Written on
October 31, 2023

Malfore turned his face away from the biting wind, pulled his cloak against his neck, and trudged toward the door of the witch’s mansion. Neglected for decades, the ivy-shrouded manor lay in ruins. Missing shingles belied a leaky roof. Peeling paint resembled shedding skin, which hung like rotting grave clothes. From a broken attic window, dark shapes poured skyward. In search of prey, the maelstrom of winged creatures swooped past the leafless oaks that filled the ancient hollow. Malfore couldn’t shake the feeling that the wizard was watching from the attic window.

A foul mist rose from the surrounding bog as dead leaves swirled in little eddies. Candles flickered inside jack-o’-lanterns that lined the path leading to the witch’s front porch. Malfore paused to examine one of the carved pumpkins. Its face was his! Not his old face, but the hideous one given to him by the wizard.

He dropped the pumpkin and stumbled toward the witch’s door. One by one, the flames of the jack-o’-lanterns died as he drew closer to the door. Impulsively, he glanced up at the attic window through which the wizard tracked his progress. Malfore cursed the wizard, but only malignant silence answered. Unwilling to gratify the wizard’s sick amusement, Malfore turned away from the door. As he made his retreat, the ground beneath him fell away, the earth swallowed him, and he plunged to the level below.

Above him in the night sky, fleeting clouds thinly veiled a full moon, which revealed he had landed in the midst of a vast field of corn. As the clouds cleared, moonlight fell upon a distant farmhouse. Malfore headed for the house by following a path through the cornfield. When he came upon an intersecting path, he turned in the direction of the house, but it led only to a dead end. He was trapped in a maze! He retraced his steps and took a different route, but could not outwit the maze’s design.

Hemmed in by the impenetrable stalks, he wandered the maze for hours. His efforts, however, only led him further from the farmhouse. His thoughts turned to home and the people there who needed him. Curse that damned wizard! Why is he torturing me?

He growled in frustration and plowed headlong into the cornfield, but his illicit attempt to skirt the maze sent him tumbling down to a worse level filled with devils, torturous flames, and choking sulfur.

Here at this lowest level, he faced a troop of demons who guarded the demon king’s castle. He gasped when he saw his likeness in the faces of the demons—the same repulsive face given to him by the wizard.

High above him, a window looked down from the castle turret. Was the wizard there, gloating as he watched his movements?

Dark sludge oozed from the turret window and throbbed to an alien rhythm. Sickened by the unbearable sight, Malfore retched and emptied the contents of his stomach, sending a dozen demons with pitchforks howling in ecstasy. The similarity of their faces to his own told him that he must escape soon or be forever changed into one of them. Malfore fled from the demon king.

“After him,” the king shouted, sending his minions in hot pursuit.

Malfore ran down the paved route until, exhausted, he paused to rest. As he caught his breath, something about the paving stones caught his eye. Etched deeply into each stone was a singular word: regret. Instantly, he thought of the mirror in his room and the many hours he had wasted admiring himself. He cursed his vanity and prayed to escape this hell and reform his narcissistic ways.

He ran on, but his efforts to escape led only to dead ends, forcing him to wander endlessly through the dismal nightmare of the underworld. Eventually, the demon hoard cornered him. They aimed their pitchforks at his heart and closed in.

“I’m not afraid of you,” Malfore shouted. “You hear me, Wizard! I am not afraid!” Straightaway, he ascended back to the corn maze. This time, however, he landed closer to the farmhouse, which loomed over the maze like a forlorn giant. Its singular terror—the broken attic window from which the wizard observed his progress.

He ducked out of sight just in time to detect a subtle movement in the maze as its pattern shifted. No wonder his previous visit to this level had proved so difficult! Now he knew its secret and why, on his first attempt, he had wandered through it for so long.

Determined to reach the house before the maze could shift again, Malfore groped his way through the labyrinth. Stealthily, he crept forward to avoid the gaze of the attic window, but his effort proved futile. The window tracked his every move, making it impossible to escape its searching eye. He shook his fist at the window. The maze shifted again.

A chilly wind rattled the dried stalks, which scratched his face and hands. Black dust from fungi-infested leaves clogged his throat and nose. Choking and coughing, he fumbled through the maze. How long was he doomed to wander through the wizard’s hellish game?

He summoned his courage and forged ahead until he came to a rickety gate. Beyond the gate, another row of Malfore-faced pumpkins lined the path to the farmhouse. Upon seeing his likeness in the carved faces of the jack-o’-lanterns, and fearing he might become one himself, he kicked down the gate, scrambled up the path, and barged through the door of the old farmhouse where he found a scarecrow dancing crazily.

Bathed in moonlight that streamed through the window, the lunatic scarecrow whirled about the room like a puppet on a string. With a face like Malfore’s, it gyrated to a foreign rhythm. Malfore attacked the scarecrow, and in a flurry of straw, ripped it to pieces.

Laughing like a madman, Malfore ascended to the next level where, once again, he trod the jack-o’-lanterns’ path leading to the witch’s mansion. Determined to reach the door, he marched toward the witch’s mansion. As he drew closer, he spied a profusion of worms and insects swarming in and out of the moss-covered siding. Fumes of something rotten wafted from the decrepit house, making him gag. The overpowering stench and squalor gave him pause. Did the witch choose to live in this god-forsaken hovel, or was she another victim of the wizard’s insidious game?

Afraid to succumb to such a fate, Malfore climbed the steps to the door and steeled himself for a confrontation with the witch. As his hand reached for the door, it flew open in a flash, and an unearthly screech burst from inside the mansion as a pea-green hand with crooked fingers stretched toward him. He slammed the door on the wretched hand. The old hag screamed again, this time in pain. The fingers writhed and twisted as they reached for his neck. Closer and closer, the fingers stretched as their filthy nails grew into razor-sharp knives that threatened to slash his throat. He slammed the door again. Again, the witch screamed.

“Withdraw your hand, or I shall crush it,” Malfore shouted.

When the hand relaxed, he tore open the door and faced a green-skinned woman. She backed into a corner and cowered. “You win,” she said. “But you cannot best the wizard. He is cunning, powerful, and will banish you to the underworld forever.”

Her last words faded away in the distance as he ascended to the final level where the wizard greeted him cordially. “Able to conquer your fears. Imbued with a sense of destiny. Willing to kill, if necessary,” the wizard said, ticking off each accolade on his fingers. “You are not called Augustus for nothing.”

“Yet, you have cursed me with the deplorable name, Malfore.”

“Those who play my Hallowed Eve’s game must earn their name,” the wizard replied with a chuckle, “but enough of this bickering. Now comes your greatest challenge—a sort of trick or treat. If I win, the trick is that you will be banished to the underworld. If you win, well that’s the treat. You will be returned to your realm safe and unharmed.”

“Unharmed?” Malfore shouted. “Do the injuries I’ve suffered in your perverse game mean nothing? This misadventure will haunt me for the rest of my life!”

“Enough!” the wizard roared. “It’s time for riddles. What has eyes but cannot see and greens you cannot eat?”

That’s an easy one,” Malfore said. “A potato.”

The wizard stomped his feet and blasted his pet raven with a jolt from his staff. “Your turn!” the wizard cried.

Malfore trembled. “What gets shorter as it grows older?” he replied timidly.

The wizard smiled. “A candle.”

“I have one you cannot guess,” the wizard said. “What eats and eats but is never satisfied?”

Malfore relaxed. “Your riddles are too easy,” he said. “The answer is fire. Fire eats wood, but an entire forest will not satisfy it.”

The wizard stamped his feet again. This time, his deadly staff obliterated a massive grandfather clock. Malfore ducked and shielded his face as shards of wood and glass flew through the room.

The joust of riddles continued for many hours. Finally, Malfore posed his finest riddle. If this didn’t win the battle, nothing would. “What ends death and begins life?”

“What?” the wizard yelled, yanking his hair. “What kind of riddle is that?”

“The one that forces you to send me home,” Malfore replied.

Try as he might, the wizard could not answer the riddle. Enraged at his failure, he blasted the room’s ornaments one by one. First went a magnificent elk-head trophy that hung above the fireplace. Next, he disintegrated a row of wooden carvings on the fireplace mantle. When the maniacal magician leveled his staff at him, Malfore protested. “Killing me isn’t part of the game.”

The staff quivered in the wizard’s hands. With downcast face, the wizened old man hobbled to the dais and slumped into his great chair. Sunken into the leopard-skinned cover, the defeated wizard looked old and worn out. “Tell me the answer to your riddle,” the wizard muttered.

 “The answer is the resurrection. The resurrection ends death and begins a new life.”

The wizard grasped the arms of his chair and pulled himself forward. With a malevolent smile, he conceded the contest. “You win. You are no longer Malfore. You are once again Augustus.”

In a flash, Augustus was transported to his palace. His gnarly hands returned to their former youthfulness. He ran the tips of his fingers over the smooth skin of his face. Once again, he was Augustus, High Lord of the West! Relief and joy flooded his heart until he spotted the looking glass that started it all. How many times had he stood before this mirror admiring himself? How many hours had he wasted relishing his reflection? He scorned it now. Hated it for its intoxicating allure and hated it because, through it, the wizard had entrapped him.

“I will visit again,” the wizard said from the other side of the mirror. “Next time, I will win the contest, and you will be my servant forever.”

“There won’t be a next time,” Augustus said as he wrenched the mirror from the wall and dashed it to the floor, smashing it to pieces. “From this day forward, I will no longer linger pridefully before a mirror.”