* * *
The Silver Knight watched in silence as that demon…this person, Tod, finished his work. This was now their work. The Evil wounded the both of them in some way and although the quest was his, he was not greedy and he did not need glory. Victory, honorable and shared, was victory still.
But something seemed wrong. Not with Tod. But something else. He knew how this place felt and he knew its magic and he worried that something had happened, that the moment had slipped away from him and the Abomination was no longer vulnerable.
“Tod… I mean, Squire Tod. I believe we have lost our advantage. I believe we must retreat.” Not cowardly. A good knight knows when to pull back and reassess.
“But Will…Sir William. I know my business here. I’ve done it right this time and there’s no way this thing will stand.” He seemed confident, but Will had seen such confidence before, had possessed such confidence before and had met defeat at the hands of the Black Knight. This was no longer the time.
“I’m afraid it will.”
“Oh, yes. You can feel it, too, can’t you, Strange One? You can feel the love.” It was not the voice of the Black Knight. It was someone he knew but not that someone somehow. And the way he said love made it sound like a plague. He turned around and saw the figure there at the other end of the bridge.
“Let’s get some distance and blow this thing, Will.” Tod sounded scared and Will didn’t blame him. All at once he needed to be somewhere else, but he could not move. All at once, it seemed like all those thoughts he had about quests and chivalry and being the Silver Knight vanished into the ether and he was just Will Kurtz again, stuck on the bridge and haunted by the demons there. All those stories that Gil told about Lord Stansbury and the black arts and his curse and here he was and there was a real demon staring back at him out of the eyes of his friend, John. He had to get out of here now.
The John-figure chuckled. “The love surrounds us now and it’s spreading back to the town. You can feel it, can’t you, Will? Teacher Girl had so much love to give.”
Will turned and ran.