by Travis Smith
Gregoire cackled. “Yer in mah home!” he drawled. His chuckles grew into gales of hysterical laughter, and he doubled over, guffawing until he wheezed and coughed.
“He’ll ask again,” Ian said, his spoon still twirling in the dirt, creating vast symbols and foreign letters. He reached down and swiped a hand through the clay, erasing a portion of his work and starting anew. “He’ll ask every day.”
“What a wretched existence,” The Stranger mused, “to wake each day and discover the hell this world has become.”
“Does he seem bothered?” Ian asked.
Gregoire was still hitching with laughter, and he wiped a tear from his eye.
“And is that existence so very different from—from—from yours or my own?” he asked.
The Stranger thought of the countless encounters with Laura and William he’d had in his dreams, only to wake, shaking in the dark, confused and alone as the grim reality seeped slowly back into his mind. “I suppose not,” he conceded at last.
“Not so very different from me, friend,” Gregoire agreed.
“Greggy is fortunate—in many ways—to start each day with a—a—a blank slate. To face the day with untainted optimism.” Ian stopped drawing at last and turned to look at the man, frozen still on his hands and knees, smiling as he looked out of the cell. His voice was slow and measured, contrasting his usual frenetic, high-pitched babble. “Often I wonder if each moment is a new blank slate … He takes every instant as he sees it, and, in that, there is joy. I sometimes envy his curse, for it is free of the burden of self-contemplation and despair, free of the weight of our bleak and complex realities, free of the dread of what is sure to come …”
The Stranger listened with an empathic ear for the first time since washing up on the shore of Eugene’s island. The gravity of what his fellow countrymen had endured had been obscured by the urgency of his own quest. An image flashed in his mind: John Tompkin’s eyes above his own as a pirate’s blade entered his flank. He’d been blinded by his selfish needs and had burned so many others. And condemned himself in the process—just as the old man had warned.
Ian’s bright grey eyes had grown glassy behind his cracked spectacles. He turned back to tend to his work in the sand.
“Ooh!” Gregoire exclaimed. “Are you gonna eat that?” he asked The Stranger, pointing to the lump of curds in the dirt.
The Stranger offered a painful smile and shook his head.
As the old man crawled over like an infant and scooped at the soiled slop, a grotesque being in a round metallic carriage propelled by small and scabby legs rolled through the courtyard toward their cell.
“Haagh! Haagh!” he shrieked. “Mommy!”
“Who’s ’at?” Gregoire asked the deformed man.
Ian stood from his drawings and approached his cellmate gingerly. “Okay, now. Let’s go over this way,” he said under his breath.
The man outside arrived outside the cell and continued squawking and cursing loudly.
Eventually a guard approached, his machine gun in hand. “Fuck’s the ballyhoo ova ’ere, Rollo?” he asked. “These lot givin’ ya the guff?”
“Waagh! Fuck!” the roller-man shrieked in reply.
“No, my good sir,” Ian assured them as he pressed a hand against Gregoire’s chest and guided him back away from the cell door. “No guff here.”
“Wot say you, Stranger?” the guard asked, pointing his weapon toward The Stranger, who was still seated on the cot. “They hidin’ any contraband in ’ere?”
The Stranger looked around the empty cell. “Not to my knowledge. I’ve only awakened just yesterday.”
The guard sneered at him. “Welcome t’ the land o’ the livin’. That glib tongue o’ yers’ll fit ya right in to the trouble ’round ’ere. This one causin’ trouble, Rollo?” he asked the still-screeching man by his side.
“Waagh! Haagh! Bitch!” he proclaimed, a stream of urine spraying down each shrunken leg from the odd sling with which his waist was suspended.
Just then a man screamed from across the prison’s center. The guard turned toward a rising commotion, but his companion continued shrieking into The Stranger’s cell.
“Speakin’ o’ trouble,” he mused, slinging his weapon back over his shoulder. “Come on, Rollo, let’s get to it!” he grabbed the man’s bony shoulders and spun him around before pushing his rusty wheels through the sand.
“Don’t want any trouble with that one,” Ian warned in a hushed tone. “He’ll draw guards to ya like a loyal dog.”
The guard pushed the roller-man toward a growing crowd of guards. The Stranger watched as they ripped two quarrelling prisoners out of a cell and dragged them into the courtyard. Countless guards rushed into the prison center from the surrounding barracks and joined in forming a large circle around the two men. A smaller group of trustees stood outside the circle and collected coins from most of the guards who joined to watch. They arranged the bets in neat piles and took notes on various ledgers.
“Aye,” Ian sighed.
“We got a spat,” one of the armed guards bellowed to the two men inside the circle. “This is how we settle it in Fanxel! Make us holler, boys, but if one o’ ye dies, the winner’s gonna owe me double!”
6
Saleema undertook a lengthy process that was painstaking for Ian to watch. She lit candles throughout the dim cabin and strew Ian’s archives across a large wooden table in the center of the room. After studying them for quite a while, the witch motioned in silence for his brother to approach. As he did, she indicated a smaller table nearby, which he climbed atop and lay flat on his back without a word. She approached and lay one pale, long-fingered hand atop his chest, her eyes closed, her head tilting slowly back.
“I love you,” Ian said, breaking the prolonged silence. Neither acknowledged his interruption. He added more quietly, “This will work …”
Saleema began muttering low, quiet incantations that were impossible to make out. Her hand rose from his brother’s chest and hovered just above it as his body stiffened.
After a time, a candle in the far corner flickered out, though the air inside and outside the cabin remained artificially still. Saleema’s murmurs increased in pace, and she opened her eyes at last and turned to the larger table in the middle of the room. Still muttering, she nearly collapsed atop the table, planting both palms flat before her and gazing at Ian’s work. Her eyes darted side to side with impossible speed as she appeared to take in the colossal amount of information therein. All the while, her incantations continued to build momentum.
Ian’s brother remained flat on the table, head back and eyes closed. His body began to convulse minutely as Saleema’s eyes closed anew and she threw her head back.
“Farstava demens harna! Far varld sistema!” she shouted.
Ian’s jaw hung slack. He stared in unblinking amazement. His brother’s convulsions ceased, but Saleema’s chanting continued growing louder, faster. A blinding green hue enveloped the cabin, but it appeared to originate from nowhere. At first, the hue created a slow blinking flash phenomenon that surely engulfed the entire world. The flashing increased in frequency as the witch completed her spell. A low hum and click accompanied the flashes of phantom light, and, as the blinking grew faster, the hum grew in intensity until it was nigh on deafening.
Ian’s brother’s eyes opened, but they stared up at the cabin’s roof, uncomprehending. He did not move or sit up for quite some time after that. Ian himself could never be sure if his brother was seeing anything in that moment, but he saw. He saw all.
7
The days in Fanxel soon blended together, and the nights themselves morphed into the horrors that took place therein. Skuttler remained well behaved on his frequent meal rounds and somehow managed to withstand most of The Stranger’s taunts without incident. The Stranger’s beard grew again far beyond the length he’d worn when he sheared it outside that conniving woman’s cabin when he’d first arrived on the shores of Fordar.
> Soon, the dry, arid blight gave way to monsoon season, and thick, dark clouds spanned the desert horizon daily. When a storm passed over Fanxel, the torrential downpour and rolling thunder often drowned out the sounds of despair within, and the rains kept most of the guards away for a time. The dry, cracked sand turned to mud with dark brown puddles that stood even on the rare days without rainstorms. Small rivulets of runoff mud flowed down from the hills surrounding Fanxel and ran in quiet streams through the prison’s flooded courtyard and into and out of various cells. Most of the guards and trustees stayed in the barracks, and services like food delivery dropped to once per day on many occasions. Boss ensured that none of the prisoners he’d captured or paid for would expire, even when keeping them alive became unpleasant for the prison workers.
With the floodwaters, The Stranger’s cell had turned to a sloppy mud pit. The corner where Ian worried over his drawings and symbols turned to a pool of sorts. The ground was sunken down where he had swiped and drawn and swiped and drawn anew, and the mud pooled there, driving the poor man madder. He had tried for a time to etch on the cell’s clay walls with his blunted wooden spoon, but it proved much harder than the sand. He spent most of the days rocking with his eyes closed, muttering to himself as though he were trying to recall a distant, distant memory.
The Stranger lay on the cot on one of the particularly dryer days and watched the unrelenting misery outside his cell. Not for the first time, it crossed his mind that these should be his people. Their suffering was a result of leadership failure, and it was he who had been burdened with that responsibility, decreed by the ancient creators generations ago. It was his name that had been etched upon the White Sword from the beginnings of time, his touch that should open the Throne Room doors. He’d been chasing his own demons, but now he was stuck, marooned here amid the suffering of all whom his bloodline was bound to serve. This onus weighed upon his already damaged mind, and the loss and mourning of his family—the helplessness to rescue Laura and William—doubled over in guilt for all those who now too were his responsibility.
Ian stood and ventured closer to the cell’s bars than he usually allowed himself to stray. The day was dark with heavy clouds upon the horizon, but the rainfall had not drifted over Fanxel today. Slow-flowing rivulets still snaked their way through the prison courtyard and through cells, and Ian’s usual corner of their cell with the well-weathered patch of dirt would remain sunken down to form an ankle-deep pool of muddy water until the throes of winter were upon them.
“Who’s ’at?” Gregoire rasped out of a midday nap as Ian walked by, but he did not reply.
His small, cracked glasses teetered atop his nose dangerously, and his gaze was fixed upon the patch of mud in front of the cell door that did not house standing or flowing water at present. As if transfixed by his compulsion, he drew his spoon and began drawing his circles in the mud.
“What does that mean?” The Stranger asked at last as the man tilted his head back and exhaled a sigh of relief after having not drawn the symbols for days.
Ian walked not the line separating brilliance and insanity, but instead stood with one foot planted firmly on either side at all times. The Stranger’s question gave him pause, as though no one had ever given him reason to ponder it.
“This?” he mused, slowly finishing a fourth symbol with his blunted spoon. “This is infinity,” he said, almost to himself. Then he turned to face The Stranger. “What if our world were boundless? What if, instead of sailing off the edge of the Western Sea, our journeys just—just—just continued on … or started over.” As he spoke, his somnolent determination gave way to his typical manic, hastened speech that threatened to outpace even his rapid thoughts. “Many cultures view time as—as—as linear, but others suspect that it’s a circle. It is an infinite loop without limits, as is our world—all worlds—our very existence. When the dimensions are—are—are disrupted, though, a circular time folds in upon itself. The outcome is cataclysmic. What we see today is the outcome of such disruption. Existences crumble, and that which once was boundless now fades into nothingness. This—” he indicated the point where the two concentric circles crossed, “this—this is the nexus of all antithesis. The point where creation meets destruction. Where infinity meets oblivion. Where light meets dark …”
The Stranger, from an educated family himself, understood few of the words the man spoke. He had regretted asking the inevitable question almost immediately and turned his attention back to the muddy prison center.
“What’s goin’ on here,” a familiar voice commanded abruptly. Skuttler shot a scabby paw through the cell bars and grabbed Ian by the arm. “Hatchin’ some ball-brained plan t’ escape?”
Ian startled and then groaned in pain as the lackey dug his jagged nails into his arm. “Nothing here, sir. Forgive us.”
“What is it?” he growled in Ian’s ear. “What’s it mean?”
“Believe me when I say you wouldn’t understand.” The Stranger stood from the cot and made toward his cellmate who was pinned to the cell bars.
“Take another step, and I’ll rip ’is arm off an’ beat ya both t’ death wiv it. Believe me when I tell ya that!” Skuttler snarled as he spoke, and tendrils of saliva dripped from his jagged teeth that suddenly looked like fangs behind his vengeful face. His tongue flicked to the sore at the corner of his mouth and prodded it briefly.
“Who?” Gregoire stood up. His usually carefree face was wrought with concern. He seemed to know he hadn’t asked the right question, but didn’t know how to better express it.
“It’s okay, Greggy,” Ian assured the man. “Stay back, please.”
Skuttler hollered over his shoulder for a nearby guard.
“What are you doing, Miles?” The Stranger jibed.
Skuttler redoubled his grip and thrust Ian against the cell bars. He reached his free arm through and wrapped it around the man’s neck. “Ye’ll regret teasin’ me, boy,” he growled. “Yer gonna get yer’s today.”
“What the fuck’s goin’ on here!” a guard yelled as he ran toward the cell. He raised his weapon and pointed it directly at The Stranger’s face.
“They’re escapin’,” Skuttler called.
“We are doing no such thing,” The Stranger said as the guard approached.
“Drop ’im!” he commanded. “Gebback! Open ’at cell! I’ll put a bullet through yer pretty teeth if ye try anythin’ at all.”
Skuttler let go of Ian, and the poor man stumbled to his knees, coughing and retching. Gregoire reached forward and brought the thin man into a confused and concerned embrace.
The guard opened the cell and entered. He grabbed The Stranger by his dirty, tattered smock and put the barrel of the machine gun under his chin. “Yer lucky Boss is aroun’ today, ’r I’d have a mind to throw ye in the ring with five o’ my biggest loon-heads ’n’ make ya earn back every paga we spent on yer sorry ass.”
Skuttler’s eyes darted crazily from The Stranger to the guard, then to the gun and back to The Stranger again. His tongue worked behind his cracked lower lip.
“Fucking do it, you crusty sand maggot,” The Stranger growled, gun wedged painfully against his neck.
The guard turned and looked at Skuttler. He let go of The Stranger’s neck and swatted at Skuttler, who backed away and hunkered briefly to all fours. “What’s this shit then? You jus’ slappin’ yer cock again?”
“They’s escapin’ …” Skuttler replied lamely.
“What is this shit?” The guard stamped a heavy boot in the mud where the symbols were drawn. “Fuckin’ doodles?”
“It’s a plan. Ask ’im what it means!”
The guard advanced on Skuttler and slammed the cell door on his way out. “You eye-fuck my gun again, boy, an’ I’ll make ya wish ye never clawed yer way outta yer mummy’s maw. Ya wanna settle a petty grudge, I’ll throw ye in the ring wiv ’im an’ put a hundred paga against ye.”
Skuttler tumbled onto his bottom as he backed away, giving the guard
an opportunity to drop the butt of his machine gun into the man’s unprotected gut as he walked away.
“Let me know when you’re ready to take him up on that offer,” The Stranger said before climbing back onto his cot.
8
Bernard’s temper flared to dangerous heights as he gathered belongings from his quarters and the seldom-shared quarters with Laura. Despite growing up in a fisherman’s family, he had long detested the sea and the act of sailing. His plans had been thwarted far too many times for him to forgo this journey, but the thought of sailing across the Great Sea on a blind hunt based on rumor infuriated the man.
“I won’t return for quite some time,” he told Laura with genuine regret after making his way down to her locked quarters.
“How so ever will we fare without you,” she replied.
“Your sardonic tongue wounds, as I’m sure you know,” he warned her. “Forget not that I may wound as well.”
“The pain you’ve inflicted will never be forgot. As I’m sure you know.”
Bernard gnashed his teeth. “I have long given up the delusion of hope for gratitude for what I could provide for you both,” he said. “Perhaps when I return things will be different.”
“Perhaps you won’t return.”
He closed his eyes, fury mounting. He approached her despite this and grabbed her hair within one fist. She pursed her lips into nonexistence, as she always did, and turned her face away from his in futility. He pulled her close and placed a long kiss at the corner of her unmoving lips as she winced.
“My men will care for you both while I’m away,” he sighed. “But take pause before giving them any grief, for they may not be as forgiving as I.” His eyes dropped to faint bruises on her thighs before he turned and walked toward the door.
“Your men will perish or kill me before I let them inside. The same goes for you,” she spat.
Bernard paused in the doorway, eyes closed again. How long had he housed her and the verminchild in his castle while she refused to relent? He swallowed hard before speaking again. “He’s still alive, you know? Your husband burdens me even after all this time.”
