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Episode 70

“We had better get ready to move.  Quickly turn your mirrors around to face you – then turn yourself around to face the room … and don’t react to Rangor’s appearance in the room,”  The tone in Joseph’s voice was so stern nobody could help but accept the need to follow his instructions,  “Should Rangor notice us as we move in, we will be dead in seconds.”

********

Inside the main room the embers were now so hot the room was fast becoming similar to a furnace, but the witches of Trenthamville were frozen with fear.  Their god had returned; as they had prayed that he would, but once again he was angry … and to each of the witches, their minds instantly returned to the night of the long light and the events that had taken place before their very eyes.  Now, the pleasure of his return no longer held their hearts in joy … now they again feared for their lives, and they thought that to be unfair; they had been willing to do anything for their master.  They would willingly lie down and die for him; metaphorically, but they truly didn’t want to die.  They would have much more preferred to have lived long enough to have enjoyed the rewards he had promised.  However, they knew the odds of a long life, with promised riches gracing their bank accounts, was currently a fifty-fifty chance and possibly reducing by the moment.
  By now the witches were now uncertain what to do.  They had been told to be here tonight, at this very moment in time, to witness his arrival.  They had been told to collect a statue from an unused army warehouse on the old Sullivan farm, but they had found nothing there.  They thought that there had perhaps been a mistake in the location given, but now they were understanding; it was not the location that was the problem … the problem was arriving here and summoning him when they didn’t have the statue.  And, in retrospect they wondered how they could have made the same mistake again?  But they had, and their minds, collectively, were now one in worry about just how they would pay for their error of judgement.

********

Joseph and his crew began to move forward freely under the cover of the noise and disruption caused by the frequent outbursts from Rangor to his motley crew, and their frequent attempts at defending themselves.  But, ironically, Joseph found himself forced to change tact mid-stream as a result of that protection; Rangor’s constant bickering was making it far too easy for him to see them coming, hiding behind the mirror frames.  With every pitiful excuse emitting from the lips of one of the witches lined up on either side of him Rangor would constantly scan his head back and forth across the room to locate the speaker; an action that made it very easy for him to question the mirror frames once they appeared before his eyes.  Joseph knew he had to move fast to retain their advantage.
  “Semi-circle – now!  ‘One’.” Joseph whispered as loud as he could above the raucous din that was taking place around them – calling each step as loud as he safely could in an attempt to ensure the group did not break the semi-circle . 
  “Two.”  The group took one more step.
  “Three.”  Martin – stop!”  Martin froze on the spot
  “The rest of you – ‘Four’ – and stay there’.”  Joseph continued in his whispering as Raji and Mary hesitated for a second, then, to Joseph’s relief, they both stepped forward one step where they remained.  The semi-circle, now created, was located twelve feet from the burning embers; sixteen feet from where Rangor’s body was slowly emerging from the wall, their mirrors facing them, their bodies, for the moment, protected by the frame when Joseph gave his final order, “Now – keep behind the mirror and don’t speak … and don’t peek.  Our lives depend on it.”  And as Joseph looked down the line on his right he noticed a witch had arrived from out of nowhere … and the witch was holding a mirror in the same manner as he and his friends were as he stood one pace in front and to the right of Raji.  Joseph was uncertain what was going on, however the witch did not do anything, but stand still facing the fire, his covered face seemingly staring straight ahead.  Joseph could say or do nothing, so he bit deep into his nerves and did the same thing.

********

Suddenly Rangor could take no more.  “Be quiet you fools!”  Rangor thundered, “I am not your Lucifer.  I – am – the -Punjaniti!!!!  You had your instructions and you verified that you had collected it when you began the chant.  So – where – is – my – statue? ”

********

Total silence suddenly ruled the room.  Rangor had stopped discharging his barrage of fear and intimidation, but the witches had grown too fearful to utter another word in their defence.  And, so, for what seemed a million seconds not a word was spoken by either side.  The seconds ticked by at an agonisingly slow place.  The witches became more afraid by the second; the creature was finding his patience stretched to the limit.  Joseph and his friends were beginning to cramp in their distorted shape behind their frames.  All wished something would start moving again.
  But seconds are a millstone hanging on the threads of silence and fear; something had to give.  Finally it was one of the witches whose scream of regret and apology broke the silence.  He screamed, and immediately dropped to his knees as if in prayer, his face close to the ground in a vain attempt to hide the tears that flowed freely.  “My lord,” he called out.  “I am your servant, my lord.  Please, we have done our best to deliver what you wanted.  But it wasn’t where we were told it would be.”  The tone of a second voice was far more subdued; almost conceding defeat and an empty ending to his life, “We do not know. Mister Punjaniti.”
  Rangor could take no more.  “Be quiet you fools!”  He thundered, “I am not your Lord, either.  I – am – the -Punjaniti!!!!  You had your instructions, and you verified that you had collected it when you began the chant to summon me.  So – where – is – my – statue? ”

********   

At the same time Rangor had once again expressed his anger, an unexpected noise attracted Joseph’s attention.  To his surprise he turned his head to the right just in time to see the witch that had been standing next to Raji suddenly spin around and move quickly towards the back wall.  Joseph wondered what he was up to, but all the witch did was to place the mirror side of the frame against the wall.  Then simply stayed where he was facing the fire; again leaving Joseph in uncertainty of the witch’s motives.

********

Rangor still awaited his reply, but no answer came.  The tension in the room became thicker and thicker.  For whatever reason, Rangor was adamant that he had expected the statue to arrive; for whatever reason; the witches had no answer to provide. 
  The seconds continued to pass by for them like prisoner’s awaiting the guillotine.  The witches were under unbearable terror.  The hour was at hand, and each one was by now expecting the inevitable; guilty as charged!, regardless of the circumstances. 
  “We don’t know, my lord,” a wary, frightened voice stammered, “We really don’t know.  Please forgive us.”
  Rangor was about to explode literally; to destroy the entire room and everybody within it when something happened that froze him on the spot.

********

“I know what happened to the statue, Master.”  A voice shrieked from the back of the room, “These infidels have stolen it, Master.”  And as the voice screamed through the now otherwise silent farmhouse, all eyes turned to the back of the hall as the guard that Joseph had hit with the rock made a grand entrance despite his still cuffed hands locked behind his back; His bloodied face giving him a grotesque appearance as he came staggering out of the dark hallway and into the lit room just behind where Joseph and the others were hiding. 

********

The creature cared not which witches the human at the back of the room was referring to;.  Nor did he comprehend there were people behind the frames.  These things did not interest him.  Rangor simply wanted someone to pay for the frustration these fools were causing him.  They did not have the statue and he doubted very much that they would ever locate it.  They were no longer of any use to him.  It was time for him to break the link.

********  

A second sound attracted Joseph’s ears and in that instant Joseph found himself watching in awe at the actions of the witch who had been resting against the back wall. 

********

It took Rangor less than an instant to formulate his action.

********

As Joseph continued to watch the witch, he suddenly understood what was going to happen.

********

Rangor was ready to begin his reign of destruction as Joseph called his troops to arms.

********

“Now,” Joseph cried out in a loud whisper, “Reveal your mirror and make sure you hold the handles behind the frame, most definitely do not hold them at the side … you’ll most likely lose some fingers, if not your entire hand.” 

********

The unknown witch flicked the switch and turned off the light, leaving the room in complete darkness with the exception of the glow from the fire … and the strange red and blue hue that now surrounded Rangor.

********

The witch that had turned off the light picked up their mirror, turned the frame around so the mirror was facing Rangor, and virtually flew back to their previous position next to, and one step forward,from Raji

********

The first fireball formed within Rangor’s massive head was despatched with force and venom.

********

The foursome spun their splintered mirrors to their front even as Joseph spoke, and ducked behind them as they made their move, ensuring they followed Joseph’s dire warning to the letter. 

********

The lone witch resumed their position in the semi-circle just in time to join forces with Mary’s mirror in catching and deflecting a portion of the power ball Rangor had sent down the room.  The deflected power crisscrossed the room from both sides and both deflections took out one of the witches standing in line on the opposite side of the carpet.  The remainder of the fireball splitting the injured witch in half.

********

The effect that the change of lighting conditions created in the room was incredible.  The reflection of the burning embers and the dancing flames on the broken mirrors that had been meticulously placed around the room gave the impression of thousands of red rubies sparkling endlessly around the otherwise darkened room as Rangor took to his task with aplomb and a single intention; to destroy all that resided within the room.
  Then, as was the case in the disputed attempt on the life of Doris, the nurse in Rosetta’s room, a barrage of bolts of light came screaming out of the fog that surrounded the Punjaniti, only this time they were lethal … and they were indiscriminate in who and where they penetrated. 
  The bolts, smashing into the mirrors, broke the slivers into even smaller and thinner slivers, and collectively the power bursts bounced off the ever increasing slivers with an even greater power.  Some of the uncontrolled power bursts penetrating the skins of several of the unprotected witches; their blood being heated beyond boiling point.  For some, their brains began to explode as they screamed and writhed in agony as they lay on the burning embers until their minds could take no more, and they lapsed into unconsciousness before their eventual death.
  The barrage of heated light increased. The power of the bolts also intensified, and so did the deflections.  The more that was thrown at the mirrors; the more that was spread across the room.  The more it shattered the glass it came in contact with, including the glass in the paper plates and mirrors, the more slivers it created to reflect the projected power  The more power directed at the glass, both in the paper plates and the mirrors, the more power was deflected, and that increasing deflected power also began to attack Rangor.  
  As the group of four and the unidentified witch stood there deflecting the rays, a couple of witches that were still able to move screamed in agony.  Disorientated in the nauseating smoke and smell that was building up in the room they consistently bumped into each other in their panic, eventually both of them lost balance and fell into the burning embers.  ‘Their screams would have a hold on their dreams and nightmares for years to come,‘ Joseph and his friends collectively imagined, but they dared not take their mind off the task at hand … they were fully aware that if they did for but for a second, it could very well be that their own scream may be the last thing that they ever heard.
  The one witch left, other than their unknown sidekick in the line, was the witch that had been dispersing the powder into the embers when Joseph had first arrived in the room, and he was still standing in the middle of the room where he had been feeding the fire.  But his reason for being there was no longer to call up his master; now he was being spasmodically spun around in total disorientation, constantly attempting to dodge the deflecting fireballs that were being hurled at the people with the mirrors and rebounding in his direction, and eventually a thunderbolt bouncing off Raji’s mirror thudded into him, pushing him forwards into the path of a direct blast from the Punjaniti.  The force of the last impact was so severe it caused his entire body to burst open in a wall of flames, and what was left of him fell onto the fembers in a bubbling mess.
  With the witches screams now no longer creating a distraction, every bolt emitting from the wall was directed at the mirrors.  The room began to vibrate as the energy level in it increased to saturation point.  Joseph’s troops could feel the mirrors shuddering in their hands as the handles began coming loose from the frame, and they knew that it was only a matter of time before they could no longer be safe from the bombarding rays.
  Still, they held their ground; each member of the small group hoping that Joseph’s master plan was going to break into action any old tick of the clock … and that thought was more than prominent inside Joseph’s own pounding head.  Because his plan was already in play, but it didn’t seem to be working fast enough … and the life span of their only defensive weapon was fast running out.
  Joseph placed his mind in rapid mode as he searched for inspiration: time was of the essence and he knew that he had to come up with something as fast as humanly possible … or even faster still.  He forced his mind to search his memory of the room as it had appeared to him when they were in the house earlier, before Rangor arrived..  Images began to arrive immediately, and he quickly set out a mental algorithm to analyse each arrival with rapid  efficiency.  It took several seconds before his requirement was met, and Joseph was certain in his mind that he had the solution in hand, but there was one test that had to be undertaken first.
  Joseph looked hard at the current illumination of the room.  The dazzling light that was illuminating the room was a combination of the reflections of the embers coming from the plates spread around the room and the death bolts that the Punjaniti was spewing forth with such intensity ‘it was a wonder, Joseph thought, ‘the glass hadn’t already started falling out of the mirror’, and with that thought in mind something slammed into his head with such force he almost lost control of his defensive weapon, but somehow he managed to retain control and in an instant he had the final step of his plan.  But first he had to make certain that everything would work for them
   “Martin, Raji.”  Joseph called out loud enough for all of his friends to hear his instruction, but, hopefully, not Rangor; not quite yet, “Do what I say, but don’t ask questions.  Move towards each other, but stay in front of me.  I want you to cover me while I check the condition of the glass on my mirror.”  The two men did what was requested of them and Joseph quickly swung his mirror around and began to scan his eyes across the length and breadth of the glass.  The glass was now almost completely fractured, the mirrored surface was now composed of thousands of thick, sharp, glass nails, rather than the flat, single base it had once been, but it was still intact on the frame. Joseph carefully rubbed a single finger across the width of the mirror and he could feel the tiny slivers fractionally move as his finger crossed over them, before they rocked back into place.  Joseph knew that the slivers were hanging in there by a thread; a bit more power and they would be gone forever. “Martin, Raji, Get ready to move back to where you were, but as you move, so will I.  I will move forward to join you in the middle and once I arrive there move in as close as you can so our mirrors are as close as possible to being joined as one.  Mary, I want you to do the same and move as close to Martin as you can, but at an angle so your mirror is still facing Rangor, only aimed at his side – not at his front.  And Witchie Poo, whoever you really are, I want you to close up as well to Raji and do the same thing as Mary, but in the opposite direction.  I can assure you that getting out of here alive will depend on your co-operation.  And, all of you, make sure you are facing the our fearsome friend, and your mirror is covering all noticeable gaps between the mirrors alongside you, because I am about to stir him up … and believe me, all going well, his retaliation will be horrendous.  Alright … lets go.”  And before anybody could say anything Joseph began to move forward.

********

The total movement took far less than two seconds, the exact same amount of time it would take Joseph to antagonise Rangor.  

********

“Is this all that you have, Rangor?”  Joseph called out loudly, in a deliberately sneering tone, “I told Arkerious, I would be wasting my time becoming involved in a skirmish with you.  We should have had our tête-à-tête in the children’s playground.  I am fairly certain that would be a better place for you to show off your imaginary powers.  You are totally useless in real life.”
  “Joseph?”  The voice was questioning; it was painfully obvious that Rangor had been far too busy seeking revenge for his missing statue, than to have questioned who he was punishing.
  “Yes, the one and only, Rangor, your worst nightmare.” Joseph called out as he popped his head out over the top of his mirror and mentally conjured up a blast that appeared to rock Rangor on his knees, but completely unseen by Joseph’s associates, which is exactly what Joseph preferred.

*******

The Punjaniti screamed what appeared to be an obscenity so high pitched and loud that it almost deafened them, and they were glad they had only recognised the infliction of the offending word, and not the word itself.  For they were certain in their own minds that had they understood the word, there was every chance their reaction to it could have so easily led to their demise; every possibility it would have distracted them from keeping up their protection and allowing themselves to be defeated by Rangor.
  Regardless, of their good fortune, however, the world around them was about to go berserk, and Joseph’s next order took them all by such surprise it was a wonder that anybody reacted to it in time, but react they did.

*******

“Everybody!” Joseph screamed out at the top of his voice,  “Drop to your knees. but keep the mirror upright so it is still facing Rangor and your body covered, and hang on as tight to the handles as you humanly can … now!” 

********

Somehow the five defenders simultaneously dropped to their knees, their fingers still tightly gripping the handles on the mirror, their bodies still protected by the frame, and the glass still reflecting Rangor’s evil image.  And as they defended themselves in this new uncomfortable stance Joseph and his friends were deluged by a barrage of bolts as never seen before; Rangor’s anger vented itself tenfold – and the power now being unleashed upon them was so intense they could only pray that they would survive the onslaught, never mind the night.
  The house shook so hard the vintage dust from hundreds of years of gathering in the ceiling could be seen floating in the air; each grain of dust igniting the second it made contact with the rising heat from the fire below, each gram contributing to the noise level like a million tom thumb fireworks blasting in a singular chain.  The mirrors exploded … and the glass finally relinquished its hold on the frame.  Not, however as the large chunks that they had once been as a result of the shattering that Joseph had inflicted on them with his rock, but as the thousands of shining, nail shaped missiles from the scattered plates of glass that they had been magically turned in to by the constant attacks of the Punjaniti.  Missiles that had been set out so precisely positioned and shaped when called upon they all flew menacingly in the direction of the Punjaniti.  Each one of them breaking up into dozens of smaller pieces as the power of the Punjaniti constantly attacked them, causing more and more breakdowns until, finally, more than a million reflecting, lethal, thin bullets from each of the five mirrors slammed into the face on the wall covering the entire face, and turning its nightmarish image into a technicolour Picasso. 
  From somewhere far behind the hideous piece of art now attached permanently to the wall Rangor let forth a horrendous cry of agony and frustration.  So fierce was its volume that the subsequent vibrations finally loosened the handles off the now useless mirrors to the point they came away in the holder’s hands, leaving the now dysfunctional mirror frame precariously balanced against the body of its current possessor.  Suddenly there was another terrific bellow from behind the wall that sent the coldest of shivers through every bone in their bodies; the five mirror frames vibrated for a second or two, then finally succumbed to what had been so violently attacking them for the past few minutes and fell  to the ground.  The entire room suddenly disappeared into total darkness; the house went deadly quiet … and the embers burnt no more.