The Labyris Knight

by Adam Derbyshire

  “Sinders I have some seed cake for you!” Ashe shouted through the opening. “Come back in here and have some.” He stood balanced on the stool, head cocked to one side to hear the squeak or cry of his pet, then noticed the latch on the porthole and realised that there was simply no way Sinders could have got up through the opening unaided. So if Sinders didn’t fly out of here, who had opened the window and where had his little black and white bird gone?”

  Something bad was afoot. Someone had been in his cabin and his bird was missing. He needed more clues like in the detective tales Thomas told him, even if he did not understand what a squad car was and how ballistics and hair samples solved the crime. The captain always told him the smallest clues could bring a villain to justice. He would just need something to spot these small clues. He went to click his fingers and realised his thumb was not yet healed enough to do this. He needed a magnifying glass just like the one in Rauph’s cabin. Rauph would not mind, he was too busy with Thomas to be using his magnifying glass. If he just borrowed it quickly, the Minotaur would never know.

  Ashe dropped lightly to the floor and ran out of the door, skidding along the passageway towards Rauph’s cabin. He lifted the latch and slipped inside as quietly as a mouse, intent on obtaining the glass and getting out again as quickly as possible. It was night time and the dead body in Rauph’s room was scary enough during the daytime!

  As Rauph’s door closed, something detached itself from the shadows, its smoky form padded silently into Ashe’s cabin. Slitted green eyes stared at the broken birdcage lying on the floor and a pink furred tongue licked sharp fangs in anticipation for the feast to come.

  Socks looked back in the direction Ashe had gone and then turned its attention fully to the room. The cat stalked quietly over to the cage and dipped its head inside, its whiskers ensuring the entrance was wide enough for it to enter safely. However, the inside of the cage was empty and the tasty bird was gone! Socks wrinkled his nose in frustration before backing out of the cage, sniffing the air to try to find a trace of the absent, delectable feast that kept eluding him.

  The cat stalked about the floor, turning in circles, head held high, then stopped, head tilted to one side, ears twitching to pick up sounds. Was that a faint tweeting it had heard over the sounds of lapping waves against the hull and the annoying voice of the Halfling in the room next door telling someone in there to not mind what he was doing and just stay dead quietly in the corner?

  Socks stared at the open porthole far above, then crouched down before springing up and racing up the wall as only felines can, claws propelling the hunter up to the open porthole. The cat squeezed its head through the opening and looked about with its predatory gaze. Its quarry was out here somewhere. Sock’s nose never lied. It looked to the left and the right and then stared down at the lapping waves below. There was a small ledge almost at the waterline. Huddled there, all cold and shivery, was the most bedraggled bird Socks had ever seen.

  The smoky grey cat squeezed his whole body through the porthole like icing through a piping bag, his tail flicking from side to side helping to maintain the creature’s precarious balance and allow it to consider its prey carefully. This was going to be a challenge, especially if the cat was going to keep dry himself. He would stalk the bird carefully, forcing the creature to move to an area where there would be no such hazards to consider and then, when he finally sank his claws into the bird and his razor-sharp teeth plunged into its flesh, Socks would finally feast well.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Can you tell me those symptoms one more time.” The apothecary asked, rubbing his eyes and rolling his neck to try to wake up fully. “I’m not sure I understood them all.” The old man yawned, giving Richard an unobstructed view down the doctor’s gullet of enlarged tonsils, oral thrush and some serious dental decay.

  Brother Richard struggled to hold his tongue, tired by the excitement of the evening and the interruption of his particular studies for this enforced nocturnal mission to Taurean old town. The chef Violetta had insisted Richard, being a learned man, should go and relay Thomas’s symptoms to a local doctor, then report back his diagnosis, hopefully detailing the cure, both accurately and without elaboration.

  The apothecary scratched his bottom through his nightgown and pulled his nightcap up slightly to free his ears, before gesturing that the monk repeated every ailment that had the captain of the El Defensor so close to death’s door. A pregnant silence followed, with Richard watching the man furrow his brow and then stare off into space as if in deep thought.

  “Are you absolutely sure of these?” the doctor asked, after what seemed like an eternity. “I mean absolutely sure?” He noted Richard’s nod, confirming the symptoms from the notes compiled under Violetta’s guidance.

  “It’s damned peculiar.” The man muttered, tapping his toes and drawing attention to where one of his long stripy socks had a hole allowing his big toe to poke out. “He definitely ingested the poison? He wasn’t bitten by a snake perhaps?”

  “What can I say?” Richard replied impatiently. “We were at the palace eating and drinking one minute, the next we were all leaving, rushing for the ship and Thomas had lost consciousness, his pulse was rapid and he was cold and clammy to the touch.”

  “I need to see this patient to be sure.” The apothecary replied. “But I would swear he is suffering from Nirschl poison.”

  “Nirschl poison?” Richard questioned. “I have not come across this Nirschl poison.”

  “It’s not what.” The doctor replied as he ran about the room stuffing assorted medicinal items into a worn leather bag. “It’s who. The Nirschl lives in the jungle. Its poison is deadly. If I’m right, then your friend is already dead.” He paused to check a small box filled with squirming leeches then slammed the lid and stared Richard right in the eye.

  “If your captain never went into the jungle, I have no idea how he could have been poisoned this way but your description of the green veins raised across his skin make it too similar to discount. When did they start to appear?” Richard rechecked his notes.

  “Shortly after he vomited.” He confirmed.

  “Clever woman, your chef.” The apothecary commented, pulling a cloak around his shoulders and slipping some sandals on his feet. “I can’t wait to meet her; she sounds very knowledgeable. Although, if she has given him willow bark to lower his temperature, she risks thinning his blood enough to make him bleed out before I even get to examine him.”

  * * * * * *

  Kerian’s head hurt! He knew this before recognising anything else in his current predicament. Then he felt a heat at his back and various other aches, pains and ills rushed in. Something was lying up against his back and his prone body was on a most uncomfortable surface. There was also a lot of noise, a low drone that rose in intensity then fell again, a bizarre chanting that battled for supremacy with the throbbing in his left temple. There was also something else; someone was talking to him urgently, telling him to wake up and calling him rather unflattering names.

  The knight tried to smile and found himself grimacing as pain lanced through his jaw. Well it was not time to get up yet and until Kerian was satisfied that he had slept enough to deal with this infernal hangover he appeared to be experiencing, he was determined to keep his eyes shut. He tried to ignore the pain; at least he knew who was talking to him now. It was Octavian and he sounded close by. There was a strange smell in the air, much like sandalwood.

  Whatever lay against his back was wriggling a lot and not in a provocative way. It was as if whoever lay behind him was having a bad dream and was struggling to get away. It was funny that Kerian had no recollection of where this person had come from and how they had met, especially as they were now lying together on what had to be the most intolerable bed he had ever lain.

  “Wake up Kerian!” Octavian yelled again, causing a flash of crimson to cross the darkness that had been the knight’s vista for so long. Kerian shook his head n
ot wanting to wake up, but now concerned that Octavian may burst in and see whoever was laying at his back. He cracked open his eyes and awoke to a living nightmare.

  Curling incense smoke filled the air around him, spiralling up from brands set about the large room. Flickering torches supplied illumination that danced energetic shadows across hieroglyphics and highlighted the profiles of statues that stared soullessly down towards where Kerian lay.

  Kerian tried to groan as the light filled his eyes but his throat felt swollen and his tongue several sizes too large for his mouth. He took in the cold stone slab on which he lay, noted the heavy chain links wrapped around his body and then he noted the source of the chanting.

  Shadowy figures moved through the smoke, some jolting and lurching, as if their stiffened limbs had suffered from long misuse, whilst others gleamed, their tall golden figures reflecting the torchlight set about the amphitheatre within which Kerian now lay. They moaned in unison, arms rose towards the heavens before bowing down towards the ground, the notes of the chant varied by volume rather than tone due to the lack of movement caused by the inflexibility of their throats. Kerian tried to move his head to take in more of the view and accidentally butted the person lying behind him.

  “Ouch!” Octavian shouted. “Watch what you are doing?”

  “Where the hell are we?” Kerian rasped. “What’s going on?”

  “We are in one of those rooms with the raised wells. I am not sure if we have been in here before. There appears to be some kind of ceremony going on. Hang on he’s coming back again.”

  “Who’s…” Kerian froze as the giant golden priest appeared in the corner of his eye, answering his question before he could utter it. The monster wore faded cream and scarlet robes, with an elaborate headdress that encompassed the shoulders with gold and blue beads that shimmered as it walked. The creature leaned over the two of them, its mouth frozen in a golden scream, its eyes examining the two intruders with a coldness that gave Kerian shivers despite the uncomfortable warmth in the room.

  A guttural sound escaped the priest’s throat and he gestured with his hand to someone below where the two captives lay. The chanting rose in volume, echoing around the chamber, rising in intensity as if the assembled creatures were reaching a state of rapture.

  Kerian tore his eyes away from the monster looming above him and stared down at the chains around his torso and then he tried to follow the ancient links as they wound down across his body. For a second, he thought it was his imagination but the chain seemed to glimmer beneath its tarnished surface.

  “Oh dear!” Octavian commented. “I don’t like the look of that.”

  “Oh dear what? What don’t you like the look of?” Kerian replied, “What haven’t you told me?”

  A loud creaking noise rose from down in the centre of the chamber. Kerian tried to twist and turn to see what was going on but could not see clearly, as the origin of the noise was below his feet. A loud clanking of chains vibrated through the stone on which they lay and Kerian suddenly felt the chain lengths grip tightly around him.

  Stone grated loudly on stone as the chains slid across the stone surface. Kerian and Octavian suddenly found themselves dragged outwards and upwards into space, snatched away by the chains that tied the two adventurers together. Their legs went up into the air and Kerian barely avoided striking his head on the lip of the stone altar on which they had been lying; trading concussion for a sharp blow to his shoulder as he swung out, upside down into space, like a fish on the end of an angler’s line.

  The blood immediately rushed to Kerian’s head as he swung backwards and forwards, the image of the golden giant mummy coming close and then moving away again as the two adventurers swung like a pendulum. Octavian started to curse loudly as everything loose in his pockets started to slide out and drop to the chamber floor, bouncing off the lid of the well that was being pushed aside as they swung.

  Kerian looked down just as a rush of heat rose up and hit him, conjuring images of being back in the desert under the merciless sun. He squinted his eyes, trying to shield them from the golden glare below. Suddenly realising that the golden glint was liquid and moving. Suddenly the arid desert seemed a more favourable destination!

  They were going to be lowered into the gold. Oh by Adden, they were going to be turned into two of these golden ghouls. Dipped slowly into the molten liquid and preserved with screams upon their faces for all eternity! He started to struggle, twisting one way and then the other, desperately trying to ignore the thudding, pounding headache that seemed so loud, over the chanting and the clanking of chains.

  “Stop Kerian! Stop!” Octavian yelled. “Quit moving around, all of my treasure is dropping out of my pockets.”

  “Are you joking?” Kerian yelled back, trying to quell the rising gorge in his throat. “You are worrying about treasure, now of all times?” He looked back at the golden liquid bubbling below and watched golden brooches, coins, jewels and small items freefalling into the massive cauldron. The knight struggled again, trying to free his hands, slide a foot free but the chains were too tight! There was no way they were going to get out of this.

  Something bounced off Kerian’s head, making him close his eyes in reflex and then, when he realised that he was not going to be hit again he opened his eyes and blinked, not because of the heat but because he could not believe what he saw.

  Colette’s pendant dangled in front of his eyes, the grey pearl and golden setting dazzling in the torchlight. The exquisite workmanship, the delicate settings, the thin golden chain stretching up past his head to the neck of the man who had held it secretly all this time.

  “Octavian! You bastard!” Kerian screamed, his blood boiling at the discovered betrayal. “You absolute bastard! You had my pendant all the time. You knew how much it meant to me.” He struggled with the chains, swinging the two men first one way and then the other, causing more items to spin down to a fiery end.

  “If we get out of this, I swear I will kill you.”

  “I’m sorry.” Octavian replied. “I really am so sorry. I took it in the jail cell. You were asleep I hardly knew you then. I wanted to tell you when I realised how important it was to you but the time never seemed right…”

  The chains shuddered and the chanting rose in volume. Kerian slowly gyrated, not daring to tear his eyes from the prize he had believed lost. The giant mummy rotated into view, operating a lever on the wall with slow deliberation. Its undead gaze staring in their direction as chain link after chain link slipped over the pulley in the ceiling and dropped the two men closer and closer to their doom.

  Kerian felt the heat roll over him, reminding him of his perilous journey down into the temple beneath Stratholme, only this time Kerian did not want reminding of his past. He had been betrayed again. Taken for an idiot! Sent on a wild chase for nothing! How could he have left himself so vulnerable? His rage was all consuming, he wanted to lash out and kill the source of his pain.

  “I am definitely going to kill you!” he hissed, his tone making it quite clear it was Octavian and not the mummy he was addressing. Another link slipped over the pulley, the molten gold inched closer and Kerian plotted impossible revenge!

  * * * * * *

  Sinders perched on a tiny algae-coated ledge just above the waterline, its bedraggled black and white form shivering with the cold. The thoroughly waterlogged bird’s feathers and down were saturated, still heavy from the creature’s earlier unexpected fall into the lake.

  It had been sheer luck that in the bird’s frenzied splashing and panicked flapping it managed to remain afloat long enough for the miserable avian to scrabble up onto the bottom rung of a ladder permanently fixed to the side of the galleon to allow boarding from one of two dinghies on board. Sinders huddled here, cold and dejected, too small to reach up to the next rung and with no clear beak or claw holds to grab on to enable it to clamber up from its precarious resting place.

  Every time Sinders tried to sh
ake the moisture from its feathers or fluff itself up for preening, the bird found itself teetering and about to fall back into the gentle waves that rolled along the hull of the El Defensor. A light spray whipped up by the night winds from across the lake offered no warmth to the downcast bird and simply emphasised the chill that caused shivers throughout the creature’s body. Sinders could not sleep or rest despite trying to huddle and curl itself into a tighter ball, resigned to the fact that any loss of consciousness could result in an equal loss of purchase on the slick wooden surface beneath its claws.

  If only the excitable and annoying creature that came and fed it would attempt to rescue Sinders from its predicament? The bird had tried on numerous occasions to squawk for help but no one appeared to notice. It was as if the entire ship had emptied. The return of voices and movement on deck had come too late, by then Sinders was too weak to attempt further screeches for aid. Each squawk was lower than the one preceding it, leaving the black and white feathered ball with nothing to do but try and retain what little body heat remained until the sun shone from the heavens and took the chill from Sinders’ bones.

  A scrabbling from above barely registered with the bedraggled bird as it struggled to prevent its beak chattering, indeed, it was not until small pieces of debris started to rain down on the bird that it tilted its head and stared up the side of the galleon with one dark black eye from a nest of black and white plumage. The noises came again, louder, closer, as if something were coming down the ship towards it. Sinders felt a warmth bloom in its chest. The little person was coming to rescue it. Sinders would finally find freedom, warmth and something to eat: However, within moments it was clear this was not who the bird expected it to be.

  A fearful squawk strangled off in Sinders’ throat and the trembling of its form took on more urgency as the bird strained to make out the shadowy form advancing purposefully down the ladder towards it. Feline predatory eyes cut through the darkness, the deep green, almost luminous orbs, threatening death in a thousand, unspoken forms. White patches of fur appeared to float independent of a body, the sharp claws gripping firmly to each rung as the hunter made its slow descent. A maw filled with razor sharp teeth, yawned wide before setting in a sinister evil smile, the intention of its owner very clear.