THE HAUNTED KINGDOM 3 by CHARLES E.J. MOULTON (best books to read now txt) 📖

there is no way that you can challenge us.
We are eternal and we will lie to you until you believe our lie.
There might be nothing left of you when the time of your arrival comes.
But you alone will create your demise, not we.
So, keep on riding to meet your sister.
We will try to stop you by making you stop yourself.
We just keep on bothering you on your journey through our territory and if you are lucky you will arrive at the cave, sweating and screaming, crying and crawling, only to die by Lucinda’s sword.
Can’t duel your sister because she is a woman?
I knew it. You are a weakling. Sissy.
I knew it. Sissy.
Keep on riding, Sire.
Who am I, I hear you ask again?
I am the staring eyes in front of your face, that is who I am. That is all you need to know.
I am the demon that has given you the nightmares that have haunted you since 1392.
I am the growling werewolf that howled at you by that river a year ago.
I am the army of death that speared Tom in his belly in his own personal apocalypse.
I am King Rat.
Someone else is holding the strings. Have you heard that phrase before?
I know you have, back when you were someone else that was phrase I used to tell your wife
Yes, someone else is holding the strings.
Me.
I disappear for a while and I see your eyes roll and your head turn. Weak soul, terrified of rats.
Hah.
Boo.
I jump out at you from behind a tree. I take the form of a cloud with eyes and I wail at you with my endlessly open mouth and scare you with my lovely eyes. Let us see how you react now, Sire.
Are you scared of me, Sire? Are you? Huh?
Look into my eyes, your majesty. Take a leap into the open grave and see what is in there, just because you are curious. Come now, dare to do it. You know that you are interested to see what is in there.
I hear you scream when you see me follow you, regardless of how fast you ride for I enjoy the sound.
I like your screams, your twitching fingers.
I thrive on your fear, Sire. I like your fear. I live for it. I love it.
Be afraid of me. Please be very afraid.
Why are you sweating, because you are riding down this path so fast that the wind whips your hair back toward the rear of your head?
Why are you bleeding, because you were bitten by a Rumzil?
Why are you crying, because you miss your daughter?
Why are you shivering, because you are you cold?
I am a comfort. Be comfortable in your fear. I am your best friend, your own personal fear.
No, don’t look away. The full moon lights up my face so beautifully.
I feel your hands twitch as I provoke you to hold mine. So, hold my hand and scream. Let’s scream together. You and me. Come now. Two friends screaming together.
I see your eyes close although you have to hold them open in order to stare into my black holes.
I know you can’t stop looking at me. I know it. I feel it.
I will let you hear something of lies ahead.
Alexander? Do you hear that?
Can you hear the screams of your daughter?
She can scream, too.
She is in her own cage above the pit.
Can you hear the echoes of her wails?
Can she scream beautifully, or what?
Oh, yes.
Girls do, you know.
Scream, I mean.
They scream so beautifully and to be honest we love hearing them scream.
Look at me screaming.
Can I not scream nicely, as well? Give me that well earned compliment.
After all, you are about to scream, as well.
Why are you riding so fast? Why, Sire?
Is it me?
I am only accompanying you on your trip.
Oh, I will slow you down then.
You like that?
You like riding through mud?
You like sinking through quicksand?
You like having visions?
I will give you a few, although you see no quicksand and no mud to speak of.
Your visions are in your head and I will grant you a peak I into the world of visions.
I will give you more than a few.
Here, the gates to my graveyard are open.
Enter my cemetery.
Sire, enter the place where the souls have no name and where the endless fallen soldiers walk with their limbs falling into the abyss.
Hear me shout as you see your limbs disintegrate.
I am there for you, waiting in the full moon, waiting for you to join our group of undead demons.
Shout all you want, twitch and scream, Sissy-Boy, twist your body and wail all you want.
I am still here waiting for you to believe in my lies so that they become the truth.
I am your own King Rat, the creator of legends.
I will show you the abyss.
I was there in the cage, staring at the newly imprisoned.
Come, you like this, I know it. Join us, help us damn the living. You like that, I see it, you shit!”

§

“Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”
Whatever soul had been there with him, it almost pulled him back into the hellish hole that he had been back when he had fallen for Madeleine. He was afraid that he gone too far now.
The soul was gone now that he had screamed in protest.
These were not visions.
They were spiritual warfare.
This was mind control.
Mercutio was almost not making it, turning into a wild animal whose head seemed to be bobbing up and down and hating the fact that he had to be here.
His only way of showing it was to run fast, faster than the wind.
“Calm down, Mercutio! Slow down. That’s right. Shhh. Slower. Trot, that will be enough. These things are just visions. Like paintings in a gallery, drawings on a wall. They are not true reality. They are lies. Shhh. There you go. You see, you have the ability to calm yourself down. Shhh. Feel your heart just slow down. These visions are not reality, neither can they be reality. Soothe your mind. You are a good horse, a lucky horse with good friends like me. Don’t conjure up these visions. Keep your heart and soul clean from all fear. You are safe.”
Alexander sighed, his hands indeed twitching and his body aching as a result of what he had just seen. His brain was shouting and he did not believe what he was telling Mercutio.
“Take me away, Michael. Take me away to a different world where everything is fine.”
Why were his legs aching, Alex wondered? Why did he have a feeling of pressure in his chest? Why were his eyes bulging, his pupils expanding, and his eyebrows hurting? Every limb of his body throbbing?
“Sail me away to a different shore where everything’s fine.”
Alexander was worried. Deeply worried was he, for the feeling was not disappearing. It was as if he had summoned some soul that should not have been summoned.
They were using his own mind against him.
What was that? Was that Eric and Rebecca, the couple he had seen at Misar Rularia?
Yes, it was. One of them lay butchered at the side of the road and the other was being chased by something in the other direction. A beast.
He closed his eyes, regardless of the fact that he had to keep his eyes open.
He closed his eyes, felt his good safe old head tingling again.
He opened his eyes and saw that the two victims were gone.
He felt good about riding slower now, but bad about not riding faster.
“What does all this mean, Mercutio?” Alexander felt the cold curl up inside his body, his fingers were hurting, his body was convulsing. “I am worried, Mercutio. What is this worried numbness I have, this aching hurt that seems to just drench my senses?” Mercutio had calmed down. He was of course not answering. “Oh, Mercutio. Could I turn back time if I wanted? Could I? Help me, my horse. Help me. Take me away to a different place where everything is fine. I want to go home.”
In his mind he went back in time and was again sitting in his garden enjoying lemonade with his family. He was again the centre of all activity at a picnic. He was again sitting on his throne, bearded and wise and old, nodding at subjects and giving advice to philandering daughters and alcoholic sons, helping worried children and deciding whether to downplay events like attacks on the northern harbour or counterattack. He was again a king, simply occupied with every day events, a ruler just trying to keep an empire going, not a warrior on a horse whose soul was screaming in pain over having met a demon who had pulled him into his world with the magnet of dark desire.
“Take me away to a different world where everything is fine, where my soul does not twitch in the light of these visions. Please help me, God, and let everything be fine with my family. I can not help being relentlessly worried over what is going on. Is this me or is it a vision? Is it reality or a lie? Break the chain of illusion. My mind is in agony, Lord. I am very afraid.”
Alexander bowed his head, feeling himself sink into this deep depression.
“Break these chains around my heart. My mind is spinning. My compulsions are wailing. Does it ever get easier, Lord, ever? Is my family all right? Will they be fine? Do I have to be worried?”
Then, out of the blue, he heard a voice penetrating the silence: “Stop asking questions!”
Alex looked around. Nobody there.
Then the voice echoed in his mind again.
“You are not responsible for the vision you saw. You have to remember that the vision you just saw was filled with lies. The trouble lies in the fact that you believe the lie.”
Alex realized then and there that he had freed very old wounds that had been covered with old bandages for years. The tingling was simply the breaking of chains around his heart. Yes, his head was tingling. But that was only because his head had retaliated against what he had seen, not that he had hurt anyone waiting in the underworld for his rescue, which was essentially what he had been worried about. His head was tingling because his brain had wanted to free himself against the hatred that he had been exposed to for years.
When the demon came and whispered these words in his ears, he felt as if was hurting someone by not simply telling the spirit to leave. He could’ve, couldn’t he? He was afraid that he had hurt his family where they were waiting by simply listening to what had been said to him. He realized that he was petrified that something had happened. But that was what Lucinda was, was it not? Lucinda was real, but she was still just an odd little vision producing lies, right? He believed in the bad things she had said, that was the problem.
The demon had attacked him and so he thought he would be harmed.
The