by Veras Alnar
But he was met with only a solid wall and a room that was growing darker, not lighter with every moment. When Amis glanced to his left he became stiff with fear. There was a face watching him, a twisted burned up visage that Amis couldn't say was man or woman. But it had long, haggard black hair and was watching him with glowing, pin prick eyes. Amis stood very still, hands pressed against the plaster wall until he felt under his fingers gouges, much like scratches, against the blocked up door.
Trembling violently, Amis was nearly sick when delicate clawed hands gently, carefully lifted a few strands of his hair. He didn't dare face the thing full on, he didn't think he could stand it. Seeing whatever it was in total without going completely out of his mind with terror.
It was a whisper, oh so quiet on the wind outside, until it grew and grew into an almost scream.
“GAAARSSTWREEENNN”
Amis closed his eyes, wishing, praying for anything to wake him.
Shocked from his fear by a hand grabbing him around his waist, he felt the press of an erection against his back and felt a tongue lick up the side of his face and smelled a terrible odour that resembled decaying, rotting flesh.
He screamed.
“Amis,” the welcome voice again, shaking him from his hellish nightmares, “I'm here, beside you.”
Shuddering himself awake, Amis saw the red curtains by his face and the portrait to the side of him. It had to have been an imagining, a nightmare, a terrible vision born from a distortion and not anything approaching real.
“You were violent last time,” Lord Guain said, steadying his shaking arms, “I was worried about causing you some further damage.”
It must have been some expression that stole across Amis' face because Lord Guain was stroking the length of his arms like a mother would, to calm him down.
“Another nightmare,” Amis said, eyes adjusting and almost disbelieving, “I keep having them.”
“Did you,” Lord Guain said, “then let me comfort you in bed.”
Unsure of what exactly Lord Guain's comfort would entail on this night, Amis was a little put off when he was pulled into bed and Lord Guain flung his arm around him.
“Your smothering me,” Amis complained.
But it was very half-hearted. He was so grateful to escape his dream, he could have cried.
“Woe is me,” Lord Guain said, “that I should accidentally kill my dearest friend.”
The charming smile that flitted across Lord Guain's face was at once painfully beautiful and inducing such nerves in Amis that he had to look away towards the opposite direction, unless he burn through the bedclothes by blushing.
“Don't feel wrong about it,” Lord Guain said, lightly, “men and women can't resist me. I've had many admirers of both sexes.”
“Shut up,” Amis said, annoyed with his teasing, “go to sleep, fool.”
Lord Guain laughed at him but it was a friendly, tinkling sound. And it was indeed easier to sleep knowing there was someone else near him who would hear his cries for help if the nightmare were to ever reach such a pitch of reality he could bare it no longer. Strangely, without prompting Lord Guain made motion to close Amis' eyes for him, as one would for someone who was dead. With a sigh Amis sank into his pillow though his brow became slightly knit because only two days ago, he had done the same for Durgia and covered her in a shroud. But when his eyes flickered open just as he was about to go to sleep, he noticed a very feint but unmistakable scar on Lord Guain's neck closest to his night shirt's collar.
It was very late afternoon when Amis came into his room nearly sick from fear and slightly trembling. Sitting on the open window ledge was Fulk enjoying his pilfered pipe, he glanced at Amis curiously.
“What's wrong?” Fulk said, “Have a good night, or a bad one?”
Amis shook his head, unable to speak until he swallowed several times.
“There's something wrong with me,” Amis said.
“We already knew that,” Fulk said, “what do you think it is? Too much in the arm, not enough in the brains?”
“Oh, shut up you loathsome-!” Amis turned red and tried to contain the stream of expletives he wished he could hurl at Fulk for his irritating jibes.
“What is it then,” Fulk said, grinning with his crooked teeth.
“I don't know,” Amis said, too sick to begin saying it, “I think I've been poisoned. It's making my nights a terror with strange dreams and Lord Guain is-,”
“Has he had his way with you again?” Fulk said.
Amis shook his head, it was so difficult to explain!
“I think I've been biting him,” Amis said.
Fulk began to laugh uproariously, “Is that all?”
“Shut up! And listen to what I'm saying!” Amis said.
Breathing hard, Amis gathered himself as best he could and spit it out.
“In my nightmares I wander the halls of Garstwrot. I see a bat shaped hearth and an enormous red paned window and by my side is some terrific beast! If that were not enough, I seem to wake but not truly aware and then- I drink Lord Guain's blood. I don't understand what it means.”
“He's probably taking liberties while you sleep,” Fulk said, “seems like the type.”
“It's not a fancy,” Amis shouted, “look at his wrist! It was covered in a bandage and now it isn't.”
“He burned it,” Fulk said.
“A burn doesn't vanish in in a day! I bit it, and I bit his neck but that too seemed to vanish until I saw the mark last night,” Amis grabbed his hair in agonizing confusion, “I don't understand any of it! I feel a player in a theater I've no knowing of! But there's something in that wine, there must be. Or why would it effect me so at night?”
“It tastes fine to me, if heavily spiced,” Fulk said, “and it's had no effect on me in any way unusual.”
“I'm not sure if poisoned is the right word anymore,” Amis said, “perhaps tainted, I don't know.”
“You've done well so far,” Fulk said, dumping the ashes from his pipe out the window, “caught him like a fish in a trap, I'd say.”
“I feel like a moron,” Amis admitted, “like a fool being strummed like a harp.”
Fulk clasped him on the shoulder, “keep at it, perhaps we may get somewhere in a day or two hopefully before that Baroness arrives with her knights.”
In his mind's eye Amis could see the courtyard and the horse's skeleton and the well beside the barn that had been all closed up. Pressing his fingers against his forehead some awful premonition dawned on him; the villagers had said he was responsible for Fairfax's missing children. Their animals that had gone missing and he recalled his very own cat that had vanished just a few weeks before and not a hair of anyone had been found.
“Fulk help me,” Amis said.
“Help you what?” Fulk said, pipe tucked between his teeth.
“We must look inside that well,” Amis said, stomach churning.
It was with great surprise that Fulk considered what he was saying, his head slightly tilted in a serious way as if he were finally, considering the words coming from Amis' mouth as something worth paying attention to.
“The one that's all closed up?” Fulk said, “it would take five strong men to open that.”
“Even just sliding it a crack,” Amis said, “would tell me if what I think is true or not.”
“We might be able to get that far,” Fulk said, “When you're dressed we'll go down and see if our Lord is lurking and if he isn't, we'll take a crack at it. At worst our actions can be excused as shoring up without going to the river.”
Amis felt relieved, they were finally going to get some answers however unpleasant they may be.
When they made their way into the courtyard, it seemed strange that neither had seen Lord Guain on the way, Amis thought he would perhaps be in the library but Fulk recalled he had gone downstairs to see if there was a weapon or two in the storage area.
“In the dungeon?” Amis said.
“Oh yeah,” Fulk s
aid, “I saw down there, lots of human bones from who knows when and some shields and other things. There was a crossbow and I took it.”
“I didn't think you knew how to shoot one,” Amis said.
“I don't,” Fulk said, “but they're worth money and don't come cheap, and we've got a story to keep. I have a weapon worth far more that's been put aside in our rooms that's all you need to know.”
“Of course,” Amis said.
The late afternoon sun lit the horse bones up like white markers in a sea of yellow green and with a nervous sort of movement, Amis touched the cover of the well.
“It's stone isn't it,” Fulk said.
Amis had pressed his head to the stone cover and was alarmed to hear strange sounds coming from it, like scratches. For a moment he was almost overwhelmed with terror and the desire to keep it shut, it was like the fireplace and all his nightmares over again.
“Yes,it is. And I think there's something in there,” Amis said.
Fulk said, “let's give it a push then and find out.”
“You're not worried?” Amis said.
“Use your head, for all we know,” Fulk said, “it could be a bird or something from the drain like a couple of rats.”
Amis wasn't convinced.
“Come on,” Fulk said, “you've been out in the graveyard under the full moon with me by piles of dead people and all the nasty sort of things that go with it. Nothing's ever happened, has it?”
“No,” Amis said, “nothing ever happened.”
He had been just as terrified by the open graves certainly, seeing the dead's glassy eyes and all the foulness that came with it but they had both been perfectly fine. The light of day had always chased the nighttime terrors away and reality had sharpened his senses until nothing of the frightening night remained.
“Exactly,” Fulk said, “it's all stories then.”
They pushed hard, though Amis still felt the sweat breaking out on his brow for other reasons, until eventually the edge gave way. They kept at it until a small space was open and then a great riot began. Amis let out a shriek and fell to the ground as they had gotten in his hair and even Fulk shouted because he hadn't been expecting it. Flies and bugs, beetles and all manner of insect burst from the opening like a flood. The swarms seemed to burst up and begin to circle until their black shining bodies landed here and there all over the courtyard like a spray of pepper. Unnerved and shaken, Amis scrambled back onto his feet and saw Fulk who looked a bit surprised but none the worse for wear.
“The smell,” Fulk said.
It was on the air but hadn't blown its way toward Amis until the wind changed and he smelled it too, that unforgettable stench known to anyone who had ever smelled a decaying body. With some trepidation Amis leaned over the open well, he looked down and the afternoon light though lagging was just enough to see the eyes shining up at him from down its surface. Dead eyes from a child, or rather, several children. They had been heaped on top of a great pile of animals and nearly reached the top of the well.
“My god,” Amis said, clapping his arm over his nose, “the Fairfax children!”
Fulk leaned over and looked in, his profession lending him a certain immunity though his nose still wrinkled unpleasantly.
“It's not just human, it's animal and everything,” Fulk said.
“My cat vanished,” Amis said, “and our neighbor's dogs, it was winter and we thought foxes were responsible. They're probably down there along with the cows and horses of the keep.”
“I think this proves beyond a doubt,” Fulk said, “that our Lord of the keep is a murderer.”
“What are we going to do?” Amis said, desperately.
And then Fulk said to him in a voice that chilled Amis to the bone.
“Perhaps we ought to kill him,” Fulk said.
“No!” Amis hissed.
“Why not,” Fulk said, “have you grown to like him?”
“God, you loathsome man! As if that matters!” Amis said, “We have no idea if it is the Baroness that's really coming here. And what if Bishop Nethir should bring King Hune at our door, he asked me strange questions about-”
Amis couldn't say it, not aloud.
“-what happened that night in the barn. He acted as if some great evil had been committed already, though I doubt he knew anything about what happened.”
It was with great unease that Amis could tell Fulk had begun to grow rather more pale in the face.
“If Lord Guain is Gessetto,” Fulk said, “if black magic really is true then we're a lot worse off than being in the same house as a man who kills.”
Collapsing his face in his hands, Amis felt on the verge of despair.
“All I have are nightmares,” Amis said, “about beasts and fiends. I feel as if I made some terrible mistake without knowing the implications of what I was doing. That my life is some wavy fib hinged on something unknowable.”
Fulk shook his head as if to turn away his thoughts, “ghosts aren't real, or devils or at least, in my profession I've never seen them. But evil men? Those are real and are aplenty out in the world and that's all we can count on now.”
“Just because you haven't seen them doesn't mean that devils don't exist,” Amis said, feeling helpless, “or that an evil man couldn't find them. Let's close it up, I can't stand thinking about it any longer.”
The insects had dispersed by the time they managed to seal up the well again but just as they had been finished, Amis saw a most unwelcome sight coming towards them.
“Oh there you are,” Lord Guain said, “I was just finished downstairs. Did you know there were ancient chains down there? I brought them up just in case.”
Amis had a horrified expression until he realized that Lord Guain was talking about something else entirely.
“To chain the main doors in the hall,” Fulk said, “that's a grand idea.”
“Yes,” Lord Guain said, looking rather proud, “It may save us no end of trouble should anything happen. Amis, are you all right?”
“Yes,” Amis said, a little too quickly.
“It's put us on edge,” Fulk said, “having to shut ourselves up.”
“I can imagine,” Lord Guain said, “but I can't take any chances, who knows if what my brother said was true. I'd rather err on the side of caution than pay for a lack of it later.”
The sun was reaching its evening strain and the light was turning into an orange tinged mass that looked like flames reaching across the courtyard as shadows followed in dark and quiet as a cat's footsteps.
“Would you mind, Amis?” Lord Guain had repeated.
“What?” Amis said, so lost in thought he hadn't heard him.
“Walk with me for a time,” Lord Guain said, “I know my brother said something to you, you've been shaken ever since he left. Grave master, would you mind returning to your duties indoors?”
Fulk hesitated and it was that hesitation that made Amis feel a burble of panic rising in the back of his throat.
“All right,” Fulk said, after a moment, “shall I gather water before we're shut up for the night?”
“Oh don't worry about that,” Lord Guain said, “after all, we have the well.”
It cast such enormous doubt in Amis' mind, it threw such an arrow into his chest that he almost doubted for a minute the truth of what he and Fulk had found. Fulk then left them and to his trepidation he was now left alone with the Lord of the keep. Amis nearly jumped a mile, when from his own fancy pocket Lord Guain pulled a red and lovely flower.
“Do you like them?” Lord Guain asked.
“What?” Amis said, feeling stupid, “Flowers?”
“Roses,” Lord Guain said, “I picked it from the bushes around the grounds. It was said the red rose used to fly on Garstwrot's banner when the Lords of long ago ruled this place. There is some belief that a red rose on a black back drop was the family symbol of Garstwren's lost line, it is at least a very striking image to imagine flying over a battlefield.”
Amis looked at the red rose with its thorny stem and at the handsome face of Lord Guain, stained red in the flagging daylight. But then a shadow crossed over the man's face and it was only his eyes that seemed luminous and alive in the light and tinged with a red so violent it almost took his breath away.
The illusion broke as Lord Guain stepped forward into the light and placed the rose behind Amis' ear.
“This rose has a crooked stem and sharp thorns,” Lord Guain said, “but that only means it has grown stronger than all the rest. Black and red are lovely together, don't you think?”
“I don't know,” Amis said, stricken.
Could a man who spoke such beautiful words really be so evil?
“You're afraid,” Lord Guain said, “please, let me help you.”
“I don't know if I want your help,” Amis said.
“Back to taciturn again?” Lord Guain said, “But I had hoped we had become friends, surely you like me more than the grave master.”
“It's not a competition that would be very difficult to win,” Amis said.
Lord Guain laughed, his voice a pleasant lovely sound.
“I don't suppose it would be,” Lord Guain said, “but pray, something has disturbed you. So tell me, so I can help you as a friend would.”
Such sweet and kind words Amis had never heard spoken to him and it almost made him doubt, for a moment, Lord Guain's motivations in seeking out his company. But that was the problem; Amis knew very well what he looked like with a nose too big and haggard black hair and that he wasn't a very attractive man and Lord Guain was of the sort that could have every woman in a village sighing languorously with a single glance. If it was something genuine, perhaps Amis should at least try to use it to his advantage and yet, again the rub, he wouldn't know how if he even had a mind to. Instead he decided, he'd do what Fulk bade him and tell a little bit of truth to soften up any lie to come.
“Forgive me,” Amis said, “if I'm short with you. I'm not used to someone caring about what I feel.”
