A tense, electric silence followed the swift departure from the hospital's sterile confines. The three youths—Jai, Zayn, and James—moved with a hurried grace, their steps rustling the coarse gravel path. Winston, the dwarf painter, rolled his antique wheelchair, its wooden wheels groaning a low, rhythmic complaint against the path, keeping pace effortlessly with his strong, calloused hands.
They found refuge in a small, forgotten garden, a sanctuary shielded from the hospital's main view by a cluster of towering, ancient pines. Three sat upon a wooden bench, its surface weathered and cracked like an old man's palm, speaking of countless seasons endured. The air here was thicker, carrying the scent of damp earth and decaying leaves—a sharp contrast to the antiseptic sting of the hospital.
As Winston maneuvered his chair close to the bench, the tension became palpable. Jai, his eyes sharp and insistent, broke the silence.
"Mr. Winston," Jai began, his voice dropping to a serious, low register that commanded attention. "We are away from prying ears. Now, shed the skin of secrecy and tell us: what truly transpired here? Unveil the hidden malice that festers beneath this town's placid exterior."
Winston let out a long, shuddering sigh, a sound weighted with a year of suffering and bitter memory. He gazed past the youths, his eyes fixing on an invisible point in the distance—the ghost of a terrible past.
"You perceive this village now as a peaceful haven, a place of good harvest," Winston started, his voice a low, gravelly rasp. "But a mere year ago, this place was a rotting carcass. We were reduced to savages, gnawing on the bones of survival. Famine was a scythe cutting down our children; it stole their breath and their laughter. The horrors that began then… they defy easy description."
Winston's gaze grew distant, tracing the lines of his memory. "We were governed by a fine man, our Minister. He lived in a palace—you saw the faithful replica at the town's entrance, a symbol of the King's reach. Minister Brokk was a benevolent soul, a man who would give the shirt off his back to feed a starving child."
Jai's mind, always racing ahead, seized on a detail, and he glanced at Zayn. "Wait, Zayn," he interjected, a flicker of suspicion in his eyes. "Do you use Ministers as town heads to manage the regions under your father's authority?"
Zayn, his royal identity a tightly guarded secret, instinctively lowered his voice to a whisper, mindful of his carefully constructed disguise. He had to be careful; the walls here had ears, and the very air seemed to hold secrets.
"Yes, Arthur, that is our system," Zayn confirmed, his tone hushed and measured. "It is an impossible task to keep watch over an entire kingdom. Thus, we segment the lands, appointing a trusted head—the Minister—for each town. This Minister serves as the eyes, ears, and hands of the King, communicating the town's needs so that goods, resources, and currency can be fairly distributed. It is the cornerstone of King Borin's stewardship."
Jai nodded slowly, his suspicion temporarily assuaged. He was the most quick-tempered of the three, but he trusted Zayn's judgment implicitly.
Winston, seeing their momentary huddle, offered a wry, knowing look. "What troubles you, youngsters?" he asked, his tone not of offense, but of weary amusement.
Jai offered a warm, slight smile, a stark contrast to his earlier intensity. "Nothing, truly, sir. Pray continue your grim tale."
Winston resumed, the shadows in his eyes deepening. "Minister tried his best. He distributed his personal stores, every scrap of food and every drop of water, until his palace larder was bone-dry. We went to him daily, begging, and he gave until he had nothing left to give."
Jai, seeking a logical loophole, pressed him. "But you have the river! I saw it—it flows strong and clean now. Why did you not draw water from its bounty?"
Winston shook his head slowly, a profound sadness clouding his features. "That river you behold now… it is a miracle, not a constant. A year past, it was a poisoned artery—a desolate pile of industrial refuse and toxic slurry. It was not a source of life, but a spreader of death. Our water reserves vanished."
He continued, his voice gaining a hard edge. "Even the Minister, in his desperation, sought to contact the Capital, to reach King Borin for aid. He went to the usual contact points, pleaded for the King's share of provisions."
Zayn's brow furrowed. "That is highly irregular. The King's provisioning logistics are designed to prevent this very scenario. The goods should have been sent directly, without the Minister's personal appeal being necessary."
"That is the heart of the matter, young man!" Winston exclaimed, slamming a fist lightly on his wheelchair armrest. "They were turned away! Our Minister was repeatedly dismissed, even rudely expelled from the regional depot. They refused us a single loaf of bread or a sack of grain. We turned to the wild, but even the forest's creatures were tainted—stricken with virulent diseases. The people perished. The sheer scale of death was unimaginable."
Just when all hope was a receding tide, a new force arrived.
"Then, one day," Winston recounted, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, "a man came. He had striking, impossible features: green hair the color of fresh spring growth, and eyes of piercing, cold blue. A small, loyal entourage followed him. He didn't question or judge; he simply observed our suffering, then set to work."
This mysterious man became their savior. He brought curative herbs and salves, stemming the tide of the diseases. He dedicated his efforts to the polluted river, using some strange, powerful alchemy to cleanse the sludge, restoring its flow to a pure, life-giving stream. Most miraculously, he rendered the blighted land fertile again, ready for the crucial spring sowing.
"We all hailed him as a messiah," Winston stated bitterly. "We saw him as a deity sent by fate to rescue the forgotten. But we soon understood our foolishness. We realized his true purpose was far, far darker."
James, who had been listening with rapt, uncharacteristic patience, could not hold his tongue any longer. His curiosity was a burning ember. "By the spirits! What atrocity did he commit? Tell us his name, sir!"
Jai shot his comrade a frustrated look. "He's telling us, James, have patience! Mr. Winston, you said he had a name…"
"His name," Winston pronounced with a venomous hiss, a sound of utter betrayal. "It was Lance."
The narrative plunged into the deep. "Soon after Lance cemented his benevolent image, people began to disappear. Quietly. One by one, our neighbors would vanish, only to reappear a few days later. We were worried, and Minister was immediately suspicious. He began a discreet investigation."
Winston leaned closer, his eyes wide with the remembered fear. "But when the missing returned, their faces were strangely blank, their eyes hollowed. We questioned them, pleaded for an explanation, but they were mute, unresponsive. They were like puppets, and after that, more and more vanished, then returned, leaving us in a paralyzing haze of confusion."
The revelation of the "missing-and-returned" phenomenon sent a cold shiver down the spines of Jai, Zayn, and James. Their faces were momentarily filled with sweat—a reaction born not of heat, but of a sudden, profound dread.
"One evening, it was my turn," Winston continued, his voice barely a breath. "I was working late at the hospital—a fact you find surprising, I see."
James interrupted, unable to contain his surprise: "You were a doctor? A healer?"
"Indeed," Winston confirmed, nodding. "I was a physician of some renown, until certain 'horrible things' broke my spirit. Now, I merely draw portraits of the faces around me, seeking the humanity that seems to be draining away. But before I gave up the scalpel, I was working when she came for me. The woman in the white cloth… the one you saw at my cottage."
She had ambushed him, binding him with cold, metallic certainty and dragging him down into a hidden underground facility. He awoke, strapped firmly to a cold surgical bed.
"The horror, lads," Winston whispered, a tear tracing a path down his weathered cheek. "I saw others! Familiar faces from the village, lying motionless on beds beside me! I called to them, my voice cracking, but they did not stir. They were utterly inert."
Then, the face of his savior, Lance, materialized before him. Lance was smiling—a terrifying, chilling curve of the lips that held no warmth, only contempt.
"I demanded to know his purpose, why he had abducted our people."
Lance's reply was a hammer blow to his soul, delivered with chilling arrogance. "You townspeople are truly fools," Lance had sneered. "I gave you food and water, and you crowned me a God. And as your creator, your divinity, I am entitled to do as I wish with the creatures I have made."
Lance revealed the terrifying truth: He was using an artifact, a mechanism of control, to erase their free will, to make them utterly subservient to his commands. His goal was to forge an army for a war.
"I asked him, a tremor in my voice, 'War? Against whom?' Lance's smile widened, cold as a winter moon. 'Against King Borin.'"
The mention of the King stirred a deeper fear in Winston. "Why? What possible grievance justifies this treason?"
"There is a score to settle from the past," Lance declared, his eyes burning with fanatic zeal. "We, the Shadow Ledger, are coming to reclaim our heritage, to install our true King, and to exact a bloody revenge for the indignities we suffered."
Lance explained the sinister purpose of the townspeople. "Your town possesses the finest craftsmen in the realm, with unique talents for creating things of great power and danger. I need these artisans to forge the tools of war. I chose this village precisely because of the King's neglect—a neglect I orchestrated by intercepting all the royal supplies meant for this region. You were ripe for salvation, and thus, ripe for my control."
The name hung in the air: "Shadow Ledger."
Jai, Zayn, and James, hearing the title of the shadowy organization that plagued the kingdom, felt a wave of icy shock crash over them. Their tenseness amplified, their hearts pounding a frantic drumbeat against their ribs.
Lance then administered an anesthetic, and Winston's world dissolved into blackness. He awoke, groggy and disoriented, back in his own bed. He convinced himself it was a fevered dream, until the pieces clicked into place. His wife, the neighbors—all acting with a strange, unnatural compliance. The climax came when Lance marched into the town square, dragging a visibly beaten, coughing figure—Minister—by a heavy chain.
"He crowned himself the new authority. He became the undisputed king of our town," Winston concluded, his voice heavy with self-reproach. "The Minister was broken, and I finally understood: the white lady's kidnapping, Lance's confession—it was all devastatingly real."
"But… why were you spared?" Zayn questioned, his mind grasping for the single anomaly. "Why did their artifact, their mental control, not affect you as it did the others?"
Winston shook his head slowly. "I don't know. Perhaps my internal resistance, or some unknown factor, allowed me to slip through their net. But I believe they realized their mistake, which is why the white-clothed fanatic tried to silence me permanently."
James, his eyes darting to the name Lance had chained, asked the last, crucial question about the town's former leader. "What became of the Minister?"
Winston's revelation was the final, devastating blow. "He managed to escape the town, a broken, haunted man. He abandoned his high station, fleeing to the remote highlands, where he now lives in miserable anonymity as a humble, itinerant craftsman."
The three young men recoiled as one, their faces registering utter disbelief.
"What?" Jai roared, the name echoing with unbelievable gravity. "His name… is Brokk?"
"Yes," Winston replied, a flicker of confusion in his eyes. "Minister Brokk. Is that a problem?"
The young men were speechless, a dawning horror on their faces. The one they had considered an enemy, a possible traitor who had abandoned the King's post, was, in fact, the very man who had tried to save his people, a victim of the Shadow Ledger's brutal conspiracy.
The realization settled over them like a shroud: The enemy they sought, and the savior of this town, were one and the same.