The Enchanted Dagger

Here’s a good Halloween page for ya!  Ghosts and whatnot.  Poor Rat-o Ferez met a violent end but we haven’t seen the last of him.

We also get a little glimpse of “the judge”.  He’s the man in black in the hat.  He’s an homage to the Judge Holden character from Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian.  I read the book a couple of months before I started work on the EDag.  Its disturbing story stuck with me as I began writing.  Some of the EDag’s inscrutable language, especially at the beginning of the story, was inspired by McCarthy’s detailed, historically referenced prose.  The moral ambiguities of its leading character has also filtered through.   I think the judge shows up again a time or two.