"My eyes are full of Kirby - crackle! I'm the eater of worlds! Devourer of suns!"
Monk Blue sat bolt upright, straining at his skin, attempting to get out in every direction at once. He clawed at the tattered curtains and pulled himself to his feet, hanging onto the luggage rack to remain upright as the train rattled across another roller coaster mountain bridge.
"Herald! Herald!"
The other passengers in the cramped carriage looked out at the vertiginous views or down at their sandals, feigned sleep or rigor mortis to avoid the madman's eyes as he staggered out of the car and into the corridor, overturning a basket of chickens as he went. He stumbled in the maelstrom of terrified clucking and dusty feathers, then fell into the arms of a six foot two vision of perfection in full burqa and jilbab.
"Aha! The power cosmic is upon us! From this height, they look like chickens!"
Felicity Makeshift shook her head sadly and maneuvered Monk back to his seat.
"What was it this time?" she asked. "The qat?"
Blue grinned like an evil pixie caught in the act of replacing a sleeping child with an ice carving.
"Allah be merciful. How much did you take?"
But as abruptly as he had risen from his slumbers, Blue had returned to the arms of Morpheus, leaving Felicity to make his apologies and talk his fellow travellers out of hurling the demon out of the window before he had chance to grind them all to paste. A handfull of spare change, a glimpse of the katana at her waist and the promise of three incarnations of unremitting pain were enough to buy their forbearance until the train arrived at the station.
An hour later, stepping down onto the bare sand platform, Monk was in a more relaxed state of mind. Felicity had traded a bundle of US currency for a half-hit of Ketamine from a deserting battlefield medic, and Monk had spent most of his comedown slurring the lyrics to Pictures of Lilly and quietly giggling to himself. Now he was alive, awake and ready to go... Somewhere. He looked around at the ruined buildings and deserted streets. No-one else had left the train here, and he could easily see why.
"Why are we here again?"
"I'm trading you in for a poppy field."
Felicity made for the station, the largest building still standing, barely pausing as she was hit by an almost solid wall of heat, noise and stench at the door. Monk followed less decisively and staggered back out into the sun, doing all he could to hold his heaving stomach contents on the inside. Breathing deeply, bent double, he waited until the worst had subsided, then straightened up and tried once more.
The station's single room was low, long and dark, packed with animals, people and things which could pass for either. The bleating of goats and the crying of children mingled with the low, desolate wail of a dotar and the high counterpoint of the wind as it whistled through the shell-torn ceiling. Standing in a shaft of sunlight, Felicity bowed her head and called out in Dari,
"I am travel weary, and fain would sleep. But, how shall I in all this hubbub know myself again on waking?"
From somewhere deep in the heaving mass of bodies came a mocking laugh, and a response in English.
"You could tie a pumpkin to your ankle, but you've got to watch these thieving bastards - It might not be there when you wake up, and then where would you be?"
Felicity smiled, looked into the shadows and drew aside her burqa to reveal the katana which hung like an unspoken threat at her waist.
"I thought the question was who?"
There was more movement in the darkness, and then a figure stepped forwards, out into another ragged patch of light. At his post by the door, Monk drew a sharp breath as he realised why they were there.
"You know the answer to that one Fliss..."
Reaching out, the man caressed Felicity's cheek through the rough woven jilbab, then tore away the veil to reveal the ugly web of scars which split her face like a shattered plate.
"Or have you forgotten me so soon?"
Again he laughed, but Felicity was unperturbed. Drawing her sword, she struck the man down with a single blow, then cleaned the blade on the hem of her robe as she waited for him to rise again. Sure enough, after a moment or two, the man clambered stiffly to his feet. In the dust-flecked shards of sunlight, she could just make out the thick, oily tendril connecting him to the rest of the hive.
"That wasn't very nice, love," he said thickly.
"The Beloved is all that lives," she replied, "The lover a dead thing."
The man cocked his head to one side, examining her closely.
"More poetry? You intend to kill us with words?"
Felicity brought the sword down once again, cleaving deeply into his shoulder, forcing the man to his knees. The steel ground against bone, and she had to put her heel against his chest to pull it free. The man sprawled back across the rubble and struggled to right himself with his one good arm. Felicity reached down and helped him up.
"Thank -"
This blow took the arm off altogether, and brought a moan of dismay from the great fleshy beast in the shadows. Something gave and the reek intensified as the animated corpse lost its innards in a thick flood. Monk turned away, fell back out into the desert sunlight and threw up. Felicity simply took a step back to avoid soiling her boots.
"The next train doesn't pass through till an hour after dark," she told the weeping creature. "What else have you got?"
A small child stepped out of the shadows, a little girl who grew more and more like Felicity as she drew closer.
"Mommy?"
Felicity laughed, a short, cold sound, then sliced the appendage in two, right between the pigtails. The beast recoiled, quivering in pain and fear, the mewling animal noises and the garbled voices running into each other as fresh mouths opened in dead flesh. A shapeless mass of tissue flew towards her, a cannonball which may once have been a head, streaming greasy strands of mucus behind it as it hurtled across the room. Felicity took a fighting stance and parried it easily.
"Better. What next?"
Out in the empty street, Monk sat down with his back to the wall, trying not to hear the slaughter in the room behind him. He tried humming, meditating and running his favourite sex fantasies, but the sound of raw steel on diseased meat was too loud, the smell too rancid, and in the end, all he could do was drop the tab he'd been trying to save for the trip back down the mountain. It came on sharp and clear, with a coppery taste on his tongue and a pleasant drifting sensation. He picked up a stick and began to write in the sand, one word over and over, her true name. But every time he tried, the desert wind roared in like a sword, carving it away, wiping it from the face of the Earth.
By nightfall, the only sound from the station was the repetitive thunk of a dulled blade chopping ever finer slivers of meat. Monk watched in vague disinterest as a one-eyed dragon crawled down from it's mountain lair and began to snake towards them, then recognized it as the returning train.
"All aboard for the Marrakesh Express!" he called.
There was a moment's silence, then a renewed vigour to the chopping sounds. Finally, after another five minutes, Felicity stepped out into the moonlight. She was caked in blood and grue up to the shins, but from there on up, she was as spotlessly gorgeous as a London model in Arab chic. Monk drifted back to his fantasies for a moment, then remembered that she had just been wading through the remains of her last boyfriend and thought better of it.
"Feel better now?" he asked.
Felicity nodded. "It's important to get a sense of closure."
She reached up and peeled the lattice of fake scar tissue from her face, leaving her porcelain features clear and without fault. Without a backward glance, she tossed the latex web through the station door and walked down to the edge of the rails to wait for the train.
Notes
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