Dawn light poured through the shattered windows. Even the one that had been opened had been blown off its hinges. Piro picked herself up from the floor, brushing off the debris that had covered her. Groggily, she looked around. The room was a shambles, barely recognizable yet structurally still intact as only the furnishing inside seemed to have taken the brunt of the magical energy. Piro was surprised to find that she was unhurt, even the cuts having healed. The markings on the floor were illegible and any trace of the rituals the sorceress had transcribed were now nothing more than dust. There was no sign of the blood that had spilled, as if it all had been consumed by that light.

Piro looked sadly at the forlorn body of the old woman curled up in death. Her face was white, but seemingly at peace.

“I hope you got what you wanted,” Piro whispered.

Her heart leapt when she finally noticed the other person lying in the center of the debris. It was a man, naked as she was, unconscious but whole as if placed in the midst of chaos by some giant hand. He had blonde locks, a light beard and a robust body although nothing seemed unusual about him or unique. He was neither handsome nor ugly, neither tall nor short, but in most ways average, or at least that was Piro’s assessment. In any event, she thought, he didn’t seem to be a horned demon or some beast man from the dark forest.

He was too heavy to lift, but she managed to rouse him.

His eyes were emerald, she noted, as he blinked, “Where am I?”

At least he spoke the common tongue, so he was not some devil, she surmised. This was purely a guess as she knew nothing of the language of such beings. He did not resemble the arcane creatures from the stories of her childhood. Still, his accent was strange enough for her to notice even though she had only become familiar with the tongue recently. He recoiled, blushing, when he saw the state of her nakedness. Puzzled, she checked herself, but she seemed whole and unblemished.

She asked, “My name is Piro. How should one address your majesty?” She decided to be safe and make sure to use honorifics, although he hardly seemed kingly.

He dusted himself off, looking instinctively for something to cover himself with as he replied, “I think I heard something call for it. Is it Abraham? My head hurts. Abe. Abe works for the moment.”

“As you wish, your majesty,” she beckoned. The morning air was freezing and she wanted to get downstairs. His green eyes were his most unique feature, she thought. Slowly, he followed her to where she found some clothes for herself and some blankets for the naked man. He wrapped himself up eagerly. As if noticing the cold for the first time, he warmed himself by the hearth as she stoked it.

“Are you Asian?” he asked, suddenly.

Confused by the new word, Piro shook her head. She had been thinking of which of the old trunks might have suitable men’s wear. She decided to leave him alone for a moment so she could rummage.

Rubbing the thin beard that was on his chin, Abe mumbled to himself, “Place doesn’t look Japanese. Damn ugly, whatever it is. A lot of hides like the American West when they plundered the wildlife. And the girl, maybe a foreigner in these parts. Damn, she’s hot.”

“Is it too warm for you? Shall I bank the fire a bit?” Piro asked, walking in with arms full of clothes. Luckily, one of the trunks in the back room had some worn men’s clothes that had been left, perhaps by the original tenant. Despite his protests, she managed to get him dressed in the mixed batch of items: a pair of stitched hide pants, a coarse woolen shirt, a leather vest, and a patchwork jacket with a fur lining that would keep him warm. The clothes did not fit well, but would work. There were no appropriate shoes or boots, except for some old sandals. She bowed, “Not the most royal, but that is all we have. We will have to go to town to get you pair of good boots and maybe an overcoat for bad weather. I am at your service, oh, great liege.”

“Who me?” he pointed at himself. He straightened up, smirking, “Ah, of course. I am the Great King Oberon, but where is my Queen and my Court?”

“I do not know, your majesty Oberon,” she knelt in mock obeisance. “But I thought you were called Abraham, or Abe.”

“Ahem,” he coughed in what he hoped to be a kingly way. “That is what I am called by friends. You will be my first friend in these lands. Besides, it may be better to go incognito, so to speak. Rise, dear lady.”

“In…cognito,” she mouthed the words.

“Secret, in other words. It would be foolish to announce myself at this stage,” he pumped up his chest. “Call me Abe unless it is a formal occasion, so as not to call attention to our circumstance.”

She laughed, “Of course, Abe. Do you know how you were summoned here?”

His eyes became distant. When he spoke, she knew he was not being entirely truthful, but she took his answer at face value. He said, “Not quite, but I imagine the woman upstairs had something to do with it. Some dark magic, requiring blood, as she seemed entirely drained of it. Can you tell me more?”

She recounted, as best she could, the intent of the dead woman and what she recalled of the ritual. She also told her some of the story of how she had come to the house and her condition there, though nothing detailed about her real home or the painful journey she had endured.

“Slavery, eh? I guess that makes things more exciting, despicable as that old practice may be. I don’t feel particularly special to be honest. Seems I need more than the word of a dead witch to give me some authority in the matter. Where’s a magical sword or some other sign from the heavens to signify my reign?”

“I do not know. The old woman said that I should follow you, that you’d lead us to a new kingdom.”

He chuckled, “So, are you circumcised?”

She stared at him blankly as he guffawed to himself.

“Sorry, bad joke. I’m mixing up the metaphors, too. More seriously, maybe we should do something for our benefactor upstairs.”

Together, they brought down the body, wrapped in some blankets. Despite the severe wound on the neck, the pallid corpse was pristine. The lack of blood would raise suspicions, although it made for an easy cleanup. Piro was a bit stymied about what to do next. She said, as they put the body in a storage room, “I’m not sure how to explain this to the townspeople. They were already wary of her. Any mention of magical rituals would be…bad. She will have to stay here for now.” She made a ritualistic gesture, something the priestesses of her people did for the deceased, although it probably meant nothing to the corpse or to the man.

He nodded, “Of course, a superstitious lot. I can imagine pitchforks and the two of us being tied to stakes. Yes, I’d like to avoid that. Plus, I can’t say I teleported here by magic either. I’ll just have to play the mysterious stranger role, then.” He wrapped one of the extra blankets around his shoulders like a cape without a hood.

“You speak the common language but still use strange words. Try to speak easier.” Just as she said that, there was a knock at the door. Shushing Abe and pushing him back into a side room, she went to the main door, unlatching it to greet the visitor.

It was, as she suspected, one of the neighbors, an older gentlemen with rheumy eyes who nervously stood before her. After exchanging a brief greeting, he asked, “I just wanted to check in on you and the mistress, as there was rumor of some disturbance last night. Probably just the imaginings of my wife, but she claimed to have seen a bright light from this direction. With no sign of smoke or fire, we didn’t call for the watch but just in case I thought it worthy to pay respects…”

“Of course! Thank you for your concern,” Piro bowed. “We noticed some odd things in the sky too. Perhaps it was a little storm?”

“Well, perhaps,” he said doubtfully. “I notice your upper window is broken. Perhaps the…ah, storm, broke the glass. I can recommend a repairman, if the landlord isn’t aware of one. If I could speak with the mistress about the payment, as it will be somewhat costly to get the materials.”

“Oh, she’s not feeling well. In fact, the wind gave her a deathly chill last night. She is resting and wishes not to be disturbed.”

“In that case, I wish her well. Take good care of her, young one. Good care,” he winked, turning away to hobble off.

When Abe came out from hiding, he said, “A murderous storm that pushed a knife into an old lady, tsk. It will be hard to explain that.”

“Yes. We must prepare to leave right away. Let’s go to town and buy some supplies,” Piro said quickly as she hurried to the old lady’s private chamber. She looked through the drawers until she found what she was looking for: a heavy purse filled with coin. Although Piro was descended from wealth, it had mostly been squandered by the time she had become of age and during her travels she had never seen so much precious metal in one place. It was a small fortune. She also found boxes of jewels and paper script from places she did not recognize.

“Enough to fund my future army?” Abe snickered. Startled, Piro gathered the treasure into her arms. He put up his hands in a conciliatory manner, “I shall make you the royal accountant. Keep it. Quite a jump, from slave to a royal counselor. Well, not much of a kingdom, but I assume I was supposed to create one.”

She stammered, “I pledged my service to you. Yes, I will hold the treasury for now until a suitable replacement has been made. I apologize for such a humble beginning…”

“Honestly, it sounds mad to me. Perhaps there was a mistake in the ritual, but since you are the only person I know in this world we may as travel together for a while until matters seem clearer. Where should we go? A king needs a kingdom. In order to have one, I assume there must be some contested land, and soldiers. Without some strong men, and women of course, a king cannot hold a demesne, or even the spot he stands on.”

Something about the man’s carefree attitude reassured Piro that she was making the right choice in keeping his company. She hadn’t felt any hope or even the glimmer of it for a long, long time. Justice, that is what the old witch had claimed. This ugly, unfair, world could use some of it, she thought. Honestly, she had no real belief that following the stranger would lead to anything except death, but she had nothing to lose and no place called home anymore. They were not safe in this town, as the law of the land demanded harsh, and swift, retribution for runaway slaves and suspected thieves. Their judge and jury would surely not belabor the finer points that would exonerate them. Piro wrinkled her nose: if there was justice, she would not have ended up in this forsaken land.

“We’ll use some of this money to get you a pair of good boots, better fitting trousers, supplies, and some kind of pack gear. There is a city down the river where we can try our luck. From what I have learned, this territory is an ungoverned border between kingdoms. Warlords and chiefs vie for bits of it, but that is all. We could hire a boat to take use down river.”

She carefully split up the coin and jewels, secreting them into various pockets and seams of her clothes. The remainder she kept in a money pouch she wore around her neck. It settled with a hefty clunk onto her chest. There were few weapons for self-defense in the house, but she found a knife, not the ceremonial one which she had removed from the dead woman’s body and put away upstairs (something about it had still felt foul). Abe found a walking stick made from driftwood. He said, “A fine staff. I shall add something to the top and turn it into a scepter.”

He was a strange one, but his continued geniality settled Piro’s nerves.

When they stepped out of the mansion for the first time, Piro couldn’t help but think that it would be the last time she’d ever see the place.

She wasn’t wrong.

From the memoirs of L.C. Sydney, Historian:

I saw her for the last time in the summer palace, the last holdfast against the grim tide that swept the land. Christian, her brother, had begged her not to accede to the terms of surrender. There was no changing her mind, and we loved her for it. Her resplendant glory was undiminished despite all the defeat and betrayel that lay behind her, and, yet, there was much more to come.

Oh, the enemy kept their promise, sparing much of the people from the scourge, but not the last matriarch of the old order, nor her elite Virgin guard. How proud they had looked, on their white chargers, armored in their best, glowing in the light as if blessed by the Sacred Goddess. With their long necks held straight, the Mystic Order escorted the young matronesse to her final sacrifice.

On the ship to the Bitter Islands, we, the few who could or would escape, had wept at all that we had lost, at how our homeland had so easily been despoiled. They tore down the visages of our Goddess, defiled the temples, and raised totems to their vile emperor. Who knows what repulsive rituals are now practiced in the tenements of our forsaken people? What foul debauchery despoils the land, giving forth an unimaginable horror?

I fear that a terrible, eternal, darkness has fallen upon us. The pallid night has turned into an abyss from which we shall never escape.