"Almar Gothurdle and the Silver Bane: Chapter 5" by Jermaine Leroy Joseph

5:

“Almar…!” Guido entered the chamber with a smile that faded quickly from view. By his side Gabriella shrugged and began to run her fingers through her gold hair. Watching her for a full moment, wondering whether to throw her from a window for her obvious lack of interest in the present situation, Guido shrugged too, choosing not to act insanely. “He must have gone to this crypt.” He paused. “Or tried to find a way in.” He frowned and slammed a fist hard into the door in agitation. His companion jumped, momentarily diverted from combing her hair with her long fingers before returning to the task. Running his tongue over his teeth in agitation, Guido took a final look about the room, failing to see anything with his normally practised eye, before shutting the door.
“What do we do?” Guido looked at her and then shrugged. Lately he had been stumped by much.
“We’ll ask the innkeeper if he..?”
“The innkeeper, Mr. Green?” Guido turned and saw a man in a top hat, black just like the rest of his attire. A sickly green tie ran down the laddered black shirt. “He is dead, don’t you know?” The strangely bulbous eyes leered at them intently. Guido shook his head and looked at his companion. She seemed oblivious.
“How?” He asked quietly, unlike himself at all.
“I don’t know…” said the man with exaggerated slowness, grave emphasis on the last word. “Do you?” Guido frowned, thinking that he ahd just answered that question and sure of it.
“No, I don’t know. I just told you.”
“You shook your head, youngling.” The man smiled, showing rat’s teeth, yellowed and decayed. “Mr. Toppleworthy, at your service. The pun is intended when I say I’m wherever worthy people,” he smiled wider. “Topple…” He laughed at his own humour and stopped abruptly, sweeping off his hat. Five wiry strands of white hair flapped slightly in the non-existent wind. Gabriella, upon seeing the man’s hair, gave a startled shriek low in her throat and suddenly gave over combing her hair. Mr. Toppleworthy now had both their attention.
“The innkeeper is dead you say…? So you must be the undertaker.” The man nodded, wetting his lips as he gazed upon the beauty of Guido’s companion. Seeing an opportunity, Guido stole off while they both conversed and made his way quickly the innkeeper’s desk. It had been cleared of everything except… Guido looked at the pool of drool on the table, saw that it was silver and then did something peculiar. He leapt over the desk nimbly, silently as a mouse, and cocked his head whilst muttering what would have seemed gibberish. When he landed, he leaned close to the table, almost touching it with his nose, and smiled. It was one of triumph.
Unknown to any one person, I can reveal to you all why he smiled, since it should be no secret, and indeed there should be no secrets when dealing with a true mystery offering its own clues and turns. The map had been before the innkeeper, who had drawn on the map so deeply as to ingrain the wood below the parchment with the lines of his sketch. His dribble had filled the lines, allowing Guido an almost clear view of which area held the crypt. He knew where the tower was, and could work out where the mill must be, and the library too. And, besides all this, Guido knew that he never really forgot anything.
“Guido!” Gabriella called him over and he came willingly enough, certain that he had found the way. “This man is the undertaker of Calm Spire.” The man who looked like a mad scientist nodded and made his way down the corridor to the exit. “Apparently, this village only sees such deaths once every blue moon.”
“I’ve never seen a blue moon…” Guido mused, scratching at the stubble growing on his face. “How strange? Is the moon blue now?”
“No you idiot. Guido, look... oh, don’t worry yourself. I’ve better news. The man is the UNDERTAKER! He owns the crypt and wants to give us a lift.” She tossed her shinning locks over her shoulder and grinned wildly. “Is this what your life is always like for you?”
Thinking on what Almar had told him long ago about acting the idiot once too often, Guido shook his head. “No,” he said gravely. “But it is becoming a habit.”
The man was as good as his word, and having to deal with the innkeeper after, he gave them a ride in his black carriage, drawn by black horses and spoke of Calm Spire and its history. Guido didn’t listen much. He was thinking about what had happened to Calm Spire that none of its residents seemed to know. That was the important stuff, he was certain. Information about why the village seemed so quiet, and where they got all their food, and what the knocking noises in the night were, or how lights seemed to go on and off at will. There were more questions, some of such gravity that Guido actual didn’t speak all the while that he rode the undertaker’s carriage. What had happened to their children? Why did no person actually seem to mind when a person died? What actually went on in the common room? What now lived in Carmine Trac? For something surely did. He had sent he lights, and regardless of what happened in Calm Spire Village, this image haunted him, drawing all his will and attention while he slept and woke. Something lived in the tower. Something old no doubt, and not the Silver Bane. Something powerful, and probably his and Almar’s only way of reaching London.
His goal.
Besides surviving of course, but that spoke for itself.
Despite Guido’s misgivings and his thought that the ride would not end, the carriage finally stopped, and the undertaker nodded where he sat between them on the small seats. The horses sorted loudly, seeming impatient to have them gone and be off, to watch their master prepare to make the innkeeper his coffin. Shivering, Guido was only too glad to leap to the worn soil and shake hands with the strange looking man. Gabriella favoured the man with a kiss on the cheek, smiling as the pale skin turned rosy before joining Guido on the ground.
“I can’t see what the crypt can do for you, you know?” The man said slowly. “But, here you are.” He pointed and Guido nodded, seeing the flat slate roof of the indoor cemetery, where the undertaker was going with the innkeeper’s body. “Not that way but that way.” Turning, the magician shuddered. A huge mill rose from the ground in the distance, and the land nearby it seemed to dip sharply. Why anyone would go there was beyond him. But, he saw, closer to them were a flight of stairs leading down into darkness, partially hidden by shadows. “Down the stairs you go. Don’t worry there are railings to hold onto as you descend into darkness.” Guido looked at the man to see if he had made a joke and then nodded, seeing the solemn face.
“Are the railings silver?” Gabriella asked suddenly, sweetly and almost as though the answer did not matter.
“They are, did you…?” The head shot up sharply from where it gazed at the stairs. “Good luck to you.” Without another word the man rode off.
They stood in silence awhile, each on either side of the road as they looked at the hold in the ground. Finally, Guido moved to head down and he felt himself pulled back. He allowed himself to be dragged away a few steps and turned around. To be honest he did not want to go down into the crypt. He had his magic but… Taking a deep breath he allowed his magical aura to spiral from him like a golden shadow. Gabriella, as always obsessed with her hair, saw another thing that was gold and did not shrink back. Well, that was a start.
“There are ghosts in there.” She said, folding her arms over her breast. “You’d be stupid to go there, knowing there are ghosts.” She looked at the sky as though searching for something and then shivered. “If you go then you do so alone.” He waited for her to either explain or leave. When she did neither, Guido nodded and then wet dry lips. Her eyes went wide to see his aura copying the motion. “What… what is that?”
“Magic.” He said simply, having no true idea how his aura had even come into being. “My magic given form.” She nodded as though she understood, but her eyes held that faraway look of one in shock, disbelieving what she heard. “I go alone then?” He prompted, and waited again.
“Aye.” She began to walk as though towards the indoor cemetery. Likely to catch a ride. Guido noticed that the sun had gone down hard. Day was beginning its slow end. “I’ll not stay here till night. I won’t… risk it. I do believe in ghosts.”
“I do too.” Guido started down the steps and sighed, his aura lighting the way. He found it hard to imagine Almar coming through here, but where else would he have gone. “I do too.”
At the top of the steps Gabriella shook her head. Obviously, her posture seemed to argue, you really don’t believe.
Had she seen the grin of almost demonic excitement that crossed Guido and his aura, she might have disagreed. But, as is always the case in real life, book or film she did not see the smile, she did not care to look, or call out. She turned, clothes fluttering in the wind that had picked up, and made her way to the undertaker’s workplace. If Guido had seen the look on he face, he might have been puzzled too. But he didn’t and he went down into the depths, slowly at first and then with haste, realising that it was urgent he find Almar and get some answers, after telling of the strange boy, of course. He went quicker and his intent became like a hot rage. The stairs did not seem to end. He avoided the banisters of course. The silver railings were things that he would avoid as long as he could.
The stairs ended so abruptly that he fell to the floor, landing in a jumble of maggots and decaying fox flesh. The flies revealed in his magic had gotten so bloated that their wings failed to flutter, rendering them crippled. The maggots seethed amongst the rancid meat, in and out of the empty eye sockets as though it were a tube station. Guido stood up, vomited and then proceeded to dust himself down. He wiped his mouth with the back of his left hand certain it had not touched the rot at his feet. With a grimace he stepped over the fox and then, with a sudden fury he turned and shot out a hand towards the mess, watching as he burned to cinders. Repulsed, he made his way down the crude stone tunnel, wondering at its size. The tunnel was tall enough for at least six men on each others’ shoulders and wide enough for three. He reminded himself of where he was and tried to keep focus. If something did guard the way into the crypt then it was big. That meant taking the upmost care.
It was a strangely fashioned tunnel, with phosphorous veins running through the smooth rock. There did not seem to be any angles in the dark; even the ground he walked on seemed sloped and curved. He found himself walking hurriedly, thinking on what would have happened had they actually avoided the madman previously and caught the Mage Plane. Not here obviously. Maybe he would be miles and years away from the intrigues of mystery and investigation, looking through he ruins of the greatest ruin of all time.
Guido didn’t know exactly what to think of his current situation, but he smiled grimly when he came at last to the crypt. Caskets and unopened graves were piled and stacked. He immediately was taken with a feeling of being watched and of watchfulness. It was a feeling of fear.
Carefully, oh so carefully did the magician lift his foot above the first dust covered step, eyeing the wood slats that served as floorboards with anxiety. He wondered if he could fall down through soft wood, down into an abyss of splinters and stone. It was not entirely a distressing thought, but it made that foot pause. There’s something here… But it wasn’t Almar who hid in the gloom. No, it was something else. Something that he should avoid; for now at least…
So quietly did he take that first step, and the next, breathing muted, eyes wild and darting in a futile attempt to see everything, to keep from harm. Had a mouse come across him then, with his first movements, it would have passed him by, thinking him a shadow of a shadow, a figment of animalistic imagination.
Tiptoeing across the dusty floor, Guido made his way between the coffins and caskets, eyes watering from the stink and his hand balled into fists of golden lightning. He had no idea what exactly he was looking for. He had come to find Almar, but he knew that was a waste of time and thought; Almar was elsewhere. There was the brush, of course. He had that, and yet what could it prove. And there was the child in the village, the one that had turned into a pool of living silver. Too many questions had arisen and few answers.
Apparently, this whole situation was Almar’s fault, but Gabriella had spoken to the undertaker and found that it had happened before, this series of events. Which meant that it could be a case of mistaken identity… but that created the newest enigma: why would the Silver Bane confuse Almar with someone else? Even better than that: why would there be another force opposing the Bane, yet only conversing with his friend? It made no sense, none of it.
He looked with a practised eye, seeing nothing and then stopped short, sensing determination flaring behind him.
“Guido Head, Lighthider, well are we met.” Guido put out a hand to steady himself. What he saw should never be real. “Yet I am. One of the very last, Lighthider…” He had heard that before somewhere, the term Lighthider.
“Why do you call me that?” He paused. “Are you a….?” The figure drew back the hood and nodded, revealing itself fully in Guido’s aura.
“I am an elf, Lighthider. My name is Owain.” Guido fainted