The Cappy Chronicle

The inky black shadows converged like a dreadful river, surrounding the only valiant light in the room, a small table lamp. With a twist of the hand, even that small tenuous grasp was denied. The darkness now hiding their faces from sight, they advanced further into the space. There were three of them, one only slightly taller than the others, but enough to sway power of placement in his favor. They looked to him and gave way to his presence, like fearful children, they followed him to the bed carefully placing space between the taller man and themselves. The Darkness seemed to swallow them as if it was a living breathing part of the essence of those three dark shadows.

On the bed quite unaware of the unfolding drama lay a woman. Despite the lack of light she seemed to glow softly from the inside. She was not sleeping peacefully; she was in fact tossing and turning, like a nightmare had awakened her, only to find herself unable to wake fully, trapped in the corridors of a dream turned dark. Her copper hair flooded the entire surface of the pillowcase and whipped about like a living flame each time she tossed her head.

The shadows murmured quietly. “The thing must be done delicately” a grating voice spoke, softly, but sharply enough to cut through the others’ speech. The smallest man stepped back to speak quietly with the other man standing there. “She is struggling against the compulsion; I have never seen one so strong in the gift.” The smallest man, forgetting his proper place for the moment, spoke about the variables and possibilities of such a birth occurring after so long without the powers. How could this be? What did it mean? So caught up in his passion for the topic at hand was he, that he missed the tallest man’s look of impatience. “It is almost more strength then one woman can safely carry. How is it she is sane with this much gift within her? She should have been more alert to our presence than this with the amount of gift within her. Perhaps she is…”

The tallest man reached forward and shoved him roughly before he could continue with his speculating. “You can jabber about her powers later, right now you have a job to do”, the tall man growled and his face took on an aspect similar to that of an angry animal with big teeth. “Take her gift. Time draws short, and I lose my patience. Do it NOW”. With an angry thrust the man shoved the smallest closer to the bed, and then peered at the woman in angry contemplation. “Why a mere woman should get such a gift when there are men in this world who can better use its power, is more then I can bear to witness.”

His face was turned from them, but they did not need to see his face to know that a tight, angry, twisted hatred was carved upon it. No one knew where his hatred sprang from, but they did know that no woman ever fared well at his hands. Dead whores and prostitutes were always showing up after he left a place. This, even more than his slightly larger height, scared them into blind obedience. None dared oppose him. He was quite vicious in fighting and all had seen his pleasure in the kill, such a man was not one to confront and long live.

The small man bent over the woman and began to chant, the tempo of his words rising and falling, the most silent of the three now began to accompany the small man with a low tenor, his voice staying flat and monotone, the rest of him matched his voice. He was not remarkable in any way that would allow anyone to remember him. It was a carefully crafted disguise that aided him well in his service to the dark lord. The tallest man bent over the bed as if searching for something. “Where is it, he grated no longer trying to be quiet, where is it?” Frantically he dug into the covers and searched. ‘Ah!” he croaked, “there”. His face cracked into a dreadful smile.

The “it” he referred to appeared to be a tiny sliver of silver light, it was extremely tiny and appeared to come directly from the bellybutton of the sleeping woman. “Now to drain it” The tall man sneered “This wench will never know what she had, and when she is burned out of her gift, she won’t care anyway. She will be the same as all the rest of them, a husk-less, drab nothing that wastes a man’s time and essence with her constant complaining and weeping. No, such a gift is meant to be used to further a man! I am merely correcting what nature so erroneously gifted”.

“What if she doesn’t agree with that assessment?” a hard, scornful voice asked ever so softly. It took but a moment for them to realize that the voice was not one of their own and they turned to ready themselves with swords, but it was enough to give the new stranger the advantage, and use it he did. Without a sound he whipped around and pulled a lethal looking sword from its sheath. The tallest man sneered, “Iron is not a match for our power you fool, now death becomes your master.” He started forward, pulling a vial from his pocket. “You would have done better to have left the dark one to his purpose.” He tilted his head towards the bed, indicating the woman. “She is only a mere woman, what care you for her fate?” He sneered with unbridled madness, “now you join her in it.” With this he tossed the vial to the floor. It did nothing. The man stared in horror, unable to comprehend that his magic simply ceased to appear as he had expected. The dark stranger smiled, only this was a smile of dark, purposeful glee.

“You underestimate me.” He paused for a single moment and allowed himself to gaze at the woman. “You underestimate her as well. No one ever does that more than once.” With a twist of his mouth he spoke the last words the man would ever hear. “This is no mere sword, fool, this is the sword of Calessis.” With this said he ceased to speak, actions now delivered the message. The shocked and frightened faces of the men made barely an impression as he steeled his will to his needful purpose; nothing and no one would be allowed to harm her. This he had vowed; nothing else mattered. The only sounds in the room now were the dying mens’ screams of pain, followed by a most daunting silence. As the light of dawn entered the room the only evidence of the dark event that had occurred was the sight of a man soaked in another’s blood placing a hand, surprisingly soft, upon the cheek of the still sleeping woman before moving off and out the nearby window. The woman on the bed suddenly ceased her tossing and let out a sigh of release. Turning in her sleep she finally drifted into restful dreams. She would wake in the morning unaware of any of the things that had occurred in her own bedroom. If any had been foolish enough to tell her, she most definitely would not have believed them. Things like this just didn’t happen to girls like her.