The Fountain of Eden: A Myth of Birth, Death, and Beer

by Dan H Kind

  Chapter 39

  The Sword of the Bodhisattva

  The rain had ceased, but downtown Eden might as well have been Venice with all the flooded streets. The mythos stood before the metal fence surrounding the Thomas Jefferson House excavation site. Hidden by canvas sheets, the supposed archaeological dig was not visible from any vantage point on surrounding streets. The only way in or out was the automatic sliding door in the fence, which would open wide enough to admit dump-trucks and other excavation equipment. Security had the night off due to the storm, but the door was chained and padlocked.

  Master Mirbodi and Sitting Lotus arrived on dragonback and jumped down. Sir Arthur spun to the Zen master and gestured at the Hydra. “Master, if you would be so kind as to ask your new friend to clear a path.”

  Master Mirbodi grinned and placed a hand upon the Hydra's bloated belly. The forty-seven dragon-heads seemed to grin, and the Hydra stomped the fence down flat. Cautiously, the mythos spread out into the area, looking down at the mud.

  As Master Mirbodi shuffled through the middle of the lot, solid ground swallowed him, leaving no trace behind.

  “Master!” yelled Sitting Lotus, and ran to where the Zen master had vanished.

  Master Mirbodi's head arose from the earth like the lost cranium of an Asian Headless Horseman. “If you no realize it there you walk right over it.”

  The earthen illusion, its power broken, faded into non-existence, and there yawned a dark and gaping hole in the muddy ground.

  Master Mirbodi levitated to solid ground. His finger exploded with white light, and he pointed the glowing digit down into the pit. A rope ladder dangled from one side of the hole, stretching down into the darkness. Even the Zen master's finger-light could not penetrate the chasm's depths.

  “Now,” said a grinning Master Mirbodi, “who wanna go first?”

  Hermes flew down first. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn after that. Then Jack, Stephone, Sir Arthur, Promo, Becky Thatcher, Master Mirbodi, and Sitting Lotus, who only came along because he refused to leave the Zen master's side. The remaining mythos stayed aboveground.

  When they rendezvoused at the bottom of the pit, Master Mirbodi shone his finger-light around the darkness, which ruled underground Eden with all-conquering fists of shadow.

  The subterranean corridor they found themselves in led one way. They walked forward until the rocky hallway opened into a huge cavern easily the size of downtown Eden. Jack's eyes kept widening as he observed the massive cavern. Stalagmites jutted from the ground like jagged teeth, and stalactites hung down like huge icicles. In certain spots they connected, creating thick pillars adorned with prismatic crystals of a thousand different colors that lit the cavern with a wan phosphorescence. A stream cut through the middle of the cave, vanishing into a hole beneath a raised platform at the opposite end. Gaping black maws indicating tunnels dotted the walls.

  “How could I have lived here in Eden so long and not known this place was here?” said Promo. “A natural amphitheater, right under downtown!”

  “I no think anybody know it here,” said Master Mirbodi. “Except Hades, I guess.”

  “I'll bet this is why Colonial Eden was staying so hush-hush about the Thomas Jefferson House,” said Jack. “I'll bet they were excavating the ruins and stumbled across this cavern.”

  “Yes, but this place is in pristine condition,” said Sir Arthur. “Even the stone floors look to have been recently swept. So who's the caretaker? Certainly not Hades.”

  Many hypotheses were bandied about, including a reclusive god of stone and a master Japanese rock gardener turned deity. Jack had his money down on a geologist's tortured ghost. The discussion soon ended to be resumed another day.

  “Let's spread out and search this cavern,” said Sir Arthur. “Listen down each tunnel, and come let me know if you hear anything.” He nodded at Promo, and the two walked off.

  A few minutes later, Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher came running up to Jack and Sir Arthur.

  “We a-heard something!” said Tom.

  “We checked out a couple of tunnels over there.” Becky pointed to the left side of the amphitheater, about halfway down the slope, where a black hole marked the entrance to a tunnel. “And I coulda sworn I heard faint, echoing voices.”

  The rest of the group converged. Not one of them had heard a thing.

  Sir Arthur pulled a cigarette from his pocket, lit up, and puffed away. “I say we stick together and follow this tunnel to its end.” The cigarette smoldered, and his deadpan eyes flicked from one gaze to another. “What say you?”

  Nobody objected, and they headed down the tunnel as quiet as possible. Jack gulped, wondering what horrors might lurk at the end of the rocky corridor, but plodded along with his friends.

  Sir Arthur held up a hand, and those marching along behind him halted. Sputtering orange light flickered and shadows danced across the bedrock just ahead, where the corridor took a sharp right turn. Things clanked and clinked as if a flurry of activity transpired.

  Huck peeked around the corner, then ducked his head back. “I can't make out who it is from here. Six, maybe seven of 'em. When we turn the corner we'll be right on top of 'em.”

  Sir Arthur nodded and took a deep breath. “All right. Let's rush 'em on three. One . . . two . . .”

  They tensed.

  “THREE!”

  Suddenly surrounded by berserking mythos, Raven, Iktome, and Masaaw scampered backwards. Dollies stacked with cases of Hoppy Heaven Ale crashed to the ground and beer seeped out across the cavern floor. But the Tricksters were not alone.

  “Tisiphone!” said Jack. “Good too see you again, old gal! And all in one piece, at that! Why, you're looking as bloody horrible as ever! You know, you and your sisters there could give those harpies a run for their money in an 'Ugliest Bitch in Hades' pageant.”

  Tisiphone hissed like an undead cobra and jerked around like a reanimated corpse, her silver hair streaming behind her even though no wind penetrated this far underground. She held two of her patented barbed whips cocked back and poised to strike. Crimson blood dripped from her eyes and ran down her face in rivulets, staining her white dress black. She rasped with undisguised malice: (We are the Ministers of Dark Justice. You have again interfered with the plans of the King of the Dead, and now you shall—)

  “But how is it that you are still here on Earth?” cut in Sir Arthur. He motioned to Tom and Huck to fan out behind him to prevent an escape attempt. “Enlighten me, my good ladies, before I perish. Why were you not pulled down into the sipapuni with the rest of your Underworld brethren?”

  The three Furies chuckled like anaconda death rattles, a grating hiss Jack felt creeping up his spine like cold fear.

  Red-haired Alecto wore a tattered black dress the size of a parachute—a battleaxe wielding a massive adamantine-bladed battleaxe. Her eyes dripped blood as she rumbled: (We are far more powerful than endless legions of harpies, centaurs, and Oneiroi.)

  Blond-haired Magaera was a withered gray husk, all protruding bones and flaps of dessicated skin. She carried a wicked-looking trident. She grinned a bloody, malevolent grin. (And we each grabbed a Trickster and held on for dear life when we felt the pull of the spell. We are now linked with them, mind to mind.)

  The Tricksters did look dazed and uncomprehending, as though doped up on some mind-numbing drug.

  (TRICKSTERS, ATTACK!) thundered Tisiphone.

  Tisiphone's whips snaked towards Stephone, but Jack sprang forward and knocked the Iron Queen out of the way. As they tumbled to the ground in a heap, a stinging barb caught Jack on the cheek. When he hit the stone floor, something flew from his pants pocket and skittered across the cavern.

  Jack grabbed Tisiphone's whip when it again flashed out. He hauled himself to his feet and wrested it from her with a single heave. The two circled one another like ninjas, whips cracking in the damp underground air. Stephone regained her footing, and her hands began to glow with white-gold light as she built up ken for an
attack.

  Tom, Becky, and Huck had their knives out. Magaera parried their strikes with her trident and matched every attack with one of her own, her movements a stop-motion blur. Despite outnumbering her and working together, the kids could not break through the Fury's defenses.

  Sir Arthur fended off the airborne Raven with his sword-cane as the Trickster slashed at him with razor sharp talons. Sir Arthur could not even spare a second to go for his revolver. Then a fireball blasted into Raven's unprotected flank. The Trickster screeched and flapped to the cavern's upper recesses, and the stench of burning feathers filled the air. Captain Promo grinned over at Sir Arthur, then jumped to help Jack and Stephone deal with Tisiphone.

  Alecto's battleaxe met Hermes's Caduceus with deafening clangs. Then Hermes levitated and pointed the wand down at the Fury. A bolt of silver-gold energy shot from its tip and engulfed Alecto, who turned into a pigeon. The Fury's battleaxe clattered to the floor, and Hermes grinned in victory and alighted on the cavern floor. But in an instant Alecto converted back to her true form, using her ken like an old pro. She snatched up her fallen weapon and swung it at Hermes, who barely parried the blow, and the duel resumed.

  Iktome stayed back from the initial fighting and skittered unnoticed up the cavern wall. Now he walked upside-down across the ceiling, tossing down shimmering Hoops of Binding. One of the Hoops glanced off Tom Sawyer's ear, but that was all it needed to do its work. An glowing azure rope of ken materialized from nothingness, snaked itself around Tom, and constricted. Tom dropped his slingshot and hit the stone floor face first, immobilized. It took but a moment for Huck to release Tom from the Hoop, but during those few seconds Becky was forced to fend off Magaera on her own.

  Tom jumped to his feet and reengaged the Fury, who had nearly beaten down Becky's guard while the boys had been distracted.

  After freeing Tom, Huck stashed his knife in his belt and pulled out his spitball-shooter. He took aim and bombarded the ceiling with spitballs. Iktome squealed and fell shrieking from the ceiling to land atop Raven. The Tricksters crashed to the floor in a tangle of wings and hairy insect limbs. Sir Arthur pressed the sudden advantage, slicing and dicing mytho-flesh with his sword-cane, sending fur and feathers flying. But then the Tricksters began working in tandem to push the detective back.

  Master Mirbodi watched with bemused eyes as Masaaw sauntered up to him on fleshless legs. The monk went into Buddha stance without appearing to move: crouched with his knees in the air, rear end hovering two inches above the ground, hands pressed together.

  Masaaw vaulted over Master Mirbodi's head and kicked Sitting Lotus—who didn't even see the blow coming—in the left temple. The novice crumpled to the ground, where he looked like a hobo sleeping in a pile of dirty linen. Masaaw hauled Sitting Lotus to his feet by the hood of his robe.

  “So, monk, did you find my kopavi?” Masaaw's arm-bones looped around the novice's neck. “If not, I will have no choice but to destroy this defenseless human being.”

  Master Mirbodi grinned and bent to pick something up. It was the strange, circular, bone-like object that had fallen out of Jack's pocket and skittered across the cavern.

  “Is this what you looking for, kachina man?”

  The ever-smiling monk tossed the object to Masaaw, who let go of Sitting Lotus and caught it with wonder in his flaming eyes.

  “This . . . this is it!”

  Masaaw placed the kopavi on his cranium. A surge of blue light exploded across the cavern as the circle of bone amalgamated itself to his skull. Then the always smiling skeleton man seemed, for the first time, to genuinely smile. He bowed to Master Mirbodi. “Thank you, Bodhidharma. And now, there is something I must do. A promise is a promise.”

  Masaaw cupped his skeletal hands to his mouth and yelled, “Tricksters!”

  Raven and Iktome slowed for a moment, but then continued to attack.

  “My kopavi has been returned, and I release you from the Trickster Blood Oath you swore!”

  Masaaw shoved a bony hand between his jaws, deep down his throat. The hand came out clutching five official-looking forms, which burst into flame. “Do not fight on the side of Hades and his dark minions! Turn, and fight these Furies that leeched our ken!”

  Raven and Iktome stopped dead in their tracks. Tisiphone doubled her attack on Jack and Stephone, whose blasts of the energy of life did minimal damage to the seasoned Fury. Magaera twirled in a circle with swinging trident, pushing Tom, Becky, and Huck closer to the cavern wall. Intent on her battle with Hermes, Alecto's eyes did not even flick to Masaaw.

  And then the Tricksters switched sides, and the Furies found themselves severely outnumbered. They closed in back to back to back, spinning in a slow circle in the midst of a horde of enemies.

  Then Magaera jumped over Jack's head and landed behind him, by Sitting Lotus, who had stayed back from the press on the Furies. She snatched the hood of the novice's robe, and dragged him, flailing, towards the cavern wall. Her sisters also broke combat and flipped over the mythos' heads like zombified gymnasts to join her. Magaera held her trident to the novice's neck, drawing thin pinpricks of blood with two points.

  (Stay back!) hissed Tisiphone. Her whip crackled in the air before the advancing mythos, who slowed. (Stay where you are or we kill the human being!)

  They halted. The Furies grinned, thinking they had won.

  Sitting Lotus's eyes were closed and his mouth moved, but nothing came out. Perhaps he was silently praying to Buddha or chanting the Three Jewels.

  His hands began to pulse with lambent azure light.

  The Furies jumped back, though Magaera kept the trident leveled at the novice's head.

  A magnificent jeweled sword wreathed in blue fire blinked into existence in Sitting Lotus's shaking hands. He seemed just as shocked about this as everybody else, even more so when the burning blade began to slash and thrust and stab all on its own, with him unable to let go of it.

  The mythos closed in on the four struggling figures, but the Sword was doing quite well for itself. The enchanted blade moved with unearthly speed, pressing the Furies ever closer to the rock wall. The Furies screamed with pain and pleasure as the fiery weapon sliced their flesh into ribbons.

  Then Tisiphone's whip struck Sitting Lotus on the left hip and sent him spinning to the ground. He cried out, but the Sword dragged him right back to his feet. The Furies stood before the beleaguered novice with loose smiles on their bloody faces, ready for another hot, violent go-round.

  With a flash of azure light, the Sword in Sitting Lotus's hands transformed into a gun. Except that it was wreathed in blue fire, it looked like one of those cartoon guns that when you pull the trigger a little flag that says “Bang, you're dead!” pops out of the barrel.

  Time froze, everybody in the cavern wondering just what the hell was going on—and Sitting Lotus pointed the Sword-gun at the harpies and pulled the trigger.