Chapter 5

The Horned King slowly opened his eyes, tiredly blinking his fuzzy surroundings into focus. He carefully got to his hands and knees on the hard stone, his head hung low, shaking it once to try and clear his thoughts. He could not ever remember feeling this exhausted.

'Where. . .am I?' He thought wearily. 'How did I. . .get here?'

Completely confused and disoriented, not to mention dizzy, he weakly stood up, scanning his dim surroundings. Massive stone pillars, designed to hold up large buildings, could be dimly made out in the gloom.

There was no torches, but the Horned King didn't need them. He hadn't for a thousand years. He was in a very large room, entirely of stone, except for the massive support beams that had been made from the trunks of enormous trees. They stood at the corners and along the walls in a couple areas, stabilizing the walls and ceiling. Cobwebs were everywhere, as was dust, but it looked as if the room had been brushed over somehow. It was very, very empty. Something clicked.

'I know this place,' he realized. 'I stored my skeleton warriors here so I could make them Cauldron Bor_"

A small prick of fear suddenly nipped his heart in a mocking fashion, and he quickly turned around to look behind himself.

There sat the Black Cauldron, atop the stone platform in the center of the room, several steps above the main floor. The platform was large enough for a throne to sit on, and it was dominated by the giant hunk of iron and shadow in the barely perceivable light.

And then it all came back in a crashing wave. . .the screaming, the fire, the endless, eternal torture. . .The Hell.

The Horned King gasped in horror and practically leaped away from the wretched monstrosity, stepping on the hem of his robe and falling backwards onto the floor in the process. In sheer, panicked terror he crawled backwards as fast as absolutely possible, falling over his robes, gasping in fright. He didn't stop till his back collided sharply against the stone wall, but he didn't even notice, eyes staring wildly at the Cauldron.

the roar of the flames. . .

'Please. . .'

the screams of the souls. . .

'Stop!'

the screams of himself. . .

'Mercy. . .I beg you!'

the noise of the fire. . .

'Please. . .Master. . .'

the agony. . .

'It hurts! Please. . .no more. . .'

the Hell. . .

'Please. . .'

The Horned King put his hands to his face in a useless attempt to stop the echoes as wave after wave of Hell-ish memories crashed over him. He shut his eyes tightly, but they kept coming. Ceaseless.

'No!'

'It hurts!'

I'LL KILL YOU I'LL KILL You I'll Kill You i'll kill you i'll kill you. . .

screaming. . .so much screaming. . .pain, pain, pain, pain, pain, pain. . .everywhere. . .'

The Horned King pressed his hands tighter to his eyes and shook his head fiercely, trying to force them out, and cried, "No, no, no!"

The memories flooded his ears and mind with agony and noise, drowning him. . .He couldn't stand it anymore. . .

"GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!"

He let out a screaming roar of pure anguish like a beast driven mad, that echoed off the walls of the chamber and came back to ring hatefully in his ears, bringing back even more. . .

'Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!

Gaaaaaaaahhhh!

gaaaahhhhh!

gaahhh!

aahh. . . .'

The echoing sound would have made anyone's blood turn to pure ice in their veins, regardless of how brave or battle-hardened they might have been, had they been in the castle at the time. It was a sound of agonized, unspeakable, unthinkable pain.

As the waves of flashbacks gradually subsided, becoming little drops and trickles clinging to his thoughts instead of dominating them, the Horned King slowly pulled his knees up to his chest and buried his head in his arms like a child, shaking violently against the wall he was pressed against, as the wicked, cruelest, insanest laughter he had ever heard re-vibrate inside his head, echoing off his skull, paralyzing him.

Hah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!. . . .

'Its over, its over, it was just a dream, just a dream, just a dream. He can't get me, he can't. . .'

His near-sobbing attempt to comfort himself was fruitless.

It took many, many minutes for his mind to clear and for him to orient himself, but when he finally managed to shove those horrible memories as far back into himself as he could, he became aware of another presence in the room. He raised his head from his arms as the torches on either side of the hall on the far right-hand-ish corner of the room seemingly lit themselves, bringing sudden light to be replace the dimness.

The Horned King raised a hand to shield his face and turned away for a moment, as the light hurt his eyes, before looking back toward the mouth of the hall to see who it was.

"Come, your Highness," he distinctly heard a voice say, "Come with us."

Instantly the Horned King was on the defense. His body, which had finally decided to listen to him, allowed him to pull himself as quickly as he could, without falling again in his weakened state, up to a standing position, leaning on the wall for support. Furious at being seen in such a pathetic state, he snarled in the direction of the torches,

"Who are you? Show yourselves now, trespassers!"

A sigh followed. "We are not visible to the eye, your Highness," the voice replied. "We are here only to aid you with your goal."

"I did not ask for aid!" The Horned King hissed, "Nor do I require it for any reason. Begone now, spirits!"

"We cannot leave the assignment the Fates have bestowed upon us,' the voice answered. "Not until either your goal is completed or your time expires."

"What goal?" The Horned King demanded as he laboriously straightened himself, no longer leaning against the wall for support.

"Surely, you remember, your Majesty?" The voice gently prodded. "The Fates?"

The Horned King paused.

'The Fates?' He remembered silently. 'They freed me from the Cauldron. . .no, they were *made* to free me. Something they had no power over. . .But what is more powerful than Fate itself?'

The voice broke him from his thoughts. "Do you remember the stipulation they require of you?"

The Horned King resumed his thought in silence.

'Yes, hmm. . .it seems they expect a human to love me within a certain time period,' he remembered, silently scoffing. 'They must be truly mad to even fathom that. I do not require this petty weakness. Nor will I attempt to gain something that I can never acquire. If they expect me to grovel and beg at a pathetic mortal's feet for anything. . .especially something I will never get. . .not that I deserve it. . .they are fools.'

"Your Highness, there is much to be done," the voice spoke. "Please, come with us. You only have a short time."

The Horned King took a step in their direction, before glancing down at himself. His body was whole and real again. Even his dark crimson robes and fur stole were the same. As if nothing had ever happened.

'So, I am truly back.'

He thought as he flexed his left hand. A pillar on his left caught his eye as he looked back up, and he stopped to glance at it. A couple feet above a iron ring bolted into it, about at his eye level, were about half a dozen scratches cut deep into the stone. Lighter in color than the rest of the pillar, they were fairly noticeable.

The Horned King stared at them with a blank expression for a moment, before slowly turning to survey the entire the room in a single sweeping glance. Now that most of his head was clear, he finally truly understood where he was.

The prison level. In the bowels of the castle that he had taken over when he tried to conquer Prydain. Where he had tried to achieve his greatest triumph. His supreme goal he had been centuries trying to fulfill. And he had been so close, it had seemed that nothing, nothing, could stop him from achieving it. His lifelong quest for world domination, gaining ultimate, unstoppable power with an undead undefeatable army. . .until that meddling little brat had interfered. . .the Horned King's eyes narrowed in remembrance, before they suddenly flashed blood red in hatred in rage.

'That insufferable Pig-Keeper is to blame for everything,'

He thought viciously, turning to look at the pillar again, eyes blazing. He touched the scratches in the pillar, that he himself had put there, in an attempt to save himself from the Cauldron's rage, a lifetime before.

'All of my plans, my power laid waste. He put me in that Hell, and no doubt thinks he has won. He has no idea I have returned, and by the time he does, I'll have my fingers round his throat, and my face will be the last thing he'll *ever* see. . .'

The Horned King bared his fangs in a grin so evil, it would have turned Hades himself, lord of the Underworld and all its horrors, into a cowering, quivering heap.

'Oh, yesss,' the Horned King thought as he entered the hall, 'I will so enjoy squeezing the very life out of him. Watching that damnable boy *suffer* for everything he's done to me. . .make him *pay*. . .watching the light leave his eyes, his thrashings cease. . .and all at my own hand.'

The Horned King's black heart jumped in wicked excitement at the prospect, making him bare his fangs in the cruelest glee, eyes flaring an even brighter, darker red before slowly dimming into blackness as he composed himself.

He reached the window that looked down over the moat, drawbridge and gates, silently remembering his undead army.

His magnificent, perfect army that had walked out of the castle, across this very drawbridge, ready to conquer the world for him, before dropping like flies into the moat as the Cauldron's power had left their shells, turning them into lifeless skeletons once more. The Horned King's eyes smoldered darkly as he stared.

Movement above caught his eye, and he glanced up into the sky. A large, dark silhouette was flying toward the castle over the mainland, several hundred feet above the ground, above the thick, white mist that surrounded the castle and lake beside it, which had not yet burned off in the early morning sun.

As it drew closer and closer, finally breaking through the damp, cloudy wall into view, the Horned King saw it was one of his two gwythaint servants that had done his bidding before his demise.

When it got even closer to the castle and began to gracefully lose altitude, he noticed with a twinge of surprise that it was carrying the Creeper in its mouth.

'So, he survived,' The Horned King thought.

'I will make good use of that.'