The 9th Fortress

by John Paul Jackson

  "Remarkable!" he gasped.

  "Only the virtuous can see the road!" said Harmony, pleased with herself. "No wonder Kat could never find the gauntlet."

  Yuki extended her arm out for her confounded husband, for only she could tempt him.

  ***

  No need to create a fire that evening, the sea of sin underneath burned more energy than we could ever produce or need. We rested in pairs, and not particularly tired, I'd ask some personal questions for my prisoner, who lay with his back against mine.

  "What do you see in your nightmares?" I said, sensing his busy mind ticking over.

  I had to repeat myself before he exhaled, then replied with bloodshot eyes. "I see the sins I am supposed to be sorry for. I see your daughter Fox, and all the others on that school bus. They smile at me you know, then share their memories and favourite things over and over, and over again. Those demons forgive me, and pity me. How dare they."

  "Guilt." I said, feeling the butterflies pressing against the walls of my stomach. "If you ever want a good-nights sleep again Curtis, you should accept their forgiveness."

  "You think I can't shut them out?" he said, stubborn and determined. "My mind is stronger than their demands on it. They forgive me? How…dare they." he hissed, before tittering.

  "What you laughing at?" I asked, annoyed. "What's so funny?"

  "Strange thing, Fox…Just strange."

  "What is?"

  "Well," he grinned; "the more steps I take from the 9th Fortress, the further I race from their reach. Thank-you for your advice, and thank-you for your intervention."

  Surprising me, he stood now, brazenly clapping his hands to alert the rest. "I've got something to say! Hey! You all hear me?"

  He received a tired and disgruntled audience, but continued with anew-found vigour. "What do you people know of Daniel Fox?"

  "Sit your ass down!" I said, standing to pull on his rope. But with a temper, Curtis pushed me down then repeated. "Well? What do you know of him?"

  "Enough!" exclaimed Kat. "Now sit!"

  "Yes!" added Harmony. "Enough to trust Daniel with our lives! The rest is none of our concern!"

  "Course it is!" he yelled at her. "It's our fault you're all here! Fox is rescuing me from the Hell I apparently deserve! Why is that?" he asked, raising his arms alongside the swarthy odours coming from below. "Why do the angels want me on their pedestal? And why do they drag you people into our business?"

  "God works in mysterious ways." offered Harmony. "One couldn't possibly comprehend such thinking."

  "So one shouldn't try?" he argued. "Has your faith brainwashed you so much angel, that you no longer think for yourself? Oh yes, and how that faith has repaid you!"

  "Leave her alone!" I barked. "No-one here knows why God wants this or that! But whatever your importance to those above Curtis, whatever the reason, I promise you one thing — you'll live long enough to find out."

  He scoffed then searched over the bridge's edge, his eyes coolly observing the millions and millions emitting a charge.

  "Let me get this straight," he said, with a sanctimonious air about him; "if Fox gets me to the white Limbo then he swims with all the angels in Heaven? But what if you don't, Fox? What if you can't? What if I jump over this bridge right now?"

  My hand wrapped around the rope slack.

  "Why don't you be quiet!" cried Eddinray. "You silly, pointless man!"

  "Yes," added Kat, glaring, "why don't you?"

  He shrugged back at them. "I suppose a part of me wants to see this out, to discover the curious why. Yet another wants to spoil the party. I think I'll sleep on it…Yes, think I will."

  We kept opinions to ourselves as prisoner 2020 crouched and turned over. Despite the smile on his face, I knew he was deeply afraid, and that unknown reason hung heaviest over his soul. I expected he would sleep at some point tonight, once more to battle his fading nightmares.

  Kat laid himself to rest over Yuki's lap, whilst I meditated for the advice of my life support. Harmony settled her head over Eddinray's beaten breastplate, the pair waiting for that softly drifting raft to sleep.

  "His head just popped off from the neck." he whispered to her. "Did you see?"

  "I saw Godwin," she yawned, "we all saw."

  "Yes." he beamed. "Positively victorious. I caught the fear in his eyes. Practically bulging out of his nog —"

  "Godwin!" she interrupted. "You were extremely fortunate to survive the joust. I will hear no more of your trumpeting. No more of it."

  The foolhardy Eddinray only now seemed to realise how inappropriate his bragging was. He had beheaded his fiancée's very own soul mate, and no matter how much the Emperor deserved that second death, Harmony's wound would never heal. "I am sorry." he said, sincerely. "No more from my mouth, and no more lies."

  She smiled with a pair of sagging eyelids. "Lunacy," he added. "It must be. I'm having a better time in Hell than I ever did on Earth. Has anyone ever said that before I wonder?"

  Disturbed, Harmony took a side-glance at him.

  "It is true!" he declared back. "Indeed it is."

  "If so," she returned, exhaling, "then I find that rather sad."

  "It was my life that was sad, my dear. I have more here on this vile crossing than I've ever had, and I am far from sad about that fact. Can you tell me Harmony, I am curious — were you always an angel? A white butterfly in Heaven?"

  "No, no." she said, shuffling her clasp comfortable. "I had my time on Earth too. A brief and…privileged time. "

  Harmony took a few minutes, thoughts of the past erasing sleep from her head. "I…" she stuttered, "that life is all but a dream to me now. Can't even recall how old I was when I passed."

  "I'd wager no more than twenty." guessed Eddinray. "Twenty five at the most."

  "You flatter me knight. I would expect my age to be younger than yours, but my years older than Kat's. Dare you reveal yours?"

  "I dare," he said, "and I have a very old face for a twenty one year old."

  She giggled. "You are not twenty one! No, judging by the harsh lines under your eyes and the thoughts marking your forehead, I'd say you are at least thirty five Godwin."

  Exposed, he held his hands up to yet another white lie. "Irrelevant," he said, "after all, memory seems only to store the significant details of ones earthly life. Will you share," he began, carefully; "what happened to you? Your…passing?"

  "Oh, that was a very long time ago Godwin. I was a very prissy and proper French thing whose love for horses brought about my untimely end."

  The angel cast her mind back, her bluest eyes recalling and soft voice recounting a sadder time. "Death came for me whilst grooming Benoit, my handsome black stallion. He was a magnificent creature Godwin, with a strong physique and a personality rivalling Kat for stubbornness. He was my best friend, my only confidante in the whole world. Evenings, with hindsight foolishly, I would open the barn doors and ride his energy off through the pasture, clinging to his coat for dear life as he leapt over the mire!"

  Her smile was wide and her cheeks warm. Then, quite suddenly, that enthusiastic color died, replaced by a grief-stricken grey. "One night," she swallowed, "Benoit snagged his rear leg around the thorn bush. Alone, I attempted to remove it. Poor thing was in more pain than I realized. His leg kicked out when I removed the bush, and his…shoe thumped me in the head."

  Eddinray also swallowed. "My dear, did you pass…right away?"

  "No." she sniffed. "I lay on the grass until morning, feeling the blood drain out from my ears. I couldn't move nor call out. I didn't want to die there Godwin."

  She closed her eyes and bit her lips, as if forcing this painful memory back to its vault.

  "I woke on a slab in the Waiting Plain," she added, "later to ride Benoit into Heaven. My father took the sabre to him not an hour after discovering my body."

  Eddinray appeared to choke. "By God! You…you rode the horse that killed you into Heaven?"

  "I do not hold grudges," she replied
; "especially over an innocent animal. Youthful naivety was to blame for my death. I love Benoit very much, and he waits for my return now, just as I waited for him."

  Eddinray kissed his angel's forehead, and then the pair settled themselves to sleep — dreaming of Heaven, of horses, and of each other…

  41. The Gauntlet

  It took at least seven hours to cross that hypnotic sea, seven hours to an apparent dead end. Facing us was a wall of orange rock, perfectly smooth, perfectly flat, and glistening like wet ice as far as the eye could see. "Our toughest challenge yet." I said, lost for ideas. "Are we supposed to climb? Kat?"

  "No-one could." he answered, rubbing the blisters on his feet.

  The unnatural, and impossible wall glowed with an alluring, radioactive light.

  "It is over." said Harmony, daunted.

  Nearing the end of the bridge, a crack became visible on the unblemished rock. A hairline at first, the crack soon widened to a crude entrance with space enough to squeeze through.

  "A way in!" declared Eddinray. "And surely our way out!"

  Floating bodies smashed off the dense wall below us, and the sound of their cracking bones was sickeningly similar to normal waves breaking against boulders.

  "Who first?" asked Harmony, moving to observe the pulsating crack.

  "Volunteering?" asked Eddinray, gloomily examining the rough edges inside.

  "I am no leader Godwin. I'd just prefer to be out of this nightmare as soon as possible."

  "I'll go first." I said, forging to the crack and feeling the wall buzz a glow over my face. It was hot. Extremely hot. "No-one touches it." I added, unwrapping the connecting rope from my forearm.

  "Are you trusting me Fox?" asked Curtis, smiling. "Is that what this is?"

  "Our umbilical chord." I said, securing the rope around my waist. "Now there's at least six feet connecting us; that's all the trust you're going to get." Then, and without his permission, I proceeded through the crack. Shimmying sideways through the crude opening, I heard my prisoner complain at the searing stone at the end of his nose.

  "Keep moving." I uttered, the heat provocatively sizzling.

  Struggling to fit inside this jagged kiln, this was a game of don't touch the edges. Unfortunately, the walk across the bridge had left us weary, and mistakes would be inevitable.

  The others followed further back, and Harmony's cries came uninterrupted as her prominent wings brushed continuously against the fizzing stone. Eddinray's armor came into contact too, causing it to steam like a copper kettle. For all our care, we were soon left with no choice but to touch, to climb to an open hole some forty feet above.

  "Typical!" I groaned, feeling Curtis bungle into my back. "It leads out!" I called to Kat. "I see the way!"

  "You sure?" Curtis whispered. "That stone will eat the flesh from our hands in seconds."

  "Better move fast then." I said. Curtis was right. My palms burned immediately on touching the rock. Foot and handholds were firm on the way up, but the pain was unbearable. Curtis let his agony be well known, while I focused on haste rather than pain, grunting, spitting, and forcing my body toward the hole despite it all. Bludgeon trained me for this trial with his cloudy walk through fire, but what of my friends? Kat, come rain or shine, would see Yuki up here on his back; but how would the angel and knight cope?

  At one loathsome point, my prisoner's weight became so heavy on the rope that I was convinced he had blacked out underneath me. Carrying on regardless, I eventually clambered out of this constricting burn, through the hole and dragging John Curtis with me. "Get off!" I moaned, his hot body pressing over me.

  He rolled off my chest and we lay with burnt hair and crisping skin, hearing the harrowing sounds of companions still climbing.

  "What…is…that?" asked Curtis, his recovering voice distinctly horrified. I sat up, stunned by the horizontal tunnel before us — a vortex of stitched bodies, a quilt of bobbling bald heads, snoring mouths and hanging hands.

  "What else?" I whimpered. All was still throughout this burrow of interweaving black, white and yellow flesh. All eyes here were closed, and their collective breathing gave the area a stale, sauna like air.

  "They're alive." I said. "Every last one."

  I returned to the steaming crack to see Kat climbing with Yuki locking her arms around his neck.

  "Not a sound up here." I whispered, extending my hand for him. He grimaced back and I assisted them both out of the hole. All of us made it out with blistered burns or singed hair, and before Harmony spotted the gruesome pattern of sewn bodies, I cupped my palm over her mouth to snuff her scream.

  "A trap." said Kat, smearing sweat from his brow. "Another."

  A thousand arms hung down like vines, or grew up as a confused bed of seaweed; there was also no step free from the fat heads — wherever we would set our feet, these things would instantly be aware of it.

  "Well, well," said a smug faced Curtis; "can't escape without waking them, and they won't be too pleased about that. See the teeth?"

  Closer observation revealed the shark like teeth inside these mouths, and the fingernails like many knives and forks. Sensing my friends awaiting some kind of concise, confident advice, I gave the best I had to give. "This is it. We carry on. No matter what. Keep moving your hands and feet. Climb, run, race, and don't stop for anything."

  "Are they going to eat us?" asked Harmony, shivering.

  "Would that surprise you?" returned Eddinray, thoroughly exhausted.

  "Just don't stop!" I stated. "We're done if we do, understand?"

  Worried, I glanced at a labored looking Kat and his slight wife.

  "Is she up to this?" I asked him.

  "I am." she abruptly answered, her voice so delicate that I almost could've imagined it.

  Eyes welling up, Kat proudly pressed his cheek against Yuki's. All of our smiles seemed to surprise the woman, and she was further embarrassed by Harmony's warm embrace. "Welcome back!"

  Curmudgeonly, I hushed the angel quiet. I wanted to show Yuki my support, but right now I was more concerned with the Gauntlet. I shuffled to the beginning of this rising tunnel and its sitting musk, disquietly examining the sleeping faces, those hairless, frowning things. When would their eyes open? When would their nails scratch? When would their teeth bite?

  After triple checking the rope's knot around my waist, I turned to whisper at my prisoner. "Ready to run?"

  He nodded. "Don't plan to be eaten alive to spite you Fox. I will run. Don't you worry about that."

  Searching for the nerve, Eddinray and Harmony held hands. Kat and Yuki also prepared themselves. We were all…ready to run.

  "On three." I said, feeling a much-needed kick of adrenaline. "One…Two…Three!"

  Leaping, I landed a sturdy foot on one face, and sure enough, the thing woke from its ancient sleep. Its mouth opened wide and screeched, disturbing the rest from their slumber.

  "Move!" I bellowed, starting my scramble over feet, necks, faces and chest parts.

  "FOOD!" announced one grizzly mouth. "FOOOOOOD!"

  Thrashing fingers attempted to snatch us, their starving sound like an overpowering dong of a church bell, reverberating off the walls of this fleshy tube.

  "Let go!" Harmony cried out, when one hand dug its dirty nails into her ankle. She forced it from her but fingers reaching down from above caught her yellow hair. "Help! Help me!"

  Directly behind her, Eddinray was flat on his back having stumbled, and numerous hands and nails ravenously scrubbed and scratched his armor and face.

  "Harmony!" he moaned. "Danny! Kat! Help her!"

  Teeth closed around Harmony's shin and she howled as the blood streamed down her foot. The tongue inside that gob hadn't a second to enjoy her taste however, for Kat returned, dancing back over faces and boring his katana through its hairless head.

  Crying, Harmony pried the mutant jaw from her shin as Kat set Eddinray upright. Then, typically bold, the samurai returned bouncing up the tunnel for Yuki, throwing
her over his shoulder as every orifice snapped at his feet.

  Ahead, my scale up the wicked woven was thus far trouble-free. I didn't stumble — Curtis didn't fall, and when one of those hands did take a hold, one or the other would kick it off.

  "FOOOOOOD!" they endlessly screamed, mouths deprived of food and water for a millennium. "THEY CANNOT ESCAPE US! THEY CANNOT!"

  This was the Gauntlet, seen by the virtuous, those no longer deserving their eternal place in Hell. Faces here did not eat to satisfy hunger, they had no bellies to fill or bodies in need of sustenance; they ate for the simple and vindictive reason of preventing souls from achieving what they cannot — freedom.

  The ascending tunnel became gradually steeper and extremely difficult to avoid any bites or tares. Like cats on a hot tin roof, Curtis and I went on all fours up a route of clinging nails and snarling expressions. Suddenly, my prisoner squealed, and I turned to see his left hand trapped inside of one mouth, the teeth grinding away at the bones. Surprisingly, Curtis did not yell for my assistance; instead, he screwed up his face and personally tugged his hand free, moaning as the skin was peeled away like a rubber glove.

  Our exit lay feet away, another glimmering light amongst foaming mouths and greedy hands. Curtis held his ravaged hand to his chest and hastily followed me up and out. Thankfully Eddinray, Harmony, Kat and Yuki, were not far behind.

  ***

  The steps were our next implausible challenge: red steps to a savage sky with violent forks of lightning. The steps were thick and substantial, with vertical drops at each side.

  "Another shadow over hope." said Harmony, completely sapped. "It will take us forever."

  "Then let it be forever!" returned Kat, his grit spurring us on over the first giant play block.