“How would you know if someone was using such a spel ?” Marie asked.
Ikalos shrugged. “I don’t know that.”
Von Wilding laughed out loud at that, but then checked himself, realizing they were on the very doorstep of Von Drakk Manor. “Sorry,” he murmured.
They strode through the tombstones, careful to not step on any of the graves lest they disturb a
sleeping ghost or demon. At the edge of the graveyard was a rusted fence and gate that hung off-
kilter on broken hinges. They gingerly passed through it, and as they got closer to the Manor, Sai
could see that the front door wasn’t black—it was simply open. Inside was dark as a night without
stars. She didn’t see any guards or any signs of life.
“Keep your sword handy,” grumbled Sai.
“I ain’t got a sword, just this trusty crossbow.” Chev patted the weapon and a bolt shot out,
whisked past Sai and Marie, and hit a post on the front entry of the Manor. It quivered in the thick
wood with an audible vibration. “Uh, sorry.”
“You old fool! You could have kil ed one of us,” said Sai.
“At least I know it works,” he responded.
“You walk in front then,” ordered Sai.
There was no commotion, no indication that any enemies had noticed the bolt jutting from the
entry post.
As they neared, more features of the manor came into view. Moss and ivy clung to the outer
walls like a second skin. The half-hidden statues of gargoyles, dragons, and worse. An oppressive
sense of decay hung over everything. Amidst scattered leaves were bleached bones. Sai thought it
better if she didn’t point them out.
Up a short span of stairs, the great door hung open, daring them to cross to the other side.
They watched and waited, and nothing rushed out to greet them with gleaming steel or bared
teeth.
“Maybe they’re not home?” offered Chev.
“I’l find out,” said Sai as she ported to the doorway and looked inside. It was very dark inside,
but a few fading sunbeams lit up chambers farther in. Cobwebs and dust as wel as a few leaves were
scattered within the entryway. “It doesn’t look like anyone has been here for a very long time.”
Von Wilding proclaimed, “We have to search it from top to bottom to be sure. I’m convinced
that Princess Citrine, and possibly Princess Amethyst, are held prisoner inside.” He swung his sword
and dagger.
“Al right then I guess we better go in,” said Sai.
They al entered through the door, and it slammed shut behind them.
***
Lightning flashed, giving them a hint of the massive interior chambers. Covering the wal s were
old tapestries from the elder days of triumph. Bookcases with moldering tomes lined the other open
spots while dusty silken divans were spread throughout as if this place once expected to host large
dinner parties.
“Was that the wind? Did it slam the door shut?” asked Marie.
“I felt no wind,” said Von Wilding. He tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge.
“I guess we’re committed,” said Sai.
Fumbling through the dark, they found candles and lit them to push back the claustrophobic
gloom. They ventured further into the manor and soon found themselves at a crossroads of sorts.
Stairs led up, stairs led down, and another hal way continued.
“We best hurry,” said Von Wilding.
“How do you suggest we do that?” asked Sai.
“Marie and I should go down, that is the likeliest place a prisoner like Citrine wil be kept, you
two search the ground floor, and you, Sai, go look upstairs.”
Chev and Esmerelda looked to each other. “We’d feel better all sticking together,” he said.
“The sooner we get this done and get out, the better. You two stay here, I don’t want you
walking into any traps like the rest of us.”
“I’m with Chev for once,” said Sai. “Seems awful dangerous splitting up. Hatch meant for us to
stick together.”
Von Wilding grimaced. “Al right then. We stay together, but I think this would go faster my
way.”
They continued as a group, searching through the rooms on the ground floor, finding nothing
of interest, just molded furniture and rotting books. Rats fled from the light, but beyond the vermin
there was nothing.
“Now we should look upstairs and down,” said Von Wilding.
Chev hesitated and said, “Maybe now, me and the girl should stay here and keep watch. You
two go on downstairs and Sai can look up there.”
“By myself?”
Von Wilding cracked a smile and said, “You are the most capable of escaping anything that is
thrown at you.”
“True, but that doesn’t mean I should have to.”
Marie offered, “You still have Hatch with you, don’t you?”
She popped open the satchel and looked down at miserable Hatch.
“Ribbit.”
“He’s fine, but you cannot count us as two.”
“I wasn’t. I just guessed that he gave you comfort,” said Marie.
Sai blushed. “Goddess knows why, but yes he does.”
“We al have that,” said Marie, taking hold of Von Wilding’s hand. “Let’s get searching and get
out.” She led Von Wilding down the stairs into the pitch black, while Chev and Esmerelda would
watch their backs on the ground floor rooms as Sai looked up the stairs.
***
Von Wilding held his weapons at the ready. “Careful now,” he whispered.
Marie nodded, her frying pan held up, ready to strike. Von Wilding tread carefully with his short
sword and dagger, since a longsword was too unwieldy, even inside the wide hal s of the mansion.
The stairs creaked as they went down to a landing, the stairs curving in a new direction. Above their
heads hung portraits of the Von Drakk family from days long past. Their faces were somber and
glaring, as if even the long dead were insulted at this trespass.
Sconces along the wall held candelabras, but these were covered in cobwebs and dust.
“It doesn’t look like anyone has been down here in a very long time,” said Marie.
Von Wilding shook his head. “That doesn’t mean anything to the undead. This could be a
glamorous il usion for al we know.”
“I wouldn’t cal it glamourous,” remarked Marie, running a finger along the rail and wiping away
a long trail of dust. Then she started with a gasp.
“What is it?”
“The eyes on that portrait were looking at me.”
“I don’t see anything.”
“I swear they moved,” she insisted.
He watched careful y for a moment, then led her the rest of the way down the stairs. At the
bottom, the cold flagstones had beetles scurrying for cover from the light of their lantern. A single
skull lay on the floor in front of them. Beyond al of this, a long hal way offered many doors on
either side of them.
The hairs on Von Wilding’s neck rose, and a new sensation rippled up his spine. He stopped
Marie just before she set foot on the flagstones. “Me first,” he whispered.
He tapped the nearest flagstone with the tip of his sword and huge sections of the wal smashed into each other, turning the skull that had lain there to dust.
Then, as the wal s slowly moved back into position, they revealed a throng of skeletal warriors
standing in what had been an empty hallway. Their teeth clacked maniacally, and
the hollow cries of
the doomed echoed from their empty eye sockets. They rushed at Marie and Von Wilding with
rusted swords and baleful, hungry glares of evil.
***
Chev and Esmerelda remained at the bottom of the stairs that Sai had ascended. Chev took
some smal comfort that they could see outside the mansion through the windows on their left-hand
side, thinking that if some terrible danger came, they could stil escape to the outside.
A soft cry for help came from somewhere in the distance.
“Was that Sai?” asked Chev.
“I don’t think so. It wasn’t upstairs; it sounded like it was that way,” she said, pointing down the
hallway.
The soft cry of help came again, soft and weak.
“Suppose we should stay here and tel the others when they get back? That’s the sensible thing I
think.”
“No, we should help. Come on.”
They gingerly went down the hallway, Chev with his crossbow loaded and Esmerelda shining
the candlestick like it was a wand.
They passed by a kitchen, but it was empty of everything but spiders and broken dishes.
“Help.”
The next room was the dining hal . It was equal y empty, but the third they came to looked like
a library with even more books than had been in the entry parlor. A bil iard table and a few lounge
chairs were spread around the central fireplace and the huge head of a moose was mounted on the
wal above it. Everything was covered in webbing and dust.
“Doesn’t look like much now, but I’l bet this was grand once,” remarked Chev.
Esmerelda grunted, and they took a step inside to see around the corners a little better.
“Welcome,” came a voice.
“Who said that?” whispered Esmerelda, clutching Chev’s hand.
“I did,” came the voice, louder this time.
“I don’t see anyone,” responded Chev.
“I’m right here. Look up.”
Chev and Esmerelda took a single step forward, searching the room for a presence.
The moose head turned to look at them and bared its teeth with a loud, “yaw!”
They screamed and ran from the room, as the fireplace behind them suddenly erupted in a
blaze of heated doom, casting long orange light that pursued them out of sight.
***
Sai was irritated. Why must she be the one on her own? Sure, she thought herself capable, but
that didn’t mean she should be abandoned.
A ribbit from within her satchel reminded her that she wasn’t completely alone. She wished
Hatch were here as himself.
The air wasn’t as musty with fungus when she reached the upper level, though the scent of rust
and decay was stil very strong. The wooden floors creaked beneath her soft tread, and she
wondered if that was because it was old or because it was a warning system for the vampire.
Shadows seemed to move and dance at the edge of her light, and she wondered if ghosts were
playing with her.
Farther on down a long hal way, she thought she could hear a scuffle. Then it was behind her.
She whipped about but saw nothing in the gloom.
She turned to face the threat as something chased up the stairs after her. It was Esmerelda.
“Something got Chev!” she panted. “We walked past a door and he put a hand against it and it
turned and he fel inside. I couldn’t open it.”
Sai scanned the darkness in al directions. She didn’t believe in coincidences. “Stay close to me,
we’l get out of this.”
They crept on softly, then Sai wondered at a curious thing. “How did you find me in the dark,
without your candle?”
“Just lucky I suppose,” said Esmerelda.
“When this is al said and done, I’l bet you’l be happy to see your Gran again huh?” Sai
remarked casually.
“Oh, yes. I miss her very much.”
Sai wheeled and pinned what looked like Esmerelda to the wal . The little girl’s initial look of
surprise rapidly changed to a vile grin. Her small frame suddenly expanded to a size roughly twice as
large as Sai.
“Changeling!” snarled Sai.
The Changeling flung Sai away, unsheathed its claws, long as fingers, and charged at her.
Sai dodged and ported away, but the Changeling was incredibly fast, countering most of her
intended locations. Sai realized it was trying to back her into a corner. She blinked away to be behind it again and slashed her daggers to keep it back. But something tripped her, and she fel backward
into deep darkness.
***
The wailing skeletons went down easy enough beneath Von Wilding’s sword strokes and
Marie’s frying pan, but there were so many, they seemed endless, another two appearing for every
one they took down.
“We have to get back up the stairs and hold the door. We can’t stay here,” growled Von
Wilding as he smashed another skull and ribcage to splinters.
“I’l get the door, you speed up after me,” she said.
He slashed again, breaking apart three skeletons at once and raced up the steps on Marie’s very
heels, but they were only halfway up when the stairs suddenly slipped and became a slide, jetting
them back down into the hands and swords of the shrieking skeletons at the bottom. But before
they could be pierced by their foes, a hole opened up and they went tumbling down a chute into
darkness.
They slid down the chute and while they fel , it seemed that a thousand skeletal hands grabbed
and poked at them, stealing away al of their weapons and tools in the chaotic descent. Then they
unceremoniously crashed together at the bottom, one atop another. It was dirty, dark, and pungent.
There was straw on the ground at their feet, and then someone cried out, “Come any closer and
you’l get worse than the last!”
“Citrine?” asked Von Wilding. “You’re alive? Praise the Goddess!”
“Von Wilding?”
“It’s me,” he said.
“Wel ? What took you?” asked Citrine. “I’ve been rotting in this dungeon for weeks.”
“I got here as quick as I could.”
Citrine tossed her hands in the air. “And you’re captured now too. How lucky for me.”
“At least I’m here.”
“Ahem,” grunted Marie. “And who is this?”
Von Wilding brushed himself off, then said, “Marie, this is the Princess Citrine.”
“Oh, really?” she scoffed, not more than a little bit jealous.
“I hope you’ve got a plan,” said Citrine.
“We’re working on it,” said Von Wilding.
Just then a shouting and tumble sounded, thudding toward them, and Chev fel out of another
shaft that opened on the opposite side of the cel .
He wasn’t quite so quick to get up as the others. “Oh, me aching head,” he murmured. When
he got up on his hands and knees and saw figures standing over him, he shrieked, “Don’t eat me!
I’m old and stringy!”
“It’s us, Chev,” said Marie.
“Oh, sorry. This is an unsettling place, ye know. Poking hands stole me weapons while I was
falling.”
“It happened to us too,” Marie said.
“There are weapons everywhere in the manor,” Citrine said, “We just have to get them.”
Another tumbling sound of thudding above their heads made them al look, and from a
different chute, Sai came crashing to the ground. A little thump came bumping from above, and
Esmerelda followed after. Von Wilding caught the little girl before she could hit the floor.
“Wel , now that we’re all here,” muttered Sai. “Let’s get out.”
Chapter 15: The Offer
“It’s no use. I’ve tried everything to break through these bars, to bribe a guard that brings me
food, and pick the lock. They even keep the key where I can see it to torment me, and no amount of
trying to fish for it has worked and trust me—I have been trying ever since the day they put me in
here,” said Citrine, in a huff.
“For being such a famous warrior princess, you’re just a lot of talk,” Sai jibed.
“I suppose you can do better?” Citrine asked.
Sai looked at her and smirked, then ported out, grabbed the key, and strode to the door to
unlock it.
“Now, why didn’t I think of that,” grumbled Citrine. “Oh yes, I’m not a treacherous Riftling.”
“Well, we’re all here now and we’l get you safely back to Crystalia,” said Von Wilding.
“Not quite al of us,” Sai said sadly.
“And not without my sister,” said Citrine, firmly.
Von Wilding coughed, then asked, “Princess Amethyst is here? Where? I must help her!” he
proclaimed, standing and pressing against the bars.
Citrine nodded, saying, “I haven’t seen her, but I could swear I have heard her voice, speaking
to Von Drakk.”
“I suppose we must keep looking for her then,” he said.
“I think there are too many tricks in this Manor,” said Sai. “We should just get out while we can
and count ourselves lucky in getting away.”
“I don’t know you, Riftling, but we don’t leave our people behind. I must find my sister,” said
Citrine.
“And I don’t know you, your highness,” snarled Sai, “but I also don’t believe in wasting
opportunities. We have paid a terrible price getting here and we should count the wins we can get
over the losses.”
Citrine huffed. “I believe I am in command here, and I say, we find my sister. Fol ow me, all of
you.”
Sai paused, and the rest did too. Citrine looked furious.
Von Wilding was the first to speak, “Princess, we should at least regroup. The element of
surprise at our escape is on our side, but this place is twisting our minds. We can’t trust what we see here; it is dangerous. We should escape and reformulate our plan of attack.”
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