I turned back hesitantly towards
the smell, expecting the worst, as what my nose suspected did not seem
encouraging at all. Following the unpleasant smell, it brought me to an area
where the undergrowth had started rotting due to the lack of sunlight in this
cloudy overcast weather. At first I thought the body might be lying somewhere
around me, hidden in the underbrush. Bending down I picked up a handful of the
leguminous creeper. The smell it emitted was just like the smells I had got
both five minutes ago on my staircase and also on the ridge at the point where
a hundred and twenty soldiers of the Sceptre were supposed to have disappeared.
Applying my mind to it, I suddenly realized that I had no idea what decaying
flesh smelled like – the smell that I had unwittingly come to associate with it
had been nothing more than this harmless plant all along. Coming to think of
it, I did recall seeing similar plants around that area of the ridge. Lothar
had come out on top of me once again.
A
month earlier Joan and I had gotten married with a quiet ceremony at which were
invited, in addition to our families and friends, Lothar and the Sire.
THE END
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