No trumpets sounded the day he was born. He was, after all, merely a Gypsy’s son, someone to be shunted away, hidden in some dark corner to be forgotten. He would undoubtedly become a beggar or a thief if he didn’t die young in some senseless squabble.
Yet, sharp-eyed Boris the lame saw the fire blazing deep in the infant’s dark, brooding eyes, and only Boris noticed that when Gretchyn, midwife to Cynthia, laid her bare palm to young Victor’s rear, the child did not cry.
And again, only old Boris realized the hour of the child’s birth was the hour of the howling wolf.
Boris bowed to his young master. He would serve as vassal to Victor Von Doom. For now. Forever.
Werner Von Doom proudly sat at his wife’s side as she nursed their newborn son. “Victor has your eyes, Cynthia,” he said, “your shining, coal-dark eyes.” He shuddered as the winter smoke curled from his lips.
Cynthia didn’t smile; she rarely did. “I ache, Werner. Do you have your herbs?” Werner nodded quietly and reached for his bag. He was a Gypsy healer, perhaps the best in Latveria, and his bag of potions and herbs was always at his side.
“Drink this, my wife,” he said, his deep voice echoing concern and fear. Cynthia did as her husband said, and the potion tasted bitter on her tongue. But she had tasted worse, much worse. Her own brews tasted of death.
Werner turned toward old Boris as his wife quickly fell asleep. “Let us leave. She needs her rest.” Boris said nothing as he stepped from the tent. It was too late for words. Victor Von Doom lived, and he knew it was only a matter of time before the world would come to fear this Gypsy’s son.
The boy was eight and studying at the foot of a master tutor from another village when Boris rode into camp, his aged face taut with fear. He shouted, “Victor! You must come home now. The Baron’s soldiers have come to seize your father!”
The boy’s expressionless face did not change. Quietly, he mounted Boris’s horse. “Go, then. Hurry to my father’s side. He will need me.”
The child speaks like a man, Boris thought. His heritage becomes more evident with every passing day. Soon it will be impossible to hold him back. Soon he will realize his tremendous power, and then . . . Boris shuddered at the thought.
The soldier was clearly impatient. “Well, Gypsy, do you come with me now, or will you die?” Werner stared up at the soldier standing in the opening of his tent. “I am only a Gypsy healer. I’ve done nothing. I treat the sick and the suffering, that is all.”
The soldier grunted. “Silence!” he commanded, his voice plainly thick with disgust at speaking with a lowly Gypsy. “You are to come with me by order of the Baron.”
Werner rose, hatred burning in his eyes. The one who killed my darling Cynthia was dressed in your colors, swine. I will never forget that. He slung his medicine bag over his shoulder and thought of his wife. Has it been six years since you were taken from me? I feel the pain and agony of an eternity.
Werner mounted the old nag outside his tent when he saw Victor running toward him. “Father, what is happening?”
Werner Von Doom allowed a slight smile. “Do not worry, Victor. I have done no wrong. I will not be harmed.”
“But the tribes need you, Father. I need you.”
Boris limped to the young one’s side. He placed a firm hand on Victor’s shoulder. “Do not fear for your father, Victor. He will be safe, and I will look after you until his return.”
Werner lifted the boy and held him tightly, then lowered him to the ground and rode off. “Why are they taking him, Boris? He only wishes to help the helpless. Why are they now after him?” Victor was confused, but his grim-set face reflected only bitter hatred.
Sadly, the elder Gypsy shook his head. “He is a Gypsy, boy—as are we all. It is a price we must pay.”
The Baron sat in a plush velvet chair in the center of a magnificent banquet hall. He was a big man, powerfully built. A long dueling scar split his face from his left eye to his chin. “My wife is sick, Gypsy. Heal her.” It was not a request. It was an order.
Werner shook his head. “Baron, it is hopeless. It is beyond my power to save her. The grip has taken hold of her and will not let go.”
The Baron’s face grew red. “You lie, Gypsy. Use your magic potions to save her, or you’ll pay with your own miserable life.”
Werner shrugged his shoulders. He was doomed. The woman would die within three days and he would then be slain. Unless . . .
On the second day, a tired Werner Von Doom entered the Baron’s throne room. “There is nothing more I can do, Excellency. She will recover.”
“Go, then, Gypsy, and pray for your sake that you have been successful.” With that, Werner was dismissed, and he quickly mounted his horse and rode off.
Night came early, and the castle was dark, save for a flickering candle in the Baroness’s chamber. The nurse who held her lady’s hand sang softly to herself, whiling away the night. Then she noticed the hand had become cold and limp, and her lady’s eyes were clear and empty. The Baroness was dead.
By week’s end, the Gypsy camp was overrun with the Baron’s soldiers. “I want the healer,” he demanded. “A boon to the man who brings his head to me.” But Werner Von Doom and his young son, Victor, were long gone.
They fled into the night, taking to the snow-deep Alps. The thin winter coats Werner had grabbed were hardly warm enough to ward off the storm that was brewing.
“Why do we run like cowards, Father? We can stay and fight.” Werner closed his lips to the freezing snows which blanketed him.
“You are like your dead mother. She, too, feared nothing, no matter how hopeless the odds.”
But Victor was insistent. “We can beat them, Father. We have the power. There is nothing that can stop a Von Doom. Nothing!”
So proud, little Victor, so very proud . . . and so very foolish. There are forces frail men cannot fight. Werner sorely wished Cynthia was at his side to counsel him now.
They found a cave for sanctuary from the raging snows, and Werner huddled closely to Victor to keep the child warm. The night would be the death of them both, he felt, struggling to force open his eyes. But the fight was lost.
Soon dreams came.
Cynthia stood beside her cauldron, her dark eyes blazing like the fires of Acheron. “I pass on my legacy to my son, Victor,” she proudly sang. “All that I am, he, too, will be.”
Werner watched helplessly as she placed the infant Victor into the heated cauldron. The child refused to cry as the boiling herbs bathed his tender flesh. Then Cynthia smiled the smile of the wicked. “It is done. He is one with me.”
The vision shifted. The Baron’s troops thundered into the village. “Heretics! Blasphemers! Witches, all of you! Die! Die! Die!” The soldiers were mad that dark night. They cut the canvas of Von Doom’s tent and tore Cynthia from his arms. He tried to help her, but a long sword was held to his throat, and he was forced to watch as his wife was ignobly drowned before his horrified eyes.
Eyes glazed over with sweat, he suddenly awoke. At his side, young Victor was still asleep, shivering from the bitter cold. Then, from outside the cave, he heard a whinny and the sound of galloping hooves.
“No! No!”
Victor awoke as his father shouted into the grayness outside the cave. “What is it, Father? Have the Baron’s troops found us?”
Von Doom’s voice was one of defeat. “We have lost our horse, Victor. The ropes must have loosened during the night. We are as good as captured.”
Victor shook his head grimly. “No. We won’t surrender. No matter what happens to us, we will go on. A Von Doom never surrenders. A Von Doom is always victorious.”
Tears streamed from Werner’s eyes. So much like his mother.
For three days they plodded through the snows, shivering, teeth chattering with every step. They’d never make it, Werner thought. They would die. Then he would be at his wife’s side again.
On the fourth day, they collapsed from fatigue and hunger. Why go on? Let death take us now . . . let us go to our reward.
Boris stared at the two lying at death’s door. Werner was failing; he wouldn’t last much longer. Young Victor was still unconscious, but breathing. He nodded toward a young girl to put two more logs on the fire. It was luck he had found them before the Baron’s men did. But was he too late?
It took four days for Victor to be roused. The child was weak, emaciated, yet he insisted on being at his father’s side. For a moment, Werner’s eyes opened and he saw Victor’s frail face staring down at him. “Heed my last words . . .” he sputtered out. “You must protect . . . protect . . .” And then nothing.
Victor fell to his father’s side, his face grim. “Father, no one will have to protect me. I shall become strong! Powerful! I will avenge your death!”
Yet Boris knew, for he alone remembered the Baron’s purge so many years before. He did not mean to protect you, young Victor. He meant the world must be protected . . . from the child who bears the name Von Doom.
Boris turned toward his men. “Take away Werner’s body. A funeral must be arranged.” But Victor would hear nothing of it.
“They murdered my mother when I was but an infant. And now they have slain my father. They’ll pay for that. All of mankind will pay.” He was a snarling lion, but Boris quieted him with a glance.
“Victor, you are on your own now. These are your father’s herbs and remedies. Use them only for good, lad.”
Boris left and Victor was soon alone. “They’ll all pay, Father. Mankind will be taught a lesson. I swear it.”
He opened the trunk carelessly. “Your medicine trunk will no longer be needed, Father. I will not doctor the ill. I’ll not spend a lifetime helping others only to suffer in the end.”
Beneath the herbs and potions, he saw a small chest. Across its lid was his mother’s name. “This belonged to her? I’ve never seen it before. What is it?”
The lid was locked, but Doom’s agile fingers quickly picked it open. Inside were strange vials, powders . . . magic potions. And a diary.
He read through the night. Each page was a treasure unto itself, for each page told of a magic spell, a dark secret known only to those now long dead.
Werner Von Doom had never told his son his mother’s secret, but Victor Von Doom knew it at last. His mother had been a witch, and he . . . he had inherited her dark and awesome powers.
Outside, the night grew thick with storm clouds, and thunder razed the heavens. The gods knew that from this moment forth, the world would never again be the same.
To Be Continued...Tomorrow at
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Fantastic Four: Doomsday
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