Atlas scuffed her shoes at the bright yellow sand whilst Kat and I pondered the wide and deep blue sea before us. The Leviathan was said to be an angry spirit made of liquid alone, destroying for destruction sake, and hiding somewhere in this stretch of ocean. Bludgeon wrote a tantalising scribble in his book, Predators of the Under Realms. Leviathan: A tempest to blot out the sun. Details remained sketchy, for Bludgeon never witnessed the monster personally; he wrote only of rumours and hearsay; a collection of horror stories good enough to convince him, and me, that this thing was out there.
Forcing the worry to the back of my mind, I laced up my boots after peeling off the blood sticky bandages from my right foot. The healing process was remarkably fast, and although it wasn't a pleasant stump to look at, I could walk a long way on it.
"You ready girl?" I asked Atlas. The horse briskly snorted so I patted her neck. "She's ready Kat. I'm ready. You?"
The samurai fixed me with that scowl of his, perhaps warning me never to hurry him again. I didn't care; I was in jubilant mood for having overcome so much. I had killed Scarfell with the thrust of a flute; the consequences of that action would free the alphabet women from their village, remove Eternal's curse and reunite her with Bludgeon. The future of the Distinct Earth was brighter thanks to me.
Needless to say, my man of experience was not so sure…
***
Since I was the one who played the flute that tamed the Weather-Maker, I was the only hand Atlas would allow at her reins. Kat pressed his forehead against the shield on my back, either catching a nap or shutting out the thrill. The horse almost tore holes in the sky with her pace, skin endlessly swapping colour with the sea's blue, the sun's afternoon oranges, and making lightning time over the water.
"Are you enjoying it Kat?" I yelled back, embracing the ride of a lifetime on the back of an immortal. "You've been real quiet!"
He said nothing, but I wouldn't allow his personality to spoil this for me. Hooting, I lowered the horse’s nose for a vertical sprint toward the choppy blue surface. We fell and fell, wind wailing in my ears. I felt Kat's fingers clutch deep into the sides of my ribs — he sure wasn't napping. With a grin, I pulled Atlas out of the dive in time to catch the spray on her hoofs.
"Wahoo!" I cried, smearing the salt water from my eyes. "It's a shame we can't keep her Kat, don't you think? We could fly directly to the 9th Fortress on this baby!"
"Hello!" A distant voice cried out. "See me!"
"Hear that?" I asked Kat, but the samurai was already on the lookout.
"Hello!” the male voice repeated. “See me! I am here! Look here!"
"There!" exclaimed Kat, pointing below.
From our great vantage point, we could make out a flashing mirror or twinkling star at one particular point over the ocean. There came another flash at that same location, and I duly aimed Atlas toward the anomaly. Reflections soon became a man, frenziedly waving and jumping on a minuscule piece of land: a raft of some kind. We swooped down and Atlas hovered over the raft for more detail.
"Is that… a knight?" I asked.
It was. A man dressed from head to foot in medieval armour, with jangling beads of mail. Kat was sceptical about approaching the stranger — who waved his long sword like a victory flag — but then Kat wasn't the one in charge of Atlas.
"Ahoy there!" cried the knight, removing his helmet and lowering the long sword. "Goodness gracious me!" he stumbled. "What sort of supernatural beasty are you men riding there? Come down here, join me!"
The lanky man had a gaunt face sucked of all fat, thinning hair, a curled moustache under a long nose and a welcoming smile that brought no colour to his cheeks. His body armour was covered in dimples all over, but still a sun attracting silver. Unfortunately, this man's raft was not as striking, made simply from a dozen or so logs poorly strung together with vines. Oddly, the tops of these logs were missing layers of bark, exposing a lighter under-wood.
"Hello!" he said again, catching his breath. "You have nothing to fear gentlemen! Nothing to fear at all! Pray land, my craft is sea worthy!"
Despite Kat's vigilance, I took pity and set Atlas carefully down on the edge of the raft. The logs bobbled recklessly under the new weight, but the thing remained afloat.
"Hurrah!" the knight declared — his relief unmistakable. "My, what a beautiful animal! I see it uses stealth to ward off those undesirables. Mightily Impressive! Mightily impressive indeed!"
"Who are you?" I asked, eyeing him over.
"My name is Sir Godwin Eddinray," he cordially replied, his polite accent similar to Newton's. "Friend to you, and servant to my queen!"
"Godwin?" I inquired. "Did you happen to — "
"Eddinray,” he interrupted, “if you please! Only my mother called me Godwin. She survived the black plague, didn't you know. Survival is in my family's blood, and it surges through mine this very day!"
"And who is your queen, Eddinray?"
The knight appeared flummoxed by my simple question, as if a wife had just asked a forgetful husband the date of their wedding anniversary.
"Eh?" he stuttered. "My queen is? Well the damnedest thing is I cannot remember!" he giggled, nervously. "What does it matter anyhow? Memories I feel are like clumps of manure thrown at a wall. Some stick whilst others slide, don't you agree?"
I glanced back to an un-amused samurai.
"What do you do now, knight?" Kat asked him.
Suddenly, Eddinray brandished his long sword straight in the air, before proudly announcing. "I seek chivalrous adventure and daring do in the Distinct Earth! This… is what I do now!"
"Okay," I muttered with an unsure smile. "My name is Daniel. The man behind is Kat."
"Meow!" the knight shrieked, his hand making a paw. "Delighted to meet you both, and charmed, utterly charmed by this timely arrival!"
Sir Godwin Eddinray then held out an offering. "Would you gents care for some bark?" he asked us, forcing some into his mouth. "It is vile to be sure, and sticks to your teeth like all bark should, but it is also strangely addictive. I find myself hopelessly snagged by its lure."
Politely, I refused.
"Hysteria," Kat whispered in my ear. "Sunstroke madness. A foolhardy castaway."
"You think?" I hissed back. "He looks normal to me. Well… normal for this place anyway."
"Hello!" cried the Knight, waving generously in our direction. "My ears are perfectly functional gentlemen! I am standing right here after all! Do the eyes in your head not see me?"
I shrugged apologetically as Eddinray picked the bark from his mouth then shamefully sniffed at the saliva-dripping clump. "Ordinary people do not eat bark, do they?” he asked. “This is unusual behaviour, is it not?"
My sympathetic nod confirmed the Englishman's suspicions. "Sadly," he added; "I ran out of food many moons ago and I'm afraid the situation has taken a rather grim turn. My own hand looked appealing at one stage, all deliciously pink with five succulent fingers; that is ‘til I happened to glance upon my fingernails. The dirt put me right off!"
"Grim or not," grizzled Kat, "we will not rescue a mad person!"
"Rescue?" argued the knight; "is a strong accusation, Sir. Strong indeed! I am in a pickle — of that there can be no doubt — but nothing I cannot muscle myself out of! Moreover, I am certainly not a mad person! I tell you I am the sanest dead man alive!"
Eddinray’s armor screeched like a rusty hinge whenever he made the slightest movement, and he appeared faint under the weight of it all.
"Hot in that mail, knight?" Kat teased.
"Like a pig on a revolving spit I am roasting ninja, but also bear naked under this mail and metal. There are many horrors in this realm — my nakedness would only attract them of course."
"Of course!" I agreed, amused. "And how did you get, in your pickle, Eddinray?"
Sir Godwin Eddinray smeared a hand across his burdened brow. "Fought off wretched marmoset men on an island not far from here… the persistent buggers barely left me time to launch this floating ramshackle. There is surely no honor amongst there kind!"
"Marmoset men?" I said.
"Or baboon boys!" he answered. "Of their origin I am not entirely certain, but their primate strength was formidable, though fortunately not a match for my sly cunning." He exhaled a weary breath now, as if he had just re-fought the incident over in his mind. "I will say this to you men — those heathen swine do not eat bananas!"
I blurted out a laugh, but held my mouth shut when witnessing Eddinray's sincerity. He was visually shaken by the memory of that mysterious marmoset island. "For all my dexterity,” he concluded, “I have been drifting lost and forgotten. If you gentlemen would provide me safe passage across this ocean on the back of your beast, I shall be forever grateful."
"No!" barked Kat. "I do not like him, Fox. I do not like you knight!"
"Don't you ninja? Why, I'm a lovely chap, and most especially trustworthy! Oh yes!"
"I am no ninja!"
"My samurai companion may be right," I said, diplomatically. "The three of us could be asking too much of this horse’s back."
"I see," said Eddinray, glum faced. "Then I shall take my chances with the bottomless sea and burning sun. With no food, no water and no chance. Godspeed on your way men. Good luck to you!"
"Ya!" exclaimed Kat, kicking the hind of Atlas. The horse ignored him, and I did too. For all the risk involved, I liked this knight, and couldn't leave him to die.
"He comes with," I said. "You're not evil, are you knight?"
"Certainly not!" he protested. "I vanquish evil, Sir! With one thrust of my sword or butt of the head, whatever is necessary and to hand. Yes, I smile in the face of wickedness and call it ugly!"
"He is mad!" said Kat. "A crazy fool Fox, and on your head be it!"
I bent into Atlas' pointy ear and whispered. "Can you take the three of us girl?" She responded with a single snort and bobble of the head — Eddinray could come along.
"Excellent!" he cried, armour squeaking. "Excellent!"
"Stretch your feet for now," I yawned, getting off the horse. "Sun's setting. We'll beat it at dawn. Can you catch us some food, Kat? Anything?"
The bad tempered samurai spat during his climb off Atlas.
"What a grumpy little so and so you are!" said Eddinray. "Are you and I going to have trouble on our flight?"
Kat cleared the snot from his nose then shoved passed Eddinray. With his back to us, he sat at the edge of the raft, immersing legs in the water.
"Catch us food?" the knight considered as Kat swished out his katana. "Gentlemen, I have exhausted all hunting methods known to man, and there is no food to be found in these waters! It is the definition of barren I say!"
"Silence his mouth!" Kat complained. "Or you both go in the water!"
I placed a finger over my lips to urge the knight quiet. Together and in silence, we then watched Kat lose himself in meditation, raise the katana over his head and hold the breath in his lungs. More than a minute passed when he stabbed the blade into the water and pulled a fish from the sea, a gasping green thing skewered on the sword. Kat flicked the flapping food over his shoulder and into my arms — then repeated the process.
***
We filled our bellies with raw fish that evening, the moon rippling a spotlight over an oily ocean. I found Eddinray to be warm and charming in an eccentric, mad scientist sort of way. He also shared something in common with Kat that I couldn't fail to notice: both men believed that they were the single greatest warrior who ever lived. But while Kat was quietly secure in his skill, Eddinray wanted the whole realm to hear how many times he'd risked his neck saving it. Over the course of our meal, the knight boasted of brilliant battles fought and won, of duels with the deadliest of adversaries — the heroic recounts of a man willing to climb the tallest towers for the fairest maidens. His eagerness to talk was a refreshing change, but one only I appreciated. The samurai showed us his shoulder the entire night, which disappointed me. I knew Kat didn't enjoy company, but also thought I had gotten through some of his barriers and that he would be open for conversation whenever engaged. I still had a lot to learn.
The Weather-Maker curled like a devoted pet beside me, her coat reflecting the stars and warming me like a sleeping bag. As I stroked her thick hair, I felt something unusual wrapped around her neck. It was a satchel, perfectly positioned for her teeth to get at its contents. Every time I tried to feel inside the bag, Atlas would nudge my hand away, so I took the hint to mind my own business.
"That's when the fire lizards of the Altmerrion zone set upon me!" continued Eddinray, his fists thrashing the air. "Their breath burnt off my eyebrows and their claws threw their dung, but I got the best of them. I chopped and hacked them into little tiny pieces, and there was no guilt on my part. It is one thing to throw an axe at a man's head, but quite another to throw ones faeces!"
"That was a fascinating story," I said, genuinely entertained. "You've seen so much. Tell me Eddinray, have you ever laid eyes on the Leviathan? Are the stories about it true?"
Eddinray's food became briefly caught in his throat. "The Leviathan," he coughed and swallowed; "is very real, Danny boy. I have seen it swarming like bees in the distance, a gathering haze. Now other eyes may claim this to be a bad spot of weather, a brooding storm on the horizon perhaps, but I say it is the Leviathan! It is the sole reason I travel by raft, a craft larger would create the waves to attract the creature. The abomination is drawn to motion, you see, motion of any sort."
"So you move slowly?"
"I am the snail," he returned. "Unfortunately this ocean was wider than anticipated, and my supplies…"
I stopped the knight in his tracks, glancing understandably at the strips of bark he once tore from his raft.
"Are you married, Eddinray? Have you ever been in love?"
On asking, I witnessed a suspicious twitch at Kat's ear.
"I have never been married," replied Eddinnray. "And have only ever loved my queen."
"Who you can't remember?"
"Regrettably…"
"But have you ever loved a real woman?" I said, frustrated. "I mean, a normal girl?"
Condescendingly, Eddinray shook his head. "My dear, dear fellow — how can a real woman, a normal girl ever compete with the natural beauty and glorious grace of a queen?"
I continued eating, feeling somewhat sorry for Eddinray. The man had never experienced real love in his lifetime, never lost himself in its wild highs and dreadful lows. I fell in love once, not with a queen I couldn't remember, but with a flesh and blood woman who became my wife. The marriage was short lived — three years tops — but I was undoubtedly wiser for the experience.
When Eddinray quizzed Kat on the subject of love and marriage, I could almost hear the samurai's system slam shut — no-one home — so I answered for him. "That katana, Eddinray, she's all the woman Kat needs."
The knight nodded respectfully. "As a warrior I can understand the ninjas devotion. I salute you Kat! I do I salute you!" Eddinray swallowed down more fish then burped. "One thing — one thing intrigues me gents. That is, how did you ever come together? Fox and Kat — hardly a likely friendship is it?"
Eddinray looked to me for an answer, and I was happy to give an honest one. "I was told by a timeless witch that Kat and I are a union of convenience, not friendship. Who am I to argue?"
"Timeless witch?" the knight frowned. "Union? By God for what purpose man?"
"Kat is escorting me to Hell, Eddinray. He's been there before."
"Love it!" Eddinray tittered. "Love a man with a sense of humor! Any-more fish?”
***
A sticky morning. We'd been flying high and straight for well over an hour. Strong winds did little to repel the heat, and I grew concerned to notice that Atlas was already worn out. Her wings flapped laboriously under the weight of three armed men, and her body subsequently lost altitude at an increasing rate. There was hope on the horizon however, a thin crust of land, and I whispered encouraging words into the Weather-Maker's ear, hoping she had enough in the tank to get us there.
Kat remained tucked behind my shield with the knight pressed like a sardine behind him. Eddinray kept the flight interesting with more hot-aired tales of chivalrous quests for God, queen and country.
"Over there Danny boy!" he yelled, pointing to my left side. "Do you see it man?"
I was surprised how this escaped my notice for so long. Eddinray directed his finger to a distant blotch where the water appeared to become two distinct kinds of ocean — one bubbling black and tar like, the other blue and calm as ever. "That's the boiling sea!" he told me. "The fires of Hell cook the water from below! Legend has it a giant snake swims from those depths to feed on forsaken sailors here! It swallows them whole then returns to the underworld with a digesting bellyful of ships and men!"
"Have you ever seen this snake?" I yelled over the wind.
"If there is such a thing Danny boy, then I haven't seen it! Perhaps it was afraid of me?"
Kat's dislike for Eddinray seemed to be escalating, the samurai growling with contempt whenever the obnoxious knight addressed him. "Have you ever jousted before ninja? Have you ever stared another man and his stallion down before charging with all your might for a fair maiden's favour? Have you ever had your head locked in the jaws of a tiger? I call your attention to the dimples in my helmet!"
"I am samurai!" Kat screamed over his shoulder. "And you are spitting on my neck!"
"Good for you!" he replied. "Much prefer samurai to ninja. I fought one ninja in the Mucklanton vulch pits, hand-to-hand combat, fight to the fiercest death! And a nasty, cheating rogue he was too! However, I would sooner fight a ninja than a dinosaur! Take a previous adventure of mine for example; I encountered an odd sort of Dino-woman, flesh eater of course! Have you ever killed a man, Kat? I must say you do not look the sort. Son of a farmer are you? Steal a dead man's armor did you? Shameful behaviour, truly shameful!"
As Eddinray rambled on, I received a sudden chill. I had blinked and missed an alarming drop in the horse's height, continuing at a steady decline until Atlas' hoofs unnervingly ran over water, leaving a trail of spray a mile back. Daylight was dying too, and the temperature inexplicably plummeted. At Atlas' galloping hoofs, shimmering blues were being devoured by an overwhelming darkness from behind, an object growing and gaining on us.
Noticing that consuming shade now, Eddinray peered back, and his jolly prattle came to an abrupt end.
"Danny?" he whimpered. "It might be a wise idea if you asked your pet to Giddy bloody up!"
I stole a look back and sight of the thing near knocked me from the saddle. I gripped the reins, kicked my heels and roared Atlas into action. She responded instantly — galloping, flying from the mammoth wave, a living tsunami: The Leviathan. Reptilian in outline, it grew out of the water — itself of the water — opened a cavernous mouth and flapped two gargantuan arms back and forth to catch our swift horse. "Ya!" I exclaimed. "Ya! Ya!"
"Faster!" cried Eddinray. "Faster man! Faster!"
The knight squinted over his shoulder to see the same sort of fish he ate for supper skittering inside this creature's washy stomach. Desperately panting, Atlas flapped her wings and powered her hoofs, but her pace was gone. "Up girl!" I begged, as her legs submerged in the salt water. "Up!"
The monster spewed a great hose at us, soaking our backs and the horse's already sopping wings.
"She's sinking!" I bellowed, out of ideas. "Come on girl! Please!"
Closest to the Leviathan, a bold Eddinray removed his long sword and began lashing at the indestructible thing. "Back Devil! Back I say!"
He beat and slashed at the wet throat and face, but his blade passed through, causing no damage whatsoever. Kat meanwhile, grimaced to a suction of sea below, contemplating a sacrificing leap to ease the horse's burden. "Don't even think about it!" I screamed over the crashing spray. "I need you!"
Kat shook a doubtful face, and I stretched further into Atlas' ear. "Give us more girl! Nose up! All you can! More! More!"
She tried and tried, but in vain. Her snout collapsed from exhaustion, leaving me no choice but to prop up her neck. "Come on!" Both my hands reached lower to fumble inside her compact satchel; and as our wet world closed in, something found my hand in that bag. I saw it and others glowing gold inside the satchel, and turned aghast back to Kat.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Weather-Makers, Kat! Weather-Makers!"
The Leviathan descended until only its heady outline bobbled out from the sea. It opened its lips and took us all inside its mouth now. The thickest rain showered down on top of us, and the Leviathan's water-based tongue tasted the bottom of Atlas, savouring this unique snack. The monster then closed its lips, taking the last of the light and us with it. "Hold your breaths!" I cried. "Get ready for it!"
I removed the astonishing form from the satchel. In my grip was a single bolt of buzzing lightning, which did not scorch my eyes or burn the flesh from my bare hand. It lit the Leviathan's mouth up with a yellow heat so fierce that Kat and Eddinray covered their faces. Drenched, I raised the blazing bolt over my head and horse, and squinted further down the monster's throat at all the fish, the weeds and the sands of the sea. "Don't forget your appetiser!" I roared, throwing the jagged bolt straight and true toward those tonsils.
The resulting implosion was immediate. Foam rushed up noses and mouths, filled lungs and twisted bodies back and forth; gargling, drowning, hopeless.