Purple eyes

   The knight in shining armor was running through the hallways, make a clanking noise that was very hard to miss. He had entered the castle through the back, by a courtyard that had never been seen by eyes different than the ones of the cooks and maids that had worked there when the castle lived its golden age. Now, it building was empty and some areas were ruins, crumbling slowly into the ground.

 When he arrived at the end of one of the hallways, he took out a map from his pocket. It wasn’t very easy to take anything out of there with that costume on, so he decided to remove the leg parts in order to be faster. He wasn’t as big and powerful as one would guess so for a charming prince, but that’s what he was. He checked the map and then ran towards the left, down a very long corridor that connected the main part of the building with the south tower of the complex.

 He finally found the door that lead to the second tower. With one it of his sword, he was able to make the door collapse to the ground. He stepped on the remains of the door and started climbing the stairs, step by step. He got tired after the first fifty. He had to stop running so he sat down by a small opening to the side of the tower and saw the world from there. He could see the former gardens and the courtyard below but he was still too close to the ground to see any fantastic views.

 After a while, he kept on climbing, his armor was still making the clinking sound, with every single step he made. He stopped again after climbing for a long time and he saw, through another window, that he was close to his goal. He could see the road from the window and also the forest that existed between the castle and the rest of the civilized world. Some said the forest was created to keep everyone away from the castle but that hadn’t stopped many men from risking their lives and go there.

 Many died in the forest, attacked by packs of hungry wolves or by some huge bears that lived around. There were also rumors of ghosts and various monsters that only rose when the fog was thick or it was very late at night. But the biggest legend surrounding the area was that a dragon protected the building and it had burned knights to their deaths when they had tried to enter the castle without permission.

As he walked the few steps that distanced him from the room in the upper level of the tower, the knight celebrated the fact that he had wore the full armor to defend himself on his way to the top. He had killed a few wild animals with his sword but that was it. That’s why he felt that something was wrong. It had been too busy, not according to the legend that everyone knew by heart.

 When he got to the upper room, he knocked gently and presented himself as Knight of Vals and Dam, sir Tristane Deschamps. But even speaking loudly wasn’t good enough to make anyone open the door from inside. So he pushed the door opened and looked around to see if the rest of the legend was true. If there really was a very beautiful woman sleeping in the tower, waiting for someone to rescue her from imprisonment. He looked around but so no one.

 He entered the room and walked to what appeared to be a bed and checked, in order to know if the person that had lay there had left a moment ago or many years ago. He put his hand covered in metal on the bed and realized it was warm. There had been someone sleeping in it. Out of nowhere, a young woman appeared behind him and held him tightly with a knife to his throat. The knight felt hard to the floor. He couldn’t move there.

 The woman asked who he was and he repeated his name. Then she asked what he was doing there and he just looked at her a bit confused. He asked her if she wasn’t the beautiful lady that lived inside a castle waiting for a knight in shining armor to save her and take care of her for the rest of her life. She looked at him as if he had just heard someone speak in a strange language. The woman released him from her grip but told him to stay down.

 - You don’t need to rescue me.

 The knight was about to ask something else but then a sound was heard very loudly and appeared to come from the first floor. The knight had never heard anything like it, like a thousand lions roaring at the same time or many pieces of silverware falling to the ground. It was very unsettling and that’s why he couldn’t move, he couldn’t do anything more that advise the woman to live the castle with her as she was in mortal danger if that was the dragon.

 She didn’t appear to listen, instead helping him getting up. She seemed to be thinking about something else or was at least too distracted by other thought in her mind. The knight insisted she should go with him in order to fulfill the legend. He knew that she would be very well received in his towns and that everyone would love her.

 That apparently convinced the young woman. She stopped walking around and told the knight she would go with him. They went out of the door and slowly walked back down, each step being easier as they headed to freedom and civilization. The knight was happy about it because he had never thought he would be able to fulfill such a difficult task.

 When they arrived to the back courtyard, through which the knight had arrived, the woman stopped running behind the man. She just stood there, like frozen in time. Her heart was racing but none of her limbs could move. He got near her and tried to determine what was wrong with her and he couldn’t point it out. The roaring of the dragon seemed to grow closer so he decided he would carry the princess to the backdoor but that didn’t work because, somehow, she was very heavy.

 He doubted that was something natural. It had to be some kind of black magic in order not to take the woman out of the castle without fighting the dragon. Probably, whoever put her there, had left very specific instructions in order to safe her and killing the dragon was probably one of those. So he let her where she was and he stepped into the grass patch of the courtyard and looked up.

 The dragon wasn’t flying, as he had thought. He appeared from the opposite side of the courtyard, tearing down a wall with its enormous paws. It was very big, just like a gigantic lizard with blackish wings and a sickening greenish skin. The dragon pushed the wall, launching several stones towards the knight. He avoided them easily. He decided to grab his sword and run towards the dragon. He had to fulfill his destiny.

 But his arms were almost broken when the sword hit the dragon’s skin and it did absolutely no damage. Not only that, but the body of the creature seemed so big and resistant, that the blow had actually affected the knight more than the dragon. The creature did nothing. He just watched him trying to feel his arms again and grabbing his sword to try again with same results.

 He then realized there was no way of killing the creature, so he ran towards the princess in order to wake her up from her trance. The dragon was only looking at him so he thought it was a safe thing to do. When he reached the woman, he realized she was very cold, her hands almost feeling like ice. The dragon watched as the knight tried like a fool to “wake” her up fro whatever was happening to her.

 But then the dragon just grew closer and ate the knight in one gulp. The girl was then able to move but her eyes were not the same as before. They were purple, just like the eyes of the dragon. She blinked and the dragon blinked. She thought about tearing down the wall and the dragon did exactly that with ease. The princess was the monster everyone was afraid of. That’s why she couldn’t leave her castle. Because she shouldn’t. There was no way in trying to prevent evil from pouring out of her. So she kept herself locked away, even if sometimes she needed to breath like anyone else, to run away.

The cauldron

   Terrified with what he had seen in the cauldron, the knight ran down the stairs of the tower. He was running so fast he missed a step and his heavy armor made him fall hard on to the ground. He broke his neck and there ended the legend of the brave knight from the valley. What just happened was exactly the same thing he had seen in the thick and ever bubbling water of the cauldron, which only needed fire in order to reveal its secrets to the person in front of it. However, as the knight had realized, the cauldron did not receive orders or commands of any type so he showed whatever he wanted from the life of the person peeking in his waters, and as an element of black magic, the cauldron often showed people their deaths, which often happened before they could leave the tower.

 There was no castle to speak off. The dark witch who had created the cauldron had left it in that tower because there a person would have to go through several trials in order to finally get to the cauldron. There was a wasteland with living dead underneath it, a sea of quicksand, hungry wolves, rivers of fire and many other horrible creatures in the dark. It was no place for anyone who just wanted to take a look. The people that went there had decided, consciously, to ask the cauldron for its wisdom. They still believed the object was magical and good because the legend said so and no one had ever returned fro musing it. So many valiant folk went and died, their bodies adding up to the army of the dead of the wasteland or dying in some other horrible way.

 One day, a woman appeared in the far side of the wasteland. She was very beautiful and was completely alone. What was very strange was the fact that none of the creatures tried to eat her or even growl at her. Every single one of them kept a distance and she just walked slowly over the ashes, the crushed bones and the skulls of so many men and women who had come this far just to die and never had their questions answered. She got to the tower and, patiently, she walked up, looking through the small windows on the side of the tower. There was no one. She finally got to the cauldron and there she transformed into a very old lady, with a very mean face.

 It was the witch, the one that had created the cauldron. After many years of exile, she had decided to come here and wait. Out of nowhere, she materialized a kitchen, a bed and a loom. The room was also expanded in the inside but had been an imperceptible change from the outside. The old woman boiled up some water and made herself some tea and as she did, she just gazed at the cauldron. She couldn’t change it anymore, she couldn’t do anything for the souls that had been taken by it but she could offer the next man or woman the chance of seeing something more that his or her death. She wanted the cauldron, for the first time, to be able to grant wishes. She would do it only once and that’s would be it.

 The truth is she waited for several years, maybe even hundreds of years. As a witch, time didn’t affect her in the same way that it affected every other living thing. She would just cook and drink tea and work on beautiful pieces she made with her loom. That was until she felt someone entering the wasteland and she decided to take a look from the window. Using her magic, she was able to see it was a woman, a noble woman to be exact. Somehow, she had decided to cross the obstacle wearing a gown, with her heels on her hands. Her hair and makeup were all run down and her expression was desperate. It was clear she wanted something out of the cauldron and that she would be an interesting choice for the wish.

 She was almost caught by the dead, but she just took off her dress and threw her shows into a river of fire to be able to pass. She was very skilled as she kicked every creature in the right place, and jumped when she needed to. The witch thought that maybe that woman was too skilled, too bright to be here asking a cauldron for advice or a wish. Besides, the noble people did believe in fairy tales but would rarely go out to the world and try to see if their beliefs were actually truth. So the witch decided to wait and not to intervene in the good luck the woman was having crossing the obstacles. She would be with her in no time and it was important that she realized what kind of person the witch was. So she made everything disappear except the cauldron that was impervious to magic and just stood in the middle of the room, waiting.

 When the woman finally arrived, she fell to the floor tired, and did not even glanced at the witch. It seemed like hours passed with them just like that. The witch wanted to say something but the woman seemed to ignore her presence or at least not even care about her. It was when the noble woman stood up and walked to the cauldron, that the old woman stopped her with her cane and asked her what was she looking in this place. The woman finally looked at her and the witch screamed. That woman was no ordinary human, she was another witch, one much more powerful and twisted than she was.

 The noble witch announced herself to be Morgana, the eternal sorceress that had heard of the cauldron and had decided to destroy it. The older witch asked her why would she do that. She explained that the cauldron caused death, despair , fear and false hope, so why not let it be there to teach a lesson to all the humans that had always hurt the witches and their brothers and sisters. Morgana stood still not saying a word. She had, however, transformed from the almost noble woman to a beautiful tall woman with purple eyes and hairs as black as the night. She thought about what the older woman said and finally, she just smiled.

 With one word, one in an ancient language that no one ever spoke anymore, Morgana engulfed the old woman in deep red fire, burning her to death like many men had done to other witched before. But when she ended the fire, the witch was unharmed physically but mentally broken. She lay on the ground sobbing, not saying a single word. That was Morgana’s way of punishing a witch for letting her feeling rule over her. Even though as her words had been very convincing, her heart told the red fire the truth and that’s why she would never again be the same with or even woman that she had been before. She was now powerless and useless and would die soon but from natural causes. That was the price to pay.

 Morgana then peered into the cauldron and look at its surface for a long time. Nothing was revealed, the blackish water did not reveal any images or made any special sounds. It was as if the cauldron didn’t work on her but she knew better than that. It was because her magic protected her from the spell that had been put into it. So she tried to think of another way to use the cauldron to her advantage. Maybe in battle? Or put it in a less safe place? All those traps and trials on the way to the tower were really useless. If the point of the cauldron was to cause harm and even kill, why not put it in an open space and just let humans die for their stupidity? Maybe that was it… Morgana decided to take the cauldron back with her but then she realized something she had not expected: the cauldron wouldn’t move.

 She tried doing it in many ways, with her arms, her magic and her mind but nothing worked. The cauldron seemed to be glued to the ground somehow and just wouldn’t move. The old woman, still lying on the ground, started laughing like crazy. Morgana lifted her with magic and demanded she told her what to do to move the cauldron or she would kill her, this time for real. The witch looked at Morgana in the eyes and just spit at her. This enraged the legendary sorceress, who threw the witch against the hard stone wall and tried again to move the cauldron. She grabbed by the sides and pulled but she would only see the black waters inside and nothing else.

 Then, Morgana’s mouth began to dry and her eyesight suddenly disappeared. She screamed and fell to the ground, begin for the witch to do something to help her. The witch slowly stood up and transformed into the beautiful woman that had arrived before. She told Morgana that her magic was far darker and ancient that hers and that she should never underestimate the power of someone who has not only caused suffering but who has also felt it her skin, flesh and bones. Morgana found her feet and begged the witch for forgiveness and asked her to be her apprentice. She said they could be unstoppable if they united their powers, something the older witch was momentarily interested by.

 But with one stroke of her cane, she made Morgana’s body break into a million pieces that fell in the ground before being absorbed by the cauldron. The witch then disappeared and left the cauldron alone once again. But now, if anyone gets close enough, Morgana’s screams can still be heard, deep in the black waters of the mysterious cauldron.