Once upon a time, as Maurice told them, there had been a young man who was a cleric, living with other clerics in a small abbey. There, he went about the duties that were a part of his chosen life. He learned the ancient language. He blessed weapons so that they could be effective against forest wraiths and other nasties. He ran from town to town, distributing healing potions to the storekeepers, in exchange for which he collected contributions to the abbey.

The young man was not particularly handsome, but neither was he ugly. His shoulders were broad and his body tapered at the waist like a bulldog. His jawline was like a bulldog’s too, and his eyes were rather small and beady. But he had a friendly smile and his hands were square and capable. Truly, he looked far more like a farmer’s son than a cleric, but as the last born of his family he had been sent to the abbey, and he doggedly pursued his profession until even the abbey head admitted that he could adequately perform his duties.

One day, while he was striding through the forest on the way to distribute his healing potions, he came upon a young girl sleeping on a bed of moss, as careless and comfortable as if she were in her own feather bed.

Concerned, the cleric stopped in his tracks and shook her awake.

“Excuse me,” he said, “but it’s dangerous to sleep here.”

The young woman sat up and stretched, and the cleric could see for the first time how truly beautiful she was.

“Is it?” she said, carelessly, brushing back a stray piece of hair from her wide brown eyes. She looked up at him and smiled. Her lips were a rosy bow, and the cleric had a sudden forceful thought of kissing her. He shook his head to clear it.

“Of course it is!” he said. “What nonsense. Where do you live? You must come back with me.”

“I’ll not,” the young woman replied haughtily. “I’m here—waiting—for someone.”

“A rabbit?” the cleric scoffed. “A wolf? Most likely a boar, if you’re not careful.”

“A friend,” the young woman said. “And also, none of your business. Unless you’d like to wait with me?” And she patted the mossy ground beside her.

Against his better judgment, the cleric sat down, and took her offering of a crust of bed and swallow of wine from the skin.

How enchanting she was! Being close to her set his skin on fire. Her scent made his nostrils flare.

“Might I at least know your name?” the cleric asked.

“Kara,” she replied—and suddenly the sound of clanking armor ricocheted through the clearing. Kara shoved the cleric away and stood up, brushing herself off.

“Thanks for waiting with me,” she said, carelessly. “Now get out of here! My—uh—friend is coming.”

Without another word, insulted and embarrassed, the cleric faded into the trees. But he didn’t leave. Instead, he hid himself and watched to see what would happen. Sure enough, an armor-clad knight emerged from the trees. He pushed up his visor when he saw Kara, and kissed her.

“My horse is near,” he said. “Come.”

And the cleric watched them disappear into the woods.

After that, the cleric was smitten. Was it her beauty or cruelty that attracted him? He could never say. But he found out soon enough what village was hers. She was the mayor’s daughter, which accounted for her peasant haughtiness, and her desire to have a knight as a lover.

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Kara became the cleric’s life. He wrote her a dozen love letters, all of which she returned without opening. He stood outside her window, lute in hand, strumming the few songs he knew until the mayor forced him to leave. At the abbey, the head cleric brought him in to discuss his behavior.

“We’re having complaints,” the head cleric said briefly. “And our investigation has found that these complaints are not without merit. You shall not be delivering healing potions to Kara’s village anymore.”

The young cleric took the news stoically, but inside he burned. Who was the head cleric to tell him what to do? How could he possibly understand his feelings? The old man had been happily married to his plump wife for 20 years, and had three plump daughters by her. His life was joy after joy. The first stirrings of a twisted hate and jealousy of other people’s happiness began to sprout in the young cleric. But it was nothing compared to his ravenous need to see Kara again.

Banned from her village, he began to haunt the small forest clearing where she met with her knight. He would watch them embrace from a distance, mad with impotent jealousy. He ate himself up with it—keeping his feelings as hidden as he could. One day, walking back to his abbey after seeing them together once again, he saw a spider just finishing an intricate web. He stopped to watch as the spider spun one last silk thread, then crawled to the center of the web to await his prey. He imagined the insect satisfaction of a job well done, how the spider perched there, how this must be the best moment in the life of a spider, to have just completed a web.

Then he destroyed it, tearing at the intricately arranged silky threads with his bare heads, intent on nothing else but taking down what life had created. The spider dropped harmlessly from the web and began to crawl away. The cleric stomped down with his leather shoe, destroying it.

He was surprised how good it felt.

The cleric arrived home, and in a moment of evil inspiration scribbled off a message to the knight, Kara’s lover. Then he went about his business. When the day came for their usual meeting, he returned to the forest to spy on them.

He saw Kara waiting for a longer time than usual. This was what he expected. But just as the cleric was about to approach her, he heard the familiar clanging sounds of the knight’s armor. So he had come after all.

Kara had also heard the sounds, and she rose from her mossy bed, her arms wide open to him.

But instead of lifting his visor as he usually did, he drew his sword and pierced Kara through the heart.

Mortally wounded, she cried out, and with her arms crossed over her body crumpled to the ground. The knight lifted his visor and spat.

“I would never let you give me a bastard son!” the knight proclaimed, and disappeared back into the forest.

The cleric rushed to her side as she shuddered—dying in an agony of confusion and pain. He gently lifted her head and placed it in his lap, caressing her cheek.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, gasping the words.

“I told your lover you were pregnant,” the cleric confessed.

“And he killed me, for the shame,” she said, and shook her dying head. “I do not blame him. I die loving him.”

Then she fixed her wide brown eyes on the cleric. “And I die hating you,” she said. “You are never to be loved. You are the enemy of humankind. You wanted what was not yours, and brought shame on my true love, and death to me. I curse you with my last breath. I mark you, and I curse you.”

The cleric, horrified at her words, saw the light of life extinguish in her eyes. Shaking, he softly placed her head on the mossy ground and stood up. He saw the blood on his hands. And suddenly, an evil wind whipped through him. He realized that she was right—he was the enemy of humankind. Where there was light and life, he would destroy it. Methodically, slowly, relentlessly, he would become what she said. He would embody her curse, but not slinking away, to suffer with it. He was determined to embrace his destiny, to learn to delight in destruction.

The cleric turned from her, and turned from the abbey, and traveled north to the mountains, where he would learn and study the art of destruction, sorrow, madness. And where others would fail, he would succeed, for he was not gifted as a wizard, and therefore was not subject to the temptations of learning too fast.

They say now that he studies and prepares to destroy the world, and that he is aging as slowly, as he studies. The clerics all know this story, and the head clerics use it as a warning to young clerics against surrendering to unrequited love, and if that is not possible, then to the bitterness that follows the inevitable rejection.

“If the wizard is truly the cleric from our stories,” Maurice said, “then we must defeat a monster that may be beyond our capabilities to defeat. For who can defeat a wizard who has studied for 500 years?”

“We can,” Terry said firmly. “With the help of Old Tom. Now, tell us what you know about grass growing upside down.”

Maurice shook his head. “I don’t have a clue,” he said. “But I know who might …”