When he spoke again his voice had taken on a new tone, grave but engaging, a storyteller’s voice. “Gather close and listen well to the tale of the Witch’s Bastard. This is not a story for the faint at heart or the weak of bladder. This is the most terrible and frightful of tales and when I am done you may curse my name for ever having given it voice.

“In the darkest part of the darkest woods in old Renfael, long before the time of the Realm, there stood a village. And in this village there dwelt a witch, comely to the eye but with a heart blacker than the blackest night. Sweet and kind was the face she offered to the village, but mean and jealous was the soul behind it. For it was lust that drove this woman, lust for flesh, lust for gold and lust for death. The Dark had taken her at an early age and she had surrendered to its vileness with willing abandon, denying the Faith and winning power in return, the power to possess men, inflame their desires and have them commit dreadful acts in her name.

“First to fall under her spell was the village Factor, a good and kind man, grown wealthy through thrift and hard work, grown wealthy enough to arouse the witch’s lust. Every day she would wander past his place of business, flaunting herself in subtle ways, stoking the flames of his passion until they became a raging fire, burning away his reason, making him prey for her Dark whispered plan: kill your wife and take me in her place. And so, one fateful night, he sprinkled the poison known as Hunter’s Arrow into his wife’s supper and, come the morn, she breathed no more.

“Being a woman of middle years with a history of illness, the passing of the Factor’s wife was taken as simply an act of nature by the village. But of course the witch knew better, hiding her delight with tears when they gave the poor murdered woman to the fire, all the time calling to the Factor with her Dark power: “lavish gifts on me, and I will be yours.” And gifts he gave her, a fine horse, jewels and gold and silver, but the witch was clever and refused it all, making a great show of outrage at the impropriety of a man pressing his suit on so young a woman, and so soon after his wife’s passing at that. How she tormented him, calling to him and then rebuffing his every advance, it wasn’t long before her cruelty unhinged his reason and, seeking escape from the Dark enslavement of her lust, he stole away into the forest and stretched his neck from the high branch of a tall oak, leaving writ word of his ill deed and naming the witch as the cause of his madness.

“Of course the villagers wouldn’t believe it, so sweet she was, so kind. The Factor was clearly driven mad by his own delusion of love for a younger woman. They gave him to the fire and endeavoured to forget this dread episode. But, of course, the witch was not done, for her eye had alighted on the village blacksmith, a great handsome fellow, strong of arm and strong of heart, but even his heart could be twisted by her Dark power.

“She had taken to living apart from the villagers, all the better to practice her vile arts away from prying eyes. As she could turn a man’s heart this witch could also turn the wind, and as the blacksmith burned charcoal in the forest, she called a northern gale to whip snow down from the mountains, forcing him to seek shelter under her roof, and there, although he resisted with all his mighty strength, she forced him to lie with her, a black, evil union from which her dread bastard would be born.

“It was shame that broke her spell, shame of a good man forced to betray his wife, shame that made him deaf to her sweet enticements the next morn, and deaf to the threats she screamed as he fled back to the village where, foolishly, he told no one of what had transpired.

“And the witch, she waited. As the black seed grew in her belly, she waited. As winter gave way to spring and the crops grew tall, she waited. And then, when the scythes were sharpened for harvest and her foul creation clawed from between her legs, she acted.

“It was a storm unlike any seen before or since, heralded by ashen clouds that covered the whole sky from north to south, east to west, bringing wind and rain in terrible abundance. For three weeks the rain fell and the wind blew and the villagers huddled in fearful misery until, when at last it was over, they ventured into the fields to find every acre a wasted ruin. The only crop they would reap that year would be hunger.

“They looked to the forest, seeking game to fill their bellies, but finding all the beasts driven off by some Dark whisper of the witch. The children cried to be so hungry, the old people sickened and, one by one, began to pass into the Beyond, and all the time the witch kept to her small cottage in the woods, for she and her bastard always had plenty to eat, unwitting beasts could be easily snared by one so well versed in the Dark.

“It was the death of the blacksmith’s beloved mother that finally drove the truth from him. Confess he did to the gathered villagers, telling them all of the witch’s designs and how he had fallen under her spell to sire the well-fed bastard she carried through the forest, mocking their starving young with his happy laughter. The villagers voted and none disagreed: the witch must be driven out.

“At first she tried to use her power to assuage them, casting lies at the blacksmith, accusing him of the most terrible of crimes: rape. But her power had no effect now they could see the truth, now they could hear the venom that coloured every lie she told, the evil glint in her eye showing the vileness hidden behind her pretty face. And so with torches flaming they drove her forth, her cottage burned by their righteous anger as she fled into the forest, clutching her vile whelp to her breast, all pretence gone as she cursed them… and promised revenge.

“And so, while the villagers returned to their homes and tried best they could to survive the coming winter, the witch sought out a hiding place in the dark reaches of the forest, a place where no foot had stepped before, and began to teach her spawn the ways of the Dark.

“Years passed, the village buried its dead and refused to die. Years went by and the witch became but a memory then a story told on cold nights to frighten children. The crops grew, the seasons passed and all seemed right with the world once more. How blind they were, how naked before the coming storm. For the witch had made a monster of her bastard, seemingly but a scrawny, ragged boy gone wild in the woods, but in truth possessed of all the Dark she could pour into him, first with the tainted milk of her breast then the whispered tutelage in their stinking refuge and finally with her own blood. For she had sacrificed herself, this witch, this hate filled woman, when he had grown old enough she took a knife to her wrists and bade him drink. And drink he did, hard and deep until the witch was but a husk, gone to the nothingness that awaits the unfaithful but succoured by the knowledge of her impending vengeance.

“He started with their animals, beloved pets taken in the dead of night and found tormented to death on the morn. Then heifers or pigs were taken, their severed heads impaled on fence posts at each corner of the village. Fearful, ignorant of the true danger that assailed them, the villagers set watches, lit torches, kept weapons close to hand when darkness came. It availed them nothing.

“After the beasts he came for the children, tottering infants and babes still in their cribs, any he could take he took, and gruesome was their fate. Enraged, maddened they scoured the forest, hunters sought tracks, every known hiding place checked, traps set to ensnare this unseen monster. They found nothing, and on it went, through the autumn and into winter, the nightly toll of torture and death continued. And then, as winter’s chill gripped them, he finally made himself known, simply walking into the village at noon. By now their fear was so great no hand was lifted against him, and they begged. They begged for their children and their lives, they offered all they had if he would just leave them in peace.

“And the Witch’s Bastard laughed. It was not a laugh any normal child could make, nor a laugh that could have come from any human throat. And with that laugh, they knew they were doomed.

“He called forth the lightning and the village burned. The people fled to the river but he swelled it with rain until the banks burst and carried them away. Still his vengeance was not sated and he brought down a blast of wind from the far north to encase them in ice. And when the ice had set, he walked across it until he found the face of his father the blacksmith, frozen in terror for all time.

“No one knows what became of him, although some say on the coldest nights, in a place where it’s said a village once stood, you can hear laughter echoing through the woods, for that is how it is with those who give themselves over to the Dark so completely, release from life is denied them, and the Beyond closed to them for ever more.”

Al Sorna fell silent, his expression thoughtful as he returned his gaze to the sword in his lap. I had a sense that he attached some importance to this lurid tale, something in the gravity with which he had related the story spoke of a significance I couldn’t discern. “You believe this story?” I asked.

“They say all myths have some kernel of truth at their heart. Perhaps in time, a learned fellow like you could find the truth in this one.”

“Folklore is not my field.” I set aside the parchment upon which I had set down the tale of the Witch’s Bastard. It would be several years before I read it again, by which time I had good cause to bitterly regret not following his suggestion.

I reached for fresh pages, looking at him expectantly.