The 9th Fortress

by John Paul Jackson

  At one point, I shivered on that meagre bed for twenty straight hours, weak from blood-loss, hunger and thirst; assaulted by violent visions and screams dipping in and out of the room and my imagination. At times these visions became all too real, living apparitions sharing space with me. I heard Kathy calling for her dad, saw her hand reach down from a realm far from mine. Missy also came and went, her cartoon face unwholesomely smirking whilst reminding me of some of the more pathetic details of my life — the people I'd lied to and hurt; how many porno magazines I'd jerked off too.

  At one stage, I fought back the old wizard Scarfell as he pressed his foot into my chest. It may have been a hallucination — it was — but the illusion was still real enough to make me pass out. Kat was here too, his decimated body crumbling to pieces in the corner. There, he would meditate for hours under a pool of his own curdled blood, face skinless, exposed brain and two bulbous, unblinking eyes.

  "Get out of here!" I cried. "Get the fuck out! Get out!"

  I couldn't tell you how many days I endured this torture, but with my strip of cloth soaked in sweat and tears, piss and shit, and a head drowning in delirium, enough was enough. That rule sent alarm bells ringing in my skull as I crawled toward the door — Do not open the door! Do not! Do not!

  My legs could barely support my weight when I stood. Reaching a trembling hand for the bronze handle, I did not have the strength to turn it, but I didn't have to — the door was flung open like a shuttle hatch blown out to space, and there, filling the frame, the centaur stood.

  "Ninety seven hours, forty three minutes and twenty six seconds!" he exclaimed, cheerfully. "Tell me, have you been incarcerated before boy? Spent time in a cage have you then? I suspect as much. Bloody scientist sends a prisoner to my home! A convict and rapist knowing my bloody luck!"

  His haggard face, reasonably satisfied, lowered level with my own. "You're not going to rape me in my sleep? Are you boy? Well?"

  "What, what is this?" I asked, voice shrivelled.

  "Training of course! First and foremost, discipline is what I demand, pisser — discipline! If I tell you to stay in that room, then you bloody well stay in that room! Discipline is the key! You are off to a sufficient start, I will say that. Anything under fifty hours and I would have thrown your legs down the Mountainside and sent your torso down to collect them. I've done it before."

  "You've been here the — entire time?" I asked, overwhelmed.

  "Yes."

  "But I could have died!"

  "Drooping balls!" he tittered. "You're already dead pisser! Now you are a speck! Discipline, understand? Well, answer me speck!"

  "I…I understand."

  "Good. Come along then!"

  The centaur moved from the door and down a suffocating corridor to the right. I followed, but found it impossible to keep up as Bludgeon smoked off into distant darkness. I attempted to run but my body wouldn't allow it; even at a snails pace my arms snagged off the jagged walls. This was a dismal place, aptly stinking of wet stable and built up piles of horse manure.

  The smells and bleakness didn't matter though, the most important thing was that I was out and free of that room. My mind continued to play tricks however, trying to convince me that I was imagining this; another delusion, and how the truth would see me still wasting away on that bed cloth.

  "Speck!" yelled the impatient centaur. "Come along, come along I say!"

  I picked up a hobbling pace and groaned toward a growing shine. I felt a mincing in my left foot and figured I had broken bones and others elsewhere when falling down those stairs; thankfully, an eye opening change of scenery took the pain from my mind. The cave seemed to explode in height and width, stubbing out all feelings of claustrophobia. Magnificent geode crystals, many thousands of years old, hung like sculpted fingers down from the ceiling, and their reflecting light was accompanied by numerous torches around the walls, causing the entire room to twinkle and glisten like fireflies. A dozen other corridors and passageways were dotted between those torches, a maze of burrows inside the Macros.

  "Wow," I said, gawking.

  The crystals above directed their glassy fingers to a luxurious dinner table, varnished and proud at the centre of the room with a lonely chair at one end.

  "Sit," said Bludgeon, appearing from a corridor, his woolly body bulging with biceps and shaggy hanging hair. He was an impressive and intimidating figure.

  I took the seat whilst Bludgeon, grasping two steaming bowls, remained at the furthest end of the table, kicking back his hoofs and twitching his wary eyeball. Then, with a flick of the wrist and scraping of wood, he slid one bowl from his end of the table to mine; and like the best barman in the world, the bowl came to a perfect stop under my chin.

  "Eat speck! Eat!"

  It was some kind of broth, and boiling hot when going down my throat. Although mouth watering, the taste was stomach churning, leaving my tongue with a coat of cigarette butts that I knew would sit there for days. I didn't care. I drank the liquid and gorged the cuts of flesh and vegetables left at the bottom. I recalled now how ravenously Kat stuffed himself at Madam B's table, and how amusing I found his lack of manners. No longer.

  Once finished, I heard another slide of wood and watched as Bludgeon's bowl of uneaten broth come to a halt before my empty one. I glanced up to find him no longer at the table, or even in the room.

  ***

  Two weeks gone, I still had only glimpses of Bludgeon, and discovered most of his cave to be restricted by locked doors or cramped dead ends. I would hear him call and curse my name from the dinner table, but when I arrived in his glittering hall he would be gone, and my meal for the day would be waiting to be eaten. Tasteless meat and dirty water for the most part, but I was at least getting my strength back.

  The sound of flowing streams inside the rock was a constant irritation, like an endless static. Worse was that feeling of being observed all of the time; and despite seeing nothing in the dark, I always felt the eternal eye of King Bludgeon. I was the yo-yo, and his finger was wrapped tightly around my string.

  During my explorations, I came across one cleanly carved, wider than usual corridor, and then remembered I had been here before. That corridor ended at a set of spiralling steps, twisting upward in the hundreds to a tiny torch blowing in the breeze. How could I have forgotten so soon? The seal — the birds — the trap — the samurai.

  "Kat?" I yelled up, with an echo. "Can you hear me Kat? It's Fox!"

  No response. I grabbed the railing of the staircase when — "Going somewhere boy?"

  Bludgeon stood where I first saw him, with a starry light blaring over his hunched shoulder.

  "Where is he?" I asked.

  The king trotted toward me and stopped at the first step, his hands clamping hold of the railings and his chest intimidating me backward up the staircase. "Who?" he drowsily said. "Who?"

  "Kat! The samurai warrior!"

  "Oh!" he said. "The yellow man! His body no longer desired him. Had to mop up the remains myself — like the floor in an arbitrary, all grizzled guts and shit everywhere… Gory business, speck. A gory business."

  I was not surprised to learn that Kat was gone; nobody could have survived that pulverizing smash of rock. What did surprise me was Bludgeon's flippant attitude toward the warrior. I did not understand it, and was further dismayed by my own feelings toward the news, or lack thereof — there was none inside me.

  "He was supposed to be my guide," I muttered. "My north star."

  "Things are never that simple, speck!" Bludgeon said, rubbing a crick from his neck. "You cannot be led by the hand! If you want to get sentimental, I could fetch you his hand? I have it in a bucket somewhere."

  I caught a troubling whiff of his rich old breath. "You're drunk!"

  "And you're a shit stirrer!" he barked, thumping his fist on the railings. "I am far from pissed you little pisser! I am a centaur! Do you know what it means to be a centaur?"

  "No. I don't."

  "It m
eans that I can drink your weight in blood and still lead an army into battle! And bloody win too! Win good!"

  He rolled his head back and wobbled, reminding me of my Glaswegian Uncle Tam at every family get together. "Talk out of turn again speck," he added, "and I'll be moping up your remains, yes? Mind me now, boy pisser! Mind me!"

  "I didn't say a thing! Hey, I didn't ask to come here! I didn't want to come here!"

  "And I don't bloody want you neither! Why do I get these mud monkeys forever calling at my door? I swear to murder that scientist one of these days! To squash his face with the fat end of a cricket bat — a second death good and proper and to hell with all of them!"

  He placed his hoof on a step and I recoiled further. Disturbingly, the hairs of his arms were infested with millipedes, making their way toward his shoulder.

  "There are rules!" he exhaled. "The doors that I open are the rooms your eyes are permitted to see. What I say bloody goes — I am the one and only law here, and if you ever, ever break my law… I'll take a break to your puny little neck!"

  His eye wandered hungrily over that neck of mine, and the gulp of my Adam's apple.

  "Now," he added; "you've already seen the dinner hall and your own quarters…Quite enough for the time being. This minute I am starving hungry speck. Starving hungry! I will show you the kitchen. You'll be making my meals from now on, but scrub your hands before you cook — I won't eat anything prepared by your contaminated arse picking fingers!"

  "I'm not your fucking maid!" I blurted out.

  "Did the speck just speak out of turn? he asked, a cockroach crawling out of his curly beard. "Do you want to see yourself strewn to pieces? Shall I fetch my mop?"

  He rubbed his fist and five chubby knuckles, and I submissively lowered my head.

  "I'm… sorry."

  Bludgeon swayed again before taking that cockroach whole into his mouth; there was the crunch of the insect against his teeth, followed by him wiping the sides of his mouth with the beard.

  "Another rule speck!" he added, slurring words. "You will be a quiet little mouse from now on. Zero cursing. Also, try not to breathe, the sound of your inhaling and exhaling cuts through me like a knife. Yes, a quiet little mouse is what I expect from you. What have you to be?"

  "…"

  "Well?" he demanded, stamping his hoof on the staircase.

  "A… quiet little mouse," I grumbled.

  "A what? What?"

  "A quiet little mouse."

  "Correct mouse! Now toddle off to that kitchen and fix me some dinner, and if you spit in my food I'll know, I'll know and I'll kill you for it!"

  I couldn't believe my ears. With Kat and Scarfell, I thought I had met all the tyrants the Distinct Earth had to offer. I bit my tongue while he kept his serious stare fixed on mine. Finally, the centaur backed down the stairs and I followed to his kitchen, clenching my fists and cursing the stinking beast under my breath.

  ***

  No chair required for his strong horse form, Bludgeon was at the dinner table, starting a meal I prepared in his gross kitchen. Not a kitchen per say, more a cold storage facility taking advantage of the outside temperature to preserve the food in random buckets and barrels. In that freezer, I opportunistically eyed a solid wooden block I might use to lock my cell door, that's if my relationship with the king continued to deteriorate.

  The food itself consisted of various living things found in this wet cave — bats, shrimps, mushrooms, snapping crabs, slinky spiders and slippery salamanders. Then there was the grog, which I presumed he made himself — endless casks stacked against the glacial walls.

  A week later, I sat facing Bludgeon at the end of the table, holding a mug of water and a bowl of clay colored stew. An upset stomach wouldn't let me eat, but Bludgeon slurped and dribbled the lot into his beard. No use for utensils, his insect riddled fingers were more than satisfactory; I'd puke if I had the energy.

  I didn't get it. Why was he so precious about me washing my hands only to eat the way he did? Why had he gone to all the trouble of a beautiful golden seal and grand marble entrance, only to live in squalor underneath it? This revolting creature was far removed from the gallant centaur riding the back of a fire-breathing dragon. Was marble and seal, and this grandiose geode hall just pomp and circumstance? The pretentious façade of a fallen king?

  He always ate with a spear tucked safely by his side, a weapon seen previously piercing my neck.

  Momentarily removing focus from his belly, Bludgeon looked up to watch me poke at my rations.

  "Do not play with your food pisser! Shall I fetch you a skipping rope, child? You can play with that instead? Food is for eating! Mind me!"

  "The food would be fine," I droned, "except — why does it taste the same? Everything in this world, it's all bark!"

  "Why don't you eat bark then pisser?" he cried. "Why don't you? I would surely like to see that! I surely would!"

  I slunk in my chair as Bludgeon protested, a crust of bread falling from the tangled net of his beard.

  "Where does the scientist get his gall?" he boomed. "Sending this insolent thug from a retarded generation of halfwits to my home? To live with me?"

  His temper was explosive, and once off its leash there was no controlling it. "I give the speck free room and board from the good kindness of my heart! He doesn't open his mouth to converse and when he does it's only to squirt his shit on my cuisine!" he peered at me now from the opposite end of the table. "Would you like my spear in your belly, mouse? That would certainly be more interesting than your personality, or the so called bark you jab at!"

  "Apologies," I said, timidly. "It was just an observation."

  My apology wasn't nearly enough to settle the king's complaints. "You may not enjoy the taste, but eating is a necessity — one you will get used to."

  Sounds familiar, I thought, as Bludgeon cast his resentful expression to the geode sky, cursing the angels beyond it with his fist clenched. His theatrical moan was like an old Thespian in complete command of his craft; and after this award winning moment, he let out a lingering sigh. "Only in Heaven shall one sample the tasty delights of food and drink. Does this look like Heaven to you pisser? Does it? Answer me mouse!"

  "No!" I snapped. "No it does not!"

  Sneering, Bludgeon leaned proud over the table, "It is Heaven to me weed! Tell me then, man preferred by righteous above — what is wrong with my home?"

  "Nothing!" I said, dousing his new fire. "Nothing at all!"

  "Damn straight nothing at all! The bloody impertinence of some people…"

  From now on, I thought it best to speak only when spoken to, and not be drawn into further argument.

  As this meal continued, Bludgeon fussed through small bones on his plate, I heard his complaints at the lack of meat on them, then the distant roar of thunder and strikes of far off lightning. High above our heads, past geode crystals and thousands of tons of rock, two marble walls were colliding.

  "Blasted mountain birds!" bellowed the king. "Carve your own home out of your own bloody mountain! Winged pests…"

  I pushed my water and stale stew aside — the trap bringing my mind back to Kat, "He didn't want to be here either."

  "Oh, will you ever shut your lips?" Bludgeon moaned. "Whatever his reputation promised, the yellow man was a murderer — certainly less but nothing more!" He grinned, filling his already bloated mouth with more. "Gifted swordsman is he? Escaped Hell did he? Overrated rot! And for my traps it's a job well done."

  It is true that I disliked Kat, but in a few short days and hours, the centaur had well surpassed him. "Fucking Bastard…" I mumbled.

  Suddenly, Bludgeon's mouth stopped the motions of chewing, leaving a single cheek-full of mulched food. Something was said, something he did not fully understand. The dullness in his eyes washed clear, as if awoken from a long hibernation. His forehead creased and the millipedes began to crawl from his arms and down the table leg like some vast retreating army. The centaur's lips now parted and h
is tongue spat out a ball of compacted food, which rolled like a snowball down his beard. "Say again mouse? Say…again?"

  I kept my mouth shut and my eyes glued to the wooden table. Bludgeon's lips meanwhile curved upward to a half smile. "I imagine the yellow man felt a lot of pain," he said. "A horrendous amount actually. Those traps may look spectacular when crushing tiny birds and the like, but it takes a great deal to flatten a man. No doubt the last thing your Kat ever felt was the squash of his own skeleton, like meat in a sandwich. I wonder how long he remained conscious. Nine lives my eye. Not hungry speck?"

  "Bastard is what I said! Fucking bastard!"

  I smashed my plate to one side and stood with fists shaking. "Enough! Enough of your stink, and your darkness and your moods! I've fucking had it! I know why you live alone in this shit-hole, I know why, because there is not another living soul who could stand you! You are a pissy, stinking, alcoholic mess! The most repulsive old bastard I have ever fucking met! How can you train me for anything? You can't even hold your liquor; you can't even eat with your mouth shut! If I can't — "

  CRASH!

  The centaur's spear interrupted my rant, flying the length of the long dinner table and ending in the head of my chair, a mere inch from my ear.

  "I see a spine in you after all!" Bludgeon announced, striding forward.

  Reaching me, he tugged his spear free from the chair. "Next time… I aim for your bloody mouth!"

  With a thick wrist, he pushed the chair back and I was sent to the floor with it. He then loomed over my defenceless body and slapped me across the face. "Discipline speck! Discipline! That temper will not get you anywhere but on my nerves! And only a damn bloody fool would linger there…" He slapped again. Harder. "Commanding emotions will help you think clearly in a crisis, master weapons you never dreamt of wielding and make the tough decisions that keep you alive."

  SLAP!