Well met, my friend. Thou hast an hour for a tale? Ah, then I have one ripe for the telling. Sit thee down, and I shall speak of one who loved a thing so dearly that he defied Death itself for it.

The one I speak of was so feared that all spoke only of He and Him. To voice his name might be to bring a curse upon crops or babes, but speak his name I did, and will now, for I am not afraid.

He was Athanase Fulcanelli. Evil incarnate, some said, and true enough his soul was blacker than soot. But soot cometh from wood burned on fires, and so did Athanase's soul begin: warm, soft wood with a tender heart, 'til it was burned on the fire of time and grief and age.

A fine, fair house had he, and a fine, fair wife to bless it with children. My own hands brought three into this world from Sarah's belly, but none survived beyond a few hours and all left this mortal realm with naught but a whimper.

I knew full well why, for Athanase possessed a magic darker than mine own, and some things the world will not suffer to be. A child of such power cannot endure, but Athanase was determined that a son should bear forth his name.

He laboured day and night to craft a ring. T'was a simple silver band, but set with a ruby-red stone into which he cast such protective magic as would guard Sarah's belly and the next precious babe within. Forbidding her to remove the ring at any cost, he slipped it onto her finger, and took her to his bed.

She proved with child again, and he coddled her and took all toil from her. His magic provided all their needs: a clean house, food, sweet and clean water to drink. He held her in his arms, read to her from ancient fables to amuse her and while away the hours of her confinement. Kisses aplenty he had for her and for the soft, expanding swell of her belly, and he barely left her side.

The time came for her to be delivered, and I was sent for. Athanase insisted that he be present, but God preserve me, this was not a thing I could allow! A husband should not witness such women's work, and so I persuaded him to leave the room.

The babe was lazy and a long time coming, and Sarah grew distressed. I tried all I could to calm her, but the day was long and hot, and her discomfort was fit for anyone to see. Her fingers swelled and she complained of pains in her hand. I saw that her ring was too tight, and so I eased it slowly and gently from her finger, placing it on the table beside her bed.

A few scant minutes later, she was delivered of a boy. Lusty cries filled the house, and Athanase burst into the room, his face wreathed with smiles. The cord was cut, my payment given, and I left them both with their newborn son.

Tis a wondrous thing, my friend, to see such love after such suffering. I watched from afar as the child thrived through his early years, never blessed with a sibling but loved by his parents enough for a hundred brothers and sisters.

The smallest of grains can tip a finely-balanced scale, and so it was one late summer eve in the child's seventh year. Sarah had returned from market, complaining of a heat in her belly and an ache in her bones. She took to her bed, and not a day later her son was also afflicted. Athanase, unaffected by all sickness because of his powers, nursed them both, but there is little one can do—even one as powerful as he—when the plague takes hold of a body.

His spells and potions availed him naught, and Sarah was taken from him a mere four days later, Death coming for her in the darkest watch of the night. Such tears as Athanase wept would rend the hardest soul, but Death was unmoved.

Taking the ring from her cold hand, Athanase slipped it onto his son's too-small finger. It had protected the boy in his mother's belly, though he knew Sarah had removed it in a moment of extremity during the birth. Perchance it would protect the boy, also…

*sigh*

Had I known, my friend, that the ring was all that kept them safe, I would never have removed it from her hand. She had worn it again mere hours after the birth, but too late to save them both.

Death came for the boy the very next night.

Athanase Fulcanelli took no other wife. Instead, he wedded himself to his magical studies, and as his power grew so did the darkness around his home and his heart. Black spikes grew up from the soil to guard the house, and the very stones became cankered. No flowers would grow near it, no animals would venture close to it. It seemed that the very blackness and despair that had swallowed his soul was oozing out to consume his home.

Those who saw him swore he did not age. His face remained smooth, his hair its strange hue of red, his back straight, though a hundred years and more had passed. Upon his finger he wore a red-stoned ring that glowed with a strange light, and oftentimes he could be glimpsed touching it with a caress so tender it belied the wickedness all knew he possessed.

If a man angered him with unkind words spoken about him behind closed doors, that man's crops would wither. If a woman spoke ill of him in the next village, her belly would turn barren. The priests prayed against his wickedness, and their church burned down that very night. The dark house on the hill, it seemed, saw all and cursed any who spoke against it.

But, one day, the Lords of Death came again, and this time They came for him. Spikes deterred Them not, and cankered stones were naught to Them as They drifted through to the room where he sat at his studies.

It is time, They told him, but he turned and laughed.

"It is not, and never will be," he said. "Thou took my life from me many years ago. What makes thee think I have aught left to give thee now?"

This aged body is no longer for the world, They said. What thou dost with thy soul is naught of Our concern. Yet, thou wilt respect Us with the deference that is due to Us.

Again, he laughed. "I fear thee not, nor yet will I give thee that respect. My body thou shalt not have, nor my soul, nor anything else of me. Begone, for I will not suffer thy presence, nor shall I submit to thy will. I shall live on, forever if I wish it."

The Lords were silent, for never had one defied Them in this manner before. In truth, They were amused—inasmuch as Death can experience such a state—and They decided in that moment to humour him.

Very well, They told him. We give thee three more months. No more, no less. Prove to Us that We cannot take thee. And then, most unlike the Lords indeed, They laughed. We do enjoy a challenge.

What happened then is well documented within the realms of the Veil, but since mortals are not permitted to go to that place, I shall tell thee. That very same day, Athanase completed his studies. Many years had he worked upon them, and he finally knew what must be done. He walked to a small, humble cottage on the edge of the village. No latch could withstand his presence, and he entered the kitchen on silent feet.

The young woman within turned, beheld him, and quickly placed onto the kitchen table the bowl of coney soup she had been preparing for her noonday meal. Like all others in the village, she knew who he was, and she knew that he must be afforded all due respect.

She bent her knee in a curtsey to him, murmuring, "Good day to thee, kind sir. I have naught to offer thee but a meal from my stove or a mug of ale from my stores, but those I give gladly."

"First," he said, staring upon her face, for it was akin to one from his past that had haunted his thoughts and dreams for many a day, "give me your name."

"My name?" She was taken aback, but gave it nonetheless. "I am called Sarah."

He closed his eyes for a moment, then nodded. "It is done, and it is perfect," he whispered. Opening them again, he smiled at her. "Come, Sarah"—he beckoned, magic flowing from his fingers—"and let us try again, hm?"

Such bewitchment he laid upon her that it took her into his arms and hence to her bed. Just three months he had, to evade Death, and that very night he planted the seed of his escape.

Sarah's belly grew with the days, and as summer browned into the russet warmth of autumn, Athanase visited her every day, bringing fresh meats and vegetables, and good clean water. He cared for her and took all toil from her, using his magic to tend and harvest the crops on her small farmstead.

Only four days remained of the three months the Lords had given him, and one cold morning when the first frost had rimed the windows, Sarah called to Athanase as he stoked the fire. Their child had quickened in her belly. Beneath his hand, he felt a tiny movement, and he looked up at Sarah with undisguised joy in his eyes.

"He will be a strong boy," he murmured. "He must carry my name through his life. His first name shall be thine to choose, but promise me that my name will be his second."

"I promise thee, but why ask me?" Sarah caressed his cheek. "Thou wilt be here to give it to him."

"This ring, also." Athanase raised his hand, even as his other remained on her belly. "It shall be his, but only when he strikes out into the world as a young man. Promise me again, Sarah."

Sarah's hand trembled, her fingers feathering into his long red hair. "I promise thee," she whispered, sure now that he knew things she did not. "Art thou sick? Promise me thou wilt not leave me… not with a newborn babe!"

As he gazed at her, a bright red mist began to rise from his feet. "I shall always be with thee, through him." The mist grew thicker, drifting around his hand where it rested against her belly as his voice rose in a chant.

As I am he, so shall he be; my life endures eternity. My body gone, my soul lives on; my life goes to my only son. Though years pass by, lives fade and sigh, his life—my life—shall never die.

The babe kicked once more—a kick more lusty than any child of such short time should rightly give—and Sarah cried out, both in shock and in pain for her eyes, as a blaze of red light filled the room, and then… silence.

The pressure on her belly was gone, and she opened her eyes as something small struck the flagstones. Athanase had vanished, leaving behind only the red-stoned ring on the floor at her feet.

I guided her son into this world some six months later. She named him for his father—Valois Athanase Fulcanelli—for Athanase in the Greek tongue means immortal.

And his life? Ah, my friend, that is another story altogether.