What Was Forgotten (41 page)

“How… I didn’t write this! How did you do this?”

“I looked at one of your journals while you were gone. Not hard to assume your writing and your language. It is… pitifully simple.”

Andrican looked at it again, hoping that he had seen it all wrong the first time. But it was all there – the confession,
his
confession, at stealing the tome, being in league with the shaman, and blaming everything on Osmun to focus attention away from him.

It is with great humility that I hope this last act will convince you of my sorrow and my regret for what I have done.

“You
are
mad if you think this will change anything,” Andrican said. His world was spinning. “What… what
last act
? Tell me!”

“You should sit down,” Osmun said just as Andrican’s leg failed him. The cleric looked up at him, fear in his eyes, and Osmun knelt beside him. “Black thornleaf has no taste. Your friend Egus gave me some. I think he’ll be glad to see Osmun, though. Together we’ll mourn the man we thought we knew.”

Andrican tried to scream but he was struggling even to fill his lungs with air. The last thing he saw was Osmun smiling that hideous smile before the creeping darkness pulled him from this world to the next.

Satisfied, Velskotahn stood. He looked into the cleric’s open eyes. “The same fate for all of you,” he said. The words came out in the hideous tongue of men, but this body, for all its power, was ill equipped to speak the language of the ancients.

It had taken him much longer to break the priest than he thought. But he was patient. What did time matter to him? There was one time where he felt a moment of passing concern, when the priest and that woman had created the opening. Velskotahn felt, just barely, the priest’s influence. He was powerful indeed. Even more powerful than he had first thought, which was why his spirit had to be broken utterly. The man had brought himself to the point of death, and that was when Velskotahn finally won.

He inhaled deeply, relishing the sensations that were constantly washing over him but displeased with the corporeal fragility of the vessel he now possessed. It was necessary, though, to come back to this place. With this body and its power, he would make right the things of the past. They would find the gateway. They would unite the keys.

To finish what he began.

Dear reader,

Once again I’d like to express my sincere thanks to you for reading this. I hope you enjoyed it enough to leave a review of it on the online retailer of your choice. You can also
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- Tim.

Tim Mathias lives in an old house in New Hamburg, Ontario, with his wife.

He enjoys scotch and Dungeons and Dragons, preferably at the same time, if possible.

When he isn’t writing, he’s practicing at being a better misanthrope.