The 9th Fortress

We pushed against the wind, using every bit of energy to stay on our feet. Sharp specks of hellishly blowing sand ate into any flesh exposed, and in our battle against the gale and glass, we could hardly gather intelligence on this town — a town called Breakneck.

The thoroughfare was deserted during the blizzard, but we could hear the rowdy cheers and a tuneless piano coming from the most popular building in town. There, a tempting yellow light blurred from smeared over windows. We fought our way toward it, passing a hitching post with no horses, and a wagon with no wheels.

Kat squeaked open those classic saloon doors to a generously spaced room, packed to the rafters. I expected a great hush and turning of heads to greet us newcomers, but our arrival did not stir more than idle curiosity. My hands and face were scored with cuts, as if someone went mad with a razor. My friends also wore the unsightly marks of the storm. I took my canteen and prepared to drink these cuts away, when Kat pressed his palm over the lid. 'Not here,” he said, carefully. 'Superficial wounds will heal before morning.'

With that, I sealed the canteen and observed our surroundings. The saloon needed a new word for rotten — the staircase, the banisters, the tables and chairs looked a moment from collapse. Floorboards were covered in two or more inches of grime, and the weird and wonderful customers were no cleaner. There was a large pile of sugar on the bar counter, and a fly the size of my head snorted greedily into it. Causing offence, a lonely figure made of compacted manure sat on a stool, swatting at the smaller flies around him. One drunkard slouched on the floor, and at his shoulders grew the leathery head of a shark, biting any legs within range of its teeth. 'What complete and utter riff raff,” gawked Eddinray. 'Be on your guard, angel.'

Kat thumped toward the bar like a walking beer keg, and I fully expected his legs to break through the weak floorboards. Miraculously they held his weight and ours; but on route, I near fell onto a table of card players when an eel, resembling a wet sock with golf ball eyes, bungled under my feet and slithered out the flapping doors. 'What the?' I muttered, aghast.

The bald bartender was the oddest of them all. Made entirely of a gassy blue flame, he was a man like any other, but for that all-encompassing heat shield. 'What can I get ya?' he asked us, passing a shot glass to one customer, who wisely left it to cool before drinking.

'A minute,” replied Kat.

At the piano, an oversized thing played the incoherent nonsense we heard from outside. This creature was a shag of purple hair all over, with a slurping mouth as wide as the instrument it played. What can only be described as a fat bumblebee flapped its wings in one corner of the ceiling, around and around in brooding circles he went. Finally, stretched on a bench lay the crinkly cream body of a maggot larger than any other here. Disgusting.

'Heee better not show today!' buzzed the bee. 'I ain't scared! He won't run meee out! Just you wait!'

'Let it go!' the maggot said to the bee. 'There's nothing you can do, Charlie! Nothing at all.'

'That'sss what you all think! You think I'm a coward! Well you're wrong! All wrong!'

Caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, these were souls scared to venture forward, and scared to turn back. But for what it was worth — with their drink, music and friends — each seemed to have found a tiny peace of paradise here in Breakneck.

I noticed those customers seated at tables did not play cards for money, chips or matchsticks, but for the only currency worth a damn here: the rejuvenating well light. Players kept their stash piled beside them in cups or preciously balanced saucers. Some carried flasks containing dregs of the stuff while others had droplets swirling in dirty ashtrays. Clearly, the light was in limited supply — none had the amount our company carried, none had seen the centre of the labyrinth.

'Ready to order?' asked the winter blue barman.

Ignoring him, Kat sauntered to the table nearest and to the three skinny men blowing froth from their pints. 'Beat it,” he snarled.

The grey faced drinkers froze, and after hasty contemplation, one swallowed his pint whole, scooped up his belongings then left the saloon with fellow drinkers in his wake. Taking a seat at the now vacant table, Kat signalled us to do the same.

'What do we do now?' I asked, feeling weirdly at ease as I sat on a wonky chair.

Anxious, Harmony gazed past the flapping doors to the jet streams of glass outside. 'Stuck here,” she mumbled, resting the longbow on her lap and fiddling its string.

'In that case,' huffed Eddinray, still standing; 'drinks! Long have I desired one!'

Harmony urged him to sit, but Eddinray paid no attention to her on his way to the bar. There, four creatures ordered drinks, and following Kat's example, Eddinray barged through the pack like a school bully — shoving both a salmon faced woman and inebriated peacock to one side.

'What can I do you for?' asked the barman.

'Drink,” Eddinray answered, purposely lowering his voice. 'I'm thirsty. Real thirsty.'

A tense looking barman flicked Eddinray a shot of black liquid, which he keenly knocked back.

'Blugh!' he suddenly exclaimed, spitting over the counter. 'This is the most offensive thing to ever grace my lips! And I've ate bark for goodness sake! Bark!'

'Thank you!' said a delighted barman. 'That'll be one dreg if you please?'

'One what? What are you raving about man?'

'Dreg of light,” stuttered the barman, reaching his hand under the bar counter.

'The price for the drink.'

'What are you hiding there?' uttered Eddinray, pointing. 'What skulduggery is this?'

'It's nothing sir!' declared the barman, his flames rippling nervously. 'Nothing at all!'

'Liar! Show me — show me this instant you…blue person!'

Reluctantly, the barman pulled back his hand back to reveal a club gripped in his burning fingers. Eddinray considered, then with a queer smile said. 'Dreg of light you say? You mean…this stuff?'

With a boastful grin, Eddinray raised his canteen and twisted off the lid. Immediately, starlight swooned out from the bottleneck, and hungry hands came to snatch before they could vanish. Nonchalantly, the knight resealed the canteen and every living thing hushed respectfully for this man of fortune — even the carpet playing piano halted play to enviously peek at the wealthy stranger, the knight who came from the desert.

'You've been to the labyrinth!' cried the peacock. 'To the very centre! It's true, isn't it true?'

'He has!' declared the salmon faced woman. 'No man carries that much dreg without seeing the labyrinth! Everyone look! Gather round!'

Wild fire whispers spread, and we at the table watched with concern.

'I have been to the labyrinth!' confirmed Eddinray, loud and proud. 'What of it?'

The mob cheered and crowded him, with the hovering bee proclaiming over the pandemonium.

'Heeee is God's chosen one! Heeee is!'

'The chosen one!' they repeated, with sycophantic screams. 'The chosen one! The chosen one!'

All drunks roused the saloon with the same eager chorus. 'The chosen one! The chosen one! Here! Hurrah!'

Eddinray was suddenly a superstar, he was Elvis and the Beatles combined, and he was loving it.

'Tell us chosen one,' asked an enthusiastic barman — 'how did you survive the rat men? How did you evade their mother queen?'

'YES! TELL US! TELL!''

Eddinray beckoned a hand for silence, and his ego was overjoyed to get it.

'The labyrinth rat men,' he started slowly; 'I turned to mince. The mushy kind, you know! I turned them all to mince! Born to face evil — raised in the jungle — I fear no man or thing…'

Harmony blurted a laugh through her fingers, while I could only shake a flummoxed face at Eddinray's confidence. 'People, I am Sir Godwin Eddinray! And those seated fools are my squires!'

An insulted Kat squinted back — maybe it was being called a fool by the fool of fools, or a squire to that fool. 'Out of his wits,” he muttered to me. 'I told you he was mad, Fox.'

'Oh, no!' said Harmony, seemingly unaware of any potential danger. 'He's just enjoying himself. Godwin is a natural entertainer!'

'Entertainer or not,' I said, 'this is no place to attract attention.'

'Would the chosen one care for another drink?' asked the barman, eager to please. 'My pleasure of course! Anything for the chosen one!'

'I should think so too!' he returned. 'Pray tell sir, what do you know of the chosen one? Who dare speak of