"Are you well, Daniel?" Harmony asked. "The eye?"
"It hurts,” I said, sorely. “That fucking wizard.”
"It is in the past,” Kat groaned. "The future promises worse."
I cursed him under my breath, sat myself on the cliff edge and dangled my feet to those yellow labyrinth lines a thousand feet south of me. Wondering what made it glow so hypnotically, Eddinray startled me by appearing at my right side, and then Harmony to my left.
"Do not feel grim,” she said, putting her arm around me. "If you hadn't come to that stockade then I'd still be caged today. I thank you for that, Daniel."
"Exactly!" beamed Eddinray. "And I insist that you cheer up, for I already have one grumpy guts in my gang,” He glanced back to our surly sentinel against the barrel.
"Your gang?" Harmony chuckled. "What hogwash you speak, Englishman!"
Their warmth inspired a grin from me, then a smile at their resulting squabble.
"Kat is leader in name only,” Eddinray argued. "His title is superficial and totally inappropriate considering the credentials of others here."
"You mean you?" she said, before planting a soft, and unwarranted kiss on my cheek.
"Where's my kiss?" the knight unashamedly asked. "Are my continued heroics not enough to deserve one?”
"It is not a question of deserve Godwin, but of formality. I would not dare kiss the leader! What would his subjects think? Not to mention the nobility who frown at favourites!"
"Fine!" he huffed back. "Danny boy, will give me a kiss, won't you Danny?"
"No!" I answered, through a snicker.
"Kiss the Kat," added Harmony; "it may cheer him up!"
Again, Eddinray peered back to the samurai warrior, only to meet a pair of black eyes wishing him a slow and excruciating death. With that then, and in much better spirits, we rested ourselves for the labyrinth
***
Kat's forehead slunk until chin touched his chest, and as his heavy eyelids closed to sleep, a spattering of water roused him. Irritable, he peered up at the barrel, and there saw a thirsty man taking his fill. When that new arrival removed his sopping face from the water, he experienced the sharp tip of a katana pressing against his swallowing Adam's apple.
Dark skinned and ripened by age and sun, the man's exposed torso was chiselled and decorated with elaborate tattoos. A red bandanna held a mop of straw hair at bay, and his dusty pants blew tassels down each leg. This barefooted Indian was armed with a useful looking longbow, and the quiver over his shoulder contained a dozen or more arrows. "Savage!" spat Kat. "Back away! Or I make a ghost of you!"
All of us light sleepers in Hell, we woke. Despite the threat of Kat's sword, the Indian aimed his fingertips toward the longbow, causing Kat to press his blade further into that throat.
"I never need a reason…" he hissed.
"Who are you?" asked Harmony, repulsed by the many dried scalps dangling from the Indian's belt.
Still holding eyes with Kat, the Indian moved his hand clear away from the bow. "Can a man clench his thirst?" he asked, voice low and respectful.
"Help yourself,” I answered, sitting up. "As much as you want."
"He already has!" complained Kat, lowering his sword. “Thief!”
"If you have one," pried Harmony, "pray tell us your name?"
The Indian dunked his leather flask into the barrel, then said. "I was once Goyathlay, then Geronimo. Now I am merely a nameless Apache who no longer wishes harm onto anyone."
"Where did you come from?" I said; while he took a satisfied guzzle from his bottle.
"I have come from the desert,” he returned, wiping the water from his lips. "The longest…desert."
He sat without invitation, seemingly untroubled by the peculiarity of our group. Then, crossing his legs over, he removed a crooked pipe and small pouch of leaves from his belt.
In silence and patience, we watched him part the leaves of the pouch, revealing a small tuft of purple moss. The Apache, who preferred to remain nameless, graciously smiled before stuffing the fat end of the pipe with his unusual stash. A match seemed unnecessary, for as soon as he took a drag from the pipe, a thick purple gas exhaled from his nostrils.
Enjoying his smoke, this individual seemed to know the workings of every cog around him.
Harmony appeared over Kat's shoulder now, whispering. "This man is okay."
Kat fixed her with a rapid scowl, and Harmony recoiled like a child to the always-willing side of Eddinray. I gave the Indian our names now, and apart from the uncompromising samurai, the others pleasantly nodded.
"Kat?" the Apache pondered, with a scratch at his chin. "Your story is common in all corners."
Unamused, Kat approached him and for a moment, I thought he was going to slap the pipe from our guest's lips. "What do you know of me savage?" he asked.
The Apache did not appear offended, or afraid of any confrontation. He was in fact, positively serene when he took another suck from his pipe. "I have been long in the fire,” he said. "They say Kat, that you are the only bird to ever fly from our nest. Yet here you are with us in the flesh."
"He did escape!" I said, feeling a strange urge to defend Kat's legend. To this, the Apache expressed a melting grin over his weathered face. "Fine company…is a rare blessing,” he said, mellow eyes investigating. "The labyrinth…is your destination?"
"None of your business,” the samurai snipped.
"Ah, yes!" Harmony exclaimed, embarrassed by Kat's rudeness. "We start tomorrow. Then onto the 9thFortress."
Outraged by her free flapping tongue, Kat kicked the barrel like he would Harmony's head. "What's the harm?" she shrugged back. "Seems everyone already knows where we're going!"
The Indian refilled his lungs and held the smoke in his system while he spoke.
"I have seen the angels of death dragging souls to the 9thFortress. I have heard the gruesome stories of what goes on there. Yet you seek it out? Why is this?"
"We have our reasons,” I said. "And what of you, friend? Do you have a destination?"
The thick-skinned man did not mind the question. "My spirit has no wish to leave Hell,” he returned, expelling the smoke from his nostrils. "Here is where I wander. In the pit is where I search for my Heaven."
"Heaven?" scoffed Eddinray. "Surely not here man!"
"Heaven," he beamed back, "is more than a kingdom in the clouds. It is wish — it is desire."
"And what do you desire?" asked Harmony, profoundly intrigued by him.
The Apache roamed an eye over his rough palms, and then whispered, "I no longer follow the warpath, and never will again. I seek something more than the blood of the Mexican or white man. I seek the rebirth and inner peace of a righteous heart. This is my wish. This is my desire."
We looked amongst ourselves, quietly impressed with this lost soul. "What is your wish?" he asked Kat, tapping his heel with an offering — his pipe and a puff from it. Kat expressed contempt that suggested refusal, but to our astonishment, he accepted the pipe and took it to his lips.
"To be heard,” he growled, filling his lungs with smoke. "Only that."
The drug's sensation lasted mere seconds on Kat's face, but long enough to show the softer side of it. Promptly regaining himself, he passed the pipe over to me.
Unconcerned, I placed it between my lips then shared my own wish — "To see her face again."
And sucking in smoke like a pro, I snorted it back out again like an adolescent. Embarrassed, I gave the pipe to Eddinray, who caressed it nervously.
"What's wrong?" I asked him, feeling ill myself.
"I can't,” he mumbled, after a gulp. "They make me…dizzy."