Lady Mura Ithorma

On his writing blog Kevin provides a set of images and invites writers to write a poem or a short story based on one or more of the images. In response to Kevin’s No Theme Thursday (02/22/24), I’ve written a short story which includes my second attempt at writing a haiku.

 

Image from thebeginningatlast9.com

With great difficulty Lady Mura Ithorma pushed open the door to the library of the dark and decaying Ithorma Palace. Already she could feel the slow poison throbbing inside her, making its way from the tiny wound in her left middle finger to the rest of her body. Wisely, she had chosen her left hand and not her right hand, her writing hand, to try to open the door to the underground vault where the demon lurked.

It had been said, by one of her dead ancestors, that a sacred dagger, a weapon that could be used to destroy the demon, could be found in that vault. She had hoped that the poison of the trapped door handle had dried out, become ineffectual. But the door had been locked, possibly by the demon’s evil sorcery, and the minuscule needle, coated with poison that was still potent, had pricked her middle finger. She had known then that she had only an hour left to live. So, she had fled back through the mouldering halls of the palace to the library.

Candles illuminated the ancient library, the only place of light left in the palace. All around there were tomes filled with poetry and legend, the stories of the Ithorma realm written down in happier times that were long gone. The books neatly filled bookcases or were piled randomly on desks. The demon loved to listen to the poetry of her dead relatives, which, to escape his wrath, they recited in moaning voices as they wandered as ghosts through the palace. They were thralls of the demon’s spite, but she, the last of the Ithorma line, would now write a poem that would illustrate her victory over him.

She slumped down at a desk. Striving for self-control, she brushed her long and lustrous hair away from her face. She opened her book of poetry and began to write.

The cold sky of night

Will make my last breath a cloud

Lost in pure darkness.

She signed her poem. She put her pen down but left the book open. She staggered to her feet and left the library, making her painful way through the palace to a door that led to the woods outside. It was a brilliant and cold night, with few clouds to conceal the moon and the stars from her eyes. She came to a clearing in the woods and lay down on the grass. The cold scarcely bothered her as the poison had now taken hold, drawing paralysis over her body. As she had written, she breathed her last breath which she saw as a faint cloud in the soothing darkness of nature.

The hour of the demon came. The demon, a shrivelled and twisted thing in the vague semblance of a man, emerged from his vault. He strode confidently to the library where he expected to find Mura. He read her poem and screeched with fury; he was bound within the palace walls and could not enter the woods outside. The last of the Ithorma had escaped him.