House Avis
In the darkness of the Arctic winter, a light shone upon a dilapidated manor for the first time in fifty-two years.
“In its prime, House Avis had been mighty and majestic,” explained the bearer of the electrical lamp to her companion. “They were probably one of the richest noble houses in Apsia before the Grey Year. Easily the richest in the Arctic Circle.”
“I don’t know about this. I really don’t wanna get cursed… I heard that after they got ashed, all the gold-eyes put a pretty hefty hex on all their junk.”
These were the worries of the other person arriving at the manor, a little man in a dusty fedora.
“How would that even be possible, Jim? If they got ashed, how could they do any magic unless they were crazy good with the quick-chant? Anyways, anything cursed is probably dead mana now… Probably.”
Our other speaker was one Sarah Beverly, a wizard’s apprentice whose long black hair was tied into a neat bun. Her silvered wand coolly reflected the lantern’s light as she pointed it in front of her.
“What’s this trinket even look like?” Asked Jim, glancing around at his dim surroundings. “I wanna hustle outta here quick smart. Place gives me the slimes I say.”
“Prof. Wilkins said to look for a broken gold coin. Presumably, it will also be inert, but honestly? If the charm is still active, we may get some extra change for it anyway.”
So, the pair began their search. Outside, a cold wind blew sleet in through the shattered windows and collapsed walls. The old 19th century wallpapers, peeled back from old age, shivered with an eerie scuttling sound that set Jim’s nerves on edge. The weather did not otherwise bother them, even though neither wore a winter coat. On Jim’s lapel, a golden pin in the shape of a clarinet emitted a comfortable warmth at a distance of a few metres. The ground, once covered in a layer of snow due to a distinct lack of a roof, was now revealed in all its dilapidated grandeur, the snow having evaporated upon their arrival. So, Sarah and Jim were quite comfortable, thermally at least, as they scanned the exposed ground for the glint of gold.
Still, Jim began to complain. “Old Master Wilkins couldn’t have waited until summer to retrieve his trinket? I hate the cold…”
“Couldn’t risk it getting nicked by some candlestick mages before us. Besides, the main passage into this valley is sealed off by ice in the winter. We’re less likely to run into trouble this time of year.”
“Sounds to me like I coulda stayed home then if there’s no goons to blast. This isn’t my idea of a perfect New Year’s festival, let me tell you.”
“And what if I just wanted some company? Now, zip it and get searching.”
They searched in silence, having now passed from the foyer into the salon. Most of the old furniture had disintegrated, but a brass bookshelf still stood, the ruined remnants of books still rotting on its shelves. Indeed, there was a significant amount of rot and grime, and Sarah even spotted a corpse, mummified by the frost, impaled upon a lamp-sconce. The head, still suspended upon the carved lamp which extended from the open mouth, had separated from its body, leaving a gruesome mess of gore and blood-mould on the wall and floor. A mithral badge with an old imperial crest identified the body as a guard to House Avis, and an important one at that. Sarah made the sign of the cross, then picked up the badge, pocketing it. Clearly, whoever had looted the house before them had been more superstitious than she was. At least enough to leave the precious metal behind.
They moved on, now passing into the ballroom. The grand chandelier had fallen long ago, evidenced now only by the large crack in the marble floor of the room’s centre, the metal and crystal long since stripped away. There was little else of interest in the room except the large vault door on the innermost wall. Sections of the wooden wall either side of the door had collapse, revealing the entirety of the vault had been built out of pure isthra, a metal impervious and immune to magic and identifiable by its dull, greyish-yellow hue. A nearby skeleton with a smashed in skull and a heavy-looking tool indicated that the thirty bolts along the door’s edge had sealed in whatever was inside. Finally, like any good vault, this door had a large and complex mechanism attached to its front.
Jim whistled. “Blimey, this must be the most secure vault I’ve ever seen! Look at that construction! They don’t make them like that today…”
“Well Jimmy, looks like I may need your skills after all. See what you can do about that, will you?”
The man set to work immediately. First, he procured from his blazer a small jar of a thick pale solvent. Using a finger bone from the nearby skeleton, he spread the paste along the edge of the door, then stepped back. Smoke began to fill the room as the metal bolts began to bubble and hiss with a rancid smell. Sarah simply extended her wand, creating a safe bubble of clean air around her and Jim. Once the reaction had slowed and the smoke had been carried off in the wind, the man approached the door once more. Eying the mechanism, he began to turn the various handles, responding expertly and easily to the appropriate clicks and whirs from within.
Eventually and with a satisfying gong-like chime, the door began to swing down, opening from the top … right towards Jim’s head!
Sarah rushed to the man’s side, producing another ward that surrounded them both.
Yet the isthra passed right through, cutting through the silvery sphere like water!
Sarah felt the rush of air as the flat side of the door rushed to demolish her before… nothing.
Looking around, Sarah reached out with her arcane intuition and detected against the very edge of her ward the presence of a metal. A single mote of iron, an impurity in the isthra, had caught on the surface of her shield, stopping the door just short of crushing them both. Shifting slightly, the apprentice mage allowed the heavy door to slide off the spherical ward and onto the ground with a crash.
However, they didn’t have time to catch their breaths, as looming in the door now stood a hulking mass of blackened flesh. A creature of hellish proportions, with grey fur running up and down its chest and limbs and bulging horns in place of eyes, had lumbered up out of the vault’s threshold. The demon, clearly summoned from some infernal realm, huffed loudly and began to approach. Before Jim could fire a round from his pistol, though, it began to dissolve like wax into a dark puddle on the ballroom floor. The skin fell first, dripping in great globules off the creature’s inhuman frame. Then, as it screamed its death rattle, the tongue began to flow from its mouth in great pink blobs of melted flesh. Soon, all that remained were its claws and horns, which hissed and sparked when they met with the pool of inky gore on the floor, popping with a bright flash before turning into a hideous goop themselves.
“What the devil happened?” Shouted Jim.
“Whatever magic was used to summon that chalk-scum wasn’t designed to last this long.” Answered Sarah, sitting down. “Clearly, it was only strong enough to keep it corporeal until now. Once it started moving, the spell couldn’t handle the strain…”
“Huh. Well, I’ll count myself lucky then! Drinks are on me.”
The two of them sat for a moment, regaining their composure as they recovered from the interaction. Eventually, they stood, passing into the now unguarded vault. At the centre of the dark and compact room, floating in a jelly-like prism of air, was half a gold coin, lines of thin, illegibly small text decorating its every surface.
“There it is,” Jim said, reaching out. “Let’s nab it and hustle!”
“Wait!” Sarah called out.
The man retreated his hand like from a fire, turning back to his friend sheepishly.
“Don’t touch it you frog! The charm is still active. Those gold-eyed nobles that lived here must’ve had a strong wizard on their roster for this kind of protection. Who knows what that might do to you…”
“Well, what does it do?”
“Apparently, it creates a chronochoromantic field that replicates and sustains external essences in an internal environment.”
“…”
“It recreates the house in a pocket dimension.”
“Oh.”
“Anyways, it looks like I might not be able to move it without cancelling the charm, sadly. Give me a minute to record some measurements, then we can go.”
“Mummy, how come we never leave the house?” Quentin asked, lifting himself into his mother’s lap on the velvet couch in the salon.
“Well dear, the outside world is dangerous. Ask Julius if you really must know.” Replied Lady Aemilia Avis.
“But Mumma! Julius scares me! His room is so high up…” Whined Quentin.
“Well then, I guess you will never know, little Q.” The Lady returned to her book, a volume about the empire’s recent dealings in the East.
Quentin seemed to think for a moment, weighing up his curiosity against his fear. Eventually, his curiosity won. So, he set off into the house, trudging up the long, winding stairwell into the tower above the house. Julius, the House’s Court Wizard, lived at its peak in a room that really should have been no larger than a broom closet, but was as wide as the ballroom.
Finally, after what felt like years of climbing, little Quentin reached the door to Julius’ quarters.
Before he could knock, the door opened and Quentin found himself looking up at Archwizard Julius the Grey, the greatest Chronochoromancer of all time. The boy knew Julius by such a title because he often announced himself as he entered a room. The man, an old, frail figure, was in his usual grey robe, his golden pocket watch gleaming unnaturally bright in the afternoon light.
“Yes, boy, what?” Julius said at last. He seemed at once both eccentrically excited and frustrated.
“Well sir, I… I wanted to know why we never go out of the house. I seem to remember going to a city but two years ago. Now we exit for nary a stroll!”
Julius harrumphed, then led the boy into his rooms. A large salon, much larger than the one downstairs, stretched out before him. Magnificent, colourful windows let in the sun from overhead. They sat down at a couch.
“I will begin by saying that your mother is a most extraordinary lady,” Julius said, pouring tea from a nearby pot. “She possesses certain senses which most cannot dream of. Have you ever noticed the Lady answer a question before it is asked? Or perhaps she has caught you just in time before you do something silly?”
Quentin nodded, uncomfortable and already regretting his visit.
“Well,” continued the Archwizard, “Lady Avis is in fact prone to premonitions. She can see the future, on occasion. Many years ago, she came to me in Eil. That’s the imperial city which you can remember visiting. She, like many, foresaw the imminent collapse of the empire. I dismissed her concerns – everybody feared a revolution, but the emperor was strong enough to protect us, no? She later wrote me a letter describing how exactly the emperor would die, the whole world would revolt, and the entire Deran nobility would disintegrate into ash – and all in the year 1870. She called it ‘The Grey Year,’ and she described it in such detail that I felt compelled to believe her.”
Quentin stared with a confused expression.
“The point is, young man, that something bad was going to happen. House Avis then employed me as Court Wizard to help you.” The old wizard poked his gnarled finger at the boy’s chest.
“But… Excuse me sir but what does this have to do with the house?”
“Why, everything!” The would was due to end. So, I, the greatest Chronochoromancer of all time, created this – all this – to escape it! Understand? Why can’t you leave the house? Because there is nothing outside the house! Everything is gone!” Julius was gesturing maniacally now, tea spilling on the walls and chairs across the room.
“So… the whole world was destroyed in two years? How?”
“No, dear boy, no. The world was destroyed in just one year. All the years that followed are just rot. Yes, years. Plural. Time is slower here in the manor.”
“Time is slower?”
“Indeed. In here, it has only been two years. Out there?” The old man counted on his fingers. “Fifty-two.”
Then, the strangest combination of events occurred. First, the walls of the room stretched and then snapped like a whip, shrinking in an instant to the size of a broom closet. The young noble and the old wizard found themselves sitting on the hard floor, the furniture simply destroyed by the sudden change. Next, a shivering shriek was heard. The walls of the building were beginning to crumble, and dust was quickly piling up in the corners. Finally, a supernatural and terrible tragedy began to befall the members of House Avis. Julius was the first to go, his flesh turning pale and flaky as he let out a silent and ashy scream. Then Lady Aemilia Avis, her hair falling out in sandy clumps. She tried in vain to keep her ashen limbs attached as they dissolved. The rest disintegrated quickly enough, reduced to grey particles which the winter air then swept away in great, unprejudiced gusts.
Inside the vault, Sarah Beverly was pocketing a gold coin. Her companion Jim’s ears pricked up.
“Did you just hear someone shout ‘Mummy’?” He asked. Sarah shook her head, and Jim shrugged his shoulders in response.
Then, Sarah procured a small stone from her bag, motioned for Jim to touch it with her, and teleported them both away, plunging the rotting manor of House Avis into darkness once more.