A radical change in the order of the world was immediately presented to me. I was in a room, no doubt a room as the walls were not made of dirt but of old stone bricks. A chandelier above me was lit but emitted purple instead of a homely yellow glow. There were no furnishings and out ahead lay another hallway. I scarcely made a sound and tiptoed forward. Oh how I wished then to have been smoking, it would have eased the tension. Yet, clandestine actions do not merit smoking or fear. The sword at my hip remained at my hip and nowhere else. It would remain there until the moment was precisely right. In between deep breaths, I crossed the room and entered the hallway, having out the distance between me and the exit even farther away.

It seemed more like a tunnel than anything else. On the walls were dim candles on sconces. Purple on the right side and red on the left. “Where is the yellow,” I thought to myself. “There’s no natural glow here, this place is a scourge against God,” I answered to myself. These bastards were being lumped in with me. Oh, how furious I had felt! A nasty scowl covered my face and my nose wrinkled in disgust. I could put this ordeal in order and finally have thrust myself into a higher standing, but that lay across a confrontation. And for a confrontation to occur, they would actually need to be right in front of me. Nevertheless, the end gave way to another doorway which seemed to only have a distant light within. I crossed the threshold and entered the next room.

I was upon a large wooden platform held up by multiple beams, down the front were stairs that led to the bottom. Out and away the ‘room’ stretched out but I quickly found out that it was a massive cavern! How dreadfully had I misjudged how established these necromancers were! It was big enough to contain multiple houses along the bottom. My eyes shifted to the top of the cavern and it seemed to move, then I realized the bits of red mist that shifted and swayed were meant to be clouds, tainted by red but not white. A small glowing orb of light was meant to be the moon, but it shone purple, giving the whole cavern a sickly violet hue. The ceiling was meant to be a sky in the dead of night but outside was in the afternoon. Human handiwork would never be able to create such a ceiling without assistance from nefarious sources. Down and away, I saw the quivering of a fire behind what looked like trees. How confusing it was to witness trees, underground no less! A wicked mimicry of what lay only yards above.

My conscious raved and wailed as I made my descent as silent as a cat. But my mind was akin to a whirlwind that roared. It must’ve been at least three floors worth of stairs as it took a laborious amount of time to finally reach the lower level. At last, my foot reached not a stair but solid dirt and thus on the same level as that fire I had seen just at the top.

In the distance, I heard voices, no doubt the necromancers! They were at the end of the coven and the gap between them and I was quickly being closed. Carefully maneuvering each step, I brushed past boulders and old ruined houses made of stone, at least that is what I believed them to be. They could have been sunken, somehow, I figured, from above. Or perhaps built by an older set of hideaways and these new settlers had merely transformed the place. It was history long forgotten and never to be retrieved once more. A wicked history that perhaps ought to be left to rot.

Still, rather than take the path that cut straight down the middle, I opted to navigate the miniature set of ruins. My breathing became labored and my eyes strained in the darkness. A wild smile crept onto my face without my permission. Confrontation was rapidly approaching. My heart drummed against my ribs, almost threatening to burst out and destroy my concealed approach. I let a hand rest by my sword for a moment, but quickly pulled it away as if the sword was burnt metal and forced myself to make do without leaning on immediate violence.

Finally, I could make out the voice as I stood behind the final structure before the campfire and trees.

“Perhaps, collecting another subject would be far too rash…” said a man’s voice, uncertainty caked into every word.

A woman’s voice scolded the man, “Coward! Don’t you understand? We are so very close to completion. Therein lies your problem, always seeming to bow out right before the finale. Can’t you conquer your cowardly heart? How much must I beat you into believing what is right?”

“But perhaps someone is already onto us? Disappearing subjects makes a duke question things, what if they have guards raid us and knights ride us down on the road? What if fifty men, all armed with swords and crossbows with inquisitors trailing them, find us? What of it then? I say we rest, for a few weeks and let all the troubles dissipate, even a little.”

“You and your paranoia!” hissed the woman with venom. “We are concealed and covert, no knight or raging guardsman can stop us! Now, I order you to go out there, perhaps right now to nab that huntsman! He’s likely in a drunken stupor like usual. No easier target than that predictable man! Must I do the heavy work because you are no better than a slug?”

My curiosity finally overpowered me. I leaned around the corner and took a peak.

Indeed, there were two necromancers, both wearing black cloaks and boots, sitting near the fire. The man was bare-headed with a shaved head. He looked awfully terrified as his hands were clasped together but his legs fidgeted wildly. Right beside him was what I figured carried the womanly voice. On her head was a black hood of some sort, one that completely encased the head and neck, her hands donned black gloves as well. Other than her figure, I could not immediately tell if she was human or not. Perhaps under the cloak, gloves and hood was rotted skin or just bone. From where I stood and what was covered, I had no way of knowing. The possibilities brought on by pure wickedness were limitless.

While they continued to debate, or rather, the man continually scolded by the woman, I turned back around the corner. If I were quick, I could retreat all the way back up to the platform, dash out into the gorge and alert Norvin. Yet, that would admit total defeat! I nearly let a whimper escape me as I deliberated. Knights and guardsmen, yes they could sort out the issue and they, or at least one, feared them like no other, yet it would cost me my own soul. But that cloaked woman gave me a fright like no other. What she was capable of was most certainly beyond me, perhaps just as beyond as the angler. What was the angler doing at that very moment? I had no the slightest of ideas, perhaps that spirit was watching me, right then and there. All the while I knew that Norvin was above ground polishing off another bottle of brandy, no man like him only carries on completely sober, especially if they are likely to wait a long while. Then the man would nab him! That is, if I fail or linger too long and he would be helpless, and fall into a horrible stupor.

Finally, I had enough! I threw off the gauntlet. Action was at hand! The final die was cast. Tossing the last remnants of debate, still raging in my head, I ventured out around the corner and crept my way forward, out into the open. In my haste to escape my head, I had not even drawn my sword or adopted a kind of structured gait. I merely emerged out of the darkness and toward the fire, like a curious beast in a forest.

Moments dragged forward but at last, my glare, striking the man with such intensity, was met with his. Shock struck him and his face convulsed with confusion and terror. Unlike the angler’s, the stare was feeble and brittle. The man simply melted upon my gaze. Then the woman swiveled her head at me. So she could see through the hood! The realization invigorated me and filled me with dread simultaneously.

“Such an odd place for a couple, and as an odd man, I recognize habits such as these,” I said with an unsteady voice and then stopped before them. They sat opposing me and across the fire, which looked like it was licking their faces from where I stood.

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“Who are you?” cried the man.

“I suppose I ought to ask you the same question! But I suppose I do not need to answer, for I know much more about you than you do of I.” A silence followed as I merely stood, then I continued, “Well indeed, this is a coven much beyond the likes of I, no doubt! Yes, yes this is the most intriguing of places one could sequester themselves in. I refuse to believe that a man and a woman could carve out such an abode like this. I am certainly no architect, in fact, I can barely tie two logs together! But the red clouds and purple moon (if you could call them that as I know they are not truly real!) are quite the sight for a man such as myself!”

“Impossible!” shouted the man. “You… you do not look the part of a townsman or a guardsman or most certainly a knight, so who are you, a hermit of some kind?”

“Yes,” said the woman with a calm voice. “Where is it you hail from?”

“Ah, indeed you are correct by every account of your estimation! I am a hermit by choice, exile by my own decision, that is. But now, even though I do not carry a banner of an army or am some kind of guard, of any kind, I am worse. Yes, I am far worse than that! Indeed despite the worst of beings having graced me not too long ago, what bodes for the future here brings a worse fate. For you two, you have transgressed me in the most terrible of fashion!”

“A madman!” squealed the woman with glee. For in her mind, I was the most perfect of solutions; a lone madman in their cove. There I was, completely and utterly alone against the power that she no doubt held. But once again, she had made a transgression against me, now in the realm of identification.

“A righteous man! A man of the most sound state of mind in the entirety of the world!” I corrected. “Now you two are most definitely hermits but not of the correction fashion, you see. I am an enlightened man, a man who has thrown off the great shackles of consciousness, if but for a moment! Now, I have watched you now for over two weeks, that is how I found you! No matter how much effort you have fruitlessly labored to remain hidden from every eye in the world, I have journeyed to the very spot we stand today.”

The woman stood up, circled the fire and stood beside me. Of course, the hood hid every expression her “face” could have made. Nonetheless, she had made her way just to the left of me and tried to guide me to a stone to sit down with her, “Come now, take a seat next to me and bask in the warmth of the fire!” I sat down, she nearly followed suit by sitting on my lap. My glare, which she must have taken as crazed instead of contempt, dissuaded her and she positioned herself nearly up against my shoulder. A dark shadow loomed over me as her figure could not contain the spirit she possessed. “Do you know how I started this fire? Hush hush, he knows” (her finger led to the other man who was now shriveling up like a snail in the sun without a shell) “but he does not care! I made it by the palm of my hands! Notice there is not another source of fire close by? This is the power I have cultivated, much too slowly by him, but perhaps a man, wild in all his mind desires such power, hm?”

The proposition was preposterous, by all accounts. They were not like me in the slightest! I nearly spat on the ground in disgust but all that was displayed was the most subtle wrinkle of my nose. Her words were the most heinous insult I have ever hurled against me. But she cared little and misjudged who I truly was. Not even the devil or his doorman (lackeys if one wishes to be noble about their role hmph!) could penetrate my consciousness, as that lay my greatest torturer and seducer. Nothing in existence can outdo me in the realm of dictating the experience of my consciousness.

From what they could see was a hermit who looked worse for wear, still damp from sweat and unmistakably impoverished. I swiveled my head at her and then to the man. “You there, you have shame-ridden every crevice in your face. There is despair! Yes, despair, don’t you feel it? Have I, a stranger, overshadowed you? Ha ha! That’s it!” I leaped up and got buried far too deep in thought. “I am enlightened but oh so foolish. I am a coward. I am a total wretch! Roaches and leeches are above me in worth, no doubt, as I am a hermit by choice. Yet, here is a chance to reverse such conditions! To become a roach is still to change and a leech feasts off the blood of a hoist.

“I desire no such transformation, no not in the slightest! I seek transformation into enlightenment, to relevance (to myself at least haha!), and to overcome and bypass a terrible shadow, a humiliating and degrading shadow, by every stretch of the imagination. For perhaps, I have thought of something new, or most likely not, yet it is new to me, a line of consciousness that for once can elevate me away from my dreadful state. The diligence required to recognize the acts, malice and mercy.”

“Truly a madman!” she cried with absolute glee. Once more she rose up and circled next to me. That time, however, she wrapped her arms around me and rested her head on my shoulder. I continued to stare at the man, who looked crushed by every sense of the word. He was slumped ever so slightly and misty eyed. His entire world had been crushed, by accident no doubt from his perspective. Yet I was filled with simmering rage. A low whisper was lent to my ear and I could hear the sneer from behind the hood, “Smite him! You are perfect to me! And take his robe when you’ve finished what you truly desire.”

I spoke to him, “Do you believe in mercy?”

“In what sense?” he said.

“In what sense? I cried. “In every sense of the word! Isn’t mercy perhaps one of the greatest characters of us? So I ask again: do you believe in mercy?”

He stopped and pondered deeply. What ran through his mind, I shall never know but the pause was long and labored. Only the fire filled the air with sound, all else was utterly quiet.

At last he spoke once more, “I do believe in mercy.”

A miracle! “For who? Who should believe in mercy? Who ought to believe it shall come around for them? Are you sincere, in every sense of the word?”

“I do hope so,” he whimpered, his eyes breaking off of mine.

My mind was made. At once, every voice in my head ceased. For the first time everything was silent between my ears. It was as if the stars aligned, and had lined up so perfectly, I could scarcely breathe. The final break in consciousness to action had transcended me. All that was meant to be was rapidly coming to a head.

I pushed her aside and stood opposing her. “Three have entered this wicked coven. Only two will leave and I have decided who.”

Quicker than lightning, my right hand had the sword which I transferred to my left. The man leaped away and cowered, ducking away from the struggle completely. During this rapid flight of moments, she hissed some curses and began to draw flames to her hands. It was no use as I was too quick and far too close. Her misjudgment of me had cost her everything, malice was abound.

I rammed the rusty sword through her body, the other end bursting out her back. A violent, wicked screech was let out into the air. She writhed and writhed on my blade with pain obscuring her ability to cast. My jaw was clenched so tightly which nearly made my teeth shatter from the pressure. Then, for a final blow, I swung her aside and tossed her into the raging fire.

Her howls were cut short and I stood beside a burning, demonic corpse with the sword still lodged into it. Only the crackling of the fire escaped to be heard along with my heavy panting from such a physical and mental feat.

From behind, the man rose up. “Thank you,” he said. “Perhaps my life ought to amount to something better than this.”

I turned to meet him. “I suppose… I suppose. Now go and act, and act quickly! Do not stop to ponder for too long, ha ha! Or lest you’ll end up like me!” He hesitated to merely melt into the shadows and flee. “Go! There’s a huntsman up there above, the very one you feared to nab, a good man, from my line of judgment. Go to him and say, ‘The man from between the river deltas is merely resting by a fire and will arrive shortly.’ That is all, now go and act in better faith! Lest you become insincere and meet malice instead of mercy. Now I want to rest, if but a moment and fully digest what has happened to me.”

That finally had cast him off. At last, I was alone once more. I sat down by the fire again and fell into reflection. Her corpse was beginning to turn into ash when at last, my thoughts retreated.

Up above me was the huntsman and as I rose to go and make the trek, a great wave of joy coursed through me. A satisfying smile crept onto my lips. Let it be known, that a pathetic man from between the river deltas can perhaps have his own place in the sun.

FIN