by SL Figuhr
“Motherfucker! Son of a rotten, pus-dripping cunt! My trunks!” The outraged shout echoed in the dim chill. Any dreck of humanity would be able to open them, or to step anywhere inside his work chambers and disturb his books and materials and take them.
He had to get back to the palace; panic welled up inside. How long had he been dead? He could not lose his possessions; that was the main reason behind the secret chambers. Nicky clenched his teeth. He didn’t expect the wardrobe to be full when he yanked a door open. He was correct. Most of the fine clothes had been taken, and only a few garments lay in a moldering pile. The boy gingerly drew them out, but saw an animal of some kind had made them into a nest.
The boy delicately reached in and felt around, prodding and pushing. Finally, the false bottom clicked free and after a moment of prying at the swollen wood, he was able to raise the lid. The shallow space had not been discovered. He took out the ornate silver and jeweled dagger hidden within, along with a small leather portfolio tied shut and a small bag which jingled. As he was withdrawing his hand for the last time, a splinter of wood stabbed him.
Hissing in pain, he spent several minutes working the shard out with the dagger, cutting himself in the process. Blood welled up and dripped down. Nicky didn’t pay it any attention, gathering up his meager possessions. The dusty mirror hung on the inside of the door caught the last rays of sunlight. The cut was illuminated enough for him to see it hadn’t healed. The boy stopped mid-step, mouth falling open in shock. He stared, astonished, brought a trembling hand up to the faint light, red rivulets staining his skin.
“Oh. No.” He licked the blood off, examining his hand. Panic grew again. He started having trouble breathing, the room shrinking in, smothering him. “Nononononono . . .” It started low and monotonous, ending in a scream of denial. “NNNOOOOOOOO!”
His fist shattered the glass, sending cracks radiating out while a few chunks fell tinkling to the floor, with one largish piece embedding itself between the second and third knuckles. Nicky crumpled to the floor, crying and rocking in pain.
“Piss-filled dung buckets. Rotten cockroaches. Belly-crawling, dirt-licking worms.” He swore old curses interspersed with new. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
The sliver came out with a minimal amount of tugging and force, more pain and blood welling. He tossed the piece aside, knowing what he would have to do, now that another unexpected, unwanted sacrifice had revealed itself. Nicky stood shakily, and groped for his things which he had dropped on the floor. He needed to get out of the ruined manor.
It was difficult to do now night had fallen. He felt something pierce the bottom of his foot and couldn’t help the scream which rang out, snot and tears mingling, falling to join the dirt covering the floor. He kept going, limping down and outside the slave’s entrance. He sat down on the cold stone, peering futilely at the bottom of his foot. His fingers brushed the object, sending a wave of pain through him. He grasped it and pulled it out and flung it far off to the side. Then he picked up his things, and began limping across the overgrown lawn and drive which led into the property, pain stabbing through him with every step.
* * *
The mare stumbled, nearly sending Nicky crashing into the melting snow drifts. He reined her in, letting the exhausted animal walk. It wouldn’t do to ride her to death, because then he would be forced to walk the rest of the way himself. He’d had enough of that just getting from his lodge to the first farm along the track into town. Behind him, the night sky was illuminated from fire, and the scent of smoke rose and joined the night sky.
He hummed to himself, a nasty smile yanking his lips up as he replayed the begging, pleading and finally, screams of terror as he killed the stupid farmer, his equally stupid wife, and his family, after raping the daughter. The boy had gained entrance easily enough, his bloody wounds, naked body, and sobbing, terror-stricken act convincing. The wife and daughter cleaned and bandaged his wounds before feeding him. Nicky had been offered an old pair of pants, shirt, and cracked leather shoes along with a spot beside their son in the loft. He didn’t want word of his return to get out, so he waited until the family was sleeping before murdering them. By the time he reached the edges of the town, dawn was breaking.
The former advisor used a little known path, which appeared more as a goat track, up the back of the plateau where the palace and nobles’ houses stood. It ended in a small rock declivity. Nicky dismounted and sent the poor horse back down the trail, not caring whether it came across humans to take care of it, or fell to predators or the cold. He stepped inside, kneeling down on the frozen rock to light the oil lantern he had stolen from the owners and brought with him.
With the illumination provided, he ventured farther inside. He slipped and slid along the iced-over path, the rock walls and ceiling inches away, icicles forcing him to duck again and again. After about two hundred feet, the ice petered out into hard dirt. The opening was lost behind him to the twists and turns the tunnel made. A short flight of stone steps led to an abbreviated landing, an iron door prohibiting further access. Nicky put the lantern in a narrow niche carved out of the rock wall. The door would only open from his side by knowing the correct placement of the moveable metal puzzle parts making up the lock.
Nicky found himself grunting and sweating with exertion as he got the final piece into place. The cold, and rust had caused the metal to stick and a few needed the thin sheeting of ice broken. The wool gloves he had stolen were ruined. The young man took the lantern back up and pushed the door open. It groaned and scraped across the ground, then once he was through, shut with an echoing clank. He pulled the iron lever coming out of the wall, and barely heard the screech made by the plates moving back into the locked position. The air inside the tunnel was still cold, his breath came out in puffs. His shoes thumped on the stone floor as he continued along. The hallway slowly widened up enough for one person, even heavily armored, to walk without brushing the walls or hunching over.
It took a quarter of an hour to walk the secret passageway, false booby-trapped trails branching off to confuse anyone who didn’t know the correct path, a last effort to save a fleeing royal family should it become necessary. He passed the room into which all the palace latrines dumped, the atrocious smell enough to make any person, even those reputing to have a strong stomach, vomit.
One last locked door greeted Nicky. He pressed various blocks of stone in the wall, heard a low grinding noise. The stone carved door opened a foot inward, then stopped. It had to be pushed forward several feet. Nicky emerged from the slim space created, and slipped around a seated figure of the first King Maceanas carved from rock. The current king would never make it through; he was too fat. The original progenitor of the ruling line, rumors had it, purposefully did that as a means of reminding his decedents to not get too complacent in their rule.
Forgot the most important part of your legacy, didn’t you, Reginald? Nicky thought gleefully. Even if you wanted to escape, not that I’ll give you the chance, you couldn’t.
The boy turned and moved the stone figure’s arm and hand holding the scepter, gears clanked and groaned in protest as the plinth with its seated figure moved back into place and locked itself. No one came down into the royal crypts unless it was to make ready a new burial spot. He walked around the carved stone sarcophagi holding the first king and queen of Macinas, and out the small space it rested in. A long, black hallway greeted him, along with the faint smells of rotting organic matter. The lantern illuminated other niches carved out of the inside the plateau’s stone briefly as he passed by. Statues inside, if he cared to look, would show him a likeness of which king and his family’s remains rested.
It wasn’t long before he passed a space the current king would need. And you can be damn sure I won’t have any stupid carved statue of you put inside, you fat fuck. Lucky me you have no official recognized offspring, only bastards. I can have them killed and disposed of after you and thus no one to legally challenge my rule.
Nicky p
assed the steep, worn staircase leading into the chapel of the latest fashionable god-of-the-moment, instead taking the secret one which opened out into the king’s private audience chamber. Sweet, sweet, long-awaited revenge was about to be his.
EPILOGUE
Deep inside a mountain tomb complex, scars flared to life on vampiric flesh. The pain was so great, Illyria was forced from her deathlike sleep. She stared at the markings, glowing with the intensity of live coals.
“No!” The whisper held real terror, and disbelief.
She couldn’t move; something beyond her knowledge held her in place. The space filled with ritual chanting in a deep, guttural voice, the voice of DiJinn and a host of other demons.
The connection broke, and Illyria’s nature let her know dusk had fallen over the land. The glowing marks faded, their image burned onto her retinas. She strained every sense, yet nothing had changed inside her hiding spot.
Why now, after all the years which had passed since she and the immortals defeated Nicky, did the marks flare to life?
A conversation she had forgotten slammed into her consciousness.
“Time is fluid, ever-changing, mutating, as are the worlds and universes around us. The doors will allow passage between, and keep the realms separate. When they are broken, who is to say what shall happen?”
Illyria had a feeling she was about to find out.
Thank You for Reading
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