Realms of Mystery a-6

by Elaine Cunningham

  In any event, the candle’s light illuminated much of the room, albeit dimly. I looked around carefully, first at the floor where the shadow had been, and then up at the window.

  “Please, Brother,” Pheslan said, “tell me what it is.”

  “I thought I saw something,” I said carefully-still looking around.

  He replied without hesitation. “In the window?”

  “Yes, I suppose. Actually, it was a shadow from a light in the window.”

  Pheslan looked at me. His eyes were full of questions. I had the same questions.

  “I have no idea, my son.” I put my hand on his shoulder and, with one last look around, led him back to our chambers.

  I took the candle from him. “Oghma watches over us, Pheslan,” I said. “Just because we do not understand, we can know that he does, for no secret is hidden from him. Besides, while the sights of the night are often frightening, the morning light always dispels the fear they bring. Everything will be fine. I should know better, at my age, than to be scared of shadows.” He smiled and nodded.

  After the boy went into his room, I paused. Still holding the candle I went to the front door and bolted it. I did not stop to look at the rose window.

  The next day, just to be on the safe side, I performed every blessing and banishment that I’ve ever been taught, hoping that divine power might cleanse the rose window and the sanctuary itself. These protective rituals and prayers would surely protect us from any evil that might have been present the night before.

  The rest of the afternoon I spent caring for Makkis Hiddle, who had taken ill a few miles down the road. My position as loremaster made me also the most knowledgeable healer in the tiny community. In any event, I did not return until well after dark. Like the previous night, the wind blew from the north and made my trip cold and unpleasant. I unhitched the team and put them in their stalls in the barn behind the east end of the church. They seemed uneasy and stamped and snorted until I calmed them with an apple that I had been saving for myself. As I walked to the front door, I rounded the north side of the building and looked up.

  As I watched, a shadow moved across the colored panes of the rose window. It was big-big enough to be a person. My first thought was of Pheslan. Had he climbed up there somehow? I ran into the sanctuary, but all was still. I could see nothing unusual at the window.

  The room was lit by a lamp on the altar. Pheslan knew that I would arrive late, and left it for me, as he always did. I knew, too, that I would find some food and wine left waiting for me on the table. I smiled at the thought, and sighed. I was making a fool of myself with all this nonsense. I ate quickly and went to bed.

  That night I awoke, startled. The scraping noise was back. It sounded a little like a dog scratching at the door of his master’s house, hoping to get in-a big dog. I lit my bedside lamp with a flame from the coals in the brazier that attempted in vain to keep the chill from my room. When I opened my door, I could see that the door to Pheslan’s room was already open. I looked in to find it empty. The boy had obviously risen-perhaps awakened by the noise as well?

  Then I heard the scream.

  I ran into the sanctuary, the flame of my lamp almost going out asit passed through the cold air. I looked frantically about.

  “Pheslan?” I called out. My voice was swallowed by the dark emptiness of the room. How had I grown so afraid of my own sanctuary? “Pheslan, boy-where are you?” No answer came.

  My eyes were drawn to the rose window. Dark shapes seemed to move across its surface. Was that light playing against the facets? (How long could I tell myself that?)

  I longed for a closer look at the window, but there was no way for me to climb to that height without a ladder, and that would be difficult in the dark. I called out again for Pheslan.

  I went outside and checked the barn. The horses and wagon were still there. I checked all around the outside of the building, still calling for my young friend.

  “Pheslan!”

  By the time I had searched the inside of the church again, the light of dawn was evident, and I blew out my lamp. I knew what I had to do. I returned to the barn and got the ladder. I maneuvered it into the church, despite its weight and size and set it below the rose window. I do not know exactly what I thought I would find up there, but I grabbed a heavy candlestick from the altar and held it tightly in my grip. Taking a deep breath, I began to climb.

  When I reached the top, I held on to the top rung of the ladder with one hand, and gripped the candlestick in the other like a weapon. I peered through the window.

  I had no idea what I was seeing. I gazed through the rose window and beheld some other place-this was not the churchyard. Instead I saw some infernal realm of shadows and slime-covered things that slithered over a blasted and dreadful landscape. Something flitted across the sky on batlike wings that seemed to leave a trail of greasy residue behind the creature. This window did not look outside. Or rather it did-but not the outside, the Outside. My eyes now saw beyond the veil of our world. My mind was besieged by the knowledge that there were places on the other side of the rose window, and they were terrible. The things in those places, I also knew, wanted to get to the inside-to our world.

  Gods! I knew all at once that this window was a thing of evil. No longer (or was it ever?) a fine piece of some glazier’s workmanship, no longer bits of blue-green stained glass cleverly pieced together. The rose window was a sorcerous, corrupted thing. It gave me a view no man should ever see. But what else did it give? Was it some kind of portal, or doorway?

  I raised the candlestick, my eyes tearing with fear and hatred. I was going to smash the window-shatter it and its evil, to erase the loathsome view that it provided. This would be no defilement or desecration, for the window did not actually belong in a holy place, yet still I stopped. One thought came to me (from where?). If I smashed the window, would I destroy it, or would I let in those things that seethed and writhed in that infernal realm? Would shattering the window prevent them from coming through, or would it grant them passage? A burglar in the night often smashes a window to get in. Smashing it for him only makes his entrance easier.

  I had to think-but not at the top of that ladder. There, I could still see into that nightmare realm, and worse, I think the things beyond could see me. I climbed down and slumped on the floor next to the altar.

  I was at a loss. What could I do? Was Pheslan gone? Was that his scream I had heard, or something else? Had he somehow disappeared into the window? That seemed so impossible. What would Tessen have done in this situation?

  My thoughts were always drawn back to my old mentor in times of crisis. I thought of Tessen, and the old abbey, and- Oghma preserve us.

  I saddled one of the horses-I cannot recall which one anymore. I am not much of a rider, but I thought that I could move faster riding just one than in the wagon. I rode through a good deal of the morning, across the valley to the old abbey.

  The men had worked fast. Only some of the foundation stones were left. Everything was gone, including any clue I had hoped to find regarding the nature of the rose window. The wall where it had set for over one hundred years had been torn down. The floor where it had cast its shadows was torn apart and covered with rubble, dirt, and leaves.

  I stood in the middle of all this and wept. Tessen had committed a sin against Oghma that could never be forgiven. He had kept a secret, and a terrible secret at that. Had he been a guardian over that window, or its servant? I certainly could remember no hint of the malevolence that the window now displayed.

  Finally, I could weep no more and I got back on my horse. Perhaps it was just my training in Oghma’s priesthood, but I needed information to confront this challenge. When I had been here last, I had learned of one more place that I could go to find the answers I sought. 1 beckoned my steed back onto the road, and led it into the village nearby, to where I had heard that Greal lived and had set up his temporary new church.

  Once I arrived, nearly exhausted now, I s
lid to the ground. I knocked on the door. When there was no response, I knocked again, pounding now.

  “Master Greal?” I shouted. Still nothing.

  “Master Greal, it is Loremaster Jaon.” I continued my pounding, stopping only to confirm that the door was locked.

  “I must ask you about the rose window I purchased from you!” My pounding fist accompanied each word like a drumbeat in some southern jungle ritual.

  “I need to ask you about Loremaster High Tessen!” Completely expired, I collapsed against the door. “Tell me,” I moaned. “Tell me what we were really worshiping in that abbey!”

  As I rode back to my parish, I knew that someone had seen me. There had been eyes on me the whole time that I had spent pounding on that door. And as I had sat there, exhausted in the damp soil in front of Greal’s home, the autumn leaves blowing around me like dead memories that may very well have been lies, someone watched. No one in that entire town had come when I called out. No one answered their door, but I knew that I was being watched. Even now.

  How many of them were there, that had taken part in the foul rites that I could only imagine must have taken place in front of that rose window? Had those rituals gone on even when I had been there? Could I have been so naпve? Could-no, I would not think of it anymore. It was too hard, and too painful, and there were still things that needed doing back in my own church.

  Which brings me to right now.

  Jam writing this the day after I went to the site of the old abbey. I have not yet slept nor eaten. When I came back, I had hoped against hope that Pheslan would be here, and that somehow I would have been wrong. But I was not wrong, and he was not here. I dressed myself in the vestments of my order-white shirt and pants, and the kantlara, a black vest with gold brocade. My kantlara had been made for me by my grandmother, who had also been a lore-master. I prepared my holy symbol and brought out the staff that I kept by the door for emergencies-the staff with its ends shod in iron and made for fighting. I prepared to make my move, and take my stand against the evil that I myself had brought to my parish.

  But I waited. What if I was wrong, as I had thought before? What if I let those things through? I somehow told myself that it could not be. An evil thing, like the rose window, must be destroyed. Only good could come from destroying it. Perhaps it could even free Pheslan from whatever held him. If indeed he still lived.

  I spent the rest of yesterday at the bottom of the ladder, which I had never moved from its spot below the window. I looked up, but all day long, I saw only the blue-green stained glass. No movement, no shadows, nothing. Somehow, my indecision still prevented me from climbing to even the first rung.

  So after so many hours of arguing with myself, pushed farther past exhaustion than I have ever been, I began writing this manuscript on the nightstand in my bedchamber.

  On these few sheets of parchment, penned throughout the night, I have put my story. Now, as I finish, I prepare myself to climb that ladder. I will smash the rose window, and destroy every last shard. If I am right, and the evil is over, I will return here to this manuscript and throw these pages into the fire so that none shall ever learn of these horrible events. But if I am wrong, you are reading this now. If that is the case perhaps you-whoever you are-will know what can be done and right my wrongs.

  I am ready.

  The Club Rules

  James Lowder

  “I didn’t do it,” the butler said blandly.

  The dozen people lining the entry hail of the Stalwart’s Club remained unmoved, dauntingly so. Their hard, silent stares revealed that they had already convicted the servant, if only in their minds. Even so, the emotions displayed on those faces were oddly muted-displeasure rather than anger, annoyance instead of outrage. It was hardly what one would expect from a crowd confronting the man accused of murdering one of their own. The butler, though, was not surprised. The Stalwarts could be a bloodless lot, especially when the matter before them was anything less esoteric than the smithing techniques of long-extinct dwarf clans or the proper table wine to serve with blackened Sword Coast devilfish.

  “I don’t think they believe you, Uther,” said the burly guardsman who had a firm grip on the butler’s arm. “I don’t neither.”

  “Either,” the accused man corrected. At the guardsman’s blank look, Uther explained, “‘Don’t neither’ is a double negative.”

  “That sort of talk only proves you’re smart enough to do a crime like this,” the guardsman said, tightening his grip. “You already look the part.”

  The latter comment was as pointless as the supposed restraining hold the soldier had on the servant. A misfired spell had left Uther with a visage that could only be described as demonic. His skin had been blasted to leathery toughness and a sooty crimson hue. Small but noticeable fangs protruded over his dark lips. The pair of twisted horns atop his head were not only impressive, but as sharp as any assassin’s blade. His physique was equally daunting. Had he wished it, Uther could have shaken off the guard with the merest shrug and shattered the manacles around his wrists with one flex.

  “There’s only one thing that’!! save you now,” the guardsman noted as he led Uther through the door. “A good attorney.”

  “A clever oxymoron,” Uther said, narrowing his slitted yellow eyes. The resulting expression was an odd mixture of humor and anger. “And they say the city watch attracts only dullards.”

  The small knot of children always loitering before the Stalwarts Club broke into a chorus of taunts when Uther stepped outside. He regularly chased the urchins away, as they were wont to pick the pockets of any clubman drunk enough or foolish enough to give them the opportunity. For their part, the children harassed the butler whenever the chance arose, tying sticks to their heads as mock horns and feigning horror at his grim features. But the conflict had long ago become a game between the ragged children and the servant. So when they saw the manacles on Uther’s wrists, they swallowed their quips and gawked in forlorn silence.

  One of the boys, a puny but bold child near the back of the knot, hefted a loose piece of paving stone and mentally targeted the soldier’s skull, which was unprotected by a helmet or even hair. He cocked his arm back to throw, but a gentle hand stayed the assault. The boy yelped in surprise. Few men were stealthy enough to sneak up on the streetwise group and not alert any of them.

  Artus Cimber, however, had once roamed the same hopeless alleys and burrowed for safety in the same abandoned hovels those urchins now called home. His years as a world traveler had honed the survival skills he’d gained there-and tempered them with a bit of wisdom besides.

  “That’ll only make things worse,” Artus said. He took the would-be missile from the boy’s fingers and let it drop.

  The clatter of stone on stone drew an angry look from the guardsman. “What’s going-?” When he saw the man standing among the children, he cut his words short and shook his head. “Cimber. Still hanging about in the gutter, I see. Shouldn’t you find some friends your own age?”

  “I keep making them, Orsini, but you keep arresting them.” As Artus started across the muddy, cobbled way, he asked facetiously, “What’s he supposed to have done, let the wrong opera cape get wrinkled in the cloak room?”

  “He’s done the only crime that matters,” was all Orsini said.

  The reply made Artus stutter a step. He’d known Sergeant Orsini since his own days on the street. The man had a surprisingly flexible view of the law for a Purple Dragon as the king’s most redoubtable soldiers were known. Orsini had let many a thief escape detention, so long as their need was obvious and their crime motivated by survival, not greed. But there was a single offense the soldier took seriously: murder. He pursued men and women accused of that particular crime with a passion that bordered on blind fury. It was almost as if each murder were somehow a personal attack on him.

  “I stand accused of slaughtering the inestimable Count Leonska,” Uther confirmed.

  “It’s about time someone got arou
nd to that,” Artus muttered. Then, more loudly, he asked, “Why do they think you beat the count’s other ‘admirers’ to the deed?”

  Uther arched one wickedly pointed brow. “Because I am the butler, and the Stalwarts’ library contains one too many Thayan murder mystery. It’s happened at last-I am reduced to a clichй. They should all be very proud of themselves.”

  “You left out the fact that you were the first person on the scene of the murder,” Orsini added. His voice was harsh, his whole body tense. “And half the club had previously heard you threaten Count Leonska’s life.”

  The details Uther offered in reply were directed at Artus, not the guardsman. “One of the winged monkeys had escaped from the library,” he said. “I was pursuing the creature through the back halls, hoping to recapture it before Lady Elynna’s leopard caught its scent. During that endeavor I chanced upon the sounds of a disturbance in one of the rooms. When the door was eventually unlocked, in front of another witness.” The butler placed obvious emphasis on this fact, but Sergeant Orsini didn’t react in the slightest “The count’s body was discovered… in a rather unpleasant state.”

  Uther did not bother to explain his threat on Leonska’s life. There was no need. Artus had been in the Stalwarts’ game room the day the count, using methods he’d perfected in his years as a mean-spirited drunkard, provoked a very public and frighteningly angry reaction from Uther. It was rare for the servant to rise to any bait dangled before him by a clubman-so rare that the incident remained vivid in the minds of everyone who’d witnessed it.

  “Well,” Artus said after a moment, “we shouldn’t have too much trouble clearing you.”

  “Am I to conclude from your use of the plural that you will help prove my innocence?”

  Orsini tugged on Uther’s arm, hoping to move him toward the barred carriage waiting up the alley at the main thoroughfare. The guardsman might as well have tried pulling the Stalwarts Club from its magically secured foundation. “Don’t waste your time, Cimber,” he said. “The city watch will do its own investigation.”