Witches Tale 3

“The three are idiots, totally worthless, a complete waste of life. But, I need them.” The witch said.  She stared into the crystal ball, the only light in the cave.  A heavy stone door kept her inside.  Behind her was the void.  A wrinkled finger, yellowed and spotted, drew a line on the globe.  She shuffled around in her dank dwelling , fiddling around with some dusty bottles on a rotten wooden table.  Spiders shifted and settled back into their dirty webs waiting for the day when she’ll stop moving and they can feast on her.  She went back to the globe, “They are going to bring me my girl and release us from this rocky prison.”

A swirling mass began to grow in the crystal ball as the witch started to chant.  Her name has disappeared from her mind, but her spells stuck in her mind like a splinter.  Next to the crystal ball was a big black cauldron, crusted with years of concoctions.  She poured the bottles into the pot, and a thin tendril of smoke began to float out.  Light danced among the swirling in the globe.  The witch glided over to a workbench on the edge of the dark room.  On the bench she felt around for the final ingredient, a bat she had recently caught and killed.  She drained the blood into the kettle and began to stir.

The crystal ball flashed brightly, showering the cave in light.  She shielded her big bloodshot eyes from the blinding light. Her body had adapted to the dark, giving her an uncanny ability to survive in blackness. There was a time she craved light, would cast a spell just to see the sun.  Yet, with time, she grew to loath the light, for it burned her skin and her hurt her eyes.  This made casting spells painful, blistering her skin every time the ball lit up.  She had to make each spell worth the pain and torture it caused.  

Chanting filled the cave, echoing off the rocky walls.  The spell was a low deep guttural sound, coming from deep within the witch’s stomach.  If someone listened long enough they would hear a melody to the spell, but the words were incomprehensible.  The witch knew what it meant, knew when to pause and when to speed up.  Inside of the globe, the swirling matched time with the spell, pulsing to the beat she kept.  The cloud inside started to dissipate and colors coalesced, forming shapes.  The shapes began to become more refined as the chanting sped up to an almost inhuman speed.  Her lips fluttered, her tongue twitched, the words running together as she reached the crescendo of the chant.  She collapsed when the last of the chant spilled from her mouth.  An image appeared in the crystal ball.

The witch stood up weakly, wiping the sweat from her brow.  Her body was spent, every bone creaked and popped as she leaned over the crystal ball and looked at the world contained within.  Her eyes reflected the scene she saw playing out.  A viking-like boat, with a dragon masthead, bobbed next to a wooden dock.  The boat looked like it had seen better days, paint on the masthead was peeling, barnacles grew on the sides, and the oars were rotten and splintered.  No other boats were tied to the dock while it banged a lonely beat against the dock.  She watched as the image moved to a gloomy bar squeezed between shipping company buildings in the port.  

Inside the smoky bar, sailors and pirates huddled together drinking dark beer.  A woman was by herself at the corner of the bar, staring at the wall.  Three ugly men sat in a dimly lit booth watching her.  The witch smiled, she always smiled when she saw the woman, and whispered to herself, “soon, we will be together.”  

She rubbed the globe and the scene focused on the men.  They sat around the table, a black cloth lay among scattered mugs.  On the cloth were some lines of text with a drawing of a map.  The witch knew the cloth and the handwriting, it was cut from her robe and written in her shaky hand.  The rail thin one, with a nose that was too big, pointed at the cloth.  Inside of her mind voices appeared, in line with the moving lips of the three men.

“I’m tellin’ ya, that’s her.” He said.

“We’ve been staring at her for like an hour, Scaz.”  The pig-nosed one said.  

“Well, she is, Krut.  Let’s finish up and grab her.” Scaz said.

Krut picked up his glass and slobbered the beer down.  Mord reached for the map and Scaz slapped his hand away.  He glowered at the wide face of the short man in a hood.  Mord pulled back his hand and stuck it in his wet mouth.  “Why’d you go and do something like that?”

“Because, you are an idiot and would lose it.  We need it to find the door and the treasure.  If you go and lose it, where would we be?  We’d be lost and without the money.” Scaz said.

The three looked back and forth at each other.  Daggers shot from Scaz’s eyes, while the other two were shaken and skittish.  Scaz had already planned on drowning the other two as soon as they got the gold.  

The last couple of days a beautiful woman came to him in his dreams and whispered in his ear that he couldn’t trust his friends anymore.  He could feel her breath as she purred into his ear, “they want the money for themselves, they’ll kill you.”

He didn’t want to believe her, they had been together since they escaped the orphanage.  But, every night she came to him, gave him pleasure and whispered how they were planning on killing him.  “Krut is going to slit your throat while you sleep.  Mord will poison your beer.  They are going to tie you to a rock and throw you into the ocean.  You are going to find yourself tied to a stake in front of a rat's nest, the rats are going to eat out your eyes.”  She’d scream as she climaxed.  

Each morning he woke up sweaty and shivering, her words in his head.  The other two would be awake, the campfire already started, and their eyes on him.  He’d bark at them about something, pour out the coffee Mord gave him, and clutch onto the cloth.  He couldn’t wait to have this over with.  They just needed to find the woman with blond hair and red dress, like the message on the map said.  Once he was sure they had the gold, he would find a way to get rid of them.  

Back in the cave, the witch shuddered at what she had done in the dreams.  The idea of touching the tall one made her sick, even if it was just her corporeal self.  She knew she had to get them to turn on each other.  They had been together for so long, if she hadn’t intervened they never would give up their blood willingly.  The other two were frazzled as well, she had sent the horrible ones from the void into their minds.  Things with too many legs and mouths, burrowed their way into their dreams and laid eggs that kept them on edge.  

In the crystal ball, she watched as the three enacted their loose plan on kidnapping the girl.  The witch waved her hand over the ball and the image disappeared.  She didn’t want to see what they were going to do, she was sure it was it would be brutal.  The globe shifted the image to the boat and she walked away to find a chair.  

Anger rose in the witch’s chest.  She tried not to think about how Mord or Krut would crack the girl in the back of the head with a club.  Then they would scoop her collapsed body up and drag her out of the bar.  She cursed the other patrons for ignoring it, either by being too drunk or just not wanting to get in the middle of it.  Then they’d take her out into the cold, throw her over their shoulder and carry her to the boat.  She had planted that boat there, knowing that no sane sailor would have a vessel out in the brewing storm. They’d steal the first boat they saw.  Scaz would growl at them to tie her to the mast head.  If they wanted to make it through the cave, they needed her as a beacon to push away the madness that lived within.  Once she was secured to the dragon, the three would hop into the boat and push off from the dock.  Then it was the open water.

The witch brought over her wooden chair and sat in front of the crystal ball.  One of her legs tapped incessantly while she watched the boat.  She chewed on a finger and chanted some more.  The waves became violent, smashing against the side of the boat, soaking the three thieves with freezing water.  They’d huddle in their clothes, eyeing each other; two of them frightened about the things squirming around in their minds, the third planning on how to kill the others.  And the girl stared straight ahead with a slight smirk on her face.

On the rocky coast, an outcropping of rocks jutted out wide into the water. A cave opened up on a side of the rocks, giving it the appearance of a giant mouth swallowing the ocean.  The coast was full of vegetation, except around the outcropping.  Nature avoided it, leaving only dark rocks that broke the waves.  Most adventures plotted their course wide of the cave, there were too many rocks just under the water to snag the hull of a boat and send the men to a watery grave.  There was a path, if someone chose to go down the giant’s throat, but they would need a small boat with a short hull to pass over the rocks.  No one was crazy enough to take a boat like that out on the ocean, except for three men blinded by greed and a woman tied to the boat.

Scaz pointed the boat to the opening.  Mord looked up at the rocks that seemed to be a face and swore that there were eyes looking down at him, waiting for its prey to sail into its mouth.  They crossed the threshold and entered into the darkness.  “It’s too dark!  It’s not natural” Krut said.

“Ah, shut your mouth!” Scaz looked in the direction of Krut, then turned toward the other, “Mord, light your torch.” Scaz said.

Mord fumbled for his flint and started to strike it when he realized he had nothing that was dry.  His cloak was soaked through, the torch he had brought was heavy with salt water.  “Uh, Scaz, I don’t have anything to light.”

“What do you mean?  You idiot, why’d you let the torch get wet? You had one thing to do.  How are we supposed to see in here?  Krut, give him your underwear or something.”

Krut padded his clothes to see if anything was dry.  The dark was too much for him, he felt like they were being watched.  Something heavy fell onto his leg and started to scurry down, tickling his exposed skin.  Krut’s hair stood up and his skin tightened.  Another thing fell onto his shoulder, it made an insect-like sound and it pinched his skin as it crawled down his back. There were more thuds and he could hear Scaz and Mord rustling with the unseen things.  Then one of them bit his ankle; a burning pain shot up his leg and it instantly fell asleep.

His screams echoed throughout the cavern, mixing with the sound of lapping water.  Krut swatted at the thing biting his foot.  His hand touched a hard body with prickly hair.  His mind reeled at the thought that these invisible enemies were the things that had invaded his dreams.  Mord started to scream behind him, but it was quickly cut short.  Then he heard a banging and the quiet sound of thread being pulled from a spool. In front of him, he heard Scaz curse and the sound of him smacking himself, but then it stopped.  Then the similar sound of cotton being torn.  He was sure he was going mad.  

“Mord! Scaz!  What is going on?” He screamed.

He stayed perfectly still, unable to move, his leg all pins and needles.  There was clicking on the wood, as they moved around him.  They ignored him and focused on whatever they were doing to the other two.  The sounds of chattering and whispering thread cut through Krut’s mind, shattering it to pieces.  He thought about jumping into the water, but couldn’t move.  

A blue glow appeared deep within the cave.  The outline of the dragon masthead revealed itself the closer they floated toward the light.  The woman was still tied to the boat, though if she was still living, he couldn’t tell.  A little further into the light and Krut could see what had happened to Scaz.  Horrible little things crawled all over him.  He saw the sticky thread that Scaz’s emaciated corpse was bundled in.  The boat was covered in the black shapes of strange insects with human-like faces.  Their big round white eyes stared at Krut, their sharp teeth chattered at him.  

Krut’s mind snapped and he dropped out of the boat into the water.  Mord and Scaz reached out to him, yelling.  But, the water swallowed him in inky blackness, the boat kept floating away and he was lost to them.

Inside of the witch’s prison a red glow came from the void behind her.  A whale-like moan accompanied the glow.  The witch turned in her chair and looked at it over her shoulder.  The glow coated the room in a red light; it was the first time the witch had seen the area in any kind of light.  She snorted and thought it looked better in her mind.  The witch looked back at the globe with a sparkle in her eye and she cackled out loud at the sight of Scaz and Mord crying over their ugly friend.

“Why were you such an idiot Krut?  Why did you want to kill me, we could have shared the money.” Scaz cried.  

Memories flooded Mord’s mind as he hung his head over the side of the boat, trailing his fingers in the cold water.  The first time they met was at the orphanage, where Mord found Krut being attacked by two older boys in the bathroom.  Before they knew what was happening, Mord was on them with a bit of pipe he carried with him.  After that, the two stuck together.  They met Scaz later and fell in-line with him as their leader.  It was Scaz who had broken them out of the orphanage.

He had kept them out of trouble.  Until now.  

Mord didn’t want to be here.  Everything about the cavern had him on edge.  There were strange unearthly noises all around them.  A floppy padding sound plodded behind them.  The other two didn’t seem to notice it, so he kept his ears open.  He had always imagined himself as the group’s protector; he never let anything happen to them before and wasn’t going to now. Then Krut had shrieked and fell into the water.  Mord had failed at the one good thing he could offer to the group.

Mord chewed on his lip and mulled over what Scaz had said. “Hey Scaz, what did you mean by saying Krut wanted to kill you?”

They were still in the dark.  Scaz listened to the echoes of the water.  So far, their woman hostage had done exactly what the cloth had said, protect them from the madness of the cave.  At least he thought that until Krut fell into the water.  Now he wasn’t so sure if they had the right girl.  He peered forward into the darkness, hoping for them to crash into a shore or something to let him know they can get out of this boat.  Mord mumbled something behind him.
“What’d you say?”

“I said, why do you think Krut wanted to kill you?” Mord said.

Scaz turned toward Mord’s voice.  I can easily take care of you with Krut out of the way, he thought.  Mord’s face started to form out of the darkness, outlined in a red glow.  The boat began to take shape in the redness.  They both forgot the unanswered question and turned toward the glow.  “We are near the end of the cave!” They both yelled.

The excited men clapped each other on the back and it felt like old times.  Each of them grabbed an oar and began to paddle toward the light.  The red bounced off of the rocks of the cave, giving it the feeling of being inside some living thing’s throat.  The water stayed black, with no hint of the red glow touching it. The waterway was narrow with a rocky path on either side. Light escaped through the edges of a big rock door, giving it shape and a goal at the end of the tunnel.

Mord heard the padding footsteps behind him again, between strokes of his oar.  He took the oar out of the water and turned to look for the source of the sound. While he turned, he knocked Scaz out of the boat, and onto the rocky shore.  Then the boat hit the rock and stopped.  They landed in front of the door.

The woman tied to the boat watched the men cast in red.  She looked at the door and smiled.

The witch got up from her chair and walked over to her side of the door.  She touched the cool rock with an outstretched hand, anticipation growing.  If she put her ear against the door, she could almost hear the men breathing on the other side.  But, she couldn’t see them, couldn’t open the door and get out there to take the woman.  The witch scurried over to the crystal ball and bent over it, eagerly waiting for the other two to die.

Scaz jumped up rubbing his head.  He felt groggy and dazed, the oar had cracked him hard on the head.  He looked for Mord, ready to fight.  Mord was out of the boat, looking the other way, mumbling something.

“I knew it!  You two were going to kill me.  Why?  Over some money?  We never let that get between us before.  I had saved you from that orphanage. Without me you would be nothing!”  Scaz screamed.

Mord watched the path.  Something was coming.  It was big, he could see the dark shape of horns rubbing the top of the cave.  It slapped its feet on the ground like a duck.  He squinted his eyes while he looked at it, he couldn’t discern any other features on the thing, it reminded him of a shadow moving on its own.  Then something hard hit him on his side and he fell to the ground.

Scaz stood above him, holding an oar in his hand.  The red glow outlined his skinny frame, giving him a demonic look.  Mord looked up at him, mystified at what had happened. “Scaz, can’t you see it?  It’s right there.” He pointed behind him.

“You think you can take the gold for yourself?  You are a brainless, stupid idiot that has never done anything right.  You can’t even keep your partner in crime safe.  Hell, you can’t even do something as simple as kill me!”  

Scaz swung the oar down over his head.  Mord saw it coming and rolled out of the way. The footsteps kept coming.

“Scaz, what are you talking about?  We didn’t want to kill you.  You two were the best thing to ever happen to a guy like me.”  Mord sat up on his elbows, his head swiveling back and forth between Scaz and the shape moving closer. “Why would you say something like I can’t keep Krut safe? He was my brother.”

“Yeah right, you should have heard what he said about you when you were away.  He hated you.  I’m sure it was his idea to kill me, he was always smarter than you.  He was probably going to dump you as soon as he could.”  

He swung the oar again, this time connecting with Mord’s leg.  Mord yelped out and pulled his leg away.  Scaz was trying to kill him and he didn’t know what to do. The creature moved past Mord and stood behind Scaz.  It put two long fingered hands on Scaz’s shoulders and whispered to him.  

Mord stood up and watched confused as the creature stepped into Scaz.  Scaz’s eyes seemed to grow red.  He couldn’t protect Krut, but he was going to save Scaz.

Scaz held the oar in his hands like a sword and wound up, readying his swing when Mord tackled him.  They fell to the ground, Scaz knocking his head hard against the rocks.  Drool and foam flew out of Mord’s mouth as he wrapped his hands around Scaz’s neck.  Tears flowed out of Mord’s eyes.  Panic sunk in, Scaz recognized the look in Mord’s eyes.  He was going to choke him to death.  Scaz gripped Mord’s wrists, trying to break the hold.  Then he bent his legs up and tried to roll.  Mord had fifty pounds on him, making it near impossible for Scaz to lift him.  

The two struggled with each other on the ground. Anger, confusion and panic swirled around them.  Mord’s fingers tightened around Scaz’s neck, cutting off more and more oxygen.  Scaz wasn’t going to let it end like this, he was going to get that gold.  He let go of Mord’s wrists and reached into his pocket.  With all of his dreams and thoughts of the others trying to kill him, he came prepared.  

In his pocket was a knife.  His fingers gripped the handle as his vision began to tunnel.  His mind swam and floated, he focused all his attention and anger at Mord.  He wasn’t going to let a fat idiot kill him when he was this close to his fortune.  He pulled out the knife and plunged it into Mord’s side.  

Mord slide off of him, clutching the wound.  His face contorted in shock.  “Why?  I was trying to save you.” He gasped.

Scaz straddled Mord’s body.  He put the knife to Mord’s neck.  “You are pathetic.” Then he slide the blade across the skin, blood spurted out.  Mord’s eyes went dark.

Blue light emerged out of the void, mixing with the red.  The whale-like moan intensified.  The cave began to rumble.  The witch stood up and went to the door, ignoring the crystal ball.  She stood behind the door and waited, she knew it would soon open.

Scaz sat on top of Mord’s lifeless body with the knife still in his hand, catching his breathe.  He felt the cave rumbling beneath him, and saw the blue light coming out of the door.  He knew it was close.  There was just one more thing he had to do. It was the one part he hadn’t told the others.  He wasn’t sure why he didn’t tell them.  Maybe, subconsciously he had always planned on killing the others.  

The woman was still tied to the boat.  Her face a mask of red and blue light.  Her mouth was twisted in a grin and her eyes on the door.  They had never left the door.  Scaz walked over to her and cut the ropes.  She fell to the ground in a heap, cutting her bare legs.  She rubbed her arms where the ropes had rubbed them raw.  Scaz grabbed her wrist and dragged her over to the door.  He idly tossed his knife down near them and began to undress.

The witch listened behind the door.  Her body quivered at the thought of her girl being so close.  There was just one bit of nastiness left.  It was the one thing she had dreaded.  Scaz’s dream flashed through her mind.  She couldn’t let him have her, couldn’t let him defile her.  The witch ran over to her table and reached up into the corner of the cave.  

Her hands pushed through the spider webbing and she wrapped her fingers around a fat spider.  The spider squirmed in her hand, trying to find some flesh to stick its fangs into.  She whispered something into her closed fist and the spider froze.  She went back to the door and bent down, then pushed the frozen body through the crack.  The witch whispered another word and the spider woke up angry.  It scurried under the rock door and searched for a victim to take its anger out on.

The cave was cold, the air stung Scaz’s naked flesh.  He tried to ignore it, excited at a chance to get between this woman’s thighs and open the door.  The woman looked up at his thin naked body, ribs poking out, bruises and scars painted across his skin.  She twisted her face in disgust.  He spat and fell on top of her pinning her down.  She struggled, but he was wiry and stronger than he looked.  

Before he could enter her however, a sharp pain shot across his leg.  He looked down to  see a fat spider attached to his leg.  He let go of the girl and tried to get it off of him.  The woman took the chance and grabbed the knife he had dropped.  She picked it up and stabbed Scaz in the side of his neck.  He dropped to her side, his head against the door with the knife handle protruding out of his neck.  She scrambled away from his body and stood up.  The spider crawled over the body weaving a web.  The heavy door began to shake.

Green light mixed with the other two forming a bright sun.  The void blinked open, pulsing and pounding.  The witch backed up as the cave door opened.  On the other side stood her girl, in a thin dress.  Blood had splattered on her blonde hair.  They stared at each for a moment, like looking in a carnival mirror, on one side the picture of beauty, the other side framed a wrinkled and ugly woman.  Then they met in the middle in a lover’s embrace.  They fell to the ground, legs wrapped around each other, lips locked.  The void hungrily opened like a baby’s mouth, sucking in and sucking out.

The ocean outside of the cave began to roil as rock began to shake free from the coast.              Rocks tumbled into the water and two lights glowed on the face as the cave mouth closed.  The earth itself shuddered as the ancient beast awoke, the spell fulfilled.  The two bodies inside continued to make love, giving life to the old one.  A mountain lifted out of the land and began to walk the earth, ready to begin its reign as overruler.