Reaper Maddness

Chapter Three: The Master's Chambers

Dusk was beginning to settle into night. The temperature had begun to drop as the sun dangled ever so close to the horizon and slowly dipped itself into the ocean. 

As the lights came on I could still see my acquaintance, dodging through trees, between people and cars, almost as if he wanted me to see him. Secretive, yet obvious. And, me being me, curiously, I followed.

Together, yet yards apart, we walked through the night crowd. I snatched a hot dog as I passed the cart, its vendor was helping a customer and totally oblivious to me. I no longer needed to eat, but I'd really gotten a taste for the odd meat. I still didn't know what was in them, and having had haggis in my youth, I knew not to ask.

His shadow ducked behind an old church. It's people had stopped going there to worship years ago. This place was abandoned, save for the few junkies who squatted there while enjoying their next fix. They weren't my concern. I was following a colleague and I wasn't at all certain as to why he was leading me down this odd path. So secretive, so agile, but, thankfully, not a danger to me in any way.

As I walked through the old grave yard that sat next to the squat chapel, I could hear him talking to himself in a low chattering voice. I stopped by the corner of where he'd slipped past and waited to hear if I could understand what he was doing here.

He whispered quickly to himself, inaudible for me to catch any of what he was saying. His feet shuffled in the dirt and then quickly stopped. 

"Sir, did you make it?" He questioned in my direction. His voice was raspy as if he'd been speaking for centuries in a cold place. "Have you followed me, Sir?" His feet shuffled backwards as if he wasn't sure it was me who followed him, or something else.

"Yes, minion, I made it." I said to the darkness as I rounded the corner and leaned against the old brick wall.

"Sir, I come with a message from the Master." His head bowed, shadows played across his face. "The Master wishes you would come home, and speak with him of your task."

"The Master wishes me return?" I asked incredulously. I honestly didn't know where to go. It's not like I was given a map of where the hunter had taken me, any more than I was given an explanation as to why I showed up more than seven hundred years after my death. 

"If The Master wants me to come see him, perhaps he should tell me where he's been these past seven-hundred and thirty two years." I was appalled. I wasn't about to hold back my ire from this fledgling.

He shifted, pushing some dirt with his foot before speaking again. "The Master will send you a beacon, if you follow it, you shall find him, yes?" He didn't know how I could react in such a way.

"When was the last time you saw The Master, minion?"

For the first time, his eyes met mine, his black as pitch, mine whatever color I wished for them to be that day. I could see fear, he was rightfully afraid of The Master, but there was obviously more to it. His eyes betrayed him, something was wrong, something was very wrong. 

"MINION," I shouted at him, "Tell me what is going on. What does The Master need of me? How do I find him?"

"The ring." he managed to stutter out, spittle shooting from his mouth in an arc, almost hitting my shoe as it hit the ground.

"What about the ring?" I began to fiddle with it and realized the stone moved. Twenty some odd years and I'd never thought to mess with the ring. Sometimes I can be a bit of an idiot, I mean, I was born in the thirteenth century after all.

As I turned the stone clockwise time seemed to move forward, the minion somehow had vanished. I took a few steps back and turned the ring in the opposite direction and time reversed, and in a moment I saw and heard myself yelling at the minion. What would happen if ....