Beneath a Silver Eye

As the sun surrendered in its battle with the ever-present void, Crow’s shadow slithered through the doorway of that cottage beneath Witch’s Hill; the place that etched his mind with a profound sense of weariness last he stepped upon its blackened mire. Silence permeated about these surroundings, with its gnarled shrubs and trees akin to the specters of ancients long departed, as gusts of wind disturbed the stillness, rustling the willows in a forsaken lament.

Crow rolled the minced haka leaves in an old piece of parchment, using his tongue and lips to seal it shut. He hadn’t smoked the stuff in quite a while, but now was as good a time as any. He used the pail by the door to light the roll-up, frowning at the human bones crackling beneath a dull fire. He knew that this was no ordinary hut, rather this was the serpentine lair of a Hag of the Outskirts—a consort of the Sisterhood of the Wyrd.

He stepped carefully beneath the trapdoor, using his free hand to grab on to the rickety ladder that descended deep below the stygian underbelly. He eagerly inhaled the smoke from the haka and used the resulting glimmer to guide his way through the burrow, attentive to the slightest undertone. There were distant sounds of water currents running beneath his feet, and as he trotted through the muck and squalor, it seemed like the underground rivers were bursting through the ground - most likely the cause of a natural aquifer.

A glimmer of light pierced through the blackness, prompting Crow to don the mask he had prepared for the occasion. He breathed in the poignant smell of the spices tucked away in its leathery beak, creeping ever closer to the opening, all the while hugging the damp walls as he pursued that singular hoary sliver amidst the gloom.

Coming upon an opening in the crag, he peered from the shadow’s cover, falling short on the brazen image of a nude young woman, her dark hair spilling over her dainty bare flesh, as she waived her slender arms and fingers above in a feverish invocation. Before her, a weeping willow sprawled her immensely gnarled branches, devouring the starlit sky and the gullies beyond with its ample crown. The tree seemed to have been partly uprooted and, over the ages, made to yield its roots in such a manner as to form a natural altar above a gleaming creek. There were blackened candles about this wooden dais that illumed the feeble shape of a younger woman, roughly sixteen winters in age, while her long silky golden hair seeped through the roots that served as an altar, soaking in the waters flowing below. She seemed lifeless from a distance though her bare bosom heaved with breath and her bare limbs twitched spasmodically despite being bound to the crooked roots with thick ropes.

Crow reached for the leathery pouch that he always wore strapped to his right thigh and fumbled with its contents one by one, in the end pulling a tiny corked crystal vial. He studied it cautiously, using the faint moonlit glow to discern the small handwritten words he had penned on its label. Next he grabbed the single needle syringe that was strapped to his left vambrace and proceeded to inject himself with the colorless serum. At this point the older woman sank her pale arms and stepped closer to the weird shrine, flashing a steel gem-crusted dagger. Her melody began thusly:

Oh Zamolxis
Great Zamolxis
Tonight we beg of thee
Tonight we spill blood for thee
Beneath your Silver Eye
Grant us power
Oh Zamolxis
Great Zamolxis
Tonight I spill blood for thee
Tonight I drink with thee
In Gebelezis
Gebelezis…

“I’ve always wondered what he’s like, Zamolxis." Crow stepped into the moonlight revealing his slender shape to the dark haired woman, startling her in the process.

“Deceiver!” She hissed. “Fiend! How dare you disturb our sacred rite?!” She took a few steps back and spat at him while brandishing the silvery dagger.

“Calm yourself, Wyrd Sister. I’ve but questions to ask.” He stepped forward, baring his empty hands in an attempt to appease her wrath.

“Questions, he says!” She hissed back at him. “You defiled the shrine with your wicked curse, vampyr! The rite demands untainted blood!” She circled about, her shapely features fading in the shadows beneath the willow tree.

“That was not our bargain, witch.” Crow crept closer to the wooden dais. “You were meant to nurse her back to health, not sacrifice her blood to your pagan god.” His tone was abrupt and unnatural from behind the beak of his mask.

“Unwitting fool, forevermore will your thrall be denied His grace!” Her voice seemed all the more distant, yet somehow echoing from the gloom encircling the meadow. “I carved the stigma upon her flesh, and thus her pleas will forever be rejected by the Sisterhood…”

“I care not what happens to her or her supplications.” He interjected abruptly. “I believe you were acquainted with a friend of mine.” His tone became jarringly honeyed as he touched the supple belly of the unconscious girl, guiding his finger up her luscious bosom and stopping short on her quaking lips. “I’m referring to a scholar – Charles Andronicus Curwen.”

“A degenerate and a blasphemer.” She scoffed.

“So I heard, though his carnal predilections are of no concern to me.” He dismissed her. “But that last detail of your description does interests me, yet I fail to grasp the significance behind it.” He tenderly caressed the girl’s flaxen hair, but his eyes followed a slight shimmer beyond the shadows, though the mask concealed his gaze.

“The Shahatti Church speaks falsehoods and blasphemes with every utterance of their treacherous litanies.” A small glint of her dagger flashed in the twilight. “Venomous are their priests. Ill begotten is their knowledge, and your friend Curwen was no different.” Her voice hissed ever closer. “Zamolxis ordained their demise—his demise…” Her tone became a whispery echo. “And now he demands your blood, vampyr…”

Without further warning she lunged from the gloom with a devilish shriek, her dainty pale skin illumed by the moonlit sky a mere moment before flinging a handful of shimmering dust, aimed squarely at Crow's eyes. Her ambush caught him by surprise, yet the grime she had thrown managed little but hit the glass goggles of Crow's mask, and as he scrambled to sidestep her murderous assault he ironically created the opportunity she yearned for. A quick slash of the jewel-crusted dagger caught his exposed right hand, and Crow fell backwards into the muck, dazed and bewildered by her ferocious quickness.

An indefatigable purpose drove her descent into this frothing madness, and even though her pale violet eyes were yet a raging storm, her lascivious body wavered to deliver the decisive blow, deciding instead to wait. Following a moment of silence as the two stared at each other, Crow began to feel increasingly uneasy, succumbing to a wretched dizziness that warped his vision inch by inch into a macabre version of reality.

Before him stood bent and crooked the perverted body of a hag, old and withered, with her skin hanging where just a moment ago the exact opposite was true. She wheezed as she lurched towards him, brandishing in her elongated, bony fingers a misshapen stone dagger. From here on, the venom took hold of Crow’s body, inducing a paralysis he himself had inflicted oh so many times, and as the hag hunched down, for just a moment, it seemed like gazing into an echo. Strangely enough, as she drew up to deliver the final blow, a look of revelation wrinkled her face, ultimately understanding she was the one that had been outplayed.

In the blink of an eye, Crow grabbed the gem-crusted dagger with his left hand, all the while catching her coal dark hair with his right. He hugged her nice and snug in a fatal embrace as she squirmed to escape, gurgling the crimson blood that gushed through the gaping hole in her gullet. They stood there for a while, and as her limbs twitched spasmodically, Crow whispered softly to himself:

“By the authority of his grace, Karsten Ulpian of House Tsar—voivode of New Avalon and custodian of the Wallachian lands beyond, I hereby sentence thee to death on account of treason and conspiracy against the crown… May your pagan god have pity on your soul.”

Crow pushed the lifeless body aside, disturbed by the whole ordeal, but above all disgusted with his failure to wrest more of the information he lacked. This time, wisdom and knowledge had won him the struggle, and punished the culprit guilty of Curwen’s untimely demise, despite his failing strength—the ultimate toll of thaumaturgy.

Crow glanced one final time at the wooden dais beneath the weeping willow, lurching closer to the bonds that kept the flaxen-haired girl bound to its twisted roots. He hacked at the bindings with the dagger and the ropes weakened against the steel blade with each subsequent cut. He took off his bloodied coat, and akin to a caring father he covered the girl’s quaking frame—a marginal act of kindness in a sea of unrelenting savagery.

Author's note: This is an ongoing project with future releases planned as soon as I can get to writing them.

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