Windowknocker's 'Dark Testament' 2

[Druidess]

Kandle WILL find you!

The Undertaker, Kandle, emerging from the Bearer family tomb by 'MaddMorgan'. There are 11 others like this that came into PNT’s offices back in 1999, but this one has always been a favorite of mine.

1

Shadow Warrior looks down at his arm. Pouring fluid, he rips off his shirt to wrap the wound in a hasty attempt to stop the bleeding. He does not look up at all from the corner he has settle upon in this place. He’s ....ashamed. Ashamed that he could not deal with the situation himself.

Embarrassed and feeling some loss of honor, Shadow Warrior slowly lifts himself up and walks towards Reivyn Poe, urging her to be silent as he tends to her foot which seems to be quite injured.

Knelt in front of her, and cuffing her ankle carefully, his eyes roll into his head, he slowly emits a white aura around his body as it begins to cover Reivyn's foot. He was speaking a prayer, but only a few distinct words can be made out by the girl. Shadow Warrior falls back just slight; his pupils coming back to him.

"Is that any better?" He ask. The presence of another moves behind him. "Are you okay, Widow?" He asked massaging Reivyn Poe's foot one last time before standing up.

Reivyn Poe swung her eyes across the stone room. “Yes.” She began, but stopped. Sitting there in silence, she took a moment to absorb all the sounds she heard. Nothing familiar here. Somewhere, water dripped --That much she knew-- and the wind soughed loudly as if rushed through a chimney pipe.

“Where .. Where are we?”

“The Phoenix, Kandle's place." Shadow Warrior's voice echoed in the dank interior of the granite domain, "I've been here before."

"Kandle?"

The question came to Poe, but soon perished all at once upon the shaded outline of a man that Shadow was rising and stepping to greet, “Kandle.” He said to the man. “Why did you save us?”

"Oh, Shadow! You are hurt! So much blood coming from your arm!" The Widow holds the shirt tightly applying pressure to the wound to stop the bleeding. Then with tears in her eyes, starts to mildly scold him.

"Never do that again! You could have been killed and then what would I do without you? You must be more careful.” Her fretting cooled. “It looks like we both can be fearless to the point of fault. You are indeed a warrior, but please, please, be a LIVE warrior...Not a dead one. The ground is full enough of dead warriors. You must not become one of them."

The Widow then pulled Reivyn close to her and Shadow Warrior, and held onto them as if they were children, not noticing the confused look on both Reivyn and Shadow's faces as she looked up at man, Kandle waiting for him to answer the question Shadow had asked him moments earlier.

Only the Phoenix’s eyes spoke for him on his behalf. She was. He was. They ALL were asking for centuries worth of explanation that had even toyed and teased him. Most importantly, made death forget him, and probably life as well.

..You somehow dwell in an existence that is neither dead nor alive. Knowing both heaven and hell but can never greet either....never greet either.

Belle, love’s ancient words, ran a course through Kandle's mind. They were memories that glossed his eyes as he watched Widow holding the torn linen tight round Shadow Warrior's arm. Entranced by the crimson stain stealing slowly across the fabric, Reivyn Poe felt the urge to shake him, but it was the Shadow Warrior who actually spoke: "Kane? Are you alright?"

All the thoughts and all the memories, exploded and fell away like falling dust back to the places they had come. The Undertaker, Kandle stiffened and clamped down on his lips against the cursed urge ...The need. The want. Instead he turned to the Widow Catherine who was still scolding warrior.

“How much you must truly love him...To scold like that, I mean.”

Obviously he had chosen to disregard, or at least temporary, Shadow’s question about why he had taken it upon himself to save them from the creature, Falcy. What did it even matter? As Kandle lit up a stand of candlesticks just nearby, Reivyn Poe felt herself pull into their fluttering dance. Notwithstanding, how he appeared. Undertaker? .. The Undertaker? His voice, the allure of it, the sensation she felt when hearing him speak. As if a warm ribbon of words had curled around her, pulling her towards him, cascading through the air only to wrap themselves around him. Apparently, Kandle took notice of it.

“You are trembling, my dear. Like a sapling in a gale.”

“No. I ...”

“My mother before this time had died giving me life.” The Phoenix switched the subject. “The childbirth was much too great for her, I was told. My Father never forgave me for it, of course.” He adds, lighting another prop of candles, "Women often died in childbirth. Why, Belle tol —"

The rest of his speech suddenly just stopped mid-throat. Whatever he had meant to say, vanished with a deep breath.

"What?" Poe quested.

"Nothing. They.....they are ancient joys. Forgotten things that were sheltered once in another time. I should learn to forget them." Kandle looks at the Widow, "Dead warriors, Widow? No insult to me, I hope.” He grinned with milky, ivory points scarcely hinting, and then chuckled.

Poe rubbed her arms. The wind filtering in from the outside was chilly and now hunger was gnawing at her stomach.

"Soo.." She quivered, "Where are we anyhow?"

“In the tomb of my great-grandfather... William Joshua Bearer."

A brand-new voice caroled from the stone staircase and, with glowing lantern swinging in hand, Paul Bearer puffed at the bottom step with bundles of things tucked under one arm and black bangs askew across his forehead. “No one would EVER dream to look here." He mused.

As he finally reached the bosom of the room, however, Poe's eyes had bloomed to the size of golf balls.

"Who is she?!" Paul snapped his head like a spindle, looking hard and wide at Kane. “Kandle! You know of the secret! You know what can happen!!"

Kandle just put his finger up to his lips, "Shhhh .. She was there."

"You're putting me in danger, Kandle. How long do you think Falcy's going to stay ignorant to what's going on!"

"What IS going on!" Poe stepped backwards towards Widow, "Why is PAUL BEARER HERE?!"

There was no answer from Catherine. She had turned ridged.

"Oooooops." Warrior groaned and shot a glance at Kandle, "I didn't get a chance to tell her yet."

"Is she supposed to know?" Paul revealed his package as rolls of blankets, "It's not safe to go up to the parlor just yet. Falcy's rooming about."

"He didn't see you come?" Kane inquired.

"No. I'm sure of it."

"Poe is with us, Paul. We're all together." Shadow Warrior added and now Reivyn threw her hands up. "Ohh..ohhh..wait! Wait, wait, wait...Someone explai.."

Paul handed her one of the blankets, "There's nothing really to explain. I'm using the covering of my supposed ‘Occult’ operation in order to gain knowledge for your benefits. Thus far no one suspects a thing, and they know nothing except what you obviously still believe yourself —That I am against you all." He smiles up at Kandle with the same measure of pride as that of a father to his son’s achievements. "MY Undertaker has shown me the light."

Reivyn Poe pointed at the mortician, "So. So you're the ‘Unrevealed One’?!!"

"Respectfully..Yes."

Slowly now....tenderly, Bearer attention now move to the Widow. Inching towards her, his brow creasing with grief? Guilt? “Umm.. Cathy?" His tone softened. "Here...If you'd like...Umm...You must be cold. I , ah .. hope you won't mind waiting? Then I promise we can return to the parlor for food."

Poe looked at Kane... Kandle... whomever this person was. She looked at Paul Bearer, and looked at everyone else in the crypt. She thanked Shadow for healing her foot, but her face still wore the puzzle and now twisted in confusion.

"So basically everything I was led to believe about the Undertaker was nothing but bullshit!, huh? Every ounce of chivalry, dignity he had when he donned the purple, every soul of evil he took to defeat, everything I ever believed is nothing, huh?” With a whine, she cried, “Why the hell do I even FIGHT?!"

Tossing her sword to the side, it clanked across the floor., her head buried in her hands. The unexpected reaction forced the Shadow Warrior to her side in an effort to calm her.

“Not the response I had anticipated.” Bearer said.

"Don't worry.” Shadow began. “You'll slowly understand. It took me a long time to comprehend, and yet, I still don't know the answer to all my questions. Sometimes, I don't know what the questions even are." Shadow rears his head around to the Widow, wondering what her outburst earlier had been all about. He wondered what she might have meant with such a ‘maternal’ exclamation. His eyes rooted on her for just a moment more, he winced at the possibility of that explanation. Instead he looked at Kandle.

"Reivyn Poe is here for a reason, Kane. Fate would have never had us here, unless Poe were of some importance to our cause. We both know why I'm here, and why Widow is. But why she would be brought into this ...I barely know her myself. I would ask Widow. What I am wondering, Kandle, is why Falcy so scared. What would have him scared when you appeared? Yet, with me he always seems so sure. Do I lack something...something my dear friend never taught me in training?" The Shadow Warrior sighed suddenly as he hung his head, "Forgive me. I'm young and impulsive, but still I have many questions and need answers."

Pausing...staring...searching, The Widow accepts the blanket from Paul as he wraps it around her shoulders to squeeze up next to her. "I have no idea how long we might have to be here. You'll keep much warmer this way in a huddle." He comforted.

"All this time.” Catherine’s eyes wore the same garment of sadness as Paul Bearer had when he first offered the comforter. “It wasn't you." She stammered. “I--I feared you. I hid from you. All this time I hid from you, and you knew where I was all along. You knew everything about me. You put the urns in the crypt knowing I would go there, so you could watch me. You knew He, he would try to find all of you through me. It wasn't just a dream. He...Hee-e —Oh! Omigawd! It wasn't a dream. SHADOW!"

The Widow jumped up to her feet with revelation and all sorts of newly harvested exposition, and turned to the boy. "Shadow, you are in more danger than you can possibly imagine! Him. Your father ...It wasn't a dream! I know it now. It wasn't a dream!” Catherine was fanatic. “He won't get you!” She belted. “I won't let him have you!"

She spun around grasping the lapels of Bearer's jacket, "Oh, Paul, don’t let him! Don't let him have any of my children! Just tell me what to do, I will do it!"

As the Widow Cat fuss over the truth, in the second it took for Reivyn Poe to cry, just as quickly the room became what it was meant to be in the first place —A Tomb. A grave. And now pain and detachment ebbed in the eyes of the Pheonix. He spoke no words, but his undecided expressions toyed with and played out waves of remorse upon his antique face. His steel-toned eyes begging Poe’s understanding.

“It is not bullshit.” Kandle's heart pleaded.

He hung his head settling on Reivyn's discarded sword glinting to the way side, and then to Widow.

Do you not recognize me, my mother? In silence his mind asked as he glanced at her soundlessly. Here I am, Mother! I'm here! I AM Here! Shadow? ...Shadow do you ‘really’ undertstand?

“But, but...That's NOT true!" Kandle finally sounded aloud and he bent towards the confuse-riddled Reivyn Poe, "That's not true. Undertaker IS everything you always believed him to be. A creature of pride and dignity held and given. What has happened is —”

Brows ruffled in spit, and Poe cut him off with one finger pointing stiff.

“You!! WHO the HELL are YOU anyway?!" Her fury washed over his form from head to foot examining the attire of cloaking blackness. The wide brim hat was too familiar, like some cherished heirloom in her memories. The customary long, black coat was just as same, save for the fall of a cape drapping from the shoulders and hugging his arms where vanilla-colored ruffles wreathed his wrist.

“WHAT are you?!!" She continued coldly.

"Poe..." Warrior went to say, but quickly she snapped. "NO! No, this ...this ...‘thing’ just shows up outta nowhere to tell me how much time I've wasted on lies and all your dirty, little secrets. I gave every bit of myself to a fight I don't even know who I'm fighting, nor if it even exist. Now Bearer.. PAUL BEARER?! How long have you known the truth about him? After I lived in fear, scared for all of you! ..All lies! LIES!!"

"But they're not lies." Paul protested, "They were necessary. If it had been allowed to happened any other way, then truly everything you could be afraid of, would surely be a reality."

Reivyn Poe's look pegged him like darts, "Sooo.. Who's fault is this? My God!" She crumbled instantly, "Ohhh Gaawwwwd!!!"

The confidence that Kandle had was washing away. Afterall, this was his curse. HIS...

"I know this is difficult to fathom," Warrior tried to sooth her. "All will be explained in due time, but you must trust Kandle on this. He knows everything about what's going on and how to combat it. Don't you, Kane?"

"Please believe in Undertaker." Kandle appealed. "He's only lost, and has been blinded by the whims and obsessions of a man who knows no forgiveness or mercy. He has a powerful grip on him, and he is ultimately possessing in the words he gives." Kandle grasped her hand in pity, "Oh, Poe. Believe me. I'm not what you are thinking I have become."

"You?" Poe's sparked question, "I .. I was talking about Undertaker."

Ebb Tide. Like crashing waves.... flinging wayward souls back and forth and crushing them upon the jagged rocks of time. Ebb Tide. ..Always felt. Ebb Tide ...always there.

As her eyes begged the question, Kandle's heart sank as a under-current ran the length of their rocky respite, “I know."

He pinched back the bruise caused by her hurt. Maybe Reivyn did scream and holler violently, but the Pheonix also knew exactly why and how come. He had always known the hearts of his Creatures, and knew precisely what, individually, had cause each of them to want to follow him. Follow him through hell, need be.

“I know.” He started again. “I know it because I AM Undertaker.”

He broke away from her to the steps that lead up to the outside. Without another word or glance more, he climbed up out of the tomb. Reivyn Poe, however, peers down at her hand. How it felt just now when he touched her. That vibe. That, that...

“Undertaker?” Alarm gorged her. “UNDERTAKERRRRR!!!”

Watched as Poe sprint up the staircase after Kandle, Shadow Warrior sprang to his feet ignoring the dull, pulsating pain pounding in his arm, "Wait! Reivyn!!"

Paul grasped his shoulder, "No, Warrior.” He said, urging him to sit back down. “I think Poe needs this moment alone with him. If it's going to come out, then it has to come out now. She's going to have to learn herself. There's nothing you can do to make that easier for her."

Warrior paused at the bottom stair, teeters, and then turns back to Widow. Paul follows with his lantern still in tow and settles again beside her.

"I'm sorry your questions have been stalled by this, Warrior. Once Reivyn knows, then we can gain the knowledge to others."

"There's TOO many questions." Widow huffed.

Paul's lips played with a smile, "I will do everything in my power to do as you asked, Cathy. I swear it on all my love for —" Bearer paused. Frozen a moment, the spheres of his eyes waxed as they crawled across her face before turning to the floor at his feet. “— On m-my...love for you."

2

The Wind is so discontented tonight.. Treacherous, and yet so beautiful as it plays upon the sea out there..and the waves, endlessly pushing them back onto the shores, only to hurl them onto the rocks without mercy once they reached that distant goal and then to pull them swiftly away back into the black, barren depths from which they came in the first place. ...Such a endless, eternal process. Such a portrait of torment without reprieve.

~A Poem; "The Tragity of Kandle"

Time ticked slowly without words. It gave Reivyn Poe a moment to absorb the music of the night outside the old granite tomb. Crickets chirped endless chords. Somewhere farther away, invisible in the darkness, a owl suddenly hooted. Clouds leapt across the face of the sound, and the voice of the wind spoke through the bending bodies of trees.

The being, Kandle had crouched beside an aging and badly broken gravestone; its letters was long since scoured to bare nicks. The gale rose strong and harsh for a spell, and it whipped hers and Kandle's hair and clothing forward.

"I.." He started. His face colored with gray and white mix. "Didn't expect you to understand, but you are asking for a lot. There are things I'm not so sure you can handle." His fingers stroked the gray slate.

Reivyn crouched beside him, "I want too. Are you Kane? Undertaker? Half? Both??"

Kandle dropped his head again. “The battle you question now IS very real. It is the violence of the wrath of the unknown that alludes you. Years ago, I swore you would not understand the Darkside. You do not know what goes on there. Perhaps now you can believe me."

"Are you Undertaker?"

"I was."

Reivyn Poe's left eyebrow forged a question mark. But he started again..

"Many, many, years ago. Far before your birth, I roamed as real, as alive, and free as you are now." Kandle lifted his head and eyes at the memory, "Once so much like you..so long ago. I ..can't quite remember how it feels to be so separate from the night. Neither name you give is wrong. I, this history, encompasses this present.”

Again Kandle stroked the stone looking upwards to the clouds, like knife-like slashes cut in the night sky above, where the moon was playing peek-a-boo with stars. Reivyn studied his face. The tone of his voice was so much that of her Deadman that if she just closed her eyes, he would surely be there .... Or, was he already just like he said? Kandle was a absolute carbon copy right down to the twitch in his lip. It was as though 1991 had leapt out from her old video tapes back home and was sitting here now beside her in total disregard to the year 1999.

“Where have you been, Undertaker?” She asked.

“I’ve been ... dead.”

+++++++

NEXT SCENE: The history of the Man in Black., Oh! Such weakness thus to piddle from the truth that like the centuries’ approaching dawns prior, before the eastern sun would slant its warm rays upon the vine-clad slopes, he would be sleeping yet again with the quiet dead.

[Druidess]

Kandle was prepared to tell her about his life back when he still knew it. He must have shared the same account umpteen hundred times since the day he breathed his last, and just how many times more that he wanted to share, but was unable to find a soul. No voice to agree or to argue. He could tell Reivyn Poe that there is a view that is very beautiful. Far down below this prison, he traced a thousand times one thousand how the eager river broadens to the sea. Looking between its sudden crags and fir-coned heights, far off he could see the long, blue range all mellowed with dusk mists. In long expanse, he could see the sloping fields, the waving barley yellowed by the sun of the earlier day....Such joy as should redeem all foregone pain.

But, Oh! Such weakness thus to piddle from the truth that like the centuries’ approaching dawns prior, before the eastern sun would slant its warm rays upon the vine-clad slopes, he would be sleeping yet again with the quiet dead.

Reivyn started when he didn’t begin. “You said .. Your mother died in childbirth?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?” Poe’s voice was as dainty as the cricket chirps.

“It was too much for her.” Kandle replied. “I am told that my father was once a loving man. If he had been, I never knew that individual. When she passed away, my father needed something to blame; somewhere convenient to vent. It would became me. I kept the years of isolation he gave to me, and held tight to the collection of all the various degrees of loneliness it inspired deep into my adulthood.”

Reivyn Poe never once interrupted him. Kandle’s words complimented his eloquent manner almost too perfectly; like Shakespeare to a sonnet. From time to time he would pause and his eyes would broaden; fixed upon the darkness before him as though it were the vanished past —Especially when he began to talk of a woman he once knew named, Belle Von Cortlandt.

Belle, he divulged, had cut his lonesomeness like a razor, shredding the violence of his boyhood to bits. Even though a cloud slide across the surface of the moon for a instant to obstruct his face from her view, the night could do nothing to deny the tone of complete passion in his voice right now. Whoever Belle had been, it was clear that Kandle truly loved her. Reivyn’s suspicions proved true when the cloud moved and she could see him again.

“Her purity ..” He was looking back at her. “Her purity,” He whispered, “Had been as fierce and untamed as the very passion in her soul —a flame of hope to woo my heart and to sooth my heartache.” He shook his head. “If I loved her then as I have loved nothing else since.”

The flutter of wings --hundreds of them coming towards them-- prompted him to stop, but only a moment. The ruckus disturbed Reivyn Poe more then it had startled him. Kandle was used to it. Every evening, the bats that shared his living quarters flooded out from the nicks and spaces between the stones to fill the whole sky. Now they were all returning. Their silhouettes streamed across the moon like a rippling ribbon as they soared back to their roosts in the indigo dark. Lingering on one of the ledges that framed the Bearer family tomb, the Phoenix watched the creatures of the night. They were back from succumbing to their instincts —and felt, for a second, the urge for him to do the same as he had not already.

The reminder cast a spell on him.

Even though the family cemetery hadn’t seen a new burial in its grounds since the late 1970's, the area was not without purpose. Kandle had remained here on the fringes of society and civilization. Although he had not always called this crypt home, at least he was free from the continuous wandering and the vagabond lifestyle he had grown so sick of in the mid-1800's. Flee here ..Run there ..Move there. It was nice to have a place with some stability. But the living always seem to think that his kind had no guilty concept of their conditions. No conscious thought of humanity or moral. It was a cruel, cruel stereotype. In the past three hundred years he hadn’t aged a day older passed thirty-three. Ah, what he wouldn’t give to see a gray hair on his head, to know he had grown older normally instead of being tucked in time until the end of eternity.

His life had become a complex lie comprised of dozen of descriptions and false truths. The friendships he had allowed himself to form over the decades had been superficial and temporary. Those he had known in life, had long since passed away now. Except for the Bearer family that had fostered him since old Reverend Joshua, he had become a loner by necessity and habit.

Kandle cared far more than the living ever knew. He had investigated all the myths and legends circulating about lost souls who suffered such similar fates as his own, hoping to find a shred of truth in the superstitious lore that might end his torment. Over the scores of years he had experimented and studied every word of hearsay. But as far as he could ever find, nothing could cure his cursed affliction —except, perhaps a stake of silver through his heart.

The memories caused Kandle to grimace at the prospective solution to his problem, and then laugh at the irony of the last. He nearly forgot that Reivyn Poe was even still there, but picked up where he left without so much as a miss. He spoke of how Belle was the object of interest to another man; a powerful, aristocrat gent named, Darin Hill. When she refused his pompous trinkets in exchange for Kandle’s simplicity, Hill raged with jealousy.

“What happened?” Reivyn dared to ask. Kandle couldn’t be any more blunt:

“He killed me.”

All around her, energy buzzed and a unknown desire of anticipation dug powerful claws into Poe’s soul.

“You might say that Darin had put his fortunes to good use.” The Phoenix said after awhile, “He could not bare the thought of Belle sharing her life with me so he took it away. He accused me of various crude and perverse behaviors against her and acts of witchcraft. Ultimately I was purged at the stake.”

Poe gasped. Her palm tightening around her mouth, but Kandle continued. "However..I would not as so completely perish by those flames that devoured me then. Darin Hill made certain of that. I remember him saying to me once how I would not became one with the ash.. Nor would I scatter in the wind. Forgotten, he swore to me, yes, but I would never rest in peace.”

Kandle considered his surrounding again. “And so I have not.” He said. “It has been 300 years now since that day ...306 to be exact.”

He looked so sad so suddenly again. Removing his hat from his head, Kandle palmed its wide brim twirling a finger in the ribbon of black silk.

“Belle ..” He began, grief cracking his speech. “She never knew what had truly become of me. Believing me dead, she thought to join me and so, drove a sword through her chest. I lost her forever. How likely it is that I would have a brother in this lifetime now who's name would be my very own, and that by my very own hand, under Hill's alluring power, he would innocently have to share the torment I felt so many centuries before.”

“Kane?” Poe guessed. “Your brother, Kane?”

“How Darin Hill must laugh at me!” Kandle tore to his feet with the whole, sudden bitterness of it all and Reivyn Poe instinctively followed his lead.

“But surely this creep, Darin Hill is dead now. After all, it has been 300 years as you’ve said, right?”

“Dead, yes.” Kandle agreed. “I killed him myself. Passed away? ...No. Now he just haunts me, grinning at how his curse upon me destroys and rips apart lives. I begin to wonder if a stake would even spare me now. The demon would never allow for my escape to be so easy. He is more satisfied, it would seem, to keep this old shell before you reanimated for the sole purpose of my having to watch his evil deeds in action.”

He stared at something out in the dark, which Reivyn couldn’t see. Then he ran his fingers through the curls of his hair. Comforting as that gesture appeared, when Poe stroked the back of hers and patted it, it wasn’t as so nonchalant, but instead to calm her sudden racing heart. She didn’t know why.

“But Damned, I may be. Helpless, I am not.” Kandle started once more. When his eyes offered Reivyn Poe a fleeting look, they matched the bright sterling of the moon face just above. For a moment they might as well have been made of glass as he laced his fingers together neatly in front of him.

“Perhaps the demon thought I would just sit idly by when the fire broke out twenty-two years ago. I could not allow for this curse to resume in this lifetime as well.” He explained. “I saved my brother, Kane.”

“From Darin Hill?”

“Yes. And from myself.”

“Yourself?” Reivyn hugged herself. The remark was so strange. “Who? .. Wait, but...” She stared, spellbound, into the paleness of his face.

“You know, Reivyn.”

“But I was wonderi...”

“You know.” Defiance and pain, both, played on his brow. “It may be best if we left it there for now.”

“But...”

His look stabbed her. “I said, not now!”

Reivyn Poe swallowed, but though she tried, she just could not conceal her frown. It was not his sudden anger that had shocked her, but rather the way he seemed disturbed by it himself. After so long, she thought --so long to grow accustomed to the thing he had become-- his own actions still seemed to take him by surprise. And she felt pity for him, and the Phoenix, Kandle, as though reading her thoughts, departed a laugh.

“Do not insult me.” He cautioned.

“But I’m not!” Reivyn glowered. “I ..I just don’t understand.”

“Of course not! You’re mortal! How can you know how it is?!”

Reivyn looked a lot more now like a small, punished child rather than the warrior she thought herself to be. “It’s just...” She sniffed. “Well, how am I to help Undertaker at all if I don’t understand exactly what has happened.”

When her eyes began to sheen now, Kandle realized he had hurt her feelings. Even more, she was also very right. “I .. I do not like what I’ve become.” He apologized. “I’ve fought very hard to preserve and protect my reincarnation from these very things. For three centuries, I contained my knowledge, and the lessons of my predicament, inside of a vessel that I gave to the man who first tried to cure me for safe keeping until the proper time made itself clear. An old minister from Portsmouth named, Joshua Bearer.” The Phoenix resolved. “It has been passing through his lineage ever since.”

“Paul Bearer...” Reivyn whistled his name to herself. So that’s where the rotund, mortician comes in.

"What happened?" She asked aloud.

“Mark, the one you call Undetaker today, stopped listening. Whatever means I have fought to foreclose, now sit in a gather of dust and webs inside the sacred urn. As Undertaker divided from Bearer, so too, has he divided from me. This has given Darin Hill the opportunity to retort. He is now the higher voice of the Ministry who Undertaker now willingly obeys."

"Ohhhhh ..My God!” Reivyn was hysterical. “Oh, my God! FATHER ARISTEDT!"

"Yes...Aristedt. He is Darin Hill. He will seek nothing less now than the absolute destruction those against him, or those part of my.. Of Undertaker's ..MY Family."

“Oh, my God.” Poe still couldn’t believe it and necessitated for more out of him. In her exhilaration, she grasped the Pheonix’s arm tight. “Spirit, but what of Paul Bearer?! Why would he leave the Undertaker if he knew that Darin Hill would use the separation to his advantages?!”

“Like yourself, Paul is also mortal. He had become hypnotized by Aristedt’s spell and I put a end to it. Now he knows his true self and is of vital importance to our plans. Should Falcy, and the rest of the Occult, realize that he is a traitor, they will surely kill him. This is why he HAD to treat you harshly so that the secret would remain a secret."

Again, Reivyn felt her mind invaded by fear. She struggled against its hold. The panic grew worse. She could feel it melting her courage away. Her legs collapsed. She sat down.

"Kandle?” She could hear her blood pulse hard in her ears. She couldn’t know how come, but she was absolutely terrified of what she was about to ask the Everlasting Spirit next.

“Kane? ...What if something happens to Undertaker? Mark, Undertaker .. I mean."

"If my reincarnation should continue go along with Hill's demands and kills his brother, Kane, successfully, he and I ... We will die. Our damnation would be most permanent for I would have assumed Darin Hill’s very own role upon me 300 years before.”

Poe was afraid of that. Much more frightened than she would permit him to sense, she only released a sharp whistle, "This IS deep. Holy shit!"

“Please forgive me, Reivyn.” Kandle begged. “At this moment, I know not what I do as the man you love in the ring. As for who you are. I too, feel —"

The Pheonix suddenly froze solid. As though the words had been ripped from his throat all at once. Quickly spinning on one heel, there was nothing Poe could see. Maybe she just couldn’t? Perhaps it was Falcy?! Maybe he found their hiding place at last. A likely theory, but it wasn’t the reason either. As the sky shifted paler colors, Paul Bearer, with Widow and Shadow Warrior, were emerging from the crypt. Paul sprint to Kandle in a rush.

"Kandle!! 'Taker.. The birds. The birds!"

"What's that mean?" Poe's head shot back and forth to each of them.

"It means I can no longer stay. They sing that the dawn is coming and I must go now." The Phoenix tipped his head politely. “I shall see you all this evening?"

“I'm taking them to the parlor.” Paul informed him. “I'm going to need to sew Shadow's arm. As well there is much we all need to discuss. Hopefully by tonight all will be clearier into what must be done."

Shadow Warrior took Poe's hand as Widow hugged the blanket more tightly around her.

"The Undertaker’s mother." Kandle said it; his declaration plumed in the brand new, round-eyed expressions of everyone gathered beside Widow, and at what he had just called her.

“I know that you are.” He confirmed; a smirk tugged his lips for a instant. Kandle’s head and gaze tipped upwards, "Tell me, mother,” He said to her. “Tell me what the sunlight looks like next you see of me. Please tell me ..”

He was choking it bad. The need to mourn was so strong. How bad it all hurt so suddenly.

“..Tell me if it has changed much in these passing of years.”

Watching without a single word to offer, the Widow Catherine looked on as the ancient creature disappeared now down into the crypt of William Joshua Bearer~

+++++++

NEXT SCENE: The mother of all Darkness ...

[Druidess]

4

Shadow Warrior looked back at Widow, his head pounding with the mystery and curiosity of just what it all exactly meant now, and what she could have meant earlier inside the tomb. Her frantic statements of, ‘My father..’ and that it ‘wasn’t a dream.’

What wasn’t a dream, Widow?...WHAT dammit!?..

The pricking and poke of each question stung as badly as the sharp, needling pain that still tortured his body as they finally reached the double-arched doors of the Bearer family home. Shadow realizes that he’s actually seen it once before in a video promotion that Paul Bearer performed several years earlier. The Undertaker was brand-new on the WWF scene then.

Hurting as he was, Shadow had cared more about everyone else's welfare before his own. His free hand palming his cut arm gently, felt wet. With good reason --shirt he bound it with was completely soaked through, and for a moment, lightheaded, he was sure that there were two now when he inspected it.

Shadow Warrior struggled to stand still, but couldn't. Once more he tried to catch his balance.

"Widow...please tell me what is going on... Kandle is ...cursed ...why...I've felt like I've been cursed since my very birth. When will it stop. Poe, please, you must understand...and trust..."

Shadow begins to lose all consciousness before his left foot landed the first step. He wonders if he was actually truly talking at all! Furious that there are no answers for all his wonder, he removes the shirt-gauze from his arm and threw it to the ground. He slant to the side, picked out Poe’s concerned glance before him, and with a drunken smile he says:

“Pardon me, while I consult my fellow shadows, t-they have beckoned me. I need their help and guidance.”

He looks over to a tiny corner, a area of the porch with no light gleaming, puts his back against the wall, and slowly sinks all the way down until he was squat on the decking. A broken cobweb on his shoulder, a very disturbed spider sped across his shoulder and straight up the nearest rail.

“I once had a father.” Shadow Warrior mused to noone in particular. “Haha! He wanted me to kill ..someone. Someone dear to ... Well, too bad I never felt enough anger and hatred in my heart. Now my father just hates me."

Shadow slowly closed his eyes; a eerie smile on his face at the whole satire of it.

Widow felt for him entirely, truly she did, just like she cared so many others she had gathered under her wing, but she also couldn’t quite seem to be able to separate herself from having seen her eldest son (?) depart into the tomb back in the family cemetery that neighbored the historic funeral parlor.

"Rest now, little prince" She hummed; referring to the nickname she once used when the Undertaker was very small. Her Prince of Mischief. “Tonight.” Widow agreed with Kandle’s sentiment. “I promise.”

That was the end of her calm. Once in the foyer, she spun to Paul Bearer in a instant grabbing his waist and shaking him.

“How can we hope to do what has to be done, Paul?! If he had to save us from just that creature, Falcy! What will happen when Darin Hill comes for my Shadow? .. He will you know? Just as he is coming for my Undertaker, and Kane, too! And what of Kane? I mean, is he safe right now?! How much time do we have? And what about Shadow having Hill's blood flowing through his veins? What do you think he has in mind for him? And Reivyn —”

“Wid’a.” Paul Bearer faltered.

“— What damnations will they make her suffer?”

“Wid’a!”

“Is it possible to stop Aristedt at all?! Can we? How will we —” Catherine caught the most incredulous look on Paul’s face just then. “What?” She frowned. “Oh, why are you looking at me like that for, Paul? How can you smile at a time like this?...Oh,”

The Widow Cat looked down, and then back up as if remembering something from long time ago. “I know. You used to always have to tell me, let you answer the first question before asking a dozen more.” In spite of all her worries, Catherine giggled.

"To quote the M.I.B ...this ranks about a 9.5 on my weird shit-o-meter." Reivyn Poe finally said at last as she dragged into the room. The dawn today had such bad timing. She wanted Kandle to tell her more about his life, and Undertaker’s. She would have gladly have spent the day's hours in that crypt to do so. She slowly approached the paunchy mortician who was leading Widow in. He would have to suffice.

“So this Armisdat... Airestee ...whatever his name is, was messing with your mind?” She asked Paul. “No offence, but I sorta wondered what made you such a demon after the betrayal. I... guess I sorta owe you an apology."

Paul looked over his shoulder and looked back at Poe. His eyes wore the guilt that he still felt deep inside about the whole ordeal. “Quite alright.” He replied. “And I don't blame you in the least. We have a lot of things on our hands, other than what was mentioned. That ‘other’ might become a problem. You see, while I was under the influence of Aristedt, I wanted to destroy the Undertaker and I came across something rather terrifying. He led me to a place more fearsome than hell --if than can be true-- a place called, Stygian. The Undertaker of modern era, as you probably know, was destined to rule there. Father Aristedt got one books through him. But Augustus Slayer of the Millennia Corporation has the other."

“SLAYER?!” Reivyn was shocked. “So THAT'S why he's after the both the Occult and Ministry!”

“Wait!” Widow overheard. “But there exist three known bibles of Stygian. If Slayer has one, and Aristedt has another ...”

“Who has the third?” Poe concluded.

Paul Bearer hesitated a moment, stopping dead in his tracks as he looked down, "I do.” He confessed. “It’s hidden in a place well within. It was with that power that Falcy returned along with the other souls from Stygian that made up my group. They are all from Stygian --as are the Millenia Corp. The one who gets all 3 books becomes its supreme ruler and the gates to the dimensions thereof."

"WHAT!?!" Poe exclaimed.

“How the hell did you manage to get one of the bibles of Stygian?!” Widow was even more astonished.

“I’ve always had it.” The manager uncovered. activated by their excitement briefly, he calmed. “Though I admit that I didn’t always know. It belonged to Alan Parker.”

“Who’s Alan Parker?” Reivyn Poe’s brow wrinkled.

“Ah, yes .. And by there hangs a tale.”

“Well good.” Widow sailed into the nearest seat in the room. “We have whole rest of the day.”

And he would need it too. The story about how the book came into his possession was multifaceted and every bit thoroughly complex. He glanced at Reivyn Poe. “What did Kandle tell you?”

“Well.. Lot’s of things.”

“Like what?”

“Like a lot.” Reivyn didn’t know what he wanted. “That he’s dead. That the Undertaker is his reincarnation. ..Take your pick.”

“Did he tell you how he died?” Paul quizzed.

“Well, he told me that this guy Darin Hill was responsible for it.”

“Noone just simply becomes what Kandle is, Reivyn.” Paul Bearer’s words, though definitive, was as soft as a hug --a cold kind of hug. “To even activate such a curse as that, he would have needed resources. Darin Hill had money .. Lots of it!”

“You think he may have paid someone to curse Kandle?” Widow asked.

“More specifically, I think he paid to have one of the bibles of Stygian.”

He watched as both the Widow’s and Reivyn’s eyes rounded.

"There is a 17th century documentation that exist that found its way into the hands of my ancestors, along with Alan Parker's book, which describe that at the same time Kandle was still in prison, there were two others who were also accused of the crime of witchcraft. Alan says that Darin Hill believed those two to be genuine and so he went to them frequently throughout the trials. Interestingly enough, there was far more than enough evidence to prove their guilt ...much more than what they had to sentence Kane. But yet, they were both set free. Alan Parker's notes say that it was Hill who signed the forms for their release."

Widow crossed her arm. “Hmm .. Lots of suspicion. But that doesn’t prove that these two had one of the books.”

“Incidently, it does.” Paul corrected. “Alan Parker was once an associate of Darin’s until he realized just how crooked Hill actually was. Any property and personal belongings that any of the prisoners had on them at the time they were jailed, become evidence to the courts. Our two characters had some sort of a book with them. It was recorded on the original inventory register, but---” Paul Bearer smirked now. His eyebrows raised. "---They never left with it. Darin Hill did, however.”

“Well, shit.” Widow whistled.

“Oh, there’s more.” Paul held up one finger stiff. “Alan reportedly stole the book away from Darin Hill and took it with him when he left Evans Hill. He figured that if a evil curse made Kandle what he was then perhaps someone holy, who could decipher the book properly, would be able to fix it. He took Kandle to my ancestor, the Rev. Joshua Bearer. Joshua wasn’t able to cure Kane, but the book has been in my family’s possession ever since.”

“But.. if the books are so evil?” Reivyn Poe started.

“They are evil only in evil hands.” Paul Bearer cut that thought in half. “Just like anything else. Like a cross when it is turned upside down. Just like a rope, you can choose to use it to save your life from a great height, or .. hang yourself.”

5

Shadow Warrior sat in a corner, as Poe and Widow interrogated Paul. He knew not what to think, nor what to say. Too many things were already in his mind.

The blood of Aristedt's through his veins?

The name was so familiar. He had heard it once or twice before. Why did it make him shiver in fear? Yet, Kandle made Shadow feel so secure --as did Widow. He glanced over at a confused Reivyn Poe. He knew it would take her time to comprehend. Eyes on the floor once more, it was the first time that he had noticed that his arm didn’t throb quite as so much. No longer did it burn the insatiable heat, the kind that could never be watered down. Like Greek Fire. His head was spinning though, and it was in the dizzy that he felt a presence, more than just a presence, a omnipotent being! The voice he heard was so loud in his ears.


Shadow...Shadow, my son... please answer my call...it is me..


Shadow flicked his head from right to left for the source of the voice, yet he saw only Widow, Poe, and Bearer still talking. Shadow Warrior remained confused, but not paranoid enough to ask what it was. The sound of a claw ripping through flesh pierced through Shadow's mind. Another flashback?


Shadow? Shhhhhaaaadowwww...


He brought up his hands to his ears in a futile attempt to not hear, but the voice came from inside.


Shadow! Answer me. Son, I need you, I need you to do something for me...


"What, what do you need? Why are you calling for me? Why the sound of death and agony in my head?"


You are my blood, but you are cursed, cursed forever my son. You have the blood of the woman and you have the friendship of my enemy. Please son, I beg of you, I took care of you those first ten years of your life. It was me who fathered you...


Visions of Shadow Warrior's childhood began to flash right before his eyes, playing soccer...writing poetry...climbing trees. Stuff any other kid would do at the age of 9. Where were all these memories coming from? Why now?


Shadow ...I need you to listen to me. Our enemy is to betray you soon.


Shadow listened as he grasped one of his sai in hand, now frightened.


Son...you are to do my bidding. Kandle... The Undertaker. They must end now. Think of those you care about and see them now in the room. You know what he plans to do to each of them in time.


Shadow Warrior picked up the sai and stands...seemingly in a trance.

"KANDLE! What is going on?!" But the scream is in Shadow Warrior’s head, and not on his lips.

Paul groaned slightly. The quiz of questioning and the wrath of confusion were all much to great. He suddenly felt like a student un prepared for a test.

"Kandle spoke nothing of the books to me.” Poe was saying. "Is he aware?"

“Not sure. But I can’t imagine him not knowing something. He would have been present with both the reverend and Alan, both. He is most aware the Father Aristedt however, and what he's doing. That man's constantly plotting and scheming, tricking and lying. You truly do not understand. Darin Hill, in any form, is not human and he simply doesn’t care.”

Quivering, sipping breaths sounding from the reverse side of the room made Paul turned his head towards it.

“Are you alright, Warrior? I have the needle and threading ready, and I'll inject a localized painkiller so there's no need to be nervous." He picked up and thumped at the needle as he spoke. “We can get started now while --He looked at the ladies-- you both can help yourself to the kitchen."

Shadow Warrior sucked in breaths, "Nooo!" He winced, "No. Not yet." He clutched his sai to the point his knuckles were ghost white.

Damn, the voice again....


Shadow ... Shhhaaaadow...


“Are you feeling well, Shadow?" Paul's voice momentarily chased the enchanted call away. “Ohh..Falcy DID take quite the lash at you. Hahaha..I can punish him for failing to kill you promptly, if you like. Remember I still ‘rule’ my ‘Occult’"

Shadow clamped his eyes shut and then slide towards the door, "No ..I just. I just think I'm too dizzy right now. I --I need some fresh air first.”

Paul looked dumbfounded.

"G..G..Give me a few minutes okay? .. Okay?"

Paul's eyes switched from small slits to wide in a ruffle, "Oh.. Well alright."


In the kitchen...


Widow glanced up, "Paul? But I thought you were stitching Shadow?"

"Well I was. He insisted that he needed some fresh air first and stepped outside for a minute. Has he a phobia to needles?"

“Not to my knowledge. He's had more then his life's share."

6

Outside the world of violet paint and darkened recesses had passed for the strong glare of a fiery new sun. It made the Shadow Warrior hold up his palm as a shield against the glare.


Go..Go, my son. Down the path to the old cemetery. Go. He is sleeping there. Sllleeeeeeeping."


Warrior shook his head. No good.


He has come to destroy you all. He is a liar. A repulsive, unemotional, stalker of life and blood. Do you really think something so dead can actually feel compassion for life?


"Kandle hasn't hurt me!" Shadow argued.


Ohhhhh, but he will. This is all of his doing in the first place. It is his curse. Now he bides his time ...waiting for the moment in which to strike. But we know much better and will strike first.


Shadow was so caught up in the powerful hold of the voice that he didn't remember walking forward, nor off the porch for that matter. But here he was and the powder-blue tinted granite crypt of William Joshua Bearer III, in all its wild tangles of thick ivy, was right in view. Passed two stone Madonnas, St. Joseph, and a weeping angel.

Shadow Warrior lifted his sai. The mask of Aristedt contorting and infecting his face and mind like a plague. Even if it made no sense at all, a instant hatred that was not his, rose in him like a infection.

"Yeessss.." Warrior hissed, "Kandle MUST die! It's his fault! HIS!” Desending the steps, his footfalls echoed the dank interior where a oak wood, inlayed coffin sat silent on its perch between two stands of flameless candles before him. Shadow Warrior grabbed them, fetching handfuls of dried leaves and sticks from corners. He would burn this beast as he slept.


NO! Fire will only give him strength. It'd do no good to destroy him by such means..


Shadow growled and dusted the leaves off the lid, then lifted it with a rustic grind. The voice in his head whispered sweet poison.


Ssssilver... It must be silver. Your dagger! The blade! Plunge it into his heart. Do it, son... Do it NOW!"


Shadow Warrior gazed down at the sleeping form of Kandle, who looked even more like the Undertaker with his arms crossed over his chest. His neck and head sunk into both his heavy, broadcloth jacket and pillow. Shadow pulled and raised the weapon.


Do it! .. DO IT NOW! NOW!


"SHAAAAAAADOW!" A voice screamed from behind and suddenly Paul Bearer leapt from the bottom step. Reaction moved before thought. He struck a candelabra perched nearby into the right side of Shadow Warrior’s head just as Poe, behind him, rushed down the rock steps, shrieked wildly. "Omigod!! What is he doing?!" She begged.

Paul dropped the candlestick. With a huff that sounded so final, he swung his attention over the body of his sleeping Undertaker before slowly returning the lid of the coffin to it's closed place.

“Damn you, Darin Hill!” Paul spat. “DAMN YOU TO HELLLL!!"

7

The Widow had been looking out the window in the kitchen, deep in thought at all the events that had taken place, and all the possibilities yet to come. She would not have gathered everyone together if she was really afraid of their circumstance, but she did in fact worry some about their vulnerability. Something touched the back of her neck just now, she thought. She turned quickly to see who it was.

No one was there!

No one really was there! All at once, she realized Reivyn Poe was gone. In the foyer where she thought she would find her there with Paul and Shadow, she noticed they were gone too! The syringe was still full and sitting on the table next to the needle and sutcher thread.

Widow’s heart started pounding and she began a frenzied search for them throughout the parlor, calling for Shadow in each room she entered.

“He has come for him. He’s come for Shadow!” She just knew it! Half in panic, anger began to take over, "No way. No more sniveling weakness of yours!" She yelled at herself.

8

The licks of the basin of flame before him painted an assorted play-dance of crimson, gold, and sherbert colors across the black cloaked face of the figure before it. Suddenly the figure flinched back with a hiss of pain; a thud echoing without reprieve. A echo only he can hear, only he can feel, only he knows.

"Sssssss..Ahhhrrr!!" Shadows can only make out gnashing teeth and drawn up lips, "Damn!.. Damn! DAAAAMN!!!"

In a pout of rage, the Father Aristedt sends a goblet sailing into the wall behind him. Pieces of it's jewels dislodge and skip across the floor. He pulls the cowl down. "Damn." He says under breath. This interfering person MUST be discovered. Who ever he or she is, has the final book. Who is it? Who has stopped him? He snaps to the bowl of fire with a scowl.

"You haven't excaped yet, Kane. You can never escape me. Never...NEVER!! This time you WILL became of the ashes."

9

Growling at the uninvited under-currents floating around her, Widow snapped a angry glance at the room before bolting to the door...

"Nooo!!" She spit. "You tried to once. You WON'T again!!" Coldness touched her neck again--Teasing, tempting her to dare to look back once more before she left the porch, but the voices of those she was searching for were starting to ring just as their figures began to emerge at the hill-line coming towards her.

"Widow!" Reivyn screamed, “Wiiiiiiidow!" Frantically she points --Paul’s brass urn swinging in her arm-- at Shadow Warrior being carried with all his might & effort by the mortician.

Widow Cat gasped and darted from the porch, "What happened?!" She cried, "Omigod!! What's happened?!!"

"Voices aren't NICE, Shadow." Groaning at each step and wheezing, Paul shuffled a motionless Warrior and heaved placing him on the grass. He tossed his head to the very concerned Widow, "I had to, Cat. I had to stop him. I caught him just about ready to stake Kandle. I do believe he's okay. I don't think he would have tried to pull something like if his head was all in the same place. Something ..or someone, pulled him.” Paul Bearer wheezed again, coughing this time. “And I just bet I know who.”

“Father Aristedt.” Widow gnashed her teeth. “Bastard!”

“Yes. The urn stopped it."

“His arm's bleeding again." Reivyn noted. "You ought to get it stitched up while he's still out. With the localized painkiller, he’ll sleep some and be absolute fine when he gets up."

“Good idea. Let’s get him into the parlor.”

"Paul, you know more about this Darin Hill than any of us.” Widow slid a arm up under Shadows. “More than even I can hope to understand. Isn’t there any way Shadow can fight his advances? Maybe I should just take my Shadow Warrior and run with him. I have gotten pretty good at that over the years, you know. Kandle obviously isn't safe with Shadow here, and if Kandle perishes, so do our other two sons!” Widow Cat was crying now. “What then? I could lose them all. You were there for them all their lives and I know you will keep them safe. Shadow only has me, and neither of us fully understand that."

She paused...

"While I was alone, I felt a presence in the house. He has found us you know."

+++++++

NEXT SCENE: Mideon sees...

[Druidess]

--- CONTINUED IN THREAD 3 --- !!!