Sand Glass

by A M Russell

  A hail of gunfire rang out. He lay struggling in the sand. Oliver went straight to him. ‘Do you want to go home?’ he asked Elland who rolled his eyes up to see who spoke.

  ‘Go to hell!’

  ‘It’s Reece! We found the alchemy! Do you need it?’ Oliver laid his hand on the man’s chest. And his eyes opened again.

  ‘No! Let this one die. I’m old….. Let my young self live again. I don’t want this old mind in that body… let me go…’

  ‘Get up Reece.’ Jared instructed him. One of the soldiers was pointing a gun at Oliver's head.

  ‘Now. Which of you comedians locked us in?’ Alexander demanded, ‘You know I’ll just get you next time. Open it up, and I’ll not stop you.’

  ‘And we’re supposed to take your word for it?’ Jared asked him in a mocking tone.

  ‘No. You’re supposed to think I mean it.’ He flicked a finger.

  One of the soldiers grabbed Janey, who was stood a little apart from the rest of us. We all froze.

  ‘Don’t you hurt her!’ Jared’s voice was chilling in its intensity.

  ‘Or what?’ said Alexander, ‘we all come back and do this all over again?’

  The rest of the soldiers were all engaged in trying to get the second gate open. A light misty rain began to fall. The soldier passed Janey to Alexander, then backed away towards the gate. I could see in his eyes a different agenda forming, that deeper need to survive. Alexander stepped back pulling Janey with him. He pulled her hair, so that her head bent back and her neck was exposed. Jared clenched his fists and visibly tensed. I sensed a change in our little group. Alexander seemed not to take notice of the water falling on us getting a little heavier. I thought that somehow he had miscalculated.

  Oliver caught my eye. He looked down. Three fingers resting on his leather bag. Three minutes!

  I crept up behind Rimmington. Janey was arching her back ready to jump out of his grip should the moment come where his concentration lulled for a moment.

  ‘You have us,’ said Jared to Alexander, ‘so what more is there to prove? We are all going to die here and then it will all be for nothing….’

  ‘You don’t understand!’ Alexander began to laugh, ‘None of you ever saw what we were trying to achieve here. Did you? You are so small. So…..human; and full of compassion!’ he spat out that last word and at the same time threw Janey to the ground.

  ‘So…..what should we be?’ Jared’s voice faltered, and he backed away from him again, and nearer to the edge of this place with that long drop.

  ‘Ah……’ Alexander straightened and seemed to relent. He turned and moved forward, holding out his hand to Jared. Jared obviously didn’t like this arrangement and backed off as far as he could reasonably do. But Alexander reached out and clasped his hand and would not let go: ‘You are weak and stupid, and you have contaminated this part of the trial, with your adherence to some outmoded idea of morality.’ At each point of the argument he shook Jared by the arm and then pushed him to his knees.

  ‘As you say.’ Jared replied.

  Alexander forced him backwards, so they were right on the edge. I barely noticed that the others were starting to move towards the first (secretly unlocked) door. Oliver prodded me firmly in the ribs. ‘There’s nothing else we can do.’ He sounded doom laden and depressed, ‘We have to get out of here. It’s not far. Along that corridor, but make a left at that little junction.’

  ‘But….?’ I wasn’t about to just leave.

  ‘There’s no time!’ Oliver shouted in my ear, the water was now splashing and sloshing all around us.

  ‘No.’ I moved forward.

  Jared was doing a good job of distracting him. He was talking softly and persuasively about our failed mission. He stuttered in a way that convinced me that his terror was not feigned. He tried to convince Rimmington that we would comply with his wishes. Two of the soldiers moved forward ready to finish Jared off when Alexander gave them the signal. Suddenly, Alexander grabbed Jared by the collar and lifted him bodily off the floor. The water that had now become rain fell and started to spill over the edge. I was blinking and beginning to feel the first wave of deep terror clutch my heart. Alexander laughed and chortled to himself. He looked like a red faced version of Ghengis Khan. At once he stopped laughing and seemed suddenly disturbed by the water falling on him. He tossed Jared across the floor. Oliver picked Jared up. He was winded and coughing as he had slipped forward on the slick surface. Shakily his stood to his feet. Jared met my gaze. Rimmington noticed this; and so he turned and saw me. And then…..

  I did that thing that I swore I could not do. I plunged my knife into a man’s living flesh, with the intention of killing him. But he was too quick for me. He twisted sideways as I drove down, and the blow landed in his left arm instead. It sunk in up to the hilt, and just as quickly slid out as he pulled away from me, with quite another kind of expression on his face. It was disgust. I stepped back. I remembered Jared’s words. That thing about us all affecting each other’s fate. He was there across from me with Janey and pulling her away from this monster. Alexander was laughing at me. He seemed to grow in size or perhaps I was beginning to find out what this reality really contained.

  The others were near the open gate and still they waited.

  ‘Go!’ I heard myself say. But they did not. I turned to him and aimed the dagger again; right at the heart. I felt that I was falling; falling in slow motion towards the dark. But then suddenly I saw the rain fell in deeper ribbons of glorious silvery light and there was light from above. What was happening to me? The soldiers saw that the others were standing by an open door and they pushed them roughly aside and ran. Only two remained; they could not get their grip and were being swept further towards the edge. I had missed and he was laughing at me. For a moment I had seen through other eyes. And nothing had mattered at that moment but the beautiful lust of the kill….

  But now the power of nature made all impulses futile. I kept my balance and watched Alexander’s men desert their posts, and I tried not to be swept away. My blood mingled in the rain where he had struck me. I didn’t care. There was shouting but I could hear no sound. Marcia and Oliver frantically signalling. Jared and Janey with Ellen who was staring towards us as if she was remembering something important.

  Then I remembered something…. about mercy, and about love. Something that felt quite different from this horrifying rage that had for those moments consumed me. The rain was heavy as it fell on me now. I remembered another thing. Something. Make it count. I slid to my knees. He, looking down on me, had his knife out. He took the silver blade out of my hand, twisting my wrist until I released it. He seemed pleased with his prize. I was moving away from that moment, to something else again. From the silence inside I watched him and I wasn’t afraid. In slow motion I saw him. The water spilling over him. My friends were all together. Then Ellen shouted my name. Somehow suddenly she was there; by my side. She pushed between us. and in an arc of red and silver his blade shot to its mark, but it sank into her slim shoulder. He, aiming for me, had stabbed the girl. Her blood splattered his face and his lips. At that moment I pushed as hard as I could against him, a “No!” I could not hear escaped my lips. Amazed my sudden rush of strength I saw him fall backwards. And I was on him, but now I could not stab him. I took the little flowers from my pocket and pressed them into his mouth. He tasted the things. Bits of grass that he spat at me, and pulled a stalk from his mouth.

  ‘Foolish Boy…’ but as he spoke his voice began to crack as if it was aged and starting to decay.

  His face changed and he looked older than before. Ellen looked up at me; Janey and Marcia came for her to shield her. Jared and Oliver waded forward and dragged me back. The remaining soldiers were panicking and screaming louder and louder, scrambling and trying to reach the open gate. Poor Ellen’s eyes rolled back. And then as the rain fell on her she smiled. And there she dissolved. The tie was broken and not a trace remained.

  We all backed off fr
om the monstrous Alexander, or Rimmington as he was better known back home.

  What had I done? Earth and water. The essence. The rain poured over him he tried to spit it out but it poured on all of us. He has turning greyer and mottled and a horrible cackling keening could be heard. We backed off. Water flowed over our feet. The soldiers were screaming and pointing at him now. Cracks appeared. And a strange fire hissed out of them. He was splitting and breaking and laughing with insane fury.

  ‘I’ll get you next time!’ he spat sparks that sizzled in the water.

  The five of us retreated to the gate. We saw the way out and ran. The last of Rimmington’s men had taken a right on the corridor. Oliver went left. We charged after him willing our leaden limbs to carry us further. We could hear a cracking and hissing and from somewhere distant a dreadful deep rumbling sound could be heard.

  I was running in a narrow stony alley, and then as suddenly as a lightning strike I was outside on a wide table land of stone. About a hundred yards distance I could see an edge. And above that the sky. The first grey streaks of dawn were visible. We had come right out the other side of the mountain. We jogged and limped towards this boundary, with, as yet, no clear idea of how we would get out of there. At last we all stopped. There it was, smoking in the early morning mist. Rising in twirling turrets of soft columns towards the dome of pale blue. A slight wind ruffled my hair. A cool trace across my cheek. It was all in monochromatic greyness. But then as we stood there, and we all stared out, the dawn stung with heralds of light across the landscape. And to our left there was as sparkle of silver as the golden light filled this reddish rocky enclave of mountain rest with the pale and clear light of morning. I was no longer uncertain why I had come on this journey. For this. I saw the faces of the others and they were all transfixed with wonder. A brief stillness at the heart of the things we feared the most. It maybe could have been no longer than a minute, two at the most. We were all victims of our captured selves for when it flowed back into our bones we would want to fly. I thought it was the end of the road for us all. There was no time. And the ground began to shake, and the beat of boots could be heard, as the soldiers on finding no exit by that route had turned to follow our course.

  And so I know what it is to be free. In a moment that promised to be our last I found liberty and lightness of heart. I finally saw that it was something I had to choose. Freedom. I was no longer free if I took a path that led only to death and decay. I have made my choice….and I will look to the light and the morning, as I did then, while I saw the silver flowers sparkle on the edge of forever.

  We could hear a rumbling sound. And at once the ground shook.

  ‘Earthquake?’ asked Marcia. Could the charges have gone off. Oliver consulted his watch. ‘Uh, no. Too early.’

  Suddenly we were all stumbling to keep our feet, as the ground shifted again and a few medium sized pebbles fell around our feet.

  ‘No good.’ Janey looked out scanning the horizon. The sun shimmered from behind the streaks of cloud and blinded us. Janey was edged with a halo of light. Jared went to join her looking out and down onto the new summer land plains that we had not seen before. Marcia and Oliver were searching round for a way out. But the walls rose steeply on either side enclosing this area. The precipice was unclimbable up or down. And soon the soldiers were coming. I turned to the light and treading carefully towards the edge saw what they saw. Green and growing things, trees and fruiting thickets and lush meadows and vines. And I thought I saw mottled creatures like pie bald sheep. To the left a moving sparkle. I remembered so long ago that sparkle seen at the edge of the world as I stood near Adam and looked at that place from that high place above our camp; …. Was it those silver, otherworldly flowers. Why could I see them now?

  I turned as did Janey and Jared. Marcia and Oliver in from of us looking back towards the aperture from which we had emerged. The ground throbbed and shook, and we heard the distant growling of fault lines shifting. They came. They ran out of the doorway. But they seemed in disarray. There were no more than ten. At least half did not show from the many we had seen before. And behind then was a slow thudding. We all stood waiting. Eyes fixed on the entrance of the tunnel. And a thin lick of smoke curled from the doorway and spiralled upwards. And in heavy strides lumbering towards us and finally emerging form the tunnel was a huge black crusted being that was in the shape of a man. But it shimmered with heat like the fire of a furnace. And where mouth ought to be there was just a crack. The crack spilt apart to reveal a uncomfortably bright furnace red of fire. There was a voice, and how shall I say….it was as if your nerves were on fire. There was a sensation of vertigo when you concentrated on it.

  Then the thing turned. It seemed to be trying to orientate on something. And like a needle of a compass it settled on Jared. He moved, it moved. Larger pieces of rock shattered and fell between. The soldiers clearly had no further hostile intentions towards us and were trying to climb the rock walls to escape. We stood our ground.

  ‘You have me!’ the monster roared. Jared seemed to crumple. He was trying to speak but was trembling too much.

  ‘What the hell is that?’ I tried to keep my mind focused on the practical aspects of our situation and my natural optimism, although an encumbrance when it did emerge (as opposed to the bouts of dramatic doom), at this point keep me reasonably calm. Janey seemed affected too. Even Oliver was gripping the cross bow but not arming it, and moving from one foot to the other seemed quite at a loss of what action to take. Marcia was the calmest, she looked at me then, and I saw the fire in her eyes go out, as this thing approached us.

  ‘Give him to me!’

  ‘No!’ I took a step in front of the others. This wasn’t bravery. Or so I thought I just wasn’t going to let the fear overcome us all. I saw Marcia half turn. The light of dawn washing her face with colour.

  ‘Look!’ she cried. And we turned and saw something blue and greeny-grey, and curling at the top with white dazzling glints of glasslike patterns. It was distant yet advancing. I turned to the creature.

  ‘Fool!’ it grated and spat fire. The ground moved underneath us and we were all through to our knees. The thing took a step forward and grabbed at Jared’s ankle. Oliver and I pulled it off. It was hot and gritty. It backed off. It grabbed a gun off one of the soldiers. The man dissolved into dust. The coal like monster swept a hand around and touched two more of them. They dissolved leaving their guns only. He pointed a barrel at us.

  ‘No good.’ said Oliver. We two faced him. The two girls looking out towards the advancing roll of cloud.

  ‘Any ideas Milnes?’ Oliver said.

  ‘Not really? You?’

  ‘Just one.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I’ll not let him take Arden .’

  ‘I won’t either.’

  ‘Good.’ Said Oliver and loaded the cross bow with a sharp bolt, ‘Milnes?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’ve got more guts than anyone else here today.’

  ‘Thanks Reece. So what now?’

  ‘Same as always…’

  I looked at him and he smiled. The rumbling and crashing of rocks could be heard. The creature fell sideways and backed off a little. It still had the same coordination as Alexander, whatever it might look like.

  ‘We are going to have to jump!’ Marcia yelled above the crashing and rumbling of the convulsing mountain.

  ‘Look!’ said Janey.

  I half turned to see the foaming of a huge tidal wave rolling over the land!

  ‘It is our only chance!’ Janey shouted, ‘we have about two minutes left.

  ‘Okay!’ I yelled, and to Oliver, ‘we need to create a bit of space to take a run at it.’

  ‘A pickle,’ Oliver raised his crossbow. The creature raised a gun; ‘Shit!’ Oliver was looking round for a distraction. He fired at one of the remaining soldiers. He dissolved in a cloud of dust and the gun clattered to the ground just behind the creature. It turned. We ran forwards. And pick
ed up two of the guns and fired them. Park of the creature broke off like some piece of toffee brittle. It swayed and turned back towards us. Oliver had reloaded the cross bow and fired it. The spikes stuck in and burst into flames. The monster was enraged. But a least we had some clearance. The thing still had the long bladed knife. Marcia and Janey were right behind us with Jared. I could hear a roaring weighty sound.

  ‘The sea. It’s coming.’ said Janey, ‘one minute.’

  ‘Then we jump.’ said Marcia.

  ‘How long before the switch happens?’ asked Oliver circling to the right to pick up another weapon dropped by one of the men, now deceased.

  ‘About a minute and a half.’ Said Janey.

  ‘Why do we always cut it so fine?’ Oliver looked at me he dropped the gun and picked up another. We fired some shots at the thing. It backed right off, more chunks steaming with fiery oblivion. Jared was between Marcia and Janey, he was staring at the thing as if transfixed.

  ‘Thirty seconds.’ Janey said.

  There was another shift in the ground underneath our feet and everyone rolled over and over. The creature lunged forward. It took hold of Jared’s belt and pulled him into its embrace. The knife hovered by his neck. Oliver was trying to take aim but there was no way we could be sure that he wouldn’t hit Jared.

  ‘Take him out!’ Marcia screamed.

  ‘I can’t.’ Oliver’s moved his aim.

  ‘We have no time!’ said Janey.

  Suddenly the ground started to break up beneath our feet. The monster raised the knife to take the killing blow. Jared was struggling with it. But it was pulled back wards by another. The remaining life of Michael Elland. Battered and dying he folded the minster in his embrace. But he could not stop it from stabbing at Jared. Elland pulled it back. Jared cried out and fell forwards blood welling from his arm, and the knife fell between them all.