The black visitor sat snugly in the corner of the shaded room, lean cloaked figure perched upon little padded chair, and sweeping to the dusted floor. Instead of offering comfort though, the old cushions on the rickety seat, being already halfway crumbling, and horribly infested with must, rather gave their poor guests an uncanny sensation of loss. The visitor paid the quality of furniture to which he was treated little mind, however, occupied as he was with the petty card of paper he had been given, when he had requested something to write on. Nimbly spinning a stunted stub of pencil within his delicate fingers, it was as though he had become the statued personification of immersion.

And much like an idyllic statue, he seemed utterly detached from the lively gallery set before him.

‘He wants us to pay him and then support him?’ indignantly roared the stout-statured man standing behind the large, central desk. ‘What irresponsible inquisitor does that?!’

Launching from yet another musty old pad, the priest rose to meet him. ‘As I’ve already told you, inquisitors are all in the mainland nowadays!—and he’s not even from the Church!’

The priest had taken the exorcist to meet the mayor first thing the following morning, as he had promised, and although the exorcist would have preferred to commence his in-depth investigations into the case at hand, he needed to settle the business front of the matter first. It was necessary to acquire the resources and rights to facilitate his ensuing activities.

The mayor turned out to be every bit the recalcitrant opponent he had expected, but the exorcist felt content to sit back for now, to focus his attention on what he deemed the more critical aspects of the case’s execution, namely whatever detail could be deliberated upon in the small space of noting material he’d received. He appreciated the minor fortune he’d stumbled upon, to have rallied the local intellect and storyteller to the defence of his cause. The mayor had found this outrageous at first, but soon he was too embroiled in his rivalry with the old priest to thoroughly remember the man he defended as a separate entity. It was in this manner that the town’s two foremost authorities had bickered back and forth since break of dawn.

‘Then what manner of maverick mercenary is he?!’ the mayor bellowed.

‘One who could help us!’ shouted the old cleric. ‘The only one who could save us from the eternal plague that is the witch!’

Quietly unbeknownst to the passionate interlocutors, the exorcist had started to pay more notice to their heated negotiations. For he’d realized there were finer points that even the priest’s masterful powers of narration could not persuasively address, and progress had slowed toward a grinding halt.

‘O will he though!’ retorted the mayor with a scoff. ‘Or will he just turn tail, after successfully peeving the witch to take it out on the rest o’ us?’

‘You’re only imagining that because you didn’t witness last night’s battle!’ the priest exclaimed proudly—

‘I’m not the one in charge of imagining things around here!’ the mayor snorted.

‘I saw with my own two eyes how he magnificently repelled the witch!’

‘Bah! With your misty old eyes?’

‘I’ll have you know my eyes are as clear as a buck’s in dawn!’

‘What about a buck in dusk?’ challenged the stout man.

‘I am talking here about the safety and welfare of Mystvale!’ indignantly reproached the old man.

‘Well, so am I!’ taunted the mayor—‘Listen, if he’s half as great as you say he is—as you say you saw he is— what does he even need our help for?! What good is hiring an outsider if we townsfolk still risk our necks involving ourselves?! If we could have gotten rid of the witch we wouldn’t have bothered asking for help! Defeats the whole damn point!’

Here the old priest froze up. Parrying the argument required him to admit that the exorcist wasn’t the invincible champion that they, and he, had every night prayed for, but that would be poor persuasion for the very tough audience he knew he was facing. On the other hand, if the admission passed, and he managed to keep the town on the table, but they happened to demand a discount—he just wasn’t sure how he’d be able to keep the exorcist.

‘You know I’m right, now don’t you?!’ the bulky town administrator pressed upon his advantage. ‘He can’t fight the witch!—He can’t save us!—He’s no inquisitor! —He’s no witch-hunter!—He’s just a useless fraud, after all!’

The mayor delivered his diatribe with a heavy slap on the poor old desk accentuating every end of sentence, and finished with a finger pointed squarely at the clergyman’s face. This unreserved display of arrogance pushed the old priest beyond the well-worn limits of his patience. And when one is beyond the grip of reason, habit is quick to take charge.

‘Even Father Edmund—!’ he snapped excitedly—

before being summarily cut off.

—‘Mr Mayor,’ called out the exorcist from the remote corner he’d inconspicuously occupied thus far, ‘I would urge you to withhold your remarks concerning my character until after my services have been provided.’ He spoke swiftly that it left no gap for his opponent to interject any objection, but approached the centre of the room with such a deliberate air of provocative nonchalance, that it captured the attention of the emotionally roused and belligerent mayor.

‘I assure you, no harm will come to your townsmen under my supervision; I merely implore that they lend their support in whatever task might require the labour of crowds, and fully cooperate in the disclosure of whatever information or possession they might have that could be of interest to the investigation.’

‘You expect us to spill our secrets to you?!’—

‘Only what is relevant to the case’, the exorcist smiled reassuringly. ‘You need not worry about me poking my nose into your rustic scandals—book debts and barnside dalliances and the like.’

He came before the wooden desk, over which the mayor eyed him with red and unreserved enmity.

‘My charges are as we have discussed, modest and reasonable, and as I will only claim them after my work has been completed, I can only see it as a very agreeable investment of time and effort upon your end, for a problem that has doubtless troubled you for... time and effort, many, many a year now.’

‘And what do you have’, the mayor spoke with a suppressed threat, ‘to guarantee our faith in this time and effort?’

The exorcist smiled.

‘I have nothing at all.’

The unanticipated reply startled both listeners. This afforded him time to come over to tap the priest on the shoulder.

‘But I believe your old friend here is willing to vouch for me, invested as he is with powers over the local faith. Will you not now, Your Reverence?’

‘W-Why of course!’ the old man stammered, unaccustomed to such courtesy accorded to his position.

The black exorcist continued then to the exit, gesturing to him discreetly to follow, before turning a head back to the deeply vexed mayor.

‘Or does Your Township happen to have a problem with the Church’s selection?’

The mayor had been flushing redder and redder with every sentence that passed from between the lips of this unwelcome guest, until he quite resembled the pumpkins his townsmen were growing upon their fields. Steam had collected within him until it seemed like he was going to burst apart, but with this one last remark, it appeared the tension in him imploded, and his colours rapidly drained.

‘... No’, he effortfully extorted of himself.

So they left him standing there, fists purple and clenched, and cursing under his heated breath.

•••

To any passing eye, the mayoral estate was easily the largest building within its vicinity, stubborn as it was to lose out to its squat neighbours by even a leg of wall or a head of roof. Greedy stitches connected its stretched body, proudly bared like the battle scars from a holy crusade. In any civil society it would have been nothing less than pure architectural monstrosity, but in a land where taste and sense were both distant luxuries, it was building like any and all other, only larger, and more commanding of awe and respect.

That was, however, no reason to stop the old priest from beaming with glee, as he exited the local giant with his foreign guest.

‘That was brilliant!’ the priest exclaimed, basking still in the vicarious triumph and afterglow of sweet comeuppance over his longtime rival. ‘Brilliant, I say!’

The exorcist only sighed and shook his head. ‘It was a desperate save.’

They beheld the Mystvale streets in sunlight, meagrely peopled still, but vastly more lively than the ghost town they’d laid eyes on in the night. And in turned, eyes were laid upon them, now that the impending threat of night was yet far away.

The exorcist could feel their curious, suspicious gazes, not unlike those of the mayor, less intense but incomparably more numerous, as they scrutinied his every movement.

‘No, really’, said the priest, ‘I would never have thought to use the Church’s influence—oftentimes I wonder if the Church holds any influence here at all!’

The exorcist’s scholarly brows creased at the mention of the topic. ‘That’s because you don’t know the Church very well’, he said darkly, to the surprise of the old cleric.

‘They like to… throw their weight around’, he absentmindedly explained as they continued along the daytime streets, glancing above to the cross-born rooftops that could be seen from anywhere in town.

‘... And remind people that they’re the ones sitting on top.’

The old and dilapidated chapel was the real giant. Rustic and runt progeny though it was, it was still descended from true titan blood, that had towered over and held all of humanity within its iron grip for ages. Before the colossal heritage the little chapel represented, everything else could only be a dwarf.

When he turned around, he could see that the old man was a little lost.

‘Just remember,’ he explained with greater patience, ‘the mayor evidently hates nothing more than the fact that your position exists—and yet you are still here.’

‘... Mr Exorcist?’ said the priest tentatively.

‘Yes?’

‘Why did you decide to interfere there, in the end?’ The old man scratched his head in recollection. ‘It felt like you wanted to stop what it was I was going to say.’

The exorcist lowered his gaze, and pushed up his spectacles with a touch of pensiveness. ‘I simply thought it unwise to compare myself to greater and nobler men...’

‘What can we have for breakfast here?’ he briskly shifted the mood.

The old priest started. ‘You could join me for some porridge, if that is fine by you’, he offered hurriedly.

‘That would be excellent!’ the exorcist softly clapped. ‘Might I have something to go along with it, however?’

The priest was surprised. He had thought the point already clear how meagre a lifestyle the folk of Mystvale had been forced to adopt. Still, he supposed it was due courtesy to offer to one to whom they expected to owe the debt of disposing of the witch, and so he swallowed down his discontent.

‘... What would you like to have?’ he replied in as hospitable a tone as he could manage.

The exorcist smiled at his wrinkled face.

‘All of the writings and reading materials of Father Edmund.’