Her smile like the sun, Harmony bounced up and down on the sand, and then shocked Eddinray with a smothering hug. “We did it Godwin! We did it!"
Light-headed, I saw the reality but could not believe. We had run the gauntlet — we had beaten Hell itself. How could I believe it?
"Never seen the Distinct Earth." murmured Curtis, likewise disorientated. "Almost like the real thing."
Before us was a boiling ocean. Condensation rose thick and gale force winds carried a hot mist over the beach.
"Will you remove this?" asked Curtis, showing me our rope. "I won't run. I tell you I won't run."
"The boiling sea!" declared Eddinray, over great sprays of it. "Our names are for all time! For all time I say!"
A well-packed ball of sand suddenly burst over his face. "Got you!" giggled Harmony.
Kat mustered a snicker at the startled knight, who ducked Harmony's second ball before scooping up his own.
"Amazing." I said to no one in particular, feeling the synthetic air of the Distinct Earth form musk at the back of my throat. I coughed into my palm and noticed more blood than mucus.
"You're a mess." said Curtis, lingering over my shoulder. "You won't last the night."
I wiped my lips clear of blood while Curtis felt the sudden brunt of Kat's fist across his cheek. The punch put Curtis to the sand, and there he cursed us from the side of a swelling mouth.
Unperturbed, Kat smeared the pain from his knuckles then lumbered back to Yuki, who sat watching the burping waters.
***
We took shelter that evening in a large burrow of earth, created by a creature long gone. It provided reasonable shelter from the elements and a spectacular view of the ocean and receding sunlight. Tomorrow, first light, Bludgeon's dragon Seppuku would arrive to carry us all to the Waiting Plain as planned — she had my scent, and my mind's eye could already see her flying over cloud and continent to get here; but with the whole night to wait out, and trouble forever brooding in darkness, the dragon couldn't come soon enough.
Before settling himself to sleep, Kat again attended to my wounds, cleaning them thoroughly whilst ignoring his own. Recovery of the body was certainly fast here, but the passing of time could never heal the mind's injuries, and we were all suffering from those, in one way or another.
Eddinray volunteered to take first watch outside the burrow while we others enjoyed some much-needed rest. "You will be home soon." Eddinray whispered to Harmony, who snuggled against his back. "Do you think a man of my — heck hem — moral ambiguity may be granted passage into your Heaven? Is there a place for the likes of me?"
"You're a hero Godwin," she yawned back; "and if Heaven's not for you then it is not for me."
"What do you mean?" he asked, rather lost.
"Well, Godwin, if the powers that be decide Heaven is too good for you then we will settle in the Distinct Earth. Together. Surely there is peace to be found here."
"And what of your stallion?" he asked, overwhelmed. "And of those friends and family watching over you? Haven't they missed you long enough?"
Harmony thought of her Mother and Father, and all those cherished things. That old life was now a distant dream she prayed would one day come true — but something had changed inside her. Here in this hollowed out shelter in the Distinct Earth, Harmony Valour had a new dream.
"I would miss those things Godwin." she said. "But I would miss you more. Alas, it is all wishful thinking. I am still burdened by this contraption around my wings. God has yet to pardon my sin, so I fear it will always be the Distinct Earth for us."
She sighed with blurry blue eyes as tears quietly dripped from Eddinray's. "I cannot imagine a Heaven without you in it." he stammered. "No, I cannot."
He took a long pause to recover himself, and then sent his angel to sleep with his story.
"I wasn't scared. Not a jot! The Emperor and king of the 9th Fortress. I aimed the lance purposely for his neck don't you know, and my strike to his jugular could not have been more precise! Yes, those prisoners will forever chant my name. I can almost hear them now from their dismal tower.
Harmony?
Are you awake?
My dear?"
***
I woke to hysteria unlike anything I've ever heard — a grieving, pitiful, and primal ache.
Snatching my sword in terror, I expected to slay the harpy, wolf, or son of a bitch this sound belonged too. I stood to wipe my eyes clear of sleep and there at the gassy morning entrance of our burrow, I saw the surreal scene. Harmony, on her knees, was yowling like a dog to a single, bloodied feather in her hand.
The world was in slow motion again as I approached her. Kat and Yuki appeared from behind, equally confounded, as I bent to Harmony, her pear shaped face wet with tears and running flam.
"Harmony?" I whispered. Her eyes were lost through me, her body jerked with shock, and her moan continued like one excruciating bleed from the heart. I repeated her name over and over — Harmony! Harmony! Harmony! Anything to get her attention — to penetrate her mania.
Kat yelled something I couldn't hear when I snatched the angel by the arms and shook her like a rag-doll. Frustrated and scared, I slapped her face hard, causing her moaning to die instantly, as if a vocal wire had been severed in her throat, leaving only stupefied breath past still moving lips.
"You're scaring us!" I exclaimed. "You hear me? You're scaring us!"
Suddenly, she gave me her hand and the bloodied feather in it. "His heart was here." she whimpered.
"I don't…understand."
Empty headed, my eyes began searching around this burrow, and it didn't take long for the penny to drop. The reality was horribly obvious. So much blood — litres collected in a curdled pool at my knees, with a dull knife submerged in its centre. My insides contorted and goose bumps covered my outsides. The soul-destroying dagger was gone from the pouch at my belt, and the connecting rope hung loose from my waist.
"No!" I hissed, falling back. "He's not…"
Harmony's sobs resumed as Yuki came to hold her. Like those statues over the mirror, a petrified Kat simply watched me there, soaking in Eddinray's blood.
"Gone." said Harmony.
I should have comforted her, said something, done something; but a part of my soul had snapped, releasing that inner monster from its cage. I reached into the red paste to retrieve the dagger, and then allowed that thoughtless force to take possession of me.
Moving out of the burrow, I noticed Curtis' murderous footprints stagger toward the growing smokes, and dawn's new light.
***
Shortly after, the samurai searched the seething seashore, but found no sign of my prisoner or me. He stamped his foot frustrated again as murkier clouds rolled over him.
"Fox?" he cried. "Answer me!"
Hearing only the crashing waves and steam, he raced further up the beach to arrive at the foot of a hill. This mound was steep and appeared to be made of harsh slate, with its top hiding under settled cloud cover. Kat's instincts, his biting sixth sense told him he would find something up there — thus he listened.
***
I flailed my arms and weapons at the puff to see. I roared in a wheezing delirium, thinking I had lost Curtis; but hope soon returned. Under my nose was a fresh trail of footprints in the sand.
"Curtis!"
I don't know how long or far I ran, but the more ground I covered, the quicker sand was replaced underfoot by a concoction of sludge, beetles and worms; a congealed mud with buzzing flies over bursting pockets and visible fumes swirling dank air.
In no time at all, I was shin deep in this mire shit, steadily sinking with every advancing step. Losing my footing suddenly, I splashed headfirst into that revolting glue; and pulling my face from it, I spewed out a gob-full.
Panting, I used my short-sword as a makeshift crutch, snorted an insect from my nostril and continued after my prisoner.
***
Swiftly Kat jogged up the slate, growing gradually steeper and unstable. Occasionally slipping, and with vision impaired by the smog, he was soon left no choice but to clamber on all fours to the summit.
"Fox?" he yelled, red faced and sweaty. "Where are you?"
Underfoot, solid slate suddenly turned to sticky liquorice, and hot geezers randomly blew close to further disorientate him. "Fox!"
***
Weak in body and spirit, I waded through deeper quagmire in search of a murderer. Falling down only to pick myself up again, I battled through the swamp attempting to solidify my limbs. These sloppy waters had long filled in Curtis' trail, and with nothing to follow, I screamed and collapsed in exhausted despair; allowing myself to sink, to sleep, to join the mud and beetles for all time.
***
Sensing another, Kat crouched low, scrutinizing the dreamy hilltop. Perfectly still, he inhaled the sulphuric air like an old dog foreseeing danger, and his heart skipped a beat when he heard the crunch of approaching footsteps. Removing his sword, he searched through breaking cloud, where a sinister presence now made itself known.
"You!" gasped Kat, his eyes ballooning and skin turning white. For the first time in centuries, the legendary warrior was reunited with fear. Pursuer and ghost of belated retribution — the black samurai, had finally caught up with him.
"What…" uttered Kat; "do you want?"
The figure wore a black mask with an expression painted in gold — a face of sharp eyes and a sunken, bitter mouth. The guttural voice behind that mask wasted no time in speaking.
"I am here…to conclude our business."
He pulled his own katana from its sheath and raised it high. Wearily, Kat slunk with an air of acceptance. This day was always coming, this shadow would never leave his back; and so it was with regret that Kat gave himself to inevitability, and its uncertain outcome.
"I will fight you." he said, preparing himself one last time. "I will not fall."
Geysers shot boiling air skyward. Kat felt their heat prick at his wounds, and could only wonder how much they would slow him down…
"Are you ready to die?" the black samurai asked.
"I am ready to live!" he answered, swivelling his steel into a fight.
***
"Stand up." said a calm voice near me, stirring enough interest to remove my mind from the kiss of a loathsome death.
"Stand up." he said. "Rise Fox."
I needed to see this face, and voice so familiar.
"Rise." he said again, softer this time.
To my left, I noticed a parched stretch of land out of the mud, and there this man reached out for me.
"Newton?" I muttered, smiling.
Staggering up straight, I cleared the dizziness from my head and the shit from my sight. It was not the kind, elderly face of Sir Isaac Newton looking back at me here, but the fresh faced wizard Scarfell, as I last remembered it ascending from the labyrinth centre. Surrounding him was his bog army of forty plus, and by his knee was my cowering prisoner, John Curtis…"Come a long way, Fox." said the wizard, wearing a self-satisfied grin. "Bravo boy. Bravo."
"Help me." snivelled Curtis, crouched by his leg. "Help me Fox…please. Help me."
"Yes!" jeered Scarfell, slapping Curtis several times over the head. "Help him Fox! Let's see you try it!"
Shooting pains in all my joints, I raised my sword from the sludge and aimed it at the wizard.
"He…" I growled; "belongs to me. Let him go!"
"Or else?" dared Scarfell, pulling Curtis by the hair. "Have you seen the state you're in? You can barely stand let alone tell me what to do in my own realm."
"He's mine!" I moaned. "Mine!"
"And didn't I once tell you that everything in this realm belonged to me?! That includes the man grovelling at my knee, and his sword wielding savour."
"What…" I then slumped, feeling the insects making home around my legs, "do you want from me?"
The wizard rubbed at his chest and giggled like Father Christmas; his bogs bouncing up and down like hooting chimps. "What do I want from you?" he pondered, savouring something sweet. "That blade in your hand Fox — fall on it. Fall on that sword and I will grant your prisoner's freedom. Are you willing to do that?"
"If you let him go." I answered. "Yes. I will fall on my sword."
Scarfell smirked, considering the idea with strokes of his beard. I meanwhile demonstrated my honesty by turning the sword to my chest. I was prepared to kill myself, not for the soul of John Curtis, but for the mission's success. Too much had gone on for it to fail — its outcome, right now, meant everything.
"Will you release him?" I asked, and surprising me, Scarfell nodded. "I will Fox. I will."
Scarfell then slapped his open palm fully over Curtis' face.
"No!" I bawled. "Let him go!"
Curtis punched at thin air, then cried out as the increasing fire surrounding his face sent foam dribbling out of his mouth.
"Stop!" I begged. "I need him alive!"
Scrafell laughed, the veins appearing at his temples as he focused his power into the head of Curtis. My prisoner's body was in a violent spasm, and before I could a take a step to prevent his second death, his skull cracked open like an egg, and the gelatinous brain was made grotesquely visible. Shell-shocked and empty, I fell to the muck as a satisfied wizard pried my prisoner's skull apart, scooped out the steaming jelly then threw it back to his devouring bogs.
The mission a catastrophic failure, I sobbed into my filthy palms while the remains of John Curtis disappeared. "There will be no more bargains." said Scarfell, his army advancing. "Today you are mine."
At this lowest ebb, I suddenly felt a presence to my right. I peered up at it, expecting a bog hook to embed itself into my forehead, or the wizard's palm to clamp on my own face. What I got however was something wonderful, someone worth fighting for.
Harmony's eyes were red raw, her expression glazed cold and unafraid. "Harmony? Is it really you?"
She said nothing, but her stolid sight gave me everything — the will to fight. Heart pumping stronger, I wiped my face with a sleeve and stood beside my friend. Her longbow gone, I passed the angel my now powerless dagger, then swivelled the sitting muck from my short sword.
***
The sound over the hidden hilltop was like a shaking drawer full of cutlery as two swords collided. The black samurai — that masked angel of death — was clearly the sharper of the two men — disappearing into smoke before darting out for his next assault.
Expectantly then, Kat received the first blow down his left shoulder, then a slash across his bottom lip, which sent him grimacing to one knee. Although down, the legendary warrior summoned up all of his strength and experience, then returned snarling, clawing, and clanging his way to supremacy. Kat's future would not be taken from him — he would not fall. He scored his first cut across his opponent's chest plate, then a second down the thy. "Come on!" he cried.
The ghost staggered only a moment, then sprang forward to sever Kat's arm off at the elbow. That limb dropped like a lump of butcher meat — but extraordinarily — Kat did not acknowledge the loss; even as blood spurted from the wound. Instead, he gripped his katana firmer, and with bullet like speed and mathematic precision, he pirouetted to break his opponent's own sword in half. Then, going nose to nose with his stunned adversary, Kat smashed his forehead deep into that masked mouth.
The black samurai moaned and slunk, then jerked forward as Kat drove the sword into his stomach. The fight was now over, and drained of everything, black and red warriors tumbled to their deaths down the hilltop.
***
Harmony and I huddled close, pressing my back against her damp wings as the bogs encircled us.
"I need you Harmony." I whispered. "Are you up to this?"
"I'll kill as many as possible." she said, her voice as frosty as her presence.
"Keep the angel alive!" ordered Scarfell. "But bring me the man's skin!"
The monsters closed their net and I slashed. Their cries followed, but a mere squib compared to the tremendous roar from high above us. All eyes searched the overcast cloud, expecting to see another uninvited Cyclops stamping into the fray. What we saw, however, was no one eyed security measure, but a bona-fide wonder of this afterlife — Bludgeon's dragon. Seppuku swooped her blurry scarlet form into action, her wings casting a jagged shadow over the marsh. Her yellow eyes shortly surveyed us; she tipped a wing to one side then descended. Reacting immediately, I dragged Harmony with me to the sludge while bogs scattered hither and thither from Seppuku's opening mouth, and brilliant hose of flames. Shrieks and explosions followed, and threw a wild blaze, I watched the bodies trying to douse themselves in mud.
"Harmony?!" I screamed. "Come back here!"
No longer side me, Harmony was ferociously stabbing a bog on all fours with my dagger. Blood drunk, she commandeered that beast's own blade then went in a frenzy for more.
"Look out!" I howled, as Seppuku soared behind her, mouth primed to explode over anything moving. Taking to my feet, I sprinted toward Harmony and dived, knocking my friend sideways as the dragon's flame succeeding over our heads.
"Where?" I chocked, clutching a protective arm over the angel's head. "Where's the wizard?"
Once the bog army was thoroughly dispatched, Seppuku returned skyward, giving Scarfell plenty of time to nurture his own flame. Livid, he came for me, mustering a growing fireball between his palms.
"Up, Harmony!" I cried, but the wizard would not prolong this moment. The second his sun was cooked, he hurtled it at both of us.
Half standing, Harmony faced down that ball of advancing heat, and I watched, horrified, as she willingly received every fiery volt. Consumed, she was blown in flames to the sky, her little body spinning dead through the clouds.
"Harmony!"
Laughing, Scarfell dusted the matter off his hands, and with no time to grow another, he turned his attention to the now descending dragon. The wizard bent to collect a forgotten bog blade — then — to my complete astonishment, he began to provoke the oncoming serpent. "Come to me…Centaur pet! Rain down your fire! Come to me!"
Scarfell's face smouldered, as did the back of Seppuku's throat. I ducked for cover when the dragon made her mouth as large as possible, when she sent her inferno crashing down over Scarfell.
The dragon lifted its nose and aimed for the sky again, leaving a black crater behind, but no body or ashes of the wizard, for Scarfell was also bound for the sky, gripping the dragon's rugged back and cheering with insane delight.
Seppuku roared with frustration, flipping upside down like a bull to offload her uninvited passenger. The wind generated by her wings whipped up great walls of muddy waters, and her wild trajectory soon sent the dragon careening my way. I saw her coming; I bent my knees; I timed my move; then leapt for her passing tail.
***
With only slate rock to halt their fall, a broken Kat lay in pools of mixed blood at the foot of the hill — the black samurai slumped beside with a red fountain spurting from his stomach. Awake and aware, open eyed and groaning, Kat had lost fatal amounts of blood from his arm; he was too weak to fight, to stand, to defend himself. His katana lay inches from his grasp but hopelessly out of reach, and catching its gleam in his eye, the black samurai had enough energy in him to sit up, enough to pull his bulk toward the weapon.
"You will not defeat me." gurgled Kat. "I will not — "
The black samurai smeared a bloody trail over slate and Kat, his fingertips begging out for the sword hilt. However, before he could claim the blade and Kat's soul, the sword was snatched from his reach.
Quaking over the pair of them, Yuki Katamuro held the steel in her tiny hands. The black samurai slunk in resignation now as Yuki, who once took her own life, now and without mercy, took another. She brought the chipped katana down to the slate with a grizzly thunk, removing the black samurai's head from his shoulders. The corpse dispersed almost immediately; numerous flickers away with the breeze, leaving no clue of his ever existing.
Sobbing, Yuki threw the old sword off distant rocks; then dropped to her husband's side. Attending to his wounds appeared futile, but still she pressed her hands over the cuts and slapped at his scarred face. Kat would have to remain conscious — he could not close his eyes.
As fast as she could, Yuki took hold of her husband's armor and dragged him toward the boiling seashore. Her anguished moans focused Kat's wits enough for him to scrape his heels over the sand. And once at the water, Yuki immersed Kat's decapitated limb fully inside the roasting wet vat, and he howled and screamed as the heat-sealed his wound shut.
Finally, Yuki pulled her unconscious spouse to the relative safety of the beach, and there she lay — to live or to die with her husband. "Kendo!" she wept. "Kendo!"
***
I fought the wizard in a spirited mixture of all the techniques Bludgeon had taught me — every lesson came into play on the rugged back of Seppuku.
I attempted to outpace Scarfell at first, but his recovery in the well gave his body a virile speed and a gymnast's flexibility. Balance was never lost on this unstable surface — the pair of us, countering position and weight against the constant movement and turbulence of the dragon. Our swords connected over the serpent's shoulders as her wings banked right. I snatched a desperate hold of Seppuku's leathered skin when she made a turn upside down; the wizard meanwhile disappeared in a haze of red magic, reappearing the moment Seppuku returned horizontal, his blade swinging for my face. I cried out after taking a cut across my chest, then another down my back. Scarfell exclaimed, victoriously, as I tried to ignore the pain, the warning — shut it out and concentrate. I also ignored the dizzying miles Seppuku sped us — that sickening smear of land.
At the top of the world, Scarfell and I continued testing defences, searching for weakness, any morsel of an edge. It was only when the wizard momentarily glanced at my heels when Scarfell unwittingly revealed his secret, his weakness and my morsel.
"The eyes of a wizard will reveal his secret." Bludgeon once said — and they did. For when Scarfell examined those heels of mine, his beady eyes burned in bright red thought. He had used this trick many times — in his fort, above the labyrinth, and here on the spine of Seppuku. He would teleport before me, and where his gaze was last cast is where he would first reappear…
As expected, Scarfell was gone in a red flicker and I reacted immediately, thrusting the short-sword behind me. Immediately and as planned, the wizard appeared at my heels, accompanied by the crunching of his bones, and warm breath deflating against my neck.
I turned to meet his grotesque face — my blade enveloping his chest. I observed his expression, as old age returned under his eyes and around the mouth; but any thoughts of triumph were quashed when I noticed that, despite the blood at his mouth, Scarfell did not appear weak, or display the slightest sign of fatigue from this fatal wound.
"Your cold blade cannot scorch this heart!" he squawked and cackled.
Suddenly, and with a will of its own, the sword of the centaur sparked into life. I could not see the penetrating fire growing over the blade, but I felt it rage through Scarfell's body. He screamed as any dying animal would — cursing me, cursing and burning from the inside out. I hoped to take some satisfaction from this moment, but I got none; there was only emptiness, as I watched his skin fry and his hair snap like blowing fuses.
I held onto his electric skeleton for longer than I should have; and with one final ex-pulse of energy, the wizard’s bones exploded, sending me backward over the dragon's spine and rolling off her tail. Seppuku continued for the stratosphere, while I fell to the Distinct Earth.
Accelerating to terminal velocity, I experienced an overwhelming sense of freedom. It was over — the quest and the responsibility — all of it was behind me. I would crash, I would embrace the simpler existence of a frog or spider, a leaf or leech.
Before my second death, I took a moment to picture each of my brave friends: Harmony, Eddinray, Kat; and finally, I lingered on my daughter. I wanted Kathy to know how far her spirit had carried me, how desperately I fought and how much I loved her. I prayed that my life-support would pass on those final thoughts of mine; but as I closed my eyes to die, one beautiful angel did hear my prayers, and arrived in spectacular fashion to answer them. A French phoenix called Harmony Valour burst through cloud to catch me in her arms.
"Hold on Daniel!" she cried. "I got you!"
No longer burdened with any clasp, Harmony's radiant wings flapped wide, white and sacred. She flew — she flew.