At a little past midday, Thurmond opened his eyes. He felt weak, but the pain was entirely gone. He also felt thirsty—and hungry—and he really needed to pee. Sarah sat in a chair nearby. Weary from the previous night’s escapades, she was fast asleep.
He tried to call to her, wanting a drink from the pitcher that stood on a nearby table, but his throat was so dry that his voice resembled the rough squawk of a crow. Sarah awakened with a start, saw his open eyes, and emitted a little squeak.
Thurmond pulled himself upright, snagged the pitcher, and drank until it was empty. Sarah gave him a smile.
“So slugabed, you’re finally awake.”
“Aye, and hungry. What’s to eat?”
“Not much, I’m afraid. The magician’s board is unspeakably vile, but we’ve brought in some of our rations from the pack mule.”
Though his throat was still parched, he gave her his best Roscoe imitation.
“Would you be so kind as to bring me a great pile of victuals, lassie. I’m a man with a mighty appetite, so I am.”
This made Sarah laugh.
“I see you’re not only awake, you’re feeling playful. I think you might live after all.”
She brought him a plate of salt meat, hard cheese, and a small loaf of Malachai’s soggy bread. Thurmond thanked her and began shoving it into his mouth with both hands. Finished, he climbed from bed and headed for the garderobe to empty his bladder. On his way back, he encountered Roscoe and Torgul coming up the stairs.
They were delighted to find Thurmond awake and out of bed. The lad was clearly on the mend. But they also brought some troubling news—one of Bart’s mercenaries, the fellow known as Gorb, had inexplicably disappeared. He had been present in camp at mid-morning, eating, jesting with his comrades, tending the horses. But then, for reasons unknown, he was simply no longer there.
A search of the small encampment disclosed nothing. Bart had posted sentries at both the curtain wall gate and at the door of the magician’s manse, but these men swore that the missing soldier had not passed their way. The only plausible explanation was that he had stepped too close to the cliff’s edge, perhaps for a piss, and tumbled to his doom.
That evening’s meal was better than that of the previous day. A man in tattered, salt-stained clothes had arrived at the manse with a basket of fresh fish for the soldiers. In the dining hall, the pork, though tough and stringy, was at least fresh. The wine was thin and sour, but drinkable. Only the mushy bread remained the same.
As night fell, the soldiers applied themselves to the magician’s flat ale. Some began to sing. Others sharpened their weapons, for word had spread that tomorrow would be a day of battle. Cob and Drax, by now close comrades, went off to pray.
None of the men had yet been told the nature of the enemy they must face. Bart was livid when told about the giants and flatly refused to participate in such a suicidal venture. Roscoe plied him with Malachai’s sour wine and wooed him with promises of great glory. No good. He described the fabulous treasure found in every giant’s lair, but still to no avail. It was only the threat of the magician’s profound displeasure that finally convinced the petulant knight to throw in.
Sarah waited until the hour of the Maiden’s Ghost before squirming through the window and climbing to the ledge on the mansion’s fourth story. All was dark. The magician was either asleep or in a magical trance. She inched along, window to window, searching for a way inside—a loose pane of glass, an unlatched latch.
Finally, at the corner, she found what she needed—a wooden sash rotted by long exposure to the rays of the sun. The pulpy wood gave way easily to the blade of her knife, and in a moment, the glass was removed. She laid it carefully on the ledge beside her. Upon leaving, she would fasten it in place with soggy bread.
With only a pale fragment of moonlight to guide her, she slithered into the magician’s lair. The room was dark, but she could make out high shelves laden with books and scrolls, apparently a library. In the center, a large parchment lay unrolled on a long table, three of its corners held down by books, the fourth by a large bronze key. She pocketed the key and replaced it with a carved wooden box. Keys were always useful.
Sarah glanced quickly at the parchment. There was just enough light to make out a diagram of nasty-looking symbols she did not recognize. She left it and proceeded to a door in the far wall. It was locked, of course, but opened easily with the bronze key.
Sarah found herself in a windowless corridor. Here the darkness was absolute, forcing her to grope her way along with her hands. She left the door behind her unlocked—an unimpeded flight might become necessary—and moved down the corridor to the door of the chamber she sought, the one in which she had observed Malachai in meditation. Here, she reasoned, would be her best chance of discovering the real intentions of their mysterious host.
The door was locked, but gave way readily to the bronze key. She slipped inside but remained for only seconds. What she saw in the dim moonlight was enough to send her fleeing wildly back down the corridor, all thought of stealth forgotten, her hand clamped over her mouth to keep from screaming aloud.
Back through the library she flew, the door left open behind her. Climbing out the window, her foot struck the displaced pane of glass and sent it spinning to the ground. Her descent to her own room was so rapid, so heedless, that she was lucky not to have fallen to her death.
“Heads! Heads in big glass jars! Human heads floating in some kind of liquid. They were staring as if they could see me. Some had no eyes, but they surely knew I was there.”
Sarah sat by the fire with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and a cup of wine in her hand. She had finally stopped sobbing, but the uncontrollable trembling continued. The three Adventurers and Bart stood clustered around her.
Roscoe tried to sooth the young woman.
“Now lassie, I’m sure it was a terrible sight, so it was. But try to put it out of your mind. Them ain’t but the heads of dead men, probably servants who died of sickness or old age or such. Maybe that’s what they do here when somebody dies—they keep the head—instead of buryin’ ‘em proper like we do back home.”
Sarah shook her head emphatically.
“Nay! They weren’t really dead, that’s what scares me. They were alive somehow.”
Thurmond laid a comforting hand on her shoulder.
“It was just a fancy, Sarah. You had a bad shock, seeing something so horrible, and your mind played a trick on you, that’s all.”
Again, she refused the simple explanation.
“Nay! They were alive! They talked to me…but without words. Like they were right inside my brain.”
This caught Thurmond’s interest.
“What did they say?”
“They wanted me to help them.”
“Help them how?”
“By killing them. They want to die. They were like lost souls with no way to escape. Malachai did that to them, and that isn’t all, isn’t the worst of it.”
The girl’s body was wracked by an intense shudder. Roscoe patted her shoulder. He felt terribly guilty for having suggested her second nocturnal exploration. Thurmond knelt down and took her hands in both of his. Torgul stood silently, his brow creased with concern.
Bart gave her an impatient look, then strode to the table and poured himself a large tankard of wine.
When her shaking abated, Roscoe spoke again.
“Go on, lassie, tell us the rest of it.”
Sarah wiped her eyes with her fingers and blew her nose on the tail of her tunic.
“Like I said, there were these big jars with heads inside. Living heads. But also big, square, glass boxes with all manner of body parts. Some had arms or hands or fingers. Some had feet and toes. There were jars of eyeballs and tongues, plus all the things we have on the inside—livers and lights and hearts. But that still isn’t the worst of it.”
“Stretched out on a table, there was a body that he, Malachai, has been stitching together from different parts, like he was making a doll from old rags.”
She paused, seized by another fit of trembling, then blurted out.
“That’s still not the worst of it!”
Roscoe gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze.
“Go on, Sarah—just say it.”
“You know Malachai’s servants, the ones with the empty eyes? They’re walking dead men. He sewed them together out of parts and brought them back to life.”
Bart drained his tankard, refilled it, and drained it again. His voice was seething with rage and thick with drink.
“And maybe that still isn’t the worst. You know that gray meat we tried eating, the stuff we thought was rotten pork? Have you seen any pigs here? Or any other livestock? I’m betting Malachai cooked up one of his dead servants. That’s why it tasted so foul—it came from some jar in his workshop. And then today we got fresh meat. Tasted pretty good, uh? Maybe it won’t taste so good if I tell you where it came from. I figure we ate Gorb, my man who disappeared this morning.”
All conversation stopped. Sarah put her hand over her mouth as if trying to keep from retching. Thurmond’s stomach clenched like a fist. Torgul turned an odd shade of green.
Finally, Roscoe spoke.
“This is grim speculation, so it is. Sir Bartholomew, you might have the right of it, about the nature of our meal here tonight, but we can’t know that for sure. And it’ll be best if we never know, of that I am certain. So let us agree to never mention it again. Not another word. Not to one another, not to no one. Let us bury that terrible thought for all time.”
Thurmond’s guts were trying to rip themselves loose from their moorings. He held his stomach in both hands, trying to restrain its convolutions. He addressed his old mentor through clenched lips.
“What do we do, Roscoe? Malachai’s worse than a necromancer. We’ve got to get out of here before he cuts off our heads and sticks ‘em in jars.”
“Aye, laddie, that we do. But we’ll do it in a nice, orderly manner—nothin’ panicky. Malachai’s a minion of evil, that’s a fact, but I don’t think he’s out to pickle our heads just yet. If he truly wanted ‘em, they’d be floatin’ in jars already.
“We’re more important to him alive. He wants us to kill some giants. I think that’s maybe a test to see if we’re worthy of some bigger task. Did you see his eyes light up when I mentioned the Black Stone? There’s somethin’ he’s wantin’, and he sees us as the best way to get it.”
Sarah spoke, her voice shaky.
“I hope you’re right, but you didn’t really answer Thurmond’s question. What are we going to do?”
“We’re gonna pack up our gear, right here and now. Bart and me, we’ll go down and get the men doin’ the same. And as soon as it’s light out, we’ll all go and see about killin’ some giants. Are you agreeable with that, sir knight?”
Sir Bartholomew was far from agreeable. He would no longer knuckle under to these stinking peasants. When he spoke, his voice quivered with repressed fury.
“I’ve had all I can stand of you and your adventure, old man. First you get a tribe of barbarians screaming for my blood. Now you put me at the mercy of a black magician who keeps heads in jars. One of my men has gone missing, and I probably ate him. Now you want me to go fight giants.”
“Are you utterly mad? My men and I head south tomorrow. You may go fight the giants, or don’t, just as you please, but I’m through with this whole shitting mess.”
Roscoe recognized the look in Bart’s eye, knew that the young knight was looking for an excuse to draw his sword. He would need Bart on the morrow, so he could not afford to kill him—not yet, at least. So he kept his voice soft and gentle.
“Sir knight, I understand your feelin’s. There’s a lot of truth in what you’re sayin’, so there is. Right now, things is lookin’ dire, but maybe not so bad as all that when you really think about it.”
“Take the giants—all I really want to do is go have a look-see. Maybe we won’t have to fight ‘em at all. If they’re as slow-witted as they’re said to be, then we’ll outsmart ‘em somehow.”
“And the barbarians? Those Blue Horse fellas? Well, we ain’t had no problems stayin’ out of their way so far. I’m bettin’ we can keep outta sight in a country as big as this one.”
Bart remained unmoved.
“Bollocks! I’m through listening to your equivocation. Your schemes have brought me nothing but trouble.”
Roscoe gave the knight a pitying look.
“You have to do what you deem best for own self, so you do. And you don’t have to explain anything to me. But you might have a tad bit of trouble gettin’ Asmodeus to understand—bringin’ you on this adventure was his doin’, not mine. And Malachai made his expectations very clear.”
The old Adventurer’s reasoning was impeccable. Seeing he was trapped, Bart threw his tankard at the wall and stormed off down the stairs. He was angry and needed to take it out on someone—anyone—maybe that one-armed cripple, Drax.