Rated for Language
All those who reviewed Scall's Magic. Thank you. That story is still on going and Im making slow progress. However the problem is that it is the writing of a history of another story. This story, in the world of Dovekread is the real story - the idea came to me and I wrote the story in 300 words. I began work on the first chapter straight away. I like it yet, as always Im open to critiscism.Enjoy
The Wizeman Echelon prepared for death. He had a bowl of water before him, a dagger to the right and was wearing nothing as he sat, cross-legged on the ground. He gulped, it was hard to let go after thousands of years of being alive.
He shivered, stretching out for the dagger. He snatched his hand away, breathing and rubbing his hands on his legs in discomfort. Snapping his head around the Skull, with its crooked smile and worn head, shook at him.
“You are simply being silly now,” the Skull said in its patronising voice.
“You are the silly one,” he said, “you have driven me to this!” Echelon stood up and threw the bowl of water at the skull which sat, ever smiling on a pile of rubble. Missed.
“Are you any use at anything you do?”
“Stop that – I'm better than you will ever be.”
“I'm a skull,” it laughed. “It would be hard not to be.”
Echelon, tears in his eyes, sick of a hundred years or more of this banter curled up and cried. “Don’t talk to me!”
“Then you’ll have no one,” it whispered. The skull was right, Echelon had no one nor had spoken to anyone in little less than three and half centuries. He had found the skull in the last century and it had never gone away – ever talking to him and tormenting him, bettering him in every sense. At times, he wanted to throw the skull from the keep’s walls and watch it plummet into the dry moat below. But he would have no one to talk to, no one to exchange banter with.
“Maybe…” the skull began, “…you don’t know how to kill yourself.”
“Kill! I’m a Wizeman!”
The skull purred with laughter. “You don’t know what one of those is, you’ve forgotten.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” he clenched his hands repeatedly, scrunching up his tired face.
He bit his teeth together and shivered in frustration. “I. Haven’t. Forgotten!”
“If you say so. But I say you have.”
“Shut up, I could kill you at times.” He took the dagger from the floor and hurled it at the skull, it spun through the air and forced the skull from the rubble-throne. It landed, echoing through the old keep. He gasped and ran behind the rubble, picking it up and rubbing dust from it.
“I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please don’t get angry.”
“How dare you! You incompetent bastard! You spineless, filthy, bastarding shit.” The skull was mad, really bad. It only ever swore when it was angry. Shivering in fear he placed the skull down and backed away, shaking his head.
“It wasn’t my fault. You drove me to it – you always do. Don’t hurt me, please don’t hurt me.”
“You need punishing, you cannot treat me, your friend like this. You know what to do Echelon.” The skull seemed to look at the dagger.
He pleaded with the skull but it had none of it. He had been unloyal. If he didn’t do what the skull said then it would go silent until he did it. Or it could remain like that forever.
“Ok – ill do it, just don’t leave me here on my own.”
He took the knife and drew across the opposing wrist, drawing a little blood and cringing at the sight and hurt of it. “Is that enough.”
“For almost killing me! I think not!”
He sliced again, this time deeper and with more force, he blurted out curses from the back of his mind and managed to get out, “Enough?”
“The other.”
He traded the knife over to his wounded hand, now covered in blood. He cut through his other wrist, harshly – it opened quickly from many practises. He crumpled to the floor, yelling curses to the steeple. He stopped, panting like a wounded dog and looked to the skull who was satisfied.
“That is enough,” it said. “I hope you have learned your lesson.”
“I have – I won’t hurt you again.”
“But you will hurt me again, you hurt me by your very existence. You see, I unlike you do not need company, in fact – I rather prefer to be alone.” Echelon dived to the skull, holding it and roaring in its face.
“Please don’t leave me here, I’ll never cope. Don’t go. Don’t go. Don’t go.”
“For you – ill stay for a little longer. If you let me down.”
He placed it down on the rubble-throne and sat again, nursing his wounds. “How did we end up here – in fact, where are we?”
“We are in the ancient fort, remember?”
He puzzled for a moment and pretended to remember just for his own dignity.
“Of course, the fort.” There was a pause before he looked at the skull again. “So why did we come here?”
The skull sighed, “Because we were being chased by a mob – you put your foot in it again didn’t you, you always ruin my plans.”
He rocked slight, biting his wrist. “Yes – the mob, I think I stole something.”
“You did – you stole a girl,” the skull laughed. He drew blood now but continued biting in a frenzy, rocking backwards and forwards, laughing at sweet nothingness.
“Yes, yes. The girl. But that was you, you told me to…to…”
“What? Kill her?”
“Don’t say it!” He grew angry with the skull again but the fresh wounds reminded him who was in charge.
“You killed the girl – you Raped the girl, you Fucked the girl,” the skull sang in a mock voice.
“I didn’t, I can’t have done.”
“But you did – I was there. You can’t lie to me Echelon, I am you.”
He looked at the skull, still biting into his bloody knuckles, chewing his flesh like someone deranged and still smiling but crying at the same time.
“You’re not,” he shouted, “You are a skull.”
The skull was silent.
Gender:
Points: 1106
Reviews: 614