TheEnemyWithin

Gatekeeper to the city of Taxton was a position that commanded little respect and
acquired considerably less attention. It required next to no action, but nevertheless
was considered a very responsible position - though no-one seemed to know or
understand why. Most noticeable of all was the ever present boredom; there was
nothing to excite or stimulate here! Bran had held the position for two months now,
but it felt more like two years. He ached for some activity to alleviate the dull tedium.

He sat a lonely vigil in the high wooden tower, immediately adjacent to the huge double
gates that was the entrance to the city, and gazed out across the landscape. From this
vantage point he was higher than any tree, and could see for miles in every direction.
Nobody could possibly approach the gates without being seen. That was perfectly all
right in itself, but for the fact that nobody seemed inclined to approach the gate. The
mixed inhabitants of the city preferred it that way, although it didn't make his job any
more exciting. If only something would happen!

Bran couldn't understand how Taxton had become known as a city; compared to
other cities Taxton closer resembled an average size village. It was a cluster of homes,
the majority resembling simple log cabins, a few built of stone. Taxton was totally self
sufficient; the people grew their own crops and fashioned their own implements from
the materials at their disposal. A city such as Taxton was by no means prosperous,
but nevertheless was a welcome sight for bands of roaming brigands, who much
preferred stealing other people's possessions to earning an honest living themselves.
That was probably, he surmised, the initial reason for the gigantic boundary wall and
watchtower being built.

Bran reached across the sole table for the small, freshly baked loaf of bread he had
recently been brought. Ah, Arine, my very beautiful wife to be. It is only for you I do
this, he thought. You make it all worthwhile. Slowly, eventually his eyes focussed,
losing their glazed look. He smiled, pleased with the way his life was heading.

Arine's family was of a greater status than his own. Bran himself was born of a peasant
couple. To an outsider the only visible hierarchical difference might be the fact that he
lived in a wooden cabin, whereas she lived in a bigger stone building. But there was a
more significant difference. The more established families ran the trades that kept the
village running smoothly: The blacksmith, the crop growers, the sellers of fair
merchandise, and even the innkeeper. The lesser families had to earn their way by
labouring all the daylight hours the sun god granted for them. It was known and
accepted that these families would never be in a position to fully take over a trade
themselves.

Therefore Bran had been ordered to prove his worthiness, when he had visited Arine's
father with the honourable intention of requesting his beautiful daughter's hand in
marriage. The only option he considered open to him, to achieve what Arine's father
had requested, was to accept the responsible position of Gatekeeper to the city of
Taxton. The old man, Yanix, who had no living family or relations, had been forced to
concede the conclusion of a position that he had strictly maintained for many years,
through the abrupt onset of serious illness. The illness had proceeded to run its own
course, without reproach, slowly draining the man's bodily resources until eventually
Yanix metamorphosed into a mere shadow of the man he had once been. While fully
in charge of all his mental faculties, physically the illness had left him spent. The loss
of his sight had incapacitated him with regards to ever resuming the position he had
devoted the vast majority of his life to. Leaving aside the illness, Bran was amazed that
the old peasant man retained his life; any normal person would have long since
perished as a cause of old age. Or boredom!

When the small community had come to realize a replacement would be required, it
was evident that nobody wanted it. Even the lesser families in the hierarchy had turned
their collective noses up at the prospect. Bran himself would not normally have been
interested, but in the present circumstances he saw this as the opportunity he needed
to prove his usefulness to Arine's father. He had thought people were exaggerating
when they talked unknowingly, amongst themselves, about it being the limit in
boredom, in fact he discovered they were understating the situation. The fact was,
being gatekeeper to a minute city which was never visited was downright ...

Something caught his eye.

Bran squinted out over the landscape. He thought he had seen something out of the
ordinary, but the object was too distant for him to be sure. He tried his utmost to
discern the shape. Was it moving? Mentally shrugging, he accepted the fact that there
was nothing he could accomplish anyway, except to wait.

When the sun sank low, and the darkness threw its heavy cloak over the land, he was
certain. Although it remained a considerable distance away, he could clearly see the
warm glow of a camp fire. He wondered if the figure (because that's all it was, at this
distance) was heading towards the city.

He sincerely hoped it was.

Bran watched the fire all night, until it eventually died out naturally, and the sun once
again achieved dominance over the darkness. Arine, his angel of golden hair and fair
skin, left him food, immediately thereafter disappearing; she had her own job to do,
although it consisted mostly of supervision. Still he informed no-one. Anyway, even if
the figure did arrive at the gates, Bran would hardly be proving himself competent to
Arine's father if he rushed off to find the nearest person available.

Throughout the day the figure grew almost imperceptibly larger, until Bran could see,
by the build and movement, that it was a man. It had seemed like days, but it was only
halfway through the second day, since he had first noticed the blot on the landscape,
that the man approached the gates.

Standing at the medium height of five feet, ten inches, he had shoulder-length blonde
hair and strangely magnetic bright blue eyes. He wore white material with gold thread
intertwined. A gold breastplate gleamed in the myriad rays of sunlight, and a pure

white cloak hung down behind him, reaching to just above the ground.

Bran had rehearsed this speech for two months, and chose to speak the words
formally.

"Hail, stranger. Welcome to the city of Taxton. Please state your name and your
business here."

"Greetings, friend and honoured Gatekeeper," the man returned. "My name is Rysime,
and I would encroach on the goodwill of the people of your fair city. My journey has
been long and arduous, and is by no means over. I feel the need of a hot meal in my
stomach; I grow weary of the dried meat and berries in my pack, that have sustained
me in my journey for many weeks. A comfortable bed for the coming night, and fresh
water to bathe my tired limbs is all I ask of you."

"Torm has rooms above his inn, although they are seldom occupied."

Rysime laughed. "No, I imagine not," he said.

While the man, Rysime, waited patiently, Bran descended from his high wooden tower
and approached the gates from the interior side. He invited the man in through a small
gate which was built into one of the larger double ones. Bowing politely, the man
stepped through, then waited for Bran to secure the gate.

"I regret I cannot direct you to the inn myself, but I can summon someone else, if you
wish. I must remain at the gates, you understand."

"Yes, of course. Don't trouble yourself, I'll find it."

"In a city this small, you could hardly miss it!"

The man laughed again, and waved his thanks, as he headed away from the gates and
into Taxton proper. Bran stood watching Rysime's back recede into the distance
before returning to his post within the tower. He was already bored.

Two young boys stood a short distance apart, throwing an object to each other. As
the stranger approached, one of the boys spotted him, and the game was instantly
forgotten. The object, thrown by the other boy, hit the first boy on the top of his head,
though he appeared to feel nothing. The boy that had thrown the object now caught
sight of the stranger but, sensibly, chose to remain exactly where he was. The stranger
reached the first boy and bend down to pick-up the discarded object - what looked
like a lump of leather, stitched into a rough spherical shape. His eyes came down to
the same level, and the boy could not avoid catching his eye. They were bright blue
and extremely penetrating. The man smiled at him, handing him the makeshift ball.
Then he was gone, disappearing the other side of a stone building.

Now the second boy knew it was safe (for he did not know the man) to approach his
friend, who had not moved from the spot since the stranger had handed him the ball.
As he touched his friend's shoulder, the boy whirled around and knocked him to the
ground. There was blind hatred in his eyes; it was as much as the boy could do to
block half of the blows raining down on his head.

Had his best friend gone insane?

It seemed as though his friend were possessed of inhuman strength, and the second
boy, much as he tried, could not protect himself.

Torm was gently and lovingly polishing the old wooden tables and benches of his inn
when the door opened. A figure stood in the doorway, dressed in white, with a highly
polished, gleaming breastplate. The blonde-haired man filled the under-sized frame,
and was obliged to stoop and duck under a low wooden beam to enter through the
doorway.

Initially Torm was shocked by the appearance of the stranger into his inn, but he
quickly regained his composure.

"Welcome to my humble castle. It is most assuredly refreshing to serve a visitor to our
fair city of Taxton. I tire of the same faces and the same conversation, day after day.

"But I forget my manners. I am Torm, the innkeeper."

The stranger smiled as he took a seat at one of the tables.

"Rysime," he returned, proffering a hand in greeting.

Torm accepted the hand, shaking it heartily. This Rysime has a strong grip, befitting a
powerful warrior, thought Torm, impressed with the stranger's bearing. Their eyes met
at near proximity for the first time, and suddenly Torm felt different; not ill, but most
certainly troubled.

"Show me your stocks of ale," Rysime told him quietly.

"Certainly. This way." Torm was pleased that somebody was taking enough of an
interest to want to look around. With great pride Torm showed the stranger, Rysime,
around his humble premises.

At length the stranger exited the inn alone and, with the directions given him by the
innkeeper, made his way to the small quarters of the Guardians of Taxton. He
discovered this to be a handful of so-called trained fighters placed at various strategic
points in and around the city, although it would be true to say that the majority of them
whiled away long and tiresome days either in their quarters or in the ale house.

Initially the Guardians were suspicious of the stranger's presence and ultimate
intentions, but soon discovered their uneasiness was unfounded; in Rysime they had
someone to relate to, a man with mutual interests who could tell them how it was in
faraway places.

Rysime became friendly with all, and soon he had them back at the inn, drinking as if
the world were going to end over night.

In the blackest part of night, just prior to dawn, the first of Taxton's population was
taken ill. And by first light, two thirds of it were dead. The remainder rushed around in
increasing despair, giving purposeless comfort to the people collapsing completely
spontaneously nearby.

Bran searched for his beloved Arine ... And discovered her dead. He broke down and
wept over her prone body. Arine was his life; he loved and lived only for her. What
would he do now?

He gently rolled her over on to her back, hoping against all hope that she was still
alive. It was at that precise moment that he witnessed for the first time the astounding
effects the uncanny disease had taken on its victims. Arine's face was absolutely bone-
dry, crevices having opened up all over her skin, into which her life's blood ran. As
Bran watched, both fascinated and disgusted by the sickening display, the parchment
skin fell away from her face in large clumps and he was met with the haunting sight of
her skull seeming to grin back at him. Simultaneously he smelled a nauseating aroma
emanating from the corpse. The eyes fell from their sockets, releasing a thick yellow
pus that dripped to the ground like contaminated tears.

Unable to prevent himself, Bran turned away and was violently sick. It seemed to him
as though the processes of death and post-death bodily deterioration had been greatly
accelerated by this despicable disease.

Eventually, when he had regained sufficient strength in his legs, Bran rose and
staggered despairingly between the littered bodies and wailing relatives and friends.
Then he noticed a curious thing.

The dead children and the majority of the deceased women of the city had been
physically stabbed; the fatal chest and back wounds were readily apparent. However,
the vast majority of the men and an isolated few of the women were dropping without
the physical affliction of hand-held weapons of any kind. It was as if they had been
poisoned.

On impulse Bran sprinted to the inn and prised open the lid of the nearest available ale
barrel. Grabbing a tankard, he dipped it into the barrel and then brought it to his lips.
Tentatively, he took the smallest sip.

It was foul! He spat it out unceremoniously on the inn floor. Why hadn't anybody
noticed the horrid taste? The only readily available explanation that sprang to mind was
that perhaps the tampered with barrels of ale had been served up when most of the
customers had been too drunk to care what else they drank. If somebody was trying
to kill off the entire population of Taxton, it had to be an outsider, and the only person
fitting that description was Rysime, the golden warrior. Bran scanned his surroundings
before finally spotting him in the distance, standing relaxed beside one of the stone
buildings.

"There," Bran pointed. "Yonder stands the murderer of our family and friends and
indeed our entire community." He shouted the words, attracting the half-hearted
attention of a small group of weakening survivors. The small group approached Bran
and together they converged with quickening pace on the complacent warrior.

The stranger watched them unworriedly until they were only a few paces away, then he
calmly and unhurriedly turned his back and walked behind the stone building. Bran
was the first of the group to reach the corner. He whirled around angrily to confront
the stranger.

Mustering sufficient strength, mainly through suppressed anger, he lashed out with a
tightly-clenched fist. Although the blow carried adequate force, it did not achieve its
purpose; Rysime was considerably taller than Bran and, because the punch had been
thrown awkwardly upwards, he merely succeeded in delivering a weak and glancing
blow.

Nevertheless, after being on the receiving end of a brief solitary smile of an obviously
insincere and secretive nature, Bran watched Rysime simply collapse, as if cut down
by the legs. He knew it wasn't a result of his clumsy attempt at combat - that blow
wouldn't have knocked a kitten off balance! - so his initial preconception was that the
perpetrator of this horror had somehow become afflicted with his own disease. There
were no visible external body wounds, so he soon came to the inevitable conclusion
that the man had been contaminated with the poison by his own hand. He even had to
dismiss this idea as ludicrous, for what would be gained by going to the trouble of
terminating the existence of the entire city's populace, if only to commit suicide
straight afterwards? And nothing of value or significant importance was possessed by
any individual within Taxton, so a forced takeover would prove pointless, as well as
fruitless. Looking down on the lifeless body, Bran could see that the stranger had
shared none of the symptoms that had stricken the city dwellers; his body had not
dried or cracked, and there was no evidence that the face would come away from the
skull. No, it seemed just as though the life within the shell of his body had
spontaneously winked out of existence, for no apparent reason.

As he stood confused at the corner, a strange tingling feeling overcame Bran, and he
wondered if it was an exaggerated form of anxiety. Or something more! He managed
to shake off the brunt of the uncanny feeling in time for the arrival of the small group
of deteriorating people he had summoned. "There," he informed the others, indicating
the prone body. None of the remaining four that constituted the small group of rapidly
fading survivors questioned the situation with which they were confronted. Their
diminishing intelligences were probably administering a final survival instinct: that of
attacking for the purpose of defence. They commenced kicking the body of the
stranger, slowly and methodically. But it was too late for both aspects; they no longer
needed to attack a lifeless body, and protection was something they were far beyond.
Bran had no criticism for their actions, for they plainly felt, similarly to himself, that
they had been cheated out of their vengeance.

He rushed off, leaving the group to die helplessly. There was nothing at all he could do
for the victims of the fatal stab wounds, and there was no known antidote for the
poison. Unfortunately he could only utilize his own good health by systematically
seeking out any possible survivors throughout the city and committing his utmost
attention to hopefully nurturing them back to health.

Bran ran inexhaustibly through and around the city of Taxton, searching every building
however humble the shelter, but came up empty. He knew he was simply clutching at
straws, but there was nothing he could do to remedy the situation. He felt completely
and utterly useless.

Now there was absolutely no hope at all for the populace of Taxton!

After committing the final dredges of his strength to kicking down the heavily
barricaded door, within the final building he checked - a small log cabin - he
discovered an old man sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor, his nose buried
in a large book; although, with his sight lost to illness two months previous, he
couldn't hope to attempt to read the ink on the ancient pages.

It was Yanix.

On first appearances Bran thought the old man to be desperately weak and close to
dying, like the rest of the inhabitants of Taxton; after all, he had shown no outward
signs of anger or fright at the abrupt intrusion. However, contrary to Bran's initial
misconception, apart from wearing a deep, ingrained expression of sadness, Yanix
appeared otherwise healthy.

Yanix had always been a survivor.

"I've been awaiting your presence, Bran," said Yanix, even though the young man had
not spoken.

Bran wanted to explain to Yanix how pleased and relieved he was that all had not
perished, but discovered the presence of a sudden throat swelling prevented him from
uttering a single syllable.

"I should have foreseen this," the old man spoke without lifting his head from the
book.

"How?" Bran managed in a whisper.

"And so should have you," Yanix continued as if he had not heard the question. He
slowly lifted his head and his sightless eyes burned straight through Bran's and into his
head, as if he possessed the ability to effortlessly read the younger man's thoughts.

"Know thine enemy. Sound advice," Bran was told.

"You speak as if you knew him to be our enemy."

Yanix sighed heavily and turned away, disgusted with the young man, but equally
disgusted with himself. He spun round to face Bran, still in his sitting position, and
fixed the man once again with an accusing blind stare.

"You were the Gatekeeper - you volunteered as my replacement when I was taken ill.
Did you not take the trouble to discover possible enemies to the people of Taxton?
This was your sworn duty."

Yanix paused momentarily, as if assembling his thoughts, then continued, talking
slowly and methodically, as if to an infant child who found straightforward ideas
difficult to grasp.

"How long have you known me, Bran?"

"All of my life, obviously," answered Bran.

"Yes," confirmed the old man. "Yes... Long before you were born, I made
arrangements for the construction of a high perimeter wall, to protect the city. I
introduced and took up the position of Gatekeeper to the city of Taxton, because I
knew best what to expect. Although every one of the elders scoffed when I informed
them of my reasons, none prevented me accomplishing my plans; in fact, many
deemed it a responsible idea, as only at that time had our humble city commenced
evolving into an entirely self-sufficient community. Our city grew in subtle ways within
the relative safety of the walls and, as the years went by, our population came to
appreciate the protection, simultaneously rather conveniently forgetting the original
reason behind its erection."

Bran stared back, nonplussed. "You have been expecting this to happen?"

"Yes, for a great many years, I'm afraid. "I neither knew how the enemy would arrive,
or when, I only knew that it would. You can appreciate then why I was so selective
about whom I let into the city."

"But he came over as such a polite and weary traveller of obvious high regard," Bran
protested.

"Fool! Have you not read the Book of the Oracle?"

"No, I missed that one," snapped Bran sardonically.

Yanix was deadly serious.

"Then permit me to read to you a passage from the scripture." He pressed his nose to
the current page of his open book and squinted at the dark ink. For the slightest
moment Bran mistakenly believed that Yanix had regained his sight, but the old man
spent more time looking sightlessly in Bran's direction than at the page of the book,
which told him that Yanix could only be relaying the passage from memory.

Through the mists of the inner darkness, he comes.

An aura of ultimate evil surrounds him.

Shadows walk with him,

And where he treads chaos and destruction are left in his wake.

Master of Misery, brother to the more familiar Master of Lies.

But beware and take heed,

For he comes to us in many forms, each in the shape of all things good.

Take him not into thy confidence, and look not into his eyes.

For the madness will take over thy soul,

And man will turn against his brother.

Like a plague of locusts he spreads his cloak of Misery across the land.

Until only the Master of Truth and Righteousness can restore order.

It is wise to fear him,

For he is The Mesmeriser.

Yanix forcibly slammed shut the heavy Book of the Oracle, creating a choking cloud
of dust.

Bran felt unnerving icy tendrils crawling across his scalp, now he fully realised what he
had unleashed to rampage through the city. "But I'm not precognitive, how was I
supposed to realise the identity of the stranger?" He shook his head slowly, in
exasperation. Even now, after the event, he found all of this far too difficult to
comprehend. "I can't understand it, he appeared so..."

"What seems to be evident to you on the exterior is of no consequence; it is what lies
within the heart that is important. By what name did he make himself known?"

"Rysime. But..."

The old man raised a hand to halt the conversation while he considered the name.
Suddenly Yanix laughed, rather cynically, and for a fleeting moment Bran honestly
thought the man had cracked under the pressure of the day's events; it would have
been understandable in the given circumstances.

"Hah!"

"What?"

"The pseudonym is merely the re-arranged letters that conceal his true identity:
Misery."

"But what about the scripture? I was preoccupied within the Gatekeeper's tower
throughout the entire time of the killings, but, although I managed to avoid all contact
with the afflicted individuals, I distinctly recall..."

"Yes, how was it that you were positioned in the highest vantage point around and yet
still managed to miss witnessing the entire scene?"

Bran opened his mouth to answer, then abruptly closed it again. He knew there must
be a reason for the supposed neglect of which he had just been accused, but right now
he couldn't think of one. Instead he attempted to finish what he had started to say
before being interrupted with the cutting remark on his character and responsibility.

"What I was trying to say, was that when I admitted the stranger through the gates I
felt compelled to look him in the eyes. They were bright blue, and very mesmeric and
commanding, but your proof that I was unaffected is standing right here."

"Yes," agreed Yanix, retreating from Bran in the centre of the room and withdrawing
as far as was possible into the darkest corner.

END

The Enemy Within appears here for the first time. As you might have guessed, the
intention with this one was to suggest that the warrior was possessed by The
Mesmeriser, rather than being the carrier of disease and despair himself. Perhaps the
possession of this Biblical evil spirit has now moved to Bran.