Walpurgis Demon

I finally make it to the top of the pass and look down on a village nestled in a clearing in the forest. It's bathed in the last red gold rays of sunlight giving it an almost romantic fairy tale like quality. It's a warm evening and the wind that made my journey more difficult has subsided for which I am grateful. Another while and I am seated at a table outside the local inn, nursing a mug of surprisingly good beer and waiting for my dinner to be served. The few locals passing by or sitting nearby nod in greeting and then leave me to myself for which I am grateful.

My dinner arrives along with the inn keeper and I ask him the pressing question. "Do you have a blacksmith in town?" His reaction and response are not what I expected. He looks startled, a bit nervous and then nods. "Yes. Johnny May. You can see his smithy down the way." He looks at me carefully, assessing me for any broken iron that would require the intervention of a blacksmith. Not seeing anything, he nods in a confused way and walks hurriedly off. His response pleases me. It confirms a story I had been told. A story that had brought me to this town. A story that had taken months to filter through to me and had cost me the princely sum of one sovereign. Assured that I am in the right place I reach out with my mind, feeling for the ripples that must be there. I don’t reach out unless I need to and if I am assured that it is worth it. For a moment all is quiet, then I feel the ripples of a blade, a blade that my grandmother had made. That she said was lost, but not destroyed. She sent me the psychic signature of it before she died, urged me to find it and assure myself that it was in good, honest hands. Grandma was a master blacksmith who had made pots and pans, and spoons, all sorts of iron implements. She was also a canny woman. A witch in the parlance of the new religion and she made 10 blades that were special. They had a small chunk of her magic, her spirit, her desire for justice, truth and honesty built into them. They were forged for a very specific purpose and a very specific person. No other person could safely use the blade.

She had gifted them to special people and the agreement was that the blade should be either returned to her, or destroyed when the person died. So far, five had been returned and had been destroyed. Three had been destroyed by children of the bearer, one was still in the possession of the original owner. Only one remained unaccounted for. The owner we knew from reports had died in strange circumstances but the blade missing. His children swore that the blade was gone when he was found. Before Grandma died, she made me promise to find the missing blade and destroy it. She passed the blades name and its presence to me. Presence I hear you ask? Presence was the name Grandma gave it. It felt like warm water and loving laughter. Yes, I know, but it did and now, it is here somewhere. If it is here, and if I can get it, I can ask the blacksmith to destroy it before I return home. The feeling of the blade makes me reluctant to destroy it, calm, peaceful, laughing, comfortable but Grandma was insistent. The blade had one purpose, one owner. If the blades purpose was achieved or the owner dead, the blade must be destroyed to return the magic Grandma had infused into it. She never said why.

As I sit in the growing darkness, I can feel the blades presence more and more clearly, almost as if it is getting closer and closer. The night draws in and the landlord comes out with a lamp and to clear away my supper things. As he turns to go a small powerful figure walks into the garden where I am sitting. "Evening Sam" said the landlord. Sam nods to the landlord. "Evening Ed. Same for me please. I will be joining this lady for a chat." He looks at me, tilts his head. "You don't mind do you?" The blade is now so close, I can feel it throbbing like a heart beat against my skin. I am unable to speak, so I just nod and he sits down opposite me. He holds out a hand, "Sam. Sam the Slow" he says. I grasp his hand, feel Grandma's magic in his grasp. "Sarah" I say. The landlord unbidden says, "Sam, Sam. You know that isn't true now. He is Sam Collins. Our village luck." Sam glares at him and he hurries away. "I know," Sam says "why you are here." "How?" "The blade told me you were coming." He nods. "You have it on you?" Another nod. "I don’t understand." I stammer. "What don’t you understand?" "It shouldn't. . . It can't. . . You aren't supposed.." I stammer to a halt. Everything Grandma had told me is suddenly no longer true. Sam has a slow gentle smile, a slow gentle way of being. He reminds me of someone. I am not sure who.

"Before I return the blade to you, I have a story to tell you. One that will explain all the questions I can hear racing around your head." He sips at his beer. gazes off into the distance for a while, sighs once and then starts.

I have lived in this valley, in this village all my life. Born to Joe and Mary Collins on a farm just outside of town. A beautiful rich, fertile farm. It runs from the road all the way down to the river. The bottom fields are the most fertile, productive fields on the farm. I grew up knowing I would inherit the farm one day and was content with my fate. When I got to 21 I married beautiful Jenny Jones. Long flaxen hair, beautiful blue eyes and a full figure. I was even more content with my life. The only discontent is that Jenny did not fall pregnant. She became at times angry, discontented and reproachful. It was all my fault. Still I was content. I believed that time would heal all ills and that she would fall pregnant in good time. My parents died just after I married Jenny and I became the owner of the farm and potentially a rich influential man. I was very content. The fate stepped. One nigh I and a few friends were trying to ride the newest foal which I had left too long before breaking in in. We had had a few too many of Ed’s fine beer so it seemed like a good idea. I mounted the foal and it went mad, and eventually it threw me off. I fell heavily and as I hit the ground I heard something crack in my neck. My friends helped me up and took me home. I could not talk properly, I couldn’t walk without a stick and my eyesight was blurry. Once again, I believed that time would heal this ill too. Now, the village as you see it today is not as it was when I fell. The forest was dark and dangerous. It was said that bad creatures lived in the depths and emerged on the full moon. The villagers, me included would lock ourselves inside before dark and only emerge when the sun rose. No one would have dared to sit outside as we do. Occasionally an unwary person would go missing never to be seen again.

We were cursed and I became known as Same the Slow. I still kept the farm running, I worked hard and long but I never seemed to reap good produce. Jenny became more and more angry, more and more distant. I could only try to please her by keeping the farm going and feeding us. One day as I was ploughing the bottom field, I stumbled and put my hand out to stop myself falling face first into the ploughed furrow. My out stretched hand closed around a metal rod which tingled as I touched it. I sat back onto my haunches and pulled at the rod and slowly, reluctantly, it emerged, caked in black mud and rust, I realised that I was holding a short sword in my hand. The sword or, as I now know it, the blade was at first glance nothing more than a discarded weapon of war. The only difference was that it tingled in my hand, the hand that had no feeling in it for nearly 18 months.

I don't know what prompted me, but I stroked the blade, with my open hand, risking a cut and whispered, "Thank you." Grateful I suppose for any sensation in my damaged body.

I cleaned it off as best I could with my shirt and found that it gleamed in greens and blues. I hid it knowing that Jenny would not like me having a sharp implement. Since my accident, she had hidden all the knives in the house. I once heard her telling a neighbour that she thought I would go mad and kill her one night.

I finished the ploughing and headed back the workshop at the farm house where I washed the blade, gently removed the rust and oiled it. I hid it in the cupboard with the old horse tack and went inside for dinner. Jenny was her usual curt, angry self and I did not mention the blade at all.

The next morning Jenny as was her new habit drove me out of the house to go work and "try not break anything".

I forgot about the blade and headed off to the bottom field. Halfway there, I remembered and turned back to fetch the blade so I could continue restoring the beautiful implement I had found. As I approached the farmstead I saw Jenny hurrying away down the lane toward the village. I didn't think much of it and fetched the blade and returned to the bottom field. I finished ploughing and then examined the blade. It was exquisite. The more I worked on it the brighter and more startlingly beautiful it became and it started to whisper to me. Words of encouragement, words of strength. I fell in love for the second time in my life. This time with a blade.

My life which had been bleak and barren suddenly took on a shine, every day I could not wait to carry the blade off with me to work the fields. I found that it would do not do harm to me. I found this out first by being clumsy with my cleaning. The blade twisted in my hand as I sharpened it on a tiny smooth piece of stone I had found. The blade now sharp and clean, glanced off my knuckles and I looked for blood to flow. Nothing not a mark. I stared at the blade and then at my hand. I ran my hand down the sharpened edge, nothing, it was like stroking air.

During the day, the blade became my constant companion. At night it was hidden in the old tack cupboard. Its effect on me was startling. The anger that had started to boil up in me because of my poor crippled body and Jenny's increasingly bitter taunts just evaporated. I came to have a sort of compassion for her. She had married a whole, strong, robust man and found that he could not give her children and who was now a cripple and an embarrassment. I found I still loved her, but understood her anger.

Seasons passed and soon spring was once again in the air. The only problem with spring was that we had to endure Walpurgis night. The night when the undead and creatures from the other side of the veil walked abroad. The whole village locked up well before sunset and stayed indoors until dawn was well and truly in control.

Walpurgis day arrived and I was once more working in the bottom field. As the sun started to set, I went home, hid away the blade and went inside with the sun just resting on the horizon. Jenny started shouting at me. She told me that she had told me to bring water cress from the river for our dinner and that I must go back and fetch it immediately.

To no avail I argued that the sun was setting, that it was Walpurgis night, that the ungodly would be walking soon. She insisted. She shouted, screamed, cried. I eventually fled. In a panic, I grabbed the blade from cupboard and ran headlong down to the bottom field. As I arrived at the river, the sun slipped below the horizon. I knelt down to pick some watercress and as I did so, I was hit from behind by something hard and strong. I plunged into the river but before I could strike out for the other bank, a powerful hand grabbed my ankle and dragged me spluttering out of the water and hurled me onto the ground. I fell on my neck and felt the same click and raging pain as I had when I fell off the foal. A hand grasped me by the throat and picked me up off the ground.

"Where is it?" a horrible voice snarled.

"What?"

"You know, damn you. The blade." The hand shook me and my neck crackled again. "I took it off that fool who had it but he hid it with his last breath. And it hid from me all these years till you came along. It is MINE. Give it to me NOW."

"Wait. Put me down! I can’t reach it with you holding me like this."

I was dropped to the ground like a dirty clod of earth but instead of stumbling, my legs held strong. My eyes had cleared. My eternal headache had gone. I was healed and I was angry.

Angry at this creature that had attacked me, at Jenny for belittling me, at the foal for throwing me, at the villagers for calling me Sam the Slow. The blade sang to me, not of gentleness and kindness but of retribution for lives destroyed, people lost, my village haunted and before I knew what I was doing I reached for the blade to fight back, but the creature had been watching and got there first. It wrenched the blade out of the scabbard I had so carefully made and swung it at me. I threw my hand up in a futile attempt to stop the blow, but the blow never came. Somehow the blade was in my hand and the snarling creature of darkness was rushing at me, I held the blade out in front of me to keep the creature at bay, but it just rushed straight forward impaling itself on the blade. For a moment it hung there, then with a piercing scream, it disintegrated, disappeared completely and I was alone in the field. I stood in the quiet night and the blade sang to me of warmth and safety and love and I cried.

The moon was rising from behind some clouds on the horizon, the breeze whispered gently through the grass that lined the path back to the house and what I had considered to be safety when I set out. Somehow that feeling had changed. The world seemed fair, friendly and non-threatening. I had never stood under a full moon and felt safe, unthreatened. I breathed a huge sigh of relief, thanksgiving and joy, and set out toward the farmhouse and Jenny. I could not wait to tell her the good news. I was healed, I was whole, I was back! I sang as I danced and skipped up the road. Joy filled my heart. Everything was wonderful, the world was back in its place.

However as I approached the farmhouse, the blade's voice took on a warning tone. Not words, just feelings. The feelings echoed in my head and roughly translated said, "Perhaps Jenny will not be happy if you just suddenly charge in on her. Caution." so having caution recommended by the very voice that comforted me, protected and had saved my life I listened. I approached the house quietly, carefully, so as not to startle Jenny. It was Walpurgis after all and she still lived in a world haunted by the fearsome beast that had tried to kill me. I listened for sounds that might indicate that Jenny was still awake, still moving around. I halted and looked around, at the house, its windows barred against the undead, the herbs at the door jamb. I paused, listening to the night time forest, glorying in the silvery moon light, the rustling of the wind in the trees, furtive movements of the night creature in the undergrowth. At peace with the world, I moved softly around the house to the back door that I knew was easily opened from the outside, intending to slip inside. The blade I kept with me. It was now an ally, a vital piece of evidence for my story of restoration.

As I passed the shuttered bedroom window, I heard a soft laugh. A soft sound I had not heard since I had fallen. Jenny taking pleasure, receiving pleasure. I paused. Guilty, I listened for more sound of her solitary pleasure taking. Then I heard a sound that should not be there, the gentle rumble of a man’s voice, an "Oh!" from Jenny and the rhythmic slapping of flesh against flesh.

Stunned I raced around to the back door, tore it open and hurled myself into the bedroom. Jenny was not alone, John the blacksmith was there. I cried out in fury, anger and humiliation, and the blade hummed hot and dangerous in my hand. John dashed past me, out of the door and was gone into the night. I faced Jenny clutching a blanket to her body.

"What are you doing here? You are dead! I sent you to the creature. It said it would deal with you and be gone." I stared at her in horror. She had sent me deliberately to my death. I tried to raise the blade, but it became too heavy to lift, it seemed welded to the ground. It murmured softly of control and forethought. My raging mind slowly calmed and then was, if not at peace, under control. I pointed at the door with the blade that seemed to have become a pointer rather than an instrument of vengeance. "Out. Leave. Go to your lover. Go now!" She looked terrified "The undead. The creature." she stammered. "Your friend the creature is dead. Gone. I killed him. Now go." "You are possessed. Sam does not talk like this. Sam does not have a blade like that. Sam is slow, stupid, lame. You are none of them." I sighed, got up and walked to the small alter that was kept in every house to ward off evil. I picked up the bowl of holy water, blessed by the priest and poured it over my hands. I wiped it on my face. I stared at her. "Either the holy water is not holy enough, or I am not undead. You can either sleep here tonight and then go back to your parents in the village or you can do that now. Choose."

She didn't move. I walked across to the bedroom door and pulled the door closed. I heard the door bolts slide across and a chair dragged across the floor and pushed against the door.

I pulled a chair up to the fire, kicked my boots off, laid the blade on the table next to me and sat in the flickering fire light wishing I was dead, that the creature had killed me, that I was still Sam the Slow. At least then the world was whole, even if I wasn't.

I wish I could say that I cried, that I felt the horror deep inside, but I didn't. There was nothing. I was like the creatures that walked at Walpurgis, a living dead man. My life was in tatters. I sat transfixed by the fire. I fed it when it started to go out but otherwise I did not move. At times I fancied I could hear Jenny moving in the bedroom but I was not certain. When the sun rose, Jenny emerged from the locked room. She looked haggard, grey, destroyed. I felt an urge to comfort her, to take her in my arms and tell her all would be well, but I knew that all would not be well, that our lives had taken separate directions, that she had chosen to desert me, betray me. She was not to be trusted.

I helped her load her possessions into the cart and we headed back toward the village. As we turned into the village square, we came face to face with the entire population of the village obviously heading to the farm, and I assume to rescue Jenny from me. What struck me was that the priest and the canny woman were heading the procession and that John the Blacksmith was well back in the order of things. I brought the cart to a halt, and climbed off the drivers seat. Jenny just sat there, weeping. Her mother rushed up and puller her off the cart and into her arms. She was hustled away from the crowd, her father casting stony looks in my direction.

I stopped a few paces from the priest and the canny woman, the blade hanging unostentatiously at my hip. It murmured reassurances to me, calming words, gentle support.

The priest stared at me for a moment. "Will you kneel and take a blessing from me?" he asked somewhat hoarsely.

I knelt, bowed my head and waited the crowd behind the priest murmured for a moment then fell silent. To my surprise the priest started in on the baptism service. Did I renounce the devil and all his works? He went through most of that service and eventually sprinkled holy water on my head. When I did not burst into flame, scream shout and attack someone the crowd resumed its murmuring.

"Told you." said the canny woman. "He is Sam the Slow. Nothing more. If you want to worry about anything, worry about that blade at his hip. And that only because you are afraid of magic." The last said with a smile. It was an old issue between them. The only real issue, they worked in tandem in the village and had, it seemed with mutual respect.

The priest looked her and raised an eyebrow.

"That blade represent white magic and a magic that hasn't been seen in this village since his grandfather disappeared. At a guess, I would say that he found his grandfathers sword during the night and finished what old man Paul couldn't." She squinted at me for a moment.

"And from the looks of it, healed himself at the same time." she added softly.

Then from nowhere came the idea and the words, without thought, without planning, without malice. "I renounce my marriage to Jenny. I wish her only well and prosperity in her future. All her worldly goods are on the cart. She is welcome to anything else she desires" A murmuring rose from the crowd. "Except the farm itself" I added softly.

I stayed on my knees, the holy water drying on my neck in the hot sun. You could hear a pin drop in that square. Then the square started to empty, slowly at first, then more rapidly, then I and the canny woman and the priest were alone.

I stood slowly, looked them both in the eye. "I will fetch the cart when it is unloaded." I turned to lead the horse away. "Bless you my son. Forgiveness comes from God. If nothing else this forgiveness would have persuaded me." The priest turned and walked away. The canny woman stayed. I turned to bid her farewell. "It is dead? The Walpurgis demon? You killed it?" "It killed itself on the blade. I was just trying to stay alive." She nodded. "I felt it die. You have done a great thing." I nodded and walked away leading the horse. It was a beautiful spring morning and I could hear my farm lands calling me. A breeze came up and the world seemed a little better and without thinking about it, and for the first time in years, I whistled a cheerful tune as I walked back to my home.

==================================

Sam stops, looks at his beer and then drains the tankard in one swallow. He reaches under his long coat and pulls the blade out of its scabbard and lays it on the table between us. It is a beautiful piece of work, alive with magic. I can feel my Grandmother's magic bound in it. I can almost see her gentle, loving smile. It brings tears to my eyes and I find myself staring at it, almost unable to touch it. It lies there like an accusation and eventually I reach out and touch the blade. There is a gentle murmur as I touch and I realise that we have an audience and I look around. The priest is here, the canny woman and a mixed group of villagers. All intently staring at the blade.

Sam, pushes the bench back slowly, reluctantly and makes to stand.

"Wait." I say and he sinks back onto the bench. I look at him and see pain, distress, misery, but over all that a firm determination.

"Let me listen to the blade." For it had been whispering to me in my Grandmothers voice. It was telling me the story of its life since it left the forge.

It speaks of danger, death and destruction and the battle in the lower field when Paul had died, how he had thrust it deep into the soil to hide it from the demon and its discovery by Sam. How his goodness had restored its magic, how he is the natural heir to it.

A disturbance in the crowd brings me out of the silent conversation. John the Blacksmith has arrived.

"I'll take that from your and destroy it Miss." I look in his eyes and see bad things there. Things that had waited for this day, things he did not acknowledge. The failed plot to kill Sam and give the blade to the Walpurgis demon had tormented him and I was not sure exactly what he and Jenny had sold to the demon so that they could be together but it had ridden them all these years, twisting them into something ugly, distorted, evil. Unbidden, the thought comes to me that Sam is well shot of Jenny.

The blade comes to life under my fingers and I feel heat emanating from the steel. My Grandmothers voice now firm, commanding: "Sam must keep the blade. It is his by righteousness."

The blacksmith overeager, reaches for the blade. I hesitate for an instant, then spin the blade so the handle points to Sam.

"Take it with our blessing." I say and I hear my Grandmothers voice instead mine.

The blacksmith tries to grab the blade but it is in Sam's hand, glowing in all of its beauty.

"No." Sam says. "It is mine and protects this village against you and your master. Go now and take Jenny with you."

The effect on the blacksmith is sudden and horrible. He changes as we watch into something dark and dangerous. Jenny is suddenly at his side and the pair menace Sam. Alone he is vulnerable, doubly vulnerable to the woman he still loves. He steps back suddenly unwilling to engage and Jenny lurches forward grabbing at the blade. Sam hesitates a fraction and her hand closes on the blade and starts to twist it out of his hand

"Now!" says my Grandmother and as blacksmith lunges forward and the blade made as a partner to the blade in Sam's hand sweeps through the air, smashing Jenny's hand away from the blade and swivelling toward her throat.

"He won't kill you because he loves you, but I will. I have only contempt for you." The blade, blue and purple sings in my hand as I stand shoulder to shoulder with Sam facing the evil pair. "I have waited a long time to avenge my Grandfather. Now go before I give in to the temptation."

The blacksmith blinks and then starts to move, going for my blade. Sam flicks his blade and line of blood appears on the blacksmiths cheek. He lurches backward and faced with two glowing magical blades, they turn and flee the light.

I turn and look at Sam the similarity now obvious. "Well met cousin. We share a Grandmother and, it would seem a Grandfather. Grandma did say he was a naughty man and that he had probably left a child or two across the countryside."

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