Witch Doctors Inc: SEASON TWO (Ongoing)

Part 4.7

The First Witch will return.

I'll show him.

Bob is the only friend I can count on these days. He believes in me. Or if he doesn't, he keeps it to himself.

I destroy an entire species, and put the planet at risk. Let's go shopping and attend parties, my human friends say. I think of a solution that doesn't involve destroying the universe, and no one likes it. Why? Because it involves a career change.

Why can't they see that I'm dangerous? Why can't they forget shoes and go-karts and be afraid of me, as they should be?

I guess I should find their loyalty endearing. I don't. They'll end up dead for it, and that's nothing to feel good about.

It's clear they can't protect themselves. They'll always see me, and never the darkness. But I am the darkness. It's been a part of me for a thousand years, and the only way to lock it away is to get rid of another part of me. Magic is the part of me that colours in the lines. It gives the grass its green and the sun its gold. It's like another arm or leg. And it has to go. Once it goes, I can see my friends again. But no, I can't be a Witch Doctor.

I sit in the dark of the illyrite cave. Bob pecks at the ground around me. I've tripped over him several times, but Bob doesn't care. Either that, or he's silently plotting his revenge. You never know with Bob.

"Humans are overrated," I tell him.

"Twenty-five percent off," he agrees.

"Not that witches are any better. We're all hopeless. Everyone should just be a bird."

"Ugly shoes. Don't waste your money."

"You know what, Bob? You should have given me advice before I went broke."

"Thank you, and come again," Bob beams.

I turn my communications monitor back on. I paint the screen with the words 'Tamar Adriel Valence'. I'm sure that's what Ruby said he was called. Big Boss must be named after him.

There's no shortage of information on Dr Valence. He was a dedicated scientist whose work revolved around the magic stone. No matter how many failures he met with, he refused to give up. He would recreate fire quartz. It was his life goal.

He wasn't a popular guy in his lifetime. His colleagues found him demanding, stubborn, and...what did the one guy call it? Obsessed.

"If only he would give up this fruitless pursuit," one colleague writes. "He works us to the bone. He has no tolerance for failure, and yet that is all we can give him. It is impossible to recreate the magic stone."

After a heated showdown with his colleagues, Dr Valence started working alone. No one had laid eyes on him for years when he suddenly reappeared with a treasure trove of synthetic fire quartz. He passed away soon afterwards.

There are portraits available. They show a short, frowning man with large spectacles. He doesn't look like Big Boss, but something about him makes my skin prickle.

It's not clear when and by whom he had children. A great-grandson appears some time later - one of the co-founders of Crystal Corp. "It is my dream to make jewels a reality," he is quoted as saying. A very tall man, with limbs as thin as spider legs, he stares out of the portrait with large hyper-focused eyes. He also makes my skin prickle.

Big Boss, it seems, has a parade of illustrious, prickly ancestors.

I'd take his ancestors over mine, prickly or no. He doesn't have any murderers up there. No one in his bloodline has incinerated an entire village.

When the bushes beyond the cave begin to rustle, half of me expects to see the First Witch's fiery smirk materialise from the shadows. But I'm not in my mind, and the First Witch is a thing of the past.

"Stop mucking around, Bob," I say.

Bob stalks up to me and buries his beak in my shoe.

The rustling continues.

I move to the mouth of the cave. "Who's there?"

Footsteps, slow and careful. Then a waterfall of shifting coloured squares, shimmering in and out of focus. Tendrils of white hair and milky velvet eyes follow.

"Emrys."