“Bring him to me,” he said with a kindly smile on his face. They pushed and pulled and clicked away before finally getting the man into a kneeling position before Dragot. “Now leave us,” he said while making a dismissive motion with his hand. The three briggits scampered away quickly as if given to the count of three, although no such command had been made. The man just kneeled there with his hands clasped together against his forehead and his eyes shut tightly, both muttering and trembling at the same time.
Dragot slowly stood up as his huge frame towered over the trembling man. Calm and kind was his poetic voice. “Tell me, does that really work for you? Praying, that is.” The man was now relieving himself on the carpet as his trembling became uncontrollable, but still he kept his hands clasped together and mumbled indecipherable verses followed by, “Help me, God, please help me.”
Dragot walked circles around the poor man, never taking his eyes off him. Wearing a lopsided smile, he finally stopped right in front of the man. “You see, this is what I’m talking about,” he said in an even calmer voice as he slowly pulled out a dagger from inside of his clothing and walked behind the terrified man. He made sure the man saw the dagger. “If I told you I was going to cut off your ear right here and now, do you really believe your God would try to stop me? Hmmmm?”
Just like that, in one clean cut the man’s bloody ear was now on the floor. He screamed as he held the side of his head, tipping over and laying face down as warm blood trickled through his fingers. Suddenly he was jerked back up by the collar he still wore and forced to look directly at Dragot as he spun the man around. In a nearly musical voice, he said, “Now, if I said I was going to cut off every body part one at a time until your God came to save you, what would you say are the odds that I won’t complete my task?” The man howled in pure terror. Drool flowed from his panting mouth. He could not catch his breath as panic threatened to consume him.
Then, suddenly, in a voice that bordered on rage, Dragot screamed, “This is why you vile humans should not even exist! You continue to put blind faith in deities that either don’t exist or don’t care about any of you.” Then he put his face right next to the poor man’s good ear and calmly whispered. “You see, this is the face of a God. The ones you pray to don’t control your life. I do!”
Just then one of the briggits came running into the room, clicking urgently. “What?!” Dragot exclaimed with sudden emotion, then simply decapitated the man with a single stroke of his large dagger. The corpse just flopped over next to his head, which upon being removed from the body by the sudden swipe of the dagger had flown straight up in the air, but did not roll far upon hitting the ground a few seconds later.
Dragot scrambled with more urgency than he had shown in many years. He had planned to have fun with his toy for hours, but now that was completely forgotten about. He hurried through the great hall, down another flight of stairs, and into a small room where a withered old hag of a woman was standing. She was badly hunched and had one eye completely closed, as a yellow stream of puss oozed from it. Her skin was very pale, to the point where it was almost gray. Her clothes were little more than brown rags hanging off her broken-down body. White, stringy hair that flared out in all directions made her seem to be covered in static electricity.
With a sudden flare of temper, Dragot barked, “What is it? What did you see, witch?!” She seemed amused by the intrusion and even by the display of anger. The woman looked at the demon with a slight smirk, appearing to be in no hurry. Then, as the smile faded from her face, she finally clutched a necklace around her neck, still without saying a word. It had a green jewel encased in a gold border and was attached to a silver chain.
It began to glow as her head cocked back, looking up at the ceiling. Her eye rolled back into her head, revealing the back of her eye. She began to gurgle incoherently as her eyelid fluttered. Then she began humming rhythmically as a strange fog began to fill the room, her body displaying quick little convulsions. Dragot had seen this show before and was not the slightest bit rattled.
Suddenly, her head snapped straight back, followed by her whole upper body doing a full back bend, so she ended up holding herself up by her hands and feet. She turned a half circle, looking like some sort of crab, to face Dragot, looking at him upside down. The voice that came out was certainly not female, or even human for that matter. Sounding like a demon, her lips did not move at all. Her mouth just gaped open, and in a low rumble came the words:
“The gate keeper has come of age
The Guardian seeks to protect him
When the dead follow him
The nations of man will unite.”