belt.
'Well?' he asked, hurriedly. 'What the fuck are you waiting for? You're…supposed to kill me.'
'Supposed to? Says who?'
'The nightmares!' he snapped like a lunatic. 'They end when you stick me! They do! I have seen it! Promised it! Don't hesitate Fox! I wouldn't — I'd kill you and your fucking kid all over again if given the chance! Your prize is here Fox! Take it you coward! Stick me you shit! Kill me! What are you waiting for? Do it now!'
I had — in my life and afterlife — killed one human being as he had killed me, all of it leading to a devastating chain reaction. I decided to remember the mission at this tempting time, to focus on that and not the reasons for it. I'd made it to the 9th Fortress, my friends were upstairs, alive, and I had come face to face with my own demon — the job, however, would not be complete until I had this individual back in the limbo of the Waiting Plain. 'The scientist wants you alive.' I said, over his mad ravings. 'I don't know why — can't imagine a single reason. You're going back Curtis — and I'll drag you kicking and screaming if I have to. So help me God…'
***
It was evening in the 9th Fortress, and the liquorish sky could not have cast a more foreboding spell over tomorrow. The penthouse danced with candlelight, an atmosphere to make any eye sparkle. The broken window was already repaired, and overlooking that spectacular view, Harmony and Napoleon sat at opposite ends of a table, with wine and a meaty main-course under their noses. 'How do you find the food?' he asked her, chewing politely.
'It's…lovely.' she said, shallowly poking potatoes with her fork.
'Will you share your thoughts? You have not said a thing so far.'
Harmony shook her head. 'I feel overwhelmed.' she answered. 'The meaning of it all and this place? I sometimes question the thinking going on up there. I can't help it. What does it mean?'
'Their ways are unworthy of your thoughts or worship.' he happily replied. 'Vague nonsense insulting ones intelligence! There is no baffling mystery about my Lord and his realm, his glory is here for all to see, smell and touch, not locked behind an overwhelming cloud of maths. Perhaps this is what you need, angel? To be far from the frustrating ways of your God and his intellectual devotees?'
Harmony scrutinized the well-fed Emperor at the other end of the table. 'Why are you so devoted Napoleon? What inspires you? Where is the good in the soul I love?'
'You are the good in me,' he returned, piercing a sausage with his fork, 'you were all of it Harmony, and it was devotion to my Lord that secured this lofty position in the 9th Fortress.' He took the whole sausage into his mouth. 'Devotion,' he continued, mincing pork between his teeth; 'is the only virtue. Under our feet are the nastiest creatures to ever grace any surface — I have Blackbeard the Pirate and Rasputin on one floor alone, and overseeing their suffering is a unique privilege. Mephistopheles gave this post, not to Genghis Khan or Charlemagne, but to Napoleon Bonaparte, and it is his confidence which inspires the soul you love.'
Harmony sighed, shrivelling in her chair. 'You are lost.' she said. 'Hopelessly so.'
'Life support…' he corrected, swallowing, 'I am found.'
***
I explored, happily alone through a labyrinth of mysterious halls, closed doors and randomly freakish screams. I'd been on my feet for hours, going over past and current events — John Curtis — John Curtis — his face wouldn't leave me. My brain seemed to swell from overuse, and it was an intensely frustrating feeling, to know I would have to wait, or never get the answers.
The levels and hallways of the 9th Fortress were extremely diverse: some chilled me to shivers whilst others sent the sweat sliding down my legs. Worse was the sewage, popping over floors or hanging like icicles down from ceilings. It was revolting, and everywhere.
Passing unlocked cells over my route, how many immortal names had I passed tonight I wondered? Hitler? Cromwell? Whoever they were, I was no better equipped for coping with the suffering; for although Bludgeon taught me through excruciating repetition to ignore the warnings and pain — this is a skill I believe no creature can master. We all have a breaking point.
Not wanting my meandering through evil to stop, an appearance of a friend interrupted me. Eddinray searched out of a crooked window, and noticing me now, he expressed the 'do not disturb' sign over his cross features. I made to pass, to leave him to his thoughts and return to mine, but something heavy hung in the air, and I couldn't walk away from it.
'Eddinray?'
'That's not my name.' he dimly replied. A limelight from outside illuminated his face, and looking through his window, I gasped at the astonishing night sky — a vortex the size of a moon hovered above the realm; it had a deep blackness at its core that appeared to suck in all the birds and light and the Hell around it.
'What is it?' I asked, not expecting any answer.
'I think it's the way out,' he said. 'Or perhaps another way in. Do you…forgive me Danny?' he then whispered. 'All those lies I told?'
'There's nothing to forgive Eddinray. Nothing at all. Your stories — true or false, fact or fiction — kept spirits up and took our minds away from the worst…Some of the time.'
A gratefully smile appeared on his lips, but that dismal expression returned when he asked about Harmony. 'Have you seen her?'
'She's having dinner with the warden.' I said, refusing to protect him from the truth. 'She's safe at least.'
'Not with that man, Danny. Not with him. The way he looks at her…'
His hand clenched rock at the window.
'You're the one she loves!' I hissed. 'We all know it! Harmony just needs time, that's all. She'll come round if she hasn't already.'
'I lied to her. To all of you.'
Frustrated, I exhaled. Determined to feel sorry for him, I was ready to leave Eddinray to sulk when an idea came to me. Peering down the vacant corridor, I called out the name of Virgil, immediately, and as see through as ever, the good-looking poet appeared before us. I first apologised for the lateness of the hour, then asked my questions — 'I need information Virgil: can you tell me how many times Napoleon has fought here in the past? Specifically duels with other inmates?'
'During his rein,' Virgil returned, 'Bonaparte has fought twenty seven duels in the courtyard: twenty-one hand to hand, three with blade and one with joust.'
'And has he ever lost?'
'The warden has never been defeated.' he said, candidly. 'He could not live with the shame, yet his addiction to victory demands that he toy with that possibility.'
This news did not ease mine, or Eddinray's mind. 'Can you tell me anything Virgil,' I asked, desperate; 'anything that might advantage us tomorrow morning?'
Courteously, the ghost smiled, but this time said nothing. He couldn't, and I understood.
'One last thing.' I added. 'If we win, will we be allowed to walk free from this place? Can Napoleon's word be…trusted?'
Grimly, the poet shook his head, and the heart sank in my chest.
'No-one leaves the 9th Fortress,' he said; 'if you happen to succeed tomorrow, there are measures in place to prevent any escape.'
'These measures?' Eddinray asked; but Virgil would reveal no more to us, and promptly vanished to whoever needed him most.
Subdued, I leant against the crooked window, searching the side of Eddinray's demoralised face.
'Defeat Napoleon.' I said, simply. 'Take him down and let me worry about the rest.'
'How can I win against that man? I am not brave, Danny! I may wear the mask of a hero but it's not in my blood. I am not Kat!'
Angry, I took him by the arms and shook. I wanted him to see the confidence in my face now, to inspire some belief. 'I remember hanging from a post in the wizard's stockade, so scared and alone. One night a man came to me with compassionate words and a sponge to clear the blood from my face. That was you Eddinray! Moments from being torn apart by the Scurge, and with no hope left, I watched you charge from that temple door, your sword held high toward two hundred bogs, a monster and a wizard. We fought a horde of rats side by side in the
