by H. A. Harvey
Karen guessed Tyvus’ chambers were upstairs, if the rear wing followed the rest of the keep’s design. The corridor to the rear looked to go further back than she thought the mountain allowed and had to have been carved out of the stone itself. Karen carefully stood with the help of the heavy statue and gingerly tested weight on her injured ankle. She winced, but perhaps thanks to her recent experience with bumps and bruises, Karen figured she could manage if she was careful. Still, she decided to leave the upstairs search for later and hobbled down the corridor on the ground floor.
The air grew closer and her impression of the strange, dark presences stronger the further she moved down the corridor. Karen’s heart raced as she became certain that more than her imagination was here with her in the darkened corridor. She more than considered turning and bolting back out the door, but some shred of logic still clung behind the looming terror, reminding her that the guards made attempting to return the way she’d come impossible. Still, the growing presence filled Karen with so much horror that pressing forward seemed impossible as well.
Then, Karen remembered Gerizim’s opening lesson. Pain or fear can paralyze you, or drive you forward harder. She set her jaw and limped onward down the hall. Coming to the first door, a solid construction of iron-bound oak that was common to the keep, Karen hesitantly tried the latch. The door was unlocked and swung inward with ease.
Karen could see very little within, so hobbled back down the corridor far enough to pull one of the dimly glowing brands from its sconce on the wall. Once she returned with light, Karen almost wished she’d settled for nothing moving and continued onward. The small room within was lined with desks and counters littered with books of singularly repulsive appearance. All the ‘paper’ seemed to be thick-cut sheets of pinkish-brown parchment that Karen hoped was pig’s skin. Short, thin bones were counter-sunk into the heavy covers of the books, arranged into letters or runes of some sort, but always within a circle formed by a silver or gold ring. On some of the books, the skin around the bones was blackened out to the inner edge of the circle.
The tomes and scrolls alone were disturbing enough that when she peeled her eyes from them, Karen realized she had been wringing her hands. She looked down at her hands and ran the index finger of one hand along the back of its mate. As she traced the thin bones of her hand, her mind ventured a guess at the origin of the dozens of symbols adorning the books. Karen shuddered and tucked the hand that was free of holding the brand into the small of her back.
The rest of the room was likewise both alien and disturbing to Karen. Symbols and words that seemed akin to those upon the books lined the walls and ceiling scrawled in some dark, red-brown ink. Only the center of the room was clear of these markings. Demarking the end of the wicked scrawl were twin circles, one upon the ceiling and one matching its circumference of perhaps ten feet was drawn on the floor in what looked like golden paint.
In the midst of the circles, a stone table stood caked with dried blood whose color gave origin to the ink used to scribble the malevolent runes about the room. The rough-hewn grey stone was in stark contrast to the polished granite of Gerizim’s table. At each corner, an iron pin was driven through the table and had a single shackle tethered to it by a rusted iron chain. Karen could almost hear screams of terror and pain still echoing from the table.
A cold shudder ran the length of Karen’s spine. She suddenly wondered what morbid fascination kept her riveted to the macabre laboratory after she was certain Kelly was not within. She quickly backed out of the room and pulled the door closed behind her.
Karen paused with her hand an inch from the latch of the next door. She wasn’t certain she wanted to tour any more of this foul place. She leaned close to the seam of the door and called Kelly’s name as loudly as she dared. She had little fear that the guards would overhear her through the heavy main doors unless she shouted. However, the malevolent presence still hounded her every step, and she felt it somehow unwise to garner more attention than her mere presence already warranted.
At length, Karen resolved that Kelly would not hear her through the heavy door unless she risked being louder. Bracing herself for another tour of horror, she slowly opened the door. Inside, to the girl’s relief, she found a quite ordinary kitchen. A large oven and stove seemed to have their flu cut into the mountain itself along the rough outer wall. The empty room was almost immaculately clean. Karen lingered a moment, basking in the momentary relief that this room was not so horrible as the first. When she at last turned and prepared to return to her search, she suddenly froze.
Spinning back to face the kitchen, Karen stared intently at a bare, plain-looking door in the far corner that sat opposite the stove. She could have sworn she heard distant voices coming from behind her, and when she spun back to face the room, the edge of her vision thought it caught movement. Yet, the room stood just as stark and empty as before. Karen walked slowly around the large, central preparation table, keeping her eyes fixed upon the closed door in the corner.
When the door opened, a blast of icy cold air washed over Karen. Inside, a small stone stairwell was hewn out of the mountain rock itself, and descended into darkness. Karen called down into the darkness. She couldn’t be sure if there was an answer or if her own voice echoed oddly in the room. Taking a deep breath, she slowly made her way down the stone stair. The bottom of the stairwell came into view, and it looked like an open doorway stood to the right of the small landing at its base.
The same moment she rounded the bend, Karen suddenly tumbled backward with a shriek, the glowing brand tumbling from her grasp to the floor. She had scrambled more than halfway back up the stone stairs before she was able to force herself to a trembling stop. She tugged the knife out of her dress and lay staring back down at the fallen light. After several moments, Karen gathered her wits and slowly edged her way back down to recover the fallen light source.
Karen was careful to keep her eyes on the floor and the wall as her trembling fingers closed around the small, glowing tin wand. At first, she resolved to back slowly up the stairs and resume her search elsewhere. However, something wouldn’t let her withdraw just yet. Karen reminded herself that she had to confirm if Kelly were there before moving on. Taking a deep breath and bracing herself, Karen forced herself to turn back into the room.
When she’d first started driving wagons to market, Karen had always helped tote the goods and load up the wagon. That is, she did until she’d been hired to haul barrels of salted pork by Mike the Butcher. That was his name, Mike. Karen couldn’t help an inward chuckle that now she remembered the poor man’s name. She’d gone down into the butcher’s cold-cellar ahead of him to start bringing up the barrels. Inside, a gristly scene of hog, deer, and partial cow carcasses, most with identifiable but flayed facial features still intact, hung suspended from the ceiling on heavy metal hooks had given her such a fright that she’d darted out of the cellar and refused to even step off to help lift things into the cart.
The icy cavern beneath the kitchen held a similar scene, only the occupants were not livestock, nor was their butchering performed by one practiced in the art. A score or more iron hooks dangled from anchors in the stone ceiling. Suspended from all but a few were the corpses of mortal girls and young women. Their desecrated bodies were pierced by the cruel hooks near the spine, supported by their upper ribcages and leaving their heads to loll forward. Virtually every one had her hands and feet removed, while many had entire limbs or even sections of their torso cut away. On each girl the skin was stripped from torso and thighs. Karen thought back to the repulsive texts in the study and turned to deposit the remnants of her midday meal on the floor.
Bracing herself against the gruesome task ahead, Karen straightened and limped her way through the ghastly remains of the vizier’s victims. Muttering a general apology, Karen hurried past most of the girls with dark hair. She felt they deserved some sort of attention, but couldn’t bring herself
to look into more faces than necessary.
There were five girls with blonde hair in the company of their darker companions. As she moved through the swinging corpses, Karen felt guiltily relieved that the icy air of the cavern seemed to have cooled the bodies enough that there was no reek of decay. Pausing in front of the first drooping head of gold, she found it took a massive store of will to reach up for the girl’s head. She hesitated again before lifting the girl’s head, running her fingers lightly over the dangling yellow locks.
“Please be someone else.” Karen whispered to the victim before she held her breath and lifted the chin delicately.
The first blonde wasn’t David’s sister, but a woman perhaps half a decade older than Karen. Finally allowing herself a breath, Karen gently lowered the girl’s head back to rest upon her chest. She wanted desperately to haul the girls down and bury them or, failing that, to douse the whole wing of the keep in oil and set it to flame. However, she reminded herself that she had to find Kelly and avoid leaving obvious signs that she had been here. As she moved to the other candidates that required checking, Karen murmured a quiet prayer to anyone that was listening to bring these poor girls some measure of comfort in the next world and, if possible, vengeance in this one.
Though two of the remaining four girls had much of their faces mutilated, Karen was able to be certain that none of them were her missing friend. She took one last look at the girls, not because she wished to see them like this, but because she felt it was her duty. Someone should be their witness, and if Fate would give her the chance, avenge them. Karen muttered one last apology to the girls for leaving them so horrifically displayed, then hurried from the carnal cellar.
Upon returning to the kitchen and hallway beyond, Karen felt the presence had changed. There was a sense of gloating, taunting mirth. It knew. Whatever it was, it knew what she had found in the dark, cold cavern, and it was not displeased. It was proud, reveling in her revulsion. Whatever this presence was, the gallery of corpses beneath the kitchen was its handiwork. Karen felt certain that not just the baroness, but the vizier as well, were pawns to some greater master, and it was older and fouler than anything she could imagine.
Karen felt a deep hatred for this thing building within her, a rage that burnt like a wildfire through her whole body. She wanted to find this thing and destroy it utterly and completely. The presence seemed to mock her, dare her to charge deeper down the corridor where it surely waited, seething with anticipation to meet her. Then, perhaps it was raw instinct, or perhaps Gerizim’s training her to watch for small details and tells in the heat of a fight kicked in. Karen noted that the presence had not only shifted sentiment, but grew stronger as she raged against it, almost as though it fed off of her hatred and very wish to destroy it.
Stopping short, Karen closed her eyes and forced herself to clear her head. She needed to find Kelly, and work out how to get her out of here. Karen was no longer certain she could wait to escape with Ourei and her father. If she could get Kelly out of this cursed place tonight, they would run and try to find some other way to help the Falon girl. The shift of Karen’s focus seemed to work, and she felt the presence wane in its influence over her.
When she opened her eyes, Karen realized she had rushed deeper into the hallway than she’d intended. The corridor had become a tunnel, coarsely hewn into the solid stone of the mountain, though the floor was still tiled in cut stone. She had rushed past several more doors and halted in front of one that varied from its predecessors. The heavy door bore a small, barred window about two-thirds of the way up its center and the latch was set into a heavy iron plate with a locking mechanism. Approaching the door, she cautiously held the light up to help her see into the small room beyond. Karen’s breath caught in her throat as the light shone on the curled form of a small blonde girl in a dingy wool dress, still recognizable as the type Ourei had purchased them upon the road.
“Kelly?” Karen called out, “Kelly, it’s me, Karen!”
The girl groaned and pushed herself up from the floor. Kelly’s face was much changed. Her soft, round, mousy features were drawn and thin, making her look less a mouse and more a feral rat, but it was definitely Kelly. She spat through the window with uncannily good aim, landing a chewed lump of bloody gristle on Karen’s upper lip.
“Give it up.” Kelly hissed, “You stink at details. Karen never wore perfume, you whore. You should know that after all these tries, I’ll never believe you even if you get it right.”
Karen was stunned for a moment, more by the venomous tone in Kelly’s normally sweet mouth than the projectile that left a bloody spot dripping ichor into her mouth. She was relieved to glance down and find that the hunk of meat was not Kelly’s own tongue. Karen wiped her face and swallowed as she stepped back to the bars.
“Kelly, it’s really me. I’ve come to get you out of here.” Karen wasn’t certain what deceptions her friend’s vile captors had been practicing, but realized that while this was the first in a good while Karen had seen Kelly, it didn’t seem to be the first time Kelly had seen her. “How can I prove it to you?”
Kelly glared at Karen darkly for several moments. At last, a minute twinkle of hope shone, though still veiled with distrust.
“What is my brother’s . . . no, too easy, you could have tortured the real Karen for that.” Kelly reprimanded herself, sounding for all the world like a craven savage. “I know, his favorite song! What is my brother’s favorite song?”
“Dammit, Kelly!” Karen groaned, “You know I don’t pay attention to stuff like that.”
“Maybe I do, or maybe not.” Kelly hissed back, “Or maybe you didn’t think to ask her that before you killed the real Karen.”
“They didn’t kill me, Kel. I’m here now.” Karen kicked the door angrily, and immediately regretted using her injured foot. “Ruin’s Name, Kelly! I don’t know the name of the damn song! Nian wastes his brain on remembering stories and songs and that rubbish! David was always singing some sappy thing about a soldier or something. He gets rich and famous, then misses home and wishes he’d stayed a farmer.”
Kelly laughed a little, sounding for a moment like her old self. “I don’t think I’d buy it if you did know its name, but that’s the one. It’s called King’s Road, if that’s not too hard to remember. You need to get outta here, Karen.”
“I came to get us both out of here.” Karen agreed, “If you need more proof I’m the Karen you rode here with, I know you can pick locks. I have a small knife here, should work for this big lock right?”
“No, Karen. You have to get out while you can.” Kelly clarified sorrowfully, “You don’t know what they do here.”
“I have more idea than I ever want to, Kel. That’s why I’m not leaving without you. Now stop being silly and come get this knife.”
“Give us that blade and we’ll gut her with it while you watch!” Kelly’s mouth moved but instead of the girl’s soft voice, a chorus of hateful throats seemed to utter the threatening oath. Karen staggered back from the door in surprise. Inside, she heard Kelly sob in with her own voice again. “Karen, you don’t know what they are like, what they’ve had me do, or what that winged man did to me. They’re everywhere now, all around and inside. I don’t know what’s me or them anymore, Kay.”
“We’ll get you better, Kel.” Karen reassured the girl soothingly, “We just have to get you out first. I can feel them too, but they are only in this little spot. If we can just get you out, they’ll get quieter and we can fight them together, alright? I think they know that, which is why they don’t want you to get this knife. I just need you to use my knife to open the lock.”
“I can’t.” Kelly replied miserably, “There’s a wall, like a circle of hands that shoves me back to the middle whenever I get too close to the wall. I even tried to dash my face on the floor to quiet the voices, but they won’t let me do that either. I hate you so much, Kay. Why couldn’t we ju
st keep going? We’d be hiding with the tree elves now. You got Addy an’ Bridgette dead, and me stuck here.”
Karen balked. The truth of Kelly’s words struck her like a fist in the stomach. Kelly’s voice regained its feral tone as she rambled on.
“I was their favorite you know; stronger an’ smarter than the other vessels. They promised me to be queen of the others. Now they’ve tasted you though, and they don’t care about me anymore. They want you instead. Everything I’ve gone through might have been worth it to be a queen, but now it’s all for nothing. Oh I hate you so much. We should have let you starve to death when they smashed up your mommy.”
“Kelly, you’re right. It’s my fault you’re in here, and I’m so sorry.” Karen pleaded as her mind raced. “When we get out of here, hate me all you want for it, but you have to try to see past that for now. That anger and hate is making it . . . them stronger. I felt it too, but they take it and stir it until you destroy yourself. Let that go and think about something else. Think about David, or how good it will be to get out of here.”
Karen tried to think of how to get Kelly out of the cell. She might have to knock the girl out and drag her to freedom, but first, the prison had to be broken. It seemed Karen would have to learn on the fly how to pick the lock, but that left the magic wall Kelly talked about when she still sounded like herself. Stepping inside to get Kelly, Karen might find herself caught as well.
Suddenly, a thought struck her. A wall was a construction, and Gerizim had mentioned that her sword was made of metal that was a bane to magical constructs. Karen couldn’t be sure that the analogy was exactly correct, but it seemed like the only option at the moment. Of course, the sword hung on Gerizim’s wall at the moment, but with any luck, the general could have drug his brother out on some errand or even catching up after a long absence.
