"And we thank you very much indeed!" cried Harmony, exasperated. "Godwin, there are times when you need a good kick up the backside!"
My laugh was cut short by the sight of maggots, slithering up a crack of labyrinth stone. Rodents came next, scurrying every so often along rails with their chubby bodies and wiggling tails.
"Filthy things!" complained Eddinray, attempting a swipe at them.
"You fear them?" inquired Harmony.
Her innocent question caused the knight's body to seize up, his ego badly bruised by her assumption. "A man of my abilities fearing a little rat?" he choked. "The suggestion is comical!"
"It is far from a comical matter,” she replied. "I detest worms, and they are even smaller than rats!"
"You fear worms?" he chortled back. "My dear darling angel, what a precious little sprite you are!"
Eddinray then let out a brief, feminine shriek as one rat squiggled between his legs. Amused, we three hurried on Kat's order to join him and Wisp at another fork in the labyrinth — the hunched over Wisp taking the right route with a step and limp, a step and limp.
We took the following left and were left speechless by the new corridor of horror on display. Walls were no longer made of stone, but of living bodies — men, woman, and children lashing their bare arms and legs. This was the Hell we'd all been waiting for, the Hell one cannot prepare for.
"The wall of tears,” said Wisp, grimly. "Be careful on your way."
Aghast, Harmony and Eddinray covered their mouths at this vision of screwed up skin and jammed together faces. Although I could not see Wisp's expression, I assumed it was similar to Kat's — emotionless, like the dull doctor examining his hundredth patient that day.
"Save us!" one yelled. "Save us! The flood!"
"Single file,” advised Kat, starting through the narrow gap between their outstretched fingertips.
"Help me!" begged a young woman.
"She can't be more than sixteen years old!" said Harmony, mortified. "And the children, these poor children! What could they have done to warrant such a sentence?"
"There are no children here,” said Wisp, over his shoulder. "Look closer angel…do not let them trick you into their forlorn hands. This is what they want."
These words in mind, I surveyed the face of what I thought was a child, and repellently, that young expression instantly wrinkled old and toothless before me.
"How did they get here?" asked Eddinray, bringing up the rear.
"We wander insignificantly in the labyrinth," answered Wisp, "as these souls did in life. Aimlessly frittering ones time away with no cares, no hopes or dreams. They are waste. All of it waste."
"The flood!" they moaned. "Coming! Do not leave us to it! Pull me from this! No more!"
"Eternity they spend in the wall of tears," concluded Wisp; "and the hands of time move slow here."
The merchant ignored them, as did his new disciple, Kat. Unfortunately, Harmony, Eddinray and I were not as thick skinned.
"Do not leave us!"
"It's coming!"
"The flood!"
"God help us!"
"You help us!"
Caught off guard, Harmony was suddenly snatched by the wrist and pulled into a frenzy of tugging arms and skewed faces. A stubbly man with a hairy chest held onto her, and lustfully he gorged over her unblemished skin.
"Alright my darling'" he said, his lips dotted with sores. "How about a rub?"
"Help!" she grimaced, fighting him. "Godwin!"
Already on the case, the knight was in amongst them. The monster clutching Harmony meanwhile lovingly slobbered his tongue over her mouth. "Been a long time since I've tasted a woman!" he groaned. "A long time!"
Incensed, Eddinray whaled, slicing the groper's arms from the wall. He then yanked Harmony by the wings and safely from the walls clutches. Gasping, the pair watched as those decapitated limbs rejoined the wall of tears with a slithering will of their own. The large creep then laughed, trying to tempt Harmony back with his tongue.
"Fiend!" roared Eddinray, preparing to stab that face.
"No Godwin!" Harmony cried, taking hold of him. "He's not worth it. None of them are."
"She's right,” I said, looking back. "Be more careful! Come on!"
And so we continued in stricter formation. Word quickly passed around the wall that we travellers were not here to help, thus their begging ended, and a vile barrage of cursing and spitting began.
"You scum! You dirty, filthy scum!"
"Better than us? You're no better than us you rotten knight! You stupid, prick ugly samurai!"
"Hells high and fucking mighty coming through!"
"There's a boy over there! You'd leave a child to face the flood? A child?"
"They'd leave their own mothers this lot!"
"Keep walking you selfish bastards! That's right, and don't look back!"
Thankfully, we found their cursing easier to ignore.
The lamenting tapestry stretched onto exhaustion, and we five endured it without rest or conversation. Relief came when Wisp led us a curving right turn and finally away from the morbid sights, if not sounds — we would be hearing their pathetic whining in the background for some time yet.
This fresh section of the labyrinth had no wall of tears, but those numerous iron grates at our feet, and the remains of recent travellers bunched in mounds against the walls. Across our path lay one ravaged corpse. There was a longbow over the bile and guts, a quiver full of arrows and a red bandanna. There was also the blood, spattered liberally.
"It's him!" yelled Harmony, running to the pieces.
"A friend of yours?" asked Wisp, recovering his old breath.
"We knew him,” I said, gathering round. "Christ, there's nothing left…"
Apart from weapons, there was no identifying trace of the Apache in this collection of organs and bones, but we all knew it was him. "The perils of the labyrinth,” said Wisp. "Experience is not nearly enough."
The green-skinned merchant crouched to wander his hand over the bloodied chunks.
"The soul has moved onto something very small,” he said. "A fly perhaps. There is nothing we can do for him now."
Sombre faced, Harmony bent to retrieve the bandanna "We never should have let him go,” she said, folding it through her fingers.
"Take his weapon,” Kat ordered, prodding her clasp. "You have none."
"I can't do that!" she exclaimed. "It is disrespectful! Besides, I cannot use a longbow."
"Neither could he,” was Kat's cold-hearted reply, flippancy that made my blood boil.
"Where is your respect?" I asked, thumping my fist against his red chest plate.
Kat warned me with his squint, slapped away my fist then strode for the next bend, with Wisp hobbling after him.
"Take the longbow Harmony,” I said, scowling at Kat's back. "It's not right to use it, but it wouldn't be right to leave it."
"Go on dear,” added Eddinray. "You do need to arm yourself here."
Reluctantly, Harmony picked up the longbow from the pieces and secured the quiver over her shoulder. "I will see part of you out of here,” she said, wrapping the red bandanna around her forehead, holding back her golden fringe and hardening an otherwise wholesome appearance.
"Suits you,” said Eddinray, with a hollow smile.
Walking to Kat, I searched his face for the warmth I had seen before, but there was none of it now. "You don't care about a thing do you?" I asked, watching spittle drool down the prickly hairs of his chin. He didn't wipe it, but brushed me off to take the turn with Wisp.
"Your friends are a high spirited lot,” I heard Wisp say.
"They," he snarled back, "are not my friends."
***
Blood mired our way past corpses old and new. Greedy rodents scavenged through theses remains and left with what they could between their front teeth. "Appalling,” gawked Eddinray. "What villainous abomination could cause such gruesome destruction?"