Prince of Wolves

by Dave Gross

  The tome’s vile contents assured me that tainted food and drink was long understood to be an omen of the Pallid Princess’s displeasure, which somehow I had invoked, surely by whatever actions I took during my missing days. A review of its other contents in comparison with the scattered history of the traitor lord of Virholt was sufficient to clarify its relevance to the object of your journey. Spells and other unholy knowledge held by the apostles of Urgathoa were among the secrets Virholt had been commanded to steal for the Whispering Tyrant.

  Before I could turn to my next task, Felix surprised me with an early luncheon, or so I assumed it to be. I clumsily concealed Serving Your Hunger in a thick volume of the Galdana family chronicle, feeling all the while like a schoolboy discovered with his fingers in the pages of a volume of Qadiran erotica. It occurred to me that Felix must have been unaware of the tainted food phenomenon or else he would not provoke my displeasure by bringing me food he knew I could not stomach.

  For the first time I questioned the butler’s complicity in the mystery of my missing time. He and Tara were both present during my reaction to the revolting breakfast yesterday. Casomir, however, was not, and his cousin’s courtesy and the butler’s discretion may well have kept that information from him. Was it possible that a follower of Urgathoa could be ignorant of her omens and their effect on outsiders? Certainly not if that outsider had already once run afoul of the apostle’s schemes.

  I bade Felix leave the meal on the desk, as he had done the previous evening. When he lingered to await further instructions, I assured him I was engrossed in my pursuit of clues to your whereabouts and desired no further interruption until I rang for him. He departed somewhat reluctantly, I thought. If not an adherent of the Pallid Princess, he was at the least a spy for his master.

  During a closer study of the chronicles of Amaans and its neighboring counties, I saw why you sought this Lacuna Codex and what horrors it must contain. The Lord of Virholt was a double traitor, cursed by his people for betraying them to Tar-Baphon, yet his true rebellion was against his wicked master. Already a practitioner of diabolism and necromancy, Lord Virholt only pretended to use his art in the service of Tar-Baphon, all the while gathering power in the form of rare spells and rituals that he kept hidden from the Tyrant. Whether he did so to liberate his people or to usurp Tar-Baphon’s powers for himself, one cannot know from these histories. What is certain, however, is that he fell in battle after Tar-Baphon learned of his treachery. What you have been seeking all this time, I now believe, is the location of the dark spells Virholt stole before his death.

  Having exhausted the fragmented chronicle of Lord Virholt, I turned to Galdana’s maps. Only after an hour’s frustration did I resort to dusting the maps of Vyrlich with blotting sand to reveal the invisible path of your stylus as you traced the regions that interested you into your Pathfinder journal. At last I saw your trail clearly.

  I wrote a succinct letter addressed to the Bishop of the Cathedral of Pharasma in Kavapesta. I hesitated before mentioning the name of Countess Caliphvaso, unaware of the local Bishop’s political affiliations and thus uncertain what influence Carmilla’s name would carry in Amaans. Ultimately I relied upon citing the name of my absent host and included a brief description of the occult materials I had found within the house. What action to take, I did not presume to suggest to His Excellency. I could venture a guess, however, that it would involve a great deal of divine fire.

  Concealing the letter in my sleeve, I turned to my next project, the second experiment that I had longed to conduct. The presence of riffle scrolls in my own handwriting suggested or even proved that I was capable of creating them, but the process described in the pages hidden within the romance seemed far too simplistic, as if the author assumed certain foundational knowledge of the reader. There had to be something else that my forgotten self had discovered. All the same, before I risked setting out on my own, I had to arm myself with magic.

  My misgivings were well founded, for my first attempt to re-inscribe the mage hand cantrip I had expended the night before was an utter failure. Considering the un-triggered riffle scrolls I still possessed, I decided I preferred to keep all of them on hand in case I need to use them before unraveling the conundrum of their creation. There was, however, the one strange spell among them.

  Examining it in riffle-scroll form was a puzzle within a puzzle, as each character one would inscribe upon an ordinary scroll was inscribed in two or three successive fragments. That was not strictly true, I realized, as I examined them further. Some strips were composed of the end of one character and the beginning of another, or in some cases a whole character with a fragment of the next attached. I could perceive no logic to the pattern of these gaps. If only I had the original spell to compare it with.

  Then I realized the spell must exist somewhere within the library. I stood and turned, feeling my heart sink at the sight of so many hundreds of volumes to search for a single reference. The prospect was all the more daunting since I had uncovered two instances of hidden knowledge already—the bawdy illustrations and the instructions for constructing these riffle scrolls. Peering outside, I saw my canine sentinel lying on the grass beneath the library windows. My imagination wanted to detect some unnatural sign about the dog, but his fixation on me was perfectly explicable. He licked his chops when I opened the window.

  The sun had already begun its western decline, and I realized the hour was much later than I’d assumed. I had little time to finish my preparations before departing, and there was still the issue of Galdana’s hidden sword to consider. I wished to take it with me, but it was impossible to conceal it on my person. Even the larger of my satchels was insufficient to engulf it, and I had brought only the smaller. Perhaps the solution was under my nose.

  I carved several thick portions of foul-smelling ham from my luncheon plate and fetched the sword from its hiding place. At the window, I showed the hound the meat. Immediately he sat down, head erect and alert. I threw the meat past him, and as he leaped after it, I dropped Galdana’s sword to the flowerbed on the ground below. It was not fully concealed, but I calculated that one would not notice it on casual observation. The hound returned to his original place, tail thumping in anticipation.

  “Lie down,” I commanded, and he obeyed. I rewarded him with another treat. We repeated the ritual until the meat was gone, whereupon I closed the windows and returned to the final problem. It was not urgent that I test the unknown spell, but if I had inscribed it as a riffle scroll, I must have had a reason. If necessary, I could copy it into my spell book later.

  Perhaps I already had.

  I retrieved my long-unused spell book from the satchel and opened it where I had left the ribbon marking the last page I had consulted. It was not, as I had remembered, the fireball invocation. Rather, after that reminder of my failed study of wizardry was a new spell composed in my own hand but inscribed with fresher ink. It bore the intriguing name of “steal book.”

  My eyes hungrily devoured its instructions, which described a singularly elegant means for transferring the contents of a book to another blank volume, leaving the first one empty. Thus, it was not intended to duplicate knowledge but to abscond with it. I found the idea at once dangerous and exciting, and the moment my mind began to consider applications for the spell, my subconscious latched onto the clue I had been failing to understand: I knew how the riffle scrolls worked.

  Rereading the book thief spell and comparing it with the riffle-scroll version, I saw that the gaps in the characters were analogous to the spell’s somatic components, those gestures a wizard must perform in order to bring about the magical effect. But it was not a direct correlation, and it required a great deal more focus and comparison before I realized the locations of the breaks were also influenced by the verbal components. Yet there is a third point to the great triangle of arcane magic, and that is the material component. The pattern among the characters did not seem to account for the sand and guano and crystals a
wizard must carry with him, and then I understood completely. The ink upon the riffle scrolls was completely ordinary; unlike one who reads a traditional magic scroll to unleash its spell, the user of a riffle scroll had to carry with him the material components. That explained the presence of the velvet pouch I had found with the scrolls.

  Why had I made the book thief spell into a riffle scroll? What volume had I intended to steal? And why would I use the spell rather than simply take the book itself? The answer to the latter question was immediately obvious: to make the owners think the book still remained among the library, while I walked off with its copied contents. But where had I found the original? Were there other spells hidden somewhere in Galdana’s library.

  I silently chided myself for a fool and turned the page to see whether I had copied any other spells. On the page after the book thief, I saw not a new spell but a note in my own handwriting. Reading it, I felt cold fingers upon my spine: “The Daughters of Ugathoa devour the mothers of men.”

  I realized then that Bogdan was not behaving as a panderer earlier, offering me his daughter for my dishonorable use.

  He was begging me to save her.

  The sound of the scroll riffling across my finger attracted the footman’s attention, but his head lolled back and his eyes closed before he saw me. I reached him barely in time to ease his slumbering body onto the third-floor landing. After laying him against the wall, I placed the expired riffle scroll in my pocket. The rest remained tucked inside the waist of my trousers, where they made me appear as if I’d spent the past weeks overeating instead of starving. That thought reminded me of the thrill I had experienced while burglarizing the kitchen before ascending the stairs. There was a time when I would never have stooped to petty theft. Radovan had always done such things for me.

  I had tarried too long over the puzzle of the riffle scrolls before finally pulling the bell to summon Felix. By the time he arrived to open the library door, the sun was half-hidden behind the Hungry Mountains. I thought I had over an hour, but it now appeared I had only minutes before full dark.

  “Where is Anneke?” I asked, too impatient to pose the question indirectly.

  “Your Excellency,” Felix began in apologetic tone.

  “Where is she?” I demanded, straightening my back to emphasize my height, if not any legitimate authority over the butler.

  “At this hour she should be preparing the upper bedchambers,” he said. “If there is a problem—”

  “No,” I said. “I shall retire to my room for an hour, and then I wish to have supper in the dining room.”

  “Very good, Excellency.” He bowed and moved to lead me there, but I said, “I will conduct myself. Your attentions are more urgently required in the kitchen, judging from recent mishaps.”

  His face colored, but he bowed again and retreated. I found my way first to the entrance, where I left my bag beside the preserved foot of a mammoth, now serving as a repository for walking sticks. Alert to any observation by the other house staff, I crept up to the third floor and incapacitated the sentry with a sleep enchantment before proceeding as quietly as the carpeted halls allowed. I moved as silently as a burglar.

  I listened for sounds of housekeeping, but at first all I noticed was the overwhelming odor of vinegar. If anything it seemed stronger than it had before, and I no longer imagined it was the residue of recent cleaning. As I followed my nose to its source, I heard a human voice. A man’s voice uttered rhythmic grunts, as though struggling to open a stubborn portal. The sound emanated from the same room as the acidic odor. I crept forward and knelt at the door, peering through its generous keyhole. Through it I had a narrow view of a candlelit room. To one side I saw a large enameled bath, apparently unoccupied. To the other I saw the corner of a bed swathed in red velvet and the soles of a man’s naked feet.

  Propriety demanded I withdraw, but the thought that Casomir or one of his servants might be raping Anneke incited me to the risk of testing the door handle. It was, of course, locked tight. Trusting that the man inside would not hear it over the sound of his own exertions, I removed the appropriate scroll and discharged its magic. I felt a tingle of the spell’s power rush away from my fingers, but except for the slapping of its leaves and the faint clicking of the lock, it produced no other audible effect. The man inside did not pause in his endeavors, so I dared to turn the knob and open the door a few inches for a better view.

  The naked man was indeed Casomir, although I could see only a sliver of his averted face. I could not immediately identify the woman whose body lay beneath his, for its singular feature was the absence of a head.

  Behind me, a woman gasped. Anneke stood behind me, gaping at the dreadful tableau. She dropped the sheets she had been carrying, but they barely made a sound as they struck the floor. Before I could raise my finger to my lips, she unleashed an ear-splitting scream. I closed the door and pulled her toward the stairs.

  “Run,” I commanded, pushing her before me.

  Halfway down the stairs I wondered whether I had truly seen a red cover on the bed or simply white sheets steeped in blood. What lay beneath the surface of the vinegar bath? My curiosity perished within the grip of my panic and the need to convey Anneke to safety. I thrust my satchel into her arms. When I grasped the handle of the entrance door, I found it was locked solid.

  “Felix!” shouted Casomir from two floors above. I pushed Anneke against the wall and pressed my body beside hers. We watched with suspended breath as the butler ran through the foyer and up the stairs without turning toward us. When he was out of sight, we ran to dining room and tried the windowed doors. Also locked. Abandoning my last attempts at stealth, I hurled a chair through the glass windows and cleared the sharp remains with a nearby candlestick before ushering Anneke onto the darkening lawn.

  “To the stables,” I said. “Hurry!”

  I circled toward the west, pausing only to fetch Galdana’s sword from the flowerbed. Desna smiled on me, for not only was it still there, but there was no sign of the guardian hound. I ran toward the stables, intending to enact the first part of my escape plan. Anneke screamed again. I saw her standing on the open lawn between the manor and the stables. She turned away from something she had seen in the sky above her and ran as if Hell itself were at her heels.

  I looked where she had looked but saw only clouds against the moon and stars. But there, something moved among them, a rogue cloud, or some ragged cloth caught in a violent wind that had risen only as I turned my eyes skyward. Whatever dreadful thing floated up there, its presence chilled my blood and turned my feet to stones.

  While I had promised nothing to her or to her father, I felt a pathetic obligation. I had not placed the wretched girl in harm’s way, but I had manipulated her in my efforts to misdirect Felix and Casomir, deepening her involvement. Even if she were not carrying the bag containing my valuable books, I should be a villain not to follow her.

  There was no time to ponder the moral question. I ran toward her, but she turned toward the hedge maze. I altered my course to follow her, but Bogdan intercepted me, bursting out from the stables.

  “Save her, my lord,” he cried. “I beg you, find her and flee this place!”

  “What chases her?” I asked.

  “The black cloud,” he wailed. “The corruption of the house, the sins of our masters—”

  I would have slapped the babbling out of him, but the hand I raised still held the sheathed sword. I should have found a belt for the scabbard, but such a trifling detail had slipped my mind during the day’s astonishing discoveries. “I will find your daughter, but you must do something for me.”

  “Anything,” he pleaded. I had to grasp his arm to keep him from kneeling and clutching my knees.

  “Take a horse and ride to the ferry,” I said. I thrust my purse and my letter to the bishop into his hands. “Bribe the ferryman, kill him if you must, but take this letter to the cathedral.”

  He nodded dumbly, trying to understand. “But how
will you—”

  I shook him hard to keep him from thinking. “Just do as I say, or they will catch your daughter.”

  We ran side by side until he entered the stable and I veered off into the hedge maze, following the sound of another scream.

  The moon would not rise for an hour or more. The dull glow of sunset reflected off the clouds to reveal only the uppermost fronds of the high hedges. I listened for another sound of Anneke’s location as I felt my way along the path. My recollection of the maze from the limited perspective of the trophy room gave me some idea of the right course, but I did not know whether Anneke knew her way through. I called out her name.

  “I am here to help you,” I shouted. “Your father sent me.”

  I heard a sibilant sound emanating somewhere above the hedgerows. It sounded like the hiss of a mountain cat, but I could not envision one light enough to climb the foliage and stalk us upon the maze walls. This was something else, something with no need to perch upon a ledge. A shadow passed before the moon, but it had moved behind the hedge wall by the time I looked up. I smelled vinegar in the air. This was something from the house.

  “Anneke!” I called again, this time in a stage whisper. I heard rustling from a few passages away. I summoned the image of the maze I had consigned to memory and turned to seek the shorter route to its source. “Stay where you are, girl. I will come to you.”

  Someone—or some thing—rushed along the passage adjacent to mine. The foliage shook, and another miasma of the vinegar smell washed over me and clung to my skin. The scabbard trembled in my hand. I drew the weapon. The blade buzzed with hatred, the thousand spirals on its blade blazing like miniscule galaxies. The resulting illumination cast my surroundings in stark lines of black and silver, banishing all color.

  Deeper in the maze, Anneke shouted, “Please don’t!” Her screams mingled with a sound like hail falling through deciduous trees. A cloud of leaves and stem fragments filled the air, along with another sour stench.