Chapter Forty-Three

A New Weapon

My eyes bulged like Isabel’s, and a molten pain burned my skull. I desperately tried to suck air into my crushed trachea but couldn’t. I was seconds away from losing consciousness. Still panic did not set in. My fingers traced those staves spelling the name of the Broken Path. A crimson blaze sparked to life within my frontal lobes, like a beacon appearing from across a great sea.

The warmth of an unconquerable sun ignited the bay to life. A line of fire spread across the water until the world and I became connected once again. I breathed in the inferno but did not lose my anger.

I sensed Isabel and a great number of children on the other side of the path. They were calling to me, urging me to bring Isaac back home. In my mind I walked a step toward that fiery path, my bonds broken but my soul not at peace. I would walk that line, and I would fill myself with the power of the True Path. However, I would not be merciful to the Miskenupik. In the back of my mind I visualized both the mark over Salome’s throat and the burly arms of the ancient tree.

I breathed in the vermillion fire as well as the tree’s great rage and directed both into the evil Pillar. The walnut’s massive limbs recoiled in anguish. Its furrowed bark retracted as if the heat of a great fire were melting it from within. A woman screamed in pain. She sounded very far away.

The pressure around my throat, which had become vague and dull, suddenly was released. I found myself gasping for air, the nylon braids now a charred heap lying upon dead leaves. I was free.

I tried to stand, but my legs were frail and weak. I fell onto my left side, my entire body one giant flashpoint of pain. I was able to look up toward the top of the malignant hardwood from this vantage point. Its bark was sooty and charred. Raven black. Its limbs were bent upon itself, and its once-golden foliage had turned brown. A rain of dead leaves showered the ground.

“Fuck you,” I said to the cursed tree, though my voice was a gravelly whisper.

Salome lay sprawled on her back, her fleshy fingers grasped about her throat. Her hands looked like they had handled hot coals. Smoke billowed upward from her neck. She was struggling to breathe.

I couldn’t find the strength to stand so I lay there, on my side, watching Salome’s labored breathing as she lay unconscious several yards away. The skin over my throat was shredded and torn to the cartilage, but the pain began to recede. I felt different. Whole. Unafraid. Wounded, yes, and weak, but mysteriously filled with the fire that connects all life. The feeling was so overwhelming I cried.

Something else simmered as well. Fury, miserable and violent like a squall overpowering small craft, burrowed into my empty eye socket. Tyranny was also mine. I would find Isaac somehow. There would be no mercy extended toward those creatures who tormented the child.

In time I managed to sit up. Pain filled my body, from head to toe, but it was remote, as if diluted by distance or time. The throbbing in my head was a drumbeat beneath the water, warbled and muted.

I eventually was able to walk over to Salome. Her hands were burned, but the wounds were superficial, affecting only the outer dermis. I bent down and placed an ear over her chest and ascertained that her breathing was adequate, if shallow. Her pupils reacted to the dim light of the clearing. She had sustained no permanent bodily injury. I stood again and placed my foot upon her throat. I was tempted to do unto her as she had done unto me. A second passed. Two. I removed my weight and let her live.

I left her where she lay and waded into the frigid creek. As I wandered out of the haunted wood the ground beneath the dark waters groaned with despair. I imagined death was spreading to the roots of that ancient and unholy tree. The thought brought a bright smile to my face. I let the brown leaves wash over me like spring rain.

I walked as if in a narrow valley surrounded on either side by infinite mountain ranges. I walked between two worlds, one of great compassion but the other of unquenchable vengeance. I was now cognizant of their existence and my place between them. I saw both worlds out of the periphery of my vision, no longer blind or stumbling over the difficult terrain. I had become a Fire Walker.

In the distance ahead, I detected the presence of three Binders. They coalesced on the water’s surface, black and oily. They had sensed my contact with their sacred tree, no doubt, but did they know what I had become? They could not have. If they had, they would not have sought me out.

I felt each of their tracheal markings in my mind even before I rounded the bend to see them. Their eyes were sable tunnels, caliginous with hatred and separation. The three had not bothered to shift to anything other than gray-robed skeletons. Their contemptuous sneers were full of mockery and abundant confidence. They floated upon the gleaming waters of the creek and approached me as I emerged from beneath the bridge into the light of the Bay Beach grounds.

“Fire Walker!” the leader hissed. “Your friend will pay dearly for letting you go.”

The flames of the sun were the color of blood and all-consuming. I let the fire fill my soul while the creatures greedily approached their prey. I lifted my arms and pointed at the leader’s flanks. Crimson flames shot through the two Binders, penetrating their markings with ruthless precision. The two creatures vaporized with no ash or char to indicate they had ever existed. Their leader stood motionless, gripping the rotting flesh over its own untouched throat.

“Let the infinite come,” I said, quoting a New England poet whom the Binder could no longer sense from the closed doors of my mind. I could feel its efforts to reach the spoke which connected me to the wheel of life, but I had somehow blocked the creature’s way.

“Let evil cower before me,” I continued. “Let the wind rain dead leaves upon me. How could I look at you and tremble, and grip my hands over my heart? What should I fear?”

I was no longer stumbling in the dark and had ceased to be Paul Prophet. I would never again run from these rotting and miserable creatures.

I looked deep into the creature’s scowling face and graced it with the same sneer favored by that miserable species. The wind blew its gray cloak so that it fluttered like a broken sail. The sun ascended over the jagged claws of barren trees behind me. I released the tongues of fire before the demon could reply. The holocaust struck its mark, and the Binder of Souls was no more.

I continued walking homeward along the waterfront, my right eye socket empty and my neck lacerated. I watched the Canadian geese fly in formation over the water. I walked alone.