The Story of the Quacking Tutor and the Three Ghosts or A Halloween Holler I really don't know why I went that way. I can't recall having decided it, or even thought about it. Maybe I was just in a hurry to get home and brood over the events of the evening, maybe I was feeling childish and took the shortcut I used to take years ago. The shortcut they all told me not to take --- Anyway, that was years ago. As I said, I was in a brooding mood. I had been playing Magic all evening, and I had lost every single duel. To be blunt about it - I was thoroughly pissed off. It was not fair, I had been doing it by the book. I had counted resources, I had optimised my use of mana, I had been willing to make any sacrifice - well, ALMOST any sacrifice. But there you have it, even when I was clearly there - way ahead, in total control, just about to turn out the final light for some annoying brat who really should be shivering in fear - but who looked so irritatingly confident, just at that time he would pull some totally and indecently broken card and flick it across the table. Boy, do I hate broken cards I don't have. It was in the middle of this very sentiment that I stumbled. True, it was in fact very dark. And true, I had not been crossing the old cemetery for years, but there was not supposed to be anything to stumble over right there. I looked back, and I confess my pulse went up a notch, or rather about 20 notches. Out of the damp mist covering the ground a flat slap of granite seemed to be slowly inching its way up and sliding sideways. There was a hollow sort of slithering sound, and the mists seemed to thicken above it - or was that really a grayish sort of shape that slowly rose out of the darkness below the moving stone? I wanted to run, to crawl back over the old rusty gate where I had crawled in, to disappear and not look back but somehow I could not move - whatever the hovering shape was, it seemed to have a hypnotic quality which left me unable to use any limb. The specter, um - not that I believe in such things but at loss for a better term for it, the specter came slowly floating towards me. "You seem displeased by your lack of power", it was more a soft hiss of air than an actual voice," follow me, I shall take you to your tutor." The hypnotic power of the specter was such that I had no choice in the matter. Slowly I followed as it descended into the darkness of the crypt below. At first there was a long, steeply inclined, narrow, slippery, and in general fairly unhomely sort of staircase which was only dimly lit by the greenish light that appeared to seep out of cracks in the walls themselves. After a while the staircase ended in a huge vault. Some kind of stone alter was standing slightly off to the left, and it was dimly lit by three huge candles. A person - a rather huge person - or maybe more accurately a rather huge shape of something that might have been a person, was standing at the alter and was seemingly in the process of carrying out some complex ritual. A sphere of darkness grew out of his hands, and drifted slowly upwards until it was hovering some ten feet above the floor. Then it started to move towards the centre of the room. "Be greeted mortal," the figure rasped and turned slowly, "I am the the guardian of the Vault of the Phyrexians." The chill of the air in the deep vault, and the long walk down the stairs had woken up parts of my brain slightly, and I felt it was time I asserted myself. "What exactly, then, do the Phyrexians need a vault for, and why does it have to be guarded?" I was trying to make it sound like I was an accomplished expert on vault evaluation, and I was casting my most non-appreciative glance around in order make sure he would acknowledge that I would see nothing worth guarding. "You have brought me a stand-up comedian?" the figure shot a disapproving glance in the direction of the specter, which promptly responded with the soft sound pudding makes when dropped from a great height and in addition turning bright pink. The figure returned his gaze to me, and for some reason that did not make me feel better at all. "Oh well, we can't be picky. I am a Necrosavant, ...." he paused, looking at me as if considering whether I would actually dare try another Arthur Dent routine. "What exactly, then, is a ..." "I am a student of death!" there was a tone in his voice that hinted that he was not really amused, "well, more like an associate professor actually. The Phyrexians send me slaves, minions, even loved ones they don't need any more. I send back such gifts as I deem appropriate. Here, let me show you." He turned and whistled - "Here boy, here." I looked, and for some reason this also did nothing towards making me feel better. "To get to the matter of your invitation," he continued, "I thought we might find a subject of mutual interest: Magic". "Er ..., you mean the card game?" I tried to make my voice sound casual, but I had a distinct feeling this was not what he had in mind. "You may call it a card game if you like, we both know the truth. Now, here's the deal. I'll teach you three things you need to know. Then later tonight there will be a test - an examination if you like. If ..." "Will that be a written or an oral exam?" I had always feared oral exams more than anything, including - but not limited to - specters and necrosavants, so the words blurted out before I could think. "Let's call it - um - 'visual', and as I was about to say before being interrupted, if you pass the test, then maybe I will have a career opportunity for you." With this he waved his hand slightly and the sphere of darkness started to move in the direction of a pile of old bones at the opposite end of the vault. As the darkness dispersed itself between the bones they stirred slightly, causing an assortment of rats and other carrion eaters to shoot out in all directions. A few handful of bones then rose out of the pile and started to perform a sort of messy dance, concluding with its re-assembly into a bony structure balancing on top of the heap. "Lesson one," it quacked. "Wanting to kill is by far too little. Simply enjoying to kill is even counterproductive. You must harbour the desire to not just kill, but to immerse yourself in death, to drain the life of all living. To feast on it, to grow in it." "Lesson two. You must come to acknowledge that death is not an ending, merely a tool, a transition. A powerful tool which, if pointed in the right direction, can be wielded as a weapon, and a transition into greatness for those that have acquired the control of abandoned tissue, and of corrupted flesh. 'Death is no excuse to stop working' is an ancient Phyrexian proverb." Those you command to their graves will go willingly, bringing renewal in their wake, and under the binding pact of the grave-dwellers they shall not go alone, they shall not go in vain." "Lesson three, and believe me this is the tough one. You must embrace the death of your own flesh, you must learn to enjoy the sweet pleasure of sacrifice. In the ultimate sacrifice lies the promise of ultimate power, of ultimate renewal, the potency of control over and beyond your own death." The quacking voice subsided, and the necrosavant grabbed the moment. "Now leave, but be warned. Tonight you will be visited by three spirits. Pay heed to what they have to tell". --- * --- I awoke - very, very suddenly. I had no idea how I got back home. One moment I sit in the Phyrexian Vault being the target of a rather inspiring, if indeed somewhat inhumane, lesson ..., the next I get woken up by ..., by ..., what the bleeding frog-snapper WAS that thing which seemed to fill my entire bedroom - and indeed the room next to it? "I am the ghost of Halloweens past" it said, "I have come ..." "You've GOT to be kidding me!", the words simply erupted from me. "Well, OK, actually I am a Silent Specter, but I like 'Ghost of Halloweens past' much better, so if you don't mind ..." "Er, yes, OK then. You were saying?" "I have come to remind you of failed opportunities." With this my bedroom vanished, and we were in the middle of some street. It was dark, but there were candle-lit carved pumpkins all over, and armies of kids were roaming the streets begging for candy. A little off to one side, away from the bright lights, a couple of boys were standing. They were not really dressed in costumes, they had merely thrown dark capes over their heads and shoulders. They seemed vaguely familiar. Suddenly I saw myself (in a much younger version) come running with a huge bag full of candies, trying to catch up with my friends. One of the big, caped boys stepped out in front of the running figure who was me, requesting it to 'hand over the bag, or else ...' I remembered the rest - it was a bitter memory tugged away somewhere, almost forgotten. But what I also remembered was that I knew those boys from somewhere else. No doubt about it, those were the brats who kept beating me at Magic. But it couldn't be, they'd have to be much older now. The ghost was watching me quizzically. "There is more than one way of getting to your candy," I said, "I can see that now, but ..." and I was alone back in my bedroom. --- * --- "I am the ghost of Halloween present, I have come ..." I was still asleep as I heard the words, and automatically started to respond ... "Yes, yes, I know why you have come, let's just get it over with ... Hey, I know you." I had opened one of my eyes at this point. "You are the ghost who turns pink on occasion. How IS old Necro and the quacking tutor?" "Let us just forget about that, shall we?" He started to use his hypnotic stare and I quickly forgot about it. "I have come to show you what a pathetic blockhead you are." We were flies on the wall of the room where I had been playing magic that day. I was seeing myself playing, in my moment of victory, just about to deal the final blow when I noticed something truly weird happening. Behind my playing figure, so that I could not possibly have seen it while playing, one of the players at another table started to shrink and become sort of flat. He kept getting smaller and flatter until he resembled a magic card, and then he suddenly zipped into the hand of my opponent. "Hey, hey, he's cheating" I shouted, but I didn't hear myself. "But did you notice," the ghost asked "that he had to sacrifice one if his friends in the process?" "But that's heartless, that's cruel, that's shameful, that's, ... that's bloody effective," and I was back in my room. --- * --- "I am the ghost of Halloweens yet to come. I have come to show you our display of opportunities." This time I had hardly had time to fall asleep, and I was starting to feel rather jet-lagged with all that zipping around. "Why do you skulk?" I asked. "That is what skulking ghosts do," it responded, as if that explained anything at all. I resolved to ignore it and prepared myself for what I knew had to come. I was back at the cemetery. I did not need to read the name on the stone to know that it was my own grave I was watching. My opponent from the day before was also there, but he was alone now. Or sort of alone. What he was doing was interesting, I have to admit, but it also made me embarrassed, and it annoyed me. What he was doing was this: He was making my corpse dance on its own grave. In truth I never was much of a dancer, and being dead had obviously not improved on that situation. I did notice something else though. He was like a two phase medium, a physical appearance, and something else. At his first appearance as a candy bully I recalled that he had been almost entirely physical, but now his physical appearance was nothing but a hollow membrane filled with the 'something else', and as I watched I could see this membrane continuously getting thinner and thinner as he wielded more and more of his awesome powers. "Got ya ..." I wispered, and I was back in my room. --- * --- Next afternoon I prepared to go back to the game shop to play a couple of games. Friendly games, of course - unless ... Now I knew exactly what I needed to do - I knew exactly how to swat those brats. The question was, did I want to? Well, yes, of course I wanted to, but did I really want to THAT badly?