Lust
He didn't know where the Purple was, but he knew if he didn't want to upset the balance he would have to get another "bad" color. The effect on the Red was already notable; he could feel it, Touch it. So he searched for the Purple, because he thought he could handle it. He thought.
So onward he went, to where the Purple was last rumored to be. Well, thousands of years had passed, and there was no telling whether it was still there or not. But it was a lead, so to speak, and so he went.
Back up North he went, in fact. Through Shardik's Forest, into the Mohaine Desert. The desert. The desert. The desert. On and on it went. He was following a road, an actual road, this time. Heading north along the road. A smell rose to his nose. Devil grass. As was to be expected. It grew along roads everywhere. Especially stone roads. It usually grows in the cracks between the stones. He wasn't sure who had built this road; no one was. But here he was. Traveling on it. The warm smell of the devil grass, rising up through the air.
The sun started to dim. The actual sun. It was putting off less light. He was confused. Maybe it was his eyes. That was a possibility. Some devilry put on by the smell of the grass. Yes, that was it. His sight grew dim.
And he was sleepy. He'd been traveling much to long, and he needed to stop and rest. He felt like he couldn't walk anymore, but he had too, or else he would miss it. It only came around one time a year. So yes, he was woozy, and he definitely needed a nap or something. His head grew heavy, and he had to stop for the night.
But there wasn't a place to stay. So he kept walking. He would stop when the time was right, when the place was right. There was a speck of purple in the distance. Probably a building. He'd be there in a few hours. So he walked, and the dot slowely grew bigger. Closer and closer. Yes, it was a building. What looked like an inn. There wasn't any inn on this road, not until the Mohaine Desert faded away to the plains. But here it was. Painted purple, nonetheless. He missed the warning. His head was too heavy. The devil grass, for sure. For sure.
As he drew closer, he saw the name of the inn. Alhambra. Of course. If he had been more alert, he would have noticed that it was glowing purple. But he wasn't. So he didn't. He started walking towards the front door.
There she stood in the doorway. If he had been in focus, he would have seen a purple aura around her naked body, but he wasn't, and he didn't. He was too lulled by the beauty of the woman in front of him. Blonde hair (it was actually purple) down to her breasts. The exact same height as him. Smooth legs. She smiled (he saw teeth that weren't there) and held out her hand to him. A mission bell sounded. The ringing of the bell was the last thing he remembered clearly for a very long time.
What he did remember was cloudy. The main thing was, during his stay at the Alhambra, he slept in many different rooms, with many different people. Each room was different except for two things. A purple glow was the first one. The second was the only thing that scared him while he was there; the only negative. Mirrors on the ceiling.
Down in the courtyard, he danced with people. There was champagne, too. He caught that it was pink, but it didn't mean anything to him. Just pink champagne, is all.
There were some other activities he performed that this particular wordslinger will not reveal to you. Suffice to say that he was pushed to his utmost limits of pleasure. And he forgot about Gilead, he forgot about the White and the Red, he forgot his own name. Except during the night.
During the night, he would lie in bed after whatever whore that night brought him had left the room, and he would look up into the mirror and he would fear for his life. He would want to leave. He would dream about leaving. Nineteen days into his stay at the Alhambra, he mustered the willpower needed to get out of bed at this time. He walked, he was walking, he will walk up to the door, and the door was open. Down the stairs. Into the lobby. The woman, in all her majesty and beauty was in this lobby. He saw through her, however. She was an insect. A crawling purple bug. He drew back in disgust. He reached for his sword, and it was there. He was back in his black shirt, black pants, black boots. His sword was on his belt. He drew it, and immediately it changed to purple. A special property of it. It was an heirloom, passed down since the days of the Sword. It was a Chameleon sword. Perfect for stealth. And now it was purple.
He looked around him, and realized that the walls were painted purple. They were glowing purple. It all came to him. He looked at the beast, and it cowered. And in all the rooms above him, everyone woke with a start. And they all came downstairs to the lobby, where they witnessed him stab it with his steely sword. And unlike so many before him, he killed the beast. It gave off a flash of purple.
They burned the inn. He helped do it. Hundreds free from its grasp. In a hotel not unlike the Alhambra, on a different level of the tower, a man named Jack Torrance saw a young beauty for what she really was, and was not tempted, and a boy named Danny and a woman named Wendy lived a much better life.
When the building was burned to the ground, all that remained was an orb, glowing purple. One of the freed men asked him what it was. He didn't answer. He picked it up, put it in his purse, and continued on the path north. The night man shouted after him, "Where're ya' goin'? You can't leave! You can never leave!" He continued to shout when there was a flash of white light. He dropped to the ground.
The others died too, eventually. They were, after all, stranded in the desert. They died of starvation, some of dehydration. They all died happy, however.