ephialtikos
by S. Dawson
© 2000

stichos α
A Spell is cast

Sheriff Iago Sharpe, the tax collector, and landowner stared angrily at the report that had been handed to him by his deputy. His anger built up inside him.

"What is the meaning of this?" he boomed. His voice shook the hangings on the bare stone walls as it echoed around the empty castle. His deputy, Draig shock in fear.

"I-I-it’s the r-report y-you asked f-f-for..." he stuttered, fearfully; and with good reason - his master was a powerful and dangerous man.

"Four children taken this week! Five pigs brutally slaughtered! Numerous cattle and sheep vanished! WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS!?" Sharpe threw the report back at his deputy.

"W-witchcraft, sir."

"What!" Sharpe went white with rage, snarled and turned on his young assistant, he whimpered and coward. "Look at me you fool." Sharpe hissed dangerously. Slowly Draig looked up into the terrifying eyes of Tiberius Sharpe. "Do you want to go back to the fields?"

"N-n-no, sir…"

"Then stop acting like a fool! What are you a court jester?"

"N-n-no, s-sir…"

Sharpe kicked the young man hard in the groin. He winced in agonising pain.

"Get more patrols put out! If it is witchcraft we shall have them, you understand?" Draig remained silent.

"Understand!?" howled Sharpe.

"Y-y-es…more patrols… I'm on it, sir." Draig jumped up from the floor and limped away as fast as he could to the door.

"Imbecile." Sharpe muttered. "Captain Cethin!" he called for his head of guards.

A tall, burly man stepped quickly out of a long line of neatly presented soldiers.

"Yes, sir!" he said, saluting his master.

"Take two of your best soldiers, follow Draig and kill him."

"Yes sir!" Cethin saluted again he turned back to his well-turned out troops. "Arswydo, and Hudlath, you come with me." Three soldiers stepped smartly out of line. "Come with me." They marched out of the grand hallway, ready to hunt

Sharpe laughed a cold, high, laugh. It turned those hearts of those that heard it into fear.

Nottingham had been a wonderful and beautiful place to live once. But in 1485, the King sent Tiberius Sharpe down to manage the land and collect the taxes. Sharpe made the taxes so exorbitantly high that only the very rich could pay the tax; those who couldn't either worked day and night or starved and rotted in the prisons.

"Mama." A child cried out.

"What is it, my sweet?" her mother replied. She was chained by the wrists to a cold wall.

"I'm hungry."

"I know, darling. I’m sure we’ll be all right." She tried to smile, but couldn't the pain was too intense. Her eldest son looked at her; he was chained by the legs to the wall.

"Don't worry mama, well get through this." She wished her son could see what was going to happen. Her husband was being made to fight in the armies in the King’s wars on the Continent. His wages were low, but if he survived the land, they might hope to be set free.

Every town has its ups and downs.

Sometimes ups outnumber the downs

But not in Nottingham.

She wished that the story of Robin Hood was a true one. For once, she wished that those stories she told her children where true. They took comfort in them; they lifted their spirits, but she knew was giving them false hopes.

"Don't worry mama." Her child called to her. "Robin Hood will save us." The many adults in the gaol smiled, they liked the faith the plucky child placed in stories; if only the stories where true. The mother could take no more she began to sob.

"Mama! Mama, don't cry."

"I'm sorry my sweet. Robin Hood is a story, he's not real."

"She doesn't mean that little one." An old man said to the girl. "She has just lost hope, that's all." His voice was soft and whispery.

"Oh, father, surely you know not to tell lies to a child." A second old lady said to the priest.

"Oh, Mary, we need to keep hope. Especially amongst the young. God will save us if we keep our hope and spirits alive." But inside, the priest was sad, for he knew they were truly without hope.

"Report, Sharpe." The King demanded.

"Everything is going smoothly, m'lord." Sharpe replied, with a sickly false smile.

"And of this witchcraft, you are reaching the bottom of it?"

"Getting nearer, sire."

"I want this solved before the end of the week, understand?"

"Ah."

The king smiled "And if you don’t, you will be hung. Be gone." The Sheriff was escorted out of the chamber.

"Don’t worry sire, I shall resolve this matter." Then I shall harness the power of witchcraft and kill you… then I, I alone, will rule. Sharpe laughed his cold laugh again.

Sharpe's best guards were pursuing Draig. As he ran, he prayed.

"Oh Maria, have mercy upon me and take me away from this grief. Forgive all sins I have committed and accept me into your family. Atto Maria, please have mercy upon your humble servant."

"There he is! Fire!" shouted Cethin. The arrow whizzed past Draig's head and stuck into the ground immediately before him.

"Oh, God." Draig whispered as he ran. But soon his luck ran out; an arrow hit him in the back and he fell to the floor. "Lord, have mercy upon these guards for they know not what they are doing." With that, he died. Cethin learned over him, and turned his limp figure over. A deep crimson patch was forming over his heart. The arrow had gone straight through.

"He's dead." Cethin announced. "Well done." He kicked the body of Draig away to one side.

"Sir." Arswydo spoke up.

"What is it, sergeant?"

"What should we do with the body?"

"Take it back with us." Cethin looked back at the body of Draig. "Do any of you know who his family are?"

"The Y Coch of Swansea." Hudlath spoke up.

"Take him back there."

"What should we tell the master?"

"That we lost our sergeant in the process of capturing and killing him." Cethin knew what the punishment was for taking a body of a traitor back to his homeland. "Remember, Arswydo, don't come back, ever. Take a message to my wife, tell her I will join her as soon as I can."

"Yes sir," Arswydo picked the limp figure of Draig up and placed him over his shoulder.

"Hwddamar,"

"Thank you sir. Good bye." Arswydo set off towards the border. How he was going to get Draig's body back to Wales was a complete mystery.

"Dear Lord, we ask you to watch over us in our time of need. Keep those who need you most safe and protect us from evil. For you are the power that holds the universe." Father Charles Granger led those imprisoned in prayer. "Amen."

"Amen." The people chorused.

"Father, do you think that there is someone up there listening to our prayers?" Christen, a young boy, had lost faith after he was taken and his parents and sister where hung.

"Yes, my child. There is someone watching over us."

"Woman, woman!" Jack called, in his deep West Country accent.

"What is it, my husband?" his wife answered, in hers.

"Go check ‘em pigs."

"So I shall." Mary walked outside to where the pigs where kept. She looked over the wall of the sty, gasped, and tried to scream.

Each of the four pigs had been turned inside out. Their bodies lay upon the blood-soaked straw.

"Jack! Jack!" she called to her husband.

"What is it woman?" He called, running out of the house. He ran over to his wife and looked at to what she was pointing at. He turned to her and a look of terror came over his face. "Get away from me, witch!" he shouted.

"Jack, I'm not a witch… it wasn’t me!" Her voice was desperate as she tried to plead with her husband.

"WITCH!" he shouted. "I have the witch responsible!" Soon people near them came running out of their houses. Cethin and his men, who where walking back from their hunt, spotted the crowd.

"What’s going on here then?" he called.

"Mary, wife of Jack is a witch!" one of the bystanders called.

"Oh, in the name of Lord." Cethin and his men pushed through the crowd to where three men had hold of Mary. "Take her to the castle, lock her in the stocks and we shall burn her tonight." The three men handed her over to the guards and they took her away. Shouts of "BURN THE WITCH" followed them.

"Captain Cethin." Cethin stepped forward. "Is it true you have arrested a woman for being a witch?" Lord Draco asked, trying to hide his sickly grin.

"Indeed, sir."

"Where is Sergeant Arswydo?"

"He was killed sir, in the purse of Draig."

"How unfortunate. You will chose a replacement."

"Yes sir."

"You, Hudlath hand me your sword." Hudlath took his sword out of his belt and handed it to his master. "Cethin step forward." Cethin did as he was told. Sharpe plunged the sword deep into Cethin's chest, blood poured of the floor and he staggered to his left slightly before falling to the floor dead.

"That is what you get for being a traitor. Hudlath, you are now captain of the guards. Take as many men as you need and hunt Arswydo down. When you have caught and killed him, bring his body to me."

"All powerful Satan, take this gift of a goat." Morgan Creed, the high Antipriest began the ritual.

"Well, well, well." A figure from the dark shadows said.

"Who's there!" Creed shouted into the darkness.

"'Tis I. Iago Sharpe."

"Sharpe! Get back from this place!"

"Oh, that won't work. Your powers are no match for mine. It's time someone put an end to your…ah…. little games."

"What do you mean?"

"You took those children, you killed those pigs! I see no other logical explanation."

"I admit we took the child. But we would never harm animals." Creed looked into the cold, harsh eyes of Iago Sharpe. "It was YOU! You have used your powers for evil."

"Ah, you are so right." Sharpe smiled evilly. He raised his hand and a blue ball of magic shot out from his hand. It consumed Morgan Creed, and slowly, very slowly, it began to melt him. Creed screamed in pain.

"Sorry, but there is only room for one of us in this village."

The other members of the coven tried to attack Sharpe, but there was some kind of magic preventing them from getting near to him.

"You shall pay for this!" Creed shouted. Sharpe laughed and clapped his hands; Creed was gone.

"I bid you farewell, my friends." Sharpe laughed a cold evil laugh. In a crack and a puff of smoke, Sharpe was gone.

"We need to sort him out."

"Indeed."

"We shall curse him for all eternity."

"A curse that shall not be broken."

"On this day a spell shall be cast. A spell so terrible it will wreak havoc within one family's soul for all eternity until that spell shall be broken."

"The spell shall remain unbroken."

"It shall be inflicted upon one who needs no evil placing upon him."

"An evil lord who lives in Nottingham shall our evil deed befall."

"Oh, great and all powerful Satan. We ask you to curse the one who has taken from you a servant."

"Curse him with good, curse him with luck. Curse him with a life and conscience."

"Omni Satani, Conferate nostrum donum!"

The skies turned dark, the wind picked up and whistled through the trees, the rain pelted down and the thunder roared.

"What in the name of God is happening!" The mother shouted over the noise of the wind.

"I do not know." Father Granger called back.

"Mama!" The child cried. "I'm scared, mama."

"We all are! Have faith, little one." Father Granger answered, he strained his arm out of touch the child, but instead of a child he touched the hot, slimy skin of a daemon. "Oh, dear Lord." He whispered. No one had ever seen this child; none of them were in a position to see her. The daemon turned its head to look at Father Granger, and their eyes met. Granger called out in pain as his heart began to melt.

Lord Iago Sharpe sat up in bed, shaking and sweating. The windows of his room rattled on their hinges; it was as though someone was trying to gain entry. The wind roared again, and the thunder cracked. The windows burst of shattering him with glass. A glowing mist flew into the room and straight into the body of Sharpe.

He screamed in pain as something took over his body. Then the pain was over; he felt good, he felt evil, and his eyes flashed a shade of red. Satan had empowered him with evil and hate.

"What have we done?" The hooded man shook with fear.

No-one replied.