A Dolling Ghost.

I tried to pull my sword out of Reika’s body, but it was lodged in the rock beneath her.  I saw the Bloodletter lying next to her, and in one swift motion I took it by its grip and confronted the man who had taken everything from me.

For his part, he hid his fear well.  He clearly had not expected me to survive my encounter with Reika’s demonically possessed body.  He pulled the neck of his robe open to reveal the yoke and said “You can’t kill me, boy.  Not even the Bloodletter can harm me now.  Consider the position you are in and put that thing down!”

“Then you will not mind if I test it out!”  And with that, I lunged.  He jumped back, avoiding my blow but exposing his lie; the Bloodletter would do just fine. 

My strength was slowly leaking out onto the floor, so I had little time.  The butcher’s bill of his crimes was due, and I would be the cost.  I found new strength in his deception, and lunged at his frail form.  At first I had thought the blade had only pierced some folds in his robes, as there was not the familiar resistance that normally accompanies flesh.  But his halted scream confirmed that the Bloodletter had taken another victim. 

He fell backwards, sliding off the blade and onto the stone floor of the chamber.  Coughing up blood, he looked up at me and tried to speak.

“I have no need of your lies any longer.”  With that, I swung the blade and decapitated his pathetic form.

Drunk with blood loss, I stumbled to the floor next to him, my blood mingling with his in pools around us.  I was quite ready to die there, quite ready for my story to end and perhaps to see Reika once more. 

That is when I saw the yoke.  With each heartbeat, it called out to me.  Each one, like the last ticks of a clock, chiseled away at my thoughts.  I looked at Reika’s sad remains.  I thought of Holger’s brave sacrifice in the cathedral above me. 

I knew then what I must do.  Reika would go home again.  Holger’s family would know how he died.  Both would receive the blessed sleep, and all it would cost me was my eternal soul.

I reached over to Jofridus’ headless corpse, dug my fingers into his chest around the yoke, and tore it off.  I used the last ounce of my strength to place it around my neck, and gasped as the unholy metal knitted and melted into my own flesh.  My heartbeat slowed to a stop, and so too the bleeding.  I writhed in agony as each wound closed itself up. 

I was something different now.

So this book, once a place I went to for enlightenment, now becomes my epitaph.  For whatever the case, whether I am evil or whether I am a coward, Raben is no more.  Perhaps he never existed in the first place.  Maybe he was merely something to comfort me in my blindness.

I shall write no more.  There are others whose bills are due.

And I will be the cost.

Amsel

1^st day, year one.