"Heart of the Crown" Chapter 99

[seymoure]

Chapter 99

Madness

The Onyx Man stirred the cauldron. Using a long emerald stick, he swept the liquids of time and space. He hoped to make a stew that would feed no one, but burn the mouths of every living thing in his country.

That would not take much since every living thing in his country had fled years ago. The threat of the Onyx Man had made this no fit place to live. Anyone who had even seen him in the last hundred years had burned to a crisp moments after doing so.

He hoped the brew would come to a boil soon so he could go back to his entertainment.

He had spent most of his waking time sitting before the little roundabout theatre he had constructed and watching the drama of the little combatants.

The arcane stew was just giving birth to its first few ripples of termination. It wouldn’t take more than a few more minutes, and within that time, how much could he miss?

He doubted that situations might alter so much that it would drain them of their giddy dead or their screaming horrors. He would be back in time to see the terror in the faces of the little people in his carousel.

He glanced over at the room where the real climax of this saga slept in darkness.

Only after he had dealt death and insanity to his comrades would he have his final confrontation with the big man.

The conflict would be for the soul of the precious cargo the man carried like a life’s worth of diamonds.

He added a few flakes of seasoning poisons to the deadly ragout.

The smell would curl the hair on a corpse.

The Onyx Man laughed in absolute glee.

© 2008 C. Wayne Owens
Chapter 100 is here.