ULTIMATE FANTASY (I - III)

by J. G. Cuff

  The guard sleeping at the table underneath the window awoke in time to see the burning door frame amidst a cloud of smoke, and the blur of a black figure, as it disappeared up the stairwell.

  “Halt!” the guard yelled, looking for his club. He found it next to him on the table and gave chase up the spiraling stone steps, thinking that someone had placed pitch on the door and set it on fire. The man in black steel was running out of time. He knew that the armor would recede momentarily. Racing upwards with the sword in hand, he reached the first landing and punched through the door lock with the blade. It melted the iron instantly and the lock wept down the wood, searing the dense fiber into flames. The cell was empty. Behind him he heard a gasp and the bang of wood on stone. He turned to see a man staring at him in awe, and a black wooden club lying on the stairs beside his boots. He swiftly grabbed the guard by his face and made sure to speak quietly this time, so as not to kill the man.

  “Where is prisoner 47?”

  The guard's teeth clamped down from the pain in between his ears. The strange sound made him loose his bladder and he pissed down his legs, as he pointed upward.

  “Number t-t-twenty-eight,” the guard stuttered. He saw the blackness swimming inside the dark eyes of the scaled man before him. A wyvern-man, he thought. The wyvern-man let him go and ran up the stairs.

  Atticus awoke horrified, to bright, yellow light and the deafening sound of splintering timbers. The instant heat warmed his face, as the planks cracked and separated, bursting inwards and skidding across the stone floor with hot coals spraying out from under them.

  “The devil has come for me,” Atticus whispered aloud in horror, instinctively holding his arms out in front of his face, as the scaled man stepped through the burning doorway and into his cell.

  The monster swiftly lifted him, as though he were a small child, and laid him over his right shoulder. Atticus tried to fight, mystified and frightened by the burning planks on the floor and the sudden intrusion into his safe place, but the arm across his lower back was as strong and thick as an old tree root, pinning him in place.

  The sound of men's voices and loud footsteps began echoing up from the stairwell. The monster glanced nervously toward the landing.

  The guards filling the tower would reach them soon, and he would never get his prisoner out alive if he had to fight his way back down the spiraling steps.

  He turned to the arrow-slit; the only way out. With Atticus draped over his left shoulder and the blade in his right hand, he swung hard at the stone wall and it burst immediately into sand and dust with a meteoric explosion, as the blade destroyed the rock. He looked down from the massive hole in the tower wall. The dark ledge at the base was no more than 20 feet wide. Beyond that, it fell away to the sea. He had no way of knowing that the cell would be up so high. Twenty or 30 feet was a fall that he was confident the armor could handle, but from this height, the strange black steel may buckle and leave his femurs and shins to shatter against the hard rock below.

  A shout sounded behind them, “Grab them!” as he plunged from the tower chamber and into the darkness. Atticus screamed in terror, while they fell 100 feet down with the wind roaring up past their heads. The scaled man landed feet-first on the flat rock at the base of the tower with a thunderous ‘crack!’ The black scales miraculously absorbed all of their weight, and he dropped Atticus to the ground and fell to his back with the blade in his hand. They had landed roughly, but were otherwise unharmed. The rock had split beneath them, leaving an inch-wide gap along the top of the bluff. The familiar cold slithering sensation on his skin and the exhaustion in his mind, told him that the spell was fading; that the imprisoned beast was reluctantly slinking back into the darkness. The spell had left him not a second too soon and he was back in his own skin, unarmoured and unprotected.

  The roar of the sea eclipsed the shouts from the large hole in the tower above, where they had jumped from. The guards peering down from the cell could not see the two men below in the shadow of the tower, and they had every reason to believe that they were dead.

  The stranger stood shaken, sweating, and exhausted.

  Atticus lay on his side looking up at him, completely baffled. “Who are you?” Atticus asked timidly. He could not make out the stranger's face in the darkness amongst his waving dark hair, blowing across his face in the light wind coming from the sea below. The stranger sheathed his blade and then reached his hand out to Atticus.

  “We must hurry!” he ordered.

  Atticus grabbed his hand and came to his feet. They turned and ran along the bluff behind the towers, toward the eastern wall, less than 300 feet away.

  The shadows hid them well and as they rounded the last tower, they could see the torches along the wall where the high stone and mortar ended at the cliff's edge, and the dark outline of a braided rope came into view. There was only one way out now. It was either down to the sea, or over the wall.

  But they had been found.

  “There! At the wall!” a guard shouted from above them. Crossbow bolts and arrows zinged past their heads and slammed into the stone in front of them, just as they reached the wall. The guards were firing from the top of the first tower.

  “Climb!” the stranger shouted and lifted Atticus up by his legs. Atticus pulled on the rope and began frantically reaching hand-over-hand. He wanted to live now more than ever. An arrow snapped against the rope above his left hand, shooting stinging bits of rock shrapnel into the side of his face and severing part of the line, causing him to nearly let go. He worked harder, stretching every cramped muscle in his body; pulling with his arms and pushing up against the stone with his bare feet. Arrows and bolts flew into the wall around them, misguided by mere inches, by the high winds coming from along the edge of the cliff to their right. Just as he reached the top, Atticus looked back and saw his rescuer right behind him. They held on tight to the line and slipped over the other side, out of harm's way, and down into the dark forest.

  Six of the tower guards were already saddled and out of the gates, riding around to the outside of the wall with bright torches in hand, hoping to cut them off and press them towards the edge of the bluff.

  “Which way?” Atticus asked frantically, assuming that the stranger had a plan.

  The man grabbed Atticus' right hand and lead him hurriedly eastward, deeper into the forest.

  “This way, I have a horse waiting.”

  Atticus could already imagine the arrows filling their bodies, as the two of them were quickly pursued and killed by the guards whose faster horses had only the burden of a single rider.

  “Only one horse?” Atticus shouted from behind him.

  A sliver of dim light broke through the branches in front of them. The sun was rising and Atticus could now see the back of the lean, light-haired man's head in front of him.

  “I thank you for whatever miracle you've performed in saving me, but they'll catch us for sure now,” he said. The man just kept moving forward, pulling him by the hand, running through the trees, ducking and dodging the long, low-lying branches.

  “Not on her they won't,” the stranger replied, just as they broke into a meadow and a large, white horse came into view in the low light, no more than 40 feet ahead of them. The animal neighed excitedly to hear her rider returning.

  When they reached the large mare, the stranger stopped and turned to face Atticus, and their eyes met for the first time in 13 years. Atticus gasped and his face went white. The man looked just like himself, and the wind blowing his long hair to the side, revealed the scar where an ear had been sliced-off.

  “It can't be,” said Atticus, as he shook his head in disbelief.

  The young man before him was now 18, but there was no mistaking who he was.

  “What are you?” asked Atticus bitterly, as though he were the victim of some cruel trick, “A ghost, come to haunt me?” Tears welled-up in his eyes and his lips trembled. Marcus' heart suddenly ached when he saw his father's weary expression. All of the
pain that the man had suffered was as obvious as an open, bleeding wound upon his chest.

  Shouts erupted from the trees behind them and the two men turned their heads to the sound of horses crashing through the forest.

  Marcus quickly mounted the saddle and bent down to pull his father up behind him.

  “I'll explain later if we live through this!”

  Atticus took his arm and scrambled up onto the horse. He leaned forward; wrapping his arms around Marcus' waist, as the large mare quickly turned north and began to trot out of the meadow toward more trees. Marcus was trying to navigate through the dense branches, keeping the rising sun to his right, heading toward the vast Ashen Plains beyond the forest. Once they reached open ground, she could run like hell.

  “There they are!” one of the guards hollered from somewhere behind them. They had seen them exit the meadow. The trees opened-up ahead of them, and as the mare's hooves touched the edge of the field, Marcus turned to warn his passenger.

  “Hold on to me tightly Father. You may remember; she is white lightening!”

  Atticus turned his head back to see six riders coming through the trees, less than 70 feet away from them. The guards drew their swords and charged forward.

  “They'll kill us! Ride!” Atticus shouted.

  Marcus gripped the reigns tightly with both hands, bent down low, and whispered frantically into the mare's ear,

  “If you've never run your fastest before girl, then I need you to do it now! Run Rebel! RUN!”

  The Eastern Swift snorted loudly, and instantly, she burst forward into the dawn's light, accelerating with unbelievable speed, as her hooves drummed thunder into the ground; charging northward across the Ashen Plains in a speeding blur of white. Atticus held on for dear life. The tower guards on their horses came bolting out of the trees after them, pushing their mounts to their limits. But they were already rapidly losing ground.

  “That's my girl!” Marcus cried proudly with his head bent low. Dust blew out in a spinning cloud behind them and the wind roared, whipping past their ears, as Rebel flew into a 80 mile per hour run, tearing up the earth with all her thumping heart.

  Marcus knew that she could outrun the riders behind them. But for how long, while carrying two grown men, he did not know. He had to get them safely to the Outpost Crossing over the Void.

  It would take them another hour at their current pace, and they would have to stay exposed, out in the open. It was their only choice now. They were already dead, as soon as Rebel tired and they were caught and slain.

  Marcus closed his eyes and prayed for her strong legs to last. This would be the hardest he had ever pushed her, and he knew she would not stop until he told her to, or until she crippled from exhaustion. She would run herself to death if he let her. It was in her blood. He felt his father holding onto him tightly, and he thought of the night that the men on black horses came and took Atticus away from him.

  When they found Marcus hiding in the trees beside their small house, a man jumped from his horse and punched the boy so hard in the side of the head that he almost blacked-out. The captain was angry when he saw the blood on Marcus' face.

  “I want him alive! Do you hear me? I will break him myself!”

  “Yes Captain!” the soldier holding the boy replied.

  They traveled in the dark for hours until they reached the abandoned stone farmhouse on the northwest outskirts of Amicitia. It was one of the captain's preferred locations for interrogations, and the odd rape when it suited him. This was no-longer about revenge. A life-sentence in a stone hell to cover-up his own misdeeds, ending inevitably in death for the man who he believed had killed his brother, would do just fine. Having a young boy all to himself, was an unexpected bonus; a blessed spoil of war.

  The stone walls still stood strong, even after the thick-beamed roof had collapsed on the south-facing side. Below the floor, under a large hatch, was a narrow wooden staircase that led down into a cold, windowless cellar.

  Two riders tied him to a chair beside a small wooden table and left him in the pitch black with the sound of water dripping to the floor somewhere behind him. It smelled horribly of mold and damp earth. He did not know why the men had come, or why they had hurt his father. He listened to the muffled voices of the two men above him and then he heard one of them leave. The other pulled a chair across the wooden floor and sat down. After what seemed like hours, the sound of heavy boots resounded through the old planks above his head, and then the hatch opened up, instantly lighting the stairs before him in soft firelight.

  The captain came down to the cellar holding a bright oil lantern and wearing only a gray gambeson, black boots and black leather gloves. His boots slapped against the wet stone floor, as he left the bottom stair and walked over to the boy in the chair. He held the lantern up close to Marcus' tear-soaked face, so that his prisoner could feel the heat from the glass. Marcus was trembling and had been crying for hours.

  “Hello Marcussss,” the captain hissed; flickering his tongue like a snake, “I bet your father has told you all about monsters. He killed my brother. Did he tell you that?”

  Marcus shook his head frantically. The captain set the lantern down on the floor and reached into his pocket to pull out Atticus' knife, along with a leather pouch. He set them both on the table beside the chair and then grabbed Marcus' chin with his gloved right hand and leaned in close to his face.

  “Well boy, I'm going to show you what a monster really is,” the captain whispered loudly with a twisted smile that made him look like a hideous jack-o-lantern.

  Marcus screamed in terror and called out for Atticus.

  “Father! Help me Father! I'm down here! I'm down here-” his cries were broken-off abruptly by the back of the captain's right hand, as it slammed painfully into the side his face.

  “Your father's a coward and a dead man!” the captain shouted and reached for the table, picking-up the cherry-handled carving knife. He flipped the blade open in front of Marcus' eyes with a loud 'snap' and grabbed a handful of the boy's hair. Marcus' screams could be heard upstairs through the floor boards, as the captain crudely carved the left ear off of his head. Blood poured down his cheek and over his chest. He fought hysterically against his restraints, but they would not slacken.

  The captain picked the small ear up off of Marcus' shoulder and tucked it into the leather pouch. He turned and walked back up the stairs, leaving the hatch open behind him. Above the sound of shrill screams ringing up from the cellar below, the captain instructed his man to ride to Amicitia and discreetly send the leather pouch along with a message to the boy's father.

  “Make certain it gets through the gates.”

  “Yes Captain!”

  The Queen's Guardsman stuffed the pouch into his coat and mounted his horse in the early morning darkness, leaving his captain and the boy behind. He convinced himself that he was just following orders; that he may well be a rapist and a murderer, but he was still a better man than the one who liked little boys.

  The captain was already down the stairs and into the damp cellar to break the child tied to the chair. Marcus watched in horror, as he pulled a black coil down from the shadowy wall to his left, and while holding it tightly, gripped in his right hand, he let the long whip unravel to the floor. Its sleek and slender body laying out along the stones at the captain's feet, reminded Marcus of a serpent; ready to tear his flesh open with its stinging tongue.

  The captain lifted his arm high and cracked the whip hard, snapping and ripping the dry leather tip straight into the boy's right leg. His little body shook violently in the chair, as he screamed again for his father to save him; to make it stop. He banged his feet against the floor, but he was not big enough to knock the chair over.

  The whip drew back across the wet stone again, ready for another bite, and Marcus heard heavy footsteps above them.

  “What did you forget?” the Captain yelled angrily, looking up to the dark ceiling.

  There was no response. Th
e footsteps quickly descended the stairs behind him and he whirled around to face a tall, dark silhouette.

  “Who are you?” he demanded with a snarl.

  Marcus would never forget the slow, booming, angry sound of the large man's voice,

  “I am the Father's hand.”

  The captain's skull broke against the flanged head of the mace, and it flew apart instantly, slamming bone and brains, blood and hair, all against the left wall of the cellar where the whip had once hung. He could still hear the sound of cracking bone, and he could still feel and taste the warm blood splattering across his face, as the captain's body fell to the wet floor in front of him.

  John returned the boy home safe; less one ear. Marcus told him where to go, but he led them to an empty house. John brought the boy to Otium to find help. A healer woman named Aruseus cared for the boy and directed John to the Sloane house near the Buckskin, where she had many years earlier, attended to a dying man, also named Marcus. Darius and Aunna would spend the next 13 years raising their grandson and searching for their missing Atticus. The strange, bearded man, who had delivered Marcus home safe, would always be welcomed into their home. But he left them, just as abruptly as he had arrived.

  Marcus shuddered at the long-buried memory. The only sound now was of Rebel's hooves and the wind soaring past them. Atticus held onto his son with all of the strength he had, as she raced them across the plains. She was to him a heavenly beast—a wind of white light, carrying him out of a living hell. He had never felt such joy in his heart; not since the day that Marcus was born. Charging at break-neck speed on the back of a horse in a grand escape, his son in his arms again, and the smell of flowers and grass about him for the first time in 13 years, was enough to leave Atticus not knowing whether to laugh or cry. And so, he did both; laughing aloud wildly, while warm tears streamed down his face.