Chapter One:

Fatal Hosts

 

The Young Man whispered with fevered excitement, “watch her, Troma…”

Beside him the great hydra, Troma, twitched his barbed tail in anticipation.

The pair gazed into the sprawling heath below where Nineve the Spider Baroness could be seen flitting between the knolls of purple flowers. Her fur cape had not yet been scoured of the blood of dozens of ermines and was so unwieldy that it snagged on the gorse and heathland sprigs.

The Young Man narrowed his eyes and murmured, “Look how she dances for a woman of such a fine vintage.” His tone radiated with spite and derision.

The only disturbances were their own ragged breathing snaring on the wind; the distant hiss of the Gens Brook; and the incessant whispering of the ember roaches. Their dulcet chatter was only discernible by the Young Man. The ember roaches lived inside of him.

He strained to see as Nineve reached a patch of scorched bracken. Her hand disappearing beneath her grisly cape, igniting the Young Man’s curiosity as she produced a swan’s foot pouch. Her lips began to twist with words he could not hear as she upended the scaly purse. A collection of bleached bones spilled onto the charred earth at her feet. After considering the whitish relics, she threw her head back and raised her wizened arms to the sky.

“Worm Moon, Sap Moon, Crow Moon, Sugar Moon, I call upon your crepuscular light… Clamarem!” Her voice did not speak of her sprightly gambol across the heath. Instead, the sound dragged and creaked, like the rasping croak of a bullfrog.

The ember roaches inside of the Young Man began to buzz, their whispers becoming bellowed demands.

She wishes to undermine you…

Enfeeble you…

Cripple you…

Reduce her. Violate her. Kill her.

Sometimes, the ember roaches were like a swarm of hateful hornets caged behind his eyes. As a boy he had feared their escape through his ear canals; so, he would push larch cones into his ears, but this only made him half deaf.

Abruptly unsettled, the Young Man made a fitful gesture with his arms and said: “I have seen enough – more than enough. Troma, go forth.”

The Young Man knew now that he needn’t plug his ears to prevent his fiery advisors from escaping, because they were him and he was them.

At the stipulation of his master, Troma shook two of his serpentine heads before exploding into the sky. The hydra’s strobing flight towards the Baroness was a frenzied waltz through the low, blowsy cloud.

Heat began to spread through the Young Man. Starting at his gut it infected his every fibre as he hungrily observed the hydra closing in on the unsuspecting woman. Her trustfulness in her solitude only fed the fever in his belly. He began to sweat. He always did when it came to this part. Hot, wet, and salty, it poured off him in sheets.

Why are you doing this?

He shook his head as though trying to rid himself of a fly, never once taking his eyes off the scene unfolding below. This always happened. One of his ember roaches would go rogue and would begin to plead and bleat. All he had to do was focus on that blazing passion and burning desire in order to drown out that miscreant bug.

He sucked his lips, tasting the ferrous tartness of his own blood rushing as he watched Nineve shrink from Troma. Of course, the Young Man knew that the hydra would not strike without his instruction. It was exhilarating to watch Troma suspended in mid-air, as obedient as a foxhound who was rippling at the withers. The scent of prey inevitably lighting up his brain. It must have been maddening to have to wait until he heard his orders.

Quite intoxicated, the Young Man raised an unsteady hand and shouted in a high and clear voice.

“Letmortem!”

There was a blaze of violet light. Nineve did not scream. She didn’t even sob. In the end, she needn’t have feared Troma at all. It was always him; always the overlooked Young Man. Everybody had always suspected the oddity; the big, shadowy, stranger, with the

curious eyes. But they never learned to look for something with a face like theirs. And now Nineve was dead because of it. Just like the others. Just like the Young Man would have been if it hadn’t been for Troma and his ember roaches.

Smiling, he began to descend the heather bed. And, as he strode little purple flowers split from their bracts and stuck to his coat until he felt the fabric become sticky with pollen. He only stopped his swaggering trek when he came to Nineve’s head. With the toe of his boot, he turned her over, forcing her to face him in death. His spell hadn’t left any trace on her body. Every scar and pock mark on her were relics of war. She was an apple long gone rotten.

Placing his thumb and forefinger between his lips, the Young Man whistled and beckoned for the hydra to land.

“You did well, cherished one,” he rubbed under Troma’s stump. The hydra once had three heads, he now had two. The Young Man then began to address an invisible audience. “I know that you are all there, perhaps you are all boiling with rage, for I have so easily expunged the mother of your dynast; stamped on her like the false widow she proved to be.” He waited, smirking around the heath and listening to the sounds of bees and birdsong.

“What is it that you want from us?” A warlock stepped out from thin air, his face so heavily bound in filthy black bandages that it was impossible to read his expression.

“Priam the Hexer,” it was evident, from the bandaged man’s taciturn response, that the young Man’s knowledge of Priam’s identity was highly unwelcome. “You call yourself a hexer? Have I not just demonstrated for you a true mastery of the dark arts?” Still the man in bandages said nothing and so the Young Man went on. “Troma and I have been watching you and your troupe of clowns…” he purred, “and we have been entertained. We watched you turn the flour men into grey stooges, and we chuckled.” he broke off now to demonstrate how

he had laughed, and the sound he made was pitchy and rabid. “Now though, the time for petty acts of criminality and impudent tantrums has come to an end. War approaches and I intend to see to it that we have a glorious battle.” the Young Man flashed a smile at Priam who took a step back. “I will lead The Maleficent Order now and I shall lead it to great things.”

Along the dusky horizon crickets chirruped and blackbirds whistled their eventide tune.

Priam hesitated before speaking.

“Who are you – what do you call yourself?”

The young man who had crouched down to consider Nineve’s collection of bones, glanced up with a wry smile.

“You know me, you know me here,” he pressed a hand over his heart, still smirking up the heath at Priam. “You have all always known me here…I am The Lightless King Maw.”