Deep within The Shades, Gath of Baal stood alone beside Smooth Pond, a familiar mirror-surfaced puddle of water as wide as he was tall. It was formed by the creek which twisted and curved through the rain forest just west of his root house. His sun-darkened chest was naked. The hair had been rubbed off by the chain mail which dangled from his hips. He rubbed his back against a tree dislodging the leeches still feeding there. Then he stretched, and a low sigh came from the helmet, as natural as the wind speaking as it passes through a cave hollow.
It was time to challenge the helmet again. He tried levering it off using the handle of his axe, then tried hammering its edges to widen the opening. Each attempt to remove it failed. But he kept at it until his body rebelled, and he sagged in defeat.
After a moment he crawled back to the mirrorlike pond, and looked reluctantly down at the reflection shimmering on its smooth surface.
The horned helmet, eerily elongated, looked up at him with red glowing eyes. A breeze brushed the surface, and the eyes moved in haunted ripples. When the water quieted, the red glow had faded. Made of metal and bone, with a hundred nicks and scrapes from sword, mace and axe, the helmet itself looked proud and triumphant. But there was no triumph in the eyes, and they seemed to belong to a stranger.
He touched the dark metal tentatively. Then he dipped a fingertip into a hole and felt the familiar skin beneath. His fingers explored the curved horns and his hand came away trembling. He spoke to the reflection, in an involuntary whisper, “Gath of Baal?”
The reflection did not reply.
He gathered up the heavy chain mail around his waist, slid his arms into its scalloped sleeves, buckled it. Something rustled in the verdant shrubbery on the opposite side of the pool. He turned slowly, sensing an evil presence.
Cobra stepped boldly out of the shaded greenery and posed arrogantly at the edge of the calm pool. The reflection of her emerald and silver presence shimmered ominously on its cold blue face.
Ignoring her, he kneeled beside the pond and once more looked down at his reflection. He took hold of the lower edge of the helmet with both hands and tried again to force it off.
Cobra laughed. “Do not exhaust yourself pointlessly, Dark One. The helmet belongs to the Lord of Death. And it responds only to him… or to me, his most beloved and precious servant.”
He looked up at her, his contempt defying her own. “If I can steal it, I can remove it.”
“Fool!” she snarled, the word reverberating across the water. “You are the helmet’s prisoner. Your own greed has trapped you. Forever. You have no power to match my Lord’s. Nor magic to threaten me… not anymore.”
She smiled without humor, then used a tone as resonant as a temple bell, and her words echoed through the trees before fading off.
“You are trapped. The horned helmet cannot be removed. And even if you did, by some miracle, remove it, you could not escape it. It has released your true nature… addicted you to its powers. Now you can not live without it…and you will not live with it.”
“Magic?”
In reply a bitter grin danced in her creamy cheeks. “You’ve made an irreparable blunder. You should have honored your bargain… and understood when I told you the metal was alive. Now you are going to pay for what you have done to me.”
He bolted upright plucking his axe from the ground, and turned from side to side again sensing something.
She watched him as she would a caged animal. “Is there danger approaching? Or is it your own evil that frightens you?”
He turned toward her, and took a quick step back.
She smiled with resplendent malevolence and purred, “That is one of the helmet’s powers. It can sense danger and evil no matter where it hides. And what it senses and feels and sees, you will sense and feel and see. Nothing that is deadly can you ignore or escape. No poisonous flower, no stinging beetle beneath the leaf, no vermin, no cat, no hound or demon, will be concealed from you. Not even what is base and vile within yourself. You will see the world as we know it truly is. Until you submit to my Lord, you will not have a single moment of rest.”
He shook his head, whispered darkly, “Nothing, no man or demon, ever has been or ever will be my master.”
“Oh yes,” she replied. “You have the power to master and destroy all creatures born of nature. You have found that out already. But you can not master or defeat the helmet. Never. Only I know the magic that can remove it.”
The muscles in his back swelled and rippled, and the helmet shifted slightly of its own accord.
“It already grows heavy, doesn’t it?” She smiled, then added, “You would like to rest, wouldn’t you? But you won’t. It will grow heavier and heavier. It will take control of your brain as well as your body, until you understand there is no hope. Then, when you are totally mad, it will rip your insolent head from your shoulders.”
She turned, moved back through the greenery, and merged with the shadows beyond.