Shara felt her gorge rise but some intuition cautioned her that she dared not loose the contents of her stomach. She fought for control, tilted her head back, and breathed deeply through her nose. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes; her lips trembled.
Then D'Arbignal was there, his arms wrapped around her, drawing her into his embrace. She allowed herself to be pulled in, pressed her face against his battered shirt, and dampened it with her tears.
“Who could do such a thing?” she asked, but the question was rhetorical. She didn't know who had committed this atrocity, but she knew what had done it, for surely only a monster could have perpetrated something this vile.
D'Arbignal didn't answer. He kept her head pressed to his chest with a firm hand as he led her past the grisly tableau. Ahead of them, the house of Artisimize the Mage loomed ever larger.
Chapter 22
As D'Arbignal reached for the door latch, Shara asked: “Are you sure we should do this?”
“Whoever it is that's behind this farce needs to be shown the error of his ways. He seems unclear about certain basic principles of civilization.” He glanced at the rapier at his hip, his eyes burning and his expression grim. “I intend to provide an introductory lesson on the subject.”
“You think it's Artisimize?” she said, feeling oddly calm.
“How many other people do you know who have lived for over five hundred years?”
The door swung open. Shara's heart lurched; she was too startled even to shriek. D'Arbignal leapt back, his rapier held in a defensive position.
The man in the doorway was tall and thin, his head hunched, with a long, almost pointed nose. He wore the clothes of a butler, but they hung from his lean frame like rags from a scarecrow. His eyes were dull, as though the man was so wholly defeated that life itself had ceased to interest him.
“Do you have an appointment?” he asked. His voice was reedy and apathetic.
“At least we've finally found the illustrious Rat,” D'Arbignal said under his breath.
The Rat gave no indication of having heard him. His eyes were vacant and they looked straight past D'Arbignal and Shara.
“An appointment?” Shara said. “An appointment with whom? Artisimize?”
The Rat seemed to regain some awareness at the mention of Artisimize's name. His eyes remained dead, but the skin crinkled a little at their corners. The ends of his mouth lifted into something that could almost pass for an ironic smile if it weren't so full of complete surrender and despair. Soft puffs of air blew from his nostrils, and Shara realized that it was laughter … of sorts.
Her feelings of dread increased tenfold. If the Rat wasn't behind this hellish village, and if Artisimize wasn't behind it either, then who was?
Chapter 23
“I'm afraid we don't have an appointment,” D'Arbignal said. “but I'm sure your master could find time to fit us into his busy schedule.”
He pressed the point of his rapier against the Rat's throat, but the Rat seemed unconcerned. Indeed, the proximity of his potential demise almost seemed to please him.
“Mr. Rat?” It was a woman's voice, and it sounded impatient. “Who is it? What do they want?”
D'Arbignal appeared at a loss. He stepped away from the door, looked at Shara in puzzlement.
“Is that your mistress?” Shara asked the Rat.
The Rat paid her no heed. Instead he turned his back to her and called back into the house with a lackluster voice: “Some visitors. They don't have an appointment.”
Shara heard the woman groan in annoyance.
“I'm eating my lunch right now,” the woman called back. “Tell them to come back later.”
The Rat turned back to them now.
“She says that she's—”
“Thanks,” D'Arbignal said, bringing his rapier back in line with the Rat's torso. “We heard. Now will you let us in, or perhaps Shara here could use another pincushion.”
The Rat blinked, his face blank with apathy. Then he closed the door. Shara heard the lock turn.
“Of all the impertinence!” D'Arbignal said. He fought to open the door but it held fast. “The cowardly knave!”
Shara put his hand on D'Arbignal's shoulder and he turned.
“I think she's going to let us in,” Shara said.
He searched her face. “What makes you think that?”
Shara gestured back at from whence they had come, to where the bodies had been fashioned into the macabre tableau.
“This …” Shara fumbled for the right word. “… person, woman, whatever she is, she's bored.”
“Bored?” D'Arbignal's normally happy-go-lucky face was getting red with his outrage and fury. He followed Shara's glance and added, “You don't do something like that out of boredom.”
Shara fumbled for something to say, but before she could find it, the door opened again.
“She'll see you,” the Rat said. “But you can't go in looking like that. You need to wash up and make yourselves presentable first.”
“Wash up?” D'Arbignal's fury was approaching some point of explosion. Shara calmed him with another touch on his shoulder.
“Thank you,” she said to the Rat. “Please show us the way and we'll be glad to comply.”
Chapter 24
The front door opened to an expansive foyer. Directly ahead, a disreputable-looking staircase ascended. A narrow hall slid past in on the right towards the rear of the building. A dismal parlor filled with hideously overstuffed furniture lurked to the left.
The Rat began to lead them into the parlor, but the woman's voice called out from somewhere down the hall.
“Mr. Rat? Make sure these ones clean up properly, will you? The last bunch was so filthy, I nearly lost my appetite.”
D'Arbignal started to strut down the hall towards the voice, but the Rat leaped into the way, barring his path, a dagger in his hand. D'Arbignal's rapier whisked from its sheath.
“You heard her,” the Rat said. “You clean up first.”
“Excuse me, madam!” D'Arbignal called past the Rat. “A moment of your time, please?”
“Mr. Rat?” The woman's voice seemed filled with annoyance now. “Please tell the visitors to shut the fuck up, and then get them presentable.”
D'Arbignal's eyes widened at the vulgarity, and then there was that mad grin of his. He seemed on the verge of doing something foolish, so Shara touched his shoulder yet again.
“Not now,” she said. “I think you'll get what you want if you're patient.”
D'Arbignal laughed bitterly. “It's not what I want, it's what that monster has coming to her, if she's behind that travesty in the village.”
“I understand,” Shara said. Her strength was starting to fail her; she needed to rest.
“Like she says,” the Rat said to D'Arbignal, “shut the fuck up and get presentable.”
D'Arbignal bridled. Then he glanced at Shara, sighed, and sheathed his rapier.
The Rat led them into the parlor. It was even more grotesque than it had first appeared. The walls were covered with a nauseating green paint that was flaking and chipped in numerous places. A chair rail, painted a ghastly pink, orbited the room save for one section, where the molding had fallen off and had not been replaced.
A large metallic washbasin lay in the center of the room. It was filled with water, which struck Shara as odd. How would they have known to fill the basin in time for D'Arbignal and her arrival?
“I'll leave you to freshen up,” the Rat was saying. “When you're ready, ring the bell on the table.”
The Rat departed, leaving them alone in the parlor.
“Lovely dcor,” D'Arbignal said, looking about. “A couple of fires and an earthquake or two ought to add just the right finishing touch.”
Shara felt exhausted, so she went to the washbasin and splashed some of the cold water onto her face. It revived her a little. Then she began to undress.
“Now, why is it that you said to—Oh my!” D'Arbignal quickly t
urned away.
“What's the matter?” Shara said.
“You could have warned me before you started doing that,” he said, his back to her. His ears were bright pink.
“Doing wha—?” Then she realized. She had just begun undressing in front of him without thinking about it. It came as a rude blow to her that the last vestiges of her pride had eroded without her even noticing. She looked down at her emaciated body; her breasts had shrunk and her ribs clearly showed. She felt ashamed.
“I'm sorry,” she said. “You shouldn't have to see this.”
“Wait! You think that I—that is, you …” D'Arbignal said, fumbling.
She sighed. “It's okay. I wouldn't want to look at me, either.”
“Now, come on!” D'Arbignal said, gesticulating, his back still turned. “That's not it at all. Of course I'd like to look at you. You're beautiful! You've got it all wrong.”
Beautiful? She? He had to be mocking her. No, D'Arbignal wasn't like that. But he had to be lying to spare her feelings.
“I understand,” she said, her spirit eroded beyond caring.
“No, you don't. The reason I'm not going to look is not because I don't want to see, which I do. It's because you deserve better than to be gawked at by someone like me. It would cheapen you, and you deserve better.”
She couldn't keep the smile from her face. He had to be lying, of course, but it had been so long since anybody had cared enough about her to bother to say something so nice.
She wet one of the faded yellow towels folded at the foot of the basin and cleaned herself, then placed the towel off to the side. She began to dress.
“I'm done,” she said. “And thank you.”
D'Arbignal turned to face her. Damned if he weren't blushing!
He doffed his hat and bowed to her. “I was only giving you your due, milady.”
She eyed him critically.
“While you're giving me things, why not give me that shirt, too?” She opened her travel bag, put aside the mutton, and withdrew her battered sewing kit. “We might as well repair some of those rips. I'll see if I can rectify the damage done by whoever else had tried sewing it in the past, too.”
D'Arbignal beamed. “My lady, I would be eternally grateful for such a kindness!”
She sat on an uncomfortable couch and began to sift through her sewing kit for the items she'd need.
“It would be my pleasure,” she said. “And perhaps while I'm working or your shirt, you can tell me why you were working with Gianelli and what we're doing here in the first place.”
Chapter 25
Shara sliced open the shirt. The seam-ripper was a Szun-manufactured device with a razor-sharp blade and a tiny rolling ball to guide it along the fabric. It was the single-most valuable item in her sewing kit, even more than the metallic needles, which were also of Szun design.
D'Arbignal paced behind her, peering over her shoulders.
“You will be careful, won't you?” He chuckled nervously. “After all, it wouldn't do for me to face the woman who committed all those murders without a shirt.”
She scrutinized the pieces of the fabric, getting a feel for how they were intended to fit together.
“I'll be careful,” she said.
The shirt had seen a lot of abuse. There were numerous places where what looked like blood stains had been bleached, to the detriment of the fabric strength. The repairs were inexpert and had affected the way the garment draped. It was likely that D'Arbignal's freedom of movement had been hampered by those changes.
“So, where did you meet Gianelli?” she said.
D'Arbignal was watching her work on his shirt and it took him a moment to realize she had asked him a question.
“Oh,” he said with exaggerated nonchalance, “at the gallows.”
Shara looked up. “What?”
D'Arbignal grinned.
“I was to be hanged,” he said. “He paid my fine, then asked me to come along on his little adventure. But you must have heard this tale a thousand times. It's as old as history itself: boy meets girl, boy gets sentenced to death, boy gets rescued by obsessed maniac who asks him along on his insane quest for a phantom village and a magical artifact. I'd hate to bore you.”
She stared at him.
“You've stopped working on my shirt,” D'Arbignal pointed out, his expression angelic. “Is there a problem?”
She resumed her work, in part to cover her astonishment. “So when you say the gallows…?”
“Yes, milady, I was to be hanged, seeing as I couldn't afford to pay the fine.”
“The fine for ….?”
D'Arbignal laughed. “The fine for impersonating a member of clergy. I had been pretending to be a Katchin priest for a number of weeks, until they discovered my deception. Evidently, in some backwater towns, it's considered a serious offense. Um, you do know that that lace is supposed to be attached there, right?”
She had removed the lace ruffles from the collar and set it aside. Now she could address the shirt proper without bumping into the lace. She dug through her kit looking for the thread that best matched the color and texture of the garment. D'Arbignal's story was astonishing, but she could only half-listen to him as she needed to focus on the task at hand.
“Why,” she said slowly, “were you impersonating a priest?”
D'Arbignal hesitated.
“I was a little short on funds at the time,” he said. “I'm sure you understand what that's like.”
“Yes,” she said, hoping he could not see her blushing, “I do understand what that's like.”
“It was an honest misunderstanding. I got lost on my way back to Venucha from Kericho (due to several innocent mistakes along the way), and happened to find my way to this town, Sime, just as they were expecting the arrival of a priest. They needed a priest, I needed some money … I'm sure you can see how things worked out.”
She couldn't imagine someone doing that, but she didn't want to call D'Arbignal a liar, so she merely shrugged.
“It worked out for a while,” he continued. “Held a few services, performed a few marriages, mediated some disputes, and so on, and it was all going great until the real priest showed up. Apparently, he had been waylaid by bandits and had been left for dead. When he arrived at Sime, he was already in a sour mood. He didn't take well the news that he'd arrived over a week earlier. Katchin priests apparently have no sense of humor.
“After they locked me up, the magistrate informed me that the penalty was death by hanging unless I could pay the hundred gold fine. Imagine that! As if I'd be impersonating a priest if I'd had a hundred gold in my purse!”
D'Arbignal laughed, then saw her progress on the stitching and whistled in admiration.
“That's not bad at all,” he said. “In fact, that's pretty impressive.”
“Thank you,” she said. “The lighting is not very good. It's hard to do good work.”
“No, no, no! You're doing wonderfully!”
“Thank you,” she said. “So, Gianelli saved you?”
“Yes, Gianelli arrived just in time to save me from doing a little dance in the air. He'd heard of my reputation as a swordsman and offered to pay my fine if I'd accompany him on his little adventure. How could I refuse? Of course, I do wonder about the timing of his arrival. Awfully lucky timing … perhaps it was he who had waylaid the priest in the first place?”
“But I digress!” he said. “He'd been hunting the last resting place of Artisimize in search of his ‘greatest creation', and Gianelli had narrowed it down to this region. He needed some muscle, I needed not to have a rope around my neck. It was the perfect marriage of convenience!”
“And this greatest creation?” Shara said.
“Ummm,” D'Arbignal said. “I think we're in it. I think it's the bag we saw in the ghost village.”
Chapter 26
Shara was surprised to hear D'Arbignal speak her unconscious fear: that they had been drawn into the belly of the magical bag. She had been ce
rtain that she had imagined it; the idea seemed preposterous! And now that they were trapped within the bag, how could they escape?
“Are you all right?” D'Arbignal asked after she had been silent too long. “You've stopped sewing.”
“I don't understand,” she said. “Why make a replica of the village? Why draw us inside it? Why even make a magical bag in the first place?”
“You're asking me?” D'Arbignal seemed incredulous. “Do I look like an expert on enchanted sacks?”
“It's not funny. How are we going to get out?”
“Ah,” D'Arbignal said, looking abashed. “That. I suspect the lady down the hall will have the answer to that question.”
“You think she is in charge?”
D'Arbignal shrugged.
“There's only one way to find out.” He glanced at the bell on the table.
A shudder ran down her back. These were events that occurred to people out of legend, not to nobodies like her!
Shara felt out of her depth. D'Arbignal's apparent indifference to their plight alarmed her. What kind of man could impersonate a priest, get a last-minute reprieve from the gallows, search for a haunted village, and then get trapped inside a magical bag without showing the slightest hint of fear?
The answer was either a man too stupid to realize the severity of his plight, or a man with a death wish. Neither possibility gave Shara much comfort.
Chapter 27
Shara continued sewing, stopping now and again to glance at the bell that lay upon the table.
Who was the woman she had heard, the one with the foul mouth? Was she really in charge, and if so, why? Why were they trapped in this magical bag, and more importantly, how would they get out?
Shara and the Haunted Village: Illustrated Edition (Bryanae Series Book 1) Page 7
