miraculously, one had. Some of the men from the tribe had gone searching for supplies inside the abandoned, fire-damaged shops. They discovered nothing salvageable and were just about to leave when they had heard a whimpering sound coming from under the floorboards. Upon tearing them up they found a little girl, no older than you are now. She was covered in blood and dirt and skinny as a rake. She had clearly witnessed sights no child should ever have to witness and had not eaten for weeks.
“The girl was brought to the women to be cleaned up. We washed, clothed and fed her, and Asmodious healed her wounds; many of which had become infected. I doubt she would have survived much longer had we not discovered her. But while we were able to restore her appearance to something approaching normal relatively quickly, the same could not be said for her mind. For many days she did not speak at all, but merely shivered. And while I feel bad for saying such a thing, the truth is that I wish she had stayed that way.
“It was your grandfather who eventually got her to talk; nothing too taxing at first, merely her name, which was Bettina, and whether she felt well and such. It took weeks before the poor girl was able to recount what had happened to the people of her village, but one night, in front of a roaring fire, with just Asmodious, myself, and our pet cat Merlin for company, she did just that. And every day since I have wished that she hadn’t.
“You see, it’s not the gruesome details of how her family were killed in front of her that I wished I hadn’t heard (although I could happily have continued with my life without knowing of such things, and hence I will spare you such details, my child). No, it was who had been responsible for the killing that I wished she had never revealed.
“She described how the village had come under attack from all manner of strange creatures, from mischievous goblins to walking corpses. Some of the creatures she recognised from fairy tales, and scary late-night stories, others had been too horrible for her to have imagined without witnessing them firsthand. But the worst of all, she said, had been their leader.
“While not the most frightening in appearance – he had looked basically like a man, with bald head and long purple cloak, only taller and paler than a man, almost white in fact – his deeds were by far the most evil, stamping on babies and puppies as if they were bugs and ordering others to do the same.
“As little Bettina spoke the words, your grandfather and I simply looked at each other in horrified silence. But it was not the description of the terrible acts that had so shaken us, but the description of their perpetrator. It was quite clear to both of us that the leader she spoke of could only be one person – your grandfather’s former friend, Professor Balzanfjoord.”
“Grandpa knew The Professor?”
“Knew him well, I’m afraid, Charlie. You see, your grandfather and The Professor had both had the same mentor, a wizard named Peronicous. Peronicous was a powerful, stern, but righteous wizard who was quite a celebrity among his own kind. He taught The Professor and your grandfather not simply how to use their gifts most effectively, but also how to use them safely and responsibly. He was a great man who Asmodious admired very much. The Professor, or Melvin as he was known then, did not feel the same way.
“Your grandfather insisted that Melvin had never been a bad chap, but simply greatly over-confident and in possession of a very short attention span. He was always more interested in learning the next trick than he was in mastering the last. He and Peronicous were constantly at loggerheads with each other, each believing the other owed them more respect than they were being shown. Asmodious would do his best to mediate between the two of them, but eventually things came to a head and Melvin walked out before his training was complete, vowing that he would find
“The girl was brought to the women to be cleaned up. We washed, clothed and fed her, and Asmodious healed her wounds; many of which had become infected. I doubt she would have survived much longer had we not discovered her. But while we were able to restore her appearance to something approaching normal relatively quickly, the same could not be said for her mind. For many days she did not speak at all, but merely shivered. And while I feel bad for saying such a thing, the truth is that I wish she had stayed that way.
“It was your grandfather who eventually got her to talk; nothing too taxing at first, merely her name, which was Bettina, and whether she felt well and such. It took weeks before the poor girl was able to recount what had happened to the people of her village, but one night, in front of a roaring fire, with just Asmodious, myself, and our pet cat Merlin for company, she did just that. And every day since I have wished that she hadn’t.
“You see, it’s not the gruesome details of how her family were killed in front of her that I wished I hadn’t heard (although I could happily have continued with my life without knowing of such things, and hence I will spare you such details, my child). No, it was who had been responsible for the killing that I wished she had never revealed.
“She described how the village had come under attack from all manner of strange creatures, from mischievous goblins to walking corpses. Some of the creatures she recognised from fairy tales, and scary late-night stories, others had been too horrible for her to have imagined without witnessing them firsthand. But the worst of all, she said, had been their leader.
“While not the most frightening in appearance – he had looked basically like a man, with bald head and long purple cloak, only taller and paler than a man, almost white in fact – his deeds were by far the most evil, stamping on babies and puppies as if they were bugs and ordering others to do the same.
“As little Bettina spoke the words, your grandfather and I simply looked at each other in horrified silence. But it was not the description of the terrible acts that had so shaken us, but the description of their perpetrator. It was quite clear to both of us that the leader she spoke of could only be one person – your grandfather’s former friend, Professor Balzanfjoord.”
“Grandpa knew The Professor?”
“Knew him well, I’m afraid, Charlie. You see, your grandfather and The Professor had both had the same mentor, a wizard named Peronicous. Peronicous was a powerful, stern, but righteous wizard who was quite a celebrity among his own kind. He taught The Professor and your grandfather not simply how to use their gifts most effectively, but also how to use them safely and responsibly. He was a great man who Asmodious admired very much. The Professor, or Melvin as he was known then, did not feel the same way.
“Your grandfather insisted that Melvin had never been a bad chap, but simply greatly over-confident and in possession of a very short attention span. He was always more interested in learning the next trick than he was in mastering the last. He and Peronicous were constantly at loggerheads with each other, each believing the other owed them more respect than they were being shown. Asmodious would do his best to mediate between the two of them, but eventually things came to a head and Melvin walked out before his training was complete, vowing that he would find
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