grimmutterings

When he had made this unfortunate agreement with whoever it was, he also really should have taken note of a few details.  A name, for one, but things had got complicated very quickly and he had never imagined that taking notes might be required.

The first time, someone else had done all the talking, and he had not really been paying a whole lot of attention to exactly what was being said – and to who.  When things had started to happen he had thought it was all a joke, a silly game, and he had laughed then screamed along with all the others.  Until .. well, and that’s the hard bit to both explain and wrap his mind around.  The important thing seemed to be that he had said ‘yes’ when he had been asked.  Everyone else had and he was just playing along and after that he really wished he hadn’t.  This time he was doing it by himself without what was left of the group of screaming idiots who had been there the first time.

So tonight, after dinner, he was in his bedroom with the curtains closed, wearing his father’s dressing gown over his hoodie, the hood pulled as far over his face as possible.  In the darkened bedroom his barely visible reflection in the long mirror beside his wardrobe looked suitably cowled.  Rather impressive he thought, and he swished the bottom of his father’s robe dramatically. 

His mother’s gift box of aromatherapy candles were providing the required ambient lighting for the ceremony, but he found he had to stand very close to a candle to be able to read his elaborate ceremonial speech.  So, by the dim, flickering light and in the overwhelming smell of pomegranate with hints of vanilla and cedar, and at great risk of setting himself on fire .. he began.

There were a couple of things he really needed to clarify.  Mainly how to get out of the situation he was in, but starting his ceremonial speech was not proving easy.  His throat felt dry and his voice squeaked,  ‘Ohhhhh most great and vile … ’, he coughed violently, and tried again, ‘Ohhhhh most great and vile …’ what was the name?  He couldn’t remember.  ‘Ohhhhhh most great and vile … one?’  That would do?

‘I call you into the ….’.  he continued, and was interrupted by a voice, an ancient voice, a voice forged in fire and darkness.  ‘I am here’, the voice said, from behind him and from everywhere.  ‘Oh dear god’ he squeaked.  ‘No’ the voice said, and laughed nastily, ‘you dropped him, remember?’

In his bed with his covers over his head, he felt he could try communicating.  He really didn’t want to see who he was talking to, again, the first time had been enough.  ‘About that’ he quavered, ‘I wonder if we could renegotiate? No one really told me what was happening, I just thought it was a joke, so what I’d …’.

He was interrupted again ‘A joke?’  That awful laughter, ‘Are you laughing yet?’.

He wasn’t.  He was crying, ‘Please’ he sobbed, ‘I would never have said yes if I knew, I don’t even believe in you’.  ‘Oh but I believe in you’ the voice whispered, close to his ear.  He flinched and cried out for his mother.  ‘Why do you call for her?’, the voice asked conversationally, ‘She can’t help’.

‘Oh please, please, please’ he begged, ‘I didn’t know what I was doing, I don’t want to spend .. well you know.  Pleasepleaseplease!’

A silence of decades, loud with the promise of the horror of eternity, and he took hope, a slim chance maybe to extricate himself?  He felt the weight of someone, something, sit on his bed, beside him.  Something hard patted his head gently, and the voice cooed reassurance.  It wasn’t very good at it.

‘If you want me to go, you have to say my name’, it whispered from somewhere just in front of his tightly closed eyes.  ‘Say my name and tell me to go’.

Hope flickered and died in the same instant.  ‘I was hoping we could clear that up too’ he moaned, ‘I wasn’t really listening the first time.’

A snarl of annoyance blew hot air across his face, he felt his face tingle in the heat and smelt burning hair.  ‘You have five guesses to get my name.  Go!’

‘Five?’ he asked, without thinking, ‘isn’t it usually three guesses?’

‘Would you prefer three?’, darkness and despair floated on the question.

‘No, no, five please.  It begins with an S, I know that’, he whimpered, and suggested … ‘Sobiaptinth’?’.

‘Who?’ the voice asked, sounding momentarily taken aback.

‘No, no, I meant ‘VengerScrate?’  He tried again.

‘No, but I know him well’

‘Really?  That’s a thing?  I don’t mean him, I meant ummm … Slacttre Gerveen?’

‘You’re just making words up, aren’t you?’, said the voice uncomfortably close to the back of his neck.

‘Yes’, his voice almost failed him.

‘Two more’.

‘Could you give me a hint?’ he dared to ask and nearly ruined any hope with that bit of additional stupidity.

‘Is that a guess? or were you actually asking me to help you?’

‘Yes, some help please’.  The howl of an eternity of rage close to his head burnt a hole in his bedding and set one wall of his bedroom on fire. 

‘I come from fire, I bring turmoil and retribution, from the pits of eternal flames I come, from the lakes of blood and fire, I bring damnation and vengance, the world will run red with the ….’

‘Oh I have it, I have it’, excited he bounced on his bed under the covers.

‘Do you?’ asked the voice, ‘and it is?’

‘Scarlets Revenge!’ he yelled delightedly, ‘Scarlets Revenge be gone.  Go!  Now!’

‘Oh for gods sake’ said the voice, and left.

‘Hah!  Begone Scarlets Revenge, begone I say, I banish you back to wherever it was you said, go ..’

There was a banging on his bedroom door, his mother, ‘What are you doing in there?’ she yelled.  ‘Stop shouting and go to sleep, you have school in the morning’.  A pause, and then ‘Have you got my candles, I smell pomegranate .. and sulphur?  You had better not have been playing with fire again young man!