THE SIX ARCHES OF THE KING

Josef sat alone on the old sofa. 

He liked it down there under the six arches. 

Sometimes he slept there. It was so quiet. So peaceful. Away from the bustle of the world. The rumble of the trains didn't bother him when he slept. There weren't many anyway. Maybe the milk train during the night. He dreamt of the milk sloshing around in its tanks. Its creamy goodness. Essential. Like white blood.

Josef wasn't essential. Not anymore. He was a tramp. A vagabond. A traveler of roads and rummager of bins. He lived on the rim of society and nobody noticed him. He was nothing. Like lint or lather. Existing but disappearing.

He had once been important. He had once commanded men. But he didn't think about that anymore. That was eons ago and now was now.

He tightened the string around his waste and hunkered down into his huge tweed coat given to him years before. It was rank now. Thick with filth but it kept Jo warm on cold nights like this. He took one more swig of stale rum from a half empty bottle he'd found in the fields and closed his eyes.

It was late March and the stars were out in force, punctuating the grand stanzas of the heavens above him. He felt the weight of the arcing sky and dreamt of Atlas holding up the world in his shoulders. Poor bugger. All those worries.

Orion's belt was clear as day and Betelgeuse winked and blinked its red lashes. It would be a hard frost in the morning and Jo drew his knees up in anticipation. He slept. Cold and without sound.

In the morning, despite bright sunshine, the fields near the arches were sugared with rime. Jo eased into a seated position on the split settee and stretched his old limbs, his arms reaching up as he groaned himself awake. He was frozen to the bone and took a cold nip for breakfast. He rolled some shag into a rizla and licked the edge. The thin cigarette was barely flammable but Jo lit it with expert hands and inhaled deeply. Five leaves left Nick Drake had said. Five leaves left.

Whilst Jo was finishing his roll-up he heard a scraping sound. He keened his good ear and sensed something coming through the haystack. Gradually a small dark creature emerged from the hay and walked very slowly toward him on four legs. It had a rounded back and a scaly head. It was clearly a tortoise.

It sat on its hind legs and stared up at Josef.

"You're a bastard to find old man!" The tortoise shouted.

"Pardon, you foul turtle! How did you address me!" Jo replied indignantly.

"I said you're a right bastard to find and I'm not a fuckin' turtle! I'm a tortoise and a herald of the King!"

"Which King are you referring to turtle?"

"THE King, you old fart, the King of the World!"

"Never heard of him!"

"I suppose you've forgotten who you are too you old twat haven't you?"

"I'm Josef Ruhig. A nobody. So please turtle, why don't you go away and leave me alone."

"A nobody! Are you stupid or what? You really have forgotten. The King was right. He said you'd let yourself go and allow the addictive world take over your heart you fuckin' junkie fool."

"I told you. I'm Josef Ruhig. And I'm off the drugs if you must know. I'm just down on my luck at the moment."

"You, my old grizzly friend, are not Josef Ruhig. You are the King's greatest warrior and the Marshall of all his armies. You are the Wizard of Silence!"

"I don't know what you're talking about but I'm nothing of the sort!"

"Oh for fucks sake. Wake up Wizard! I'm going to have to show you. Place me on your head!"

"No!"

"Do it or else I'll follow your stinking carcass forever!"

"Alright reptile. Alright!"

Josef placed the tortoise on his head and immediately stiffened on his sofa. Somehow he saw new things in his mind. Things that seemed vaguely familiar. Things long forgotten he sensed.

Eons melted away to a younger world. A battle raged on a burning plane. Corpses lay everywhere, broken and bloodied. The remaining sides clashed swords and lances as armour was rended open and shafts split. Warriors heaved and gaping wounds bled seas of blood upon the injured earth. It fizzed as lava bubbled over it. At the centre of the fray stood a lone elder, a blue wizard. 

Towering before him stood a huge winged demon, a black angel with vast outstretched wings dripping with blood. In her claws was a head torn from its roots, the head of the King. The King of all the World.

Suddenly the his eyes opened and he spoke.

"Wizard of Silence. The task is yours. I am dead. Your King is dead. Take the sword from my hand. Take Revealer and silence this damned Queen for all time. For if you do not she will kill all the world and eat. She will eat you all forever!"

The Wizard was shaking. He was uncertain if the Queen was witness to the King's last words. He stared at her slavering smile and godless eyes.

"Wizard. You shriveling eunuch. You stink of fear. You stink of defeat. Your bastard King is gone and I, the Queen of Lies, will trample you into dust. Can you not feel the gossamers of your dogpiss world tearing apart. It is the beginning of the end that I am bringing to you all. The reign of lies that will last for always."

The black angel twisted and threw the King's head far across the field and turned to end the sniveling man. This was all the time he needed to take the Revealer from his monarch's stiff hand and bellowing he swung it upwards in a colossal arc toward the demon's skeletal chest. It struck true and sliced through gristle and bone and nicked the fetid chamber of her suspended heart.

The Queen of Lies looked down dumbstruck at the appalling wound. She fell to her knees, black gore puddling. The Wizard swung Revealer once more and her ribs parted like a doorway, her stinking innards falling like wet curtains on the field. She gawped at him.

"Wha..!" Was all she gargled before collapsing in a bath of her blood and smoking pluck.

The wizard cut off her head and fed it to the battle dogs. He cut off her tongue and threw it to the crows. He ripped out her heart and buried it in the blessed soil where the King had fallen. He rammed Revealer across her ribs like a jamb and kicked the ant-hill over her necrotic form.

"Remain here black Queen. Remain here with your bubonic lies for all eternity. Let the Earth keep you in this plagued field until its own time is ended only by the cold ceasing of the heavens".

The wizard turned away from the silent battleground, the only sounds were ants feeding.

In the distance were the six gleaming doorways of the King's palace to which he walked. They would continue to gleam as long as he lived.

Old Joe remembered it all through the occulus of the tortoise. He shook and gently removed the creature off his head.

You saw?

I saw.

Then you see who you really are Joe Ruhig. You are the Wizard of Silence. The wielder of Revealer.

Yes. I see now small creature.

Then you will also see that the world once more hangs on a thread. Its weft is fraying. Its heart is dying. Mankind is at war with itself and it is the Black Queen's doing. Like a child she whips the wasps nest. An evil brat returning from her slumber. Can you feel it Wizard?

I can. I sense her dreadful presence even here and it is to the six doorways she will come. And she will come soon.

They both sat staring at the darkest corner of the cemetery. Where the statue of a black angel stood.

It was the ants they felt first. Thousands of them scurrying around their feet. Her emissaries. Formic heralds. The statue was cracking.

Next came the moles in their hundreds with soiled paws. They had been busy. The Queen's gravediggers. Her corpse was rising.

Then came the crows. Silent. Tongueless. They had donated to their Lady. Her lies were growing in her mouth again.

The black Queen stood in her ancient ditch, an accursed bed soiled over untold  millennia. Acolytes eager to please had made the plot a modern grave graced with an effigy .

Time had freed her. The seas of time. Revealer, the immortal sword pinning the Queen to the spot like an insect, slackened

She grabbed the hilt and pulled the blade slowly from her chest, where it stood fused through her sternum. She raised it aloft and whispered its name.

"Revealer!"

Gripping it she stepped from her obliterated grave and exclaimed her freedom to an unknowing world, an appalling yell from the dungeons of the dark from which she'd crawled.

"I AM HERE!"

The ground shook and gravestones toppled. The bell on the tower peeled once and cracked. The sky darkened and the sun turned black, the clouds melting like floss. Grindings and rumblings were heard as the earth buckled. Thunder clapped her dreadful bow.

The Queen of Lies sauntered across the cemetery dragging her sword's tip along the asphalt path. Sparks flew and cavorted on the tattered hem of her sable robe. She plucked cut flowers from vases and ate them and licked the hot wax of burning candles with her purple tongue.

As she walked terrible hands came up from the graves like repulsive flowers. They fingered the air and rook the strain, heaving their hosts out of the ground. The dead were rising.

More and more of the graves' residents joined the throng falling in behind the dark lady. They stared at one another and pushed and shoved, earth falling off their rotting husks.

"Come my pretties!" The Queen beckoned.

"We shall make the whole world a grave. Come with me to Hell."

Joe rose from his derelict sofa under the arch. He hid the tortoise in his knapsack and knelt on one knee ad a runner would. He fling off his dilapidated coat and stared straight ahead at the Queen.

"I am Josef, Wizard of Silence and guardian of the Six Arches. You will go no further evil one!"

Some unseen hand swept away the old man's age and Josef began to run as he had on the battle-fields when the world was young and he was the champion of the truth.

The black Queen crouched, Revealer tight in her grip. Her rotting vassals surged forward in a sea of decay.

Josef roared through them, sending them spinning and tearing. All the beasts of the land and air followed and smothered the Wizard in a blanket of teeth and fur.

But he prevailed and shook them off. He glared at his old adversary and knew the fate of the world lay in Revealer silencing the Queen again as it had eons ago. This time the lies must be stilled forever.

Josef hurtled towards the dark monarch and leapt high above her head reaching for Revealer as he did. He clasped the hilt and the Queen's grip slackened. Her lips frowned and she looked into the deep wells of her enemies eyes

"Josef!" She whispered, "I love you! I always have!"

Momentarily confused by this admission Josef slowed but realised too late the true mission of her lie.

She grabbed his neck and pulled Josef down with so much force that the  sword went through him completely and it emerged still in her reptilian hand.

"Be silent Wizard. Be silent for me!".

The Queen tore out his tongue and threw it to the baying herd. His heart she ate like an apple and sucked on the gossamer of his dying soul. The King and his Wizard were gone.

The fell monarch marched with the dead towards the darkening gates of Hell. They passed through all six arches and she took her place in the court of flies.

Without its King or his Wizard, the world turned in on itself and went black as a plague of deceit raged across it lands forever.