Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2013 03:43:15 +0100
From: Enchanting Enchanter <enchantingenchantor@hotmail.com>
Subject: The Enchanter's Storybook: Chapter Six

This is the first series that I have written on the website. I plan for it
to be a fantasy fiction tale that features fictitious creatures like trolls
and witches, fairies and pixies and centaurs, etc. I expect it may
eventually have a romantic or otherwise aspectthat may include sexual
confrontations between characters of the same and opposite sex. It is not
real, and is only a storybook told from the point of view of the writer,
me, who is also the Enchanter; hence the title "The Enchanter's Storybook".

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.

If you are under-aged or lawfully restrained be reading this material,
please leave. Thank you.

Finally, if you wish to understand the plot, I urge you to read previous
chapters. You wouldn't start a book by reading the fifth chapter, so don't
start this series reading the fifth chapter.

Now to start the fifth chapter of the tale.

The Enchanter's Storybook: Chapter Five

Marcus drew his face in closer to Darius's, staring idly at his lips, and
rested his forehead against his. Slowly, their lips pushed towards each
other, and:

"What in Holy Hell is going on here?"

The voice was slight, yet sleek, and broke the silence of the hilled
valleys drearily. It was a booming voice, sardonic and fumed with emotion
and shock. Marcus recognized it, somewhere, somehow.

Yet suddenly, the two jumped, and Darius dropped Marcus's hands. He drifted
away from him, slowly, looking gloomily down at the blaze of green grass at
his feet.

Marcus scoured the hills with his young blue eyes, and found a drifting
shadow in the west. He felt his face blush with redness and embarrassment,
and felt the eyes looking down at him. They were being watched. The shadow,
he discovered, projected over the west from the east, where the sparkling
sun rose from beneath the world. Their shadow was cast from behind
him. There, he saw black leather and fiery red hair.

"It's... it's impossible," he mumbled, to no one but himself.

"Not impossible, honeysuckle. Magical would definitely be the word I'd
use," Varia spoke back, her voice still soothing and flowery. The words
rolled on her tongue, a glimmering accent on her voice. He hadn't noticed
it before, but even the trolls had it.

"The witch..." Darius spoke morosely, drifting where he stood. "What do you
want?"

"Oh, nothing, sweet boy, strong boy." She strode forward, her metallic
heels crushing the blades of grass as she went.

"You died... I saw you. How on earth?" Marcus mumbled, perplexedly. "How
are you here? Alive?"

The witch rose an arm to her hair and tousled the straight red locks from
her face and behind her shoulders, revealing her flawless face and pallid
skin. Her neck was crowned with a fleshy necklace of scars where her throat
had been slit, as tight as a noose on her skin. "The trolls did kill
me. Here's the scar. But I didn't stay dead for long. My thanks to you,
Marcus, for you were the one who revived me."

"Me? I did nothing!"

"Oh but you did, sweetling," she said, striding to his side and stroking
his face. "You touched my face with your hands, your tears poured down onto
me. You felt it too, did you not? When you touched me, and I screamed? It
was your darkness connecting to mine, your darkness refueling mine."

"Yes, I remember."

"When you did, you healed me. It took time, but your darkness returned me
to the world, and with only one price," she told him.

"And what was that, witch?" Darius gasped, grabbing her hand and ripping it
off of Marcus's cheek.

"My eyes are no longer the same colour," she laughed. "Once black, now
grey, it would seem. Oh, how intriguing, I do think. The fighter does not
know, does he? No? I didn't think so. You could not tell him, and now here
you are covered in the foul blood of the trolls. How, by the way, were two
young boys able to take down two fully-grown trolls?"

Marcus looked down at his arms and hands, and found them dipped in
blood. It was blanketed all over him, in his wispy blond hair and on his
smooth white face. He tasted it in his mouth. He felt so dirty, so
disgusting. He had taken a life, yet he didn't actually feel remorse or
contrition. He felt... happy.

"It was Marcus's idea," Darius said, a droll monotone in his voice that
showcased his hatred to Varia. "He took a vine from the enchanted forests,
and I strangled Kryt with it. That gave him time to steal her blade and
kill her, then we got the keys from her body and..."

"Well, I can see exactly what came after that," she chuckled, staring at
Myrdok's corpse. She bent over it and twisted it, to look at the empty hole
oozing blood where his lengthy manhood once was. She poked the cut
playfully, and giggled. "Who's work was this? Castrating the troll?"

"I did it," Marcus announced proudly. He felt quite proud of his work, and
the style of how he had done it. The troll deserved it, he told himself
repeatedly.

"Fine work. Just chopped it off? How amusing! I would have loved to see his
face. Oh, Myrdok was wrong to think mankind were weak, and I was wrong to
think they had no magic. Marcus, you are living proof! I know of no witch
capable of such healing powers; you brought me back to life. Not even the
gods can do such a thing. Yet there you are, as human as they come, yet
with a darkness like no other! You fascinate me, you truly do," Varia
exclaimed, smiling brightly.

Darius shifted and knocked the witch back. She struggled to keep to her
feet, but she managed. So suddenly, Darius drooped to the floor and armed
himself with the blood-sodden sword and murder weapon of Myrdok. He held
the point to her.

"What's this?" she asked, starting a startling laugh that made her curdle
over. Tears of humour formed in her eyes as she giggled furiously. "Are you
going to kill me?" She cackled again.

"If you don't fuck off, now!" Darius screamed at her, his face turning red
with an anger Marcus had not seen before.

She cackled again, and said in complete delirium, "Oh, sweet boy," she
laughed, "you've never held a sword before today, and I am no easy kill."

"I'll do it," he threatened.

Varia's face suddenly dropped the laughter, and turned deadly serious. "No
you won't, you fool." The witch walked toward him slowly, testily. "You
don't have the guts!" She dared. Yet, Darius did not draw forth the silvery
steel sword.

And, quite alarmingly, Varia plunged herself onto the sword, let it fall
into her belly and break out of her back. She slid onto the blade and
welcomed its deadly kiss. She laughed again.

"Varia!" Marcus shouted out, running over to her and taking the sword's
handle from Darius. He pulled it with gentle care out of her belly, but she
kept laughing the entire time.

No blood poured out. No cut or scar was left on her skin, like it somehow
hadn't happened.

"Why, Marcus, there is something I have forgotten to tell you," she
chuckled.

"And what is that?"

"You made me immortal!" She jumped onto the little boy and tugged the sword
from his hands, then pushed him to the floor and pointed it toward
Darius. "Now who looks the fool, brave little fighter boy?"

"Don't! Don't kill him!" Marcus screamed, climbing to his feet.

He felt so helpless, he knew he was helpless. The darkness would not just
come, and he knew that. Emotion was the only answer, and he only felt
scared, terribly scared.

"If I get rid of the fighter, it will just be us. I can take you to
Purgador, and my Sisters will teach you the meaning of darkness. We will
rule this world, you and I, Marcus, yes we will!"

"If you kill him, then I will kill you," Marcus threatened.

"Did you not hear? I am immortal now, sweetling!"

"If I gave you immortality, then I can just as easily take it away."

"You don't know how. Listen to me, honeysuckle, I saved you. And you saved
me. We are bound. But do not think I do not know about the two of you,
hugging and hand-holding and the like!"

"What are you talking about?" Darius asked, frightened, defensive.

"You two. I saw it the first time I laid eyes on you sweetlings. Boys, yes,
but both desiring more. Your minds are as easy to read as your faces. You
both want the other, and from what I have seen and heard this morning, you
are both already aware."

The witch fumbled the sword in her hands and pressed her hands against the
steel. Then, so suddenly, the blade turned a fiery red. It melted into a
white hot mixture of steel and blood that dribbled down her fingers and
dropped to the ground like rain.

"I would not hurt you, Marcus. We are bound. If that means allowing
this... this friend of yours to live, then so be it. He is brave, I will
admit, but stupidly so. Now you have a choice."

"And what is that choice, witch?" Darius asked, his muscles tensing avidly.

"Turn back the way you came and return to Rocky Pass," she she answered,
"or... come with me, into the world of darkness. I suppose he may come
to. I would wish to take you to Purgador, or Agridor, anywhere in the
Witchlands. Mastering darkness is taught in the Witchlands, you know. We
can travel the world, you and I. And him. We can accomplish so much, with
our ultimate darkness combined, the world can bow to us."

"Don't, Marcus. Say no. We could go home."

"I... I... I wish to see the world. Darius, what will life bring in the
Pass but boredom and shit? We can see the whole world, we can meet new
people and creatures. I want to."

"I will go where you will go," he announced, smiling.

"Then it looks settled. Purgador it is. The great city of Purgador. You
will see nothing like it. Yet, what do we do with the bodies?"

"What about them?" Darius smiled.

"We cannot simply leave them in the open."

He looked confused for a moment. "Well, why can't we? It's what they
deserve."

"They deserve respect, dead or no. I shall not leave them to be feasted
upon by vultures and vermin. We must lay them to rest, return them to their
gods. For the horrible people they were, they deserve to rest in peace."

"I refuse to touch them," Darius announced.

"Trolls are born from sacks, did you know? Like eggs, the mother lays them,
and then buries them in the ground. The mud and soil gave them life, and
they must be laid to rest to the mud and soil that gave them life," Varia
spoke.

She squatted over Myrdok's corpse and hovered her hands over him. His body
began glimmering golden and bronzed sparkles that drifted into Varia's skin
as the witch stole the pitiful remains of his darkness. She murmured in
their foreign language, and his body sank into the ground like it was
water, his dismembered limb alongside it.

"It is done. Where is the other?"

Darius pointed beyond the hill from whence they had came, and she scurried
on in that direction, no doubt to repeat the respectful funeral.

"What was she talking about?" Darius asked, once they were alone. He looked
at Marcus with his deep, vast hazel eyes that looked like they might cry at
any moment.

"She thinks I have darkness, magic, I think," Marcus replied innocently,
shrugging as if it was nothing.

"I meant, when she said that she could read our minds, and she said that
we... the both of us...no, it doesn't matter."

Marcus knew just what he meant. Varia had told both boys their secrets, or
one Marcus felt only he carried alone.

He smiled, and touched Darius's cheek. "Before she came here, you said
something to me," he said, slowly.

"You said it first," was his sullen reply.

"Did you mean it?" Marcus asked abruptly.

"Of course I meant it, or else I wouldn't have said it, and you wouldn't
have, an we wouldn't have tried to...just before she... I wouldn't have
tried to... kiss you."

Marcus smiled again, and suddenly jumped into Darius's arms and embraced
him frantically. He felt his sudden warmth and smell of strawberries burst
into his nose in an essence of fragrance and fruit, as he flopped him to
the floor.

All too suddenly, they were back in the Pass, together, young little boys
wrestling on the dusty old ground. Their embrace turned from passionate to
jovial in an instant, and suddenly they were playfully fighting like they
always had. Darius twisted from under him, and slid up behind him, wrapping
his arms around his neck and forcing Marcus to the ground. Darius then slid
over the top of him and held him down with utter ease. Marcus tried to
struggle, but it was as futile as ever.

His eyes were a boom of great brownness, like a thousand-thousand hazelnuts
and cocoa beans melted together to form two teary-eyed, beautiful orbs
plastered into Darius's face. Marcus couldn't resist staring into them.

And suddenly, Darius pushed himself down toward Marcus, pushed his face
further down, looking from his eyes to his lips and back again. Marcus did
nothing but hold his breath. Darius pulled his forever-perfect smile, and
brought his lips to meet with Marcus. Yet, just as Marcus lifted his lips
to meet Darius, he shot up off of him and smiled a devilish smile.

"I'll kiss you when you manage to beat me, for once," Darius smiled, just
as Varia appeared behind him, creepier than a shadow and by far more
dangerous. Marcus pulled himself to the ground and wiped the dust and dirt
off of him, but the blood was still there, horrible and sticky, drying and
turning a dark and tainted crispy crimson against his skin.

And the three strode on through the hills to the west, soaked in blood and
darkness, deep into the magical world beyond.

*Closes the Enchanter's Storybook*

That was The Enchanter's Storybook: Chapter Five. Thank you for reading, it
truly means a lot to me. Donate to Nifty. *Places Storybook onto the
highest of bookshelves, beside cobwebs and dust, and other tales of
darkness*

Please remember: this email adress can be used for you to message me about
ideas, plot-lines, comments - anything you have to say, please email me.
Even questions, because I understand that the story may be somewhat complex
to some people.


Have an enchanting day, my honeysuckles. Love, your wise old friend,
the Enchanter.