Immortality's Touchstone

by Mark Tufo

  I did not think things could get much worse—that was, at least, until the sun rose and I was awakened from my less than satisfying sleep. My arms and feet had been untied, and before I could even begin to acknowledge what was happening, I was being pulled up and a rope was fastened to my neck. I cried out in pain as my arms were wrenched down to be tied behind my back. I seriously thought my shoulder blades had snapped. They’d been locked in place for so long that to be forced so quickly in another direction was excruciating. I’d got my first glimpse at my body for a couple of days and I barely even knew myself. Huge pustules had burst over the entirety of me; in most places they had dried and it looked like I had a thick coating of shellac applied all over my red and bloated being.

  Sheets of the plastic-like pus-crust would periodically break off and fall away as I was pushed and dragged to wherever we were going. I could not even muster up apprehension; I had neither the energy nor the inclination. I was, however, looking for an exit strategy—and by that, I meant an upturned sword or maybe a live grenade I could fall on. I had not been expecting the icy briskness of the river as I was pushed in. I fell over, and the current began to take me away, at least until the point the tether around my neck was played out.

  “You smell so bad, Old One, my men don’t even want to be around to torture you,” one of the werewolves said as he placed a huge paw against my head and pushed me all the way to the bottom where my face scraped against some smooth rocks. I don’t know if he was expecting me to resist his half-hearted attempt at drowning me but I took the opportunity seriously and gulped in large quantities of water before he could yank me back up. He began to panic as I did my best to hold in all the water I had packed into my lungs.

  “You fools!” Ganlin shouted from the banks. “Get him to me!”

  I was airborne, I’d been launched like a scud missile. The impact dislodged a fair amount of the fluid; Ganlin pumped on my diaphragm, expelling some and my traitorous body took care of the rest. I started coughing uncontrollably, disgorging anything else still left.

  “Who told you to free him!?” Ganlin was shaking with rage.

  “Our leader,” was all the werewolf said as he walked past.

  I wanted to ask Ganlin if there was trouble in paradise, but again I couldn’t find it in me to throw a dose of sarcasm at him. I knew I was already well on my way to breaking against the walls of the pain, suffering, and torture. Ganlin had turned his back to me to watch the werewolves leaving. Here was an opportunity I would have certainly used in the past, but I could do nothing except revel in the fact that at this exact moment I was not being injured. Yes, the uneven and pebbly ground beneath my back hurt, but in relative terms, it was a feather bed.

  “Get up.” Ganlin focused back on me.

  I still had enough defiance in me that I wouldn’t have obeyed, but that was moot as I truly didn’t think I could stand on my own. Those cold, steel bands of indifferent power once again wrapped themselves around my chest. He squeezed them tight, maybe as a petty show of strength. I had another coughing fit and then panic, as with each cough the bands became tighter, making it more difficult to breathe. I want to make this clear: myself, my ego, my id, whatever, was not panicking. I welcomed death; I wanted it to hurry up and come up from its hiding spot and whisk me away to parts unknown. It was my body, the machine itself, that just wouldn’t quit. It was in survival mode and was doing all it could to suck down more life-giving oxygen. I tried to keep as natural a face as I could as I began to asphyxiate.

  I’m thinking it was either the blue around my lips or the rising red on my neck that gave me away. There was a slight release of pressure and then I was dragged behind Ganlin as he walked. The only part of me not being scraped up on the ground was my neck and head, which were forced in an unnatural angle as he pulled my body behind him. There were more jeers and taunting from the werewolves; I couldn’t care less. At this point, it made absolutely no difference. The fire that had burned intensely within me was being extinguished. I wondered if at some point I would become their willing slave in my own destruction. People have been beaten into allegiance for thousands of years; why should I be any different? My head sagged when I realized we were heading back to the ant hill, the werewolves were kind enough to kick the mound around to really stir them up for me.

  “Would you like a break today, Michael?” Ganlin had turned to face me.

  Even if I had wanted to respond I could not, the band around my neck was pulling on the ligature so tightly my windpipe was nearly closed.

  “Wouldn’t we all,” he added as he dragged me back to my home away from home. “Tie him back up,” he told a couple of the nearby werewolves. The bands had released just as the psychological games had begun. It wouldn’t be long before he actually would give me that break or tend to a wound or two. He would begin to look like my friend—sure a sadistic and cruel friend, but one whose affection I would kill for. And just because I knew how this was going to play out didn’t necessarily mean that I was going to be able to do anything to prevent it. I couldn’t take too much more of this. I cried out again when my arms were forced back up and over my head and I was once again tied down, though this time I was facing upwards. My back was being ruthlessly ravaged from below.

  As the sun rose so did my body heat. A lethal combination of temperature, dehydration, and toxins were making a powerful cocktail. I was at a whole new level of suffering, yet I did not moan even once. I didn’t ask for water, I did not ask for help in any way. I waited patiently for the scale of life and death to finally flip to my favor. It was Ganlin again that saved my sorry ass. If there was any way I could ever repay him for that, I planned on it. He splashed an entire urn of water upon my body and made sure that a fair amount ended up in my mouth, I could do nothing but swallow it.

  “It is an unseasonably hot day today. Has to be near ninety. Unusual for this time of year,” he said as he once again took his favorite seat. “If Azile does not show soon, I do not know how much longer Lunos is going to allow me to keep you alive. I believe that guard meant to drown you today. Had I not come looking for you, we would not be having this conversation.” He seemed to be pretty happy with himself.

  “So close,” I said through dried and cracked lips. Even that small movement was enough to cause the fissures to break apart and for blood to leak from them.

  “Hmm? Did you say something?” he continued on, though why he thought I cared was beyond me. Actually probably had nothing to do with me at all. The werewolves would most likely pay him no heed, and he liked to have an audience. Again, there were still avenues I might exploit; there was simply no part of me that felt capable of doing so. The sun was high overhead. I had my eyes shut tight against the burning bright beams. It still felt as if I were peering into it wide-eyed. My skin was beginning to blister and peel, I wondered sourly if I could be done in by skin cancer anytime soon. “Forsaken” does not even begin to describe what I felt. God had flipped me off and turned his back; the damn devil had a stake in this...I would have thought he’d want to make sure I hung around long enough so that he could collect his due. Sure, Mathieu, Lana, and Bailey had tried to free me once, but they’d done nothing more in the last week. I would have never left one of them to suffer like this. A bitter hatred seethed in the pit of my stomach where I tried to contain it. That craven little snake had even turned its eyes to Azile, its acid tongue flickered in and out as it looked for the appropriate vitriol to spit out. It was never given the chance.

  “Release the prisoner Michael Talbot or suffer my wrath!” It was Azile’s voice. It was powerful and it was scary and most might not have noticed, but I did—there was a timbre of fear in it as well.

  Ganlin stood up quickly. I got a chance to see his face as he did so. I was happy to note he looked pretty fucking petrified. When he saw me looking, he changed back quickly to one of arrogance.

  “Too late, I saw,” I coughed out. I made a small smile, which really cracked my lips apart. Blood rus
hed to fill in the crevasses. Still worth it. He left quickly, going up to get a better look, I’m sure. I was alone for the moment, but a sheep in a steel crate could have done more to extricate itself from its surroundings than I could. Part of me wished that Azile had never shown; she was now exposed to a danger I could not help her with. Another part of me hoped she dropped her vengeance upon this place like a nuclear weapon. Never fuck with a pissed off woman. No good thing can come from it.

  “I am afraid that will be impossible,” this coming from Ganlin some few minutes after Azile had spoken. “He is our guest now, and we have become very fond of having him around. However, we are willing to discuss terms for a trade.”

  “What do you want?” Azile asked.

  “Why you, of course,” Ganlin said jovially.

  “Let me see him.”

  Ganlin must have nodded because in a few moments I was being hoisted off of my hill, which would be difficult to be called the king of, and brought back to the location where I got to be planted like a flag.

  “See? He is safe and sound.” Ganlin pointed at me.

  He had a pretty skewed version of what safe and sound looked like. Azile said nothing for long moments. I would imagine she was trying to process the sight of her beloved being brutally tortured and the toll it had taken on my body. I looked so alien to myself that Lunos and Ganlin could have really put anybody up on this stick and passed them off as me.

  “What say you, Red Witch?” Ganlin asked.

  “Tonight, when the moon is full and I can say my prayers, I will exchange myself for Michael.” Azile sighed audibly.

  “No,” I muttered and then screamed as the whip bit deeply into my lower back and buttocks, splitting the scarred skin open easily enough.

  “Splendid,” Lunos said. “We will whip Michael every minute until then so that you do not forget your promise.”

  “You will do no such thing, you filthy animal!” Azile yelled.

  Don’t think that was the appropriate tactic because it was much less than a minute before I received the next stinging response. I tensed and then sagged against the pole as I attempted to absorb as much of the blow as I could internally, so as not to upset Azile. Let’s be real, though, did my response matter? Someone that loved me was watching me being beaten. What did it matter whether I yelled out or not? Fat droplets of blood sprayed past my face as I was struck again. Something had snapped loose in my back; I could no longer feel my legs, and not like they’d gone numb but rather like they didn’t exist at all. My back had been broken...or the nerves in my spinal column had been. Whatever it was, it was serious. On a side note, I hardly felt the next four blows, so that was something. “You look like you’re dying, Old One.” Lunos had gripped my hair and pulled my head up.

  “Been better.” I got the words past my clotted throat and blood stained teeth.

  “I once feared you; I don’t know which of us that makes more pathetic.”

  “You. Definitely you.” I was pretty sure I was on my last legs—horrible pun I know, but my body had to be getting ready to leave because I was getting flooded with dopamine. I was feeling pretty alright, in fact. There was a flurry of hits; I only knew I was being struck because my chest would hit the pole. Otherwise, I didn’t give a shit.

  “He’s dying, you fool!” Ganlin said, coming around.

  “Who cares? You are about to get what you want and I will get what I want.” Lunos pointed to the fort where the main gate had opened. A lone, red-caped figure sat astride a magnificent white beast. Looked like an archangel come to herald my passage into other realms. The horse was galloping toward us.

  “Please...no.” I tried to reach out with my hand and tell her it was too late, that I could not be saved and to not sacrifice herself for a lost cause. She stopped midway between Denarth and me; maybe she was finally realizing that as well. More horsemen came out of the gate and made a line. Couldn’t have been more than a hundred, and even in my state I could tell they were in far from optimum condition. A few weeks of starving tends to do that. I don’t know if my brain was working so slowly or the werewolves had moved that quickly, but in what seemed the blink of an eye I had a sharpened piece of long, flattened steel placed against my neck. Werewolves were holding each end and the makeshift sword was right up against the front of my throat. I could not even swallow for fear that my Adam’s apple would be scraped off like a wooden imperfection under a floor sander.

  “Just you, witch, or he dies!” Lunos shouted.

  I thought for a moment that I was being pushed into the dirt. Come to find out it was the two werewolves being raised into the air. My mind was having a difficult time processing what I was seeing. I was more under the optimistic impression that I had finally passed over. They held on to the steel bar, not because they still planned on lopping my head off, but rather to let go possibly meant they would be adrift alone. They needn’t have worried for too long. The force that had been used to prop them up had been changed, though not shut off—that would have only meant they would fall a few feet to the ground under the natural gravitational forces of the planet. Maybe a sprained ankle or a bruised elbow would have ensued. But this was raw, unadulterated power coming from one who had slid past anger and was into straight up hardcore fury.

  The ground shook from the impact where the two werewolves struck. Blood and gristle erupted from the two holes they put in the earth. One might have falsely assumed two small volcanoes had just blown if they’d been watching from a distance. I was covered from head to toe in the remnants of the two. There was not a being around me that did not back steps away.

  “Magnificent,” Ganlin said, right as he began his own set of incantations. Azile’s horse was knocked sideways by some unseen force. I knew it to be Ganlin’s elemental force of power he had over the air.

  “Look a little scared,” I said as I watched his face. He had fully been expecting her to be dismounted and immobilized. “I think you may have opened up a fifty-five-gallon drum of whoop ass.”

  “Kill him!” Lunos had turned to the werewolf that had been my personal skin flayer. I can’t attest to exactly what happened behind me, but the warm spray upon my back led me to assume it was more of the same for him as it had been for the two in front.

  “You’re up,” I told Lunos.

  He was having none of it. He ordered his army forward as he himself retreated. Ganlin stood his ground. Beads of sweat were forming on his forehead and beginning their trek down his face. Hope threatened to surge forward; I could not let it. Torrents of werewolves streamed past me. Lunos was holding nothing back in reserve. Looked like damn stampede heading off. I was somewhat surprised I had not been pushed over and trampled; seemed I was on some sort of hallowed ground, though, as the throng split when they neared my position and then reformed as they moved past. Maybe I was in some sort of protective cocoon; I could see puffs of smoke from multiple rifle fire, but I was not hearing the familiar cracks as the speed of sound was broken by bullets.

  Azile was once again racing forward. She was mere seconds from colliding with the werewolf front line. The attackers from the city were struggling to catch up. There were more shooters on the wall clearing a path for her as she charged straight for me. I thought for sure the gates of Hell had finally opened and were accepting me as one of their own. Suddenly, Azile and her horse caught fire, though they were not consumed by the inferno. Whatever was protecting Azile did not extend to the werewolves that could not get themselves out of the way quickly enough. Blazing fur balls spun blindly in circles, running headlong into a hail of bullets or even better, they turned and ran into throngs of their brethren, causing more death and destruction by the conflagration. Azile was blowing through them; nothing stood long in her fiery path.

  “Need air to fuel that fire,” Ganlin said as he did his magic. I took note that the flame around Azile began to flicker and whither. If it went out, she would be hard pressed to thwart that many attackers alone.

  “You’re a ch
ump,” I said to Ganlin. He did not stir. Azile deserved better, I would not make my kids orphans. I took as deep a breath as my chest would allow and let everything spew out in one long diatribe; a desperate, but often effective attack. “I have known my fair share of lowlifes in my time, probably even more than anyone should. But you, you fucking twat-headed, war-mongering spitball of douche-baggery take the cake. You look like a co-dependent Santa Claus who cheated on Mrs. Claus with a crack whore and now you’re both fucking junkies, sticking needles in your arms under the highway overpass, sucking cocks for a few extra dollars to fund your addiction. I’ve stepped in bulldog shit that smelled better than you. I’d scrape that offal into a pan and bake it into a meatloaf and eat it rather than spend one more minute with you. I’m thinking your momma was too busy walking the streets at night to give you the time of day and that’s why you ended up the twisted little fuck that you are. I’ve spit out chunks of greenish brown phlegm that women would find more appealing than you. Is that your problem? You’ve never got a woman to touch it? Is that because they can’t find it? Hey! Micro-penis! You got one of those pencil eraser sized things that get about as hard as a mouse turd? I mean sure, any guy would be pissed off if it took a magnifying glass and a pair of tweezers just to take a piss. Fuck, I mean, what if you couldn’t find the tweezers when you really had to go? But I guess it could just dribble out—a teaspoon sized stain of urine soaking the front of your pants wouldn’t matter much. Did the other kids see it in the locker room and tell the coach you were a girl? Is that it? I mean, confusion with gender identity can be a bitch to wade through all on your own. Maybe with a bevy of drugs and a seven hundred step program, we can get you on the road to recovery. Though, I mean, there’s nothing we can do about that puny dick of yours....”

  “WILL YOU SHUT UP!” He had turned on me. Rage filled his expression. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Azile’s flame reignite into an inferno. “You insipid simpleton!”