Hexed Guise

Once upon a time, in a land far far away lived a benevolent king and an angelic queen. They ruled their kingdom with such pretense, kindness, and humbleness that they were equally loved by all of their subjects. Not one person in the kingdom had a grudge with the rulers, and the kingdom prospered with good morals, nought crime, and great crop yields. It always seemed like natural disasters just evaded the kingdom, meanwhile the neighboring kingdoms shook and shivered at their approach. It was as if the heavens smiled upon them directly, and the people of the kingdom felt truly blessed.

As fate would have it, where there was an upside, there was always the shadow of a downside. The only hints of sadness in the whole kingdom came from the fact that the queen couldn’t bear children, and whenever she did, they died almost at the same instant that they were born. Eventually, after the course of a multitude of years and deaths, the king and queen adopted a child, but the story was still the same. The moment the innocent, little boy put his foot down on the palace grounds, he dropped dead due to unknown causes. The devoted king cared too much for his wife that he chose to ignore the possibility that the queen might be cursed. He wouldn’t even consider that to be a reason for the deaths, as he believed that if the queen was cursed, there was a mild possibility that he was too. Thus, they searched high and low for a cure, a release from that wretched fate.

Word travelled fast, and a reward for the cure was soon proclaimed. Healers, curators, priests, conjurers, charmers, diviners, wickens and whomever the mind could imagine of, came forth to have a hand at changing fate, but alas, to the king’s and queen’s dismay, none succeeded, until one day. . .

He came from the depths of the dark night, no one knew from where exactly. It was as if he just materialized out of thin air at the palace gates, and demanded to be in the presence of the king and the queen. All the while he boasted that he would be the mighty one to succeed, and that he had the remedy for all the distress. The guards, taken aback by the deranged man’s demeanor, concluded that the man was nothing but an idiotic buffoon. They tried to attack him, but all was in vain, as he vanished into thin air. The confused guards didn’t know how to react as the mystical man appeared again mysteriously. At last, the guards decided that it would be of the best interest to let the strange man meet with the king and the queen. Truth be told, the man gave them an eerie feeling, and their insides churned with a simple gesture as a look from the man.

When he reached the king and the queen, he did not bow. It would’ve been downright offensive if the rulers weren’t purely captivated by the man’s intellect, wisdom, and aplomb. He introduced himself as the mighty sorcerer, Venferth. Suddenly, he produced a vial in his right hand, and proclaimed that it was the cure. By this time, the king and queen had seen enough foolish people who willingly took up the challenging task, but there was something about this man, this Venferth, that made them believe otherwise. The reward was granted lavishly, but none seemed to notice the sorcerer’s shrewd smile nor the evil hidden behind his dark orbs. He bowed to the king and the queen as he departed with a sly grin spread across his face.

Outside the palace, when he was out of earshot,
he muttered,

He cachinnated out loud, and his laughter echoed into the night.
Then, he disappeared, and no one would see him for a long while. . .