The Unexpected Demon

by Simon Waldock

  "The plate at least will help, and who knows what else we might find," Said Chessina.

  There was a landing at the top of the stairs and four doors led off it. By common consent we went in the door just to the right of the head of the stairs. The eyes of all we wizards widened in delight, it was a library.

  "This needs thorough and organised study," I said, dutifully resisting the temptation to open a book. Dragovar had already succumbed. "Dragovar, please shut the book, we need to see what else needs thorough investigation."

  Dragovar did so, with a sheepish expression on his face. The next room we entered was a bedroom. It was probably the master bedroom as the bed was large, four posted, ornate and collapsed. The bed curtains and covers were richly decorated and sadly decayed. The walls were heavily ornamented with paintings and drawings. The subject matter was universally sexual and in many cases it was extremely . . . exotic. Tasseder turned scarlet with embarrassment and hustled Elinne out of the bedroom.

  "We should let the others deal with this," Tasseder said in a firm tone.

  I followed them out onto the landing.

  "Tasseder, Elinne," I said seriously. "If this is the bedroom, the other rooms here are probably where Agravar worked his magic or stored the equipment to do so. You don't understand this. It can kill you, so don't touch it. Please go downstairs. You might start an inventory if you like, but don't touch the black chair."

  When I re-entered the bedroom, Dragovar was examining the pictures with a very cynical look on his face. Chessina had opened the chest at the bottom of the bed and had discarded some very moth eaten bed linen. She was now inspecting some very unusual looking items. Most of them were phallic in shape, although some were disturbingly . . . different. Other items were . . . not phallically shaped.

  "What are those . . . things," I asked, with a note of disquiet in my voice.

  "I'll explain later, Castamir," said Chessina, glancing up at me through her eyelashes. “Much later."

  "There doesn't seem to be hm, much of, ah, interest here. Perhaps the er, next room?" I suggested.

  Chessina gigged, and she and Dragovar followed me out. The next room was obviously the workroom as it was filled with alchemical and magical paraphernalia on various benches.

  "Judging by the particular equipment Agravar was using, he made a lot of potions," I remarked.

  "We will find out what sort he was making when we see what ingredients there are in the storeroom which I assume is the final room on this floor," said Dragovar.

  "I somehow doubt that they will be ones that are very nice," said Chessina ironically.

  The last door on the landing did indeed lead to a storeroom. Shelves were arranged around every wall wherever there was space, and the shelves were crowded with containers. There were jars, pots, bottles and boxes, made of glass, pottery, wood and metal. The various ingredients had almost without exception decayed, crumbled or rotted. However, the labels told us what had been in the containers before time had destroyed the contents. There were a few things that had not succumbed to the ravages of time. Things like lead, antimony and arsenic, all of which are poisonous.

  "You're the potions expert Dragovar, what sort of potions would Agravar have been making?" I asked.

  "I'd need to see the actual formulas for the potions to be certain," Dragovar began, "but these ingredients suggest potions of mental suggestibility or control. Also substances that would cause bodily weakening and damage. And outright poisons too, of course."

  "Why didn't Agravar put spells to stop decay on the containers?" asked Chessina.

  "He may well have done," replied Dragovar. “I don't think though, that he was very accomplished as a wizard, so any such spells would have failed when he died."

  "Now, back to the library," I said eagerly, and I could sense anticipation in the others.

  The library smelled musty rather than the smell of leather and parchment that we were so familiar with. There were, of course shelves of books and scrolls. A small table, a writing desk and a reading stand were also visible, and tucked in a corner was a heavy metal chest.

  "Now that looks interesting," said Dragovar, and I could swear his nose twitched.

  "Be careful, Dragovar," I warned as he approached it, "I've seen similar chests before, among the dwarves, although this chest is human made. There are multiple locks, and if they are not unlocked correctly poisoned needle traps are sprung."

  Chessina muttered for a moment.

  "As it doesn't appear to be magical, would the open spell work on it, master?" Chessina asked.

  "I believe so, but the traps might still activate," I replied.

  "I had better deal with it then," said Chessina. “I'm immune to poison."

  "I suppose that's sensible," I agreed. “I don't have to like it though."

  "You're sweet, master," said Chessina smiling at me.

  Chessina concentrated on the chest and cast open. There were a number of clicks and whirring of mechanisms from within it. Chessina opened the lid and there was another click.

  "Ow!" said Chessina, sounding more irritated than anything.

  "Chessina, are you alright?" I asked anxiously, rushing to her.

  "Yes master, I'm fine," Chessina replied, soothingly. “It's just that the needle is blunt."

  The opened lid revealed a number of leather and cloth bound books and the scent of the fragrant wood the chest was lined with. Hopefully that might have kept insects at bay.

  "Don't touch anything, Agravar may have left magical traps too," said Dragovar, casting a detection spell. Nothing reacted. “If there was anything once, it's since dissipated."

  "I think, gentlemen, that we should be getting back downstairs to the others," said Chessina, firmly. “They might get bored and start interfering. Agravar's potion book and his account book, if he kept such a thing, would do to start with."

  The uppermost book in the chest proved to be a book of potions and a little searching proved that he did indeed keep accounts."

  "If nothing else," I remarked, "Agravar would want to keep track of how much people owed him."

  We went downstairs and joined Tasseder and Elinne who we found sitting at the dining room table.

  "We believe that Agravar sold a lot of potions and we have a book of potion formulas here," I said putting the book on the table. "Dragovar has an account book that we think details the sales."

  I paused for a moment as Dragovar placed the book he was carrying on the table too.

  "It is necessary for us to go through Agravar's books and papers to try and get some idea of the nature of the curse on Chessina and if it can be cured," I said, soberly. “We do fear, however that the details of his transactions will be extremely unpleasant. I ask you now, do you want to hear them?"

  "I need to know," said Tasseder. “It might help me to put Agravar's death and the subsequent events in context, but I don't think that my daughter . . . "

  "On the contrary, father," said Elinne interrupting him. “I need to know too. There are still rumours and tales floating around, and I think it's time I discovered the truth. After all, Agravar summoned a demon, how much worse could it be?"

  "Very well. Dragovar, you're the potion expert, you go through that book while we look through the account book," I said.

  Dragovar nodded and opened the book, starting at the beginning, while Chessina and I flicked through the book looking to gain some idea of the scope of Agravar's transactions rather than try to read through all of them from the beginning.

  "The first formulas are all fairly standard, nothing unusual here," said Dragovar, having turned over several pages. "The next one is a combination love potion and will-weakening potion."

  "Love potions should rather be called lust potions," I explained to Tasseder and Elinne. “The attraction they cause isn't love. I'm not sure if that combination of potions is merely unethical or actually illegal."

  "It's illegal," said Dragovar succinctly. “So is this, a combined potion to
incapacitate voluntary motion and suppress memory for several hours after ingestion."

  "Agravar records a sale of the first potion to Master Borgrin, a magistrate, for use on his maid Lessy," said Chessina, she then turned a couple of pages. “A later entry records the sale of an abortifacient potion for the unfortunate Lessy."

  "There are blended poisons here, that mimic the effects of different diseases. If a priest cast cure disease on a victim of such, it would be useless," continued Dragovar.

  "There are several sales of such poisons noted here," I said. “And after an interval, on the first of every month thereafter, the purchaser pays a small sum to Agravar."

  "After the poison had done its work, he increased his income by blackmail, I see," said Chessina.

  I looked up to see the faces of Elinne and her father. I could see that they were shocked but they continued to listen with grim determination.

  "Weren't the priests suspicious that their spells didn't cure people?" asked Chessina.

  "There was a lot of talk at the time," said Tasseder. “The priests said publically that although they cast the spells, it was up to the particular god involved whether or not they would cure the recipient. What they said privately I don't know, but the priests started looking into things and such incidents happened very rarely thereafter."

  "There's an entry here '500 silvers for sinking the ship of merchant Norvel on behalf of merchant Dremmor'," said Chessina, reading aloud, having looked further in the book, "and then payments of 20 silvers a month on the first of the month thereafter from merchant Dremmor."

  "I remember that ship sinking," said Tasseder, "Norvel was a friend of my father. The ship went down within sight of land. There were no survivors. Norvel was bankrupted by the loss, the family sold up and moved away."

  "How did Agravar sink the ship?" mused Dragovar.

  "There are some expenses incurred in connection with the sinking." I remarked. “They are for the sorts of ingredients involved in demon summoning."

  "If he summoned the correct sort of demon, it could rip open a ship's hull and then kill the crew." Said Chessina.

  "I want to see these people, particularly Dremmor face justice," growled Dragovar.

  "For Dremmor you're too late, he faced the justice of the gods, years ago," said Tasseder.

  "Please tell me he died of demon," said Dragovar.

  "Dremmor died some years after Agravar was killed," Tasseder remarked, "ironically of a very painful disease that the priests couldn't cure."

  "Such blended poisons should last for many years if the bottle is sealed," stated Dragovar. “It couldn't have happened to a nicer person."

  Chapter 17

  "I think we need to study all the books from the chest at leisure," I said. “Tasseder, might I suggest that you and Elinne return to your house and bring servants and a cart. We can use it to carry the books, carpets and pieces of plate back to your house."

  "A good suggestion, Castamir," said Tasseder. He and Elinne left arm in arm. Both were still looking rather disturbed at the revelations of Agravar's activities.

  "I had better do some basic mending of the carpets so they don't fall apart while they are being moved," said Chessina. “I'll do the rest of the mending later, when I've rested. There is quite a bit to do, and I don't want to get too fatigued."

  "That reminds me of something. All right Castamir, wizard to wizard. How did you manage to banish all the dust and dirt from this house, without apparently, working up a sweat?" Dragovar asked, looking pointedly at me.

  "Harmon never explained much about the tower to you, did he?" I asked in my turn.

  "No, he didn't," replied Dragovar.

  "And nor would I, if it wasn't for who and what Chessina is," I responded. “Under the circumstances however, and to reassure you that the power isn't coming from a demonic source, I do think that you need to know. I'm going to give this information to you Dragovar as my friend, not to Dragovar the Royal Wizard, and not to anyone else. Is that clear?"

  Dragovar thought for a moment.

  "Yes, it is. I'll keep your secret," Dragovar replied.

  "What about me, master?" asked Chessina. “Do you want me to know?"

  "Yes, Chessina, I do," I replied. “No secrets between us."

  I received a blinding smile in response.

  "You're right, of course Dragovar. If I had cast that spell with my own power, I would have been flat on my back gasping," I explained. “The tower provided the power for the spell. I can connect with the tower via my staff and draw on its magic."

  "Thank you," said Dragovar. “I was a little . . . concerned."

  I wasn't going to let Dragovar know my suspicions about being able to connect to the tower without using the staff. He did not need to know that.

  oOo

  Dragovar and I left Chessina to rest in the dining room after her magical exertions on the carpets. We went upstairs to carry the books from Agravar's chest downstairs. By common consent, neither of us wanted any servants upstairs, who might be tempted to investigate potentially dangerous things that they didn't understand. I was just taking the last books out of the chest when I noticed something.

  "Dragovar," I said, "the wooden lining of the chest must have shrunk and warped over the years. There's something loose down here."

  As Dragovar came over to the chest, I had got out my belt-knife and started to pry under one edge. I managed to lift it slightly.

  "It's a false bottom to the chest, Dragovar," I said.

  "You should have checked for traps, Castamir," chided Dragovar.

  "You're right," I agreed ruefully. “Would you do so, in case there are any I might not have tripped."

  Dragovar muttered a spell, then shook his head.

  "You got lucky Castamir," said Dragovar. “Don't do it again."

  "I won't," I said, looking sheepishly at Dragovar.

  I gently removed the false bottom of the chest and almost dropped it in surprise. Gold! Bars and bars of gold, together with several leather bags that bulged suspiciously. Before I attended court I would have described it as a king's ransom. Having now seen the extravagance of the royal court, I mentally downgraded it to the ransom of a rather moth-eaten count. In any case, it was more money than I had ever seen.

  "I think Tasseder has a surprise in store," I said to Dragovar.

  "I rather think you're right," Dragovar replied.

  oOo

  We had carried the last of the books downstairs to the dining room at the same time that Tasseder arrived with two hefty looking servants, and a two wheeled cart drawn by a horse which was led by Elinne.

  "Crond, Frott," Tasseder addressed the two men, "go in and tie up the carpets and put them on the cart. When you've done that, please tie the books up into bundles and put them in the cart. Then please wait for me."

  The two men tugged their forelocks, and the older of the pair spoke.

  "Yes, sir," he said.

  With that Tasseder led Elinne inside into the dining room.

  "Tasseder, there's something we found upstairs in the library that I think you and Elinne should see," said Dragovar gravely.

  Both had set expressions on their faces as Dragovar led them upstairs. I put a finger to my lips at Chessina, then silently beckoned her to follow. When we got upstairs, I motioned Chessina into the library in front of me.

  "It's in the chest Tasseder, we thought you both ought to see it," Dragovar still spoke in that grave tone.

  "Father, it's gold! So much gold!" shouted Elinne.

  Chessina darted ahead to see into the chest, giggling with excitement.

  "We can repay Norvel for the loss of his ship, and the families of the dead crew," said Tasseder in a joyous voice.

  "And we mustn't forget Lessy either," said Elinne.

  "Just in case you are troubled by the source of the gold," Dragovar said to Tasseder. “Please remember that those affected by the demon attack have already received compensation from your family. Some of th
is gold is repayment of what Agravar owes you."

  "I . . . yes, thank you," said Tasseder. “And I can use the rest to repay those who suffered at my uncle's hands."

  "If I might suggest, Tasseder," I said, "perhaps you might give money not to those who deserve it most, but to those who need it most. I know what it is to be poor."

  "We are going to need to get that gold to Tasseder's house," said Dragovar to me in a low voice, "and I don't want to draw attention to it."

  "Leave that to me," I said equally softly. “I'll get a sack and use the tower to sustain a featherlight spell on it until we get back. I'll just have to remember that the gold will still have full inertia."

  "What does that mean master?" asked Chessina.

  "Although the gold will weigh almost nothing, it will be as difficult to start and stop it moving as before." I explained. “That means if I turn quickly, the gold won't. I'll just have to be careful not to make sudden moves."

  "So that means if something is very heavy, once you've got it moving, it's very difficult to stop?" queried Chessina.

  "Yes," I replied.

  "So if you got something very heavy moving toward someone and then stopped the spell . . . " Chessina continued.

  "Yes, it would most likely kill them," I said, answering the question she had left unasked.

  Chessina beamed at me.

  Shortly thereafter our cavalcade, led by an excited father and daughter, returned to Tasseder's manor house. As there was likely to be little of any interest, by common consent we decided to leave examination of the cellar for another day.

  oOo

  "I don't know about the rest of you," I said, shortly after resuming our study of Agravar's documents after lunch, "but I have had about all I can take of that nasty little man's greed and petty evil. Let us get out into the fresh air and investigate the abandoned temple."