Ade Grant - The Mariner

Panic. The robed man was heading the Mariner’s way, ready to study him as he had the others. He thought about fleeing to another section of the midnight mass, but caught Charlotte’s eye. In that single glance he knew any suspicious activity would raise alarm.

With little choice he turned to the nearest fire. Stretching out his left arm he began to inch towards it, slowly growing hotter with every step. The flames danced invitingly, seemingly excited by the offer of flesh to grill.

A nervous glance told him the painful truth, Charlotte was watching and wouldn’t stop till she saw him burn. Already the skin on his hand was begin to boil, sweat breaking out in huge beads to lessen the painful heat. He had to continue. He must! Just a bit further…

“Is there a problem, my son?”

The Mariner turned to look into the face of the robed man. Beneath the hood was a rather normal looking gentleman, later in years, with a round spectacled face. There was something comforting about his eyes, soft yet piercing, and he wondered why a man would hide such a friendly visage beneath a cloak.

“No problem,” the Mariner said, though he used the opportunity to withdraw his hand. “No problem at all.”

The robed man’s eyes searched the Mariner’s face, and gentle confusion seeped in, as if the Mariner was a particularly troublesome crossword puzzle. “Is this your first visit to the Pope? You seem… familiar somehow.”

“I do?” the Mariner was lost in the robed man’s eyes, and rubbed his sore left hand absent-mindedly. “I need to speak to the Pope. It’s important.”

“The Pope doesn’t speak directly to his flock. You should know this.”

“And yet I must. I need answers.”

“Answers?” the robed man chuckled, but the act seemed like an illusion, there was concern in those calming orbs. “And you think the Pope has the answers you require?”

“Yes.”

“What makes you think this? You’re not one of us, I can see that. You don’t believe in him as the others do. So why do you think he can bring you peace?”

Drawn ever on by the robed man’s warmth, the Mariner confessed his purpose. “Since the earliest I can remember I’ve been searching, looking for the truth. And I’ve always known the truth would be found on an island, ringed with almost impenetrable defences, somewhere in the endless ocean. The Pope can help me find that island. He can help me find the truth.”

“The truth…” The robed man’s eyes suddenly shifted, shock seeping in. “It’s you! I didn’t think I’d ever see you again and you’ve changed so much I didn’t recognise…. No wonder there’s no name in there! No wonder I couldn’t see it!” He chuckled, shaking his head as if it were all a joke. “This isn’t the island you’re looking for, and the Pope can’t point you to it.”

“How could you know this?”

“Because I am the Pope! That gnome up there is my prop, my mask, my wizard before the curtain. And I can assure you, I know the truth. If you have questions, you should ask them of me.”

Almost overcome with relief and excitement, the Mariner babbled like a lunatic. “What’s happened to the world? Is a demon devouring it? Has God punished it? Are Anomenemies dissolving it? Where is the island I’m looking for? Why is it lodged in my head, when nothing else remains?” He gasped for breath, shaking from the promise of answers after so long a search. “Please, you have to tell me the truth!”

The Pope looked deep into the Mariner’s eyes, and suddenly the Mariner realised that what kindness he’d seen had been purely an act, just as a cat might pretend to be playing with the mouse just before it bites down. A cruel amusement and a predatory smile.

The Pope spoke with words that echoed deep into the Mariner’s grotesque psyche, and brought his fragile world crashing down with a simple few words.

“There is no truth,” he said. “Only the Wasp.”

______ ___ __ _____ ___ _____ __ __ _____ __ ______ ___ ______ _____ ____ ___ __ _ ____ ___ ___ ____ ___ ___________ __ _ __ __ _ ___ ____ ___ ___________ __ _ __ __ __ ______ ___ ______ _____ ____ ___ __ _ ____ ___ ___ ____ ___

___ _______ _____ __ _______ ____________ _________ __ ____ _________ __ ____ ___ _____ ______ ________ ______ ___ _ yet still the blood wouldn’t clear.

Vzzzzzzzz.

What? Why wouldn’t the blood clear? And clear what? The thought had been with him, but where was it now?

Christopher McConnell blinked as the hot substance dripped from his forehead and continued to seep into his eyes. Where was he? What was going on?

As abrupt as his consciousness, his seat lurched as if in the grip of an earthquake. An object in his hand slithered like a muscular snake. Terrified, he recoiled from it, screaming, desperate to get a grip on the situation, and forced his eyes open. The world was blurry, yet through the red mess clogging his lids he could make out a landscape hurtling closer.

He was driving! He was in his old second-hand ford, why hadn’t he known that before? The object in his hands was the wheel, turning uncontrollably as he careered off the road. No time to try to make sense of the situation, first he had to avoid the ___ _____ __ ______ __ ___ __ __ _ _

__ ___ ___ ____ ____ _ ______ ___ __ ___ __ ____ _ ___ ______ _____ __ ____ ____ ______ _____ ___ ____

___ ___ __ _____ ___ _____ ___ _ __ __ __ ____ ___ __ _ ___ _ ____ _

__ ____ _____ ___ ____ but all that echoed back was the sound of his own voice, terrified and childlike in its shrill terror.

The car was still. What just happened? Had he crashed? The front of the car was embedded in a small wall and the engine had stalled, but the bonnet didn’t look too badly damaged. The seatbelt bit into his chest, but apart from his head wound he felt fine.

His head! That’s what he’d been thinking about before. He had done something to get the blood out of his eyes. McConnell looked down and saw a dark red smear along his sleeve. He’d come-round mid-thought, as if awaking from a dream, and the thought had been about clearing his eyes. So it couldn’t have been a dream? Amnesia then? Or a brain aneurysm? He suddenly wished he’d watched more medical dramas on TV, or even better studied medicine! Perhaps then he might have a clue as to what was going on, and how he’d got here.

‘Here’ was a sparse wood divided by a long straight road. To each side was a small stone wall, age weakened enough to crumble at first contact with his car, offering nothing but a stalled engine as comeuppance.

The landscape seemed familiar in make-up, but not from any direct memory. The trees were evergreen… he supposed. McConnell had never been good at identifying flora and fauna, let alone determining his locale by them. In fact, McConnell had never been much good at anything, other than operating video cameras. For three years he’d practised this single skill in gainful employment for the BBC recording ‘Old To Gold’, a direct copy of a thousand other shows searching through peoples junk to find items that might fetch twenty quid at auction. The show lasted three long years before getting shut down for appalling ratings (and in a daytime slot, ratings could be pretty dreadful before being considered a liability). Suddenly his career as a cameraman came to a crushing halt. Dreams of working alongside great directors such as Raimi or Spate were thrown in the trash, right alongside with his Clapham flat and decadent lifestyle. Not that he’d been paid much for the antiques show, but everyone was in debt these days. Or at least they had been, until the damn credit crunch wotsit, when all of a sudden stores no longer offered you credit cards and his credit cards no longer worked in stores.