Benediction Denied: A Labyrinth of Souls Novel

by Engstrom, Elizabeth

  Another trick.

  He pulled on that foot, and with his other foot, kicked at whatever held it. His kicks landed in open space. Something, and yet nothing had his foot. Something cold, squishy and gelatinous began to suck on it, devouring first his toes, then up his heel, his ankle—

  It was so good. It felt wrong, naughty, forbidden, and wonderful. Like he was being swallowed by an orgasm.

  He scrambled as hard as he could to get to the door, but the darkness had his foot and was pulling him away from his only means of escape.

  He sat up and tried to strike out with his hands, but he touched nothing but dense blackness.

  Yet he was being eaten.

  Absorbed.

  With a burst of energy, he jumped up to his one free foot and lunged at where he thought the doorknob would be.

  He landed perfectly, his hand on the lever.

  With his last gasp of energy, he pushed the lever down and the door opened.

  Adam fell through and with both hands on the doorjamb, pulled his foot through behind him. He grappled for the edge of the door, for the latch, found it, and slammed it behind him.

  Instantly, the overpowering dread vanished.

  He lay on a cold stone floor, not wanting to move. Wanting only to rest, to sleep, to wake up and discover that this had indeed all been a horrible nightmare.

  If that were true, perhaps he would never sleep again.

  He didn’t know where he was, but wherever it was, it was better than where he had just been. The overwhelming feeling of doom had left him as soon as he shut that door behind him, and he was not about to open it again and succumb to whatever it was that made him want to give up and let it consume him.

  Eventually, he sat up and inspected his foot. It was dry and unscathed, except for the ruinous blisters that plagued every attempt at escape from this hell.

  And then he realized that he could see those blisters.

  Light!

  He quickly looked around, startled by the vast dining room he seemed to find himself in. He wanted to explore this new weirdness, but first he had to appreciate the fact that he was safe from that horror, and then he had to take stock of himself now that he could see.

  He examined both feet. As blistered, bloody, scabbed and sore as they were, they were intact. He still had a slim deck of cards in his shirt pocket and two giant seeds in his pants pockets. His clothes, while filthy and torn in places, still covered him adequately. The scab on his head had healed as well as could be expected without stitches, the knot almost completely gone.

  He needed a shave. And a bath and a meal. Other than that, he was all right. Nothing broken. Nothing damaged beyond repair.

  With great effort, he stood and looked around at his surroundings.

  He seemed to be in a great stone dining hall, befitting that of a castle.

  A fire roared in the massive fireplace at the end of the room, which had been festooned for a great feast.

  The table, yards long, had been set with finery, both in decorations with bowls of fruit, but also with fine dinnerware and cutlery. Candles stood white and pristine in their candelabra, waiting to be lit.

  Tapestries hung from the high ceiling, the stone floors were covered with thick, intricately-woven rugs. Above him, the high rough-beamed ceiling sported a perfectly aligned array of candled chandeliers, not yet lit.

  It was all scaled to Adam’s small size.

  He touched the giant seeds in his pockets, just to make sure he was still the size of someone who could run through a rat tunnel.

  He was.

  He wanted nothing more than to go to the fire and warm himself. He wanted to take fruit from the table and eat it. He wanted to investigate this chamber, find a warm bath and then a soft bed and balm for his feet.

  He wanted a break.

  He needed a day off.

  Yet there was something not right about the way the fire flickered in the fireplace. It didn’t seem real. It looked more like a photographic loop of a fire, going through the same flame pattern, the same crackle, the same settling log, the same flash of sparks, over and over again.

  That wasn’t the only thing not quite right about the room. The geometry was off somehow, the proportions growing lengthwise, and then sometimes widthwise, and at times the room itself seemed to flicker as if it were just a mirage, or an image projected onto a screen. It wasn’t exactly like the whole Ireland scenario, but it wasn’t right.

  He didn’t trust it.

  He didn’t trust anything here. He didn’t even trust himself.

  The door he had entered through—the door that, under normal circumstances, would lead to the evil chamber he had just escaped—had disappeared.

  There was nothing here of normal circumstances.

  Instead of exploring, he scooted over to a wall, far from where the door used to be, crossed his legs, and waited.

  He saw no other doors. This party for what—thirty or forty?—had to come in from somewhere, yet he saw no other means of entrance.

  His stomach growled.

  The ceiling grew taller, the room a little smaller. A dizzying, swirling moment of vertigo attacked him, then passed.

  He was afraid he could look forward to more of that.

  After his stomach settled, he looked again with longing at the lavish bowls of fruit on the table.

  He put a hand on a seed in his pocket, but it didn’t appeal, not when faced with huge bowls of grapes, pears, apples, bananas, plums, kiwi, and more. His mouth watered.

  But was it real? And if real, was it safe?

  He woofed a sarcastic laugh.

  Safe? Really?

  “Be bold, Adam,” he said out loud. “Don’t cower.”

  He stood on wretchedly painful feet, brushed off his clothes, and while he endeavored to stride to the table, in reality, it was a pathetic old-man limp that got him there.

  He put out his hand, and as he reached for the beautifully polished apple, a little electric tingle buzzed his fingers.

  He snatched his hand back and regarded the apple. It looked perfectly fine. In fact, it looked red, ripe, juicy, and delicious.

  He reached out again, slowly, tentatively, afraid that something could spring from the bowl of fruit and take off his hand.

  Nothing happened, and then the tingle again. Like a mild electric shock.

  This was some type of a trap. They were expecting him to—

  They? What they?

  “Who are you?” he shouted to the room. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  His voice echoed off the massive stone walls as he would expect it to in a normal room. “What’s happening here?”

  He stood in the middle of the room, arms out, palms up, and turned completely around, awaiting an answer.

  When he turned back to the table, he was no longer alone.

  8

  A MAN SAT at the head of the long, formally-set table. He was dressed as a normal man, in a shirt with an open collar, the cuffs rolled up. He seemed to be middle-aged, with plenty of dark brown hair on his head and his forearms, a swarthy complexion, and nice glasses. He didn’t look like the king for which this apparent feast had been prepared, nor did he look like any kind of an underworld god that Jolmy imagined.

  He looked like a neighbor. A co-worker.

  And yet … he was here. In this place.

  Adam closed his eyes, ran his hands over his face. Again, the idea that this was all just a horrible dream came over him. He rubbed his face hard, and then looked again. The man smiled at him. He looked relaxed, sitting very casually in the high backed wooden chair that looked vaguely like a throne. “Come,” he said. “Sit. I think you deserve a rest.”

  “I deserve an explanation,” Adam said, standing his ground.

  “In time,” the man said, and picked up an apple. “In the meantime, this one won’t hurt you.” He held it out.

  Adam hesitated. He pointed to the bowl of fruit at the other end of the table.

  “I
turned off the burglar alarm,” the man said and smiled.

  Adam was helpless to stop himself from walking straight to the man, to the apple he held out.

  The apple seemed normal.

  Adam rubbed it on his pant leg while he looked at the man, who sat calmly, comfortably, hands folded in front of him. The man nodded that he should take a bite. “Won’t hurt me?”

  “Won’t hurt you.”

  Adam bit into it, and sweet, moist deliciousness filled his mouth.

  He closed his eyes in ecstasy, his empty stomach roared, and he ate that apple faster than he had ever eaten an apple before in his life.

  By the time it was nothing more than a gnawed core, apple juice had run down his chin and onto his hands.

  Ravenous hunger consumed him.

  “Sit,” his host beckoned. He moved the bowl of fruit closer to Adam. “Help yourself.”

  Adam sat in the proffered chair, took a fine linen napkin from his place setting and wiped his face and hands, then reached for a perfect banana. He peeled and ate that just as quickly. As he reached for a bunch of tantalizing white grapes, he saw that the water glass where he sat was full, beads of condensation sliding down the outside of it.

  He picked it up and with a nod from his host, he drank it down with great gasping gulps. Then he reached for the grapes, took them into his hands and sat back in the chair.

  Nourishment flowed through his veins. He felt better than he had since … since before he took his girls to the airport. How many days ago was that? Had he been dreaming mere minutes, or had he been lost underground in these tunnels of nonsensical lunacy for days? Weeks?

  Months?

  The high-backed wooden chair he relaxed into was not all that comfortable, but it was better than sitting on the floor.

  He took a deep breath and plucked a grape from the bunch in his hand and popped it into his mouth. Magnificent. Picked at the peak of perfection, as they say on the commercials.

  He looked at his host. “Thank you.”

  The host nodded in response, picked up his wine glass that, Adam now noted, was filled with a dark wine, and tipped it toward Adam in acknowledgement, then he sipped.

  “Can you explain—” With a wave of his hand, Adam indicated the entire room with its extravagant party preparations.

  “No,” the man said. “I don’t think it’s necessary, nor is it required.”

  Not the type of response Adam expected from such a seemingly-gracious host. But then, he reminded himself, not everything here is as it appears to be.

  “Well then,” Adam tried a different tack. “Can I please know who has been so generous with me?”

  “That information is irrelevant,” the man said. “Suffice it to say that you are a most welcome guest. The others will arrive shortly, and you are welcome to eat and drink your fill.”

  “The others?”

  “You, of course, are the guest of honor.”

  Adam’s hand paused, grape midway to his mouth. “Me?”

  “Who else?”

  “Why?”

  “Why not?”

  Why not indeed. Adam looked around. “Might I freshen up?”

  His host laughed, a sincere laugh that made him remove his glasses and wipe tears of mirth from his eyes. “Oh,” he said. “See there? That’s why you are our guest of honor.” He cleaned his glasses and placed them back on his nose. He chuckled. “That was a good one.”

  “How will the other guests get here?” Adam asked— desperate for any information that would give him a clue as to how to get out of here and back to his real life. “I don’t see a door.”

  “Oh, here they are,” his host said, “Right on time.” In an instant, the room filled with men and women, all dressed in rich clothing that seemed to be from some kind of King’s Court of the 1800s. Ladies in silks and satins with their hair piled high and voluminous petticoats, gentlemen wearing tuxedos with waxed moustaches and hair slicked back.

  They talked and laughed among themselves as if they had been talking, drinking, and laughing for hours, right here, in what seemed to be an ongoing, perpetual dinner party, but Adam hadn’t been able to see them, couldn’t hear them.

  Until abruptly, he could.

  The host rang a little silver bell next to his plate, and the conversation ceased immediately. All eyes turned to Adam.

  “We have a guest,” the host said simply.

  Ladies curtsied, the men bowed, and then they all took their seats at the big table.

  This is not real, Adam reminded himself. This is not real.

  When the food appeared on his plate, thick slices of roasted meat au jus, vegetables barely steamed just the way he liked them, freshly baked rolls, dark wine that was full bodied and sweet, but not too sweet, it was hard for him to remember that this was not real.

  Conversation went on around him, but it seemed like just so much white noise. He concentrated on eating. He was famished, and every bite was a revelation to his abused body.

  No one seemed to be particularly interested in him. Was he just another in a long line of “guests” that came to dinner?

  More important, to what end was he the guest?

  As soon as he finished his meal, it vanished, and a dessert pudding of some sort appeared.

  He looked down the row of plates. The same pudding was on every plate, and people began dipping their spoons, exclaiming over its creamy deliciousness, and drinking dessert wine from tiny wine glasses.

  This is not real. None of this is real.

  He wasn’t going to get any answers by sitting here filling his belly.

  He drank another glass of water, which had magically refilled, wiped his lips, pushed back his chair, and stood up.

  The room quieted. He had everyone’s attention.

  He held up his port wine glass. “To our host,” he said.

  At first, the guests looked at each other in confusion. Then one man stood and held up his wine glass in salute. “To our host,” he said. Others followed, until they all stood, and the woman sitting next to Adam raised her glass and said, “To Oliver.”

  The name hit Adam like a cannonball in his gut.

  Oliver!

  The others gasped and stared at her in astonishment.

  She hung her head in shame, and an instant later, she vanished. A moment after that, her pudding, all the dishes and cutlery, wine and water glasses at her place also disappeared.

  Oliver, no longer smiling, acknowledged the accolades of the assembled guests with raised glass and then a sip. Everyone seemed happy to retake their seats and resume their conversations.

  Adam collapsed back into his chair and looked long and hard at his host.

  Oliver.

  He looked very familiar. Too familiar. Maddeningly familiar.

  Adam’s blood pressure rose. His face heated. He wanted nothing more than to leap over the table and punch that smug motherfucker in the teeth.

  Settle down, he counseled himself. The point is to get out of here.

  “Sorry about Lady Dulcinea,” Oliver said, indicating the empty chair next to Adam. “She means well, but sometimes exercises poor judgment.”

  “To where has she been banished?” Adam asked.

  “My dear man,” Oliver said, “she was here as a guest of the wheel of fortune, but she was on shaky ground from the outset. As you can see, she broke her wheel with her lack of judgment.”

  “And am I subject to this same wheel?”

  “No,” Oliver said, smiling. “Of course not. You have your own.” He sipped his wine. “But I must say, it is beginning to look downright rickety.”

  “I don’t understand the rules,” Adam said

  “None of us do,” Oliver replied.

  “How is that fair?”

  Again, Oliver laughed, this time so robustly that he stopped conversation at the table. “Our guest”—he emphasized the word guest—“thinks that life is not fair.”

  The others at the table began to laugh as well, a litt
le too hard, a little too long, showing way too many teeth.

  The more Adam looked at them, the more they began to look like caricatures.

  But there was no question that his belly was full of food, and there was the flavor of wine on his tongue. So how much of this was real, and how could he escape it and get out?

  He wanted to get out. He wanted to go home.

  Now. He wanted to go now.

  He stood again, and one by one, the guests quieted. All faces turned to him expectantly, smiling, as if he was about to entertain them further.

  Slowly, he unbuttoned his shirt pocket, removed a card, and then buttoned the pocket again.

  He had drawn the King of Swords.

  Surely the King of Swords outranked Oliver, king of scumbags.

  He held up the card and showed it first to Oliver, who raised an eyebrow. Then he showed it to everyone else at the table.

  A few women gasped.

  Adam looked at Oliver. “Do you know what this means?”

  “I have an idea.”

  “Will this destroy you, and them, and this whole—this whole room?”

  “Destroy? No.” Oliver leaned forward. “But it does not show the gratitude I would expect from one who has so liberally availed himself of my hospitality.”

  Adam had enough of Oliver’s overt smugness. “Thank you for dinner,” Adam said. He bowed, plucked a banana from the fruit bowl, then turned and flicked the card at the wall.

  The blue horizontal circles blasted out, knocking Adam back against the table, and then when the table disappeared from behind him, landed him on his butt on the ground.

  In a tunnel.

  In a dirt tunnel, with the little blue flame burning on the ground next to him. The dining table, Oliver, and all the weird guests had vanished.

  Had they ever been there? Had he fallen asleep here in this tunnel and dreamed it all? Had it been another dream within a dream?

  The banana was still in his hand.

  He shoved it into a cargo pocket in his pants, picked up the blue flame with his fingers and closed his eyes in gratitude. He hadn’t died, at least not yet—at least he didn’t think he had.

  Wait.

  Had he died?

  Had he died at the hands of the rebel thug in the jungle? Was this hell? Was this his purgatory?