Sir Isaac Bartholomew Esquire
Francis the Third peered through a bubbling vile of green liquid, which
distorted his one bloated red eye. He was the third of his name, but belonged
to a longer line of large imposing warriors, who drank heavily, plundered,
raped and conquered the realms of the great Northern Lands. To his father’s
great dismay, Isaac had none of these qualities. He was tall yes, but he grew
into a skinny wispy thing of a man with long flowing blond hair the color of
dull straw, which soon turned to gray and white once he reached middle age.
Because he shared none of the qualities of his great kinsmen, they called him
Franny.
Franny’s father, Sir Isaac Bartholomew
Esquire Francis the Second also known as Francis the Great but not as great as
Sir Isaac Bartholomew Esquire Francis the first the great great, encouraged Franny
from a very young age to take up the spear, sword and shield and go out
adventuring like he had done in his own youth. Francis the Great used to talk with
great fondness of his youth riding from village to village, slaughtering at
will, taking the women as he pleased and having busty tavern wenches fill him
full of the best rotgut mead before dragging them by the hair up to his straw
mattress. Franny did none of these things. Instead, he used his significant
allowance to buy the old books peddled by old men with hunched backs. They
promised to sell him the secrets of eternal youth, alchemy and other strange
powers contained in their books. Francis the Great tolerated his son’s purchases
but always had a soldier run the old codger through with a sword once the old
man had left the village to recuperate his squandered gold. Franny never discovered
this though he would only be saddened that he didn’t have the rest of the books.
Franny was sent away for one year by
his father, as was the custom, to hone his skills as a warrior as his descendants
had done before him, but instead he traveled to the Council of Wise Men in the
next realm. Franny was turned away upon arrival, but after much begging outside
of their doors and a hefty bribe of all the money on his person, they admitted
him into their hallowed chambers to scrub pots and pans. He was promised that
if he fulfilled his duties with great success for one year that he would be
considered for an apprenticeship and his real education would commence.
Franny worked from before the sun
came up to well after it sank scrubbing the dishes that piled up from the
scholars several meals. At night, he crept silently through the drafty stone
corridors to their great library to read by candle light and try to decipher
the ancient scripts. He did so hoping to uncover the secrets of the sun, moon
and stars, but did so with little accomplishment.
After a grueling year of having
continually soaked and puckered hands, he was escorted to their large imposing
doors and physically kicked out on his ass. This did not weaken his resolve of
becoming the premier sorcerer in the land. It only strengthened his dedication
to prove the old fools wrong. The wise men had spent all their time mapping the
movement of the stars repeatedly, scribbling on pieces of parchment and
dissecting flies and small animals to figure out where they came from only to
conclude that they sprang from sacks of grain like fairies. They also spent
their time trying to cure such ailments as pimples, foot corns and baldness
with a variety of vile smelling pastes. None of these endeavors seemed like the
kind of work a true man of wisdom would pursue, Franny thought to himself.
Franny shook his fist at the sealed
doors and vowed to show them all what a truly powerful sorcerer he would become,
so he threw his sack of meager possessions over his shoulder and headed for
home.
Francis the Great did not receive Franny
warmly. His father had expected his son to return battle scarred with a spear carried
casually over a shoulder and a necklace of noses hanging around his neck,
trophies taken from fallen warriors who had fallen to his expert blade. Instead,
Franny was a scrawnier thing than his father had sent away only gaining a thick
layer of pot scrubber callouses over his weak hands.
Francis the Great still however chose
to believe that his son could change. He was under the delusion that there must
be something that would awaken the man in his son. A land dispute with a
neighboring lord seemed like the perfect thing to raise the blood lust in
Franny.
They rode side by side to the edge
of the rival lord’s village, which contained the rival’s keep. Francis the
Great rode upright and strong covered in black battered armor on his massive
war horse with Franny beside him in his own shining virgin armor, which looked
to threaten to crush him to death at any moment.
“Ride to the keep and tell that
bastard our terms, and if he don’t agree then set fire to a barn or house on
your ride out to show him we mean business. That will light a fire under him!”
he yelled out. The faithful men that flanked him laughed heartily and pounded
their chests. Franny cringed and rode off as instructed, but as soon as he was
out of sight, he stripped off his armor, tied his horse to a tree and casually
walked into the village. He then promptly poisoned the village’s water supply
with a technique he had learned in the dark library at the Council of Wise Men.
When Franny didn’t return for a day,
Francis the Great and entourage rode into the village expecting to find
Franny’s head on a spike in front of the keep’s gate. What they found instead
were bloated bodies littering the village avenues, their faces twisted in blue
agony from the poison.
Franny had thought his father would
be proud of him. He had not only saved them the trouble of fighting but had
achieved victory single handedly with knowledge garnered from his studies.
Francis the Great however was furious. He slide of his mount with expert ease
and gave Franny a sharp smack across the face with his giant armored fist,
which sent Franny rolling across the ground and knocking loose a few teeth.
“You robbed these men of an
honorable death in battle with sword in hand facing down their enemy bravely!”
Francis the Great roared. He raised his arms in appeal to the heavens. “God
should have been the decider of this battle favoring the righteous and striking
down the unjust.”
Franny’s actions however, did not
stop his father from claiming the victory for himself and helping himself to
the keep and its riches.
There soon came a day though when
Francis the Great lost all hope of his son becoming a great warrior like
himself. Franny had not lived up to any of his expectations, and it was time to
dispose of the rotten seed and claim one of his many bastards as his legitimate
son and heir.
Francis the Great invited Franny out
for a “hunt” with the full intention of leaving his son’s corpse in a ditch
with a gaping wound in his belly from his broad sword. The wolves and rats
would pick his bones and clean, and one day he would not even remember that he
had a son he called Franny.
The Great and Franny rode out early
in the morning with the mist still heavy on the ground riding deep into the
woods.
“We’ll stop here son.”
“Yes father.”
“You know you have been a constant
source of aggravation and disappointment to me your entire life. I’d like to
blame the absence of great warriors on your mother’s side for your lack of any
good qualities, God rest her soul, and try as I might I wasn’t able to turn you
into a son that I could be proud…”
Before Francis the Great could
finish his sentence, Franny had uncorked a large beaker he retrieved from his
saddle bag and thrown the bubbling contents into his father’s face. The liquid
splashed across the large man’s features and instantly began eating away his
flesh. His father fell off his horse with a loud thud and rolled back and forth
across the ground with his hands pressed to his face screaming as his world
turned to black pain.
“I’m sorry you feel that way father.
I really do. I had hoped you would one day come to appreciate me for who I was
and what I was capable, but I knew when you invited me on this so called ‘hunting’
trip that it wasn’t to be. Really father do you think so little of me that you
would believe I would fall for your little ruse. You despise hunting with me. I
scare the animals away remember. You might as well have come to me last night
and confessed your plan to me.”
Francis the Great continued to roll
back and forth across the ground as Fanny dismounted.
“I’m sure this is not how you would
have preferred me to kill you. I’m sure you would have rather me fight you man
to man with a sword in each of our hands, but we both know how that would have
turned out.”
Franny pulled his sword from its
scabbard. It was a long skinny thing like him that curved back and forth like a
slithering snake. His father had laughed at him when he had it made saying it was
completely impractical for battle, but Franny thought it suited him.
Francis the Great’s screams turned
to whimpering sobs. The nerve endings had burned away, and he now lay
motionless and blubbering like a child with a skinned knee.
“Please son, show mercy to your poor
father. Undo this spell, and I swear I will treat you like the son I always
wished you were. Please son, please. Show mercy.” He began to weep, and the
tears turned to steam on his cheeks.
“Really father, begging. I thought You were the tall strong warrior who
faced down death with his head held high. But of course, you never knew real
pain. You had always been strong and surrounded by your men, who kept you safe
in the thick of battle. They made you feel like an untouchable king. Do
yourself a favor and die with some dignity.”
Franny shoved the tip of his evil
looking blade into his father’s throat and silencing his father’s pitiful sobs
forever.
Such a barbaric business killing a
man with a sword, Franny thought.
When he returned to the keep, he
conjured up some distressed tears and articulated a dramatic story of how a
huge beast the size of an oak came at them in the woods spewing fire. He told
how his father had battled with the beast and how they died locked in a deadly
embrace, a giant claw through his father’s throat and his sword piercing the beast’s
heart. He also described how after the beast was slain, it melted away back to the
depths of the devil’s lair.
Francis the Great’s men gasped in
astonishment at the story. They had always heard of strange beasts lurking in
the forest, but had never seen one. They immediately formed a party to search
out the woods for any more agents of the devil lying in wait to do the realm
harm.
Franny inherited his father’s land
and wealth, much to the dismay of his father’s closest advisors and commanders.
It was only out of respect for Franny’s father that they didn’t kill him on the
spot, but they decided they would be neither obedient or loyal. They still
spoke of him as Franny out of earshot even though he had instructed them to
call him Sir Francis.
Sir Francis quickly became weary of
their disrespect and called on his vassals to attend a great feast in honor of
his father and to announce the beginning of a new campaign of conquest to
create a lasting monument to his father’s greatness.
“A toast to my father,” Sir Francis
said. He raised a gold cup high to the echoing roar of “To Francis the Great.”
They all drank together and half of the assembled company fell dead into their
mutton.
“Let that be a lesson to all that
oppose me. You now see what happens to those that don’t give me their complete
undying loyalty!” Sir Francis boomed. “Another toast to me. Sir Francis the
Magnificent.”
“To Sir Francis the Magnificent!”
yelled the remaining men nervously looking into their cups.
The name Sir Francis the Magnificent
didn’t stick however. To many of the men, he was known only as Sir Francis the
Magnificent cocksucker. They were however careful to say this only in hushed
tones in small groups away from spying ears.
Sir Francis over time began to tire
of petty politics and turned his attentions toward his larger goal of expanding
his knowledge of the mysterious arts.
Francis put one of his few reliable
men in charge of the realm and rode off with a few trusted bodyguards.
Opportunity seekers really, casting their dice for the long bet with Sir
Francis.
Immediately upon their departure,
Francis’s trusted advisor was murdered and then dumped in a trash heap outside
of town. The business of the realm then finally returned to normal.
Francis traveled far to the East
with his small band of bodyguards across wind swept landscapes of sand, through
dense swamps and over mountains searching out the secrets of the dark arts. He
spent time with the twisted holy men of the gray mountain, who claimed to gain
their power by bathing in the blood of young virgin women, who prayed all
through starless nights and ate sacred plants transporting them to the sacred
realms between man and beyond. He spent a year bent over the ancient parchments
at the great library of Gall learning the ancient languages and conversing with
the scholars and philosophers on the steps of the temple squares. He learned
the dark rites of the men of smoke, who could cast fire spells from their
fingertips, with the help of a tube made from animal intestines and a dark
earthy liquid that bubbled up from the depths of the earth, which burned with
the intensity of a thousand candles. And, he learned the secrets of the
elements from the ancient order of alchemists, who lived in the remnants of an
extinct volcano. Francis consumed all of this knowledge as a man dying of
thirst attacks a river, which cannot slack his desire.
His bodyguards perished one by one
succumbing to strange diseases, attacks from wild primitive people who still
used stone spears and from their hard travels. One by one, they died until it
was just Francis alone on his journey. He no longer required them though. He
had already become deadlier than any mere man. When Francis returned to his
homeland, he was a stranger amongst strangers. He floated through villages like
a mist listening to gossip at the inns and learning everything he could about
what had happened to the realm in his absence. The once mighty mass of land,
which his father had ruled with a mighty fist, had turned into a multitude of
small territories where a hundred lords competing violently for each scrap of
land with no unifying ruler or cause to make them whole again.
Francis had returned to his homeland
for only one reason, to carry on his study of the dark arts. He wanted to explore
the knowledge he had accumulated over the years and put it to the test, to
unlock the mysteries of life and death themselves.
The tall tower keep of his father’s
was now a crumbling ruin. Francis shook his head at the sight of it. It seemed
to be occupied by a medley of slack-jawed thugs their hands rubbing their rusty
sword hilt obscenely with dirty gloved hands. He walked boldly through them to
his father’s throne room to find a twelve-year-old sitting lazily on his
father’s great stone chair, a leg draped over one of the thick arms.
“Who comes before the Mighty Calvin!”
the boy said, his voice cracking with each syllable.
Francis stood tall in his simple
gray cloak. He squared his body to the boy and said in a booming voice “Sir
Isaac Bartholomew Esquire Francis the Third, son of Sir Isaac Bartholomew
Esquire Francis the Great and grandson to Sir Isaac Bartholomew Esquire Francis
the Greater!”
“Who?” cracked the boy’s voice.
Francis fumed and clenched his hands
into fists, his long nails digging into his palms.
“Sir Francis the Magnificent, the
rightful ruler to this land and the owner of this keep!” Francis repeated.
“You must be mistaken. This was my
father’s keep. Won fair and square in the War of the Red Tide and upon his
tragic passing was passed to me Calvin the Mighty,” cracked Calvin. “You’re
obviously mad to believe otherwise. Guards seize him.”
Two guards approached Francis each
unsheathing a pitted rusty sword. Francis covered his mouth with his robe and
with a wave of his other hand sent out a cloud of crystalline dust, which instantly
began to asphyxiate both attackers.
“I said seize him!” screeched the
boy, but the remaining men in the room didn’t dare to get any closer to
Francis.
“An enchanter,” they whispered to
each other.
“I said seize him!” screeched Calvin
again.
“Pledge your devotion and your lives
to me, your rightful ruler, and I will spare you!” Francis boomed.
The guards said nothing but only
backed away lowering their weapons in a sign of submission.
“Good choice,” Francis said.
“If you won’t kill him I will,”
cried Calvin, who leapt from the stone chair and unsheathed a long sword, which
gave him the aspect of a child playing with his father’s things.
My father would have really liked
this boy, Francis thought, just before he raised his hand and sent a jet of
unnatural green flame from a tube concealed in his sleeve. The flame engulfed
the boy instantly turning him into a pile of brittle ash.
“Someone clean this up and bring me
something to eat,” Francis commanded, walking past the blackened heap of a boy
ruler and sitting down in the stone chair, as if the boy had just been keeping
it warm for him.
This was at least how Francis had
remembered it happening. All of it was just a fog in his mind an indistinct
dream, which faded more with each passing moment. No one knew whether the
stories were true of his great reign upon his return. All anyone knew now was
that only the cruelest and dim witted of his soldiers had remained loyal, the
majority had defected pledging allegiance to neighboring lords. His realm had deteriorated
over the years into a desolate thing, where the villagers couldn’t even
remember who lived in the tall tower keep. They only know to stay away from it
and not to get too curious.
These memories were only dim shadows
in the back of Francis’s mind, which retreated from his thoughts as he focused on
the container of green translucent fluid.
“Hump come quickly. I think I’ve
done it. Finally a potion that will increase my power tenfold. The serum of
hidden power that I have been struggling to perfect these past three months.
Hump? Hump! Where are you? I’m talking to you.”
Hump came shuffling into the room
dragging one leg and doubled over from the weight of his giant hunch of a back.
“Yes master?” Hump said as he
entered the room.
Hump hadn’t always been his way.
Even though he could never have been described as an attractive man, he had
been blessed with above average intelligence for a guard in Dark Francis’s
employ. He had been the brightest of all of his cronies, which put his
intelligence a little above a gold fish, but still he had been a moderate sized
gold fish in a pond of gnats. An
unfortunate accident in the stables had crippled poor Hump’s meager
intelligence years earlier. One of Hump’s mounts had accidently eaten a few
gold coins that he had carelessly dropped on the ground. Hump spent the day
sitting behind the horse sifting through its feces when the banging of the
stable door spooked the horse, and it kicked poor Hump square in the forehead.
Needless to say, Hump was never the same again, but he was still strong as an
ox, and he remained Francis’s most loyal henchman. If it had been anyone else,
Francis would have gotten rid of him after an accident like that, but he pitied
Hump, so he kept him in his employ.
“Have you heard a word I said Hump?”
“The master has perfected his serum.
Very good master.”
“That’s right. Now I need someone to
test it on. Go to the village and find a suitable volunteer to try it on. Try
not to find anyone too extraordinary. I don’t want to create a formidable opponent
if this works. One of the poor drunks down at the tavern should do.”
“Yes master, very good master.”
“Away with you and quickly. I cannot
bear to wait any longer.”
“At once master,” Hump said with a
small bow and shuffled out of the room.
As luck would have it for Hump, it
was the dead of night and one of the tavern regulars was staggering his way
down one of the lonely deserted avenues of the village having just left the
tavern. The poor drunken fool could barely keep his balance as he slowly put
one foot in front of the other unsure of his footing with each step.
Hump saw the man staggering down the
road as he slowly made his way to the village on the back of his now trusty
mule.
“Excuse me sir,” Hump said politely
to the drunk. “I seem to have lost my way in the dark. Could you point me the
way to the tavern?”
It took a moment for the words to
sink into the man’s mead pickled brain, but when they did, he let out a loud
belch, hiccupped, farted and then pointed the way to the tavern before falling
backward on his ass as if his bones had turned to jelly.
“Thank you kind sir,” Hump said, and
he continued on his way.
The drunk tipped his hat in a little
salute, picked himself up, dusted himself off and continued his way home.
Hump took up a post near the door to
the tavern and clubbed the first wobbly drunk that made his way through the
door to take a piss. He slung unconscious heap over his mule’s back and
returned to the keep.
“It’s about time Hump!” Francis
scolded as Hump entered the dark chamber of bubbling vials, steaming beakers
and shelves upon shelves of decaying books and jars filled with dried herbs,
picked lizard tails, crow eyes, dove hearts and all the essential supplies for
a man in Francis’s profession.
“What is this all about,” cried the
poor drunk in a slurred half moan.
“Don’t be frightened kind gentle
peasant. I’ve not brought you here to harm you. I’ve brought you here to see if
you would like to earn a little bit of money by doing me a favor.”
“What kind of money and what kind of
favor?” asked the man. “Just so you know I’m not a fairy nancy boy or whatever
Trevor has been spreading around the village. It’s a lie. He’s the one who
touched my cock. I can’t help it if I liked it a little. I was drunk.”
“Just a simple task that will only
take a few moments and for your trouble you’ll earn yourself a gold piece.”
Francis held up a small gold coin,
which glinted in the light of the candles.
The man considered this for a moment
rubbing his chin and weighing his options before answering.
“I guess it’s okay, but make it
quick,” the man said while untying the knot to his pants and slipping them to
the ground.
“Stop you fool, I don’t require that from you.”
“Why didn’t you just say so in the
first place? Now I feel embarrassed,” the drunk said as he hitched up his
pants.
“I just want you to drink this and
tell me how you feel,” Francis said through a bitter screen of frustration. He handed
the vial of green liquid to the man who took it and looked at it in the dim
light suspiciously.
“What is it?”
“It’s uh…a new kind of mead I’m
experimenting with. It’s twice as potent. I just need an unbiased opinion from
a man with your experience pallet,” Francis answered rubbing his hands together
fiendishly.
“Well, I’ve never turned down a free
drink,” said the man and with a quick gulp, he drank the contents in a single
swallow and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.
The three men stood there in
silence. Francis waited impatiently as he watched the man for any sign of an
increase in power or mystical knowledge.
“Not bad. Tastes a little funny
though,” said the man.
“Yes that’s to be expected with
boiled toad as an ingredient,” Francis said. “But how do you feel?”
“I feel…AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!” The
man let out a blood-curdling scream, which came so suddenly and violently that
it made Francis leap back and almost sent the man up in flames.
The man didn’t move. He just stood
there paralyzed like a human statue involuntarily screaming.
“Damn, I must have miscalculated
somewhere in the formula,” Francis said.
“What should I do with this one
master?” Hump asked.
“Put him with the other failures,”
Francis said dismissively as he turned his attention to a fragile looking
parchment.
Hump took the man by the hand, who
continued to scream, but followed him docilely down to the lower levels of the
keep. Hump opened a large heavy door and pushed the poor unfortunate man into
the cell. Half a dozen other men occupied the room. All were haggard looking fellows
hoarsely screaming and staring off into space.
Hump secured the door behind him as
he left and let the cries of the poor unfortunate men fade in his ears as he
returned to his master.
