, Cyril keeping silent, no further arguments to offer.
“Well, I guess that settles it then,” Cyril said. “I only wish she would hurry up and tell us what we need to know so we can be done with it.”
Illidan gave his friend a rueful look. He spent a thought on all the other brave knights who had not made it this far. Somewhere in between he was given an idea.
Such a thought firmly etched in his mind, Illidan promptly stood up and unsheathed his sword; the blade—temporal crystal reversed through time to moment of conception—shone out like a second sun, casting a stronger glow on his armor and making him momentarily forget about the wind blazing around them.
He turned to face his fellow knights. In response, they all stood up and lined in assembly, tall and motionless with their swords at their sides; all except for Selenis, of course, who gave him a nod and a wink before giving her captain a slightly off-centered pose.
“Right, knights,” Illidan said. “Time to get away from this accursed vale and show Cyan Darkbane and his minions a thing or two about what it means to be a true wonder of the Age of Legends.”
Illidan’s knights cheered. In unison, they all unsheathed and raised their long swords in a combined clamor that threatened to out produce the blaring coming down from Mount Gale.
Illidan turned and faced Cyril, knowing he would be the knight who would most want to oblige. “Cyril, be a pal and lead the spell to fast forward time.”
The knight stood taken back for a moment, but then he snapped to it. “Yes, sir!” he shouted.
He drew his sword before him and started chanting the appropriate words; like grains of sand spilling out of the hourglass, small tears in the fabrics began to open up before then around him as time started to churn forward.
Adding their swords, the other knights began joining in and the grains sped faster.
At first, nothing discernible unfolded, but then, in the far gleam of Illidan's eyes, for the ever briefest of moments, he glimpsed a coruscate light bounce off the top of Mount Gale.
Illidan pressed the stop button; time rolled forward a few frames ahead before jerking to a stop.
Oops, that must have been it, thought Illidan.
"Cyril, rewind a bit, will ya."