by Mark Boutros
‘Why can’t I hear any screams?’ Questions asked Behemoth Fool.
‘A pit doesn’t scream. It’s a pit. You provide the scream when you’re pushed in,’ Behemoth Fool explained.
‘But then it’s not really endless is it?’ Karl held his arms to the sand, burning the ropes that restrained his wrists.
‘Look, it’s just the name, to make it sound more terrifying than something like, “The Big Pit.”’
‘Would you be annoyed if you were a visitor?’ Questions asked.
Behemoth Fool clenched its jaw. ‘No, so—’
‘Why not?’ Questions asked.
Behemoth Fool stared. ‘Must throw them in pit.’ It stepped towards them.
Karl broke free of the ropes around his arms. He grabbed the other end of the rope tied to the cage wheel and charged. ‘Bravery!’ He smashed into Behemoth Fool’s stomach of solid muscle. Pain shot through Karl’s neck and shoulders but he held on, trying to push.
‘Must throw them in pit.’ Behemoth Fool lifted Karl into the air.
‘Questions, push the cage!’ Karl ordered.
She lifted her rope-bound legs, bent her knees and kicked the cage. It rolled over the cliff edge.
Behemoth Fool looked down and lost its balance. A rope connected its thigh to the cage.
Karl shook free and retreated to Questions.
Behemoth Fool fought the weight pulling it into the pit. It tensed, but the wooden blocks on its feet slid along the rocks. One of them broke off its foot and fell into the emptiness.
‘I’m sorry. I wish there was another way, but you’ll keep coming for me,’ Karl said.
The Behemoth Fool’s eyes watered. ‘Must… throw them in pit.’ Behemoth Fool slammed its palm onto the rock. It tried to undo the knot on its thigh with its other hand but couldn’t.
Karl untied Questions. ‘Don’t look.’
‘Should you turn around?’ Questions’ eyes darted around Karl’s face.
‘I’d rather not look either.’
‘Is it behind you?’
‘What?’
A smash. Karl turned. The cage was in pieces on the rocks, and Behemoth Fool an inch away from him.
‘Must throw them in pit.’ Behemoth Fool hoisted Karl into the air.
‘No!’ Karl kicked.
Questions pulled Karl’s leg but the Behemoth Fool swatted her away.
A wave of sand formed on the horizon, but Behemoth Fool only had its order in its mind.
The wave broke and took the shape of a creature.
Oaf slid on his sculpted rock shoes and knocked Behemoth Fool down.
Karl fell towards the edge of the pit. His shoulder slammed against the hot rocks and he faced the terrifying endlessness.
‘Oaf!’ Karl groaned, clutching his throbbing arm. He scurried behind his ally.
Behemoth Fool lunged at Karl, but Oaf knocked it down.
‘Tie those bits of wood to your feet,’ Oaf told Questions and Karl.
They did as ordered.
‘Now tie him up.’ Oaf restrained the Behemoth Fool on the rug while they used Questions’ ropes to tie its arms and legs.
‘We can’t leave it to die,’ Karl said.
Oaf huffed. ‘When we’re gone and safe, we’ll send a parchment to Flowforn to tell them it’s here.’
Karl looked into Behemoth Fool’s eyes. ‘Why don’t you try to fight Arazod’s orders?’
It shed a tear, unable to live outside of its curse. ‘Must throw them in pit…’ It tried to bite Karl. ‘Must throw them in pit…’
Karl hung his head. The Fools didn’t even get to choose a path. Maybe if it had any control over its mind, this Behemoth would’ve wanted to be a cook, a builder, or a singer.
Oaf put a hand on Karl’s shoulder. ‘Come on.’
They left. Even with wood tied to his feet, hot sand stung Karl’s toes.
They arrived at the top of a sandy slope. Questions and Oaf slid down the other side, but Karl stopped and turned back.
Behemoth Fool, free of its ropes, followed, agony on its face. Blue sand ate its exposed foot with each step.
Karl shook his head, his heart heavy. He removed his cloak and dropped it, allowing the sand to consume it. He turned and walked away.
He caught up with his friends. ‘Thank you, Oaf.’ Karl squeezed him. ‘I take it you didn’t get your revenge?’
Oaf shook his head. ‘I missed my chance, and then he was surrounded by Fools again.’ He handed Questions a waterskin to drink from. She gladly gulped from it.
‘I’m sorry,’ Karl said.
‘It’s okay. Him and Arazod want you dead so will hunt you, and the Fool army will be split to look around. I stick with you, my revenge will come.’ He smiled.
‘I feel used but I can live with that.’
Questions passed Karl the water and he finished it.
‘Meet Tortured Soul.’ Oaf took a glass bottle of water from his leather vest, containing Tortured Soul. She smiled.
‘Ugly little thing isn’t she?’ Karl said.
Tortured Soul spat at Karl, the spit hitting the inside of the bottle.
‘Charming.’
Oaf put her back inside his leather vest.
‘What’s your real name?’ Questions asked Oaf.
‘Cecil. But I’m the last of my kind, so I want to be known as Oaf.’
Six sunsets later, back in the safety of the tavern, the euphoria of evading death evaporated. Karl needed to figure out how to get into Cell Two B. He rested his head against the bar. By now, Arazod would know he was alive.
Bar Witch wiped shelves with a damp cloth.
Questions watched her. ‘How old is this tavern?’ she asked.
‘Old.’ Bar Witch evaded eye contact.
‘Why do you have so many empty jars on the shelves?’ Questions waited to write the answer in her book.
‘I save them for when I need to put the brains of people who ask too many questions in them.’
‘Why?’
‘Because… Karl!’
Karl waved her over. ‘Come here, Questions,’ he said for her own good.
‘Are you okay?’ Questions asked.
‘There’s no way I’ll ever get back into Flowforn, Questions.’ Karl huffed. For the first time in his life he had a goal, and he felt the full force of failure. He took the tiny sock from his pocket and stared at it. ‘I’ll never find out who I really am or how I ended up here.’ He shook his head. ‘I want to know my parents… what it’s like to be loved without judgement, or just…’
‘Karl,’ Frong called from his and Sags’ table. ‘There is another option.’
Karl turned to them. ‘Other than Cell Two B?’
‘No, but for how to get in there. There are always other options. It’s just that the first is always the least dangerous.’
‘Nothing feels too dangerous when you have a death sentence hanging over you.’
‘I guess it then comes down to how you want to die,’ Frong said. ‘I personally would opt to die in battle against a never before seen monster. I want to be the first to discover it and then if it kills me, I’ll die honoured. Then I’d like to have a shroud listing all the places we adventured to wrapped around me. Then—’
‘If you don’t give me my options soon I’ll die of boredom.’ Karl raised an apologetic hand. ‘Sorry. I’m very stressed. Just please tell me what I need to know.’
‘Very well.’ Frong rolled his eyes.
‘Thank you.’
‘But only if you give my back a trim.’ Frong smiled.
Karl stood. ‘I’m not in the mood for this.’ Karl walked away and opened the door. ‘Oaf?’
Oaf sat by a bush while Torture Soul jumped from leaf to leaf. ‘Is it Gwendy?’ Oaf asked Tortured Soul.
Tortured Soul shook her head and continued jumping.
‘Klob?’
‘Stop it. You’ll never guess my name!’
Oaf pounded the floor and huffed.
‘Oaf, I
need a favour,’ Karl said.
‘Not now!’ he replied. ‘I’ve got it. Boompi?’
‘Nope,’ Tortured Soul said.
Oaf scratched his head.
Karl’s shoulders fell. He left Oaf to it and went back inside.
Frong waved him over. ‘I was only joking, Karl. That honour is reserved for Sags.’
Sags grunted.
‘Have a seat,’ Frong said.
Karl took slow breaths, approached the stool and sat.
Frong smiled at him. ‘On one of our many adventures, about eighteen thousand sunsets ago. Or was it twenty-five thousand and forty-three?’
Karl shut his eyes and rubbed the side of his head.
‘Never mind. There are many magic relics that grant power.’
‘Magic relics?’ Karl wished he was back in the past, living in Flowforn where he didn’t have to think about death or weird creatures or relics.
‘Hastovia is full of them.’
‘Why didn’t you say before? I could find some power and obliterate Arazod and just leave without torment.’
‘That is precisely the reason why…’
Karl scratched his cheek. Here comes another story.
‘Hastovia was created by eight gods, as far as we know. They were all born from the energy of Mother Hastovia and all possessed great power, unique to the energy they came from.’
Karl nodded, questioning whether any of this was true.
‘But after the beauty of the world wore off, they got bored, so they created people and creatures of all sorts as a gift to Mother Hastovia, and they roamed Hastovia together. It was wonderful. But as the numbers increased, the less time the gods could spend with all the people to help them. So, they bestowed gifts and created items to assist them. Items for anything from creating tunnels to being able to breathe under water.’
Questions took out her book and wrote everything down.
‘For example, people were getting cold, so Pyralus, the god born of wind and flame, gave one woman a gauntlet giving her the ability to command fire, and she used it in the cold seasons and to cook. But like most beings with power, it corrupted her, and she harmed others and turned on the gods.’
Karl shook his head. ‘What happened?’
‘The gods assisted people to defeat her, then punished her as an example, then they fell out with each other. Some gods tired of the needs of the people and wanted to destroy them, while others wanted to protect them. They were after all, their children. A war broke out between the gods, and there was division.’ Frong took a sip of his drink. ‘Those who wanted to protect were driven into hiding. The gods who wanted to destroy soon learned they couldn’t, it was too painful to watch. So, they exploited the greed of their creations. They placed powerful relics in treacherous locations, where people who wanted them could find them at their own risk and then they would be responsible for their own downfall. Part of the gods hoped that those who found the relics would use them for good, to redeem themselves and build a harmonious world.’
Karl frowned. ‘How do you know all this?’
‘I read a lot.’ He directed Karl to a wooden chest next to the table. He opened it and it was full of books and orbs. He lifted a book out, titled The Godly Godsfolk; a leather-bound book etched with the carving of a tree, and with more pages than Karl cared to ever read.
‘Wow,’ Karl said.
Frong put the book back and slammed the chest shut. The dust fired into Karl’s face.
‘And I speak a lot, and I have travelled.’ He picked some old meat out of his beard and took a bite. ‘The gods have never been seen since, but there are people with more knowledge than I. But everything you see or have heard of in regards to magic… All of it came from the gods, and how we who live used their relics.’
Karl huffed. ‘So I need to go and risk my life now?’
‘You need the Hat of Invisibility. The King of Alseed had a god create it for him so he could hide when anyone invaded. A coward’s relic really, but his home was the most invaded for nine hundred sunsets in a row.’ Frong scratched his beard. ‘If you possess the hat you can enter Flowforn undetected. Considering you’re a man who is being looked for, being invisible is likely your best solution. It’s in a tower just a little way south of here. Or was it to the north? It may have been east. Hmm… Memories. Ah yes, it was east.’
‘I’ll find it, it’s a tower. It will be tall,’ Karl said.
‘Actually, no. It’s a reverse tower. So you go all the way up five thousand feet of Mount Alseed to then go a couple of thousand back down the tower that hangs off the edge of it like a fang. You can only see it from the coast so looking up won’t help. It was built by the rock people of Alseed to deter invaders and allow—’
‘Less history… You’re sure it was east?’
‘More southeast.’
Karl shook his head. ‘I’ll find it. Then it’ll be simple enough to find a little hat.’
‘It’s not that simple. We couldn’t find the hat.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s invisible.’ He nudged Sags and laughed. ‘You can’t find what you can’t see.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll find it somehow.’ Karl stood. ‘I have no choice.’
16
Karl, Questions, Tortured Soul and Oaf travelled through the unknown for three sunsets to the southeast corner of Flowfornia. This was Karl’s life since leaving the castle; no idea what was across a bridge, behind a tree or in a swamp.
He’d seen flies with teeth bigger than his own, vibrant flowers with combinations of colours he couldn’t have imagined, eaten berries and leaves that may or not make him unwell, and he was sure he saw a horned woman eating another horned woman by a lake. He never knew whether the next thing would be beautiful or horrific. This kind of life was probably amazing to travellers and bandits, but with a death sentence over his head, Karl found it annoying. He was thankful for his friends though. With Oaf accompanying him he even managed to rest, and Oaf was an extra pair of ears to handle Questions’ thirst for knowledge.
The coastline came into view over the plains and the unfamiliar smell of sea air cleared Karl’s nostrils. He couldn’t believe the sea went so far. He’d only seen it in paintings but in person it was both stunning and menacing.
Although the open expanse raised the chance they’d be spotted, Karl was glad they could see what might approach. To him, this was the kind of place someone would imagine being in to feel better if they were sad.
They walked along the shore and the demonic structure crept over the horizon. They stopped to admire it. It hung off the top of a brown mountain like a giant, rocky, splintered fang, pointing at the violent sea below, where swirling winds bashed waves into each other like watery bulls locking horns.
Karl thought if Mount Alseed could see, it would probably look down at them and laugh, saying, ‘Ha! Look at you puny people, aren’t you puny?’ Then it wouldn’t say anything else because it had poor conversation skills.
They dragged their weary feet to the base of the mountain and Questions dropped to her knees. ‘Why would someone build a tower on top to only go back down?’
‘Because some people like to make my life hard.’ Karl studied the steep mountain for a path up. A few trees poked out of the rocks at odd angles, having no place on the mountain, a bit like him in Hastovia. The remnants of old wooden homes made the place eerier than it already was.
‘Why do people want to make your life hard?’ Questions asked.
Karl’s shoulders sunk. He didn’t want to enter into another nonsense chat, so he ignored her. ‘There’s no clear way up.’ He sat on a rock and leaned forward, trying to release the tension in his back.
Oaf took a sip of water from his waterskin. ‘There’s probably a trail around the other side of the mountain, but that’s far away.’ He studied the mountain and pointed to a ledge, about twenty feet high with a thin tree covered in vines. ‘Looks like a path up there. I could throw you to that led
ge and then you drop a vine down for us.’
‘It’s a pretty big distance.’ Karl doubted Oaf could throw him that far.
‘I can do it,’ Oaf assured him.
‘But more importantly. If you miss will I survive?’
‘You might break something, but you’ll be alright. It’s roughly three and a bit average-sized people high. You might die if it was more than four.’
Karl shuddered. He stood and psyched himself up. ‘Are you sure you can lift me though?’
Oaf chuckled, which wasn’t reassuring.
Karl clenched his fists, summoning his courage. ‘And I’ll definitely be okay?’
Oaf nodded and stepped towards him.
‘Wait! Not yet.’ Karl took long breaths and shook his limbs. ‘By roughly three and a bit people, do you mean roughly below, or roughly above?’
Tortured Soul popped out of her bottle. ‘Get on wiv it.’
‘I agree.’ Oaf grabbed Karl around the waist and then bent his legs.
‘Wait! I’m still—’
Oaf launched Karl.
Karl shouted the entire way up and landed in the tree.
‘Are you okay?’ Questions asked.
‘Yeah… Just about.’ He trembled.
‘Now pass us a vine,’ Oaf called up.
One slip and Karl would fall back the way he came. He grabbed the top of a vine wrapped around the tree. He slid down cautiously, taking the vine with him to untangle it. ‘Here.’ He dropped it to them.
Oaf grabbed it. ‘Thanks.’ He pulled the vine to check it was secure. The tree ripped out of its rocky home and fell, narrowly missing Oaf’s head.
‘Oh,’ Karl said.
‘I can throw Questions up and take the long way,’ Oaf said.
Questions aimed a smile up at Karl.
‘You know what. Keep her with you,’ Karl replied.
Questions bit her bottom lip and looked at the ground.
‘I’ll see you at the top,’ Karl said.
Karl walked for so long that by the time he reached the summit the sun had moved from over the Dead Lands in the east, to the south, over the sea. His thighs throbbed and it felt like Peezant had pecked them the entire way. He sat on the rocky ground and stretched his legs, hoping for relief, but he spotted a sword-wielding Fool. Karl scurried behind a rock and studied the situation.
