Breaking The Mask: Book 1 of The Fortunes, Fables, & Failures of Henry Game by Anthony Johnson

Author:Anthony Johnson [Johnson, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Komodo Books
Published: 2020-05-24T22:00:00+00:00

The Wayside.

I was circling a dark and destructive drain at a time when blood polluted the oil of the Gulf and insatiable greed corrupted the west. And after four-hundred and fifty years, it was still yet a world of surprise to me.

My time in the Middle East had shown me fresh layers of reality. I had long since stopped believing in fairy tales, but, when you are in the heat of war and lives are being lost without pause, and it is all for the possession of a symbolic weapon, you too would question your own convictions when faced with elemental energies that do not conform to our primitive understandings of life – but this is for another time.

“The Spear of Destiny”, to my surprise, was believed to be the blade that pierced the side of Jesus Christ as he drooled, limp and defeated upon his frame of self-fulfilled prophecy. The legends foretold it that the one to yield the spear-tip would be in possession of the most formidable weapon on Earth, imbued by the blood of the Almighty, with it they would be able to anoint themselves to ultimate power.

Up close and personal with the Spear of Destiny, I recognised it for what it was. The way that everything burned around the metallic tip of the dagger like it was magic. It was more familiar to me than anybody would know. I reckoned that Pope Clement VII would recognise it too if he was still with us… I said nothing to my employer and ploughed on regardless: hands out for coin and mowing down any motherfucker that was put in front of me on my quest.

With sand particles in my ears and nostrils and eyes and even up my arse once, I came to think of the region as a paradise of discovery, and annoyance, and heat, and authenticity. A place where the layers of the world we think we know peel away before our eyes to reveal that there is more to everything, and in that moment of actualisation, suddenly the cultures of the West seem abhorrently flamboyant and narcissistic.

My skin peeling from my arms, feet, face, shoulders, and back, desperately fleeing across the cooled sands of Nowhere, I came to learn that there were other beings that lived on Earth as different to me as I am to the rest of humanity. It was amidst my distractions that I took my finger off the pulse and was forced to choose between saving my best-friend and doing the right thing.

But of course, in the crunch of the moment I relented and handed the spear over to the Tyrant. I was done being a part of their game, but still, the plummeting tower of Grim Catspaw toppled and crumbled with what should’ve been a neck-breaking injury, as he hanged from the rope like a ragdoll was enough to call it a day on our adventures.

The world seemed darker than I had ever known it to be. And I was perhaps the darkest instrument of them all.

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