Sunday, February 18, 2007 Chapter 2
3,223 words
Hagar and the Count.
Back then, she remembered and the memories were filled with remorse. Remorse that she hadn’t killed Hagar when she had the chance, remorse for her years spent in the dungeons because of him. Her memories spiraled farther and farther back in time until she came to the memory that changed her life. Until this time she was just a normal little princess. Spoiled in every way a princess could be spoiled until the day she decided to disobey everyone and go by herself into the wood surrounding the castle. She had just turned fifteen and already had blossomed as a woman. She knew from the stares of all the men that she was thought attractive.
Without a care in the world she just hiked on into the woods, chased butterflies and watched the squirrels fly through the trees. She came to the lake and quickly undressed to bathe in the clear cool water. She had just submerged herself when she heard the sound of a branch snapping. “Who’s there?” She called out. There was no answer so she assumed it must have been one of the creatures that lived in the wood. She climbed atop a rock to let the sun dry her wet body. She stretched luxuriously all the time imagining how the men from the castle would love to see her posing like this. Snap! She heard it close to her now. She turned in a circle looking in every direction, She saw nothing and then she heard it, a sound of heavy breathing and quick movement coming from the bushes right behind her. There sitting in the bushes was the ugliest most horrifying creature she had ever seen, and what he was doing was more horrifying. He couldn’t have been more than four feet tall with an enormous head that had a face made for horror stories. He stood there with his eyes closed drool dripping from his mouth while he massaged a giant penis that protruded from his tiny form. She was both shocked and awed by the sight. Shocked by the monstrous appearance, awed by the size of his penis. The only comparison she could make is with the horses when they mated. Then the size would be comparable.
It opened its eyes, and saw her. It lunged at her, she screamed and fled with it right behind her. They were both naked, and as she remembered she laughed at what a sight that must have been. It caught her, threw her to the ground and pulled her legs apart. Its intentions couldn’t have been clearer so when it leaned close to kiss her; she struck, by sinking her teeth into its Adams apple. It couldn’t scream but it gurgled and struggled, shaking all over trying to free itself. The more it struggled the harder she bit. It went on for the longest while and finally it died and fell on her. Her mouth and face were covered with blood and it had run down over her body.
Her father noticing that his beautiful little princess was nowhere to be found mounted an intense search for her. He and twenty of his men decided to search the wood for her and the moment the thing died atop her is the time they came upon her. To one and all seeing it lying on top of her brought only one thought to mind. As they were both naked it was obvious they were screwing when in her excitement she had bit and killed him. From that time on not one of the men from the castle would ever desire her again.
When she tried to tell her father what happened, he couldn’t bear to even listen as any mention of the incident reminded him of that accursed scene of her lying with that deformed freak with his throat torn out and her covered with the freaks blood and just laying there enjoying herself was the impression one and all who arrived at the scene had gotten
Two weeks later she was married off to Count Ferencz. Although she belonged to one of the oldest and wealthiest family’s in the country he was the only one to accept her as his bride. Publicly he announced he would marry for the beneficial alliance between the family’s and the large dowry she would bring to him. Privately he was excited; thinking of how she ripped that thing’s throat out. Why that was beyond what he had ever done and he highly admired her for this. The rumor was, she had gotten pregnant by this thing and that was the reason for the large dowry. To marry her off before she started showing her pregnancy.
Count Ferencz knew this wasn’t true on their wedding night as he found her virginal. It wouldn’t have mattered to him if she were pregnant, because if she were, once the baby came he would simply smash its head against the castle wall.
Nothing could stop the rumors that spread through out the land, it was said she had killed the Devil himself while having sex with him. Another story was she had conjured a demon for her pleasure and then bitten it to death. Stories flew around, and it was like a contest to see who could invent the most bizarre story. The stories had her bathing in blood, torturing young girls, biting to death her servants and many other extraordinary feats of cruelty.
This defamation just because she defended her honor as she was always told she must do at any cost. Her own father wouldn’t even discuss the event with her. If he couldn’t believe her, no one could. She immersed herself in books and pursued an education as a way of ignoring all these horrible stories about her.
Her husband, Count Ferencz was pleased with the stories because in some of the secret societies to which he belonged she was adored as a true witch. Anyone who could conjure up demons for their own amusement needed to have extreme supernatural powers. This boosted his standing in these societies, as they believed he would acquire these powers from his wife.
The Count moved his new wife to his Castle Csejthe. Which was his ancestral home in Northern Hungary. He left her to go fight the Turks and to continue his pursuit of black magic. Left alone she pursued her education and lived an exemplary life; regardless of the rumors about her. She found it hard to believe that every one could think she was as evil as the stories portrayed her to be.
The Count was making a name for himself in the war, he became feared when after capturing 15,000 Turks in a battle he had their eyes gouged out and left one eye in every hundredth man so they could guide the sightless men home. When these 15,000-blinded men appeared before their king he promptly had a heart attack and died.
While traveling in the East he came upon many practitioners of the black arts and learned from them any secrets he could. He also learned new methods of torture that he immensely enjoyed. That was when he met Hagar who was an expert in many occult practices and knew many methods of torture he could teach the prince. One of his most entertaining tortures was a brazen bull, made totally of brass, hollow, with a door in the side. The victim was shut up in the bull and a fire was set under it,heating the metal until it became "red hot" and causing the victim inside to slowly roast to death. when the bull was reopened, the victims' scorched bones shone like jewels and were made into bracelets. This endeared him to the Count who wanted to learn all he knew of torture, because this was his favorite passtime, torturing captured prisoners and almost as often, his subjects. Hagar and the count wore many bracelets made of shimmering jewel like bones.
Hagar told of the rings of fire that promised eternal life to the one who possesed them. It was before time began and the gods created man, The man continuously died from one reason or another, and that’s why they created a new man and gave him the rings of fire to be worn one on each wrist. The man was lonely and the gods created a woman for him. Out of love he gave one of the rings of fire to her and lost his immortality, but gained the power of reincarnation. The reincarnated man and woman would have the ring of fire on the right wrist of the new person they had become and it would only be visible to one another. Until a sorccerer in ancient Egypt learned from one of his Gods how to make the rings visible and once visible to steal the rings. Whoever possessd both rings would have eternal life. If someone would possess just one ring that person would be reincarnated after death.
He used the spell and saw that the Pharoh wore both rings. He wondered how this had come about but used it to his advantage. He told the Pharoh’s wife he could grant her immortality if the pharoh died and she married him so he would be Pharoh. She readily agreed and they planned how he was to get close to the Pharoh in order to steal the rings of fire.
She added a small amount of poison to her husbands wine, not enough to kill, but enough to sicken. He became deathly ill and she told him of the healer she had met and recommended he send for him. The sorccerer arrived and took hold of both the Pharo’s hands and leaned toward him and started the incatation his God had told him to use in order to transfer the rings from the Pharo’s wrist onto his own. He could feel the comfortable warmth as the rings slowly started sliding from wrist to wrist, The Pharo struggled to free himself of the grip that held him. He was so weakened by the poison he was unable to break free. Once the rings were on the sorcerers wrist the Pharo shriveled into a wrinkled corpse almost instantly. His wife told the sorcerer, “I know you probably intended to keep both bracelets for yourself so I consulted my priest who told me how you can die even though you wear the bracelets of fire. So give me one, “right now.” Or die. He took her right hand in his, and told her, “I never thought of doing such a thing. You know I need you to make me Pharoh.” He then whispered the magic incantation into her ear , and the ring of fire slid from his right wrist to her right wrist.
The count looked skeptically at Hagar, and told him, “I find your story hard to believe. There’s a million stories told about the Gods, and I know they’re mostly bullshit.” Hagar reached into his robe and pulled out a scroll that was made of an animals skin and by the looks of it was ancient. It was covered with hieroglyphics The Count saw as Hagar unrolled it. “Look my lord,” said Hagar. “This was recently found in an ancient tomb and I had to tortue a great many men to gain possesion of it. I tell you of this lord so we can both share an eternity together. Just imagine you and I being born many times over, what wars and tortues we can experience over and over again.” The count knew this was a ruse and Hagar wanted to use him to find the rings of fire. He thought that works both ways, and I will use Hagar and once we have the rings I shall live forever and send Hagar to his damnation.
The Count learned to read the hieroglyphics himself, so Hagar wasn’t able to deceive him of any of the meanings. They began their search in Egypt, because the scroll showed this as the location where the rings were last seen. They wondered if either the new pharoh or his wife were able to get the others ring of fire? If either one did that would mean they’re still alive, and if they didn’t, how were they to determine who or what they returned as, and where?
Their first destination was the tomb where the scroll was found. No one would answer their inquiries until Hagar captured the leader of the Tomb raiders and used his version of foot roasting to extract everything he knew. The prisoner was immobilized lying on his back and his bare feet were imprisoned in wood or iron. The soles of his feet were smeared with lard and slowly barbecued over red-hot coals. A bellows was used to control the intensity of the heat. as questions were put, and if the questions were not answered satisfactorily, the naked soles were exposed to the flames for an ever increasing period of time. Hagar taught the Count many forms of torture during their quest for the rings of fire.
The leader of the raiders didn’t like the idea of his feet being roasted to cinders. He gave Hagar and the Count all the information he had. Unfortunately for him Hagar wanted to demonstrate his technique to the Count. The burning was continued until the feet were charred to the bone: odd pieces of phalanges (one of the bones of of the toe) and metatarsals (The five bones thst form the intermediate part of the foot between the toe and the ankle.) fell to the floor. Satisfied he had shown the count how effective his method could be, and to be sure his victim would never seek revenge he dumped the hot coals onto the chest of the imbobile man and they both watched him die as the red hot embers burned away his flesh. When his screaming finally stopped both Hagar and the Count felt the need for some fresh air because of the stink of burning flesh.
Now they knew the location of the tomb where the scroll had come from, and they were going to need help digging out the secrets held within. The Count sent his soldiers to capture the new leader of the thieves who regularly robbed the Pharos’ burial places. Knowing what had happened to his predessor he was very cooperative and freely supplied any knowledge he owned. He also sent one-hundred experienced diggers with them to the tomb. The tomb was empty by now, but the walls were covered with drawings and maps. Maps of the desert, maps of the stars. So many maps it would take years of studying to determine a starting point for their search. They were both sitting, studying the maps , and trying to figure what their next move would be when they both saw it at once. A rat coming through the stone wall. Impossible they both knew, but here it was, right in front of them coming right through the wall. They walked to the wall and saw the rat hadn’t come through a solid wall, but through an unnoticible crack in it. Hagar and the prince looked at one another in excitement. This meant there was a hidden chamber behind this wall.
Not wanting to let the tomb robbers or their soldiers know what they had found they started digging themselves. Before long a hole large enough to crawl through had been pounded out of the wall. With a torch in each hand for light they crawled through the hole. Rats scurried away, and bugs dropped from the ceiling onto them. This didn’t deter them in the least, because of the excitement of a find that may be what they needed.
They found brackets on the walls made for holding torches, so they set theirs into them and slowly looked around. Four eyes looking at rows and rows of scrolls that had been half eaten by the rats. On a platform against the far wall were solid gold amulets with hieroglyphics carved into them. “Thankfully rats don’t eat gold,” the count said as he he put all the golden amulets in his russak. They took what scrolls appeared to be readable, and then returned to their tent to study what they had found.
The surving scrolls were all about alchemy and normally they would have been interested in these, but right now they needed a clue where to find the rings. After dispatching the scrolls to be shipped to his castle for later study the Count and Hagar studied the amulets, the clue they were looking for was here in the star charts. Fortunately Hagar knew how to read the charts, because being a sorccerer this was his forte. He concluded the rings could be followed using astronomical charts, and set up a large chart while copying information from the amulets he was able to trace the rings for the last two thousand years. Right up to the new Pharo and his wife. They lived five hundred years ago, and that’s when the recorded history of the rings come to an end.
“We need to make a new star chart like this one for the last five hundred years and follow the rings by following the alignment of the planets.” Said Hagar.
“How do you know that?”
“Look at the chart and you can see everytime the rings have changed hands mercury changed to this unusual position.”
“That may tell you when, how do you know where?”
“Why by using triangulation.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“See here, every time the rings have changed possesion mercury moves to a new position, and all we need to do is draw a triangle through Mercury, earth and the sun. See where the point hits earth? That’s where the rings are. I tested this by using the information we have and every location where we knew them to be matched up with the trangulation.”
“Well, go ahead, triangulate, so we can see where they’re at now.”said the Count.
Hagar did as told and they were both pleased to see the point of the triangle resting exactly on Turkey. A country that has been at war with the Counts country for years. Now they needed no excuse to invade in search of the rings. They could just go, and search anytime they wanted, which was right now as they gave the order to pack up and head for Turkey.
It took several months to move all his troops and equipment to the border of Turkey. They decided the rings must be in the city the triangle pointed to. This city was only thirty miles from the border. The count asked Hagar how he knew both rings would be there? Because the planets align differently when there is only one, and he showed him a copy of the chart. Then pointed out the times they knew the rings to be shared, and matched up the planet alignment. The pattern was obviously different than when both rings were transferred at once.
“The Count wanted to know how’ll we know who has the rings? Remember the first scroll I showed you told us how. “Oh yeah,” answered the Count.
They set out to find the rings that very day….