Pagewalker

by C. Mahood

  “THEY ALL TRIED TO LIE FOR YOU” he continued to shout at me as we ran.

  “THEY TRIED TO PROTECT YOU, BUT I BROKE THEM” he laughed as he got closer. Who was he talking about? Who tried to lie? Who tried to protect me?

  We reached a fork road near the bottom of the street. I hesitated for a second too long while looking both ways. I felt fingers around my shirt. Fingers that tried to pull me back. I ducked and let the cape be ripped from my body. I bolted left. Downhill again and heard yet another roar coming from just behind me.

  “I GROUND THEM ALL DOWN” he shouted at me. I was really worried now. Not only were the streets getting wider and less crowded but the words he spoke were carrying gravity. Gravity that was slowing me down. The road was leading me out of the town now. Still he was in pursuit. Like a more brutal and faster re-enactment of our last encounter in Renir.

  That’s when it happened, the thing that you scream at the cinema screen over. The moment popcorn falls from your hand and you sit back again exhausted in your chair. The part when the skinny blonde is getting chased by the masked slasher, the moment she trips on her heel and falls face first, giving the killer enough time to loom over the top of her. Yea, that happened to me. I lost my footing and tripped over a slightly raised cobble stone. I fell face first and landed on my chest with a winding thud. All breath left my body and time slowed down. I didn’t have time to breath before I felt the weight on my chest. Two massive hands were wrapped around my throat. Squeezing they lifted to my feet then up even higher. I was slammed back into a wall. My feel kicking and dangling inches from the ground. He had my pinned and was tightening his grip. He leaned forward, putting his face less than an inch from mine.

  “Now, now I am going to watch the life drain from your eyes.” He said in a whisper. I know it is a strange thing to notice when you are being strangled to death but the stench of fish from his breath was enough to kill me as it was!

  “It will not be quick like it you stabbed him in the eye, you ended his life in seconds. I will end yours much slower. Watch me, this face is the last you will see.” Without loosening the grip he removed one hand fro my neck. Still pinning me in place, and lifted the mask from his face. It was just as horrid underneath. His eyes sat deep into his head. A Neanderthal like forehead stuck forward as did his chin. A short, raggedy beard was patchy over his pock-marked, scarred skin. One of his eyes was a milky white. No pupil or iris just a cloudy film over it. His other was so dark and void of colour. He leant in close once more. Both my hands were squeezing around his massive forearm, trying to get some sort of leverage. I could feel myself getting weak, heavy, tired.

  “I have been hunting you since Renir. I followed you past the rebels rest, then to the forest, past the circus and into the altars. I followed you here. Everyone tried to throw me off but they all ground under my boot.” He whispered in my ear. My heart sank. My face must have shown it. I tried to kick out but I had no energy.

  “Everyone in the guild tried to lie, they were very troublesome. It took loosing a hand before that little girl even spoke. I killed them one by one until I got my answers.” the smile widened on his toothless grin. “Then I turned those cavers into an oven. They cooked in those halls. Stone warms with heat you know. The smell was amazing to say the least.” He took a deep breath in and blew slowly into my face as he exhaled. My eyes turned in my head and I felt myself drifting off. Until the slap came and then the sudden fall. I hit the ground hard. Gasping to get any breath I could between the kicks that were raining down on my back. I held a hand up in surrender but it was slapped away and I was thrown onto the far side of the alley we had ended up in.

  My eyes were seeing nothing but grey fuzz like an old tv with no signal. Trying to focus I was lifted once more off the ground and slammed into the wall several times before he spoke to me once more.

  “They told me you were heading with the guild leader to find your wife and bring back a fugitive, but YOU are the only fugitive I care about!” He laughed. I tried to spit out some words but all that came out was a croak and a whimper.

  “They told me that you had come from the Rebels Rest, the day before? So I paid them a visit also.” Tears welled up in my face as he continued his boast.

  “They were the easiest. No honour, just weak drunken fools. They cried together as they told me everything. They didn’t not even try to hide things from me. They opened up like whores on happy hour! Spilling all kinds of information about you. How you were looking for your wife?” My eyes cleared then. I caught his eye there. My senses returned suddenly, like a shot to the brain. He saw that too.

  “Aaahhh, so it is true. Your wife is here. You found her then? Ah it all makes sense now. She is the one who saved you from those luchorpán? I watched that all unfold from a distance. Very entertaining by the way!” He commented, his grip loosened, just slightly but enough for me to get another breath.

  “She is the one you were with in the square just now? Agh haha. I see what you are trying to do. You are trying to get home then eh?” My head turned slightly. How did he know? How could he know? Did he know?

  “You think me a fool? I know why you are here!” My heart broke as he spoke. All of this time I had been followed, and now that I am so close to returning with Sarah and Tessa it has all gone tits up! I preyed he did not know the answer.

  “You are here to collect the bounty on that man you travel with ain’t you? That man that escaped the prison in Renir? Well I’m afraid it is my bounty now.” He laughed. “...And that wife? Yes, she will do for my play thing for a while. But I do believe I will enjoy killing her more than screwing her.” He winked at me, his last form of torture before the kill. I always wondered why villains always lay out their plans before they try to kill the hero? Stupid really isn’t it? Besides part of me wanted to see how he would get on using Sarah as a 'play thing' She would be the hardest work he ever came across. The woman would kick seven shades out of him without even so much as a second thought.

  “So, before I get my reward, both of them, it is time to get the vengeance I have been seeking for so long.” he lifted a shard from his back pocket. It had a familiar design. A similar design to the staff Shaw had given me in the Rebels rest. The brute held it to my face and aimed it to my eye. “Recognise this?” he said, I did now. It was another part from the staff I had killed his brother with. I was not ready for death. I don’t think I ever really will, I’m quite fond of being alive, but then, maybe it was the starvation from oxygen or the tiredness I felt acceptance. Actually scratch that, that’s all match bull shit. It had nothing to do with that. It was the voice I heard behind the brute right before the shoved a 5 inch shard of metal into my eye. A voice that dripped with cold and malice to anyone willing to harm her family.

  “your play thing? Mate I'm too much for you to handle” The brute turned to his left to see Sarah standing only inches from his face. He had no time to react or reply because as soon as his eyes met hers Tessa has sunk her teeth deep into his calf muscle. He screamed with pain, as he did so his grip loosened on my neck. I had enough room to wriggle loose and kick myself of him as I did so. Now Sarah prides herself on being lazy as hell as soon as her bum hits our sofa, but holy shit, could that girl move when she wanted to. Within milliseconds Sarah was on the back of the brute. She had the leather lead we had made for Tessa wrapped several times around the brutes neck and was pulling so tight. Like Leia strangling Jabba. Her feet were on the top of his back as he fell to his knees. She was leaning back with all her might. The brute was thrashing and flailing his arms but was forced down from her weights and her pull on his neck. I made my way to my feet and punch deep into his ribs. My firsts hurt, I could hear ribs cracking as I did so. My energy was returning and the anger was taking over. For a moment I saw myself back in school. Back in that corridor beating the stuffing out of Ryan on the floor, the loss of control.

  I punched and punched until I could hardly lift my arms. Finally he gave up the struggle and fell forw
ards. His body flopping into a heap in front of both of us. Exhausted we scrambled for the shard he was holding and prised it from his fingers. We stood above the body of the brute.

  A crowd had gathered around us now. I had no idea how long they had been there but no one came to stop me as I stood over a seven foot tall brick house with a sharp blade pointed towards him. I'm sure they saw and heard enough to know it was self defence.

  “Don’t do it babe” Sarah said in her most calming of voices.

  She put her hand on my arm, the one holding the blade and pushed it down to my side. “Don’t kill him, its too easy, be better than him, Jeez, he deserves it like, but be the bigger person love, yea?” my hand was gripping the blade so tight. All I could see were the burnt bodies of the thieves guild in Renir, the blood bath at the Rebels Rest, all those patrons lying dead, all because I once visited the Inn. All those innocent people, dead, because of me.

  “He needs to die.” I said in a deep voice, a voice of focus and drive.

  “I know, but its not your call love, he needs to answer for all his crimes. Besides, you would have done the same to avenge me, or your brother, wouldn’t you?” she said. She was right. He was acting the same way I would have acted in his situation. I killed his brother, I needed to answer for my crimes too. I was a murderer as well. Shit, I am a murderer! It still makes me sick to think of how all this has happened. Im not an innocent victim. I am a bringer of death and sadness to his family. To them I am the villain. It was in that moment my heart changed. Everything came into focus. Not just Northland but Earth, my home, Ireland. It took me to go to the most extremes of my emotion to see what vengeance results in. You don’t see it in the movies or read it in books. You are always following the protagonist, the hero. You read or watch them, being wronged, hunted and route for them to triumph under the feet of those who oppose them. Its not even in fiction. It is in business. The larger corporations muscling the other giants out of the way. Little is thought of the independent book seller, or the newsagent, the little pub owner or the tradesman. You don’t see the other side of the coin. I saw the typical, grumpy, retired old man shouting at the children who walked on his garden or slamming the door in the face of the salesman. I saw the other side of those situations, clear as day. I saw the old man replanting the seeds form a plant he and his late wife received on their wedding day. I see the old man hanging up the phone from and insurance agency turning down an overdue 40 year life plan policy that has come to maturity, before answering the door to yet another insurance salesman. Most shocking and most surprising, I saw Ryan. The bully from my high school. He made my life hell, I hated him but I was seeing things through his eyes. I saw our group of friends playing hunt in the forest. He had just moved to the area and him and a friend came to play a game of hunt. One of my group turned them away after I said there were too many people playing and teams would be uneven. I saw him spotting me and feeling that I didn't want him there. I saw him going home and crying. His dad getting drunk, laughing and making fun of him for the tears in his eyes, throwing an empty beer bottle and him and telling him to 'Man up.'

  I saw him walking into school and spotting me. I saw him trying to talk to me and I pushed past him and ignored him after I was confronted by the fifth year I bumped into on the first day. I saw the anger in his heart. The hatred he felt for me for how I had wronged him. I felt embarrassed at how I treated him in that moment. I then drift to visions of Northland. Of the family who sold their life’s possessions to afford more rent in the house they reside in only to have it stolen by the thieves guild the evening before it is due. I see the trader who I encountered in Renir. He is handing out profits from his business to other struggling sellers in order to keep economy turning. I see the fight we had there, when once of the thieves guild robed him of his possessions, and gifts given to him by his wife and family. My vision snaps back into the moment. A tear falls from my cheek, caught only on the back of my hand. The one holding the blade again. I leant down, low, to bring my face close to his. I put the blade under his chin by the flat end. I lifted his head back to he was facing me. He stirred slightly and groaned. His eyelids flickered and slowly opened. I wanted my eyes to be the first thing that he saw. They rolled for a while then found me. Narrowed then winded as the realisation of his situation sank in.

  “Listen to me, You are beaten. I have your life in my hands, I chose in these next few moments what to do with, or to you.” I stopped to let that sink in for a moment, I could see he was weighing his options up quickly but before he made any move his eyes flickered and rolled back in his head. He had passed out once more .

  “What are you going to do babe?” Sarah asked, still keeping her eyes on the Brute bellow us.

  “I dono love, I mean your correct, as usual. I have no right to take his life. Who am I to judge?” I said to her. She had that 'I told you so' Smile going on. I hate that smile, I mean I love her and all, but I hate that smile. Before we said any more the sound of Bells were ringing in the distance. Looking at each other we both knew what we had to do. We wrapped Brutes hands behind his back and lifted him over our shoulders. Making our way to the town square again was embarrassing to say the least. People were fixing stalls in the streets, picking up broken wares, salvaging what was still saleable and lifting potted plants and hanging baskets at the front of their houses as we passed. Sarah and I dragged the giant brute up through the town until we made it to the square, where waiting for us was a perplexed looking Oisin and another smaller, older looking man beside him.

  “ah there they are!” Oisin sighed, “What took you so long?” He asked.

  Sarah raised one eyebrow, looked at the brute we were carrying, looked back at Oisin and pursed her lips in an unimpressed manor only Belfast girls can seem to do.

  “Ah..” He simply replied. “I see.”

  The small man with Oisin walked over towards me. Like a child walking towards a new favourite toy, a castaway walking towards drinkable water, or a late night drunk walking towards a burger stand. He walked that way up to me, ignoring everything else around me and placed his hands on my shoulders. I slumped the Brute to the ground and took a step away from the little creep.

  “Uh, that’s close enough mate, you want a picture or something? It would probably last longer!” I pushed his hands from my shoulders and began walking to Oisin. “Sorry Oisin, we got a bit sidetracked.” I explained with a breathless sigh.

  “Well a bit more than that to be honest.” Sarah interested kicking the fallen brute with the side of her foot as he lay, passed out, by our feet.

  Oisin's companion still stood open mouthed looking at us, a large smile spread over his face as the realisation of who we were dawned on him.

  “The pro...pr...Proff...Proff...Prophets?” is all he could stutter out from trembling lips.

  “The what now?” Sarah's eyebrows were higher than most peoples hairlines as she tilted her head down and forward in an inquisitive way.

  Oisin blustered past us and began struggling to lift the arm of the brute and help him to his feet. “Yes yes, God, creator of Northland, his wife the prophet and the dog, all very special, now come on and give me a hand with this…..thing!” Oisin spluttered out like a tour guide leading the last expedition of the week and five minutes over his shift. Shooing on onlookers, as they gaze at the many wonders before them that he had seen again, a thousand times this week already. Without a word we all grabbed what we could of the man and half dragged, half carried him to the house of the Old man.

  On the way I had discovered that this was in fact the Bard of Aondor. The very man Oisin was coming to see. He had the fragments that Oisin needed. The ones from the story earlier and was not wasting any time in getting us on our way.

  We explained what had just transpired to Oisin and the Bard on our way to the house. We managed to get the brute settled on the long bench in the front room, by the fire. Sarah lit the fire while I checked over the body for any weapons or anything of use. No, I wasn
’t robbing him, flip sake what do you think I am? Some kind of thief, hardly a looter as he wasn’t dead, but come on, you should know me better than that by now. I know you were thinking it!

  We spent the next while recanting our adventures to both the Storyteller and his wife who had fretted and cleaned from the moment we darkened her doorstep. She was sitting now, hand in hand with her husband listening to our tales, he however was struggling to hold a quill in the spare hand while trying to steady the parchment with his elbow, with great difficulty, as he tried to scribe the stories we were telling.

  After a long while of tales and conversation, the chatter had drawn to an end. The sun was setting and the fire was fading to embers, Sarah kept it topped up but the turf did not burn brightly, instead it just glowed with a warming, soft heat. I had bound the hands of the brute who still lay motionless. I did not know if he was truly passed out or simply playing that way as he listened to the story and calculated his next move. I sat next to his head. Not moving my eyes from him. Earlier in the day when I held his life at the end of a blade I had those visions. Visions that truly stopped my heart, ripping it out, dipped it in a thick coating of compassion, softened it and stitched it back into my chest. I had seen life from his viewpoint and the viewpoint of many others. You often hear people telling you have a little compassion, or especially if your from northern Ireland you hear people talking about 'seeing it from their side' when talking about religious and political viewpoints, but to really see it from someone else's eyes, that is truly moving.