The Ruby Knight

"I believe he's still in that central room, lady. He usually reads for most of the night."

"Good." She looked at the bed and snapped her fingers.

"Bevier, get up." The Arcian rose stiffly, his eyes blank.

"Kurik," she said, "you and Occuda help him. Don't let him fall down. Flute, you go back to bed. I don't want you to see this."

The little girl nodded."

Come along, gentlemen," Sephrenia said crisply. "We haven't much time left."

"Just exactly what are you doing?" Sparhawk asked as he followed her down the hall. For a small person she moved very fast.

"There isn't time to explain," she said. "We need the count's permission to go to the cellar - and his presence I'm afraid."

"The cellar?" Sparhawk was baffled.

"Don't ask foolish questions, Sparhawk." She stopped and looked at him critically. "I told you to keep your hands on that spear," she scolded him. "Now go back to your room and get it."

He threw his hands helplessly in the air and turned around.

"Run, Sparhawk!" she shouted after him.

He caught up with them just as they entered the doorway that opened out onto the stairs leading down into the sunken room near the centre of the castle. Count Ghasek still sat hunched over his book in the flickering light of his guttering candle. His fire had burned down to embers, and the wind from the storm outside howled fitfully in the chimney.

"You're going to ruin your eyes, My Lord," Sephrenia told Him. "Put aside the book. We have things to do."

He stared at her in astonishment.

"I need to ask a favour of you, My Lord."

"A favour? Of course, Madame."

"Don't be too quick to agree, Count Ghasek - not until you know what I'm going to ask you. There's a room in the cellar of your house. I need to visit it with Sir Bevier here, and I'll need to have you accompany us. If we move quickly enough, I can cure Bevier and rid this house of its curse."

Ghasek stared at Sparhawk, his face totally baffled.

"I'd advise doing as she says, My Lord," Sparhawk told him. "you'll do it in the end, anyway, and it's a lot less embarrassing if you just agree gracefully."

"Is she like this often?" the count asked, rising to his feet.

"Frequently."

Time is passing, gentlemen," Sephrenia said, her foot tapping impatiently on the floor.

"Come with me, then," the count said, giving up. He led them up the stairs and into the cobwebby corridor.

"The entrance to the cellar is this way." He pointed down a narrow side hall and then led the way again. He took a large iron key from his doublet and unlocked a narrow door. "We'll need light," he said.

Kurik took a torch down from its ring and handed it to him.

The count lifted the torch and started down a long flight of narrow stone stairs. Occuda and Kurik supported the somnolent Bevier to keep him from falling as they descended. At the foot of the stairs, the count turned to his left. "One of my ancestors considered himself to be quite a connoisseur of fine wines," he said, pointing at dusty casks and bottles lying on their sides on wooden racks back in the dimness as they passed. "I have little taste for wine myself, so I seldom come down here.

It was only by chance that I happened to send Occuda down here one night, and he came upon that dreadful room."

"This is not going to be very pleasant for you, My Lord, " Sephrenia warned him. "Perhaps you might want to wait outside the room."

"No, Madame," he said. "If you can endure it, I can as well. It's only a room now. What happened in it is in the past."

"It's the past which I intend to resurrect, My Lord."

He looked at her sharply.

"Sephrenia is an adept in the secrets," Sparhawk explained. "She can do many things."

"I have heard of such people," the count admitted, "but there are few Styrics in Pelosia, so I've never seen those arts performed."

"You may not wish to, My Lord," she warned him ominously. "It's necessary for Bevier to see the full extent of your sister's perversions for him to be cured of his obsession. Your presence as the owner of the house is necessary, but if you stand just outside the room, it will suffice."

"No, Madame, witnessing what happened here may stiffen my resolve. If my sister cannot be restrained by confinement, I may find it necessary to take sterner measures."

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that."

"This is the door to the room," the count said, producing another key. He unlocked the door and opened it wide. The sickening stench of blood and decaying flesh washed out over them. By the flickering light of the torch, Sparhawk saw immediately why this chamber had inspired such horror. A rack stood in the centre of the blood-stained floor, and cruel hooks jutted from the walls. He winced when he saw that many of the hooks had gobbets of blackened flesh clinging to them. On one wall hung the gruesome implements of the torturers trade, knives, pincers, branding irons and needle-sharp hooks. There were also thumbscrews and an iron boot, as well as assorted whips.

"This may take some time," Sephrenia said, "and we must complete the task before morning. Kurik, take the torch and hold it as high over your head as you can.

Sparhawk, hold the spear In readiness. Something may try to interfere." She took Bevier's arm and led him towards the rack. "All right, Bevier," she said to him, "wake up."

Bevier blinked and looked around in confusion. "What is this place?" he said.

"You're here to watch, not to talk, Bevier," she told him crisply. She began to speak in Styric, her fingers moving rapidly in the air in front of her. Then she pointed at the torch to release the spell.

At first nothing seemed to happen, but then Sparhawk saw a faint movement near the brutal rack. The figure was dim and hazy at first, but then the torch flared up, and he could see it more clearly. It was the form of a woman, and he recognized her face. She was the Pelosian woman he had seen emerging from the Styric house in Chyrellos. Her face was also the face of the succubus that had hovered over Bevier's bed earlier this night. She was naked, and her face was exultant. In one hand she held a long, cruel knife, in the other, a hook.

Gradually, another figure began to appear, strapped down on the rack. The second figure appeared to be that of a serf-girl, judging from her clothing. Her face was contorted into an expression of mindless terror, and she struggled futilely with her bonds.

The woman with the knife approached the bound figure on the rack and with deliberate slowness began to cut her clothing away. When the serf-girl had been stripped, the count's sister methodically began on her flesh, muttering all the while in an alien Styric dialect. The serf-girl was screaming, and the look of cruel exultation on Lady Bellina's face locked into a Hideous grin. Sparhawk saw with revulsion that her teeth had been filed to points.

He looked away, unable to watch any longer, and he saw Bevier's face. The Arcian watched in horrified disbelief as Bellina gorged herself on the girl's flesh.

When it was done, blood was running from the corners of Bellina's mouth, and her body was smeared with it.

Then the images changed. This time Bellina's victim was a male, and he writhed on one of the hooks protruding from the wall while Bellina slowly carved small chunks from his body and ate them with relish.

One after another, the procession of victims continued.

Bevier was sobbing now and trying to cover his eyes with his hands.

"No!" Sephrenia said sharply, Pulling his hands down.

"You must see it all."

On and on the horror went as victim after victim came under Bellina's knife. The worst were all the children.

Sparhawk could not bear that.

And then, after an eternity of blood and agony, it was over. Sephrenia looked intently into Bevier's face. "Do you know who I am, Sir Knight?" she asked him.

"Of course," he sobbed. "Please, Lady Sephrenia," he begged, "no more, I pray you."

"How about this man?" She pointed at Sparhawk.

"Sir Sparhawk of the Pandion Order, my brother knight."

"And him?"

"Kurik, Sparhawk's squire."

"And this gentleman?"

"Count Ghasek, the owner of this unhappy house."

"And him?" She pointed at Occuda.

"He's the counts servant, a good and honest man."

"Is it still your intention to release the counts sister?"

"Release her? Are you mad? That fiend belongs in the deepest pit in hell."

"It's worked," Sephrenia said to Sparhawk. "We won't have to kill him now." There was a great relief in her voice.

Sparhawk cringed back from the implication of her matter-of-fact tone.

"Please, My Lady," Occuda said in a shaking voice, "can we go out of this horrible place now?"

"We're not finished yet. Now we come to the dangerous part. Kurik, take the torch to the back of the room. Go with him, Sparhawk, and be ready for anything."

Shoulder to shoulder the two slowly walked to the back of the chamber. And then in the flickering torchlight they saw the small stone idol set in a niche in the back wall. It was grotesquely misshapen and had a hideous face.

"What is it?" Sparhawk gasped.

"That is Azash," Sephrenia replied.

"Does He actually look like that?"

"Approximately. There are some things about Him that are too horrible for any sculptor to capture."

The air in front of the idol seemed to waver, and a tall, skeletal figure in a hooded black robe suddenly appeared between the image of Azash and Sparhawk. The green glow coming out of the hood grew brighter and brighter.

"Don't look at its face!" Sephrenia warned them sharply. "Sparhawk, slide your left hand up the shaft of the spear until you're holding the blade."

He vaguely understood, and when his hand reached the blade-socket, he felt an enormous surge of power.

The Seeker shrieked and flinched back from him, and the glow from its face flickered and began to fade.

Grimly, step by step, Sparhawk advanced on the hooded creature, holding the spear-blade out in front of him like a knife. The Seeker shrieked again and then vanished.

"Destroy the idol, Sparhawk," Sephrenia commanded.

Still holding the spear, he reached forward with one hand and took the idol from its niche. It seemed terribly heavy, and it was hot to the touch. He raised it overhead and dashed it to the floor where it shattered into hundreds of pieces.

From high up in the house came a shriek of unutterable despair.

"Done!" Sephrenia said. "Your sister is powerless now, Count Ghasek. The destruction of the image of her God has bereft her of all supernatural capabilities, and I think that were you to look at her, you'd find that she once again appears as she did before she entered the Styric house in Chyrellos."

"I will never be able to thank you enough, Lady Sephrenia," he said with gratitude.

"Was that the same thing that's been following us?"

Kurik asked.

"Its image," Sephrenia replied. "Azash summoned it when He realized that the idol was in danger."

"If it was only an image, then it wasn't really dangerous, was it?"

"Don't ever make that mistake, Kurik. The images Azash summons are sometimes even more dangerous than the real things." She looked around with distaste.

"Let us leave this revolting place," she suggested. "Lock the door again, Count Ghasek - for the time being. Later on, it might be wise to wall up the entrance."

"I'll see to it," he promised.

They went back up the narrow stairs and returned to the vaulted room where they had found the count. The others had already gathered there.

"What was all that awful screaming?" Talen asked. The boys face was pale.

"My sister, I'm afraid," Count Ghasek replied sadly.

Kalten looked warily at Bevier. "Is it safe to talk about her in front of him?" he quietly asked Sparhawk.

"He's all right now," Sparhawk answered, "and Lady Bellina has been stripped of her powers."

That's a relief. I wasn't sleeping too well under the same roof with her." He looked at Sephrenia. "How did you manage it?" he asked. To cure Bevier, I mean?"

"We found out how the lady was influencing others," she said. "There's a spell that temporarily counteracts that sort of thing. Then we went to a room in the cellar and completed the cure." She frowned. "There's still a problem, though," she said to the count. "That minstrel's still out there. He's infected, and the servants you sent away probably are as well. They can infect others, and they could return with a large number of people. I cannot remain here to cure them all. Our quest is far, far too important for such delay."

"I will send for armed men," the count declared. "I have enough resources for that, and I will seal up the gates of the castle. If necessary, I will kill my sister to prevent her escape."

"You may not have to go that far, My Lord," Sparhawk told him, remembering something Sephrenia had said in the cellar. "Let's go and have a look at this tower."

"You have a plan, Sir Sparhawk?"

"Let's not get our hopes up until I see the tower."

The count led them out into the courtyard. The storm had largely passed. The lightning was flickering on the eastern horizon now, and the pounding rain had diminished to intermittent tatters that raked the shiny stones of the yard. "It's that one, Sir Sparhawk," the count said, pointing at the southeast corner of the castle.

Sparhawk took a torch from beside the entryway, crossed the rainy courtyard and began His examination of the tower. It was a squat, round structure perhaps twenty feet high and fifteen or so in diameter. A stone stairway wound half-way around the side of it to a solidly barred and chained door at the top. The windows were no more than narrow slits. There was a second door at the base of the tower, and it was unlocked. Sparhawk opened it and went inside. It appeared to be a storeroom.

Boxes and bags were piled along the walls, and the room appeared dusty and unused. Unlike the tower, however, the room was not round but semicircular Buttresses jutted out from the walls to hold up the stone floor of the chamber above. Sparhawk nodded with satisfaction and went back outside again. "What's behind that wall in this store-room, My Lord?" he asked the count.