Britannia Unleashed

Temporalis-5

The descent, although dangerous, swapping from vine to vine like some crazed monkey, was fast, but still not fast enough to lose the nipping insects. Belvedere should rather have faced an army barefooted than those bothersome midges. So, when at last his feet brushed against leaves, then scratching twigs, then came to rest upon a large branch that abutted the cliffs, his body encased in foliage, he breathed a great sigh of relief. Another two, and that hero of more wars than he wished to remember regained his composure if it had ever left. Instinctively, Belvedere squatted low to the three-feet diameter wooden arm and peered over its lofty edge to the jungle floor. The place was silent, too silent, and dark as pitch, the leafy canopy blocking out all but the thinnest, rapier shards of sunlight.

“So, Bells, up or down?” he said to himself without coming up with a convincing argument for either. “Is it to be Heaven or Hell?” he added, wiping the sweat off his forehead, and flicking it into the abyss. “If only I’d brought a coin to toss, Ah, well, I’ll know for next time.”

A second more intense stare down to the distant ground gave a defining reason for remaining in his arboreal berth. An indentation he’d first taken for a natural crater in the grassed floor, revealed itself upon closer inspection as the undoubtable imprint of some gigantic, three-toed beast. “Heaven,” he said with an intake of breath. “Definitely Heaven.”

The tree Belvedere lodged in was enormous, far bigger than anything found in his own time. The giant was of such stature that its branches made living pathways amongst the trees. He set off along one such walkway, skipped up to another, and thus made his way with rapid effect through the treetops.

Large lobed leaves slapped against his face with frustrating regularity, punkah wallahs with attitudes, but, otherwise, Belvedere found the way refreshingly easy. The verdant trail was even exciting until he chanced upon a splintered, arrow-straight road of destruction heading in the same direction as he. The creature that had done it must have been akin to a land whale, or so he thought, for nothing past or present could have caused such damage. Large holes in the treeline had been ripped open causing the sun’s dazzling rays to shine down like the searchlights he’d seen used in wartime. Such an amount of sweet-smelling sap ran from this c*****e that he likened it to the Lake District’s hillside streams but of a transparent gold rather than clear mercury.

Belvedere stopped, mopped his sodden brow, and recalled a discussion he had had prior to his departure. As per always, anything said between he and Albert had been done under the ever-mindful eye of Monk.