part 5: return me to the world where I belong (finale)

The stranger’s sword dropped lower than before and I spied a moment of chance. The green light from the cave’s lichen chorus pulsed. My fear had left me and it had been replaced with some foreign elixir: the strength of a hundred angry bees. I leapt forward with the goat horns and thrust towards his chest.

He raised his sword in time and the ring of steel shot through the enormous cave. He blocked my blow in a fierce struggle. We faced each other in grim determination: the master against the servant. His hard face glistened in the sweat of destroying the predator from before. He held back the horns that inched closer to his throat. I pushed with all my might, and with a yell, I forced the stranger back.

He stumbled and I clattered on top of him. I firmly lead with the bloody goat head, gripping tightly with my hands. The left horn impaled his shoulder, wounding him. He did not scream, he merely inhaled the sharp breath of a struggling life.

He muttered his reprise: “You traitor! You were bound to serve me.” I stepped back, watching him suffer upon the cave floor. Blood coated his blue tunic and turned it into the darker shade that it should have been.

“You have no understanding of what you’ve done! A great house falls and a noble lineage dies with me. This was not your decision to make!”

I took my captor’s withering words and spat on his wounded frame. He had taken me against my will. I would not dignify him with my breath and so I let him suffer in silence. I did not see that under his blood-soaked tunic he held a knife. I should have taken the cave’s pulsing green light for the warning that it was, but I was distracted by my violence.

The bony blade flashed in the pale green light and the knife flew from the stranger’s hand. Through the air the knife came at me, and barely I dodged the ivory blade. The stranger reached for his curved sword and I again lunged towards him. I hefted the gory goat head and again I thrust the horns into the stranger’s chest.

This second time, the twin horns descended deeper into the evil stranger’s flesh. He called out a final screech, trying one last time to assert his dominance upon me. But I knew that for all his noble power and commanding gaze, he was not more important than myself. His head slumped onto the cold cave floor and the life drifted from his form.

I left the head of the goat where it lay, puncturing the stranger’s chest, and took up the ruby-hilted scimitar. Now it was mine. The green light of the cave seemed to brighten as I lifted the curved sword above my head. The red rubies captured the massive cave’s glow and the refracted brilliance bounced across the distant walls in colorful shimmers. Victory was mine.

No sooner had I celebrated my moment of victory, did an odd figure approach. Veiled such that I could not see it’s face, the being shuffled closer. A neutral voice called out and spoke: “You! You are no rug! You are only a wanderer, mixed up in a great saga that is not your own.”

I lowered the bejeweled scimitar and the brilliant light dimmed. I stood my ground, unsure of the approaching figure. “Yes,” the figure spoke. “I am the shrouded jeweler of which you sought. This is no place for treasure hunters; humankind is not meant for such great wealth. Your companion should have seen the greed festering within himself.”

I called back to the figure. “Who are you? Make your intentions clear, shrouded stranger. Return me to the world where I belong!”

The figure had arrived in front of me and I held the rubied scimitar strong before me. The shuffling visage spoke again.

“Few arrive at a depth so great as this, lost traveler, for the reward is a mystery. But at the end of an unknown road, after much effort, the reward is great for those who remain pure of heart after facing evil.”

Even as I felt the jeweler’s words, the visage disappeared before me and the green light dimmed until it evaporated into a thick darkness. I felt a weight hanging off my waistband. Despite the dark, I looked to my belt, but of course I could not see. With my hands I felt for the weight and found a small leather pouch, hanging from a string. I opened it and found a glass vial contained within. It was round and smooth, with a cork stopper at the top.

The light was still absent, and I held the vial within my hands. Feeling my options limited, I pulled the cork from the vial and immediately a light shone from within the small glass orb, as if a fire had been lit. The potion gave off the same green light that the lichen had emitted from before. Putting the vial to my lips, I drank the unknown liquid.

As the mixture entered my body, the potion brought with it seemingly all the greed of all the world. I shuddered and coughed, feeling a new and enormous need for wealth. I was now prepared to betray and kill for jewels and kingdoms. The greed coursed within me. There was a flash of light, and in that instance the cave disappeared from sight.

I awoke in a pile of pillows, inside a small room adjacent a sunny courtyard. I felt like myself again: no rug, no greed, no unknown strangers. The sun shone down through wooden slats and I heard the whistle of a boiling teapot. I lifted myself from my pillowed bed and felt again a weight at my waist. I reached down and the same leather pouch from before was hanging from my belt.

Instead of a potion, I found the pouch held an ornate blue talisman with a white diamond at the center. It shined in the bright morning light. Lost within the endless facets of the magnificent jewel, I remembered the greed that had run rampant through my veins. I understood for a moment the stranger and his need for greater wealth and I felt a moment’s sorrow for my killing blow. His noble house had vanished in terrifying lust for a return to greatness.

Gathering my things, I left the pillowed room where I had slept. I did not recognize the place. Holding the magnificent talisman tightly in my hand, I walked into the cascading light of the day before me and felt the sun upon my face.

I began to fear dropping the jeweled talisman, and gripped it tighter as I stood in the morning sun. Tighter and tighter I held the priceless jewel.