by Max Anthony
“It’s clear,” he announced. “Just don’t go sticking your fingers into any jewellery boxes you find.”
Rasmus headed straight for the bookshelf, Jera went to the writing desk and Viddo walked to the carefully-hidden door in the right-hand wall, the location of which was betrayed by the slightly worn patch in the carpet nearby.
At the bookshelf, Rasmus pulled out several of the tomes at random. He wasn’t sure exactly what might comprise the reading material of a man who sustained his life on the blood of others. After a short investigation, it appeared that the Baron had enjoyed bawdy comedies and had two signed copies of The Six Secret Wives of High Priest Testis, as well as an original leather-bound copy of Smack My Thighs and a second edition copy of Lucretia’s Mahogany Horn. Rasmus was aware that some of these tomes were likely to be worth in excess of three hundred gold coins to the right buyer, but the books were exceptionally large and heavy, as was invariably the case with handwritten originals. With regret, he left the bookshelf and joined Jera, who was poring over something on the Baron’s desk.
“I found this sheet of paper in that drawer,” she said. “Along with two platinum coins. I am not familiar with the local dialect, so I can’t understand most of what is written.”
Rasmus looked at the fragile sheet of yellowing paper, which was covered in spidery writing. “Gah, the man even wrote in blood,” concluded the wizard. “What a shit he must have been. Anyway, what has he put down on this sheet, I wonder?” There wasn’t much to read and it only took Rasmus moments to get the gist of it. “According to this, Baron Valps thought he’d found out a way to make himself immortal. Involving blood, of course. This page looks to have been a part of a longer diary entry, so all is not clear, but there’s mention that one of his servants would wake him up once some sort of process had been completed.”
“I’m sure all will become clear,” said Viddo, finally discovering the latch for the secret door he’d known was there. The door opened without a sound. “There’s a little room behind here,” he said, vanishing from view.
Secret rooms were higher up the pecking order of interesting things than the writings of a madman, so Rasmus and Jera left the paper for the moment, in order to join Viddo. On the other side of the secret door there was a short, narrow passageway that opened into a room which was ten feet square. If they’d been expecting treasure, they were disappointed to find that there was none, unless one counted floral dresses in different colours as being valuable. There were dozens of them, hanging from a single rail across the middle of the room.
“What on earth are these doing in here?” asked Rasmus. “And why keep them in a secret room?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Viddo. It was so unusual that he checked floor, walls and ceiling alike for any further hidden doors. It wasn’t uncommon to find two or even three secret places linked together. Here, there was nothing.
“Maybe Baron Valps liked to wear his mother’s clothing and kept it locked away in here, so that his men weren’t aware of his guilty secret,” said Jera. She was pleased with her idea and laughed to herself.
They exited the secret room into the study once more. There was another exit from here, this one sealed by a standard-sized door, albeit of an expensive construction. “There’ll be a bedroom on the other side,” said Viddo. In his voice was a warning about what they might potentially expect to see in the private chambers of a man known to have unpleasant habits.
The door wasn’t locked and swung open easily, the wood smooth to the touch and as chill as the air of the room. A musty smell wafted out, putting each on their guard. Weapons were drawn, though all was silent.
Viddo had been right about the purpose of the room. It was bigger than the study and square, with one wall dominated by the presence of a four-post bed, draped with heavy blue velvet. There were wardrobes, dressers, several mirrors, and a footstool. There were no windows, only the depressing redness of blood gem light, which cascaded from a curlicued black-painted chandelier that appeared to have been custom-designed for the purpose of holding them.
There was a figure on the bed, lying atop the brown-stained white satin sheets. It was a withered old woman in a floral dress. They were all glad that the material of this dress hadn’t rotted away and continued to provide ample coverage, though it might have been better if it had hidden the hag’s face as well.
“This old boot looks like the Baron’s mother,” said Viddo.
“Seems a bit strange to shove one’s mother into one’s own bedroom and then vanish,” said Rasmus. “She’s not wearing a blood gem circlet. Is she definitely dead?”
Viddo drew a sword and pointed it at the body, in case it had any plans to spring suddenly to life. He checked for a pulse and found none, not having really expected there to be one anyway. He jabbed the tip of his sword an inch or two into the old woman’s neck. There was no blood, nor did the action prompt any form of movement or attack. The body wasn’t wearing anything worth stealing, which left them all feeling a little bit short-changed, since it didn’t seem unreasonable to expect the mother of a baron to be wearing a valuable necklace, nor for her fingers to be festooned in diamond rings.
“This isn’t the Baron’s suite,” said Jera in sudden realisation. “His mother must have lived here.”
“Hence the dresses we found, though I am still no closer to understanding why she had them in that other room.”
The answer soon became clear when they looked into the three wardrobes, each of which was filled to bursting with floral-patterned dresses. The colours on the garments differed and the flowers they depicted changed slightly from dress to dress, yet even so, there was no way they’d ever been remotely fashionable.
“The Baron’s mother must have filled her storage space and then put the secret room to the mundane use of providing her with an additional place to hang her garments. I hope I don’t feel the urge to purchase clothes like this when I get older,” said Jera, feeling a shiver run down her spine at the thought of how she’d look in one of these dresses. As it happened, she could have worn almost anything and got away with it, but that didn’t mean she actively wanted to.
The dresser was covered in half-empty bottles of perfume – over twenty-five of them in total. Viddo was unable to resist the urge to remove the stoppers from two or three and take a sniff. They all stank, owing to age-related degradation, though the thief felt secretly sure that they’d have smelled no better when fresh. On the plus side, there was a velvet purse on the dresser, within which he discovered seven more platinum coins, to add to the two Jera had uncovered in the previous room.
“A few more of these and we’ll be able to kit ourselves out in some better-quality items once we reach Trilbus.”
“We’ve still got plenty of those gems from the lich and other coins, haven’t we?” asked Rasmus.
“We have. I just like to see the total go upwards, rather than downwards,” said Viddo. “It’s been a long time since I found myself in a decent magic shop where I had sufficient wealth to pick exactly what I wanted, no matter the cost.”
“That would be nice,” admitted Jera. Her own armour had been broken and changed so often, that she wished she could purchase a decent, solid set of her own that wouldn’t break when a demon lord took a swipe at her.
Further searching of the bedroom didn’t reveal anything more valuable. Jera noticed that the Baron’s mother owned no undergarments, though she kept this information to herself, knowing that her companions had active imaginations and she didn’t wish them to become distraught. They returned to the study, intending to continue to what they assumed was the Baron’s suite of rooms at the other end of the corridor.
Viddo saw something on the coffee table. “Is that a decanter?” he asked.
“It is,” confirmed Rasmus. “I didn’t get a chance to look at it before we got distracted by the secret room and the mother’s bedroom.”
“Brandy!” exclaimed Viddo, having picked up the glass container
and removed the stopper. “It smells good and it must be smooth after all of these years. Anyone fancy a try?”
“It seems a shame to waste an opportunity to sit in these three splendid-looking chairs,” said Rasmus. “Sometimes one lets these moments pass by without taking advantage of them.”
The chairs were comfortable and the brandy was refined. There were no glasses in evidence, so they took it in turns to drink from the decanter.
“It would be nice to have a room like this,” said Jera. “Without all the nearby signs of mass-murder, of course.”
“This is relaxing,” admitted Viddo. “Though I prefer to be surrounded by hubbub when I am drinking.”
“Does anyone have any ideas about what the writing on that sheet of paper might have been referring to?” asked the wizard.
“That gangly wizard creature was the servant in question,” said Jera promptly. “Baron Valps must have set it a task to perform and it lost the key to the blood tank room. It must have searched for decades without once thinking to look beneath the plant pot.” She laughed at the thought.
“I don’t see how it dared to think of itself as a wizard, being absent-minded enough to place an important key beneath a plant pot and then forget about it.”
Viddo could have made a number of different replies to that statement, but chose not to. He was relaxed and enjoying the taste of the brandy which lingered in his throat. “I can hear that damned grandfather clock from here,” he said.
“That’ll teach you not to wind them up,” said Rasmus triumphantly. He prised himself from his chair and went to the writing desk again, mindful that he’d not finished reading the page earlier. He picked the sheet up and returned to the desk. Now that Viddo had brought his attention to it, the ticking of the clock was intruding upon his thoughts.
“There’s something about his mother at the bottom of the page,” said Rasmus. “I don’t know why something from the Baron’s diary is in here. Perhaps his mother stole it from him.”
“What does it say?” asked Jera.
“I keep using the magic to put mother to sleep, but that bloody grandfather clock keeps waking her up at ten on the dot every morning. I’ve asked her to get rid of it and each time she refuses, telling me to make the sleeping magic better.”
“Odd,” said Viddo. “Bizarre, in fact.”
“This page only describes one part of a greater whole, I’m sure,” said Rasmus, leaning forward and dropping the page onto the table. “The rest of the Baron’s diary might be in his rooms.”
“I’m sure we’ll come across it,” replied Viddo, interested enough that he wanted to learn more.
“What time did the grandfather clock say when you wound it up?” asked Jera, suddenly intent.
“I can’t recall exactly,” said Viddo. “I only did it to annoy Rasmus.”
“I knew it!” exclaimed the wizard.
“Twenty to ten or something,” continued Viddo. Then, with slight alarm, “I see what you’re getting at now.”
He jumped to his feet and got three paces across the room when the first bong from the clock reached their ears. There was the sound of excited rustling in the bedroom. The clock bonged twice more. All three of the adventurers were on their feet now, not quite sure what to expect. A figure appeared at the doorway to the bedroom, hideous and gangly in floral. The hag’s eyes were open, pure blood-red behind the eyelids. She opened her mouth and spoke in a gasping, cruel wheeze.
“Who’s been drinking my brandy, then?”
20
None of the adventurers knew or cared about the motivations that drove the Baron’s mother to deliver her introductory one-liner. The most important thing was that the crone’s propensity for chit-chat gave them a golden opportunity to act first. Jera saw her chance and executed another one of her warrior’s battle charges across the room. She flew across the intervening space so quickly that the hag was unable to react. Jera’s shoulder connected with the slight figure of the Baron’s mother, catapulting her once more into the bedroom. Viddo stepped in smoothly and pulled the door closed. He pushed something metal into the lock and twisted.
“There!” he exclaimed in satisfaction, ignoring the heavy thump on the other side of the door. “That should keep her trapped for a while.” With that, he turned to leave the room, with Rasmus following.
Jera gave her shoulder a rub – it felt as if she’d just shoulder-charged a brick wall, rather than a decrepit old woman. “Are we just going to leave her in there?”
“There doesn’t seem like much point in fighting her. And she had nothing worth stealing. It seems better that we leave her to rot.”
“She’s evil, isn’t she?” asked Jera. “What if she escapes after we’re gone? She might start killing villagers.” There was another bang on the other side of the wood and the door trembled in its frame – only slightly since it was, after all, very thick and solid wood.
“That old woman could be much tougher than she looks,” warned Rasmus. “She was wearing a blood-gem circlet in her portrait. Who knows what hidden strengths and powers might lurk within her withered frame? Regardless, I can see that you are determined in your path, so we shall destroy the hag before we leave.”
Viddo sighed, though it was more for effect than from any real upset. He’d already accepted that Jera was right, it was just that the shoulder-charge-then-locking-the-door combination had been so pleasingly complete that he was loath to do anything that might roughen the edges. There were no further bangings on the other side of the door, allowing him to reopen the lock in peace.
“It’s done,” he said, stepping carefully back with his swords drawn. Jera had her axe ready, while Rasmus made one or two lunges with his staff, which wouldn’t have fooled anyone competent into thinking he knew what he was doing. They waited for two minutes without hearing any sign of activity from the bedroom.
“She’s fallen asleep again, hasn’t she?” asked Rasmus.
Aware that she was responsible for their course of action, Jera inched towards the door, turned the handle and used the top of her axe to push it open. All was silent inside the room and Jera stepped away from the aperture.
“If you think I’m coming inside while you hide under the bed, you’ve got another thing coming,” she called through into the bedroom.
“Yes, come out here you dithering old bat so that we can slaughter you,” added Viddo. He wasn’t stupid enough to walk into an obvious trap. “I’ll count to three and then I’m going to lock the door again.”
“Then we’ll go and burgle your son’s chambers. I’ll bet he’s got a fair old wedge hidden away,” Rasmus called for good measure.
There was a faint noise from within the bedroom, the source of which was obscured by the walls and the viewing angle through the door. The noise became a scrabbling, like claws frantically searching for purchase upon a hard surface. Then, the old woman burst from the bedroom, only this time she looked somewhat more threatening than she had just a few minutes before. Her arms and legs were now impossibly long and double-jointed, with foot-long yellow claws sprouting from the tips of her fingers. Her face had become elongated, extending her mouth into a position where it wouldn’t close, leaving the old woman incapable of hiding the needle-sharp fangs within. A long, grey tongue snaked out, as if tasting the air. She hissed as she came, springing towards Jera at an incredible speed, the remnants of her floral dress flapping in the air.
This time it was the adventurers who had been taken by surprise and it was all that Jera could do to fend away the claws which came for her eyes. She stumbled back and managed to hit the old woman with the blunt side of her axe head. It wasn’t enough to cause an injury and Jera both felt and heard claws screech across her pauldrons. She kicked out, catching the creature in its stomach.
Viddo had not been idle during this brief exchange. As soon as he saw an opening, he darted forward, trying to land a clean stab in the old woman’s spine. The hag was wise to his plan and lashed out with one of her lo
ng arms, forcing Viddo to block instead of attack. The thief’s shortsword came into contact with the old woman’s claws, producing sparks and a loud shriek.
Rasmus tested the waters with a spell of excruciating incineration. He could see that their opponent was fast and strong, so he didn’t want to get her attention too early. His judgement was good and though the hag’s dead flesh sizzled, she didn’t look once at the wizard. Instead, she sprung directly upwards and over, lashing out at Jera. The movement caused the last shreds of the hag’s dress to tear away, revealing a coin-sized blood-gem embedded in her chest, which glowed with a dull light.
Jera was skilled when it came to all types of close-quarters combat, and she calmly swayed to one side, letting the claws harmlessly pass her head. At the same time, she helped the leaping crone into the wall with a swing of her battle-axe. The creature was much heavier than it looked and it crashed heavily into the bookshelf, causing a number of valuable texts to scatter onto the floor. It got to its feet almost at once, but not before Viddo managed to get a crossbow bolt into the side of its head. The creature made no effort to pull the missile free and leapt upwards, this time clinging to the ceiling like a bony spider. Viddo shot it again, landing a second of his magical quarrels close to the first. There was another crackling sound and the flesh of the crone’s face bubbled and spat from another application of Rasmus’ incineration spell.
Having evidently realised that clinging to the ceiling was allowing those below to take pot-shots, the creature released its grip, hoping to drop into the middle of the trio. Instead, it met hefty axe-head in mid-fall, a blow which knocked it away and which sent reverberations up Jera’s arms. The Baron’s mother skittered away, knocking the brandy decanter onto the floor and smashing it to pieces. Then, she caught the trio by surprise once again. With a powerful flick of her arms, she sent the low table flying into Viddo. One of the wooden legs caught him squarely on the shins, bringing tears to his eyes and dropping him into a squat. The red eyes of the creature fixed on him and it leapt, clawed feet scratching into the surface of the stone. Nearby, Rasmus had his staff raised in the blow that he hoped would knock the creature back. Jera had her axe already mid-swing, anticipating where the hag would land. They were going to be too late to stop it from landing a fatal injury on Viddo.