The 9th Fortress

by John Paul Jackson

  "When and where?" he answered. "I will joust!"

  I went to calm him down, but Eddinray's mind was made up. "If I win?" he asked Napoleon. "What then?"

  "You leave my Fortress in fine health," he replied, "with prisoners 1692 and 2020 in tow."

  "And if he loses?" I said, intrigued.

  Napoleon had to clear his throat before sharing that vital condition. "When the nurse loses, Harmony will remain here with me. The rest of you will march willingly to vacant cells below. No negation." he quipped in Kat's direction.

  A faint looking Harmony turned now from the window, with wildly gusting hair and feathers. "I cannot abandon my friends, Napoleon!"

  The warden briefly gagged. "You…consider this deceiving lot to be your friends? I have seen inside their hearts Harmony, and none of them are worthy of your company, let alone your friendship! If you love me then you will trust my instincts and accept my decision. You do love me, don't you?"

  Lowering her eyes to the tiles, the angel hesitated before mumbling — "I love you."

  Uncertain, exactly, to who she was addressing, Napoleon was the one who looked pleased.

  "I will succeed Harmony!" exclaimed Eddinray, trying not to cry. "I will so!"

  I examined his gaunt, moustached face, concealing my doubt behind optimistic eyes.

  "The duel will be held as soon as possible!" Napoleon interrupted. "Tomorrow you become prisoners, tonight you are guests — and as guests your needs will be suitably seen to."

  "My wife?" asked Kat, instantly.

  "You can have time with the old woman." he consented. "She can even witness the joust by your side. Mr Fox?!"

  My forehead shot up to my name.

  "Step into the elevator." he said. "It's already on route."

  At the very end of Napoleon's sentence, I heard that distant machinery rocketing toward the penthouse.

  "Go and meet prisoner 2020." he concluded. "You will have much to talk about…”

  38. A Soul Worth Saving

  Doors sealed me in with that fusing weld down the centre, my stomach then attempted to escape from my mouth when the elevator dropped like a cinder block down the shaft. I ducked for cover as gas-exploded overhead, then was thrown sideways to smash my cheek off the wall.

  This chaos did nothing to remove me from the coming moment. Somehow, I always expected this meeting with prisoner 2020 to take care of itself; that it would all work out with little or no effort from me. Bludgeon, Newton, Missy, Kat, none of them prepared me for the actual encounter. Did I even expect it to arrive?

  Palms wet and an uncomfortable constriction in my throat, I waited on the vibrating floor for this elevator to take me where I needed to go. I wasn't waiting long. Brakes screeched outside and I was shocked by the sturdiness of the halt, and the immediacy of the opening doors. Already here, I could hardly believe it. Steam wafted out of the elevator and into this new room. I took my time standing, and was frightened by a horse voice coming from inside the cell. "2020!" it announced.

  Growing fog obscured all edges, leaving the dark centre of the cell to hover like a vague dream. With caution I entered, widening my eyes and covering my nostrils from the old air. The voice belonged to the hooded guard beside the door, the lean thing at ease with ridiculous piles of unmoved dust balancing neatly on its head and shoulders. Its calculating mask looked me over, before its nod gave me consent to proceed.

  My delicate footsteps disturbed the smoky floor, hands throttling the weapons at my belt — sword in my left, dagger in my right — prepared for absolutely anything. A substantial silhouette became clearer in this gloom. It was a standing slate, a rugged monolith from murky ceiling to misty floor; and there, strapped to it by ropes like a conveniently wrapped up gift, was a naked man — prisoner 2020.

  It was a man. Of course it was. Saliva dribbled from his bottom lip, but everything above his nose was still concealed by darkness. Moving closer, his condition was dirty and dishevelled, nothing a few hot meals and a shower couldn't take care of. I dabbed at a feverish sweat on my forehead as I crept closer; and blowing the collected clouds away, I examined his slouched face, now lifting to meet mine.

  Something happened. A passage of time was stolen from me — a minute, maybe more. I woke on the stone floor, overcome with a scatterbrained faintness and the worst kind of sickness. "This is a mistake." I mumbled, the brain like mush in my skull.

  It must be a mistake — an illusion of the mind — a trick of imagination — some perverted joke on me. How could this person be here in the 9th Fortress? How could I, of all men, have been sent to rescue him? Not him! Not possible!

  Again, I cleared the grime from my face and inspected his features once more — going carefully over the cheekbones, meticulously over his long nose and thoroughly over that unremarkable mouth and bald-head until there could be no mistake. No doubt. This was a man I knew, despised, and died with.

  "Daniel Fox," he said. "Have you come to kill me?"

  ***

  Napoleon Bonaparte and my helpless friends observed through that burning fireplace.

  "Who is he?" asked Harmony, puzzled. "Whom have we travelled so long for?"

  Napoleon approached her back, and she shuddered the instant he took her shoulders.

  "That person," he whispered in her ear, "is named John Curtis. Not a famous man of his time; no great leader or mastermind criminal, but an ordinary individual capable of extraordinary acts, a selfish banker who caused the death of two teachers and four children — one being your friend's daughter."

  "Poor Daniel." mumbled Harmony. "What happened, Napoleon?"

  "Under the influence of alcohol that man drove a school bus off the road. Manslaughter is common in Mr Fox's time, in any time; and for taking the lives of six, Curtis served a miserly four years in prison for his crime." Napoleon went to warm his palms against the fiery scene. "The bureaucracy of old Earth prevents justice," he added, "and as you can well imagine, Mr Fox brought down his own. Bitter until the end of his days, he could not forget, and he would never forgive. He pointed a gun at his enemy's head, but in the end could not bring himself to kill. So together the men fought and together –

  "They fell." Kat finished, transfixed. "They fell…"

  Nodding back, Napoleon concluded — "Sent to rescue the soul he put here. I will say this for your God, Harmony, he does have a wonderful sense of humor. Yes, the scientist Newton may want John Curtis, but make no mistake about it, he rightly deserves his place in my Fortress. You see, Curtis is the worst kind of man — despicable. There was no remorse felt for his crime, no care for his victims or sorrow for their grieving families — I assure you there still isn't. His act was a trifle to him, nothing more, a burden postponing his life not devastating it to pieces. Physical pain cannot reach such vacuous individuals, so here they experience something far greater — the systematic destruction of their mind. And once sanity is shattered, there is no hiding place from pain."

  "I don't feel comfortable watching this." said Harmony, turning away. "It's not…right."

  An amused Napoleon watched her walk to the window. A stern faced Kat meanwhile, crept closer to the fire.

  ***

  Embraced in mist, Curtis and I stared into the mirrored bewildered of each other. When the confusion had passed, I felt the first groan of a monster, the kind I'd seen rampant in Bludgeon and Kat — the beast inside us all. Curtis was not suffering clearly, or loudly enough for me; there was no wired noose around his throat, no blade painstakingly peeling the flesh from his chest, no nails hammered daily into his toes or cherubs to break his skull in with rocks. How could his be suitable punishment after all the shit we had seen? The wall of tears and oncoming flood, souls in vats of fire, the impaled on spikes, the drowning under sea, the devoured mutineers and petrified statues of ice! Yet here, this bastard was held by rope to a rock? This wasn't enough. Not nearly enough.

  I pulled the dagger from its pouch, tugged back his slippery head and pressed the blade to h
is swallowing Adam's apple. "Hurt me Fox!" he giggled, smiling his leathered wrinkles at me. "I don't feel a thing!"

  I pressed the dagger into his neck, the apple bobbling up and down with his chuckle.

  "Make the cuts slow!" he begged me. "Oh, hurt me good!"

  "Enough!"

  I moved to slice open his throat, to spill his innards over my boots, when suddenly, his expression poured cold water over my fire, and somehow tamed my monster. It was a very subtle and serene closing of his eyes that did it, as if he wanted me to kill him, expected it, and even desired it. I lowered the dagger from his neck and took a step back, feeling my boiling blood come to a simmer.

  John Curtis squinted an eye open, surprise imprinting his face as he watched my blade return to my belt.

  "Well?" he asked, hurriedly. "What the fuck are you waiting for? You're…supposed to kill me."

  "Supposed to? Says who?"

  "The nightmares!" he snapped like a lunatic. "They end when you stick me! They do! I have seen it! Promised it! Don't hesitate Fox! I wouldn't — I'd kill you and your fucking kid all over again if given the chance! Your prize is here Fox! Take it you coward! Stick me you shit! Kill me! What are you waiting for? Do it now!"

  I had — in my life and afterlife — killed one human being as he had killed me, all of it leading to a devastating chain reaction. I decided to remember the mission at this tempting time, to focus on that and not the reasons for it. I'd made it to the 9th Fortress, my friends were upstairs, alive, and I had come face to face with my own demon — the job, however, would not be complete until I had this individual back in the limbo of the Waiting Plain. "The scientist wants you alive." I said, over his mad ravings. "I don't know why — can't imagine a single reason. You're going back Curtis — and I'll drag you kicking and screaming if I have to. So help me God…"

  ***

  It was evening in the 9th Fortress, and the liquorish sky could not have cast a more foreboding spell over tomorrow. The penthouse danced with candlelight, an atmosphere to make any eye sparkle. The broken window was already repaired, and overlooking that spectacular view, Harmony and Napoleon sat at opposite ends of a table, with wine and a meaty main-course under their noses. "How do you find the food?" he asked her, chewing politely.

  "It's…lovely." she said, shallowly poking potatoes with her fork.

  "Will you share your thoughts? You have not said a thing so far."

  Harmony shook her head. "I feel overwhelmed." she answered. "The meaning of it all and this place? I sometimes question the thinking going on up there. I can't help it. What does it mean?"

  "Their ways are unworthy of your thoughts or worship." he happily replied. "Vague nonsense insulting ones intelligence! There is no baffling mystery about my Lord and his realm, his glory is here for all to see, smell and touch, not locked behind an overwhelming cloud of maths. Perhaps this is what you need, angel? To be far from the frustrating ways of your God and his intellectual devotees?"

  Harmony scrutinized the well-fed Emperor at the other end of the table. "Why are you so devoted Napoleon? What inspires you? Where is the good in the soul I love?"

  "You are the good in me," he returned, piercing a sausage with his fork, "you were all of it Harmony, and it was devotion to my Lord that secured this lofty position in the 9th Fortress." He took the whole sausage into his mouth. "Devotion," he continued, mincing pork between his teeth; "is the only virtue. Under our feet are the nastiest creatures to ever grace any surface — I have Blackbeard the Pirate and Rasputin on one floor alone, and overseeing their suffering is a unique privilege. Mephistopheles gave this post, not to Genghis Khan or Charlemagne, but to Napoleon Bonaparte, and it is his confidence which inspires the soul you love."

  Harmony sighed, shrivelling in her chair. "You are lost." she said. "Hopelessly so."

  "Life support…" he corrected, swallowing, "I am found."

  ***

  I explored, happily alone through a labyrinth of mysterious halls, closed doors and randomly freakish screams. I'd been on my feet for hours, going over past and current events — John Curtis — John Curtis — his face wouldn't leave me. My brain seemed to swell from overuse, and it was an intensely frustrating feeling, to know I would have to wait, or never get the answers.

  The levels and hallways of the 9th Fortress were extremely diverse: some chilled me to shivers whilst others sent the sweat sliding down my legs. Worse was the sewage, popping over floors or hanging like icicles down from ceilings. It was revolting, and everywhere.

  Passing unlocked cells over my route, how many immortal names had I passed tonight I wondered? Hitler? Cromwell? Whoever they were, I was no better equipped for coping with the suffering; for although Bludgeon taught me through excruciating repetition to ignore the warnings and pain — this is a skill I believe no creature can master. We all have a breaking point.

  Not wanting my meandering through evil to stop, an appearance of a friend interrupted me. Eddinray searched out of a crooked window, and noticing me now, he expressed the "do not disturb" sign over his cross features. I made to pass, to leave him to his thoughts and return to mine, but something heavy hung in the air, and I couldn't walk away from it.

  "Eddinray?"

  "That's not my name." he dimly replied. A limelight from outside illuminated his face, and looking through his window, I gasped at the astonishing night sky — a vortex the size of a moon hovered above the realm; it had a deep blackness at its core that appeared to suck in all the birds and light and the Hell around it.

  "What is it?" I asked, not expecting any answer.

  "I think it's the way out," he said. "Or perhaps another way in. Do you…forgive me Danny?" he then whispered. "All those lies I told?"

  "There's nothing to forgive Eddinray. Nothing at all. Your stories — true or false, fact or fiction — kept spirits up and took our minds away from the worst…Some of the time."

  A gratefully smile appeared on his lips, but that dismal expression returned when he asked about Harmony. "Have you seen her?"

  "She's having dinner with the warden." I said, refusing to protect him from the truth. "She's safe at least."

  "Not with that man, Danny. Not with him. The way he looks at her…"

  His hand clenched rock at the window.

  "You're the one she loves!" I hissed. "We all know it! Harmony just needs time, that's all. She'll come round if she hasn't already."

  "I lied to her. To all of you."

  Frustrated, I exhaled. Determined to feel sorry for him, I was ready to leave Eddinray to sulk when an idea came to me. Peering down the vacant corridor, I called out the name of Virgil, immediately, and as see through as ever, the good-looking poet appeared before us. I first apologised for the lateness of the hour, then asked my questions — "I need information Virgil: can you tell me how many times Napoleon has fought here in the past? Specifically duels with other inmates?"

  "During his rein," Virgil returned, "Bonaparte has fought twenty seven duels in the courtyard: twenty-one hand to hand, three with blade and one with joust."

  "And has he ever lost?"

  "The warden has never been defeated." he said, candidly. "He could not live with the shame, yet his addiction to victory demands that he toy with that possibility."

  This news did not ease mine, or Eddinray's mind. "Can you tell me anything Virgil," I asked, desperate; "anything that might advantage us tomorrow morning?"

  Courteously, the ghost smiled, but this time said nothing. He couldn't, and I understood.

  "One last thing." I added. "If we win, will we be allowed to walk free from this place? Can Napoleon's word be…trusted?"

  Grimly, the poet shook his head, and the heart sank in my chest.

  "No-one leaves the 9th Fortress," he said; "if you happen to succeed tomorrow, there are measures in place to prevent any escape."

  "These measures?" Eddinray asked; but Virgil would reveal no more to us, and promptly vanished to whoever needed him most.

  Subdu
ed, I leant against the crooked window, searching the side of Eddinray's demoralised face.

  "Defeat Napoleon." I said, simply. "Take him down and let me worry about the rest."

  "How can I win against that man? I am not brave, Danny! I may wear the mask of a hero but it's not in my blood. I am not Kat!"

  Angry, I took him by the arms and shook. I wanted him to see the confidence in my face now, to inspire some belief. "I remember hanging from a post in the wizard's stockade, so scared and alone. One night a man came to me with compassionate words and a sponge to clear the blood from my face. That was you Eddinray! Moments from being torn apart by the Scurge, and with no hope left, I watched you charge from that temple door, your sword held high toward two hundred bogs, a monster and a wizard. We fought a horde of rats side by side in the Labyrinth; you carried Harmony in your arms and saved Kat's life on the ice. Eddinray is in your blood now, and that guy is a hero!"

  Suddenly and harshly, the knight embraced me in a constricting bear hug, and I heard the sniffles bubble from the end of his wet nose.

  ***

  Napoleon finished his meal while Harmony waited for permission to leave the table.

  "I see you have taken to the longbow?" he said, making her wait. "What made you decide upon such an…uncouth weapon?"

  Geronimo's bow and quiver sat within Harmony's reach at the leg of the table, and she lowered her eyes to dream over them. "It belonged to a wise man.” she said. “I hoped my use of it might honor him; unfortunately it's as cumbersome as the clamp on my wings. It will take a very long time to master. But why ask Napoleon? Don't you already know everything?"

  "Making conversation." he smiled. "That clamp…hurts me too, you know. That is one consequence I could not foresee, and will never forgive myself."

  His tone was insincere, but Harmony appeared not to notice.

  "You were right about me," she said, "earlier tonight. I was in awe of you back then. The early days especially, watching you fight for human rights during the revolution — you were inspiring, and I was captivated. Look at us now." she added, remorsefully.