Was this his final torment?
Would they simply let him die of thirst?
He was no longer frightened of Death. No fire in hell could punish him any more than his perpetual thirst. The army disappeared and he was left almost entirely on his own once more. He watched as one man stopped. The fiend sat down next to him, lifting the back of his head. The face, which had showed so much kindness only days earlier, now glowered at him with its whitened teeth and pure vehemence.
The monster held him down with his left hand and gripped a large knife in his right. He ran the knife over Hammersmith’s face, as though he was choosing a memento before killing him — an ear, a nose, his scalp, or his dried tongue perhaps? He moved slowly, as though he was enjoying this final act. Hammersmith was too weak to resist, and let the man move his head freely. He no longer had the strength to care if he was to lose any part of his face. After all, what use did he have for any of his body parts? But what should the monster decide to take?
An ear. It turned out to be an ear. His left one. Hammersmith noticed with a numb and morbid curiosity, as the monster showed it to him. He felt no pain. No discomfort. Not even the loss of a body part he had once found so useful. He was about to die. It no longer mattered. Instead, he felt relief. There was no doubt now, the pain of his past few days was about to end permanently. He watched as the fiend lifted his right arm in preparation for the final stroke. The sharp blade, made of fragmented obsidian looked like it would perform its task with enviable ease. The fiend’s arm came down with tremendous speed. Hammersmith didn’t flinch. His eyes remained glued on the weapon that would take his life — but the blade never reached its target.
Instead, the wretched man’s face exploded in a gush of broken bone fragments, skin, tissues and blood. Hammersmith heard the rapport of the rifle a split second later. He looked up and saw its owner approach. His skin wasn’t dark like the rest of the local people. Instead it was deathly pale, like that of a ghost. The man’s eyes were wide, and glowed purple as though he was able to see into his soul. Hammersmith had never seen anyone with purple eyes.
The ghost handed him a flask of water. “Here, drink this.”
He slowly reached out and took it. The liquid sloshed inside. He stared at it for a moment. The water looked clear and there was no toxic smell coming from inside. He took a small, furtive taste. It was cool, sweet, and divine. A moment later he gulped the water down until he felt euphoric.
“Careful,” the stranger advised him. “Your body’s been profoundly dehydrated. You’ll make yourself sick if you drink too much, too fast, now.”
Hammersmith took another gulp of water. What did he care if he made himself sick now? He had water!
The ghost handed him another flask of water and a compass. “Keep the bearing due south. There’s a Portuguese settlement no more than a day’s walk from here. You should make it easily. Good luck.”
Hammersmith stopped drinking and looked up. “Who are you?”
“I’m the man trying to retrieve what you stole from my temple.” The man’s words were spoken calmly, without any trace of vehemence or reprimand. Somehow, that made them sound even more frightening.
“I’m sorry,” Hammersmith mumbled.
The ghost started to move again. He was following the army, who were following the last two remaining members of their original party.
“Why did you let me live?” Hammersmith shouted.
The man stopped. His voice was steady, clear, and held a certain undertone of the danger to come. “Because I want you to go back to my brother and give him a message — tell him he’ll never get his greedy hands on it. I’d rather destroy it before I let him succeed.”
“I’ve never met you, or your brother!”
“No?” The ghost didn’t look surprised, and he definitely didn’t look like he cared. “He knows you. And someone from your party knows him. Why else did you think you were sent to the temple?”
“We didn’t know about the temple. We were sent to explore the land to the east of the desert!”
The ghost ignored his lies. “Just give him the message.”
“But how will I find him?”
“Don’t worry. He’ll find you.”
Hammersmith said, “But it might take years to find a ship back to civilization, and even longer still for your brother to find me!”
“That’s okay. This is a family dispute. It’s been going for centuries now. It can wait.”
Hammersmith glanced at the man, his pale blue eyes weak and pitiful. “Am I dead, and are you a God?”
“Some might see me as that. Others might call me that. My brother would have you believe that.” The ghost stared at him, his intensely purple eyes piercing at his soul. “The world is approaching the horns of a dilemma — my name is Death and I am here to set it on the right path.”
Smith stared out from the crest of the sand dune, and the dark blue water of the Atlantic stared straight back at him. Baker followed him over and screamed in excitement. There were a series of sand dunes ahead progressively decreasing in height until the final one became swallowed by the Atlantic.
He opened his telescope and looked out toward the Atlantic. He scanned the area starting from where the sand dune entered the water, all the way out past the breakers. The water looked like a terrible mixture of white, frothy and turbid waves. Behind them, no more than three or four miles from where he currently stood, the Emerald Star rested at anchor.
They would reach it within the hour.
He felt his heart race in anticipation. His brother had waited for him. He’d played the most dangerous of gambles, and it was about to pay off. Smith grinned. He’d stolen what he’d set out to steal. He was going to be rich. The gold alone was worth a fortune, but the man with the purple eyes had offered at least ten times its weight in gold. Now that he’d seen what the relic could do, he didn’t doubt for an instant such a tremendous price was achievable. He even had wondered whether he wanted to sell it for that price. It didn’t matter. He had plenty of time to make a decision. Smith’s delirious sense of happiness, disappeared as quickly as it had arrived — with the crack of a rifle shot.
At first he thought it was coming from the Emerald Star. A signal from his brother, perhaps. But a second later there could be no doubt about its origins. The sound had come from behind him. His head snapped around to where they’d come. It didn’t make sense. The local people didn’t have anything as sophisticated as a rifle. And he’d told Hammersmith to leave his weapon behind days ago. He focused the telescope. His eyes were wide and his mouth open. He stared into the distance, where he’d left Thomas Hammersmith five hours earlier.
He made a silent prayer that the poor man had lied about dropping his weapon and had now taken his own life. It would be a far better way than to let those angered barbarians reach him while he was alive. He stared at his pursuers, as they ran down the sand dune, like a flooded river, breaking free of its bank and running wild.
Smith breathed in deeply. It was impossible that anything could coax a human body to run at full speed through a desert. Even from his distance, Smith imagined their powerful muscles straining to propel their muscular frames across the thick sand. They were moving much faster than he or Jack could possibly run through the sand.
My god, but they move beautifully.
Jack asked, “What do you see?”