Vellum and Green Vitriol
Copyright © 2007, S. Y. Affolee
The Final Conjuration
Seal XLIII
"Wakey, wakey." A pause. An exasperated noise. "Oh good lord, save me from soft headed females. Why couldn't I have a demolition expert for a rescuer?"
I opened my eyes and reached up to grab an ear.
"Ow, ow, ow!"
The iron bars clanged. "Quiet in there!"
Septimus subsided into a whimper.
I looked over to the other side of our cell. Our captor was none other than the weasel-faced auction house assistant from Greenglass--Jethro Meyhew. I could still make out his features despite the hat he pulled low over his eyes. He jangled as he took up his post near the cell. On his belt were a ring of keys. Beside that, a pistol was stuffed down his pants.
"Let go of my ear, you evil woman."
I twisted.
My brother hissed in pain.
"Never call me a soft headed female again."
"All right, all right! I take it back."
I let go. "How did I get in here? What happened?" I slowly got up from a small cot that had been shoved to the back of the room. My head ached.
"I don't know. Everything happened so fast. That little man had the element of surprise, I'll grant you that."
"We were foolish to let our guards down." I got up and felt a wave of dizziness come over me. I stood still for a moment to let it pass before I walked to the iron bars. I looked out.
Al was still on the table muttering, Supid, stupid, stupid idiots! Thor seemed to have disappeared yet again. Rhys had been chained up against the wall next to the table, his wrists in shackles. His head was lolled forward--still unconscious from the blow he had been dealt with.
"What foolish human have you dragged into this?" Septimus drawled as he flopped onto the cot.
I glared at him as I began to pace. "His name is Rhys. And he's like us."
"Yet another edition?"
"No. He's the Clavis Umbrium. And he's on the trail of a sorcerer. Well, we were anyway. I did not expect to find you here."
"He's a Key, eh? How did you two manage to get together?"
"We met in a book shop."
Septimus chortled. "You couldn't pick a duller place. Did he amaze you with his prowess of Latin and Greek? Or maybe his cataloguing skills?" He peered past me. "It was his looks, wasn't it? He does seem to have the kind of face that women would fall for. Got lucky in the human sacrifice department, the bastard."
I shook my head. "You're insane. If you wanted to attract women, you should follow the prevailing fashion. Shave off all that facial hair to start."
He gasped, clutching his beard. "That's an affront to my manhood! You're one of those suffragettes, aren't you?"
"Why are you babbling about your manhood? You're a book, not a man."
She's right, you know, Al chimed in. Besides, what sort of man wears beads in his hair?
"They're my lucky charms!" Septimus exclaimed.
There was another clang at the front of the cell. "Didn't I tell you to be quiet?" Mayhew sneered.
Septimus sneered back and then said, "At least I don't have to worry about competition if he's with you. What's your name anyway?"
"Ana. And I don't understand why you're so hung up about competition from Rhys when we're all locked up. Where is your sense of priorities?"
"There are no priorities if you can't get out."
I wanted to berate him on being lazy and complacent, but I didn't want to waste my breath. Instead, I turned to examine the iron bars. There was a lock to the side that was closest to our jail guard. I couldn't find myself continuing to call Mayhew our captor because it was obvious that there was someone else who was a mastermind behind all of this.
Mayhew was yawning and was not paying any particular attention to the cell. Occasionally, he would flick his gaze over to Rhys, but he did not move.
I put my hand on the lock and felt nothing. The only thing that would get us out of here was the mechanical way via a key. Or an explosive spell. And since I had neither, getting out would be nigh impossible.
"So how did you end up here?" I asked Septimus. I started pacing again, feeling frustrated that I could do nothing.
"Just a series of unfortunate events," he replied as he stretched over the cot to stare at the ceiling. "While I was trying to get back to my ship which was docked in Port Devon, I was turned back into book form. I found myself sold to various dealers and then I ended up with some collector who, wonders!, lived in Haven."
"I don't suppose his name was Archibald Chesterfield."
At my remark, I heard Mayhew emit a sinister giggle.
"I don't pay attention to names very much," Septimus replied, waving a hand vaguely. "But that sounds about right. By the time he bought me, I had regained enough energy to Turn. So I waited until he went to take his bath to sneak out of his study. Unfortunately, I was caught by that runt over there and his master before I even set foot out the door."
A shuffling sound pealed overhead. Mayhew suddenly straightened up, blinking his eyes wide awake. Septimus reclined on the cot with a disgusted look on his face as he muttered something lowly under his breath that sounded suspiciously like obscenities. The footsteps edged downward, corresponding to the stairs above the alcove jail. A familiar figure appeared. Blackthorne.
The blond haired sorcerer was walking about bare-headed and clothed in what looked like a red velvet robe. Rings glittered on his fingers. In one hand, he held a jeweled jar and a paintbrush. He walked over to Mayhew and made a gesture with his hands which made his rings flash.
"Go and see if the Baron is ready."
"Yes sir." Mayhew scuttled away and up the stairs, the keys on his belt jangling.
The sorcerer approached the iron bars.
I kept my distance. "I demand to be let out at once."
Blackthorne gave an oily smile. "You were the woman who visited the Baron the other day, didn't you? It is too bad that you got mixed up with the Key. If you had stayed with your associations with normal people, you wouldn't be in this predicament, would you?"
"What do you think you're doing?"
He laughed, as if what I had said was immensely amusing. He seemed to take an interest in the jar in his hand. "Ah, Miss, that would be telling. Haven't you ever read any novels lately?"
"I've read plenty. What does that have to do with anything?"
"In novels, the villains always give away their secrets at the last moment when they think they're at their most invincible. And then they die. I'm not going to be like some poor clichéd character in a book."
"Maybe we are in a book," Septimus replied. "An insanely deranged book written by an author who takes the notion that the universe is a harsh, brutish place too seriously."
Blackthorne peered past me to stare at him. "Or maybe the author just doesn't like you. Perhaps the author likes me."
"Egotistical ass," I muttered.
"What did you say?"
"I said 'I didn't like being called a lass'," I said in a louder tone.
The sorcerer gave me a confused glare. "You're as useless as he is. I thought he was a thief after Chesterfield's copy of the Liber Tutelarum, but he had nothing on him. And the collector was eliminated before I could get any information out of him. However the Key..." Blackthorne turned toward Rhys. He slapped at his face twice.
Rhys groaned as if he was struggling to attain consciousness. I saw his head rise. His eyes, almost completely hidden by the locks falling over his forehead, were bright electric green.
"You've been rather persistent, haven't you?" The sorcerer seemed amused as he towered over his victim. "It's too bad that the mechanical failure of the Hinterland Express and those silly women in Newcomb didn't manage to detain you long enough."
Rhys coughed. "So it was you."
Blackthorne slapped him again--apparently just for the hell of it. Rhys slumped back with another moan of pain. "I'm going to take great pleasure into forcing you back into your book form. I will rip your pages out of your spine. One by one. I'm sure you will make some very delightful tearing noises."
Good gods, that's heinous. Al sounded appalled.
Septimus blanched at the sorcerer's remark.
"And then," Blackthorne continued in a lascivious tone, "I'm going to soak you in a nice vintage liqueur and slowly burn each page with one of those branding irons master chefs use to caramelize crème brûlée."
I shuddered. I didn't think that any book torturer would sink to such depravity.
"You need serious help," Rhys rasped.
"I don't need help. I need someone to invent a machine that can shred Keys like you in minutes. All those lovely bleeding bits of paper--like confetti." The sorcerer finally turned his back on his shackled captive. "But I will save all that later. The midnight hour approaches and I must make some final touches." He opened the cap of the jeweled jar and prepared to dip the brush into it.
There was a hurried jangling as Mayhew came back into view. "Mr. Blackthorne, the Baron says he's not ready. In fact, he claims that he will never be ready."
"Damn aristocrats." The sorcerer capped the jar and placed it and the brush on top of one of the nearby casks sitting about in the underground room. "They always think that everything revolves around them. I'm going to show him once and for all who's really in charge." In another moment, he was gone, leaving only Mayhew to watch over us.
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