Inkitt Link, for those interested.

When I awoke next, I half expected to find myself back in the darkness with The Fool laughing at my untimely demise again. Unfortunately, I felt too bad for that. The spots in my vision, the pain wracking my body, and the agony in my guts informed me all too clearly that I was still alive.

Trying to look around as much as possible, I could tell that I hadn’t been down for more than a mere moment. Crystal was still valiantly trying to hack down the dead that remained in the room on her side, and Tiffany was lashing out like a madwoman possessed with a blackened skeleton’s leg on the other side. I’d roasted most on my side of the room, but there were still a few left and she was beating and fighting with them like a warrior born! All I could do is blink and stare blankly, as they hacked the last of the dead down. I tried to reach for my magic, to offer whatever tiny inkling of support that I still could, but the effort was more than my body could take.

Darkness once again clouded my vision and the sweet relief of unconsciousness washed over me.

The next time I awoke, I was resting my head in Crystal’s lap and she was gently stroking my hair. Glancing up, I still had to squint from the pain in my eyes, but I was relieved to see that her left shoulder and arm was still attached. Either my panic had made the wound seem more intense than it actually was, or else one – or both – of the healers had managed to treat it after the dead finally fell.

“Wak Grokinon?” I slurred, my jaw not wanting to work at all. I’d tried to ask about ‘What was going on’, but the words didn’t come out proper at all. Looking down, Crystal hushed me and gently stroked my hair. Exhaustion was plain on her face, but she smiled slightly as she looked down over me.

“Rest, My Lord. We seem safe once again. For now, at least, it seems,” she clarified.

“Wak Grokinon?” I slurred again.

“Shhh…” Gently, Crystal keep stroking my hair. “We’re OK. Well, all of us except Skeet. The dead ripped his head half off the moment they swarmed him. He’s dead. Twice dead now, in fact,” she whispered quietly. “After lying on the ground for a while, his corpse began to twitch and move again. Mongo had to chop his head off and then Dino burned the corpse. There’s no one in here now, except for the living.”

I had a thousand things I wanted to ask, but her gentle touch and reassuring words were too much for me to resist. Once again, I drifted off to a deep and restless sleep.

The next time I awoke, I was sitting on a rainbow cloud, overlooking a landscape of vibrant colors and sounds. Trees which seemed to be made of candy lined the horizon, and flowers of all colors, shapes, and hues filled the landscape. Reaching down and feeling the cloud, a piece tore off in my hands and the sweet smell of cotton candy filled the air.

“Hello, good sir.” A desk and chair appeared out of nowhere, and The Fool was sitting prim and proper in it, floating in thin air beside the cloud I was on. He was dressed in a black tuxedo, wearing metal-rimmed glasses, which he pushed up on his nose, and his rainbow hair was slicked back and combed perfectly.

“Let’s see here.” Glancing down, he picked up a stack of papers and tapped them against the desk to line the edges up perfectly, before he sat them down and looked at them. “You’re Mik’Hail the Michael. Correct?”

Mik’Hail the Michael? What the hell was he rambling along so lawyer-like this time about? “Uhmm… Yeah. I guess that’s me,” I answered, uncertain.

“Currently in the Tuath’inor Graveyard, trapped by the Gekkengashingottenbottencoocoo?”

Whatever the last part was that it said, it sounded like he dislocated his jaw trying to spit it out. The string of consonants and vowels meant absolutely nothing to me. “Sure. That sounds right,” I shrugged. “Trapped in some graveyard, surrounded by an ancient evil.”

“Umm hmm…” The fool pushed his glasses back up on the bridge of his nose and turned a page. “And you allowed the wizard with you to succumb to the darkness and rise again?”

“What?” Now I really was confused. “All the wizards with us were fine the last time I checked. What the hell are you talking about?”

“Hmm?” Yawning, The Fool glanced dispassionately over at me. “Then you mean to say that the one called Megan didn’t fall to the darkness? She’s not possessed by one of the ancient evils?”

“Not that I know of,” I replied, hesitantly. It’s true, the dead came from the area where she was first, but I just assumed that they’d broken through the door there while we were all distracted elsewhere.

“I see. I see.” The Fool nodded his head slightly and scribbled something down on his paper. “So you also deny that she’s the one who strengthened the skeletons, making them more resistant to the blade’s aura that your slave carries?”

“Umm… I really don’t know anything about that. Maybe…”

“And you deny that the other humans are deep in the heart of the Tuath’inor Lair, attempting to release the bindings on The Fallen One? That with the sacrifice of the one known as Ghost, upon the next full moon, the great seal will be broken? You deny these things?!” The Fool half hopped up and slammed his fist upon the table.

“Uhh…”

“You know the Gods are powerless to interfere with the happenings at the Tuath’inor Lair, don’t you?! You know they can’t offer aid, advice, or interfere with anything that happens there, don’t you?! You’re there, and your soul is going to be judged for your actions there when you die! You realize that if you don’t recover your strength, find the way down into the deep paths, uncover the ancient altar of darkness, and stop the sacrifice, you might be judged for that failure?!”

The Fool was now hopping up and down. The chair he was sitting in spun out of control and floated off into the distance and he threw the papers he was holding all around. “You do know that the gods can’t talk about the Orb that holds the darkness? You know they can’t tell you to find it and seal it, don’t you?! You also somehow know that Megan and David are now lost forever to the darkness and have to be sealed, or destroyed, right?

“Right? RIGHT?!” The Fool was growing ever more agitated and animated, now bouncing on top of the desk.

“You can’t tell me anything can you?!” The Fool snorted and stomped, putting his foot through the top of the desk. “Get out! Get out! Get out! I can’t tell you anything either! The ancient agreements prevent it!”

With a wave of his hand while yelling, “BEGONE!”, The Fool forced me from whatever dreamscape I was in. Jerking awake, my headache was gone and I felt immensely better. Glancing around, Crystal was snuggled up tightly against me sleeping, while Mongo leaned against the door looking sad and ragged, Tiffany held tight in his arms.

For all he hadn’t told me, The Fool had given me a lot to think about.