This story is the first I've written on the Archive, so don't be too critical. So far, it seems to be doing okay. This is a fantasy-fiction tale that includes elements of swordplay, mythical creatures, and magic. The creatures so far are witches, humans, and trolls, while I plan to widen that range further down the line. Eventually, the story will include themes of an erotic nature, but I am not too eager to start that yet. The story is fiction, and is therefore not real. This includes the world, the characters, the plots, everything. Excepting me, of course, because I am quite the Enchanter.
Set in a medieval world, abundant with magic and fictitious creatures, this story is about Marcus Mallow and his ascent through the dark outer world of his hidden human village of Rocky Pass.
Finally, if you want to understand the story fully, you'll need to read the story fully, as in every chapter from the start. You wouldn't start a book by reading the tenth chapter, so don't start this series reading the tenth chapter.
Now to start the tenth chapter special of the the esteemed fable, the Storybook of the Enchanter.
IMPORTANT: But let me tell you that what makes this chapter the Chapter Ten Special is that it isn't from the perspective of the two regular point of view characters, Varia and Marcus. Instead of narrating through their eyes, I will be narrating through the eyes of Darius for the very first time. But don't get use to it, this is a one time thing.
The Enchanter's Storybook: Chapter Ten Special - Through the Eyes of Darius Drake:
Watching Marcus drop to the floor like a sack of old potatoes, Darius screamed and forced his eyes shut. Squirming as far back into the closet as he could, he pressed his entire body against the wall, trying to merge himself inside of the cement itself.
He only wanted the world to disappear, to flutter and fly, to break and crack. He wanted it all to go, the pain was too much for him to bear. All he sought was an end, a simple end. He just wanted darkness, unending darkness, something to hide away the truth and to block the pain from him.
He felt hands grab his shoulders and drag him out of the closet. The hands were hard and cold, with horribly long nails that dug painfully deep into his flesh. He felt the warmth of his blood gush down his naked body, yet he still tried to block out the world.
Screaming again, he felt himself thrown to the floor like trash, where he clasped his eyes shut as tight as he could, blocking out everything around him. He wouldn't open them, he wouldn't!
Why had he left that stupid campsite? Why, why why?! He asked himself. If he didn't leave, those bastard trolls wouldn't have captured him, and they wouldn't have brought him here. It was all his fault, all his fault.
He heard a gentle, soothing voice in his ear. A voice he had been accompanied with during his incarceration. Her breath felt warm on his ear, she embraced him and shook him gently. It was the sweet girl, Daisy Dweller.
"Calm down, calm down," she said somberly, stroking his hair as if he were a gentle lamb.
But suddenly, he realised something. Darius Drake was no coward, and certainly no gentle lamb. Laying there, crying, having to be comforted by a stranger. This wasn't him, he hated himself for it. He shrugged Daisy off of him and rose to the floor, his eyes still tightly sealed. He sighed a deep and destitute breath before opening them once again, seeing the same bitterly empty room.
"Darius, get the fuck over yourself and help me!" Varia screamed at him, holding the still body of Marcus Mallow in her arms. He was pale, ever-so-pale. His eyes were closed, his skin was pallid and pasty. He couldn't bare to watch.
"I can't," he pleaded, "I can't." He hurried from the body and fell back onto the old feather mattress in the corner of the room. Laying on it were his and Daisy's clothes, piled untidily together. Before he could think straight, he knew he couldn't very well stay in the nude. He managed to throw them on without turning to look... over there, and managed to shakily gave Daisy's clothes to her.
Varia cradled Marcus like a baby, he noticed, once he had turned to face her. She kept chanting words, foreign words, awful words with rolls on her tongue. She sounded despicable. What was she doing to him? It couldn't be something good; she was a witch. This was her fault! This was all her fault! He told himself.
"Stay away from him, witch!" he exclaimed to her, his anger boiling inside. It built up in his stomach, bursting to the brim. He had to let it out.
"Shut the fuck up, bastard boy. I'm about the only chance he has of surviving this... this mess. The mess that you've made!" She stood up from his body and left it lying on the floor, cold and alone. That only boiled his anger further, turned him into a raging mess.
Before he could even grab Kryt's dagger, Varia was on him. She had already uncovered all of his tricks, no doubt, so there was no chance of evading her. The witch turned in a fast motion towards him, with a sword lodged stiff into her head. Slowly, she grasped the handle at the bridge of her nose and pulled it from her face like it was but a splinter in her finger. It left no hole or scar, no blood leaked, no trace remained of the sword's brief occupation in her skull.
Taking a deep breath, the sword was held to his neck. He felt the kiss of steel so close, like his throat could be sliced in a second. So vulnerable was he, that he knew he would never be that vulnerable again, and not to such a disgusting witch of a woman.
"Calm the fuck down," she warned him, releasing her grip on the sword and stuffing it into his hands.
"What's this for?" he asked the witch, still quite shaky.
"It's for the trolls, you idiot. In case they come back. Now you, who the fuck are you?" Varia asked heartlessly, pointing a finger at the human girl, Daisy Dweller.
Darius remembered the day she went missing from Rocky Pass a year ago, but he thought she was long since dead. Yet she wasn't, she had been kept in this troll village after wandering too far from the Pass, held as a hostage for a whole year by those vile creatures.
"I... I'm Daisy... Daisy Dweller," she quivered in reply, shaking slightly. She outstretched a hand, expecting Varia to take it. But the witch woman just looked at it in despise, and ignored her gesture of greeting.
"You are human? Yes. I can smell it on you. How'd you end up with fighting boy here?"
"I... well, I was captured. I ran away from home, and... they took me."
"You must be stupid. Are you stupid, Daisy Dweller?" Varia asked plainly, rudely.
"I don't... I don't think so," she murmured, her voice innocent yet worried. She knew Marcus slightly, but not so much, yet it seemed like she might break down at any moment. What she had seen recently was enough to drive anyone insane, Darius remarked. Trolls and death, then an immortal witch with a sword in her head... Darius couldn't understand how she remained so still and cool. He wpuld have ran for the hills by then.
"Then help me with the boy," Varia ordered. She pushed Daisy over to his motionless body, where the two bent down simultaneously.
Varia told her to elevate his leg, while she examined the gaping hole in Marcus's ankle.
Darius stood helpless in the corner, watching, tears streaming from his eyes. He didn't know what to do, how he could help. So he stood, his watchful eyes gazing over at the two girls crowding his fainted body. He was so helpless, he hadn't felt this empty before. He felt like there was a great, vast hole inside of his heart, throbbing, begging to be filled. With all of his hope, he was still unsure if his friend would survive.
"He's losing lots of blood," Daisy observed, grimacing her sweet face. The girl looked about as pale as the body, like she might vomit just from looking at him.
"We have to stop the blood flow," Varia told her. The witch suddenly grabbed a piece of Daisy's shirt and ripped it off, tying it around Marcus's ankle tightly. "Hold your hands over the wound," she ordered again.
In seconds, the cloth was teaming with blood, stained with redness, as were Daisy's fingers. The floors were washed in his blood, with Varia bathing in it, chanting her sickening words.
It took a while, what seemed a very long time, before anyone spoke again. Varia lay in his blood, chanting; Daisy sat still, compressing Marcus's wound with her hands; and Darius stood helpless on the sidelines. Then Varia said it, those awful words...:
"It's useless," Varia concluded. "It's beyond our help. He'll be dead by dawn tomorrow."
"No!" Darius shouted. "It can't be, he can't die! Do something! Use magic, anything, just fix him!"
"It isn't that simple!" she screamed in reply. "He's been bitten by a troll, you idiot! There's a hole in his ankle, in case you haven't noticed. He's lost too much blood, and then there's the poison..."
"What poison?" he asked, quivering, quibbling, and crying. The tears streamed down his face like endless waterfalls, cascading down, down, down.
"The troll poison. It's the worst of it all. The poison stops me from healing him, and it's spread through his entire body. The only way to save him is to remove or extract the venom."
"Then why don't you?"
"Because it has already spread too far," she whispered.
"Can't you battle the venom? Isn't there an antidote?" Daisy asked, pressing her hands against the cloth, stopping the blood flow with all of her feminine strength.
"It would take too long to prepare. It's a complex recipe. Yet I fear that by the time we'd have made it, he would have perished. I can use magic to stiffen the poison and preserve his life, but it would only be avoiding his death for a day or so."
"Then do it!" Darius insisted.
"I cannot preserve him and create the antidote as well, Darius. The spell must be cast here, constantly, for as long as possible. And I cannot be doing two things at the same time. If he is to be saved, you would need to create the antidote yourselves while I keep him on the brink of survival with my magic."
Darius considered it a moment. So cliche, yet he couldn't just let Marcus perish. Even if this was just a possibility, a maybe, it was still a chance. It was the last glimmer of hope that he had left inside of him, and he wasn't just going to let it get snuffed out. He had to try.
"We'll do it," Daisy answered suddenly, almost as if she had read Darius's mind.
"You would help?" he asked.
"Well, he risked his life to save us, even if he only thought he was saving you. But we at least have to return the favour," she said skeptically, her eyes abloom with worry and wonder, with some kind of eager lust to help.
Darius admired Daisy for that. A stranger, yet she would lay down her own life to help him. He wouldn't even know where to begin, if he were to repay her.
"I don't know what to say," he replied.
"How about this, children," Varia suggested. "I stay here, preserve him with my power, while you two loveys go and grab the ingredients. That sound good enough, hm?"
"Fine," Darius decided. "What will we need?"
Varia raised herself from the floor with serenity, eyeing Darius with judgement. She strode over to him, her black leather bodysuit glimmering under the candlelight.
"You and the girl will leave the village and turn back the way you came. On the journey here I noticed the right weeds and herbs, a few miles or so north. I can only leave Marcus for maybe five minutes at the most during the spell, so I will use that time to gather what I can at the village market. A cauldron, stirring spoon, and whatever else we may need that you cannot find," Varia instructed.
"Then what?" Daisy asked, slightly overrun with ecstasy. Darius couldn't deny that he felt the same.
"I'll expect you back on the morrow, at the very crack of dawn. Now this is important, I can only cast the spell till dawn. Any time beyond that, my power would grow too weak to continue the spell and the poison will reach his heart. When it does, he is done for. Trying to stop Death taking his rightful victims never ends well, but we will try nonetheless."
"Seems easy enough," Darius remarked, watching the witch craft parchment and quill and ink pot from thin air. There, she dabbed the quill with ink and wrote down the ingredients. She must have thought him too stupid to recognize them by name, so she wrote descriptions, and she even drew the herbs alongside them.
She stuffed the parchment into Daisy's hands, eyeing Darius mistrustfully, and turned to bend over the dying boy once again.
"I'll begin the spell now. It will take all of my attention," she told the two.
Suddenly, she raised her hands over Marcus's withering body. There, a light pink light shone from each of her fingers. It ran from her fingers and onto his body, electrifying his veins like shooting stars in the midnight sky. They shone out from under his skin, quite literally. Darius could see the redness of the blood in his body, yet there were clots forming, and small streams of brown running through. The venom.
Watching, the pink shooting from her fingers stilled the brown venom inside and subdued the clots for the time being. She would have to remain that way until dawn the next morning, Darius told himself. He felt quite sorry for her, for the burdens she had to live with.
"Now go," she whispered, her voice somewhat strained, "and do not fail me."
Daisy seemed a little scared at Varia's last remark, but left the room anyway. Darius didn't know the girl much, but she had been kind to him in the brief time he knew her, so he couldn't very well judge her negatively if she had been everything but negative to him.
Quivering a little, Darius hurried after the girl with haste, out of the tavern, and away from the disgusting troll village.
On the way out, they were given no trouble. The sun was a few hours from setting and the village was cool and slow, and they swept passed unnoticed.
The fields that lay north of the village were as empty as they were when Darius was first dragged through them, as a hostage. Yet this time he felt much safer. A light wind billowed through the fields, echoing whistles in all directions. That was all Darius could hear, as he strode alongside Daisy Dweller. She was a rather silent girl, he had noticed. If he was wanting to spark conversation, he would have to spark it himself.
"So... do you plan on going back to the Pass?" he asked, and rather awkwardly, he thought. "Afterwards, I mean."
"No," she said slowly. "I was captured when I was running away from home. Only a year has gone by, but I still feel the same. That village is poison, with their Elders and High Councils. They don't notice that mankind is changing, yet they're just trying to stay the same. So I left."
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"We're changing. Can't you feel it? Mankind almost became extinct fighting magic, but it's the greatest force in the world. It's not 'survival of the fittest' anymore, Darius, it's 'survival of the magical'. The Elders in Rocky Pass don't even realize that magic has already penetrated humans. It has made mankind a magical race, as evolution demanded."
Darius considered her for a moment. Marcus was living proof that magic existed in the souls of man, but he wasn't too sure about her talk of survival of the magical and evolution. It could only be a silly girl's theory.
But maybe Darius was just hiding from the fact that he was not magical, so maybe he wouldn't survive.
"What makes you so sure?"
"This," she said, taking his hand. A glimmering white glow emitted from her hand, and she lifted the two off of the floor and high into the sky. Her eyes turned all white, a pristine and glistening white. Her hair became white, her skin, even her clothes. And, if only for a moment, Daisy Dweller was not human.
Sparks flew through the air, and all-too-suddenly, the glimmer faded into nothing and the two tumbled back to the ground.
"He's not the only one," Darius mumbled. Marcus was not the only human with... power.
"Who? Marcus? No, he's not. Why did you think I ran away? The High Council found out, and considered me of witchkind. They were going to fake my murder and kill me themselves, so I ran before they could."
"Are all magical humans so powerful?"
"No... wait, what? We're like all other magicals. Some are weak, some are strong. Why?" she asked, slightly discomforted.
"Well, Marcus accidentally gave that witch Varia immortality, just by touching her and crying on her. What does that make him, Daisy?"
"I have no clue, Darius. No mortal can give to someone the gift of immortality. It's not possible. Only the gods are said to have that kind of power, but I'm actually quite the atheist, so I'm still unsure. He could be a god trapped in a mortal form, or a descendant, child of, or a deity, but I doubt it. He's probably just extremely powerful. Shh now, I think that flower over there is on the list," Daisy told, her eyes never looking at Darius. She mustn't enjoy eye-contact. Daisy was a weird girl, in Darius's eyes.
But Marcus was more weird. If mankind were as magical as witches or trolls, then how could Marcus (and Marcus alone) do things so far beyond the boundaries of simple magic? His powers were deeper than sorcery, they bordered on godly, demonic, inexplicable.
"I think it is," he thought aloud, looking over at the flower. It was black and purple, with furry petals and jagged leaves. Daisy plucked it, and handed it to the boy with ease.
Throughout their journey north, as the sun began to set, they had found nearly all things on the list. Mandrake, blackberries, even a pumpkin (which was strangely no larger than a tomato). But no matter how hard they looked, they could not find a dandelion. It was strange, Darius thought. Dandelions sprout where they aren't wanted, but are nowhere to be found when needed. It seemed mischievous.
The sun had set and the sky was agloom with stars, shining highly above, perched in the sky like nesting birds. It wasn't until halfway through the night that they had managed to find the cursed dandelion, and even then they weren't sure if they could make it back on time.
But they still tried, and even attempted to shorten the journey back by running now and then. At first, they didn't know if they were going to make it on time. The sky was growing lighter, so light that the black had washed into a dark blue, and the dark blue became bleached to a light blue. The sun hadn't fully risen yet, but it was about to any minute. Varia's magic must hold on, it must...
And there stood the village, just over an old field. They ran, the ingredients in hand, and trembled through the quiet morning village, once again unnoticed. Slithering through the shadows like an ill-mannered old snake, Darius made his way into the dusty tavern just as the sun began its holy ascent into the sky, sending blasts of iridescent rays down on the menial world below.
Down a hallway, turn a corner, up a creaking stairway and through another "L" shaped corridor, the dynamic duo reached the room perhaps just at the right time.
"Finally, you fools," Varia exclaimed, her eyes still closed and angst with insipidity. Her hands were still elevated over Marcus's lame body, shooting light pink lighning bolts that electrified his veins for all to see. The brown venom had been well contained through the night, luckily enough, so Varia had saved him. "The venom is weak, but spread quickly. I managed to stop it, but I'm quite weak for the time being. Bring them in; I trust there was no trouble finding them all?"
"The dandelion was a hard thing to find, but everything else just came our way," Darius told her.
He gazed over the room and noticed change. Marcus now lay on the old, yet soft feather mattress that had been moved from the corner to the center of the room. It was red with blood. Varia was still crouched over him on her knees, yet beside her stood a rusty black cauldron with a jagged tree branch leaning inside of it. From the smell, she had added cinnamon into the pot.
"You already started," Daisy observed.
"Yes. I found the remaining ingredients in the marketplace, including the cauldron and stirring spoon. I stole them, of course, but the troll-merchant was none the wiser. I used my only five or six minute break to start brewing, yet I fear the venom unfroze exceedingly fast. It almost reached his heart, but I returned before it could."
Darius approached the witch and lay the ingredients he carried down on the floor, with Daisy following behind him.
"What now?" he asked simply.
"Now, you do as say, exactly as I say it. And if you cannot, then you are of no help to me or to Marcus, and I'll have the girl take your place."
"It's Daisy," she whispered, though Varia didn't hear her over her large ego clogging her ears, Darius thought.
"No, I can do it. Tell me."
"Stir the pot for a few moments, then add the mandrake. You'll need to snap it like bread and add it piece by piece."
Darius lifted the dirty old, mud-ridden root and tore as he had been commanded. Dropping the pieces in, he looked back to the witch. With bags under her closed eyes and restlessness so visible on her skin, he could tell the spell was taking its toll on her.
"Now?"
"Now stir again. Each time, stir. That is important. It forces movement and friction, effervescence, collision. Then you'll need to add this," for a moment, only a split half-second, Varia's hand snapped at Darius and left a small tin in his hands.
"What is this?"
"Crushed bones, do not ask me why. Just drop them all in and stand back, it creates quite the fizz," she instructed. Darius did so, and watched the cauldron pop and bubble, until it reached the very brim and overflowed onto the floor.
He stirred again.
"Now what?"
"Do not ask me again, I will just tell you. Now add the pumpkin. It is small, I trust? Good. Just drop it in whole and continue stirring."
He did as he was bid, and dropped the pumpkin inside. It frizzed a moment, then spat up at his face. He grimaced at Varia, who smiled with her eyes still closed, all-knowing and smug.
"Now you will add the clovers. Did you find a four-leaved clover? That is the most important," she told him. "Drop all of the other clovers in, except the four-leaved clover. Then, once you have done that, take the fourth leaf on the clover and dip it in alone."
"How do I know which one is the fourth?" he asked, dropping all of the clovers inside, excepting the four-leaved, which lay in the palm of his hand.
"It will be smaller, and differently shaped. Deformed, if you will," she told.
He saw the leaf, plucked, and dipped it into the cauldron.
Through the remainder of boiling and cooking the potion, Varia had instructed him, and he had done so, until all but two ingredients remained - only one of which was in front of them. The dandelion.
"Just drop it in," she guided him, never opening her eyes or stopping the constant spell.
He did so. "What next, is it complete?"
"Oh, nearly, you forget one last item. The sacrifice."
"What sacrifice?"
"The sacrifice of life. Not only to appease the gods, but to work the magic. Only death can pay for life, it is the most basic rule of magic. But do not fret, I did the deed while in the market. Look in the satchel to my left."
He gazed at the brown and frayed leather satchel, yet it was stained with red. He unhooked the golden fastenings, and felt his throat curl and twist as he looked upon what lay inside the bowels of the satchel.
"It's a fucking heart! A human heart!"
"Well what were you expecting? A mouse, a rat? I needed something that amounts to a human, but the closest around here was a troll. Let us hope it works, aye. Drop it in.
Disgusted, Darius only touched the handles of the satchel, covering his mouth from the sickening sense of what he was doing. Overturning it, he held it over the cauldron and watched the foul thing flop into the brew.
Stirring, stirring stirring, and there they had a completed potion of magical proportions.
Daisy intervened then, using an old silver chalice Varia had acquired to pour some of the brown, muddy liquid into it. Traipsing the room, she sipped it into the boy's mouth, hoping.
Varia finally stopped her spell, as the mud-like potion traveled through Marcus's body. Darius hung over him, eagerly, while Varia attempted to attend to his wound. Waiting, hoping, his eyes never left Marcus's still face, hoping his eyes would flutter open any minute.
But his body shook, like a great heavy seizure. His body quaked like an erupting volcano, and the mud began to froth from his mouth. It puked out all over himself, all over the mattress and the floor. Blood spat from his mouth in great puddles, and his body never desisted its shaking.
His eyes shot open, for only a moment, before the quakes stopped and his body lay still. Dead.
"What's wrong? What is it?" Darius asked, insistent.
Varia touched his neck, his wrist, trying to feel a pulse. "It didn't work," she sighed. "It wasn't enough."
"But we did everything!"
"I told you there was a possibility..." Varia became silent, covering her face with her hands. "I told you..." She lifted from the ground and scurried from the room. Daisy became a shadow, a mere nothing in the darkness of the room.
But Darius wouldn't believe it. He couldn't. His world became black with grief, a sudden restlessness poured over him and forced him into Purgatory.
He dreamed of nothing.
"Wake up, Darius; Wake up!" Daisy screamed, shaking him with unknowable strength. His eyes fluttered, and a great smile lay on her face. "His heart beats!"
Standing, Darius hushed over to the pale body. Yet, it was no longer pale. It had a little tint of life remaining. He just looked to be... sleeping.
"Is he... alive?"
He knelt over the boy and waited for his eyes to open. All day, he waited, gazing, watching, never leaving. Just expecting.
And then they did, but no longer were they his regular and perfect light blue, but they had changed colour. Tainted and viled, spat on and defiled, his eyes were mortifying beyond belief.
His eyes were white, a glowing silvery white that sickened Darius to the sight. They glowed like a thousand burning stars, and twisted his stomach in knots.
"No..." Varia whispered, her own shocked eyes looking down at him from the frame of the door, where she stood so silently.
"What has happened to him?" Darius begged.
"The same thing that happened to my eyes when I was killed," Varia whispered, "The boy has made himself immortal."
Closes the Enchanter's Storybook
IMPORTANT: Because of the length of the Chapter Ten Special and the specialty of the divine Tenth Chapter Special, I will NOT be posting a chapter next week. But do not cry, for the Enchanter will miss you too, but I shall be back the week following! I'll be seeing you in TWO WEEKS, my ducklings.
That was The Enchanter's Storybook: Chapter Ten Special. Thank you for reading, it means a lot to me. Donate to Nifty. Places Storybook by the fiery hearth, where a powerful plot-potion brews, a potion that will be ready for consumption in two weeks time
And remember: this very email address can be used to message me about our ideas, plots, comments - anything you have to say on this story, just email me. Even questions, if the need be.
Have a truly amazing day, my darling ducklings. Love, the Man on the Moon, the Swan in the Stars, the Sun in your Sky,
The Enchanter.
Best wishes to you now, ducklings, for you must live two whole weeks without my lovely tales to ail you. What an awful curse, I know, but the Enchanter will return, enticing you with an all new chapter of the adventures of Marcus Mallow, Darius Drake, Varia Viske, and my BRAND NEW CHARACTER, Daisy Dweller. See you in two weeks, my ducklings!