Devil's Dance: Revised by Shandria Katz

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Revenge for my slain kin and for my dear love that I see dying in my arms each night..."

Steady now, do not fall to the nightmares again. Use the emotion and lure him in, I counselled myself. "I have travelled throughout this shattered kingdom, near and far. I have found no aid and no answer but to seek for demons. The witch in the fell would not aid me and warned me not to come here. But I have been told you can grant such a wish. I have no gifts or offerings but my skills for trade.

"But I want to see my love's killer dead before me with no harm done on me. I want all that is his to become my own, to replace the loss I have suffered by his hands." My voice roared with the cold fire that I had within me from the nightmarish memories that haunted me each time I rested.

Oh did the creature chuckle. Then he laughed and he screeched in delight, dancing all about the top of this crag. "You would challenge me?" he chortled and contorted himself with his glee. He sprang back to me so suddenly with his nose mere inches from mine.

"So be it! I will grant your wishes, all three that you have stated but there is a price. I see instruments in your keeping so you must be a bard or have some skill. Therefore you must make me weep this night three times before the rising of the sun. Be it from music or stories, three tears must fall from my black hearted frame. Otherwise your soul is forfeit to my design. Agreed?"

The smell of it was like the putrescence of rotting meat, human excrement, and far far worse. But this moment was clear to me. To have my true love's killer dead before me, to avenge my kin, and to finally rest my weary travelling and end these days. If the witch's promise held true, I would win this challenge.

I had made my choice when the witch tried to sway me from this task. I made my voice shake in doubt and replied, "Agreed."

He jumped back with a laugh and waved his spindly arms about him. The fire roared to life, the hilltop changed completely providing comforts missed in the countless days and nights of restless waiting. Warmth hugged my starved body and a great feast appeared before my startled eyes.

Gold platters with roasted boars, stuffed geese, and minted lamb shanks lay steaming to the night, my mouth watered to the sights. Bowls of fruit, some I could recognise and some I could not, glowed with their vivid ripeness to the firelight. Pewter pitchers with fruited water, wooden kegs of beer and mead, oh my hungry belly and my tired throat demanded a taste or drink. "Eat my fine bard and enjoy."

I almost fell to the temptation. But as the moon shone over the light of the fire and food, it snared my eyes to its bright white orb. When I looked again, I saw only the shadow of delights he had offered. I could hear the old witch as if she was whispering in my ear. ‘Do not eat nor drink from the demon's feast or you will be lost and die by his hands.'

The witch...my people called her kind norns or angels of death. A fortnight ago she had found me in the fors, the waterfalls nearly drowning my sorry weary body.