Folly At Folstaff
Kareem Rahman
CHAPTER 1
Under a silver‑stricken crescent moon, betwixt the great valleys of the Midland forests, the citizens of the town of Folstaff unleashed their anger on the cobblestone streets with torch‑held riots and ceaseless pillaging. In retaliation for the cruelty of their secluded rulers hidden behind high‑castled walls, and for decades of grim and draconian governance, they burned and pillaged on the coldest of nights.
For years, atop a wooden stand in the market square before the grand castle, for all to see in gory detail, the decrees of these unseen rulers led to the executions of untold numbers. Men, women, and children were killed — through hanging, through fire, through all manner of twisted ways — for the pleasure of those within the towering keep, who watched, laughed, and moaned at each spectacle. And the people remembered. Then, in the dead of night, in the shadowy corners of crowded taverns and inns where the bravest of Folstaffians spoke, they shared dark and vivid retellings to stoke rebellion.
Now, several days since the most vicious riot, in the dark alleys of the eastern district of the city where the most downtrodden and desperate citizens made their homes, a robed figure who had walked the narrow path alone finally stopped. A low‑roofed building stood before him, its structure worn and close to total dilapidation.
He knocked on the wooden surface of its hole‑ridden door. Behind it, the fire of a candle danced toward the entrance, its light threading through the holes in the door and shimmering off the fractured glass of broken windows. After the creaking sound of a releasing lock, the door opened, and a pale‑eyed, white‑bearded man appeared before the stranger. With a low, freckled brow — one often held by the studious and intellectual — the old man stared at him.
“What brings you to me on this auspicious night, sir?” the homeowner said, his voice low.
Under the low light of the candle, the stranger peeled back his hood, unveiling a black mane of hair and scarred and carved face. Unlike the eyes of the old man, which reflected years of learning and shrewd cunning, the eyes of the stranger were filled with the hunger and arrogance that accompanied youth.
“Many your age would sooner be found in a brothel than making conversation with an old man like myself on Dwindling Eve.”
With a snot‑laden sound, the stranger spat on the ground before the homeowner.
“Why, how morals have fallen over the years. Come on, stop gawking at me and tell me what you need.”
Sizing him up, the young man looked at the feeble old man standing at the door with the candle shaking in his hand.
“Never mind the gloom,” said the stranger, “but I’d rather no one knew I had come to see you. Truth be told, I hardly think an old coot like you could even help me.”
“Yet you are here.” A crafty smile grew under the old man’s beard.
“Yet I am here. And the reason for my visit, old man, is this: our so‑called benevolent ruler, the tyrant who’s held Folstaff’s fate in his hands for years — he must die by my hands tonight.”
The old man chuckled, his expression shifting from humored to skeptical and back to humored again.
“Oh, why, that is serious. And what, pray tell, has he done to warrant such a fate?”
Anger flared behind the young man’s eyes. Many insults had been thrown his way in the past and, unfortunately for those who cast them, he answered in kind — usually with violence. But him, he thought, he was old and feeble and should be handled with more patience… unless he angers me further.
“Enough with the pretenses. I know who and what you are — or I should say what you were. Folstaff’s High Sage. Royal Sage in service to Ferin the Second, then Ferin the Third until his suspicious demise.”
The old man’s laughter ceased, leaving the alley quiet as a mouse. Now he looked at the young stranger with concern and curiosity.
“Then you served a different type of ruler entirely. One cruel and calculating. One who burned the homes of those who challenged him and dragged them back to his castle’s dungeons. There, in its blackest bowels, he conducted all manner of disgusting experiments in the search for some cure to some ailment.”
Impressed, the old man scratched his chin, surprised by how much the young man knew.
“Well, you are well‑informed, aren’t you?”
With an air of formality, he extended his hand for a shake.
“My name is Garrick Blackridge,” replied the stranger, gripping it tightly.
“Well, it’s been an eternity since I’ve had visitors, aside from the lord’s scholars who seek answers for old arcane wisdom beyond their depths. So your visit is refreshing — why, I’d almost call it a pleasure. My name is Bramus Waywar, c—”
“I know, sage, otherwise I’d not seek you out. Now answer: will you help me?”
Studying him, Bramus went quiet and smiled, as if something about Blackridge’s demeanour and willfulness was to his satisfaction.
“Impatient and arrogant,” he murmured. “I can work with that. Very well — take a seat by the fire. It gets chilly in here during the spring. Tell me as much as you know about this ailment the governor seeks to cure.”
Inviting Garrick inside, he closed the door behind him. Inside was a comfortable but unkempt living room; three seats stood around a fire, with mountains of books piled beside them. Displayed on a table between the chairs was a jar, an opaque and thick liquid coating some bird‑like skeleton inside. Beside it was a bottle of what appeared to be wine. As the old man had said, the room was freezing. Garrick sat in the seat closest to the fire, warming his hands beside the flames. Bramus placed himself in the chair next to him.
“Dishevelled and dirty,” Garrick said with a smirk. “How the mighty have fallen. Hardly comparable to your previous home under the tyrant. Must be hard to part with those kinds of luxuries and join the common folk here, in the cold muck.”
The old man waved his hand in the air with contempt and grabbed a pelt skin that sloshed with a liquid inside.
“Here. Drink,” he said, handing it to Garrick.
“What’s it ladled with?”
“Why, you are irritable. I invite you into my home, offer to help, give you a drink, and you return my generosity with insults. You have something about you — a pride as thick as a wall, but you’re too stupid to see it or listen when others explain it to you. Never mind. You are still young.”
Bramus took a swig from the pelt, leaving a red stain across his white beard. Convinced it was as harmless as alcohol could be to a man, Garrick reached for the pelt and drank.
“Spare me your lectures, old man, and just start with what I seek.”
“What is that, boy?” The old man wiped the drink from his beard.
“A way into the castle. A way to slay the tyrant.”
Head lopsided and eyes fixed softly on Garrick, he laughed.
“I share no love for the man myself, especially since he tore me from my home and position. But even still, his death—”
With a sigh that expressed the great effort required to move, Bramus rose slowly from his chair and shuffled toward a dusty bookshelf covered in cobwebs in the corner of the room. Garrick watched him from his seat, his patience beginning to thin.
“And why would you wish him dead?” he said, lifting his chin and staring off into space, teasingly.
“Because he sucks the land dry. Because he’s torn children from their homes for gods know what. Because he taxes at unexplainable rates at knife‑point. Because his guards have hanged families for mere insults directed at him or the statues he’s erected. Because he thinks he’s a blood‑god.”
Finishing dusting off a faded blue book, Bramus turned back to him and sighed like a man who’d heard it all before.
“Ah yes, those are all bad things, yes. But they do not affect me, and still that doesn’t answer my question: why do you, specifically, want him dead?”
He sank back into his chair by the fire and, with eyebrows raised high, stared curiously at the frustrated young man, who was clearly avoiding the question. Garrick looked away to the fireplace between them. His eyes rested on the shifting flames, his ears on the crackling wood.
“Because no one else has the skill or backbone to do it. None of them have the courage to spill his blood. But I do.”
Intrigued, Bramus leaned forward in his chair. Garrick noticed and turned to him. A dark pallor swirled in the old man’s eyes — a shadowed expression that hinted at understanding, and something crueler. To Garrick it seemed odd but immaterial. So long as the old fool helped him see the deed done, he couldn’t care less about his feelings or motivations.
“Have you spilled blood before, boy?” Bramus reached for the pelt of wine and drank.
“What’s that to you, old man? Ask no more questions save those related to what I wish to know. What weaknesses does he have? What ailment does he seek to cure? And how can I enter the castle unnoticed to kill him?”
The old man’s pale blue eyes darted back and forth between the fire and the boy. An idea had clearly sprouted in his mind — this much Garrick knew. He’ll help me, the young lion thought.
“He was a nobleman — a baron — once he was even a good man,” said Bramus, a somber tone in his voice.
“I doubt that,” Garrick said harshly.
“He saw war,” continued Bramus, “and he’s spilt blood. But he’s not that man anymore. Something peculiar happened to him after.”
Curious, Garrick — for the first time during their talks — leaned closer, his shadow elongating on the walls by the fireplace.
“Was it an illness?” he asked. “Is that why he seeks a cure for an ailment?”
Bramus waved his shaking hand, dismissing the idea.
“No,” said Bramus, after a lengthy pause. “He fell for a woman.”
Garrick’s head fell into his palm in disappointment.
“Oh, Jesus,” he mumbled.
A small smirk appeared on Bramus’s white‑whiskered face.
“To him she may as well have been. He devoted himself to her like she was the son of Christ himself. Before her, he was often sullen and withdrawn — none knew too much about him. With her, he was another man entirely: bright, inspiring. It’s a miracle that she changed him so.”
Garrick listened with the look of disinterest found in unmarried men who believed themselves above such passions.
“Where are you going with this? My time is short.”
“Patience,” said Bramus. “She fell ill — gravely so. He nursed her as best he could, but it was not enough. She slipped from his world and from his loving grasp, leaving him and his… emptiness. After her death, he became a new kind of man entirely — devoid of love and mercy, loud in declaring how God had abandoned him, and that no true god would let someone as brilliant as his love die. He cursed God, swearing to seek ways to prove His non‑existence. It started with burning bibles, then churches, then priests… and then the people. Soon we learned what he had been doing in his sullen youth.”
Bramus’s eyes drifted from Garrick’s, staring off into space. Between them, the candlelight dimmed, and the fire in the furnace crackled.
“The occult, dark arts, and sacrifices to demons — he was shockingly well‑versed in all of it. He pushed harder to fight against God. Taking children by night and — God give me strength to even say this — molesting them, torturing them, and killing them. He did this to women and children, but never men. Men had to watch and pray. If God existed, He would come to help them, he would say. He never did, and so he killed them — only after breaking them.”
Impossible, Garrick thought, having firsthand experienced the need to be cruel to those who deserved it. But to align yourself with demons and ungodly entities… to sacrifice children and women… what manner of monster were these ruling classes, and what black sensation drove them to do this to Folstaff’s citizens. Both men were silent for some time before Garrick broke the uneasy peace.
“And what of the tyrant’s daughter?” he asked, still shaken. “We’ve seen little of her in public.”
“No, you wouldn’t, I suppose. He guards her with a madman’s obsession. Since his delving into the dark arts, he’s grown an incestuous interest in her. She’s not permitted to leave the castle, and he’s made little effort to make her presence known to the townsfolk — only to those within the castle. She was—”
Bramus sighed deeply, as if it hurt to say the words.
“She was what?”
“Rumors whispered in the castle say she was born in black ceremonies, allowing demons to fill her body and soul. Of this I don’t know how much is true. But what I do know is this: she is twice as cruel as her father and delights in taking part in the sacrifices they make. She frequents her father’s room often to — gods, I can barely say it — pleasure her father. And her father allows it. It is further proof to him that God is not real, and that the base morals of modest men are not meant for the likes of them.”
Filled with disbelief at the rulers’ actions, Garrick rose from his seat and paced the room. From his chair by the fireplace, Bramus — silent as a mouse — watched him closely. Then Garrick stopped. Coated in the moonlight glow from the window, he faced his host.
“He’s worse than I feared,” he said, his voice trembling, “and his daughter sounds like the devil himself. And you — you were witness to all of this. Yet you did nothing. Said nothing. Too fearful and too cowardly.”
A pitiful sigh left the old man, who — shaking and having difficulty getting up — made his way toward Garrick. Believing he may have gone too far, Garrick expected his host to punch him.
“Yes,” Bramus said in defeat. “Yes, I’m a coward. But I’m alive because of it. One day you might have to be a coward to live.”
To a young man of Folstaff’s underclass, cowardice was death. A mugger would not stop at taking your possessions but also your life, lest you stood your ground. To give an inch was to give a mile, and he had learned from childhood to give neither.
“Doubtful,” replied Garrick. “But what of his ailment — the one he seeks to cure?”
“I forget you’re young and stupid.”
“Careful, old man,” Garrick threatened.
“The ailment is his madness. That’s what he seeks to cure.”
Brushing past him and joining in the glow of the moon light from outside, Bramus stared up through the window at the looming high castle with its specks of dying light and whistling yellow flags.
“I walked the halls of that tower for decades. I was like you when I arrived there — all the reading of tomes of magic, all the lost arts of civilizations fused into memory, all the political maneuvers to maintain some semblance of power… and where has it left me? Cast out. Here. Once, however, on a night not unlike tonight, out of mere frustration, I— I walked those halls and came across a room. An ornate room that spanned out into a wider web of sewers beneath the city. Funny how that comes back to me now, of all things. And funny how you come to me too.”
Bramus noticed the blaze of eagerness burning bright in the young man’s eyes.
“Tell me where,” Garrick said, ready to pounce.
Bramus, sizing him up, nodded
“When you are there… kill them. Kill them both. Kill them all. They are to blame for this city’s ills. They must die — and I think you may be the only man capable of doing it.”
“Indeed.”
CHAPTER 2
From the black sewers beneath the city of Folstaff mentioned by the old sage, Garrick crept out into a secluded room and into a decoratively built hallway with high ceilings. To him, a man of Folstaff’s underclass, the interior of the tower — with its lifelike busts of former rulers lined against the red‑robed walls and towering golden‑framed glass windows that held back the onslaught of heavy rain outside — was a marvel.
Keeping low and close to the walls, he moved through the shadows as he made his way down the hall. From unshut doors he heard odd chatter and drunken movement. Most of it was unimportant laments and idle gossip — talk of unknown borders and failed political leverage meant to yield greater favour from neighbouring towns. Not all of it was so frivolous, however. One exception was a woman and a guard whose voices Garrick, familiar with the passionate speech of common folk, caught immediately. They were distraught, and most surprisingly, they despised the injustices the townspeople suffered. Garrick snarled as he slipped past them. Cowards. If you despise it so much, why stay in this tower? Why not act.
Now, at the base of a spiralling staircase shrouded in darkness, he began his ascent toward the chambers of the duke. In his discussion with the old sage, Bramus had revealed where the duke and his daughter — the source of Folstaff’s despair — could be found. But in this narrow space, where both stealth and fighting were nearly impossible, being caught meant he’d never reach them, and Folstaff would suffer dearly for it. Flames from the torches danced as Garrick climbed.
At the top of the stairs, in a hallway said to connect both the duke’s and his daughter’s rooms, he heard chatter. With the grace of a jungle cat, he climbed the protruding stonework of the walls, easy enough to grip. Reaching a wooden beam shrouded in shadow, he crouched. Below, a pair of footsteps echoed through the hall. Two soldiers, side by side and bedecked in silver armour, were on patrol. The beam extended the length of the hall — enough for Garrick to reach the rooms unseen.
“How many things has that monster led us to do?” asked the soldier on the right, concern in his voice.
“A heavy question,” replied the soldier to his left.
“As is my guilt. I can barely sleep. The kidnappings, the murders — the evil that man has brought is unconscionable. And still he lives. The dungeons beneath the castle are cursed with what he’s done, and they will be a thousand years from now.”
Both men went silent. Garrick, spotting what looked like the duke’s room, crept toward it.
“Not for long,” the soldier on the right said, breaking the silence.
What does he mean? Garrick thought, stopping in his tracks to listen. First the woman downstairs, and now these two.
“We had our orders. The best thing we could do at the time was follow them. We were not in control — we were merely instruments for a sick master. Still, I’m sure someone will be brave enough to snuff out the devil’s life.”
Garrick’s heart swelled with pride at these words. I’ll see the task done, he thought. I’m the only one who can. He continued forward across the beam, now closer to the duke’s room.
“What’s that?” the soldiers below said in unison.
A cold sweat dripped from Garrick’s brow. He had thought he moved quietly enough not to be heard, but he must have been wrong.
“Probably just a rat,” said one of the soldiers.
“Three months I’ve not seen a rodent in these halls. Where did it come from?”
The soldier on the left scanned the carpet for signs of a rat but found nothing. Not wanting to draw attention, Garrick froze.
“Check the cellars,” said the other soldier. “Where there’s one, there must be dozens more, and the food stocks need to be maintained. I’ll not see us starve.”
“Surely God would welcome it. After our actions, wouldn’t it be just?”
The one who had scanned the floor grabbed a nearby torch hanging on the wall, and together they descended the black spiralling stairs toward the cellar.
Still as a mouse, Garrick listened as their voices grew quieter the farther they went.
“Nonsense. Listen to yourself. The weight you carry is not yours, and you know it. We all know who to blame.”
“The families of those children know who to blame — us. Every guard is blamed. They’ll always be blamed and looked at as monsters for following their master. Despite everything, they’ll never see the truth.”
Once he was sure the area was clear, Garrick climbed down from the beams and stood beside the duke’s door.
“Unaccountable dogs,” he muttered beneath his breath.
Before the door to the tyrant’s room, he could hear his heart beat like a drum. At first, he assumed it was excitement — nothing more than being so close to fulfilling his goal that he could hardly wait to see it done. But then he began to think it was something else, a feeling he had buried deep since he set out to commit the deed: fear. With a gentle push, careful not to draw attention, he eased the door open. With his free hand, he unsheathed his concealed dagger.
Comparable to the rich décor in fables and children’s stories, the ornate‑furnished room had everything befitting someone with the title of duke. A grand fireplace was flanked comfortably by two expensive chairs. An enormous bookshelf stretched upward into the shadows of the high ceiling, its shelves crammed densely with thick, colourful tomes. Several colossal windows revealed the town of Folstaff in a way unimaginable to Garrick. Lost in the splendour of the room, the youth almost missed the two figures casting a wide shadow from the firelight. One, bedecked in a fine gambeson with a royal sigil, was large, broad‑shouldered, and carried a sword. The other, a small woman with a petite figure wrapped in a gown, her long raven hair tied into a bun.
“Father,” whispered the young girl, her voice drained of emotion.
“The days you call me that are the days I feel most old,” replied the man, his voice equally flat. “What is it, petal? You always come to me at this late hour when you’re worried. Did another horrid nightmare take hold of you? If so, they’re just remnants of the recent madness. They will lessen with time.”
Unseen at the door on the far side of the room, Garrick crept inside, his hand gripping the dagger tightly.
Incestuous bastards, he thought. Does your depravity know no bounds? Almost possessed, he was bound by an uncontrollable rage.
“No dreams,” replied the duke’s daughter. “Thank God. But much has happened, and I fear you might be overburdened with it. You’ve not rested in days, so yes — I’m worried. The city is in dire straits, and they have callously turned against us.”
Only a few footsteps away, Garrick raised his blade high. Like the Reaper himself, his shadow loomed large on the wall behind him.
“I know. But they do not know what we know. They simply need some scapegoat for their misfortune, and if that be me, then so be it. I’ll bear it. But don’t worry — I’ll not let them touch a hair on your angelic head.”
With parental softness, he leaned down to kiss her forehead.
“I’ll play the monster they need, if I must.”
With ungodly rage, Garrick drove the dagger down at the duke and yelled. Both turned to see the anger‑mad eyes of the young man who sought their death.
“Father!” the girl screamed.
“Run!”
So possessed by fury, Garrick couldn’t quite tell when the princess dove into her father’s way or when the dagger sank into her body to the hilt. An ear‑piercing scream escaped the duke’s daughter, then an airless gasp, and finally silence.
“Guar—”
Before the duke could shout his command, Garrick — in a state of bloodlust — yanked the dagger from his daughter’s body and drove it into the flesh of the duke’s neck. With squirts of crimson, the duke reeled back over his chair in front of the fireplace, desperately clambering to stop the blood pour.
“Die,” Garrick said through quick, satisfied pants.
“No!” The duke reached out for his lifeless daughter.
“Livia,” he whispered.
“Be thankful. The people have suffered worse under your merciless hand. The pits of hell await you. When you meet the devil, tell him I sent you — with the aid of the former arch‑mage, who was the first to defy you.”
Shock spread across the duke’s wide, terrified eyes.
“What— he did not defy me— boy— he controlled us— through black magic— ordered us to follow him— ordered us to act out the depravities he wished. It was him— not me— he was in control.”
Confused and angry, Garrick grabbed the duke by the collar, pulled him close, and stared into his eyes.
“Lies. They must be lies. Why let such a man live?”
With blood still pouring from the hole in his neck, the duke tried to speak in short, airless gasps.
“He used you, boy— he tricked you. Don’t let him— don’t—. He was— to be— executed before the people— once his crimes were explained. God curse him— and God curse you— for— my Livia—”
“Lies!” Garrick yelled, unaware that the duke had died with that last sentence.
Too absorbed by this revelation, Garrick — stunned and paralyzed — was oblivious to the growing footsteps and the countless soldiers rushing toward his location.
CHAPTER 3
In the blackest bowels of Folstaffs castle, where the darkest of secrets was kept from common eyes, two men with candle lights in-hand walked down spiraling stairs. A guardsman of folstaffs caslte, sqaure jawed and bedecked in a silver gamberon donning a purple cloak, led them while the other, grey, edlerly and in a long red robe covered with expensive jewelry, followed slowly and carefully to mind his step. Beyond several torch-lit corners, and between a dimly lit cell and a liquor-filled storage room, they stopped.
At the command of his old master, the guardsman unsheathed a pair of rusty keys and openned the door. Within the circular cell, his hands bound to the ceiling, and his eye bruised and bloody, Garrick hanged, his feet barely hovering over blood-stained floor.
“Wake up boy,” Bramus shoved the guardsmen aside and entered, a dark smile now covering his face.
With pain pouring through his beaten body, Garricks head rose to meet the sage’s excited gaze. With scars painted on his body, and the hood of his eyes blown to unsightly proportions, the prisoner hardly resembled the assassin of the former duke. Bramus’s eyes, satisfaction glittering behind them, studied the suspended man.
“You – old man,” surprise cracked in Garricks voice, “Get me out.”
Bramus had watched him without a word. The arms of the young man coiled, rattling the chains above him in an echoing sound out through the hall Bramusses’s eyes flared in amusement and his lips bent into a contemptuous smile.
“Why your breathe runs hot child.’ he said. “Far too hot for my liking. Perhaps I should leave you here to cool off. But given your arrogance and fool hardy nature, that will undoubtedly take longer than either of our lifetimes.”
Rage, which he had not known since the blackest days
of his youth, danced in the young prisoners heart. The sage turned to his guardsman with amusement and laughed deeply.
“Quit your laughing,” Garrick demanded , “Tell me where we are, now!”
Bramus’s hand struck Garrick’s face with a thunderous clap. Garrick looked to the sage, an unfamiliar and murderous expression behind the old mans once dull eyes. Blood trickled over the gold rings on his wrinkled fingers. He grabbed the prisoners hair towards him, their faces now next to one each other.
“Humble your heart quickly boy, or I swear I’ll rip it from your insolent chest with my own hands.”
Garrick spat at him with blood.
“As to be expected.” he wiped the blood off himself, drying his hand on the gaurdsman’s cloak.
“Where we are is no longer a concern for you but I’ll avail you of the torture of not knowing, consider it a final kindness. We are in prisoners cells beneath the castle you infiltrated which belonged to the duke you murdered, regretfully along with his daughter, the fair princess, who ‘d never hurt a fly and was known wide and far for her boundless compassion.”
“You made me-”
Bramus struck again with a blow that was harder than the first and followed with a queer and sadistic laugh.
“You jest - I made you - no, I merely pointed you in the right direction and like a unshackled dog you leaped and scrambled to get your bone. I thank whatever peasant whore sired and ran out on such a thickheaded fool. But perhaps that’s too cruel, you did what I intended and the folly of so many young men is that they do not listen, many do not learn this lesson, even in old age. Be grateful I taught you this now before your end. “
The guardsman stood still behind the sage, his eyes watching his masters acts of barbarity without judgment.
“What do you want with me?” said Garrick plainly.
“I should kill you. But I think keeping you here for the remainder of your life is more suitable. Meanwhile., I’ll continue my work as a I did before that fool duke discovered my plans and broke my spell. Folstaff will provide the exchange I require for the powers we lost to time.”
A dark pallor fell ominously across the face of the sage, now standing near the torch light.
“Exchange?” Garrick asked him, spitting the remnants of crimson on the ground.
“Blood, child.” the sage answered. “The oldest and purest of exchanges. Do not worry you will see this and more importantly you will hear it.”
He passed the door of the cell and started to turn to the dark hall.
“Wait,” Garrick yelled loudly. “one final question”
Bramus smiled at the guardsman and looked back contemptuously with a triumphant expression at the young prisoner bloody face.
“I’ll grant you this, speak!”
Garrick’s eyes lowered with an almost contemplative manner, his gaze fixed on the stones of the floor.
“Why take so many lives, what will your rituals and sacrifices give you?”
The sage paused with an almost theatrics length, as if rummaging his mind for how best to break down his incalculable goals to a lesser mind. When he finally spoke, it was with both condescension and a reveling reserved for the pettiest of men.
“Certainty, certainty of everything.”
The sage walked away, with the air of a child leaving his broken toy for the last time.
CHAPTER 4
Torch light dimmed above gar ricks hanging head with a dance of flickering embers. The hand that held it pushed the flames closer to the prisoner. Garrick, battered and bruised with his arms tied to the ceiling above by black iron chains, looked up to the curious expression of the large man who had shepherded his torturer many months before.
“You’re a sorry sight,” said the guardsmen.
He turned his head from the man and spat on the blood-stained floor. The months had passed slowly with days of silence and sadistic torture by the hands of he who benefited greatly from the dukes murder. In this time; thoughts filled with anger at the he who tricked him, grief for those who suffered from this deception, and, finally acceptance for the state of the world as it was. He was not the same brash youth who leaped head long in anger at a vindictive sorcerers call. Time and reflection had tempered his character to someone even he did not fully understand. Yet one trait remained from that bashful youth, that was an iron will to see justice dealt to those who sorely deserved it.
“Go away,” he said.
“No,” a smile appeared on the guardsman square face.
“You want to toy with a prisoner for the devils amusement. Are you as depraved and debauched of a soul as him. Tell me, where is your master now. Setting his sight on another town to ruin or for another idiot to trick.”
A lenghty yawn escaped from the guardsman mouth as he scratched his finger on the tip of his large nose. Garrick, his hot reactions now reserved for more deserving insults, ignored him. The guardsman , uncomfortable with the silence, spoke with a seriousness in his tone.
“Listen,” he said. “I’ve got no idea what the hell you’re talking about. Truth be told, and no offense, I don’t care. But I’ve got a little side thing going on with one of the prisoners here, and he wants to talk.”
The raven haired regicide, pleasantly surprised for the first time since his imprisonment, looked to the guardsman, who looked back with lazy indifference.
“Who,” asked Garrick.
“He won’t say unless you agree to meet”
“What”
“Face to face, thats when he’ll reveal who he is.”
The guardsman unshackled his arms with a key from a rusty set hidden under his cloak and inspected Garrick, who quickly collapsed on the ground, having not used his legs for so long.
“Not sure why he’s got his sights on you,” the guardsman added, “You don’t look very important”
With shaking legs, Garrick rose to his feet and faced the guardsman.
“Why should I accept?”
The guardsman sighed with the restlessness of child stuck with an unwanted task that had been made longer.
“Listen, all I’ve got to do is give him back your answer. Either way I get paid. So, is it a yes or is it a no”
“Very well,” Garrick nodded in agreement.
The mood of the guardsman lifted quickly at the sound of the words. He turned to the hallway behind him with the flickering torch in his hand, lighting its stone floors and walls.
“Cheers,’ he said “oh. And keep your head up. You look frigging miserable”
Through black halls and winding descending stairs, the guardsman led and Garrick, his legs loosely shackled to allow him to walk but not too far, followed him deeper into the bowls of Folstaff’s dungeon.
“Here,” whispered the guardsman, stopping before a cell door that stood between two lit torches.
“Why are you doing this,”
Garrick, his legs re-familar with the sensation of walking, approached cautiously to remain somwhat within the shadows as well as in the light of the torches. The guardsman threw him a look as if to express the simplicity of his reasoning.
“Gold why else, now get going. When you’re done make your way back to the cell and I’ll see you there. Don’t even bother trying to escape. Guards patrol the only exit out of this dungeon and a beast that’ll rip you to shreds keeps order around here. If you value your miserable life you’ll listen and do as I’ve told you.”
With those final words, the guardsman disappeared out of sight and into the shadows. Garrick stood alone before the door as the fires of the torch danced in the shallow wind that whistled through the dark dungeon.
***
He stood before the door until a solem voice spoke.
“Enter,” it said.
The hallway was dead with silence and sparsely lit with the sparks of dwindling torches. From the corners of vacant cells within the dungeon, an errie wind whisleted to Garrick, who felt the cold sensation of being watched. He did not like it here and wished to leave to somewhere lit. He entered the cell passed the door and shut it behind him. Inside was a room unfitting of the name; a decorative couch sat at the corner of the room beneath colorful drapes, liqour and concocations lined the shelf above a wide bookcase filled to the brim with tomes, and fresh meat steamed on a wooden table in the center of the room. This is a palace, Garrick thought to himself.
“I’ve heard tales of you these past months.”
A slender figure faced a mirror on the wall in the corner behind Garrick. His face was regal with features common across the upper class but his hair, a dying Grey hue, was wild with streams that fell well below his shoulders and the worn brown rags which coated his slim body. He turned to face Garrick in one graceful spin and extended his hands as if on a stage.
“ Through the veil of night, without provocation or ambition,You killed the duke and his young daughter with whom all in the castle above cherished. For your heinous crimes against the, and I’m being generous here, the beloved and innocent royals, they locked you in a cell located not far away from my own.”
Garrick, made more cunning and distrustful in the months that followed his incarceration, remained suspicous of his theatrical host. He eyed a buttering knife that sat on the table in front of him and was more than prepared to use it.
“Decorative furniture,” Garrick started “A collection books and bottles of wine lining wooden shelves, this is palace not a cell. If you think I’ll believe your some prisoner like me, and one eager to help me out of my predicament, I’ll not be fooled. From the castle garden, to the servants quarters, liars take advantage everywhere in these walls.”
“Well – why I posses some niceties, I’d hardly call this a palace. I don’t even have my favorite vintage.”
“Tell me what you want or I’ll leave,” Garrick demanded, his eyes still on the knife.
“Why, you are distrustful. But given your experiences with the man, who filled your head with lies, I can’t blame you. To be used for the machinations of the old and cunning, to pay the consequences of their ambitions, you have my sympathy if its worth anything.”
“I’ll say again for the last time -What do you want?”
“I see your not as glib as you once were, no longer easy to toy with as my previous master did with you, I want you to escape.”
“And what do you gain?”
The host laughed in a high pitch that echoed in the room.
“As much as I’d like to say I’d help out of spite, I do want something, a jewel told to bestow untouchable power to its owner. It lies in the treasure room of the castle.”
“And why not get one of your lackeys to do it. With the luxuries you’ve acquired for yourself, you certainly seem to hold enough pull to do so, even from behind a cell. Besides, I don’t care for magic or its abusers, who use it meddle with the mind of those around them and to perform all manner of black rites. Given the history of folstaff, this town would be better if all objects and wielder of such objects were taken to the center square and had their throats slit.”
“Present company excluded”
The host waited for some form of validation but found none from Garrick.
“No.”
The man sighed, walked to the couch, and slunk down onto it with his mouth open and his head held up in thought.
“You’ll not do this one task for me,” he asked, “not even for your freedom”
“What use is freedom for a man who murdered the innocent. No, I’m better off in here”
“Even, while the true originator of the plan rules this town.”
“What!”
The man rose from his seat towards Garrick and inspected him with his large blue eyes.
“Come closer and look”
He reached out for a obsidian orb that rested on the shelf of the bookcase in the corner of the room. Holding it one hand and raising his other above it, he spoke in a strange dialect which Garrick had never heard. As he chanted in those strange words, an impossible glow emanated around the orb. To Garrick’s shock, the host removed his hand and still the orb remained, hovering as if suspended by some invisible stool.
“What devilry is thi-”
“Hush, and look”
The orb spun and shook in the air with an inviting warmth. Astonishingly, Garrick started to see something beneath its surface. A figure sat upon a throne within a great hall, not unlike the great hall he had passed when he assassinated the duke. He leaned closer to the orb and looked deeper at the man. It was Bramus, dining on succulent meals and drinking wine.
“How did he-”
The orb quickly changed to a line of naked men and women, who served the sage by attending to his needs. As they served, a mound of human bodies piled in the corner of the room. Each with lifeless and opaque eyes had its throat violently cut and was thrown on top of the other.
“Where Is he,” Garrick demanded.
“In this very castle,” said the sorcerer closing his hands around the orb yet again until the light around it died.
“but well beyond your reach.”
“Why”
“Because his hold on those within and outside this castle is absolute. He has, through great powers, even greater than anything I can comprehend. Taken hold of the minds of all the citizens of folstaff. Why neither you or I are effected may be a matter of sick pride. His arrogance was always boundless. He intends to leave us to remember his crimes so that we may watch helplessly as he succeeds in his ambitions”
“The arrogant bastard, that will be his folly,” Garrick cursed
“Indeed it will”
Garrick grabbed him by the collar and pushed him to the wall, knocking some of his glasses to the ground.
“Why do you seek to help me?”
“Because alone, I cannot hope to defeat him. And in all honesty, even with us both, we are no match for his powers”
“So what are we to do, nothing”
“No not nothing. We must first escape this cursed place. Once outside we must find safety in a neighboring village. There we can plan our next move.”
“That dog used me before when I trusted him, whats stopping you from doing the same”
“I’m not saying you have to trust me but we can work together to see that bastard pay. What do they say, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
