Vârcola Arnfried's Journal: Gilpaen 17th: A Most Chilling Discovery

And so much more!

Gilpaen 17^th

He was to begin avoiding me once more, just as I took to the library once more keen to avoid him. For the life of me, I could not grasp why the Baroness had taken my sliver of glass from me, nor could I understand why she had cast no reflection.

Her behavior was most queer by any standards one chooses to judge oddness. By this time exasperated with her, and determined to have it out with her, I have determined that I should explore the castle.

I did so in spite of the warnings given by the Baroness and Klove, the two of them having in the past repeatedly warned against attempting to gain entry into the locked portions of the castle. Notably they had warned against treading into the east-wing.

It was there that I wished to enter, for my interest in it had been piqued, after days of little to no news from either Klove or the Baroness. What was more was that they had not yet permitted me to leave, this in spite of the fact that my leg had well healed enough to travel.

Therefore I could not grasp at this time why they would not allow me, to travel abroad. The sole time I had succeeded in cornering the lady Vârcola, to ask of her if I could go before her, to alert the Duke and Brother Benjamin of her imminent departure she demurred.

“There is no need to trouble yourself, and to decide impulsively whether to leave at this time or not,” She had said smoothly in a silky voice. “I would not wish to worsen your injuries, such as they are.”

“There is naught to worry about, in that regard I do think I am mostly recovered,” I protested, to no avail.

She had insisted upon waiting a further two or three days, and now that that time had come she was nowhere to be found.

This sense of frustration, and suspicion that she was hiding something from me, or more specifically had some dark reason for why she had not yet released me. It was these dark feelings and sense of outrage that hardened and pushed me to wish on this day, to explore the keep.

But where was I to begin this exploration of the keep?

The cavernous depths of the keep were where I suspected Klove to be, and I was uncertain if it was wise to attempt to explore that part of the keep. I do not think he might have taken it well, and I had no intention of being caught.

This left but the east-wing of the castle. All but devoured by curiosity, as though it were an all-consuming hunger, the first doors in that direction attempted were discovered to be locked.

I must confess that this was thoroughly discouraging, but refusing to be denied.

The door you see was not solidly built, but rather rusted and wizened with age. As happens so very often to old men, it had shrunken, had become weary and weakened with age with its copper and iron hinges to the left-hand side could easily have been bent.

But this was not how I slipped past the door. It was the knob that was the soft-point in the door, with the knob groaning at the merest attempt to turn it. Doubtless old, by the time that the Baroness had inherited the keep, or so it seemed to me, I was to pick at it with a small silver coin. The coin selected, was a silver falcon coin from the old kingdom of Neustria, which had been replaced by Gallia, with the coins no longer in usage by the successor kingdom, Gallia.

The coin was rusted and had been a gift, one that I had no great attachment to. It was meant to be used to buy passage, yet to my mind it might serve a better purpose. Most kingdoms had begun to turn away from the Aemiliens falcon-coins, in favour of the lily-coins of Gallia, or the phoenix-coins of the Hyspanian kingdoms, and also the dolphin-coins of Theodosianople.

The rusted coin did its work, slicing away at the lock’s rusted inner-folds and links with ease, wherefore I was to slip into the room hurriedly closing the door behind me. This next room was not a room but rather a corridor.

Richly furnished just as those in the parts of the castle previously seen, it was a wonder to see some of the most delightful tapestries and paintings ever made. The tapestries in many cases depicted warriors landing upon beaches, dressed in Arnish style. In one of them, there was a young woman embracing a giant of a man, while in many of the paintings a single dark-haired woman was shown in the flush of youth. Her cheeks rosy and her eyes piercing as those of the Baroness, with the lady shown in such exquisite detail as to make one think, one was looking upon the actual face of a woman.

It was a marvelous place that led to another series of stairs, after it curved to the left. In this way, I found my way to the summit of a mountainous number of stairs.

Ascending them, it was difficult to understand why this part of the keep ought really to have been barred from me.

It was quite beyond me, why the Baroness should bar any and all visitations to this part of her keep. The fortress was lovely with the aforementioned visual distractions, but also fine midnight blue rugs made from fine silk, furnishings more finely made than any I had ever seen, even in the home of the Duke.

This was why as I mounted the stairs to the top of a great tower, I was startled to find a locked door of similar quality to the rest of those found throughout the castle. It was disconcerting how many had been left to rust from disuse.

It hardly necessitated so much work as the last door-knob to gently open this door. The chief-most difference was the dust that greeted me and made cough ever so slightly. It bespoke of how Klove had yet to clean this particular chamber.

What next greeted me as I opened the door ever so slightly was a pitch-blackness that could have devoured men whole. This was accompanied by the sound of heavy breathing, of the sort that was husky and ragged.

Alarmed by this, I briefly considered asking after the other person when something, mayhaps fear held me back from doing exactly that.

This quiet resolve was to last only a few seconds, as the other person within the room called out, in a hissing voice that sounded as though he could nary breath. “Who… who… is there?”

Barely hearing him, I led with the pendant of the goddess and as the corridors had been well-lit I answered though my voice trembled and I could not see. “Brother Arnfried of Eichbraun, may I ask to whom I speak?”

“I-I am, Hermann of Elendberg sent hither to repres- his lordship.” He murmured seemingly hardly conscious at all by this time.

Moved now by concern, for though the name was a mystery the figure he spoke of was known to me. It was thus with newfound courage that I swept up into the chambers that were soon discovered to be barren, and circular.

Empty of life the small room had but two large open windows that surrounded a large wall as though they wished to devour it. It was to this wall that the Sir Hermann was chained. Where the doors were well rusted past their prime, the metal-chains were for their part utterly past their prime.

Startled by the fine quality of the iron chains, so that I was left wondering who it was that entered the dungeon-tower to maintain those chains.

As the suns had yet to fully dip in the sunset I felt all the more nervous, with the heavens overclouded and grey. Such was the bleakness and lack of light in the chambers as to make the whole of the world seem without joy.

Hermann for his part had little light in his eyes such was the desolation that was to be found deep within his spirit, thus was the grey of the world and darkness of the chambers overshadowed by his broken eyes.

“How did you come to be here, Sir Hermann?” I asked of him, no longer tarrying so that I knelt at his side, keen to examine him for wounds.

“It- I was sent hither, by my lord.” Whispered the knight hardly able to draw in enough air to his lungs, such was the pain that haunted him at present. “I did not heed the warnings.”

It was at this time that the discovery of no great injuries, left me baffled so that for some time I redoubled my search for any signs of injury. Still there was naught to be found that was visibly wrong with the wizened young man.

“Where are you hurt, Hermann?” I queried flabbergasted and alarmed.

“Near,” He stopped ears pricking in the wind. “You must be away, brother!”

“How so?”

“She will soon arrive hither,” Warned Hermann, voice tinged with desperation of a sort that I had never seen before. “I ask only for you to absolve my sins ere, you leave that I may leave this world at last in peace.”

Frightened by his words, I did as bidden hastily absolving him in the old Romalian tongue. After the symbol of the scepter of Orcus the Light-King of Erebus had been performed, he sagged against the wall with visible relief.

“Thank you brother!” He whispered with such earnestness that it moved me.

It was thence that I took notice of how the suns had dipped beyond the horizon, at last giving sway to the night.

It was this very night that drew a shudder from the likes of Hermann, and a shiver from my own flesh, if instinctively so.

The sound of the wind blew throughout the land, and against the second highest of all the towers of the castle-keep, only served to distract me if briefly so. There was something peculiar about the sound, as it seemed as though it were scrapping against the stones of the tower.

It was as though there was a blade of some sort being traced along the whole of its length.

“She has returned! Go! GO!” Hermann hissed straining against his chains, hysterical and no longer possessed by reason.