[ EPTIH XLVIII ]

Eptih could not make himself love the hag as he once did, all the passion he had for her having been drained from him as his wife’s beauty had been drained from her. So Eptih, believing himself unable to escape, became despondent and each moment he spent with the hag and each shrill cry increased his anger that much more. As this went on Eptih noticed that his building rage seemed to be giving him strength and so when away from the hag he would test himself by whatever means available and the belief was proven for his strength was in fact returning. The sisters most likely only had experience with the Mortals, not a Norstilam which Eptih now believed he was. The three sisters believed he was hopeless and therefore did not fear him in the least believing he was beyond repair.

Eptih now knew revenge would soon be his and so he allowed his strength to grow but played as though e was ever weakening. Because he at one time had loved his wife [_] so much he would also use the time to test her. If he could see that she was loyal to him and that did not mean to hurt him he would spare her, but if he found that she was a fraud he would be sure to make her suffer most of all.

Eptih was sure to keep away from the two beautiful sisters believing they still could weaken him with their charms, and so he did his best to seclude himself and his wife but time and time again the sisters would appear at his home when he was out for routine responsibilites. One time though, he told his wife that he was leaving to go do his errands and secretly returned and when he came upon his home he could hear the chanting of his wife and when his eyes fell upon her she was beautiful, and by her chanting she called her sisters to her and when he saw them approaching knew that his wife was disloyal and that, his worst fears being confirmed, it was all a game.

Eptih, who’s strength was nearly returned waited for a while and then pretended to return. When he entered his wife was again a hag and he asked the two sisters to leave. After they had left Eptih asked his wife she had betrayed him and she did not understand his meaning but he was tired of talk and grabbed the old hag by the throat, she tried to scream but could not and as his grip tightened her beauty came rushing back to her like someone revived from the brink of death. Eptih’s grip loosened for a moment and she [_] took the opportunity to scream out to her sisters and with that Eptih’s fist clenched and her [_] neck snapped. What Eptih noticed immediately was that there was no Spiritform that was released upon her death and so he was for a moment awestruck. It was then that the two sisters entered flying around him and began reigning blows upon him with an unusual force of power. He managed to block their blows and began his own attack and it became a slaughter. When it was over three dead women lay at his feet, none of which had yet parted from their Spiritform. Eptih collected himself, checked himself for wounds, and washed himself of the women’ gore but just then the women, one by one, began to rise up and their attack on him began anew. Eptih was astonished at their recovery but knew these women were like no Mortal women he ever knew.

Now his plans for revenge transformed to hope of escape and so again he destroyed them only this time mutilating their bodies so that resurrection would not be possible. He was sure to remove a piece of flesh from one of the women to keep with him to see if it would decay as it should. Eptih though was not confident that the women would remain incapacitated and so worked quickly and then ran to the shore grabbing a piece of wood on the way to use to keep him afloat. Eptih dove into the sea and swam as fast as he could and when he felt he had made it through the currents stopped and looked back and there on the shore he saw three forms and could only imagine it was the three beauties, knowing the time he had spent there he had only seen the three women and no others. As he continued to look back he saw a unique from that appeared to be Torquis, hers being uniquely tall, but no matter how hard he tried he could see enough of anything to be sure about what he was seeing. Had Torquis created this hell for him, were the three beauties already dead or some strange but beautiful form of Queid? All Eptih was sure of is that he was glad to be leaving the little island prison. He used his energy to make sure he would not be brought back to that island and paddled himself far from that place floating on a piece of wood half the size of his body.