The Champion of the Sunrise Kingdom

The lambent eye of the great floating whale closed, and its voice, which had been relaying battle commands into the mind of Taranis Alterguit since nightfall, ceased. Out of breath from combatting his enemies, Taranis beheld the slumbering village below. He swung his blood-slaked sword in a broad arc, its ebony blade dully flickering the reddish glow of the dawning sun.

“This land is mine,” he yelled from the slanting rise on which he stood, “and I am its champion!”

“For the love of Christ,” someone shouted from below. “Do you mind?”

Taranis lifted his sword higher. “I am the champion of Oned the Whale, sole champion of the Sunrise Kingdom. Thunder! They shout when I come in. Thunder! When I go out. Hear my cry and let thy heart rest in safety, dear citizen.”

“Thank you, Champion,” the voice from below, a man’s voice, cried out again. “But can you maybe do your championing somewhere else? Quietly? ”

Another voice, probably the man’s wife, murmured something Taranis could not hear.

“I live to protect thy welfare, Citizen!”

And when neither the citizen nor his wife responded, Taranis sheathed his darksword, clunked over to the sloped side of the bluff and eased himself onto a lower ridge. Conscious of Oned’s dark form floating silently in the pale star-speckled sky, he hopped the sandstone boulders strewn across the beach, taking them one by one, and arrived at another rise, where he drew his sword once again.

“This land is mine,” he bellowed. “I am its champion!”

******

“Would you like water, Terry?” Marma asked. “Or maybe food? My treat.”

“Nay,” he said. “And please, call me by my trueborn name, Taranis.”

“Okay, sugar.”

The tavern was dim, crowded. Citizens of the Sunrise Kingdom drank; Taranis watched. He’d been protecting this nameless village for almost a full month now under the command of Oned, and yet the Darkness only felt like it had grown.

“Hey, Champion,” a bald man slurred.

Taranis regarded him warily as he hobbled over and pitched himself into the stool beside him at the bar.

“Fight any dragons lately?”

The bar folk cackled. A bleary-eyed dwarf doubled over onto the ground, spilling a flagon of ale onto a lizard-man’s shoe. They looked at each other and howled laughter.

Although he had faced such winged beasts (he had the burn marks to prove it), Taranis didn’t answer. He knew telling them would do nothing except further the harrying.

“Let him be,” Marma commanded. “Terry, don’t listen to them.”

She placed a flushed hand over his and flicked a curl of golden hair over her shoulder. Taranis noticed her breasts, bunched up in a red kirtle as if on display. He felt himself stiffen beneath the foreplate of his tasset. He tried not to stare but it couldn’t be helped. Her eyelids drooped and, not at all minding his gaze, she leaned in towards him, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. He breathed in her lilac scent and the uproarious laughter of the harriers seemed to quiet. The stooped, drunken figures in his peripherals blurred and it was only the two of them, her hand on his, their eyes transfixed. Her lips parted. He noticed how full and sumptuous they looked and imagined what it would be like to entwine them with his own. He was pretty sure he was in love with her—and would have acted on that love if it weren’t for his higher calling. As it was, he could not afford such distractions. Before she could draw closer, he withdrew his hand. He quickly buckled his sword belt, fastened his gauntlets, and made for the exit as the jesting persisted.

“He’s off!” Someone chided. “More monsters to slay, no doubt!”

“Terry, wait!” Marma yelled after him, but he had already barged out the doors and into the harsh afternoon sunlight. He’d decided the Darkness was not currently manifesting in the Tumbled Tree Tavern.

Outside, various shopfronts stretched out for a thousand paces on either side of Marma’s tavern, facing Main Street and the beach and sea beyond. Horse-drawn carts wheeled through the hardpack. On the other side of the road a cobbled pathway curved along the shoreline. To the north, the Fountain Cliffs—a jumble of low rock upthrusts Taranis called home—huddled like an assortment of steepled gray hands. He inhaled deeply—This land is mine and I am its champion—waited for a cart filled with shrieking children to pass, and then crossed for the pathway.

Oned floated in the sky above the beach. Citizens claimed the whale god was an inanimate sail, referring to a tether-line which supposedly moored it to Beol’s Barge. But Taranis knew better; he knew Oned was alive. And whenever he gazed at the grooves of its fish-belly chin and its translucent fins and saw its great pale eye staring down at him, he knew the call to arms was not far behind. He’d do anything to make sure there wasn’t a hint of disappointment in that eye. It was closed now but he needed to be battle-ready should it open and fix him with its providential gaze. Picking up his stride, he hurried north.

Red-and-blue banners, ribbons, and twirlers lined spaces in the rafters of wooden concession stands and flapped from the arches above the pathway. Villagers wore similarly colored hats, some straw, some wool or brimmed leather—all of them dyed the red-and-blue colors of the Olifads, the ruling family of the Sunrise Kingdom. Taranis drew strange glances as he passed. This wasn’t an extraordinary occurrence; to war successfully against the forces of the Darkness he wore heavy armor at all times.

“Hail,” an elven vendor cried joyously. “Where is your woman, man? Sick at home?”

The elf seemed familiar to Taranis, but he couldn’t place him.

“I know naught of what you speak, elf.”

The elf’s face took on a queer expression, as if recalling something that troubled him. “Your lady? She had dark hair, the one I am thinking of. And a scar. Here.” He raised a lithe finger to his cheekbone. “I could’ve sworn I saw you together at the last Carnival, the last time I was in the Sunrise Kingdom.”

The image of a woman with straight black hair flashed in Taranis’s mind. She bit her lip seductively and considered him with a ravenous look in her eyes. The image vanished just as suddenly as it had appeared, and he was left with an empty, sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, along with the faint impression that he should know her name, or had known it before but had forgotten. He felt he should remember such a woman. Stay your mind! He thought, reprimanding himself. The only thing that matters is the Darkness.

“I’m very sorry, dear elf,” Taranis said, blinking away the absurd tears streaking down his face. He considered the elf’s wares: red-and-blue hats, incandescent necklaces, and dark-stoned rings studded with silver and gold. He then continued up the shoreline, wiping at his face with his forearm lacings.

Throngs of villagers crowded against him for the pavilion on Beol’s Barge where there would soon be live music and cannon blasts to commemorate King Olifad. He smelled the wafting rich aromas of glazed pastries, fried mutton, and lemon-drenched seafood, and could not help but admire the presence of beachgoers. Children chased each other and built sand towers and dove in the surf. Their parents and relatives reclined in the cool of the day, enjoying iced ale and the bronzening seaside view. The tone of conversation, while indistinct to him, carried joy and lightheartedness, an utter lack of care, of tension. A feeling of euphoria came over Taranis; it lightened the armor on his shoulders and coolly pricked the back of his neck with gooseflesh. He found himself looking forward to sunset, no matter how much he dreaded the night and ensuing combat with the Darkness. He was the reason they were all at ease, whether they recognized it or not. For him to know it was enough.

Arriving at the cliffs, he paced a section of the pathway near a small cave in the lower bluffs where he slept most nights. As the sun set and the day darkened, the villagers became fewer and fewer. He could see the barge down the shoreline, lighting the churning sea like a great lantern, and above it, the dark outline of Oned floating in the sky. Through the gathering darkness he saw its eye, an oval of sheer white, draw open. A voice echoed in his head: “The time is nigh, Champion. Strike down our enemy and rise unto the realm above, the kingdom of everlasting light, where darkness cannot reign, and pain is an ever-distant memory.”

Taranis kneeled. He raised the hilt of his darksword so its cold metal pressed up against the tip of his nose. “I will not fail to answer the call. Show me thy glory, O Great Whale.”

He flinched at the first cannon, rearing his sword and scaring off a gaggle of seagulls. After two more cannons sounded, the Darkness approached. A horned demon with flickering red eyes and a javelin clutched in its gnarled claws crawled out of the sand, its teeth bared and frothing.

Taranis was ready, sword drawn. The demon charged him. He feinted with his sword, striking at its side. The soldier of Darkness groaned, then leaped backwards, javelin raised. It came at him as it had before but at the last second, sidestepped into Taranis’s blindspot and landed a jerking blow against his helm. He reeled backwards, losing his sword, and hit the ground with a teeth-shattering clank.

He grinned. “Good one, Darkness.”

The demon was on him, gnashing at the chink in his armor for the soft of his neck. He let it gnash, let it think it had a chance at victory. Then he grabbed it by the throat with his gauntlets and clamped down brutally. The demon made a gurgling sound as he wrenched it sideways. Now on top, straddling it like a lover, Taranis squeezed and twisted until he heard a loud crack and a forked black tongue lolled out of the creature's mouth.

“Victor,” he breathed raggedly.

But there was nobody around to witness his victory or hail his great deed. Even the demon seemed unimpressed, frowning vacantly and open-mouthed into the night sky before seeping into the earth from whence it came.

******

“Terry?”

Taranis was nudged gently. He sat up, snuffling and crusty-eyed. “Whaaa?”

A figure stood above him, silhouetted in blinding sunlight. He shaded his face with his hand, which had been scorched and blackened along the fingertips by fire-breathing gargoyles that had followed the demon the night before. His upper lip felt like somebody had pressed a firebrand to it.

“Constable Dan,” Taranis said. “I could’ve used your help last night. The Darkness was thick.”

Dan scratched his mustache and sighed. “Terry, why don’t you go on home? I spoke with Sofia. She’s anxious for your return.”

Taranis knew of Sofia. She stayed in the Forbidden Place, the point at which the Darkness bridged into the Sunrise Kingdom twenty thousand paces east of this seacoast village. He recalled little else of her except for the foggy memory of a dark-skinned woman washing his back with a wet cloth as he wept. His bowels constricted. No, he thought. That memory is of Marma healing me after a run-in with the Darkness. He forced himself to think about how Oned had prohibited him from returning to Sofia. Considering how well he’d done of late to appease him in suppressing the forces of the Darkness, Taranis saw no reason to disobey a clear edict from the whale god, even from a kingdom official such as Dan. He supposed Oned was saving him for some final assault. And while he recognized his unrivaled combat prowess, he also understood there were some things he could not handle by himself. He did not answer the constable, only stared back, squinting in the sun.

Dan took off his hat. He kneeled in the sand so that his eyes were level with Taranis’s. “So what do you say, huh? What do you think about returning home?”

I must not show fear. Taranis tightened the buckle on his right armband. “Have reason, Constable. Your magister forbids you to join me in the fight against the Darkness, I know that well enough. If I were to retire, who would protect the citizens of this village from its nefarious purposes? All of us are at war, dear constable, some just don’t realize it. And if you don’t know you’re at war, how can you fight back? I stand in the breach for those who cannot fend for themselves!”

“You’re not—” Dan caught himself. He rotated his hat in his hands. His calloused fingers traced the stitch lining, careful and deliberate, so as not to break contact. He cleared his throat. “I just thought with all the constables out for Carnival, you might want to take a day or two off.” He looked at Taranis with raised eyebrows. “You’ve certainly earned it, I’d say.”

Taranis smiled. He scrambled shakily to his feet so that Dan’s face was a few inches from the ribbing of his chainmail. “So long as the Darkness threatens the Sunrise Kingdom, I will answer the call.” He reached for his darksword, grabbing at his bare waist, but it wasn’t there. He looked frantically around and found it leaning against the barnacle-encrusted flank of a large boulder at the mouth of his cave. After buckling himself and resetting his stance, he drew out the sword, hefting it above his head. “For this land is mine and I am its champion!”

Dan began to speak again but Taranis was no longer listening. Just above the constable’s wide-brimmed hat the dark form of Oned appeared. Its eye was open and it spoke in a low, cadenced voice.

“Go to the twisted mountain, my champion,” it said. “Go! Stamp out the Darkness and accomplish my will!”

******

Ravaged from his quest into the bowels of Mt. Spiral, Taranis stumbled down the mountain face. He paused for a moment to catch his breath, his heart thudding hard in his chest. The mountain had been more than he bargained for: monsters, demons, and giant parasitic bug-like walkers (these were new to him) had nearly run him through. He considered himself. Slashes had claimed skin and clothing alike. His blouse had been cut laterally, revealing one soft pink nipple through the bulk of chainmail covering his chest and abdomen. He looked up at the coiled peak, for which the mountain was named, and raised a mailed fist.

“It was a valiant effort, Darkness!”

His cry echoed along the clefts and ridges and off into the brief forest at the base of the mountain. He was about to trudge down the slope when he noticed a figure—a woman—standing near the peak, limned black in the rose-red evening sky like a burial cairn. He couldn’t see her features but swore she was waving at him. Pain twisted through his calf muscle.

“Marma, I need Marma.”

“I don’t have any coin,” he heard from someone he bumped into. Gracelessly, he reached the entrance of the Tumbled Tree Tavern, crashed through the doors, and was acquainted with hard mahogany wood. Laughter erupted from inebriated patrons. He stifled a smirk as he struggled to the bar. If only they had known what he’d faced down in the depths of that infested mountain. They wouldn’t be laughing then; they’d be praising and lauding him.

“What happened to you?” Marma asked, her lovely face contorted with concern. She sat him down in a booth.

“I ran into some trouble,” he said, grimacing as she touched a wound on his neck.

She scolded him, disappeared briefly, then came back with a basket in her arms. He let out a sigh of relief as she applied balm to his lacerations.

Abruptly, like a stutter-flash of lightning, a woman appeared next to Taranis, seated at the bar. She wore dark blue light armor. Her eyes were storm-gray, tinged with strands of amber. Her black hair was straight, combed, and she had a teardrop-shaped scar high on her right cheek. Neither Marma nor anyone else in the tavern seemed to notice her sudden appearance.

The woman drank deeply from a tankard of ale; some of it dribbled down the hollow of her neck. Taranis’s stomach lurched as she slammed down the pint glass and turned to him. He tried to say something, but his throat caught, which seemed to disappoint her. She paid for her drink and left. She’s not real, he told himself, watching her leave. But that sinking feeling had returned in his bowels—a feeling that she was about to do something rash, something final. A name came to him—Amelia—rising to the surface from somewhere deep within himself. Although he didn’t know why, or where the inclination came from, he knew he had to spare her. He stood up. “Wait!”

But she was gone. A few bargoers heckled him half-heartedly. Marma regarded him with somber upstaring eyes. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

He sat back down. “Nothing.” He fell into her gaze. The worry lines on her face calmed him. Contain yourself. It is simply wiles of the Darkness. Do not be so easily swayed!

“I don’t know how you keep doing this to yourself, Terry,” Marma said. “You really need to be more careful or you’ll end up in an ambulance.”

“What did you say?” He asked incredulously.

“I said, if you don’t watch yourself the constables are going to have to wheel you off to see the apothecary in Ultaria.”

Taranis’s head began to spin. Ambulance. He stood up again, daubing balm all over the surface of his armor.

“Hey!” Marma warned. “I’m not finished.”

“I need to leave, Marma. The Darkness…”

It was a lie, but he didn’t have to explain further. Marma nodded her head sullenly and said, “Please take care of yourself, Terry.”

As Taranis hobbled for the doors, eyes flexed straight ahead, he turned and corrected her. “Taranis,” he said. “Taranis Alturguit, Champion of the Sunrise Kingdom,” and left before she could respond.

Outside, the woman Amelia was nowhere to be seen. He surveyed the writhing crowd of patrons for the blue light armor and alighted, wide-eyed, on several citizens wearing the bright blue of the Olifads, but none of them were her. He didn’t know what to make of that strange sequence. Maybe it was the recurrence of a dream he’d had? He needed to recover his strength, to be lucid should the Darkness decide to strike. But he felt drawn towards her, like a child chasing after a ball.

Slowly, he made his way over to another elf vendor, this one darker than the one he’d met the day before, who was packing up shop for the day.

“Did you see the woman?” He stammered. “The one in blue armor?”

“I’m closed right now.” The elf continued packing his wares into a caravan, unfazed. Taranis clenched the hilt of his blade; the elf’s eyes goggled. “What woman?”

Taranis’s knees buckled. He steadied himself on the caravan. “She had straight black hair. And her eyes…”

The vendor stared at him shrewdly. “I did see a woman like that. She came out of the tavern a little while ago and headed south.”

Taranis broke away and hobbled south along the shoreline.

The sun was setting as he reached the southernmost part of town. Dimly lit torches lined the pathway. Waves crashed into the beach and withdrew furtively. He was about to set himself down against a dilapidated stable when roars erupted from the forest. He spun around as four smoky figures blurred out of the tree line, immediately setting their course to meet him. His instincts kicked in and he forgot about the woman Amelia. Drawing his sword, licking his lips, he shot toward the adversaries. Slash. Slice. The first aurafin became acquainted with his blade. The second tackled him, but he kept it at bay by pressing the flat of his sword against the creature’s furred neck. Its fangs lashed out ravenously for flesh. They rolled around in the dirt until he pinned the animal in the abdomen.

His wounds began to weigh him down. Blood stained his blouse and seeped from his mouth. He jumped the third creature, taking off its head with a glance. The fourth was only a pup. It dashed off, leaving a trail of dampened soil in its wake. Exhausted, Taranis sprawled out on a bench and looked up at specks of distant starlight. A soft breeze lofted.

“Hey.”

He sat bolt upright. Familiar eyes peered at him through the darkness.

“You’re that guy from the tavern.”

Amelia stepped into the torchlight and Taranis doubled back. Her eyes were fiercer than before. Her blue light armor seemed to glow. There was a sword, similar to his own, strapped diagonally across her back.

“Hello?” she said. Taranis grimaced from his wounds, which had ripped open during his fight with the aurafin.

“Hello,” he managed.

“Do you remember me?”

“Yeah, you’re the woman from the tavern.”

She was silent.

“Amelia…”

She looked at him with knit eyebrows. “Do you remember, Terry?”

A memory came to him—one more vivid than he had ever had. It slipped over him slowly, subtly. He was in a carriage—no, not a carriage… it’s like a carriage—and Amelia was next to him, her hand caressing his thigh lovingly.

“I’m so proud of you, sweetheart,” she said. “Really.”

He smiled. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so warm inside.

“Thanks, babe.” The words weren’t his own, but the voice was, although he wondered at the dialect.

He noticed movement beside him as he focused on driving the horses—No, it’s some kind of leather-bound wheel within a metal box, no horses.

“I wanted to wait until we got home,” Amelia said. “But I think I’d like to give it to you on the beach. The ocean is so calm tonight. Can you pull off, love?”

“Sure,” he said, and then, seeing the twin beams of light careening across the paved road, coming at them straight on, he wailed, “Amelia!”

Taranis jerked awake on the bench. The beach and road were empty; Amelia was nowhere to be seen. His face was soaked, as if he’d been weeping.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to pull, Darkness,” he roared. “But I won’t fall for it. Though I am weak and injured and walk in the darkness, Oned is strong! Supply me with your strength, oh my god.”

Time passed. An hour. Two. And still he could barely move. A fog gathered steadily, masking the stars and sea, although he could still hear the crash and billow of the waves. He was about to give in and try to sleep, despite approaching nightfall and his vulnerable position on the bench, when a large figure descended from the sky. There was a keening tremor; a flurry of wind whipped around him. Something enormous and dark had landed in the middle of Main Street, but the fog masked its features. Taranis figured it for a dragon, a large serpent from the bowels of the Darkness, and suddenly felt he could move again. Oned had answered his prayer, but it had come with a cost! He steeled himself, wielded his darksword, and limped towards the road.

“I know my allegiances, Darkness,” he breathed. “I will not forget you.”

The fog was too thick to see Oned but he imagined its white eye twinkling down at him with satisfied approval. The monster groaned and creaked malevolently. He stepped into the street and heard a shriek from behind him, but before he could turn towards the source of the sound, a wall of darkness collided with him. He went airborne and lost all feeling in his body, as if he were being fully submerged in a vat of Marma’s numbing balm. As he soared through the air, he glimpsed fog-shrouded stretches of the beach he risked his life protecting and smiled. He thought about the warm feeling he’d felt in his memory of Amelia. Now, more than all else, he yearned for that feeling to return.

Taranis landed beside the bench, sprawled out and limp bodied.

******

Officer Dan Sawyer was having one hell of a week. Kids had vandalized the commons area with profanity and phallic symbols (again), the department was understaffed for Fourth of July weekend, and then there’d been Terry Applegate to deal with. But the aperitive cherry on top had just been served. He’d just reached the town limits in his cruiser, thinking about the rest of his night, which involved a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, a few Coors Lites, and the Red Sox vs. Yankees game on TiVo. Then dispatch had called in about a hit and run back at the beach. Of course, every other unit was either busy or unresponsive. Hell, Dan could do it, right? He was always around to pick up the slack.

“Ten-four, Daisy,” he mumbled into the radio. Cursing under his breath, he swerved his cruiser back towards the beach, knocking down a sign that read: “D.A.R.E: To resist drugs and violence” in thick red lettering.

******

A heavy fog had set in along the beach. Even with his high beams on the visibility was only a few feet at best. Dan pulled his cruiser into an empty lot where just hours before thousands of people had been celebrating America’s independence with fireworks, sparklers, and live music. A Goodyear blimp had visited for the occasion, floating above all the festivities, and had been an enormous hit with the kids. Now the waterfront was dark, murky, and vacant except for a few homeless people drunkenly dozing beneath the mainstage of the Shell Dome.

Dan exited his cruiser and ran into the fog. He followed the double median, flicking a flashlight forward in case of approaching traffic, until he glimpsed flashing taillights ahead and heard a hissing sound that might’ve been escaping coolant. He picked up his stride. A black SUV had collided into a telephone pole. He surveyed the vehicle quickly—it was completely totaled, its front bumper and hood crumpled up against the pole like fat folds. Besides a few drops of blood on the driver’s seat, there weren’t any signs of injury. He stumbled around in the fog for a few minutes before hearing loud, frantic voices.

“Police!” He announced. “Where are you?”

“Over here!” A woman whimpered. She sounded out of breath.

Dan ran in the direction of the voice with the milky fog pressing in and invading his vision. He made out three figures on the sidewalk standing next to a bench. One of them was tall—taller than any human could be—and cloaked and holding onto something that looked like a staff straight out of Dungeons and Dragons. But as he neared the trio, blinking all the while to make sure his harried mind wasn’t playing tricks on him, he realized it was the work of shadows and fog. When he arrived at the bench, there was only a man and a woman.

The man was stone-still, staring at the sidewalk. His leg bled moderately. Dan marked him as the driver. The woman was bent over next to the bench and wearing what looked to Dan like a server’s uniform. Her body spasmed. He didn’t understand what she was doing until he rounded the bench and saw the body she was performing compressions on.

“Please!” She sobbed. “Oh please, please don’t do this. PLEASE!”

Dan sprang forward, his fingers clawing for the radio at his waist. He called for an ambulance, then bent next to her. “Does he have a pulse?”

She was breathing hard. “I—I don’t know. I couldn’t feel one.”

Dan pressed two fingers under the man’s chin, feeling no pulse, and examined him. His face was a bloody ruin, but he could tell it was severely sunburned and wind-chafed. The man had a salt-and-pepper beard that’d grown unruly. His tank top was worn and tattered and strewn with whorls of char, dirt, and piss-stains. A long piece of driftwood was sashed in the band of his similarly ragged sweatshorts, with undecipherable words carved roughly into its surface. Blood pooled around his body and his legs, which were bent unnaturally sideways. The smile on his face seemed ridiculous in light of his injuries. Dan’s shoulders sagged. “Terry…” he said unbelievingly.

“You know him?” The woman blurted, still compressing madly, and—Dan noted—doing a good job of it. He took over compressions until the paramedics arrived. Tears welled in his eyes as he moved aside for the EMTs to take over. “No pulse, no signs of life. We’ve been working on him for ten minutes…” He trailed away, looking at Terry’s dirt-marred face. “Oh god, Terry. Oh my god.”

The EMTs loaded up Terry and sped off into the fog. After a few seconds the shifting ambulance lights were swallowed by the murky whiteness and Dan could hear the siren growing more and more distant.

The woman crouched, hugging herself and heaving sobs. Dan put a comforting arm around her and she buried her face into his chest. The man was still standing; he hadn’t moved from his position next to the bench.

“What happened?” Dan asked him.

He didn’t answer. His face was gaunt, drawn back in a rictus of unbelief.

“Sir!” Dan said resolutely. “What happened?”

The man took a frightful step back, seeming to come around. “I was driving, going the speed limit, I swear. The fog was so thick and he came out of nowhere. I had no reaction time. I—Am I going to prison?”

Asshole, Dan thought, cradling the woman as she cried Terry’s name again and again.

After debriefing the chief, Dan followed the woman, Mary, back to the tavern she owned for her official statement. It was dark, empty, and seemed as if it had been ransacked, but Mary assured him that that was how it usually looked after the Fourth of July weekend.

She poured Dan a glass of bourbon, poured one for herself, and then sat on the bar counter and began to sob again. Dan drank, waited silently, and when it seemed like she’d gotten it all out, said, “I’ve known Terry since he first started coming around the beach. How about you?”

Mary guzzled her bourbon. She took a deep breath. “He was always pleasant to me. When he wasn’t coming in cut up or dehydrated or yammering about the darkness, we had a lot of great interactions. He was… he was a genuine man. I just thought that maybe one day he would snap out of it.” She stared at him. Combined with her running mascara, the sheen of her eyes gave her the look of a recently bereaved raccoon.

“I’d hoped for the same thing,” Dan responded. “And Sofia—she’s his maid—well, ever since his wife passed away, she’s been picking up the slack for him. She manages his house and finances, maintains his cars, stocks the food, takes care of everything there is to take care of. I don’t know how I’m going to break it to her.”

A draft worked through the café doors, making Dan shiver. Mary didn’t seem to notice.

“So it was his wife, then?” she asked. “The reason why he… why he was like that?”

Dan didn’t respond immediately. He thought about all the times he’d encountered Terry Applegate, usually in the dead of night or at dawnbreak, swinging around a long piece of narrow driftwood and declaring that despite the prevalence of the darkness—Dan never understood exactly what this was—he was going to root out all evil and defend the citizens of the Sunrise Kingdom.

“For this land is mine and I am its champion.” Dan didn’t realize he’d spoken aloud until Mary chuckled and said, “He said that a lot. It was kind of his catchphrase, huh? My customers would always give him shit for it, but whenever he said it, it made me feel sort of… safe. I know that sounds ridiculous, but it’s true.”

Dan reached over the counter for the bottle, poured himself another glass and swigged it down. He shouldn’t have been drinking on the job, but it had been a hell of a week.

“He had that reassuring quality,” he said. “I don’t know what he saw, but whatever it was, I’m willing to bet that his intentions were pure.”

There was a moment of companionable silence.

“Do you think he was on drugs?”

“Meth. That’s what most of the department thinks, but we’ve never been able to catch him with the stuff, not that it’d do much good. I don’t imagine he’d fare very well in prison.”

Mary finished the bottle of Jack, made to grab another, but hesitated, dropping her hand. “Is that all it was? He loses his wife, copes with crystal, and then hallucinates all the time. I mean, I don’t think there was an interaction we had when he didn’t believe he was the champion of the Sunrise Kingdom fighting the Darkness.”

“I don’t know, Mary. I really don’t. Maybe it was easier to be a champion than it was to admit his wife died and he had a drug addiction.”

Dan regarded the dim tavern and thought about how the shadows stretched across the floorboards and lashed under the booths and barstools and in the rafters looked like hellish monsters reaching with outstretched claws.

“Until I see this darkness of his for myself, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to understand why Terry did what he did.”

THE END

Bio: "I have been published previously in the University of Arizona literary magazine, Persona."

E-mail: Ryan Christopher

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