D'Spayr: A Knight in the Withered Land

D'Spayr: A Knight in the Withered Land, 6

SIX

The Worst thing about Evil wasn’t in the misery it caused, was not in the unrepentant mayhem it visited upon people and their lives, nor was the worse thing about it in the way its aura of negativity could drain Life and Hope out of every passing moment in existence. No, Evil’s main strength was not in its ability to frighten or to repel or to blossom like a cancerous tumor, hungry and all-consuming, in a fresh petri dish-culture of global discord and disharmony. Evil wasn’t scary. What Evil did wasn’t scary, it was tragic and dehumanizing and sickening, but it wasn’t scary.

No, the thing that was worst about Evil was that it always kept you waiting. It made you wait. You were already half-dead and bleeding from the anticipation before the awful-thing-with-the-teeth bit into you. You couldn’t rely on its arrival. It came and went when you least expected it and were least ready for it.

More, the worst thing about Evil was its arrogant belief that it was eternal and that it had forever to do with you what it wanted.

And then, when it finally WOULD arrive, the horror of the situation would dawn on you and you’d realize the truth was that it had been there all along ---

--- because it WAS you. The monster wore your face.

Case in point:

D’Spayr had staked himself out in the midst of a flat sand-blasted plain just inside the borders of the Wastes, the rolling, tumbling mist of the seemingly impenetrable fog-wall in plain sight, surrounded by six slowly decaying bodies and two chests of treasure from the ravaged caravan.

Bait. Lumynn had bitterly argued the virtues of the plan with him, but D’Spayr knew that the shortage of Time had made of them desperate men and desperate men took unbelievably risky gambles. They had no army, no allies, and they needed them. More they needed an edge that would balance the disparity of power between Bluhd’s forces and themselves.

They had to call the Devil to dinner.

He’d waited for almost sixteen hours before she came to him. The clatter of the hooves of the steeds pulling her coach pounded into his head like a mutant heartbeat and he saw the flames surrounding her coach like the light from a dying sun. He knew she’d been out there, just out of sight, hiding behind the rippling mirror-wash rising from off the heat-blasted ground, skulking about masked by a mirage showing nothing but an innocent blank horizon, he knew and he’d waited, matching his patience to hers.

When, at last, the Gray Widow came for him, she’d found the Knight smiling.

“New skin”, she’d said, recognizing him. “Alone.”

The immense wart-covered toad-thing in whose jaws she lounged had drooled and made soft grunting noises. A sudden gust of wind had fanned the flames surrounding the coach, making them burn higher and brighter, yet they consumed nothing. The fuel for the flames was instantly replenished.

“New skin. Bringer of pain. Warrior. Intruder. Disrespectful. We have hoped to see you once again. We have wished you much harm…”, she’d said, her angry hiss sounding almost like a feline purr.

“There is much I can do for you”, D’Spayr had said, ignoring the rising threat in the Widow’s manner.

“Dying with a scream on your lips would be only a start… Death would not end the agony.”

“Revenge is useless. You’ve had prey escape you before. And you’re still here. It cost you only a momentary mark on your pride. Look around me. See what I’ve brought you… you could kill me and settle for only this or you could have so very much more.”

“An empty promise from New Skin afraid to die...”, she’d replied in a voice like broken music.

“Stop thinking small, you skinny rotting witch”, the Knight had growled impudently. “I bring you the key to a feast that will last you for years. I could bring you beyond the wall of fog, out from The Wastes and into the Forever Plain, across that arid expanse to where the cities still stand. You and your Lord could know freedom and the ecstasy of a feast unending…”