The boy paces outside the gate, his fingers turning over the coins in his pocket. He traverses the length of the estate’s wall before wheeling about on his heel. Back and forth he goes, occasionally drawing the attention of the bull-necked guard, who warns him off with a sneer but says nothing. He fingers the coins again, already enough to keep him fed and sheltered for a month, provided the larger boys don’t learn of them.
 

“Five gold coins, boy,” the wizard said, offering them with his trollish palm. “And another ten upon your return.”
 

The boy peeks into the roughspun bag, dangling heavily from his shoulder. Enough gold to buy passage across the sea.
 

“All you need do is deliver a gift to an old friend.”
 

The wizard’s gift proved heavier than it appeared. Why should something so small weigh him down so?
 

Enough time wasted. He gathers his courage and approaches the gate. The guard is waiting there for him, grinning with his crooked yellow teeth.
 

“Piss off. Won’t tell ye again, gutter rat!”
 

The boy reaches into the bag. "Recite the words just as I say them, lad,” the wizard said.

 

He draws forth the box, polished black wood as hard as marble and twice again as heavy. The iron bands and hinges engraved with lettering make his head hurt when he looks upon it. “I bring a gift for your master,” he says. “From Vathnor, son of Hanik.”

He touches the red jewel embedded in the box’s lid. “Just as I say them,” the wizard said. “And do not pause until you have finished.” He recites the words as instructed—every syllable, every inflection perfect.
 

“What are you playin’ at, ya scamp? Get along or—”
 

The box turns cold in his hands, like a chunk of solid ice. He tightens his grip as he completes the incantation. By the time he finishes, the guard stands rigid as a statue, all save for his eyes, which dart this way and that like those of a frightened hare with the scent of a fox in its nostrils.
 

He returns the box to the bag, thankful to have the wretched thing out of sight. Snatching the guard’s key from his belt, he inserts it into the lock and pushes the great door open.
 

The inner courtyard is larger than any room he’s seen before, overflowing with strange, colorful plants from distant lands and smelling of sweetened incense.
 

“Across the courtyard, you will find the great hall,” the wizard said. “Then, through the eastern door, another chamber. There, you will take the stairs upward. Go quickly and quietly, lest you be spotted.”
 

The boy slips through the mansion unseen by the inattentive guards and the preoccupied servants. He glides silently from shadow to shadow, his street-born instincts guiding him clear of detection.
 

At the top of the stairs, he finds the study, just as the wizard said he would. He takes a deep breath and enters the room. The lord of the house looks up at him, the gold rings in his beard clattering against one

another.
 

“Who are you?” the lord asks. “Who let you in here, boy?”
 

He reaches once again for the box.
 

The lord’s eyes widen at the sight of it.
 

“I bring a gift from Vathnor, son of Hanik,” the boy says, just as the wizard instructed. “As payment for a debt long overdue.”
 

“No! Don’t open that, you fool!” The lord throws his considerable girth over his great desk like a walrus lurching for the water to avoid a hunter’s harpoon. But he is old, fat and clumsy.

The boy unlatches the box and pries back the lid. Black fog pours out, filling the room and plunging them into darkness. A vile presence stirs in the void, something ancient and monstrous. It laughs, or rather makes a sound that might be interpreted as laughter.
 

The lord pushes past the boy, shoving him to the ground and knocking the box from his grasp. Again, he is too slow. The invisible horror catches him before he reaches the door. He cries out in agony as it rips him apart, tearing away his flesh and snapping his bones. But the boy ignores the lord’s fate, instead groping frantically in the dark to find the box.
 

“You must remain completely still when the darkness comes,” the wizard said. “Make a silent count to ten, and then recite these words before closing the box.”
 

His fingers close around the box just as the ragged remains of the lord’s body hit the floor with a wet thud. A grim silence falls over the room. The boy holds his breath, sensing an evil presence looming over him. Only now does he realize that he’s neglected to keep count as the wizard instructed. Surely, he thinks, enough time has passed.
He grips the box’s lid and opens his mouth to repeat the wizard’s words. But none come forth. He has forgotten them.
 

The thing in the dark laughs.

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Benjamin Sperduto is a fantasy and horror writer who combines the visceral action and weird stylings of the pulp tradition with a gritty realism drawn from historical research. He is the author of several novels, including “Blackspire” and “The Walls of Dalgorod,” and has published over twenty short stories spanning the horror, sci-fi, and fantasy genres.