There comes a time in your life when you are forced to leave behind all those things you held as good and replace them with things that you don’t. This day had arrived for King McMervin CCX1. To be truthful it was a day long dreaded, overly ignored, and now it was looming he was little less than terrified. In fact he was morose. The thought of what was about to happen weighed heavy on his heart. The tic in his eye had returned to bother him and nothing could contain that tremor of his hand. His thumbs twitched, his eyebrows were knitted in a deep furrowed frown. His jittery eyes darted restlessly from beneath dark cowelled lids. There was a time he held his hooded eyes in great esteem. Now they told of sleepless nights. The shine in his eyes were replaced with a sharp glaze that led a path way to his soul if only his eyes kept still long enough to see. Dreams haunted his days, and ghosts haunted his dreams. Rambling words were muttered throughout the nights, echoing through the draughty corridors and mostly by him. Unwelcome shadows followed him and melded into larger blobs if his eye lingered on them too long.
Merlin’s Keep had long forgotten its days when it was the epic sprawling estate of his forebears. Jonas, a distant ancestor, had lost the castle to the Worlocks in a game of poker that would have made history had it not been for the events that followed. Jonas’s four kings were seriously outclassed by a royal flush to make any lord blush. He lost badly. Fury ruled his pride. Those that saw the next minutes claimed he reached for his sword ran his sword through all the Worlocks. Servants watched on as the blood drained from the silent dying. Spatters claimed the walls in long rivers, flowed down the curtains, dripped from the paintings. Jonas stared at the carnage. Unlike those that watched there was a redness to his cheeks, triumph on his face.“Clean it up,” he ordered.
“Jonas…” Seth, Jonas’s brother. He was tall, thin and with a long weak chin. He held a handkerchief to his mouth to hold back the bile in his throat.
“Just do it.”
“Have you lost your mind?” Seth wailed.
“Far from it. I have found it, my brother.” The calmness in his voice was more terrifying than any rage.
Copyright Lorraine Poulter 2019
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