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The debilitated prince tottered in and out of his delirium for the next week. At times he seemed to recover, he would awake, and talked with zeal and charisma, at others he succumbed to his fever and lay attenuated on his bed. All the while the doctor, who went about his duties with eccentric fervor, stayed at the Prince's side, tending his wound, and fetching him water to cool his temperament as he laid there being burned alive by his own body seeking to purify him of his malady. And for the duration of that week, the Lord-Mayor, as well as the entire city waited in hushed apprehension of whether or not their leader, who appeared to them so suddenly, would be taken by this foul disorder.
After the seventh day had passed, the Lord-Mayor's infinite patience broke under the strong anxiety of his condition, and he summoned the doctor to give him a full report of his present condition. The queer doctor made his way in stern silence into the private chambers of the Lord-Mayor's house, (that is where he conducted business), and stood before him. His words were cold and unimpassioned as he spoke, "My Lord, I have, as of late, come to the conclusion, here at, that the Prince has indeed allowed himself to become induced with what I hath thus feared more so than any other. His humors will not avail him on this disease, for I have witnessed it many times, presently. It eats away most presumably, and if the patient isn't treated within the space of a fortnight therein, it shall overtake him. My Lord, I am despondent, but I must say unto you, that I do not, on my person, possess the means of curing him, and that nor do I possess the means of finding the components for the cure, though I know the cure quite well. And thus, if not acted upon most earnestly by your Lordship, he will perish."
The Lord-Mayor stood on the opposite end of the room stroking his chin, pondering. And then asked with due thought, "What dost thou require good doctor?"
"I require wild heathers, from newly bloomed fields, to mix and then pulverize into a solution to administer to him."
"Spring hath since been long past doctor." He told him dismayed.
"Indeed, which is why I say unto you, I don't have the means of finding it, because it does not exist as of present.". The doctor paused for a moment and continued, "Perhaps you know of someone who has this?". There was an eagerness in his voice.
"I will get thee thy heathers doctor, even if I have to sell my soul, I shall acquire them. But not for your sake, doctor. There is a larger work in play, methinks, some cosmic force guiding his path, though where, I cannot say. It is, after all, not a coincidence that we would find him on the eve of the Fall equinox, which heralds in the xenial season. The spirits want me act generously unto him. It's a test, I must do the selfish and unrequited thing."
The doctor shrugged, "If you believe such things. I on the other hand don't think much on such things. The earth spins, and moon rest the tides, it's all a science."
"And that is why I do not do this for your own sake doctor. You may leave now."
The doctor bowed his head low to show honor, and courteously turned and proceeded to exit out the double-ironed doors to tend to his patient. Before he did, the Lord-Mayor was already gazing back on an astrolabe sitting on the table, with a lunar map next to it, as he delicately fine tuned it and aligned it with the map, trying to narrow a reading of some sort. "Very strange indeed..."
His fingers traced the cold steel of the strange instrument as he looked out into the receding darkness of the night through his window. He sighed in painful recollected hesitation, knowing full well the only people in 300 leagues who would process such an ingredient this late in the year. Finding them was no problem, it was getting it from them was the problem. He knew what they wanted...but he didn't want to relinquish it. It was his. He had earned it. But...scarifies often needed to be made. A sanctimonious side of his spirit lifted the weight of his greed off his soul and he sighed now with a spanning hesitation.
He wanted to make his way to the door, but he couldn't. He was frozen in a trance, unable to stop staring at the various symbols on his astrolabe. It was only with the most strenuous of effort was he able to haul himself away from the instrument, and make for the door. As he walked toward the exit, he picked up a small leather bag, not bigger that the size of a coin purse. The bag held something small and hard, but hardly discernible through the thick hide that surrounded it. He hesitantly slipped it in his pocket and continued on his way out the door, dawning a riding cloak that hid his entire appearance.
He moved silently on the now abandoned streets of the city. His footsteps being entirely hidden by the cape of the cloak. If one were to look on his from afar, he seemed to float over the ground. Moving cautiously from shadow to shadow, steadily traversing the lengths of the streets and alleyways. At last he came to the mound wall, and with great dexterity, hauled himself nimbly over the palisade and around the outer spikes until he descended the mound and was outside the city. Beyond that, the fields stretched far and wide, but what, to many with untrained eyes might seem like an unnavigable sea, to him was more familiar than the scars he bore upon his chest from battle.
He moved without hesitation, picking up speed now, jogging along at a slightly faster past, yet not so much so he was running. After a good trek, he came to a circle of mighty trees protruding from the earth. The tree's were ancient in size, and neatly kept. There appearance was mesmerizing and mystical, as it kept an eerie green glow around it. From the apex of the circle, a strange fog stemmed, and soon covered the entire land. The fog was thick and wretchedly dense. It soon became so, that the Lord-Mayor could no longer see in which direction he was going.
He suddenly felt a descending fear in the pit of his stomach. For the first time in his life, he was lost. He had heard tales of shadow men who went around stalking it's victims and terrorizing their dreams, and the mysterious doppelgangers, ghosts that lurked within the low and haunted places where the spirit world met with the world of the living, whose being took on the appearance of the victim. Those words of the ancient he had heard as a child suddenly trailed upon his lips, as crisp as the day he heard them, "Don't glance into their eye, or you will surely die". If you looked on your doppelganger with both eyes, it would strike you dead.
He became paranoid. The shadows consumed all around. It wrenched at his insides, tearing it from the inside out. There was nothing around, and the silence put him on edge. As he proceeded into the grove of trees, he began whistling a tune he had heard. A slow, methodical melody, that now haunted him more-so, as it served little to break the ceaseless silence.
In one swift and heart stopping moment, the silence was broking by a cackling laughter that seemed to resonate all around him. He jolted backed startled, and looked frantically around trying to find out where it was coming from. The voices within the deep echoed unnaturally off the trees, and pierced the fog with their brevity. The mayor looked around trying to find out where it was coming from, to no avail. Finally he shouted into the misty fog, "Reveal yourselves, weird women!"
The cackling suddenly receded and the hollow hysteric voice of one of the witches responded, "All alone, with none around, will the body e'er be found?" The laughter now retorted with full force.
"I have a favor to ask!" he shouted in defiance.
The witches began to mock him as they said all at once, "Humble men of humble doubts, with a voice in vain he shouts!". The voices seemed to be getting closer now. Descending in on all sides, as their pitches became sharper and more precise as the witches kept taunting him "Fair is foul, and foul is fair, thick the mist that taints the air. All alone with none around, will the body e'er be found?"
The Lord-Mayor couldn't help but tremble. His hand shook furiously on his bosom. Suddenly a hand grabbed his shirt and pulled him to the ground. Before he had a chance to blink four witches stood looking on him. Their faces were horribly disfigured, plagued with every sort of ailment. Old and haggled, you couldn't discern were men or women, except by their voices.
The witch on the farthest right was the first to speak, "He is brave is he naught?"
The nearest left answered back, "Aye, indeed. What brings thou here? Worldly man who has no fear?"
"Heathers bloomed, of early spring. Of freshest flowers thus arranged, for goodly medicine concoct."
"Medicine?" one asked puzzled, "For whose need so dire still?"
"The prince, who rule thee, mind and soul, pledges bound on earth he binds, the Kingdom Fire, thus aligned."
They questioned among themselves, "The King!' One exclaimed.
"What Sorcery!" said another.
"Quite foreign to our works, I must say." partook the the third.
"A prince indeed, you noble hags. And that's why I here trouble you. In bondage, savage, he was kept. Bound with ropes around his neck. Till and I, my men, and squires bold, slaughtered number near untold. There in wagon did make, fire enough to fill a lake."
"Quite unheard!"
"Sir you lie!"
"I do not lie, madams, if you please, I have far more integrity. But he is in a dreadful state, poxed and plagued by a dreadful curse, that binds him there with sore and fever to his bed. And if not heathers gotten from the spring for cure to make, he will die before he wakes."
"As we said the last time round, what we most desire. Or did you forget you golden liar?"
"I have not, as you may jest. My character can thus attest. See here I have it here, in my bag that I keep near." He unwinds the small bag from his belt and throws it to the witches.
One of the witches unwinds the binding and slips off the leather. And there standing in their midst was an a clean cut emerald jewel, fine and polished, so much so that the features on their faces were clearly visible through the stone. The three weird sisters looked over it awing in it's features as the fourth stepped forward. "Good man art thou! Otherwise we would have thrown your corpse into the river." She then produced from her rags that she wore around here a jar of heathers which she delicately placed in his hands.
"And so," they all said at once, "Adieu!" They stomped their left foots on the ground at once, and disappeared into the fog. Which the immediately receded. When it cleared, much to his amazement, he was standing in the middle of the city. Quite shaken by the turn of events, he still made his way to the doctor to save the poor boys life.