Emirikol Part IV, scene 4

[subplotkudzu]

Melas yanks Antonio into concealment next to the staircase, so that he can leap out upon whoever comes down the stairs. He grips the splinter dagger-style and waits.

Antonio lets out a squawk at the sudden movement and Melas is certain that the addled man has cost him his one opportunity, but the blind pirate appears not to notice - the man is singing a vile sea shanty to himself as he goes about his rounds! Melas holds his breath, waiting for the sightless jailor, whose hands are full of a tray with three large bowls of slop, to pass them - the fiend is unaware of either the light or his impending demise.

When he sees his opening Melas moves. He drives his makeshift wooden dagger into the man's back, so that he might pierce his lung and thus silence him. Unfortunately the splinter is snagged by a padded doublet under the man's highly inappropriate valet's garb. The blow does overbalance the fellow, his forward tumble freeing the nobleman's desperate blade along with a trail of threaded woolen padding. Antonio, but accident or design, falls in front of the staggering pirate, bringing both men and stew onto the ground, their collapse partially muffled by Antonio's thin frame. Melas tries again, grabbling the man's hair with one hand and silencing his song forever with a splintered thrust into his neck.

Dying but not dead the blind pirate hurls himself free from Antonio's ineffective grapple, and, using the wall for support, shoves himself back to his feet. One hand holds his neck wound closed, the other sways a long knife into the hall to ward off further attacks, grasping at the thin reed of hope that the muted sounds of the struggle might summon assistance.

It would require more willpower than Melas possesses not to kick the wounded blind man. Remembering his beating at the hands of the villains upstairs, he Puts The Boot In repeatedly until the fellow stops moving.

That task done, he snatches up the pirate's knife to replace his splintered blade. During this time Antonio regained his feet and the pair ascended the shallow stairs to the next level. The absence of any other light in the hall is indication enough that there are no sighted folk on the floor, but there is also no indication of windows or any other sign that they might now be above ground. Once they have gained the floor they have two options - another stair of similar construction begins directly opposite them, or the building's central hall runs to their right.

Melas knows that the wall to their left is flush with another building, given how the passage had been expanded to another basement on the floor below. He is also familiar enough with houses of this type, as they were common enough on the southern shores centuries ago and his family owns more than one: these distant stairs are intended for the guests, when even such a minor wasting of space would be considered ostentation. The tradition of the time had showing rooms for artwork in the basement, opposite the wine cellar, both as a protection against thieves and against harsh daylight muting the paints (plus, such rooms had to be carefully maintained to avoid the damp, further evidence of wealth). Melas estimates that the wall to his right is between one third and one quarter oriented towards the sea. There would be no door on that wall, but there would once have been several large windows, both on the wall itself and on the seaward landing, to impress the guests. Perhaps the seaward windows would still open to air, even if they are no doubt covered, but the house might actually be surrounded on all sides.

The other option, the central hall, would run the length of the house on all floors. If they were on a ground floor it would open to a central entry hall. If not, it is a mass of servants quarters with a tight stairwell behind one of the doors. Melas recalls being carried down such a stair, but it might have been in the Andres residence rather than this one. Cursing the denizens of this madhouse he decided to risk trying to retrace his original path rather than ascend these stairs with no guarantee that they would still contain an exit - the central hall it is.

The servants stair is found with little difficulty, and as Melas ascended his keen ears could make out voices ahead. Turning down the wick of the stock lantern lest their light reveal them to the lady of the house he motioned for Antonio to stay silent but keep moving - the latter more difficult for the crazed man than the former when the croaking laugh of Signora Hurea echoes down the stairs. Still, the two are able to climb two stories in the circular stairwell until they are in a room whose natural darkness has bee turned to dimness by an occluded light in the direction that Melas considers to be the exit. That light is partially blocked by one of the swinging doors installed to make the day too day work of the blind pirates easier, and beyond it he can hear Signora Huera speaking to. . . no one?

Melas risks a glance, and in so doing spies a large room that must have once been more than one chamber - all the walls having been taken down to turn a shared fireplace between library and dining room into more of a brick fire pit. The signora's veil was off, but mercifully her gaze was directed into the cracking and blazing tinder.

"Noooooo," she says before issuing her croaking laugh, "the fool Reme has botched it, no doubt. Oh, he's fulfilled his payment too join the Red Tide, and those fools will take him sure enough, but he's not half so cunning as he thinks. One of our converted heard the paladins raid on the actor's little magpie's nest last night, and their questioning, and one of the new factors asked about Reme and Sebastian."

There is a moment where the only noise is the cracking fire, and Melas realizes that the Signora is not looking at the fire, but at something she is holding in her hands - an amulet perhaps, or a ring on a chain. Her speaking again makes him jump, and elicits a whimper from his companion. "Like I said, botched it. Still, every little bit helps, and the old thirteen cursed elven bastard is dead." Another croaking laugh that seems to almost echo from the object in her hands. "Now I just have to have a discussion with that misshapen popinjay who stumbled in yesterday, to see if Reme has betrayed us further. How go things in the towers? "

This line of talk was severed when Melas felt a corded arm wrap about his head, yanking him backwards! One of the blind pirates had managed to sneak behind him while that fool Antonio neither did nor said a thing in his stupefied terror! Had the man been sighted surely Melas would be dead in moments from a crushed throat, but by great good fortune the mans arm had caught the hunchback's chin instead. Not above dirty tricks in a crisis, the noble dug his teeth into the pirates arm, drawing blood and a scream from both the pirate and Antiono, whose silence had now turned to total panic.

Spinning madly to keep himself from seeing the Signora's inhuman features again, Melas struck out with his long knife, opening a gash on the blind pirates arm that began to bleed freely. The pirate drew and attempted to return the stroke but his blood slicked hand slipped on the hilt, letting Melas swat the attack away and drive the poniard home through waistcoat, doublet and sternum. Behind him he heard a loud crash, and turned to see the Signora effortlessly holding up her husband with a single arm, forcing him to meet her gaze, his desperate, weakened thrashings overturning one of the room's chairs and a small table.

"Thought you'd get away, dear? We're bound until death, you and I, remember? And I shall never let you die." The foul mockery of a woman croaked, and she then began laughing her shuddered, coughing laugh as Antonio wheezed, whimpered and fell still. She dumped him in the upright chair before turning to face the bedraggled, blood stained nobleman.

Melas, too canny an opponent to make the mistake of looking at the signora's features, kept his eyes centered on her abdomen as he hurled the storm lantern. It flared as it spun, and Melas could see that his aim was true, when the Signora uttered a word and the wick died. The lamp found its mark, shattering and drenching the hag's clothes in a useless gesture - perfume in the eyes would have been more effective. "Every sea witch in the fleet learns how to extinguish an errant flame, my broken popinjay."

Her stride was unnaturally fast, her limbs freakishly long, and Melas had no time too counter as her iron-hard nails batted aside his knife and her long fingers latched like a fistful of hungry leaches around his throat, pulling his feet off the ground and his face closer to hers, where her enervating, accursed state might work its awful power on him yet again.

To be continued.