The House of Sulphur Spirits:
Being a Collaborative Work of Fantastical Magical Realism
Sarkrista Gorančić hated the stairs in his house. He was not afraid of heights and had appropriate feelings about enclosed spaces; Nor was he averse to climbing antiquated, crumbling, and winding escalier elsewhere. It was these particular stairs he hated. He hated them because they separated him from his beloved wife of nearly three decades now, Sarna. Though it had been explained to Sarkrista that stairs were not a barrier to his beloved but rather the transitive plane upon which he could travel, he knew the truth. Sarna, in polar opposition to her husband, was dreadfully afraid of heights, catatonically so. Why then, of course some would ask, would she voluntarily and (seemingly) permanently closeted herself in a tower nearly a hundred and fifty feet high? Those that survived a very practiced fist to the face from Sarkrista were then told that she was only afraid of a very specific set of heights, those between ten and one hundred and forty feet. To many this number seemed arbitrary. Indeed, even to Sarkrista this number did not make sense, but no one was going to ask another question and risk another assault. Sarna had explained to him once that the area between ten and one hundred and forty feet was the zone of the spirits. She would not elaborate on this further, no matter how persuasive or pleading Sarkrista could be. He built her a tower in their home that topped out one hundred and fifty feet, giving his wife ample room to be separated from the zone of the spirits. When asked why she did not wish to spend her days on the ground level with her dotting husband, one son, and three daughters, she would not answer. It was likely that not even the Dark Lord himself could have pried an answer from her lips.
Sarkrista climbed the stairs now, wearily trudging step by step in a winding stairwell (counterclockwise as was right and proper) to see his Sarna. He had not seen her in several days. The estate was busy. Indeed, it had been so busy he should not have even been taking the time now. But Sarkrista wanted to see his wife, and that was what he was going to do. He had enough help around the house, not to mention his children, to work and make preparations while he visited. His throat was dry. He knew that was a bad sign. Before he retired from the Black Guard, whenever his mouth went dry, trouble of a vastative nature followed.
He knocked on the door. It was a great, heavy thing carved of stolen Gondorian wood, something with a solipsistic Elven name. He’d had it smuggled especially for his wife. It was the only bit of mallorn in all of Mordor. It was too bad it had to be hidden away like this. Not even the Nine in Minas Morgul or Dol Guldur had something so rare. It was carved with dozens of spells, most of which were written in a language Sarkrista could not read. He was well-read, for an orc, and could read the runes of at least three different languages. He made certain to pass that ability to his children. These runes that ran crisscross in patterns that made his head hurt to follow, were something older, something more eastern, and something more occult than he’d ever encountered. They were made by Sarna. She was a witch. Or she had been. Can a voluntary shut in be a witch? He had no idea. It was a question he often pondered when he went to bed alone.
He waited some time before there was a sound, an acknowledgement to his knock. It was a small and timid sound compared to his knock. He scowled. Such a soft sound did not portend good things. For an orc not given over to many superstitions, he found of late that he was gaining more and more each day.
Stress. That’s what it was. Stress.
The door, though, unlatched and gently swung open on a creak. Shadows poured out of the room like water, highly viscous and tenacious in their own right. There was a pool of darkness at his feet. Instinctively, he backed up and picked his feet up. He was wearing boots of the finest mumak leather, he couldn’t afford to… he sighed.
His wife was in the doorway, an aura of blue, smoky light around her. She was older than he by about a half dozen years, but the years had handled her much more gently than they had his own person. It helped that she did not have a career in the military. His body and face were crossed with pocks of war and ill fortune. She was tall and sinewy, a willow in the midst of brambles.
“I thought you’d be here at lunch,” was all she said to him before stepping aside to allow him access to her tower of secrets. It smelled faintly of sulphur, there was a light, ruddy and ominous coming for a window on the west side of the tower. An ever-present, lording reminder that they were never alone in the lands of Mordor, even to the far east of the country. The prometherion volcano was never still, never slept. The days of the War were long, long over but that did not stop the natural geological processes of this moribund land.
“I was delayed,” he replied upon entered.
“I know. I missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too Sarna. Terribly.”
She touched his cheek. Her fingers were long and cool, her nails dagger sharp. “She is not long now.” She spoke the sentence with sweet venom, her eyes sparkling with annoyance.
Sarkrista did not need to ask who “she” was. His old friend and executive officer. She was a member of a new household, one nearly of the rank of Sarkrista’s own. Sarna did not like her. There was a green stink of jealousy. But what was he to do? There were not as many affluent and acceptable houses as there were two decades ago. The Great Tark Purge had seen to that after the War.
“You promised you would be civil about this, my darling.”
“Am I not being civil? Must I go down and greet this woman whom my husband so admires? Shall I help set out the fine ceramics? Shall I alight the beacon and paint the eye upon my forehead?”
Sarkrista sighed and took his wife’s hand from his cheek, the nails were beginning to form claws. “I was coming to ask you to come down, to eat with us this first night. It is a momentous occasion after all. Lantlôs is finally going to be betrothed. Our family line is going to continue. Not to mention the prospects for Ellende and Yengisar soon enough.”
“You look after the family in your way,” Sarna said, taking a step back from him, “and I shall do so in mine. You will give the children my blessings though, of course? Especially Ellende, she always was my favorite.”
“Are the spirits active today?”
“They are always active,” she said flatly, with hints of aggression at the edges of her syllables. “They do not need to sleep, so neither must I.”
Sarkrista’s eyes widened in horror. “How… how… long have you gone without sleep, my love?” He took another step into her abode and was hit with a wave of pungent, plant-based odors.
“Long enough that I needed the aid of that swill you used to drink on marches.”
His brow crinkled. “That’s not… how… what?”
“I stole some,” she said with practiced nonchalance, looking at her nails with a hint of smile.
“How long ago…?” Sarkrista asked.
“Years ago, ages really. Before the War.”
“Before the… Sarna! You’ve likely drunken poison by now!”
She began to lapse into a southern dialect of Black Speech, her words slowing and congealing like molasses. “Darling, you underestimate your wife, the Black (B)itch of Barad-dûr. I am the Lady of the House of Kardush. Witch of the Jarnkakog. You think a little expired stimulant is going to keep me down? In fact, it was a little on the sluggish side. I used my arts to improve upon it actually. I’m sure the guards will – ”
“How long have you been awake, my love?” Sarkrista asked again.
Sarna huffed and waved a dismissive hand. “Seven days.”
“Seven D—What are you doing?!” Sarkrista could not believe it. No, no, he could believe it. He did. That was the problem.
“She is about.”
A chill went down Sakrista’s spine. He didn’t know who this “she” was, but he could not work the nerve to ask Sarna. “She” was a spirit, a nasty one, even by the standards of spirits in Mordor. There was a wail outside the tower, a long, low, sound that Sarkrista felt in his bowels.
“It was good to see you, dear husband, but as you can see I have things I must attend to.”
She began chanting in a language Sarkrista couldn’t understand and waving her arms about. He had no idea how the two things correlated, only that they worked for his wife and he daren’t question her methods. They worked. Maybe.
The door shut as a gust of air pushed him back into the stairwell. All sound ceased around him. Nothing below him, nothing above him, nothing around him. He was in a great brobdingnagian tomb. For all that he had worked for and built over his life time, he was still in a tomb. That recurring nightmare. It was seeping into his waking thoughts now too. He shook his head, clearing out the intrusive thoughts.
He descended.
Sounds of preparation could be heard as he neared the ground floor. He didn’t know how much he welcomed it.
He stopped the nearest servant. “You there, where are my children? I need to speak to them. Find them now!”
