4th Day of the 4th Quarter of the Moon of
Songs, Season of Wines, Year 766.
Days in Barovia: 7. The moon waxes gibbous.
A Broad Church
“It strikes me that we’ve only been here for a bloody week,” Dickie
said, as the tolling of the bells faded.
Cornelius, burdened with Ireena’s
corpse, replied somewhat defensively. “And?
What are you trying to suggest here, Dickie?”
“Just that… It feels longer.”
“Things move quickly when events reach a critical turning point in the
fates of worlds,” rambled Clarence. “At
the nexus of fate and time prophecies interweave and the strands of reality
begin to unravel. I suggest we complete our tasks here before things advance
too quickly for even us to control!”
Dickie ignored the esoteric
nonsense. “It’s just, more things have
happened to me in this week than in… well, years of my whole life.”
“I’ve certainly killed more people,” Paris said glumly, looking
regretfully at the bundle in Cornelius’ arms.
…
The switchback road climbed four
hundred feet, doubling back and forth along the cliff face, rising through the
mist to the wide ledge on which the abbey was constructed. The rocky earth and
small trees were lightly dusted with snow. Ahead, the gravel road passed
between two small stone outbuildings, flanked by a low stone-and-mortar wall.
The path was blocked by iron gates on rusted hinges.
Through the gates, the stone abbey
stood quiet. Two wings were joined by a tall curtain wall; the roof of the
closer north wing housed a belfry, and a chimney billowed grey smoke from
within.
A guttural, braying snoring came
from one of the outhouses. As Dickie started to push the gates, they resisted
with a squeal of rusted metal. The snoring halted- Dickie stopped pushing the
gate, and the snoring resumed.
“You know Dickie, I think it might be better if we just hop over the
wall,” Cornelius said in hushed tones.
“Good suggestion m’lord. These gates are clearly not in a suitable
condition for a building of important civic purpose.”
“Indeed, indeed. We’ll have to get them replaced when we rule here.
Paris, Clarence, do you need a hand up over the wall?”
“Oh no no,” Paris said confidently, “I’ve hopped over many a wall in my time.” The foppish wizard flourished
his hands, ran at the wall and vaulted over it in a smooth motion. His comrades
joined him, Cornelius and Dickie managing to get the body of Ireena over
without difficulty.
They found themselves stood in a
graveyard in the shadow of the north wing. Ancient gravestones burst from a
thin crust of snow in the yard. Beyond the low wall to their right, the ground
fell away four hundred feet to the mist-shrouded village below; a breathtaking
view.
Cornelius’ eye was drawn to one of
the grave markers; in the stone there was a familiar looking indentation, the
symbol of the sun, which matched the medallion of the Morninglord he had been
gifted by Father Petrovich in Vallaki. Engraved beneath the indentation was the
name “Petrovna”.
“Doesn’t mean anything to me,” Cornelius muttered, seeing if the
holy symbol matched the indentation. It fitted perfectly; seamlessly; and once
so placed, he could not seem to pull it out. A ray of sunlight broke through
the clouds, illuminating the holy symbol now affixed to the gravestone. The
mist at Cornelius’ feet shied away from the sunlight, and something glittered
in the dirt.
“Dickie, come over here.” His manservant was at his side in an
instant. “I appear to have gotten my holy
symbol somewhat wedged in this gravestone. By any chance would you happen to
have a chisel and hammer, so you could extract the thing?”
“Err, perhaps m’lord, but what’s that by your feet?”
“Oh!” Cornelius noticed the glitter. “What is that?” Amidst the loose, rocky topsoil was a gold ring
with a small orange garnet. Cornelius put the ring on. Immediately, the chill
of the mountain air fled from his flesh, and he was warmed as if stood in the
summer’s sun. “Hmm. Just got a little
warmed, don’t you think Dicky?”
The manservant shrugged. “Can’t say I’m feeling it myself.”
“I’m freezing,” Paris contributed.
“Well maybe it’s just that I’ve made a lot more effort, carrying Ireena
up here, while you’re barely burdened at all.”
“As you say, m’lord,” said Dickie, still carrying Cornelius’
supplies as well as his own, including three tents long since rendered obsolete
by the Golden Bully Hut.
“Dickie, another question for you,” said Cornelius, asking bluntly “you’re familiar with crime, aren’t you?”
“I have some experience in that area.”
“Good. So, thing ring I’m wearing- it was on top of the grave, not in
the grave, so it doesn’t count as grave robbing, correct?”
“What with the ray of light and all, I’d say it’s a blessing from the
Morninglord.”
“I like that thinking! Now get to work with the chisel.”
A shivering Paris asked Dickie
whether he was able to turn a dead animal into a nice fur coat, and Dickie
informed him that although he was named Tanner, he was not, by trade, a tanner.
This sparked some debate as to the purpose of names, and indeed what in fact a
Digby was. Paris insisted that noblemen didn’t have to have trades as family
names; the rest of them were surprised by these new claims of aristocratic
heritage, and a blushing Paris insisted that even if he was an orphan who held
no lands or titles you could tell he was of noble stock by his bearing.
As Cornelius, Clarence and Paris
discussed whether they should bury Ireena in the graveyard or find somewhere
else to enshrine her, Dickie investigated the snoring coming from the outhouse.
Within the small structure he found a creature sleeping soundly, curled up on
the floor. It looked like a dwarf, with patches of donkey flesh covering its
face and body. It had one human ear, but one wolfs’ ear, and the protruding
snout and fangs of a wolf as well. The hands and arms appeared human, if
stunted, but the feet were leonine and it had a donkey’s tail. Next to the
creature was a shovel.
Dickie backed away quietly. In the
other outhouse was another strange amalgam of man and beast; female, also
sleeping, holding a shovel like a doll. This one had patches of lizards’
scales, and tufts of wolfs’ fur, and hands that resembled cats’ paws, and would
stand less than five feet tall. The rest of her was covered by a grey woollen
cloak.
Dickie stealthily returned to his
companions. “Something is very, very
wrong here. Inside those gatehouses are things I would… Not… Strictly describe
as human.”
“An undead?” Clarence asked.
“It looks like someone tried to make something out of a donkey, a wolf,
and… a dwarf, you know, a little person. And the other one is like a cat-lizard-midget.”
Paris grimaced and made sounds of
disgust. Cornelius asked Dickie if he’d been drinking. The manservant was
probably confused, those people were likely just scruffy peasants. After some
discussion they decided to entreat with the creatures.
The wolf-snouted, lion-legged
creature was somewhat surprised to be woken by the Bulligndon Boys. It leapt
away from them in alarm, asking in a horrible, braying voice “Hee-hu, who are you-urgh?”
Cornelius made his usual
introduction, extending his hand. The creature leant in and sniffed the hand,
then introduced itself as Otto, and made an unconvincing claim that he was both
smart and strong. They asked to borrow his shovel, and he eagerly asked if he
could bury the body, as he was a gravedigger.
The female creature had awoken and
approached. “What are you doing here? You
shouldn’t be here!” her voice was a growl. She chastised Otto, saying the
body shouldn’t be buried but should be taken to the Abbot- it could go in “the
pot”. When Cornelius asked what the pot was, Otto explained to him that it was
a big pot.
The creatures were not the
brightest. The female was easily bribed with food; they convinced her to go
back to her guard post as the party would find the Abbot themselves. Otto was
happy to start digging a grave for Ireena, “the pot” swiftly forgotten.
Two ten-foot tall reinforced
wooden doors were set into the curtain wall between the two wings. To one side,
a tarnished copper plaque was mounted on the wall. The plaque read: “The Abbey
of St. Markovia. May her light cure all illness.”
“This place is a lot less abandoned than I’d previously believed it to
be,” Cornelius said.
“Quite. I’m wondering where Rudolph has run off to,” Clarence
replied.
A concerned Paris said “He could’ve been turned into a half-donkey
thing for all we know. Do you think it’s catching?”
Cornelius found a handkerchief and
held it to his mouth in a precautionary measure. “Well, we’d better go save him.”
The doors were unlocked. From
behind came a sound like the flapping of wings. As they pushed the doors open,
swirling fog escaped from the courtyard within. A large well, with rope and
bucket, stood in the centre of the yard. Along the perimeter, tucked under the
overhanging wall, were stone sheds with padlocked doors, and shallow alcoves
holding horse troughs. Doors led north and east to the abbey’s two wings.
A wooden post pounded into the earth was
connected by a long chain to a short humanoid with bat wings and spider
mandibles. The creature fluttered into the air, but the chain jerked it back
and as the Bullingdon Boys came in it landed on the ground, cowering away from
them.
“That is disgusting,” Paris said, as Dickie put his hand on his
sword. Cornelius put a hand on his arm.
“Let’s just… Go over here,” Cornelius said, walking towards the
belfried wing, giving the bat-spider-creature a wide berth, his companions in
tow. The northern door was unlocked. He pushed it open, and entered.
Creatures Of Habit
The gentle, beautiful music of a
lone viol trickled down from above. The room- the main hall- was large,
spacious, lit through arched glass windows. In the lit hearth a cauldron sat on
an iron rack, and above the fireplace hung a golden disk engraved with the
symbol of the sun. A long wooden table stretched the length of the room,
holding wooden plates and golden candelabras.
A woman stood behind the table.
Her skin was alabaster, and the red dress she wore was torn and soiled. Her
auburn hair was neatly bundled so as not to touch her soft shoulders. She appeared
lost in her thoughts, until her hand was gently taken by a perfectly handsome
young man in a brown monk’s habit. A painted wooden holy symbol depicting the
sun hung from his neck. He moved with saintly grace.
“Ah, a fellow servant of the light!” said Cornelius, extending a
hand. “Greetings, my friend!”
The man strode forward gracefully
and clamped a hand on Cornelius’ shoulder. “Greetings,
Cornelius.”
“Ah, um, have we met before?”
“We have not.”
“So, you must have heard the exploits of the amazing Bullingdon Boys?”
The man smiled mischievously. “Yes. Something like that.”
This, it transpired, was the
Abbot. Cornelius told him that they had come to bury a body, which surprised
the Abbot, who told them he had performed miracles of resurrection for the
townsfolk occasionally. Cornelius didn’t think Ireena would want to come back.
The Abbot was happy to converse
with the Bullingdon Boys. When asked about the strange residents of the Abbey,
He explained that he had come to Barovia to return the light of the Morninglord
to the dark land. When he arrived, the abbey was being used as an asylum, and
although his mission was serious he could not turn his back and refuse some
charity to the poor creatures there.
The Belviews
had suffered the double stigma of inbreeding and family-wide exposure to
leprosy. For a time, there had been little he could do for them: caring for
their flesh and spirit as best he could as they descended into madness and
death. But then, he was visited by a
nobleman who brought strange texts, knowledge of alchemy and chemistry and
surgery, he claimed to have uncovered in the temple of a faceless god of
secrets.
The Belview
patriarch first asked him to replace his missing flesh. While the abbot could
not return him to his natural form, the new knowledge he had allowed him to fulfil
his wishes: and once the deed was done, Belview was much happier, and all of
his kin requested the same treatment.
To the
Abbot’s sorrow, this was only a temporary fix, as it did not slow the deterioration
of their minds; they were, regrettably, quite insane, and it was better for
them to be kept up in the abbey in isolation, while the Abbot did what he could
for them.
At the mention of a temple to a
faceless god, Clarence’s attention had perked. “How did you stabilize the transplanted organs via splicing of the
external material?”
The abbot, smiling, replied, “All with a little help from the
Morninglord.”
Paris asked why animal parts, not
people, and the Abbot explained that it was all he could do; at the time, he
was still new to the art. As the Abbot explained, Paris’ attention was
naturally drawn to the woman at his side. But as he looked, he saw under the
pale powder applied to her skin there were seams running along the flesh, long
rows of stitches running across the body.
“Who is this… lady, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“This is the Lady Vasilika,” the Abbot told Paris. “Vasilika, say hello.”
Her mouth opened but no words
escaped, only a strange grunting.
“Very nice to meet you too!” Paris replied cordially.
Cornelius pointed out the speech
impediment, and the Abbot told them how he was unfortunately yet to find a
fresh tongue for her.
“Cornelius, tell me- would you like to know how I intend to drive the
darkness from this land?”
“If you would also like to hear how we intend to drive the darkness
away. But you came first, let’s hear your plan. We’ve only been here a week-
I’m sure we’ve achieved little compared to you.” Cornelius winked
The Abbot smiled and said “I think I can guess your approach.
Hopefully I can educate you.” He paused in contemplation. “Strahd von Zarovich, the vampire lord, is
bound to this land. He cannot truly die here; nor can his curse be ended with
death. Have you met Strahd?”
“We’ve crossed paths a couple of times,” Cornelius said.
The Abbot nodded. “I myself have spoken to him; in fact, it
was he in disguise as a nobleman who delivered the arcane texts to me. He is a
miserable creature. Truly, truly miserable. Tragic. And the only way to
alleviate his suffering is to bring him happiness. To that end I have created a
perfect bride for Strahd, in the image of his lost love, and I intend her
immortal frame to keep the undying lord of Barovia company and bring him
happiness- eternally. If he is happy, the light will return to Barovia.”
“Well, that’s a bit different from out plan,” Cornelius admitted.
Paris asked if the Lady Vasilika
had any choice in the matter. This prompted some heated debate, which the Abbot
weathered patiently, as to the importance of free will, the difference between
the Abbot’s work and necromancy, whether you should condone necessary evils;
was the construct a person, and what were the moral implications of giving
Strahd a thing for his pleasure? Why would you even want make Strahd happy?
“Because it will allow the Morninglord’s light to glow once again in
Barovia and lift the oppression of the people,” the Abbot explained again
calmly.
“Well, our idea is to kill him, and I think that’s much better,” blustered
Paris.
“I’m not surprised, although I am a little disappointed.”
“Our plan is a lot more complex than just to kill him,” Cornelius
explained, “there are many stages. Frist,
we must find a witch, who flies around the country in a dragon’s skull. Then,
we go to a mystical shrine and recover a powerful sword of magic from a pile of
amber, and…”
“Do go on.”
“Then, with the dragon skull and the magical sword, we…” Cornelius
turned to his companions.
“There’s something about a hermit,” Clarence prompted. Cornelius
turned back to the Abbot.
“There’s something about a hermit as well. Look, we’ve not got all of
the details ironed out yet. But we’re going to recover a number of powerful
artefacts, and take the fight to Strahd, banishing his soul forever, or
something.”
“What we don’t do is sacrifice the entire existence of innocent young
women!” Paris said, then remembering, Ireena, “Oh. On purpose!”
“She went willingly, Paris.”
The Abbot said “I’ve sacrificed no young women. That is not
my intention at all.”
Paris was not content. “You’re forcing this woman with no apparent
free will to spend eternity with a horrible vampire.”
“When you could just gather a number of esoteric magical artefacts and
kill him!” Cornelius added.
The Abbot was unabashed. That had
been his plan, too, until he found a better path. Vasilika had been created
with a single purpose, and to deny her that purpose would be the crueller act.
“I fear you have been deluded,” Cornelius accused, “or perhaps infected by Strahd’s magic.”
“I think he’s quite mad, and we should put this poor woman out of her
misery!” said Paris.
The abbot’s face grew stern, and
he threw a protective arm between Vasilika and the Bully Boys. “Now now, don’t be impolite.”
“I’m sure what Paris meant was putting her out of her misery by
breaking off her engagement to Strahd,” Cornelius recovered, not wanting to
escalate the strange situation.
“I’m sorry, but I won’t allow you to hurt Vasilika. I won’t allow you
to ruin the work I have done here.”
“Abbot, yours is a plan for appeasement, not true action. I knew people
like you back in Saxonia. Give the peasants a little bit of what they want,
they said. They’ll calm down if they have food, they said. But you give an
inch, and they take a mile! We can’t let Strahd get anything he wants. We must
defeat him, plain and simple, so that the Morninglord may rule over Barovia
once more!”
Inside Paris’ mind, Clarence’s
voice said “Imagine what we could do with
such power! Over life and death!”
“Clarence, I’m beginning to worry that you might be evil,” Paris
replied out loud.
At Paris’ words, the Abbot studied
Clarence with piercing scrutiny. Paris, Cornelius and Clarence felt a faint
emission of magic from the man, although he did not move his hands or mouth or
touch his holy symbol- the things that they would correlate with spellcasting.
“Cornelius, your brother walks a dark path,” the Abbot said, still
staring at Clarence. “There is a taint
about him.”
“Look, just because Clarence has some strange ideas and occasionally
goes off on one about the infinite power of the universe or whatever, doesn’t
mean he’s evil. He’s just… misguided. But he’s in the company of the Bullingdon
Boys and he won’t put a foot wrong while we’re together.”
The Abbot suggested that Cornelius
give up his fight against Strahd and look to bringing his brother back to the
light; Cornelius did not appreciate the suggestion. The Abbot did not push the
issue, and said he wouldn’t oppose them in their quest, even if he thought it erroneous.
Clarence asked the Abbot if he
could study his alchemical texts, but the Abbot denied him, claiming that he
didn’t trust Clarence with the knowledge, and even if he did the Bullingdon’s
mind would likely not be able to comprehend the contents. Clarence did not take
kindly to that at all.
Paris enquired as to where the
body parts to create Vasilika had come from; the Abbot assured him it was from
dead bodies only. Cornelius asked if the collection of these body parts had
anything to do with “the pot”, which reminded the Abbot of something. He called
upstairs “Clovin! It’s feeding time!” and
the gentle music stopped, then the bell rang out half a dozen times.
The ringing bell was joined by
discordant cries of “Food! Food!” from
the courtyard and the residential wing beyond. A creature descended from the belfry-
another one of the Abbot’s vivisections, one foot a bear’s paw, a crab pincer
for one hand, his head goat-featured… and a second head, smaller, soft featured,
awkwardly growing next to the first.
Clovin reached the bottom of the
stairs. He looked at the party, then at the Abbot; then, swaying slightly, he
moved to the hearth and lifted the cauldron down. Ignorning the others in the
room, he dragged the cauldron, muttering about “letting them all starve”.
The Abbot explained that some of
the unusable scraps of his work were thrown in to the pot to nourish the
Belviews. Unfortunate, but a necessity given that the narrow cliff path didn’t
allow for deliveries, not that the villagers would trade with them, not that
they had anything to trade. There were around sixty inmates and the abbey
garden could not provide enough for them all.
Clarence asked the Abbot if they
were free to look around the abbey. He saw no harm in it, but asked them not to
disturb any the inmates, and warned them of a guardian, there for the inmates
own protection. A previous attempt at creating something like Vasilika. They
should be safe as long as they were with his manservant, Clovin.
As Clarence moved to the
descending staircase the Abbot said “That’s
the cellar- which you are free to look at, of course.” The stone steps lead
into a cool room containing barrels of wine, and a long rack of bottles. The
wizard began searching fervently for any
hidden doors or compartments that may lead to the Abbot’s books; he found none,
but did discover a scroll, rolled up in an empty wine bottle, which held a
spell that would conjure a mighty feast.
Having thoroughly explored the
cellar, the Bully Boys moved back up to the hall, smiling awkwardly at the
Abbot as they then ascended to the Belfry. A black shroud covered a humanoid
shape on an old wooden table, and on the other side of the room a cot heaped
with furs was surrounded by empty wine bottles. Next to the cot was a chair and
viol.
Dickie drew back the shroud to
reveal discarded pieces of chopped up body parts, cold, grey, lifeless, female,
waiting to be stitched together into something horrid. He backed away, gagging.
“This man has a serious woman problem,” Paris stated.
“He doesn’t seem terribly healthy about it. Nonetheless, he’s doing
great work.”
“Is he doing great work, Clarence?” Cornelius asked, scathingly.
In hushed tones, Dickie warned “He can probably hear us.”
“Well maybe we want him to hear us! Maybe we should do to him what we
did to Baron Vallakovich!”
“You mean, save him from an unfortunate accident?”
“Um… Maybe we should do to him, what we did to Lady Wachter!”
“You mean, deliver him into the arms of true justice provided by the
Barovian legal system?”
“Fine! Maybe we should do to him what we did to Ernst Larnak!” Cornelius
paused, and the Bullingdon Boys reflected on their slaying of Lady Wachter’s spy.
“We need to put a stop to this madness
now, and that man is so deluded I don’t think he’ll listen to reason.”
Dickie suggested they find Van
Richten first- he’d probably know what to do. Clarence started digging around
looking for the books again, and managed to convince Paris to help him. Taking
the books would put an end to the Abbot’s awful experiments and he would help
Paris assist Vasilika if they did find them. But the books were not in the
belfry, not under the stinking furs in the cot or amongst the body parts on the
table.
The Bullingdon Boys headed out of
the belfry onto the curtain wall. In the courtyard fifteen feet below, Clovin
had just reached the other wing, having been dealing out slops to those
creatures of his family housed in the sheds.
Clarence hailed him from above,
asking about the guardian. Clovin barked back that they should be fine if they
were with him, but the guardian may try to throw them in with the inmates if it
thought they were trying to escape.
The Hand That Feeds
They entered the east wing from
the wall, entering an old and decrepit office space. Stairs led down, and a
door led into further rooms. Above the cries of “Food!” from below the sound of sobbing came from somewhere on this
floor; the Bully Boys ignored the noise, for now, and went downstairs to find
Clovin with the cauldron at the end of a dark passage heading into the
building.
The corridor was full of unnatural
whispers, mad laughter, and bestial odours; and overwhelmingly cries of “Food! Food!” The voices called from
behind heavy doors lining the walls.
With heavy footsteps a large
figure approached from the far end of the corridor. Clovin looked up at it. “The Abbot says their allowed to be here.” The
figure was a looming stitchwork of dead human parts, massive and monstrous,
with strange intelligence in its eyes: a golem made of flesh. It stood next to
Clovin as he unlocked the first door.
Monstrous hands were thrust out of
the door holding wooden bowls. Clovin slopped stew from the pot into the bowls,
which were then retracted. The door was shut and locked.
The next room, Dickie edged his
way next to the flesh golem to look into the room. It was packed wall to wall
with mongrelfolk wallowing in their own filth, the floor strewn with gnawed misshapen
bones that looked as if they had come from their own. These only had a few
bowls between them, and they fought each other to get the slop.
And so it went through the eight
rooms of the asylum. In one, four mongrelfolk brawled over a lone bowl while a
fifth watched, cackling, from behind a statue of a saintly woman; eventually,
one was victorious and was fed, then the door was slammed shut.
In another, a group of mongrelfolk
chanted something spell-like: “Magic make
the bell to ring, then to us our dinner bring! Now we cast our magic spell,
food will come with ring of bell!” Paris assured Cornelius that it wasn’t a
real spell.
As the door to the fourth room was
opened a group of hungy, silent, staring Belviews rushed at Clovin, but the
golem interceded and threw them back. They were not fed.
Another room held capering,
dancing, singing mongrelfolk, the leader holding a gold statue, singing “The devil dwells in his dark house upon the
misty pillar! First he’ll taste her sweet sweet blood, then he’ll have to kill
her!” They danced their way to the door, producing wooden bowls.
The last room held half a dozen
mongrelfolk fighting over a bronze candlestick, but they stopped when the food
arrived, scampering over hungrily.
With some relief, Dickie noted
that Van Richten did not appear to have been thrown in with the Belviews. As
Clovin began dragging the two-thirds empty cauldron back down the corridor, and
the golem took up a position guarding the far door, the manservant asked him
what was upstairs.
“It’s where the Abbot does his work,” the two-headed creature
replied.
The Bully Boys went upstairs. The
sobbing sound still persisted, and they followed it into a hospital room of wrought-iron
beds with rotting mattresses. Leading from this room were three doors, each labelled
with a plaque: operating room, nursery, and morgue. The weeping came from the
operating room.
Blood stained rivulets were carved
into the floor, leading past a wooden bucket holding body parts and a metal
trolley holding sharp tools, to an operating table where a creature lay
weeping; sobbing, shuddering, heaving breaths. It lay turned away from them, its
right arm replaced by the black wing of a raven, spread to cover itself. One
leg, still human, was entwined by a squid like tentacle replacing the other. As
they entered, the creature turned its head, revealing a cluster of bifurcated
eyes above an awful, spider-like mandible, marring the left side of the face.
It stared at them in madness… Then, recognition dawned in the human eye.
The creature before them was- or
had been- Rudolph Van Richten.
“What have they done to you?” Dickie muttered.
Van Richten struggled to splutter
words through his disfigured mouth. “The
Abbot… his, his wroth… like nothing I’ve ever seen… Do not anger him…” the
monster hunter stretched his human hand towards Cornelius. “My ring, Cornelius. My ring! On my, on my finger.”
“This is your ring?” Cornelius asked, flourishing the ring he had found
on the grave; Van Richten looked confusedly at him. In the bucket of severed
parts Dickie found Van Richten’s other hand, and on one finger was a ring. The
manservant worked the jewellery off the dead flesh, and put it on to Van
Richten’s living hand. As he did so, the ring vanished.
“Good,” Van Richten croaked, just above a whisper. “Cornelius, when it is done you must… you
must wear the ring. Promise. Promise me!”
“Yes, Rudolph, I will wear the ring. But, when what’s done?”
The eyes, one human, the others
monstrous, stared beseechingly at Cornelius. “Please. Kill me.”
“Dickie. The Bullingdon rapier.”
Ceremoniously, Dickie passed
Cornelius the sword. His younger brother held up a hand in pause. “Wait. What was the rest of your plan to
kill Strahd?”
“Wear the ring,” Van Richten coughed.
“I will wear the ring for you, Rudolph. But Clarence raises an
important question- we were a bit muddled earlier trying to explain to the
Abbot what exactly we were intending to do to defeat Strahd.”
Van Richten’s face was a mask of pain.
“You’ll know. All will be revealed.
Please, end this.”
“Oh, just do it!” Paris cried. “We
should have got here earlier.”
“We’re sorry it had to end this way,” Dickie said gently.
Cornelius raised the Rapier. “Now, if I can remember where the heart is…”
and the blade thrust into Van Richten’s chest, about four inches to the
side of his heart. “Morninglord be with
you, my friend,” Cornelius intoned, leaning his weight into the blade and
closing his eyes in prayer. Van Richten writhed in agony, squealing.
Dickie surreptitiously reached
over and drew the blade of his dagger across Van Richten’s throat, and the man
fell still at last. Cornelius closed his one human eye, and with his touch the
body began to glow with soft, gentle light.
“Dickie, pass me the ring.” The manservant did as told; the ring
had reappeared as Van Richten died. Cornelius slipped it onto his own finger,
and it once again was disappeared: invisible, but he could feel it still. A
voice appeared in Cornelius’ head; familiar nasal tones.
"Well that was about the most unpleasant experience of my life,” said
Rudolph Van Richten.“So. Things haven’t
quite gone to plan.”
