AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The book is sitting back on my nightstand, a place that it has settled into calling home for the past few days. I move toward it and take it in both my hands, feeling the smoothness of the leather, and I feel the urge to run my nose along its spine.
I feel a heavy sense of sadness parting with it. I think briefly that those emotions were from my attachment to Abigail.
“Here …”
Before I had a chance to say a proper goodbye, Varzig snatched the book from my hands, like a bully taking a lollipop from a baby. He does it swiftly and with great apathy, tucking the book under his arm and departing from the bedroom without a word.
“HEY!” I yelled after him. “What the fuck? That wasn’t the deal! VARZIG!”
I stop, realizing that my heart is beating rapidly with grief rather than the anger I tried to express. It’s pointless to try to chase after a demon as a little old human. I’m a woman who is willing to make daring decisions, but I’m not an idiot.
I heard the front door slam shut, and I plopped onto the bed. I let my face fall into my hands, the overwhelming sorrow from the loss of Abigail coming up like tar in a well. I admit that there is another part of me that is disappointed by Varzig’s quick departure, too. He was a gorgeous specimen, one that made my knees weak in ways I had never felt before.
Oh well. That is the end of that tale. It’s gone now.
As I tried to find resolve, I heard the roof above me beginning to shake. I took my face from my hands and heard the familiar sound of the metal being torn from the ceiling above. Bits of the wall began to fall into my hair like snowflakes, and I shot up, clenching my fists in preparation for whatever would come.
I see who has come and torn up my father’s recent thatching job, the same demon who caused it the first time. Varzig, the handsome white-haired demon.
He had once again inflated his body to a giant size and was peering into my bedroom like a child looking into a cookie jar. He’s still handsome but greatly irritated with me.
“What games are you trying to play with me, woman?” His voice booms.
I frown, unsure what in the Thirteen he’s referring to. I then notice in my side vision that my nightstand is no longer empty. The book has returned to its fateful owner.
Varzig stares down at me, brow intensely furrowed, as one side of my face begins to curl. This doesn’t make him happy.
“What are you smiling at, woman?” He snarls. “What is this sorcery you are using?”
I point at the book, no longer afraid of his wrath.
“I have written a few stories in it, the ones that came true. That must mean I’m the owner of it. You can’t take it … without me.”
My words backfire on me as Varzig tosses the loose roofing into a distant landscape. He then curls his massive claws around the edges of the house, peering down at me like a lizard ready to consume its prey.
Though I should be afraid, and certainly a part of me is, I know that he won’t hurt me. After all, without me, there is no book.
“Then you have sealed your own fate, dear one,” he said softly, pupils having shrunk into the size of a pins head. “You, along with the artifact, will return with me.”
I’m not a woman who gives in or is familiar with begging. But the up-and-down ongoings of the day get to me, and I fall to my knees, making Varzig grimace.
“Please, Varzig, I can’t leave the village,” I plead with him. “I need the book, and the village needs me and the book. It’s the only protection we have against the orcs. If I go with the book, they are sure to be slaughtered.”
There is a pause that makes me hopeful. His giant, moon-shaped eyes hover over to the book, and his long, knife-like nails drum against the sides of the house. I can hear my father raging about the torn-up roof somewhere in the house.
“These orcs,” Varzig said quietly. “They are threatening your village?”
I nod.
“I wrote in the book about a knight that would come to save us from the orc’s rule, and it happened, but only once. Then I wrote about you ….”
The silence filled with my father’s bellows. We both ignore it as we stare into each other's eyes. I feel that weak sensation in my limbs again and am thankful that I’m already kneeling.
“I know the way of the orc. They only crave violence, even in its emptiness.”
He spoke like he was talking to someone in the distance. I remain quiet, hoping his contemplation will aid me in my quest.
He sighed. I try to conceal my glee.
