Whether he was unwilling or unable to return to the company of his Fellows he did not know, nor did he think to consider the options. He instead turned his attention to the remainder of the residence. As with all of the other hovels that they had investigated, there was very little in the form of furnishings. This room’s accoutrements were comprised solely of a table with the aforementioned chairs, a hearth with its cooking implements, and a small cupboard to the right of the unlit hearth.
When tested, he found, to his consternation, that the doors to the cupboard were latched beyond his ability to open them. Peering closely, he found that the metal latch was more than a mere latch; it connected within the cupboard to a variety of gears and sockets that were moved, he assumed, by the application of a key similar to that which was used on wind-up clocks and toys.
He stepped back, confused by the contradiction between the clean but poor hovel and this complex piece of technology. Thinking for a moment of finding the others and sharing this mystery with them, he abandoned the thought in favor of uncovering the entirety of the mystery first.
Contemplating the puzzle, he realized that the first order of business would either be to find the key or to fashion some makeshift device in order to trick the lock. For several minutes, he cast about himself for the key or some thin metal that could be bent to his purpose. The hovel, however, revealed nothing to him. He frowned and pondered the issue, his gaze tracing back to the mysterious book on the table. Striding to it, he opened it and shook it in the hopes that a key was concealed either within its pages or within the spine. When nothing was forthcoming, he gently placed the book back down, as if regretful of the necessity of its rough treatment, and returned himself to thought.
Some time passed then, and the solution refused to present itself to him. Frustrated, he took his father’s pocket watch from his jacket. As he did so, his eye caught on the clasp that affixed the chain to his vest. Inspiration struck, and he quickly unhooked the small piece of metal. It was almost the exact size and shape as the hole. Could the solution be so simple?
Carefully inserting the rounded piece of metal into the keyhole, he wiggled it back and forth experimentally. When it moved, he grinned. Turning it further, he found that the lock unlatched with only a modicum of exerted effort.
Hearing footsteps behind him, he turned to see the other four men enter the hovel. “Come and look at what I’ve uncovered.”
As the other men gathered around him, he opened the cupboard, eager to see what such an intricate lock would have hidden. As the doors opened, he heard a small pop and then smelt something faintly reminiscent of lavender and sulfur. Turning to his companions, he opened his mouth to make a comment, but found a strange lassitude had overcome him. Against his will, his legs crumpled, and he was faintly aware of his Fellows as they, moments later, collapsed as well.
For what felt like an eternity, he lay upon the hard floor of the hovel, staring at the cabinet which had so betrayed him. Unable to move, the lassitude worsened, and he felt his heart slow and his breathing become shallow. He realized, with a strange detachment, that while his body sank further into sluggishness, his mind remained razor-sharp. What a strange sensation, to be trapped in this thinking torpor.
Struggling against his body, he could only make the feeblest of sounds as he fought to move. Furiously, he tried to escape, tried to move even the smallest part of his body. Yet nothing responded. Fear overcame him, and he considered, for a moment, that it was entirely possible that his body would cease to operate entirely, and that the odor, be it gas or some other substance, would kill him slowly. Was this what happened to the villagers? Were they too overcome in this way? If so, what happened to their bodies?
His question was eventually answered in part by the sound of footsteps. Straining his gaze, he saw a pair of poorly maintained shoes enter into his field of vision. The owner of said footwear tutted softly and then leaned down and took Friedrich’s arms, pulling him free of his fellows and toward the door. To his horror, even with the movement of being forcibly dragged across the roughhewn floor, his body failed to respond, and he thudded over the doorway like a sack of potatoes.
Entry Five
Incapable of freeing himself from the stranger’s iron grip, or even calling to him to ask the meaning of his actions, Friedrich instead tried to ascertain the direction in which he was being dragged. He did not have to worry long on that regard as the man lifted him bodily and dumped him into the back of a horse-drawn cart.
The winter moon shone in the eventide glow like the virile orb of Sol itself. It’s unnaturally brilliant light sparkled upon the snow, which appeared then to share a kinship with the crystalline extrusions of Gaia.
A thud shook his body as the unresponsive frame of one of his fellows was curtly deposited beside him. The fear that they would be piled upon each other like too much firewood threatened to overcome him before it was rapidly proven to be the case.
He found himself in the unenviable position of being nearly suffocated by the infirmed body of one of his friends. His discomfort only increased as the mysterious assailant strode to the front of the cart and clucked what sounded to be a single horse into motion.
Since he had spent the past several days reading the mysterious book rather than exploring the village, he had very little idea of the direction in which the cart might travel. He knew only that his snatcher had soon departed the village and entered the countryside by means of fording the shallow waters of the Findhorn.
As the cart continued to places unknown, Friedrich pondered their situation. Surely this lassitude would soon pass. As he was the first to succumb, he posited that he would be the first to rouse, and would thereby be in the unenviable position of having to accost the man who had so handily taken them prisoner. And he had no doubt that they were truly his prisoners. For what other purpose would a sedative gas be used if not to incapacitate a person for nefarious means?
Had this been the fate of the villagers? If so, this man was more devious than Friedrich had first thought. Only a madman would kidnap an entire village. But if such were the case, then would the gas not have been used against them directly, rather than as the agent of defensive trap? Was this instead a punishment for their trespass? If so, then the measure being held was extreme to be sure.
Try as he might, Friedrich could find no sane reason for a person to take an entire village hostage, especially such a small and inconsequential village such as this. Even the most nefarious of highwaymen would only kill a man or two, but a whole community?
These thoughts and more moved through his untarnished mind. While Friedrich retained the greater portion of his mental faculties, he was unable to control the most basic functions of his body, and his senses conveyed stunted and confused information. He heard the sound of mint and smelled the color green. His body fell up with each bump, and even the palpitations of his fluttering heart soon took on an almost mystical conversion. These sensations he attributed to the increasing separation of his mind from his body and the resulting cessation of basic bodily functions. This included a profoundly dry tongue and throat.
From time to time, he thought that he heard the soft moans of his friends, and in this he was marginally comforted. He had very little experience with medicine, but even he knew the dangers of inhaling certain gaseous substances, especially those which incapacitated. He knew that the others must be thinking as furiously as he, and he desperately wished to find some means with which to communicate with them.
Although his perception of time was affected by his condition, he was able to dimly perceive clues—such as the amount of light in the morning sky—to estimate a travel time of perhaps twelve hours. It was then that the cart came to a stop and he heard the man dismount. His footsteps sounded as if he walked on gravel, giving Friedrich some clue as to their location. He had seen gravel on the edges of the rivers. Perhaps they were near some water. As he listened more closely, he peeled through the fog and thought he could hear the move
ment of water on a shore … or perhaps the bank of a river. The soft lapping was barely discernable above the movements of the man as he unlatched the back of the cart and unceremoniously heaved Friedrich’s friends out.
Friedrich was removed last, and as the man yanked on his feet to draw him closer to the edge of the cart, he saw the man’s face. His visage was unremarkable except for crooked nose and a spotty beard which erratically peppered his features. Muddy brown eyes peered at him suspiciously from beneath heavy brows. If Friedrich had subscribed to the ‘science’ of phrenology, then he would have immediately surmised that the man was a criminal of the basest sort.
The man dragged him from the cart, and heaving him over one shoulder, walked down a gravel path toward a destination that Friedrich could not see, his head being toward the man’s back rather than the other way around.
However, he, over the course of the night regained some small portion of his functions and moved his eyes enough to discern the overall locale. This was achieved by observing his surroundings via moonlight, albeit at a rather uncomfortable upside down angle. He appeared to have been brought to the shore of a small lake, and as the man progressed down the path, he saw that the lake appeared to be ensconced in between numerous hills. It was far too small, though, to be the largest of the regions lochs. In the distance, he thought he could see the lights of a castle or large lodge on the opposite shore.
The man grunted and regained his grip on Friedrich’s unresponsive body as he took him through a doorway and then down a ramp. The smell of damp earth surrounded him, and a chill settled into his bones.
After the space of several minutes, the ramp lessened its decline, and he found himself being taken through another doorway and into a larger room, where he was unceremoniously dumped onto a table of sorts. Irons and chains were clamped to the edges of the rough wood. He heard the soft moans of his friends and found their presence to be oddly reassuring.
To his limited perceptive abilities, the room appeared to be at least thirty feet by thirty feet. At the end of this there seemed to be a muffled gurgling sound, like liquid moving through pipes. Rough torches burned in sconces around the room, adding a smoky odor to the uneasy flickering of shadows. The overwhelming scent of death pervaded every breath he took, requiring that he fight a rebelling of the stomach. He felt bile rise in the back of his throat, but was unable to swallow it down. It remained there, the burning sensation only adding to his discomfort.
Their captor puttered around the room, for though his intent was most obviously diabolical in nature, his actions were those of a man alone in his homestead and could only be described as puttering. Friedrich heard a soft clinking as if the man was putting metal implements onto a tray. Dread deepened in his chest, and he wished, not for the first or last time, that he had some capacity with which to defend himself, or even the ability to ask of this man his intentions.
His questions were soon answered, however, as the man began to mutter to himself in the manner of the lunatic. “The others weren’t enough … perhaps five more will do. Must succeed, must prove them all wrong … I have Victor’s notes, and the book Father gave me. I must get it right this time. I must! The rituals cannot be mistaken. I must have the gearing wrong … the rations … yes … I will get it right this time.”
Friedrich’s thoughts spun in his head, and his alarm grew as he heard the sound of what could only be a wheeled cart being positioned next to his table. The man, his crooked-nosed captor, leaned over him as if to check on his health before nodding to himself. “This one will start. Yes, yes. Nicely too.”
His eyes darted about in his paralyzed head as he strained to see what was around him. From the corner of his eye he saw movement. It was his captor. The man removed from the tray a scalpel and leaned over the Adventurer Scholar. Friedrich felt his own eyes strain wildly as terror gripped his heart. The man was looking at him in much the same manner as one might a well-cooked cut of meat.
With decisive motions, the man cut open Friedrich’s shirt and moved the fabric out of the way. He poked and prodded at Friedrich’s chest for a moment, then raised the scalpel in what may well have been practiced hands. Friedrich tried to struggle, but found that even then he could move nothing more than his eyes, which he fixed most dreadfully to the scalpel, and he knew then, without doubt, what had occurred to the villagers … what it was that would to happen to him.
A sound came from the opposite side of the room—an unearthly groaning—and Friedrich’s panic grew more. What had this madman wrought?
The man ignored this sound, instead beginning to chant in strange syllables that slipped and slithered into Friedrich’s mind, unwelcome and revolting. As he did so, he lowered the scalpel and rested it against Friedrich’s chest. A moment passed, and then he pressed downward.
Excruciating pain cut through Friedrich’s torpid flesh. He struggled to scream, to fight, and yet he could do nothing as the tormenting fire stretched in a line from his chest to his navel.
A shadow moved in the torchlight, and Friedrich wished he could close his eyes. Certainly, this man had summoned something frightful from the depths of the under-earth, and was even then sacrificing him to it for some dark purpose. The man paid no mind to the phantasm and lifted the scalpel one more.
Niles grabbed the man, burning hatred consuming his eyes. His friend’s gaze was fixed, and his visage was that of a terror rather than a man. A basso roar which shook the very room erupted from his throat.
He yanked the man away from Friedrich and spun him about, striking him across the jaw with enough force to crash the man into the table on which Friedrich lay. The man put his hand to his face as he staggered to his feet, staring at the young Byron.
“Impossible!” said the man before Niles could strike him again.
Friedrich struggled to free himself, and for a moment he thought he would not succeed. But then his arm responded to his mental command, and then his leg. Weakly, he pushed himself from the table and flopped to the floor, crushing his other arm beneath him. His entire body tingled as if waking from sleep. Blood pooled beneath his body, but it was a fact which he was only dimly aware.
“Fiend! Murderer!” Niles’ voice barked like a madman as he struck their captor repeatedly.
Friedrich struggled to his feet and saw Niles atop the man, beating him as though possessed by demons. Staggering to his friend, clutching his stomach with one arm in an attempt to hold the vicious incision closed, Friedrich tried to pull him away, but Niles backhanded him so hard that he fell and struck his head against the wall.
Stunned, Friedrich tried to regain his senses as Niles continued to beat the man with an insatiable rage. Regaining his feet once more, he called out to Niles in slurred speech. “Enough! We need him alive!”
Niles did not stop. He did not so much as raise his head as he battered the man beyond senseless. Niles’ fists were glazed in red.
Friedrich’s gaze caught upon something on the opposite side of the room and realized the true crime of this madman. He saw what had happened to the villagers.
The entire wall was filled with an immense machine of an indeterminable purpose. Organs were interchanged with mechanic parts as if they were simple gears or pumps. He saw a heart attached to pipes and bones used in the place of pistons. The machine did not move, but that made it no less fearsome.
As if with his last breath, the man cried out, “Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu!”
A shudder went through Friedrich as he felt the words, almost as a physical blow. The wound on his chest throbbed, and he gasped, falling to his knees. The man gave another cry, but it was stopped abruptly as Niles punched him in the mouth.
After that, a long silence filled the room, broken only by the gasping of Niles’ breath and the pounding of Friedrich’s heart.
Struggling to his feet, Friedrich swallowed against the bile that rose in his throat. The man lay beneath Niles, unmoving.
“What have you done?” Friedrich asked in a whisper. Hi
s vision was beginning to spin in place.
Niles turned to him, a near-manic look in his eyes. Friedrich took a step back, but instead of attacking, Niles sagged as the madness left him in a rush. He looked at his bloodied hands and then, slowly, silently, he began to weep.
Turning from him, so as not to be a witness to his friend’s shame, Friedrich went to the other tables where Weyland, Rufus, and Wilson lay. The men lay comatose. Friedrich put his hand to Rufus’ shoulder and tried to shake him into rousing, but the fellow only flopped like so much dead meat. Trying to ignore what he was doing, he tore cloth from a dead man’s shirt to press tightly to his wound.
With some level of horror, he walked to the device against the far wall and tried to discern its purpose. It had all the appearances of a mechanical contrivance, but, as he had seen earlier, was comprised half of machine and half of the pieces and parts of men. Shuddering, he turned his gaze away and found it caught by a desk, atop which were scattered papers.
Walking to it, he picked up the papers and began flipping through them. Included were maps of the area, several medical charts, and a thesis notes of the workings of bodies. He found them to be the ravings of a madman. Despite their near-illegibility, he was able to glean that the man had chronicled his experiments, beginning with his efforts to incapacitate the village with several canisters of a heavy gas. The villagers had been caught unaware of the entire thing and had doubtless fallen where they stood. He surmised that the man had then carted them to this place much in the same way as he had the Fellows.
Friedrich’s chest throbbed as he pondered just how close he had come to death. If not for Niles’ intervention, he would have doubtless been made a part of this machine as well. And yet … he looked at Niles.
The Dandy Boys Mysteries (Vengeance Book 0) Page 17