The wizard cast a ring of fire around himself as the maniacal man in armor stomped into his darkened room.
“Why have you come here, knight?” Was knight the right word? he wondered. The armor glimmered like a mirror in the light of the flickering flames, and the figure seemed more like a monster from Hell than a baptized nobleman.
“I’ve come to kill the wizard Grimwäld!” the stranger shouted.
The wizard sighed, letting the flames around him flicker and fade.
“He’s dead,” the wizard said, trying to mask his relief under a solemn tone. “One like you killed him yesterday.”
“Nay!” The knight didn’t seem to know how to speak in anything but loud bellows. “I was the one who killed him.”
“Then…” the wizard was at a loss, “…why are you—”
“HE KEEPS COMING BACK! Every thousand years or so, he’s reincarnated or summoned or some other such loophole. Then a wise man has to declare someone like me the chosen one to go and kill him. This is ridiculous. I’m putting an end to it for good.”
“But you’ve killed him. What more can you do?”
“Send me to Hell!” the knight demanded, pointing his sword at the confused magician. “It’s no good killing him in this world. I have to go kill him in the next.”
“You want me to send you to Hell?” the wizard asked slowly.
“Yes.”
“So you can kill Grimwäld?”
“Yes.”
“The guy you just killed?”
“YES!”
“For good?”
“Of course!”
“You want me to send you to Hell?” the wizard asked again.
The knight pressed the point of his sword into the old man’s ruinous beard.
“Do I have to explain myself again?”
“No,” the wizard said. “Just, stand over there, will you?”
The knight walked over into the corner.
“Where? Here?”
“Yes, that’s fine. Now, what’s the spell? Oh yes…” and raising his hands over his head, he shouted, “DAMN YOU!”
The ground beneath the knight opened in spidery fissures. A horrible green light shone up from the cracks as a terrible odor filled the wizard’s hovel.
“One more thing,” the knight shouted as the earth began to fall away from under him.
“What?” the wizard asked.
And reaching out his left hand, the knight grabbed the old man’s beard.
“You’re coming too!”
And he dragged the wizard down with him into Hell.
Tale Told 