John Jackson - The 9th Fortress

"I’m not entirely convinced," he replied, amused.

"She has told me a little," I said. "To be honest, it came at me pretty fast."

"Then let me fully explain. Pray, get off your feet."

He guided my eye toward two large blocks of marble that appeared out of nothing and nowhere.

"Are you going to fly around me like a bumblebee, too?" I asked, taking his seat.

"No wings," he snickered. "They give me allergies anyhow, puffy eyes, runny nose, the lot. Besides, I prefer using my legs. Walking is the very best way to clear the mind, and mine has a lot of clutter these days."

He shuffled toward the marble and sat. "My that's better! Pray, give me a nudge if I prattle on or nod off. Colleagues often point out this habit I have of dozing through lectures, meetings, and so on, but I argue I'd hardly be asleep if they were of any great consequence, or any colleagues worth impressing."

"And am I…an important meeting?" I asked. "Worth impressing?"

"I don’t waste my time on just anyone, Danny. Take a breath!" he added, taking his own. "It may appear so at first, but this afterlife is not a complicated place. Daunting certainly, but not complicated. The Waiting Plain around you is the first stop on a continuing journey, an epic course of evolution, as Darwin would say. That sweet soul,” he smiled, “never have I met a man so precious about his pigeons, or so obsessed with backgammon! He once challenged me to a race of birds, you know…"

"Sir Isaac?" said Missy, beckoning him to stay on subject. "If you please?"

"Right," he agreed, with a dithering nod. "Good souls, Daniel, like your child Kathy, progress directly to the realm above us. Some call it Heaven, Elysium, Valhalla, or Olympus; I call it home. Others meanwhile, more questionable others, go below to the Distinct Earth, whilst the wicked rest are dragged…deeper still."

"The distinct what?"

"It is the grey," he answered me, wearing a pitiful expression. "Once a realm of freedom and choice, but no longer, for evil has taken what liberty they had away."

"Evil?" I pried, creeping closer.

“For another time,” said a hesitant scientist. "Right now, I want to talk about the Distinct Earth itself, a diverse dominion full of human and alien kind. You have just come from the natural world, Danny. The Distinct Earth is an unnatural one."

"A sort of purgatory," Missy remarked. "For souls to see out their times. It can be as good or as bad as you make it."

"And is that where I’m going? To this Distinct Earth?"

Blank faced, Sir Isaac Newton nodded. "You will see the Distinct Earth. That I am certain of."

"What?!” gasped Missy, in utter disbelief. “Didn't you read his ledger? Didn't you see his noble heart?"

"I read it," he returned, "and I saw a noble heart gone astray! Your opinion Missy, although important, is a biased one, having no bearing on this judgment, so pray, let me finish it. Daniel will see the Distinct Earth, but he will not be sentenced there."

Missy jerked back as if electrocuted. “If not Heaven,” she said, trembling. "If not the Distinct Earth…You can't mean?"

"Not me," he returned, gesticulating for calm, “but our Lord. That will, for all its profound mystery, has something special to ask of your Daniel, a task. I am here because I've an invested interest in that task’s success."

Missy’s fear disturbed me. Shouldn't my custodian, my life support, know everything?

"Go on," I urged. "What sort of task? Tell me, please?"

Missy clutched my arm, hanging most of her weight on the elbow while Sir Isaac Newton's weary voice took on a sharper, keener edge. "There is one soul," he husked, "a soul trapped and tortured and lost to us. God requests that you liberate it. You, Danny." He then left a final, lingering pause for Missy and me to register his crazy information.

"Liberate?" I asked. "How? Where on Earth?"

"Not Earth," he said, with a creased forehead. "There is one notorious realm under the Distinct Earth, a vast and perilous place."

"Hell," gulped Missy again, looking ill. Newton's subtle blink confirmed it.

"One word for it,” he said. “Hell is not a mythical place simply found in Dante or the Bible; it is very real. Whereas Heaven is a cultural realm of learning, creativity, and forward thinking, Hell is a thoughtless abyss, a twisted, everlasting pit of stagnation. Only the worst go there, and they do so to rot. Your journey will be to its primary prison, the 9th Fortress. There, this individual is held captive, and that deep and savage road you must travel. Recover that soul from the Fortress and return to the Waiting Plain. That is your task…"

Missy quivered beside me, and wings coming to a halt, she touched heavily on the floor.

"The 9th Fortress," she whimpered. "You can’t send him there. Such a thing has never been attempted. Not once! Not ever! It will shatter him! Shatter him to pieces!"

Sir Isaac Newton stood at once from his marble resting place. "Our Lord has asked it of him,” he said, diplomatically. “He has a stain on his soul that cannot be glossed over, Missy. It brands your Daniel, and he will never be embraced past our gates wearing it."

"You never did read his ledger, did you?” she wept. "How could you? I know everything about this man, and I tell you he is righteous, humble, and more than worthy! What did he do that was so awful? So unforgivable?"

"Did he not go there to commit murder?" Newton inquired. "Danny purchased the gun and took his time loading each bullet. To kill was certainly his intention! Do you find such an act so forgivable, angel?"

His argument struck my life support dumb. She could not deny it, and I could not defend it, but right now, I preferred not to think of the stains on my character, but of the only good I ever created, Kathy. With her strength still coursing through me, I leapt from the stone, facing Sir Isaac Newton and covering Missy with my back. "I'll do it. Anything you want!"

The feelings of my life support penetrated me suddenly, and I experienced our special connection for the very first time. Although well over a century old, that little angel girl was as prone to the emotions of love as anyone. Her pain sat heavily in my chest, and I could almost hear her heartbreak at the next thought in my mind, and the question now leaving my lips: "Tell me more about the 9th Fortress?"

Sir Isaac Newton’s words were meaningless. Granted, I understood the gravity of the situation, but the scale of the task and its consequences would not hit me until much, much later.

My eagerness did not please my life support, and whenever I expected Missy to unleash her temper, the stoic scientist raised a considerate hand, and the little girl resisted her urges. After acknowledging my courage for daring to inquire, the elderly man asked Missy to seat herself next to me.

"Hear me," he began, with a strict stare. "The 9th Fortress…is a crooked tooth growing rotten from the gums of Hell. You will see the structure from a hundred miles away, and you will hear its lamenting prisoners from a thousand."

He continued down this vein until my mind’s eye could see the facility in all its hostile glory. Lightning could not crack its rock, and thunder forever trembled the earth below, almost as if the structure could not bear the weight of sin it bore. I watched crows peck the eyes from prisoners seeking a rare glimpse of light; I witnessed bodies leap from its tallest spire and mince down the rugged sides; I heard the screaming sinners burning in private ovens and the drowning dozens in the boiling moat. Newton spared no gruesome detail.

"Each cell delivers a unique form of punishment to its prisoner," he added, "and the greater one’s crime, the more intolerable one’s existence. Then, there is the warden, a man of some malevolence; notorious in his time and untouchable in ours, he has a swordsman made of solid bronze that protects him round the clock. You will first proceed… "