A WOMAN SCORNED
Single file, the Sandpoint Seven crept through the cramped attic corridor, passing several cluttered storerooms as they went. When they rounded another corner in the twisting hall, a sudden, unmistakable shriek of pain echoed throughout the attic. It obviously came from a door at the far end of the hall. Cautiously, they moved forward until they stood before the stout, wooden portal, which was securely locked. The sound of a woman sobbing could be heard clearly on the far side.
Dexter tried the manor key, but it would not fit the lock. Resorting to his usual methods, he thumbed through his lock picks until he found one that suited him, and then went to work. In moments, the tumblers clicked and the door opened. The room beyond was cold and damp. A few crates sat near the north wall. The ceiling sloped down to only four-feet to the northeast, leaving little room for a small window, while to the southeast, a mold-encrusted pillar of brick marked the passage of a chimney. A full-size mirror in a dark, wooden frame of coiling roses leaned against the bricks, angled towards the tiny window. A woman knelt before the mirror, her face in her hands, long black hair obscuring her features. Luther motioned for the others to remain in the corridor while he stepped slowly inside.
“Hello?” he called, but the woman made no sign that she had heard him. Instead, she raised her face towards the mirror, and when she did, Luther knew immediately that she was not alive. There was malevolence in her hate-filled eyes, her body wasted and emaciated, her fingers tapering into long, hooked claws, and yet the priest knew her immediately…Iesha Foxglove. After all, he had experienced her murder.
“Iesha,” he said softly. “How may I give you peace?”
She still showed no reaction, save to continue her pitiful wailing as she gazed at her reflection in the mirror. Suddenly, an idea came to him, and he drew the red, silk scarf from his tunic.
“I have something that belongs to you,” he said as he laid it on the floor near her.
Instantly, Iesha’s eyes shifted to the scarf, and a mixture of hatred and loathing contorted her features. With a shriek, she seized the scarf and began ripping it to shreds with her talons. As the tatters drifted to the floor, her eyes cleared, and she screamed aloud.
“Aldern! I can smell your fear! I’ll be in your arms soon!”
She lurched across the room, and Luther motioned quickly for his companions to step aside. She brushed past them and moved down the hallway towards the stairs.
“What do we do now?” Wesh asked.
Luther shrugged. “We follow her.”
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Iesha moved with malign purpose, hastening down the attic stairs, and then down the spiral stair to the ground floor. Crossing the entry hall, she opened a side door, revealing another flight of stairs that descended into darkness. When the seven companions followed her, they found themselves in a large kitchen. A massive oak table, its surface covered with moldy stains and rat droppings, sat in the center of the room. Shelves lined the walls, and an oversized fireplace dominated the northeast portion. The shelves on the southwest wall were in a much greater state of disarray, and two large cracks in the wall near the floor led into the earth beyond the basement itself. As she exited the stairwell, Iesha turned south and moved quickly down another corridor. The deputies hurried to catch up, but as they neared the entrance to the hall, a strange susurrus filled the air, emanating from the cracks in the wall. It grew increasingly louder, and was soon accompanied by a cacophony of high-pitched squeaks. Within moments, hundreds of horrifying, diseased rats, of the same type Dexter had dispatched in the washroom upstairs, began pouring out of the wall.
As if they could read each other’s minds, Dex and Skud turned to face the oncoming swarm, placing themselves between the tide and their companions.
“Go!” Dexter shouted over his shoulder. “Don’t lose her!”
Iesha had already disappeared around a far corner. Luther hesitated, but Adso seized him roughly by the shoulder and shoved him forward.
“Don’t be a fool!” the monk snapped. “You know they are right! She will lead us to Foxglove, and he is the reason we are here. If he escapes, we may never find him again!”
Luther sighed, but didn’t resist. Behind them, Wesh and Rico followed, with Randall covering the rear.
With a thunderous roar that rivaled the cacophony of the oncoming vermin, Skud swung his sword like a scythe, slashing through a dozen or more rats at once. Beside him, Dexter impaled and sliced one after another, his rapier and dagger moving in a dizzying blur. Yet despite their valiant efforts, there were simply too many. The rats flowed over and past them, delivering dozens of tiny bites as they did so. They seemed intent on following after the route Iesha had taken, almost as if they sensed that the Lord of the Manor was in danger. Knee-deep in rat bodies, Dexter and Skud turned to follow the swarm, hacking and slashing as they went.
“They’re coming!” Randall shouted as he reached the corner. Luther and Adso had already turned another corner, but Wesh and Rico were still in hall. Then the rats were upon the big soldier. He swung his huge maul, but the vermin scattered around its head as it slammed into the floor. Within seconds, Randall was overwhelmed, his body hidden by the mass of vermin. Wesh turned, cursed and fanned his fingers in front of him. A gout of fire shot forth from his fingertips, crisping dozens of the vile creatures, and momentarily freeing Randall, yet it was still not enough. The swarm soon washed over him as well, and then quickly overtook Rico.
Adso and Luther turned the last corner only to be brought up short. Iesha stood in front of them before a large, iron door. Screaming in impotent rage, she scratched and clawed at its surface, to no avail. They were trapped. They could hear the rats behind them, and the way forward was blocked. Pushing Luther behind him, Adso turned to face the inevitable. Around the corner came the swarm, all teeth and tumorous flesh. Adso’s hands blurred, so rapidly did they strike, but still the rats got by him. Luther plastered himself against one wall, but the creature’s all but ignored him. Instead, they leaped, squealing at Iesha, slithering over her like a living gown. Her ear-splitting shriek filled the corridor, and then, before Luther’s disbelieving eyes, the dead woman struck out all around her, her deadly claws like threshers. Like a dervish, she whirled and danced, cutting the vermin to ribbons. On and on the rats came, but she never faltered, not until the last one fell, at which point she immediately turned back to the impassable door. As she raised her fist to pound again, however, the iron portal simply opened. Iesha never glanced back as she passed through. Behind her, Wesh surreptitiously slipped a slender wand back into the sleeve of his tunic.
“Alohamora, indeed,” he murmured.
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The room they found themselves in looked to have once been some sort of arcane workshop, although little remained but broken glassware, shattered jars of pottery that contained dust and mold, and several rusty instruments and tools. A row of soggy books sat on one end of a workbench along one wall. At the other end, what looked like three iron birdcages rested, each containing a dead, diseased rat. On the far side of the room, two stained-glass windows loomed. One depicted a thin man with gaunt features drinking a foul-looking brew of green fluid, while the other showed the same man, but in an advanced state of decay, as if he had been dead for several weeks. His arms were raised and his head was thrown back in triumph, while his rotting body turned to smoke and spiraled into a seven-sided box.
Iesha ignored all of this as she headed straight for another door on the wall opposite the windows. Intrigued as the deputies were at the contents of the room, they didn’t dare tarry for fear of losing sight of the revenant. As Dexter entered the chamber, however he paused, his gaze drawn towards the row of books on the workbench. Slowly, as if in a trance, he walked over to them.
“Dex,” Skud grunted. “Watch’oo doin’? No time for readin’.”
Dexter didn’t seem to hear him. Instead, he placed a hand on the cover of one of the books, and then froze in place, his eyes glazed over. In his mind, a series of visions coalesced, all of them taking place as if in a realm of animated stained-glass windows. He saw Vorel Foxglove researching the works of previous wizards who had made the transition from life to the unlife of lichedom. Next he saw the elder Foxglove gathering the components for the elixir which would trigger his own transformation, and then building the strange, seven-sided box which would contain his eternal soul. The final vision culminated with Vorel consuming the potion and then doubling over in agony as his body began to rot away. As this happened, Dexter’s mind was filled with blinding shame that a loved one would do such a thing, followed by a burning rage that Vorel must be stopped before he finished his ritual. As quickly as they came, the visions passed, leaving Dexter in a cold sweat, knowing that he had just saw through the eyes of Kasanda Foxglove as she had witnessed the horror of what her husband had done. Though it seemed as if an eternity had passed, it had in fact been only seconds.
“Dex?” Skud called again. “You comin’?”
“Sure, buddy,” Dexter answered shakily as he hurried to catch up to his friends.
Iesha had arrived in a room in which piles of broken stone, dirt, and a few ruined pickaxes lined the edges. The floor in the middle had been torn up to reveal an ancient set of stone, spiral stairs, obviously of much older construction than the surrounding basement, which wound deep into the bedrock below. A foul stink, like that of rotten meat, wafted up on a cold breeze from the darkness. When Dexter saw the stairs, he knew instinctively they were the same ones he had imagined in the mold pattern on the main floor above. When Skud saw them, however, he was granted knowledge of a different kind. A vision of Aldern Foxglove, sweaty, filthy and wild-eyed, filled his head. The young nobleman was digging away at the stone floor of the room with a pickaxe, and with each swing he grunted out two words, ‘For you!’ Skud knew that Aldern was referring to him. As the vision began to fade, Aldern broke through into the room beyond, and a horde of shrieking ghouls rose up to pull him into the darkness below.
“Hmph,” Skud grunted. “Serves you right.”
Iesha didn’t pause, but instead started down the stairs, he dress rustling behind her like a shroud.
The stairs ended in a limestone cavern. The walls dripped with moisture, and swaths of black and dark blue mold grew in spiraling, tangled patterns on the floor, ceiling, and walls. Bits of rubble and broken bones cluttered the floor, and a rhythmic sound…as of the breathing of some immense creature…echoed through the cave from three tunnels, one to the north, and two to the west. Of the two western tunnels, the southernmost one seemed to be a relatively new creation, but Iesha chose the older one instead. As the Seven continued to follow in her wake, they entered another, nondescript cavern, but as they began moving across, they saw several shadowy forms detach themselves from the gloom….ghouls, a half-dozen or more. Iesha appeared not to notice them, even as four moved to block her path while the other two darted towards the companions. Luther barely noticed as Dexter and Skud quickly dispatched the pair, tension pouring from him as he waited to see what the revenant would do. If she joined with the ghouls, or commanded them to attack, things would get bad very quickly. As it was, the ghouls lunged at her, biting and clawing at her pale flesh with the savagery of the grave. For a moment, Iesha looked confused, but to Luther’s amazement and horrified awe, her wounds immediately began to heal, and once again, a terrible clarity filled Lady Foxglove’s eyes. Her animalistic snarl filled the cave, and she moved with the speed of a striking serpent as she ripped the throat from the nearest ghoul. She disemboweled the next before decapitating the third and then literally tore the final ghoul limb from limb. Gore still covering her hands and dress, she resumed her search once more.
The cramped tunnel soon opened once more, this time into a vertiginous gulf, a cathedral like cavern whose roof arched high overhead, and then dropped into a sloshing pool of foamy seawater fifty feet below. A steep stone ledge wound down to those surging depths, its slope glistening with moisture and mold. Narrow fissures bored into the rock face, and rivulets of water dripped down from them across the sloping ledge into the pool below. A stone door stood in the northern wall of the cavern, about halfway down the slope. As Iesha and the company entered, eight creatures stood up all along the ramp from where they’d been hunkering on their haunches. To all appearances, they were ghouls, yet smaller in stature than the ones they’d previously encountered…almost, goblin-like.
“Unless I miss my guess,” Rico observed, curiously, “those were once Toadlick goblins. You can tell by the remnants of their fetishes.”
“Ghoublins,” Skud growled. “Hate ghoublins.”
Dexter looked stunned for a moment, and then burst out laughing. “Skud! You made a joke! I didn’t even know you had a sense of humor!”
Iesha never slowed her pace, but no sooner did her feet touch the slippery slope than they flew out from under her and she landed heavily on her back. Immediately, she began to slide, hissing and snarling as she went, her jagged claws leaving deep gouges in the stone as she struggled to find purchase. The goblin ghouls darted quickly to the side as she passed, and her slide picked up speed alarmingly, carrying her all the way to the bottom of the ramp and dumping her in the pool. Silently, she sank beneath its surface.
“Crap!” Dexter spat. “How we gonna find Foxglove now?”
As he groused, he side-armed his dagger at the nearest ghoublin, taking it neatly in the throat, and sending it flailing over the side of the ledge.
“I think she was headed for that door,” Adso said as he moved nimbly down the treacherous slope and took down a second ghoublin with a knife-chop to the back of its neck. A third darted past him, however, reaching Dexter in three steps and sinking its teeth into his hand. Before he was fully aware of what was happening, Dex saw a flurry of movement out of the corner of his eyes. The next thing he knew, the ghoublin was down, and Luther stood over it, his fists clenched.
“Isn’t that against your religion, or something?” the rogue asked, grinning.
“It was already dead,” Luther said matter-of-factly. “I just released its soul to journey on to its final respite.”
Suddenly, a commotion sounded on the ledge directly below them. Looking down, they saw another group of ghouls, the usual kind, emerge from a crevice in the wall.
“I’ll handle this,” Luther said, and then with a running leap, he jumped, landing in a crouch right in the midst of the undead. As he rose, he brought his holy symbol from his tunic, and as its light shone forth, fully half of the ghouls burned to ash. A moment later, Skud landed heavily beside the priest, bringing his sword down as he came. The weighty blade crashed through the chest of another ghoul, and as yet another backed away from the swing, it fell and began sliding. Skud impaled it as it passed.
“Impressive,” Wesh nodded.
“You think that’s impressive?” Adso asked, his eyebrows raised. “Any monkey can jump off a ledge. Watch this!”
The monk backed up to the wall, took two long strides and then launched himself into the air…and leaped completely across the cavern, fully forty feet! As he landed, he swung one of his legs around in a circle-kick, taking the feet from under a ghoublin and sending it plummeting into the pool below.
“I stand corrected!” Wesh called. “THAT was impressive!”
Adso acknowledged the accolade with a slight nod, and then quickly dispatched another pair of ghoublins as they attempted to flank him.
“Looks like there’s not much to do except the mopping up,” Wesh said to Rico as he loosed a small volley of arcane missiles, killing another ghoublin in the process.
“I’ll take what I can get,” the druid chuckled as he sent a small sphere of flame at another, setting it ablaze and stumbling until it slipped over the edge as well.
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Dex sighed, knocking an arrow to his bowstring, and then sending it through the eye of the last ghoul standing.
“What say you, Randall?” the rogue jibed. “You didn’t even have a dog in this hunt!”
The big soldier still stood in the tunnel mouth at the top of the ramp.
“I don’t swim,” he said simply.
“Look!” Luther suddenly called from below, pointing at the pool.
The water frothed and splashed, and Iesha slowly emerged, pulling herself up onto the ledge nearby. She got to her feet and began walking slowly, methodically up the steep slope, heading for the stone door.
“Come on!” Luther called. “We’ve got to follow her!”
Since they were above her, Skud, Adso and Luther made it to the door ahead of Iesha, but did not open it, waiting to see what she would do. Above, Dexter began moving down the ramp, but when Randall moved to follow, his first step was his last. His foot slid from under him, and he crashed heavily to the ground. He began to slide immediately, gathering momentum with every yard. By the time he reached Luther and the others, he was moving too fast for them to stop him. Iesha stepped deftly aside as he passed. With a huge splash, he crashed into the pool and immediately began to flounder, the weight of his armor pulling him under.
“Skud, rope!” Luther shouted.
Quickly, the barbarian stripped off his knapsack and uncoiled a length of hemp from it. He tossed one end over the side, and then wrapped several lengths around his wrist, bracing himself. Just as his head sank below the surface, Randall managed to grab the lifeline. Skud began to haul on his end, but as he did so, Iesha stalked slowly past him. She passed Luther and Adso as well, pausing before the stone door for a moment, as if gathering herself, before pulling it open and stepping inside.
“Follow her,” Luther told Adso tightly. “Randall’s hurt and needs my attention. I’ll send the others after you when they get down, but we can’t lose Iesha.”
The monk nodded, understanding the truth of Luther’s words. Turning abruptly, he disappeared through the door after Iesha.
A short passage led from the doorway and appeared to open up into a chamber ahead. Before Adso had gone two steps, however, he heard a blood-curdling shriek from Iesha, followed by a male’s voice, guttural and bubbly.
“My love! No!”
Adso ran. When he turned the corner, he found himself in a damp, dimly lit cavern. A rickety table sat in the middle of the cave, its damp surface cluttered with all manner of what looked to be garbage…empty bottles, bits of clothing, crumpled pieces of paper, and more, lying in neatly organized rows. A painting leaned against the far side of the table, facing a large, leather chair that sat nearby. The chair’s high back and cushions were horribly stained by smears of rotten meat and its arms were sticky with blood. A smaller table sat against another wall, its surface heaped with silver platters, fine porcelain plates, and crystal ware. The ‘food’ on those plates and platters was rotten meat, in some cases humanoid in source, and in all cases writhing with maggots. Thick, rotting blood gelled in the crystal. Yet, the horrific stench of the room seemed somehow even thicker and more overwhelming than that gruesome display could account for on its own. The smell seemed to emanate from the far side of the room, where the cave’s wall had been overtaken by a horrific growth of dark green mold and dripping fungi. At the center, a patch of black tumescent fungus grew, its horny ridges and tumor-like bulbs forming what could almost have been taken to be a humanoid outline. What appeared to have once been an exquisite puzzle box the size of a man’s fist lay smashed on the ground at the fungoid shape’s feet. Yet all these things drew Adso’s attention only for a moment, for two figures struggled in the center of the room. One was obviously Iesha, but the other looked much like the other ghouls they had encountered throughout the haunted manor, but he was dressed in the stained finery of nobility and his eyes were alive with intelligence and madness. He wielded a straight-razor the size of a small sword in one hand, and with it, he fended off Iesha’s frenzied attack, while at the same time slicing deeply into her alabaster skin, the wounds healing as soon as they were inflicted. Adso hesitated for only the barest of moments before steeling himself and leaping to Iesha’s side.
Dexter reached Skud and began to help him haul the wounded soldier up.
“No!” Skud barked, his face grimacing with strain. “Kill Skinsaw Man for me!”
Dexter hesitated, then cursed and released the rope as he dashed past Luther through the door. Meanwhile, above, Wesh had conjured up a glowing disc of force upon which he and Rico glided slowly down towards their companions, avoiding the treacherously slippery ramp. Below, Randall still clung to consciousness, pulling himself hand-over-hand along the rope as Skud continued to haul him up. It was a slow, arduous process. Luther was torn. He could hear the sounds of battle from within the room, yet he knew Randall needed him. Silently, he prayed for Adso.
When Dexter entered the room, he saw the terrible struggle ensuing. Adso slammed his fist into the side of Aldern Foxglove’s head, but the Skinsaw Man shook off the blow and seized the monk’s fist, sinking his fangs into it. As he did so, Adso went rigid, his muscles becoming paralyzed with tetany. Hissing evilly, Foxglove turned back to ward off another blow from Iesha, shoving her roughly backwards as he did. Iesha’s feet tangled in her gowns and she fell to the floor. Like a panther, Aldern pounced, slashing at her again and again with his razor.
“You should have stayed dead, my love!” he cackled. "But no, once again, you’ve forced me to hurt you, and you know how I always hated having to hurt you!”
Dexter started into the room, but as he did so, the overwhelming stench caused his stomach to suddenly cramp, and he thought for a moment that he might vomit right there. Swallowing several times, he forced himself into motion once more. Gripping his dagger in both hands, he plunged it into Aldern’s exposed neck. Aldern howled in pain as he fell back, grabbing feebly at the protruding blade. In a flash, Iesha was on her feet again.
“No, my love!” she spat. “This time it is I that shall hurt you!”
She seemed to move in a blur, her taloned hands ripping and tearing faster than Dexter could follow. Aldern’s features soon became unrecognizable, so brutal was her assault. Finally, she took her husband’s face in her hands, almost lovingly…and then ripped his head from his shoulders. As the Skinsaw Man’s body fell to the floor, Iesha sighed deeply. She turned her eyes upon Dexter and whispered, “Thank you,” before her own body began crumbling to dust.
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By the time Skud finally managed to pull Randall up, and Luther had tended the soldier’s wounds, Adso’s paralysis had already worn off. When the others entered, the battle was long over, and they could only observe the horrible aftermath. Upon closer inspection, the collection of odds and ends on the table turned out to be an assortment of relics belonging to Skud. They ranged from mundane items, such as discarded potion flasks, to more personal ones, such as a lock of the half-orc’s hair carefully folded into an envelope. There was also a stack of charcoal drawings on water-damaged parchment that depicted Skud in various heroic poses. When Wesh examined the portrait that leaned against the table, he saw that whomever the original subject had been, it had been painted over using blood and bits of runny rotten flesh into a caricature of Skud. Foxglove even wore an antique cameo which contained another small portrait of the half-orc inside. The more of these things Skud saw, the angrier he became. Finally, snarling in rage, he smashed both fists down on the table, breaking it in two. He seized the drawings and tore them into shreds, before slamming the painting over and over again across his knee, and then ultimately grinding the locket under his boot heel. The source of his fury forever beyond his reach, he settled for driving his sword repeatedly into Aldern Foxglove’s body.
As the debris from Skud’s rampage settled to the floor, Wesh plucked another envelope from the rubble. Inside was a letter, written in a graceful hand that was not Foxglove’s.
Aldern,
You have served us quite well. The delivery you harvested from the caverns far exceeds what I had hoped for. You may consider your dept to the Brotherhood paid in full. Yet I still have need of you, and when you awaken from your death, you should find your mind clear and able to understand this task more than in the state you lie in as I write this.
You shall remember the workings of the Sihedron ritual, I trust. You seemed quite lucid at the time, but if you find after your rebirth that you have forgotten, return to your townhouse in Magnimar. My agents shall contact you there soon…no need for you to bother the Brotherhood further. I will provide the list of proper victims for the Sihedron ritual in two days’ time. Commit that list to memory and then destroy it before you begin your work. The ones I have selected must be marked before they die, otherwise they do my master no good and the greed in their souls will go to waste.
If others get in your way, though, you may do with them as you please. Eat them, savage them, or turn them into pawns…it matters not to me.
Your Mistress, Wanton of Nature’s Pagan Forms
Luther’s heart grew cold as he heard the words. Greed. It had been what tied all of the Skinsaw Man’s targets to each other. Banny Harker, skimming money off the top of the mill’s profits. The three notorious con men. Even Farmer Hambley, with his carefully horded stash of silver. The other victims had just been incidental. They had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Greed. And again the Sihedron Rune…first in a shrine devoted to wrath, and now used in a ritual devoted to greed. Two of the seven sins associated with the ancient Rune Lords. Luther was certain there were no coincidences here, and there never had been.
