Thomas Sniegoski: Walking In the Midst of Fire

Even the passage of time could not harm him, the man looking just as flush with life as he had before he’d died so very long ago.

Plagued by the curse of immortality, he chose to wander, to experience everything that this world—now his prison—had to offer.

The good as well as the bad.

Simeon found himself drawn to the darker corners. Where the sane and rational mind might flee the terrors that hid in the shadows, the eternal man found himself moving toward them eagerly.

He was desperate to know what secrets they might share, how they might help him someday to see Heaven fall from the sky. Simeon had gathered much in the way of knowledge over the centuries he had lived and wandered, but it was the ways of sorcery and black magick that had proven the most useful.

The forever man had an aptitude for the black arts, and his hunger for this particular type of knowledge had become insatiable.

During his travels, as he sought out those in special circles who could teach him, there was one name often spoken in both reverence and great fear.

Some said he was only a legend, an amalgam of all the world’s greatest sorcerers and wizards, while others believed that he truly did exist, a living repository for all the magickal knowledge that had ever existed.

The name of the legend was Ignatius Hallow, and Simeon had traveled long and far to finally find him.

Standing on English soil, in the pouring rain, the forever man looked upon the ruins of the castle he had been directed to, and felt the beginnings of despair.

“How can this be?” he asked the foul elements, as he stumbled through the mud toward the ruins.

In a tavern in the town of York he had met an old man whose neck had been broken but he still managed to be alive. Those in the tavern whispered that this one was so insane that neither God nor the Devil wanted him, and they had sent him back to the world. They also said that the man with the twisted neck knew things—dark secrets that he would share for a price.

That had been good to know, for Simeon had need of such information.

By its appearance, the castle had been taken a long time ago, in some long-forgotten conflict that had caused its battlements to fall. There was not a sign of life to be found.

Simeon snarled as the realization that he’d been had began to sink in. He and the insane old man had made a deal: the first digit of his little finger from his right hand in exchange for the whereabouts of the legendary magick user. A bizarre price to pay, but it was what the man with the broken neck had demanded for his services. The madman had said that he could see the remnants of many years in Simeon’s eyes, which made him—as well as pieces of him—so very special.

The eternal man could still hear the old-timer’s cackle as he wondered aloud whether perhaps Simeon had been discarded by Heaven and Hell as he himself had been.

Simeon stared down at the bloody bandage wrapped around his hand. He could feel it throbbing with the angry beat of his heart as what had been cut away slowly, painfully, grew back.

Looking out over the ruins as he was assaulted by wind and rain, Simeon debated his next course of action. There was a part of him that wished to continue on his way, wandering to the next location, hoping for a piece of forbidden knowledge to add to his growing arsenal.

Or he could return to the tavern in York, for a piece of the twisted old man.

The wind pushed him even closer to what remained of the forgotten castle’s walls, as if the elements were urging him to be certain that the madman had indeed been wrong. He was about to step back, to prepare himself for the long trek to York, when the ground in front of him began to churn.

At first he believed it to be a trick of his eyes, the way the heavy rain pelted the muddy patches of exposed earth, but he quickly came to realize that wasn’t the case at all.

The vines, their bodies as fat as the thickest rope, and covered in large thorns that looked as though they could strip the flesh from his body, erupted from the saturated ground in a writhing tangle. Simeon managed to throw himself back, away from the thorn-covered tendrils, only to have another patch of the virulent growth explode from the ground behind him. Everywhere he looked the ground churned, and more of the serpentine vines grew, reaching for him, ensnaring him in their constricting embrace.

Simeon screamed as the thorns dug into his skin, tearing it through his garments. The tentacle-like growths held him tight, and began to squeeze the life from his body.

The more he struggled, the tighter the vines became, until his bones began to snap like pieces of dry wood.

Simeon’s screams filled the night, diminishing to little more than a pathetic whine as his blood flowed, watering the hellish vegetation. He was waiting for the inevitable death that would not hold, when through a darkened stone doorway in the ruins of the castle something appeared and began to move toward him.

The man was tall and of indiscriminate age, clad in robes that seemed to be cut from the fabric of night. He leaned on a staff as he slowly approached—a walking stick that appeared to have been carved from bone.

The figure stopped mere inches from him, and stared deeply into his eyes.

“You should be dead,” the magick user, Ignatius Hallow, said in a voice ripe with curiosity.

“That I should,” Simeon managed, though his throat was clogged with bile and blood.

“Why have you come?” the sorcerer asked.

Though it took all the strength that he had remaining, Simeon managed to answer.

“To . . . learn.”

And then he died, his body no longer able to sustain his life as a result of the abuse his fragile human form had endured.

But as before, death would not have him.

Now

“Do you like it?”

Simeon’s eyes were focused on the bare skin of a waitress’s arm, or more specifically, on the tattoo that curled its way around her pale flesh.

Thorny vines.

That was all it took to stir the memories of long ago.

He pulled his eyes from the tattoo to gaze up into the woman’s face. She was attractive in that used sort of way, the deep lines around her eyes and smiling mouth hinting at a hard life.

“Quite lovely,” Simeon told her, forcing a friendly smile. He didn’t want to be rude and draw attention to himself.

“I had it done when I was just a kid,” she said, taking his empty wineglass and placing it on her tray. “Wished I hadn’t as I got older, but now I think it’s kinda nice.”

She smiled again, as he agreed.

“You’re new in here, aren’t you?” she then asked, becoming more personal.

This was what he’d hoped against. Simeon had needed to get away by himself, away from the demonic trio that served him, even for just a single drink.

Methuselah’s was the best place he could think of. He’d always wanted to patronize the strange bar that catered to the most unusual clientele. And looking around, he was glad that he had.

A golem of stone wiped the surface of the bar with a damp rag, as a minotaur checked identification at the heavy wooden door. In one corner of the darkened establishment sat creatures more reptile than human, served by a waitress whose skin was nearly translucent, her internal workings on view for all to see. Four succubi that had followed a group of humanoid travelers down a hallway leading to the restrooms emerged from the darkened passage, dabbing at their mouths with lacy handkerchiefs.

Methuselah’s was a most fascinating place, and Simeon was glad he’d come, but he caught sight of what was coming through the door and knew it was time to leave.

He smiled again at the waitress, ignoring her question as he took some bills from his pocket and placed them on her tray. “Keep the change.”