The scrolls of sin, p.24
The Scrolls of Sin, page 24
Astonishment fails to grasp the feeling of watching the drunkard skewer a score of guards and slaves; not a ruthless swordsman, but more a pudgy child on a bright outing. The irksome noises of hacks and grunts, met with an occasional moan, echoed about the place as I did my best at staying focused. As he darted in and out of my sight, messier each time, I made my way to Morlia.
Her slumped state made my actions no less nauseous. Nothing was around her neck but a necklace lined with star sapphire. Removed and put in my pocket, I patted her all over, desperately wanting to feel something solid. After running my hands inside her girdle, I fingered through her wetted undergarments. Between her thighs, nestled snuggly against her pelvis, the ring I’d put on my finger came on a sudden ting. My fingers clasped around them. From that unholy perfumed trench I pulled out the keys. Two, one large and one small, dangled on a golden ring.
Dark, thick ribbons of blood trailed off Werlyle’s arms as he reentered the dining hall. Panting, he was still taking excessive and bizarre routes in his search for additional victims. His gut protruded from his ever upward-crawling shirt as he exerted himself to a blissful exhaustion. The keys had found my pocket in a flash, but as I planned on explaining that no such keys existed, he exited to enter a dark nook where apparently someone still lived.
My excitement was incapable of restraint. What vaults those walls would surely contain. What we would pack into the cart together would be impressive, lucrative—quite, in fact—but it wasn’t statues and paintings that had lured me.
“Snier,” Werlyle said, emerging from the nook and brandishing his dripping sword. His boots emitted a mushy sound as he left a remarkable path of footprints. “Okay, think that’s all of ’em.” Restarting his ticks, “One cook wasn’t fully out, drunk on whatever you did, and those big white eyes were so pink and hazy. He thought I was some ghost or god those spearmen worship. You seen those little wooden idols they have up in the kitchen?”
Werlyle had surely earned my attention. The toad, in plum and blood, fooled the eye. He was a plug of some visceral tissue that oozed out of a wound or woman’s loins. But he also killed. As much as I had confidently calibrated him, and at some moments even pitied him, he had transformed before me into a man that was to be treated as a genuine maniac.
“Yeah,” he continued, “I think he thought I was one of those. How he prayed—”
“Let us get to work,” I said, hopefully appearing unmoved. “All right, all right. No rush as I see it, but I’m not the mastermind here. What shall we do now, sir?” He bowed low, like a butler.
Two hefty table covers later, we were in the library. All six volumes of Poems of the Classics, the legendary Denom Vandahl’s Transient State of Grace and Songs in Regal Twilight, The Embryonic Sorcerer and many more I pulled from their shelves and dropped in Werlyle’s blood-covered hands.
The sight of them made me have to consider: Was this come-to-fruition maniac done with his bloodlust? Was he even capable of splitting the loot and then merrily go about his affairs? Was I, Tymothus Snier, willing to do such splitting?
I knew from too much time in the dungeon who’d squeal. If he got caught—and with an array of bloody boot prints and his reckless blabber-mouthing, he would—it would only be a matter of time be-fore I was in some pre-disembowelment pillory. Equally troubling, he was possibly brewing a similar plan, trying to make my grizzly death look like a grand murder-suicide, swaying in his retelling to the Ward.
“How fuckin’ heavy can a few books be?” Werlyle grunted as he toted an improvised satchel across his shoulder.
“You’ll be surprised how much some of these will sell for. Besides, they’re not that heavy.” Hugging my smaller load, it was relieving to pretend I wasn’t bothered. In time, my temperament began to follow suit.
I freed one hand long enough to open the door that led us out to the bailey. From over my stack of books, I saw the pale tops of the obelisks. The wind wasn’t just strong, it was cold. I walked to the cart, Werlyle in trace. After placing one table cover at its base, Werlyle handed me the books and I made a solid bed of literature. I covered the second linen over them and hopped out.
Next were the sculptures, silverware, candleholders, decorative weaponry, vases, curtains, sconces, and a plethora of odds and ends, all packed into their waiting crates that I’d kept cached in the mansion’s heap of undisposed garbage. Thieves in the night; Werlyle bellowed in mirth, impressed by my puzzle-piece packing. I stood atop the boxes, cold wind blowing my hair wild.
“Attaboy, Snier,” Werlyle laughed. “Oh, did you check Morlia? Watch it. Careful, Snier, don’t go droppin’ boxes and lookin’ all amateur on me.”
But I didn’t hear him. My heart pounded, my comfort annihilated, and I knew it wouldn’t return. “She has to have keys on ’er.” Werlyle said. “We find what we’re both really lookin’ fer—hey, how we goin’ to fit it all? Make another trip?”
After a moment: “No, one trip is all we can afford, and no, I haven’t checked.”
Rinmor lay dead on his back, eyes wide as his mouth. Werlyle tossed Morlia about like a sailor emptying his duffle. The gown ripped, her red hair an unkempt mess dripping cold soup, her face placid, like a doll’s. When he lifted her upside down, her head hit the floor stones. The sharp, crisp smack made my belly turn.
“Arhh,” Werlyle roared, “they got to be here!”
“You’re right,” flapping in exasperation, “there’s no other place they could be. Wait—some hiding place outside her door?” That corridor was so thin only one of us could check the tile or trim at a time, and I knew who should lead the file.
“Fuck!” Werlyle dropped Morlia like she had bit him. “I didn’t come for books.”
“Me either, friend. Let us at least concentrate on said books for the time being. Maybe our minds will re-stir. I have often found that—”
“What’s next?”
Small crates of wine, along with dozens of Black Monk, Spiritual Oppressor, and Bleeding Anna fit snuggly in the wagon that was starting to creak from the weight.
A hellish moan came up from somewhere behind us.
Werlyle screamed and flapped, pelting me with congealed blood and dropping a crate of Grest.
“I don’t know,” I said to Werlyle as if he’d asked me what made such an awful noise. And I didn’t know, not completely. But I wasn’t in complete denial either. The final result of my grim induction was that something stirred, and had stirred a long time, amid the tombstones. There wasn’t even the luxury for conjecture; this time the noise continued.
Many may condescend from their comfortable parlors the actions we then took. No bother, there is no way to make rational what was occurring, nor make rational our response. Without a word, we walked side by side. We walked toward the noise. I unsheathed my dagger as Werlyle wiggled the bloody sword out from his belt. I knew the source far faster than my mind would officially admit. Our walk toward what was now a series of grunts and thuds ended at the foot of Rinlot’s sarcophagus.
The wind had picked up to a near approaching storm. Thunder rolled in the distance. Lightning lit up the west. Maybe the weather was trying to mask our discovery. For the faintest of moments, I thought I saw a pale face between two obelisks, but before my eyes could strain further, Werlyle pulled me away.
“Snier, this is Ordrid work.”
“Maybe, maybe—but maybe some animal burrowed in from the bottom,” I said, trying to believe it.
“I have to open it.”
“What!? Whatever’s in there is better left in there. Remember why we’re here. Grave robbing is not an interest, or important.” My free hand clasped the keys in my pocket.
Werlyle placed his ear to the stone. “It ain’t about robbin’ it. They have a curse on him, don’t you hear ’em,” rolling his eyes up to land on me, “in there?”
No! I didn’t! I heard some terrible moan, but it didn’t have to be from where we stood. It was an awakened guard, not properly run through, clamoring out into the night while regaining his wits. I tried to convince Werlyle of this, but it was no use. Thuds burst up from within, and when they did even I finally conceded the most terrible of realities.
Sentiment comes at the oddest times, and certainly nothing odder than the moment before us. Despite all my current dilemmas, I began to wonder if maybe some form of white magic was available to help the thing that now pounded up against the inner stone. For a king’s treasury the Chapwyn priests would maybe put down their incense-swingers and emasculation tools to evoke some assistance. I listened for words, something to discern that the pounder was in the realms relatable to the human experience. I strained, but nothing.
“Snier, I’m opening it.”
“Wait—”
Of all my knee-jerk reactions that have surprised, I found myself pushing Werlyle aside to slide the lid myself. As my dagger’s blade and fingers felt the stone separating, I held an image of Rinlot’s somehow golden-brown skin next to mine, how grateful it was to be saved, and how forever in my debt it would pleasantly remain.
The stone was heavy, and I eased off to regain my strength. Taking in a breath, I looked up at the night sky. The gargoyles atop the corbels loomed down as they always did. Maybe it was just the darkness, the whirling of the leaves, or my severely jostled nerves, but they all seemed different. More perched rather than placed, as if waiting for some command unknowable to us to take flight. A little one I’d never noticed before, looking more like an imp from a bad fairytale, seemed to have eyes that moved.
The lid gave with a sucking sound. Through a sliver of blackness, fingers stretched out and into the open air.
Werlyle flailed back, shrieking and cursing. I possessed neither the ability nor the inclination to look back at him. The skin was brown, but to a leather. Fingers, their tips worn to the bone, appeared to be searching for something.
I had expected this abomination to toss the stone lid next, send it down in pieces, and emerge to wreak whatever havoc its unfathomable torment would see fit. Instead, the fingers vanished back into the sarcophagus. Without the pure stone to muffle them, all that emitted were sobs and moans of the lowest despair. There was rage possibly, but a rage of the rat in the trap, back broken.
The terror possessing me froze any ability to run. Aghast—the thought of me sleeping, while out the window tossed and turned this afflicted carcass. He—it—felt pain, or at least perceivably so from the noises he made. Rinlot, or whatever he was now, was unable to emerge from a confinement that even I was able to pry. Pity blocked my throat when I contemplated if an intelligence, some residue from his time among the living, lingered, him knowing full well what treachery put him there. Whatever emotion I may have felt next was destroyed as lightning struck the bailey.
*
When I awoke, the world swayed and pulsated as I found myself getting back on my feet. A pat-down gave me reason to believe the lightning hadn’t struck me. With a wobble, I regained my senses.
I couldn’t have been out long. The wagon was tearing out of the bailey, heading for wherever a pair of scared mules would decide.
That hideous hand had once more emerged from the open space, this time grabbing at thin air. My run for the wagon only sent me back to the ground. Rolling from my stomach and clutching my shin, I turned to see that the crate Werlyle dropped had bested me. Rain peppered my face as I stood once more.
My eyes then held the greatest of their disbeliefs.
Werlyle was on his knees, clutching his throat with both hands. His vocal tubing gave a rubbery squeak as the thin blade of a rapier returned to its scabbard. As Werlyle hit the ground, the boy stood over him.
In the open door, atop the small flight of its steps, stood Morlia and someone else. This second person, a man, I could have sworn I had known.
Maybe it was the moonlight, the lightning strike, or my blood rushing away from me, but her face, as the boy’s, was not the same. Some form of unlife had replaced them, and its new demeanor I dared not guess. Their features were somehow more canine, their eyes beady.
Standing like figures claiming the summit of a nightmare wedding cake, I then knew with absolute certainty who the other person was.
“Morden,” spoke the Ordrid. The boy ascended the stairs, coming to his father’s side. Morden turned toward the graves. A pang of sheer terror erupted once more when they cast their eyes on me.
You’d think I would have run, but I didn’t—couldn’t. I stood as lifeless as a statue in that long-gone mule cart.
#
The necromancer’s disappearance from the dungeon surprised no one. Those with a penchant for gambling placed bets on the manner in which he would bust loose, while those prone to superstition debated what manner of ghost or beast would be summoned to assist in his freeing. All were wrong, and it was the nonchalant reaction of Warden Rogaire that now made sense.
Soon after the necromancer was paraded, in that most ridiculous presentation of chains, the warden had caught wind of the celebrity and insisted on a sit down.
The Ordrid’s escape happened right after that meeting. In conjunction with a curious guard change that night, Warden Rogaire had his lower tiersmen come join in one of the dungeon’s most famed spectator sports.
Prisoners who’d failed on debts to royal houses, or who particularly irritated the guards, would be tied to a stone altar. Naked as the day they were born, a guardsman would soak the flailing prisoner with bitch urine and then release a pack of deprived Imperial Hounds. The fight to get to the scent was as brutal as the unsettling result. The honor to attend was normally reserved for only the ranking cadre and occasional whores that occupied the key-vaults in the not so quiet hours of roll call and gruel distribution.
Rinlot couldn’t have known that the sorcerer, or necromancer, or whatever title best fit the man who came to him in chains before leaving at leisure, and who he foolishly bartered some deal with, was the very man who sired Morden.
Was imprisonment itself a part of the Ordrid’s plan?
*
The Ordrid looked at me, or through me. I felt as if I would fall and never stand again.
Not through my own mind did I see what I say to you now, but through where my eyes may have been if I had been in league with the Ordrid and standing, fittingly, a bit to his rear:
I knew the place all too well. The gate of the Municipal Dungeon was built for giants. In front of its iron scales, each alone as large as a shield, two guards leaned on their halberds. In front of them, the Ordrid stood, clad in black leggings and a dark coat. His head was bald like an onion. His hands moved along with his plea, reassuring and coy.
The bewildered guards couldn’t decide who to gape at longer, one another or this man, in the midst of a full confession he practiced outlawed magic. Some time must have passed between that image and the next, but the Ordrid—surely this fiend who rose Morlia and Morden—the Ordrid then turned to me.
He had wanted at Rinlot even more than I. For reasons I would never know, now he would have Rinlot’s family, his wealth, and toast fine glasses to having caused such misery. The next thing I saw was he and Rinlot walking out of the front gate. Night had fallen. The two walked like friends, Rinlot gingerly swinging a pair of free handcuffs. I saw Rinlot’s eyes, in some fashion glazed over beyond their usual simplicity, and then I see it. They shake hands. My mind’s eye, or whoever’s, locks in on these hands and does not move after.
*
Wind was in the trees and rain pelted the gravestones. The three of them descended the stairs. I stayed like a cornered hare.
“Morlia. Sir, a great tragedy has befallen this house tonight. Your cousin, as you have readily identified as the perpetrator, has poisoned your slaves, your guards, and I thought you both as well. I caught him here beginning to loot our dear Rinlot’s final resting place.” I pushed out a grin, or it felt like one.
“Sir, I beg of you—” They had neared to an arm’s distance, walking solemn and in unison. Morlia’s eyes were two black stones above lips whose opening could have contained rows of fangs.
A hand grabbed my ankle, another my belt, ripping it off of me with tatters of my breeches coming with it. Breaking free of this terrible freeze at last, I felt for my dagger, but it must have lain somewhere amid the fallen leaves.
Stone slid with wet grittiness. I found myself looking up at the leering gargoyles. One of my hands pushed against Morlia’s face, which appeared in an instant far less dead. My other hand was clasped around her keys in my pocket, and then they too were taken from me.
Epilogue
Tymothus kicked and screamed, bit and pled. Morlia slid open the lid as Morden and Irion stuffed him into the sarcophagus. The once summer-hued skin of Rinlot, turned coarse and loathsome, clung to the new inhabitant.
As the lid slid back, Irion Ordrid’s grin grew as wide as his son’s. Sons were a theme. It make have taken too many years and two bodies, but the Ordrid soul who Rinmauld had cheated finally avenged the Ordrid House, and sent Rinmauld’s into tortured ashes, his dearest son moaning in this delightful little box.
Rinlot’s hands found holds on Tymothus. Just before the lid was sealed, and what was left of the light of the moon would be conquered by forever black, Tymothus dared look beside him. Rinlot stared back, the agony of hell on his wry grimace.
Leaving a wake of bursting bottles, the runaway mules careened out of the Morgeltine. The last to see it in the district was a bloated Wardsman, watching in disbelief as a ghost-driven wagon wheeled past.
The beings that haunt the dark weren’t limited to the Rogaire Mansion that night. As the wagon entered the celebrated Do-Gooder’s Row, flowers and confetti and strands of human hair were kicked up by its wheels. The mules’ hearts finally exhausted, the shadows stalking the nooks and miasma of Nilghorde began to envelope the cart.
