© Wizards of the Coast 2013
A bog? A BOG? Scharnick collected his thoughts as he climbed out of the shallow pool. Who did it? Who could it have been? His thoughts were more angry than usual, more fierce. Being set on vengeance did not come to Scharnick naturally. His cloak blew back behind him, ignoring the bog in its ethereal state, so thin that it had no substance. Scharnick, in his own ethereal state, had very little substance too, but men do not become so thin as cloaks, even when they become ghosts, so he had to labor to escape the water and mud which he could not have -- in fact did not -- climb out of as a man. As he worked his way out, he see sawed between the harshness settling in his heart and panic over his own death.
As panic was the more rational of the two, and vengeance the more emotional, and vengeance is closer to emotion than panic is to logic, his vengethirst won out. Circling around he searched for something to tell him about his murderer, for ghosts do not remember the day of their death. He did not find it immediately, but for hours, he circled around the area, searching for something, anything. The thought had begun to worm its way into his mind that he was being irrational, and that he should at least calm himself down enough to decide what to do, when he found a pair of tracks in some mud about 200 meters from his body - tracks that his feet did not fit in - and he was off again like a hound, with a mind lost to rage.
Quickly the tracks disappeared as he came to firmer ground and Scharnick's tracking ability failed him. He'd been on many hunts, but his wife, young son, and subjects took most of his time, and he was no master of the hunt. He looked over what he'd had on him when he died. A compass. That could be quite helpful, he thought, and he became fascinated for a moment with the baubles he held. He didn't remember his monster rules, having never expected to become a ghost or see anything particularly magical or dangerous without a scholar to accompany him, so he did not know which baubles might still work and which might not. He began testing them, and as he did he cooled down, and considered who it might be that had wanted to off him.
The Neelian ambassador had seemed shaky of late, it could easily be him, but he was not an incredibly loyal man, and the promotion, for him, would not be worth the risk. Part of what made a passable ambassador was a man who had no higher ambition, or could hide it remarkably well.
His wife and children he didn't consider, and rightly so. A good father and husband with a good wife, sons, and daughters.
Why do you even care? Get to them so you can say goodbye before you accidentally fulfill your unfinished task.
Just then, a paladin of Reknar rode through, spotted the foul insult to life and smote Scharnick. With a puff of smoke and an incredible shriek, the ghost left, trapped indefinitely in the tormentous chambers of Reknar's heavenly prison.
"The Road to Hell" Flash Fiction © Ben Clardy V
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Favorites: "but men do not become so thin as cloaks," the idea that he has to go hunting for his killer and say goodbye to his children. Why did you have him smote right at the end, though? I'm not sure if my frustration means that was an excellent decision or not...
ReplyDeleteI liked this one. It spoke of a much larger world, with larger rules and an interesting story behind it. You packed a lot of setting and characterization into a very short space.
ReplyDeleteThe fourth paragraph was shaky. It had unclear phrasing and the first sentence ran on for far too long. I'd honestly recommend scratching it and writing it again (the paragraph, not the story).
Minor grammar thing, as always: You seem to treat hyphens as things that could happen, but don't need to. Pay a little more attention to them.
Finally, vengethirst sounds...very strange. I'd recommend a different phrasing, unless you were trying to convey an alien culture (which did not come over with the rest of the piece).