Intelligence

The Red and the White were bickering. The White had for some time been protecting him from the Red, he realized. It was obviously a good thing, that he had found them in the order that he had.

He was far from Gilead. Very far from it. He had been following the Path of the Bear for a while, but then turned south. He noticed his compass was slightly off; sometimes due south was two degrees off. No matter, he had his head to rely on. He knew where True North was, and by this he could find south.

The trail he was on (it lacked the majesty of a path and therefore could not be called such) was about three feet wide, not very well made, and perfect for tearing apart shoes. Just a line in the ground with a higher leaves-to-underbrush ratio, really. Darkness enveloped the path all around the clock, as the leaves were dense and the trees tall. As such it was hard to tell how many days had passed, but he believed the number to be twenty-two. He knew exactly where he was, and that was why he was not perfectly sure of the date. He had traveled the same distance along this very path at this very speed before, and it had taken twenty days. The forest may have been expanding. Such things were not unheard of.

His internal clock ringed noon. Time to stop for lunch. He pulled Excalibur off his belt, with his left hand, and halted his breathing. There was motion to his right. He pulled the trigger and in a blinding flash of white (White) light the doe dropped dead. His accuracy was improving.

Like the others, it had no sign that it had been shot. The White bullet had strange properties. It left no trace, and he was still unsure as to exactly how it killed its targets. But it did. It did indeed.

He cleaned the lifeless body and started a fire. Cooking the meat, he recollected on the prior month. A lot had happened, after all. He had gotten his guns (left in Gilead), gone on his first assignment, been betrayed, captured the Red, gained the White… Unfortunately, this turn of events meant that Gilead was corrupt. Almost beyond being saved. Almost. His leg had been bothering him. The wound was not like any wound he'd ever had before. He knew what he needed to do, he just wanted to be sure. If he was wrong… His hand, however, was in perfect condition (well, as perfect as it would have been if the bullet had been normal), probably because the "bullet" had not remained in his body. It was fairing well, however, and he could almost use it again. However, he had already trained his left hand to function well, so he would continue using it until his right was fully healed.

The meat was cooked. While he ate, he stopped blocking out the shouts the Red and White were exchanging. They were now arguing over which of them Ka favored more. That was rather silly, he thought, because everyone knew that Ka was a neutral party. The White seemed to be saying that, since He wasn't evil, he must be good. Ha. As if life was so Red and White. He made a joke. That was a first. The Red was arguing that since Ka had no consideration for the infinite amount of lives he governed, he must be at least partially evil. Well, enough of that. It was obvious they weren't going to get anywhere, so he shut them out again.

When he was done eating, he picked up his purse (the gun and the orb were violently vibrating against each other) and continued on his course towards the Crossroads.

Finally, the leaves above him started to dwindle out, and he got a catch at the open sky. The sun said an hour past noon, and for once, his mind agreed perfectly. He knew the reason: he was on Holy ground. Through the trees, he spied a tower. A tall one, at that. They must have made an addition in the past few years. Though it was green, it still reminded him of the famed Dark Tower. He continued walking. The ground beneath him turned to dirt, then finally sand. Fine sand, too. Easy to walk on. He didn't know it until now, but his leg was crying out for something like this. He rolled up his pants and looked at it. It was becoming infected, there was no doubt about it. He would have removed the bullet by now, but he was afraid as to what would happen. But he knew what would happen. He would pull it out, drop it in the sand, and look back into the wound and it would still be there. There was only one thing that could solve this problem, and he realized that if he didn't do it now, he never would. He took Excalibur out of his purse (it seemed to push itself out, away from the Red) and, without a second thought, aimed it at his leg and pulled the trigger. A flash of white light… and his leg was no longer infected. In fact, it didn't look nearly as deep. The pain that he had been blocking out was no longer there, and there was most certainly not a bullet in his leg. He flipped open the cylinder, and the red bullet was back in the gun. Hum. That worked rather well. He wondered why he was so worried before. Then he wondered what would have happened if he had had a red bullet lodged closer to his brain. Oh. He continued walking towards the tower.

While this may be obvious to most, he found it amazingly easier to walk without a serious injury. He had kept the same pace as before, of course, but it wasn't as straining, and so by the time he reached the tower he was able to slow his breathing down to a normal level (why hadn't he realized how out of breath he was? Was it actually simply caused by the red bullet? A scary thought indeed.) In any case, the front door of the tower had changed. It was no longer made of sheet metal, what felt like tin. It was now made of wood, possibly oak. On the door, about two-thirds up from the bottom, was a plaque made of solid gold. On the plaque, two words. "The Swordslinger." He touched the doorknob. It opened. What he saw through the door was not the guard post he had come to recognize, but instead a lake. He looked down out of the door, and sure enough, the door was floating not five feet above the water. If he stepped out, he was sure he would fall into the water and probably rust his sword, so he took a step back and sat down. Out of his purse came the poster, with the door in the middle of the lake. He opened the door again, while looking at the picture. The picture on the poster. When he opened the door, it came to life. The water started to move, waves, and the pink glistening off the trees. And the door opened. And he was standing in the doorway. He closed the door, and the door closed in the picture, and the waves stopped moving and the trees stopped rustling.

Wow.

Open, close. Open, close. What was this madness, this mischief, that kept him from getting into the tower? He looked back at the poster. The words at the bottom, proclaiming the cast of circus freaks, had changed. They now said, "Hile, Swordslinger. The Pink sends her regards." Oh. The Pink. Well, not just any mischief then, but The Mischief. It's too bad the Pink was a minor color. And it was also too bad the White was a major color. Out came Excalibur. He closed the door and aimed the gun at the poster. At the door in the poster. He pulled the trigger, and then everything when… pink.

When he came to, one hour, twenty-one minutes and thirty-eight seconds had passed. Unless the sun was wrong, which quite plainly could be true, but he didn't think so. He glanced at the door. Ah… It was made of metal. He stood up, grabbed his purse, noted that the poster was gone, and walked up to this new (old) door. He opened it, and was glad to see the guard post where he was first stationed, so long ago. Where he first discovered the Green. He walked in.

The desk was still there, although the guard sleeping in the chair behind it was absent. Well, it wasn't the Harvest Moon yet, so there was little trading going on. Understandable that the guard station wouldn't be manned. He walked over to the desk and sat down in the chair. Everything was just as he remembered it. Nothing had changed. He stood up, and walked back to the entry door. He turned left, facing the wall. He drew a knife walked to the wall. With the knife, he began scratching marks into the wall. Carving, almost.

The Rain In Spain Falls Mainly On The Plain

The letters carved into the wood began to glow. Glow green. Lines, green lines, began shaping themselves in a rectangle, then again, with intricate patterns along the edges. A small circle halfway down the length of this shape, to the right. The letters carved into the wood had vanished, and in their place:

The Green

Finally, the lines slowed and the creation was finished. He touched the doorknob, the small circle, and the door came to life. An actual door. His hand on the doorknob. He turned it. Opened it. Walked through it.

The room he walked into still frightened him, as it had before. In the corner, there was a sort of… chamber, divided into three sections. Each section filled with fluid. In the fluid… a man, a dog, a woman. With wires. Sticking out of their heads. He couldn't bear to look, so he didn't. He walked up to a machine, the machine, and thought at it, "Altair 4."

Altair 4, y/n?

"Yes."

Here he was. He could hold his breath, of course, but it didn't detract from the eeriness. There was a wrecked vehicle here, a mile in diameter, a perfect disk in shape. He didn't want to know where it came from. He didn't find out. A man walked up to him. The man was quite clearly drunk.

"Well he'o, man. Name's Gardner. Judgin' from the look of ya, you're here for the Green, right? Well I'll go fetch i' for ya."

The man smiled. He was missing all of his teeth. Oh God.

In a moment, the man (no longer drunk, somehow) had a Green orb in his hands. "Ahh… isn't it beautiful? It's been corrupted, of course. As of late, it's been doing more harm than good. Of course, your late is my early, so… Well, I won't bore you. Here you go." He held it out in his hands.

The Swordslinger pulled from his purse Excalibur and shot the orb on the spot. A blinding flash of green light, and…. A woman named Bobbi Anderson accidentally stumbled in the woods. She woke up the Tommyknockers, a friendly race of extraterrestrials by doing so. A man named Jim Gardner was saved by a boy named Jack Sawyer, and continued on to visit his friend, who, while not in danger, was about to discover the cure for cancer. The rest of the town would have similar discoveries. The Tommyknockers shared their secrets with the town, and went on their way.

Gardner was gone. The orb changed from dark green to light green, more emerald in color. The Swordslinger picked up the orb, put it in his purse, and sent a mental message back. "The Tower of the Green."

Tower of the Green, y/n?

"Yes."

When he arrived back in Bobbi's shed, it was much different. The entire room glistened with emeralds. It appeared to be coated in emeralds. The computer itself was green. It didn't look as foreboding, either. He heard a whisper from the machine. "So, Dorothy… Green isn't so Wicked after all." Then it died. He turned to the shed doors, unlocked them and stepped out. Oops. He was in Bobbi's yard. He went back in, drew his knife, and wrote: "He Thrusts His Fists Against The Posts And Still Insists He Sees The Ghosts." It took quite a bit longer to write, but in no time he was back in the tower. Back in the road. He stopped at the actual Crossroads, next to the tower, where the six separate roads met, for dinner. Inside his purse, he could sense that the Green, a symbol of misunderstood kindess (among other things) had joined in the debate. He glanced inside. Red was glowing a little dimmer. It had suffered a blow. In an infinite number of worlds (every world but the one where it was necessary for him to survive), Jack Mort died in childbirth.

The Swordslinger felt accomplished as he ate the rest of the deer and moved onwards. Only eleven left.