Drake eyed Samuel cautiously. “So, now. I told you everything that happened while you were regenerating. Do you want to tell me how you got so torn up?”
“Not particularly.”
So Samuel had a sense of humor after all. “Let me rephrase that. Will you?”
His sheet-clad butler sighed. “It was not as you suspect.”
“So Lord Crow didn’t torture you?”
“Not before you found me as you did. Though... that might have been kinder.”
Drake grimaced as he tried to imagine what would be kinder than four days of torture. “Why don’t you start at the beginning?”
“Let me ask you a question, first,” Samuel said. “What do you know about realm-to-realm teleportation?”
Drake felt a rush of excitement as a topic he hadn’t spoken with anyone about since his first day here abruptly returned. “I know Lord Crow did it. I’m hoping to find someone else who can do the same thing. I’d like to visit my world again someday.”
“If you wish to keep Gloomwood Manor safe, I would not advise that.”
“Understood.” Drake nodded. “Still, though. What do you know about it?”
“The condition in which you found me was due to Lord Crow’s cruelty, but not as the others likely believed. First, understand this. I do not know how realm-to-realm teleportation is accomplished. I only observed the old lord as he attempted it.”
“Balls,” Drake added in annoyance. “I was hoping you could tell me something.”
“I can tell you that teleporting between realms is imprecise, dangerous, and considered a crime by the noble court,” Samuel said. “It is for that reason that Lord Crow kept the truth of his experiments secret. Only I knew what he was doing. Even Lydia did not know.”
“I don’t blame Lydia for anything that happened with me ending up here,” Drake assured him. “But I still need to know everything I can about teleporting between realms, crime or not. What else can you tell me?”
“Lord Crow’s experiments with realm-to-realm teleport are how I suffered my injuries. He used me as his... scout, for lack of a better word... when he opened a portal into a new realm. It is impossible to see what is in that realm before one actually steps into it.”
Drake was starting to get an inkling of what had happened. “So he’d open a portal somewhere, compel you to enter it, and then return and tell him if it was safe?”
“Yes.”
“And one of those portals wasn’t safe?”
“No.” Samuel shuddered. “Even if I wished to speak of it, what I saw... I am not certain I can adequately describe the sight.”
“Try.”
“A river of flesh, but warm and pulsing. Blood in the air as a foul mist, inhalation of which rouses nausea and a pain deep in the lungs. A sky made of darkness, chanting that was everywhere and had no source, and...”
Drake stared in growing alarm.
“I think it may have been a part of the underside.”
“Holy shit.” Drake remembered what Lydia had told him about the underside, in that it was this place’s version of Hell. “So did you see any demons?”
“I do not know if what I encountered were demons, only that I encountered... hostile beings. They were formed of shapes I could not full discern, all sharp angles and shadows. They did not want me there. I escaped, but at great cost.”
“So you got, what... attacked by demons while scouting for Lord Crow?”
“For lack of a better description, yes. I escaped back into the portal, but not before sharp weapons, several powerful spells, and some sort of acid struck me from behind.”
Drake whistled softly. “And you survived.”
“For a time. I only barely managed to warn Lord Crow to close the portal before I fell.”
“Please tell me you blacked out afterward.”
“I remember very little after I fled back through the portal,” Samuel said. “There was a tremendous amount of pain in those last moments, and then... nothing.”
Drake frowned. “Seriously?”
“Nothing until I became conscious once more in this carriage with you.”
After hearing all that, Drake almost wanted to hug the old man. He wasn’t going to... he wasn’t a hugger... but maybe someone else would hug Samuel. The guy could use a good hug after getting ganked by demons in the underside. It was also proof of how tough Samuel was.
“I’m sorry to hear that happened, and I’m glad you’re safe,” Drake said. “And I’m guessing because Lord Crow never told anyone why you didn’t come back out the ritual room, they all assumed he tortured you to death?”
“It has happened before. With other thralls. Given he shared his experiments in realm-to-realm teleportation with no one save me, the story Lydia shared with you would be a reasonable conclusion once I did not return. So while you may blame her for—”
“I don’t,” Drake interrupted. “I’m not like the other manor lords you’ve encountered, Samuel. I don’t punish people because they made a simple mistake.”
Samuel watched him a moment. “So it would seem.”
“But I don’t think we can tell the others about what you and Crow were doing.”
“In that we agree,” Samuel said. “Lord Crow was still Lord Gloomwood when he forced me to aid him in his experiments with realm-to-realm teleportation. Anyone who knows of them could be forced to testify to that fact before the noble court. For that reason, it would be best if I avoid testifying before the noble court on any matter.”
“Can you?” Drake asked. “Refuse, I mean?”
“We can in cases where our manor lord has compelled us not to answer. However, to refuse to answer the court’s questions is often as good as admitting guilt.”
“We’ll figure it all out before we get to the capitol,” Drake assured him. “We don’t even know what this cabal is about yet.” Even so, he was already mulling over his visit to the capital for another important and rather frightening reason.
Lydia knew he could lie. That meant Drake would have to keep the court from talking to Lydia as well, not because she’d tell them, but because she could be forced to tell them... or at least refuse to answer. So he’d have to find a way to excuse both his steward and spymaster from any formal testimony. That wasn’t great, but at least he had a week to figure out how.
He also had more questions for his resurrected butler.
Drake sat back. “Now, your turn. Answer my earlier question. Do you think I did the right thing by nullifying the blood pact? Given you might be very dead if I hadn’t, I’d like your opinion. If you think I made the wrong call, I will consider your arguments.”
“I would ask permission to think upon that, lord. What you have done has many long-standing implications I doubt even Lydia has fully processed. May I answer at a later date?”
“That’s your choice to make,” Drake said. “I changed things so you’d have a choice.”
A polite knock sounded on the carriage door, interrupting his introduction to his now not dead butler. “Lord?” It was Lydia. “Your tent is ready.”
“Come in!” Drake called. “Say hello to an old friend.”
The door opened, and when Lydia attempted to step inside, she froze on the rise. Her eyes widened noticeably. Then she stepped inside, closed the door, and tossed her arms around Samuel with a tiny cry. Drake was both surprised and amused.
There it was. There was the hug! Samuel had earned that one.
Samuel, surprisingly enough, seemed pleased by the attention, but not in a way that struck Drake as anything but wholesome. As Lydia embraced him with an almost gleeful expression on her face, she looked like a granddaughter greeting his grandfather after getting off a plane. Samuel wrapped one big arm around Lydia and patted her back.
“There, now. It wasn’t so bad as all that.”
Smiling brilliantly and blinking back what was definitely a tear, Lydia settled on the seat beside Drake. “We thought we’d never see you again. It was horrible.”
Samuel simply nodded, features calm as a Shaolin monk. “I am well now. All we can do is look to the future, a future our new lord has thus far led us toward with remarkably few missteps. I trust we have your guidance to thank for that.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t—”
“Yes,” Drake interrupted. “Lydia has been my lifeline since I got here.”
She blushed and looked to the carriage window. “You offer me too much credit.”
“Did or did you not take three crossbow bolts to the chest for me? C’mon. Bask a little. Even if the old man won’t admit it, I bet he’s impressed with how you’ve done.”
“I am,” Samuel said warmly.
Lydia brushed at her cheek and waved his praise away. “The others will be overjoyed to see you.” She gasped. “Oh, but... do you wish to clean up first?”
Samuel’s faint smile returned. “That would be best.”
Lydia nodded. “A razor and bowl, of course. And fresh water. Also, we have several sets of your court and travel clothes in the wagons. Valentia packed those for you.”
“He can get presentable right here in the wagon,” Drake said at once. “No need to have him hop across the camp in his sheet, and I’ve got my own tent to go check out. But first...” Drake leaned forward. “I need a shot at your rarity, old man.”
His butler gave him a measured look and then presented his hand, palm up.
“Lydia, got a knife?”
A spectral yellow dagger appeared in her hand the moment she passed her hand by her skirt. Yet as he raised her dagger, she frowned. “I cannot cut you.”
“Yes you can. Remember?”
She stared at him wide-eyed. “You would trust me with that?”
“I trust you with my life, Lydia. I thought I’d made that clear already.”
Drake held out his hand, palm up. Lydia stared at his hand, holding her glowing dagger out at her side, and then looked into his eyes.
“Hold very still,” she said softly.
He grinned at her. “Just try not to take my finger off.”
Moving so delicately he was worried it would take her all day to cut his palm open, she pricked the corner of his palm. She gasped once the knife pierced his flesh, then yanked it away as if it had burned her. She stared at the wound in disbelief.
“You all right?” Drake asked worriedly.
“I am fine,” she said quietly. “I just... even now, this seems impossible.”
Samuel, too, seemed appropriately spooked. It was the first time Drake had seen the man look even the tiniest bit uneasy. Seeing a blood thrall actually be capable of harming their manor lord must be tremendously weird for both of them.
For Drake, it was a reassurance. It was confirmation that even if he and Lydia both fell in battle, the rest of his manor would still be safe... since his surviving people could kill their manor lord if they turned out to be a dick. He looked to Samuel. “Ready?”
Samuel extended his palm and glanced at Lydia. “If you would be so kind?”
As she poked a hole in his palm as well, he showed no sign of discomfort. Given all he’d been through, his pain tolerance must be incredibly high. Drake clasped bloody palms with Samuel. Soon after, blood dripped out and began to dribble all over the floor of the wagon.
Getting stabbed sucked. He’d need to get something to soak it all up next time. As their bloody hands remained clasped, Samuel watched him with calm, dark eyes.
“No idea how long this takes,” Drake said. “Or if it’ll work. So let’s give it a few.”
“Understood,” Samuel said.
After an increasingly awkward minute or so, Drake released Samuel’s hand. When the man moved to cut it again, Drake stopped him. “Hold up, you’re...” He trailed off.
While Samuel’s palm was covered in blood, the cut he’d carved into it was already scabbed over. It had stopped bleeding. Samuel’s rarity really was reactive.
As for Drake’s palm, it continued to bleed like a fountain. He already knew there was some sort of delay before any new rarity kicked in. His blood had mixed with Lydia’s before he ratted out in the courtyard, after all, and he’d only started flutterstepping hours later.
“Lydia, get me a binding to wrap this hand and... do we have an hourglass or something?”
“You wish a way to track how long it takes your new rarity to manifest, lord? We have a way. Hugo, who travels with the caravan, can track time down to the moment with his rarity.”
“Well isn’t that surprisingly useful. So go tell him to start counting, but don’t tell him why. When my rarity kicks in, I’ll check with him again.”
“Understood. I will notify Hugo and then return with the items you both need.”
“Thanks, Lydia.”
She smiled as she opened the carriage door. “You need not thank me, lord.”
As he tried to protest, however, she added something else.
“But it is appreciated.”
Drake eyed Samuel cautiously. “So, now. I told you everything that happened while you were regenerating. Do you want to tell me how you got so torn up?”
“Not particularly.”
So Samuel had a sense of humor after all. “Let me rephrase that. Will you?”
His sheet-clad butler sighed. “It was not as you suspect.”
“So Lord Crow didn’t torture you?”
“Not before you found me as you did. Though... that might have been kinder.”
Drake grimaced as he tried to imagine what would be kinder than four days of torture. “Why don’t you start at the beginning?”
“Let me ask you a question, first,” Samuel said. “What do you know about realm-to-realm teleportation?”
Drake felt a rush of excitement as a topic he hadn’t spoken with anyone about since his first day here abruptly returned. “I know Lord Crow did it. I’m hoping to find someone else who can do the same thing. I’d like to visit my world again someday.”
“If you wish to keep Gloomwood Manor safe, I would not advise that.”
“Understood.” Drake nodded. “Still, though. What do you know about it?”
“The condition in which you found me was due to Lord Crow’s cruelty, but not as the others likely believed. First, understand this. I do not know how realm-to-realm teleportation is accomplished. I only observed the old lord as he attempted it.”
“Balls,” Drake added in annoyance. “I was hoping you could tell me something.”
“I can tell you that teleporting between realms is imprecise, dangerous, and considered a crime by the noble court,” Samuel said. “It is for that reason that Lord Crow kept the truth of his experiments secret. Only I knew what he was doing. Even Lydia did not know.”
“I don’t blame Lydia for anything that happened with me ending up here,” Drake assured him. “But I still need to know everything I can about teleporting between realms, crime or not. What else can you tell me?”
“Lord Crow’s experiments with realm-to-realm teleport are how I suffered my injuries. He used me as his... scout, for lack of a better word... when he opened a portal into a new realm. It is impossible to see what is in that realm before one actually steps into it.”
Drake was starting to get an inkling of what had happened. “So he’d open a portal somewhere, compel you to enter it, and then return and tell him if it was safe?”
“Yes.”
“And one of those portals wasn’t safe?”
“No.” Samuel shuddered. “Even if I wished to speak of it, what I saw... I am not certain I can adequately describe the sight.”
“Try.”
“A river of flesh, but warm and pulsing. Blood in the air as a foul mist, inhalation of which rouses nausea and a pain deep in the lungs. A sky made of darkness, chanting that was everywhere and had no source, and...”
Drake stared in growing alarm.
“I think it may have been a part of the underside.”
“Holy shit.” Drake remembered what Lydia had told him about the underside, in that it was this place’s version of Hell. “So did you see any demons?”
“I do not know if what I encountered were demons, only that I encountered... hostile beings. They were formed of shapes I could not full discern, all sharp angles and shadows. They did not want me there. I escaped, but at great cost.”
“So you got, what... attacked by demons while scouting for Lord Crow?”
“For lack of a better description, yes. I escaped back into the portal, but not before sharp weapons, several powerful spells, and some sort of acid struck me from behind.”
Drake whistled softly. “And you survived.”
“For a time. I only barely managed to warn Lord Crow to close the portal before I fell.”
“Please tell me you blacked out afterward.”
“I remember very little after I fled back through the portal,” Samuel said. “There was a tremendous amount of pain in those last moments, and then... nothing.”
Drake frowned. “Seriously?”
“Nothing until I became conscious once more in this carriage with you.”
After hearing all that, Drake almost wanted to hug the old man. He wasn’t going to... he wasn’t a hugger... but maybe someone else would hug Samuel. The guy could use a good hug after getting ganked by demons in the underside. It was also proof of how tough Samuel was.
“I’m sorry to hear that happened, and I’m glad you’re safe,” Drake said. “And I’m guessing because Lord Crow never told anyone why you didn’t come back out the ritual room, they all assumed he tortured you to death?”
“It has happened before. With other thralls. Given he shared his experiments in realm-to-realm teleportation with no one save me, the story Lydia shared with you would be a reasonable conclusion once I did not return. So while you may blame her for—”
“I don’t,” Drake interrupted. “I’m not like the other manor lords you’ve encountered, Samuel. I don’t punish people because they made a simple mistake.”
Samuel watched him a moment. “So it would seem.”
“But I don’t think we can tell the others about what you and Crow were doing.”
“In that we agree,” Samuel said. “Lord Crow was still Lord Gloomwood when he forced me to aid him in his experiments with realm-to-realm teleportation. Anyone who knows of them could be forced to testify to that fact before the noble court. For that reason, it would be best if I avoid testifying before the noble court on any matter.”
“Can you?” Drake asked. “Refuse, I mean?”
“We can in cases where our manor lord has compelled us not to answer. However, to refuse to answer the court’s questions is often as good as admitting guilt.”
“We’ll figure it all out before we get to the capitol,” Drake assured him. “We don’t even know what this cabal is about yet.” Even so, he was already mulling over his visit to the capital for another important and rather frightening reason.
Lydia knew he could lie. That meant Drake would have to keep the court from talking to Lydia as well, not because she’d tell them, but because she could be forced to tell them... or at least refuse to answer. So he’d have to find a way to excuse both his steward and spymaster from any formal testimony. That wasn’t great, but at least he had a week to figure out how.
He also had more questions for his resurrected butler.
Drake sat back. “Now, your turn. Answer my earlier question. Do you think I did the right thing by nullifying the blood pact? Given you might be very dead if I hadn’t, I’d like your opinion. If you think I made the wrong call, I will consider your arguments.”
“I would ask permission to think upon that, lord. What you have done has many long-standing implications I doubt even Lydia has fully processed. May I answer at a later date?”
“That’s your choice to make,” Drake said. “I changed things so you’d have a choice.”
A polite knock sounded on the carriage door, interrupting his introduction to his now not dead butler. “Lord?” It was Lydia. “Your tent is ready.”
“Come in!” Drake called. “Say hello to an old friend.”
The door opened, and when Lydia attempted to step inside, she froze on the rise. Her eyes widened noticeably. Then she stepped inside, closed the door, and tossed her arms around Samuel with a tiny cry. Drake was both surprised and amused.
There it was. There was the hug! Samuel had earned that one.
Samuel, surprisingly enough, seemed pleased by the attention, but not in a way that struck Drake as anything but wholesome. As Lydia embraced him with an almost gleeful expression on her face, she looked like a granddaughter greeting his grandfather after getting off a plane. Samuel wrapped one big arm around Lydia and patted her back.
“There, now. It wasn’t so bad as all that.”
Smiling brilliantly and blinking back what was definitely a tear, Lydia settled on the seat beside Drake. “We thought we’d never see you again. It was horrible.”
Samuel simply nodded, features calm as a Shaolin monk. “I am well now. All we can do is look to the future, a future our new lord has thus far led us toward with remarkably few missteps. I trust we have your guidance to thank for that.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t—”
“Yes,” Drake interrupted. “Lydia has been my lifeline since I got here.”
She blushed and looked to the carriage window. “You offer me too much credit.”
“Did or did you not take three crossbow bolts to the chest for me? C’mon. Bask a little. Even if the old man won’t admit it, I bet he’s impressed with how you’ve done.”
“I am,” Samuel said warmly.
Lydia brushed at her cheek and waved his praise away. “The others will be overjoyed to see you.” She gasped. “Oh, but... do you wish to clean up first?”
Samuel’s faint smile returned. “That would be best.”
Lydia nodded. “A razor and bowl, of course. And fresh water. Also, we have several sets of your court and travel clothes in the wagons. Valentia packed those for you.”
“He can get presentable right here in the wagon,” Drake said at once. “No need to have him hop across the camp in his sheet, and I’ve got my own tent to go check out. But first...” Drake leaned forward. “I need a shot at your rarity, old man.”
His butler gave him a measured look and then presented his hand, palm up.
“Lydia, got a knife?”
A spectral yellow dagger appeared in her hand the moment she passed her hand by her skirt. Yet as he raised her dagger, she frowned. “I cannot cut you.”
“Yes you can. Remember?”
She stared at him wide-eyed. “You would trust me with that?”
“I trust you with my life, Lydia. I thought I’d made that clear already.”
Drake held out his hand, palm up. Lydia stared at his hand, holding her glowing dagger out at her side, and then looked into his eyes.
“Hold very still,” she said softly.
He grinned at her. “Just try not to take my finger off.”
Moving so delicately he was worried it would take her all day to cut his palm open, she pricked the corner of his palm. She gasped once the knife pierced his flesh, then yanked it away as if it had burned her. She stared at the wound in disbelief.
“You all right?” Drake asked worriedly.
“I am fine,” she said quietly. “I just... even now, this seems impossible.”
Samuel, too, seemed appropriately spooked. It was the first time Drake had seen the man look even the tiniest bit uneasy. Seeing a blood thrall actually be capable of harming their manor lord must be tremendously weird for both of them.
For Drake, it was a reassurance. It was confirmation that even if he and Lydia both fell in battle, the rest of his manor would still be safe... since his surviving people could kill their manor lord if they turned out to be a dick. He looked to Samuel. “Ready?”
Samuel extended his palm and glanced at Lydia. “If you would be so kind?”
As she poked a hole in his palm as well, he showed no sign of discomfort. Given all he’d been through, his pain tolerance must be incredibly high. Drake clasped bloody palms with Samuel. Soon after, blood dripped out and began to dribble all over the floor of the wagon.
Getting stabbed sucked. He’d need to get something to soak it all up next time. As their bloody hands remained clasped, Samuel watched him with calm, dark eyes.
“No idea how long this takes,” Drake said. “Or if it’ll work. So let’s give it a few.”
“Understood,” Samuel said.
After an increasingly awkward minute or so, Drake released Samuel’s hand. When the man moved to cut it again, Drake stopped him. “Hold up, you’re...” He trailed off.
While Samuel’s palm was covered in blood, the cut he’d carved into it was already scabbed over. It had stopped bleeding. Samuel’s rarity really was reactive.
As for Drake’s palm, it continued to bleed like a fountain. He already knew there was some sort of delay before any new rarity kicked in. His blood had mixed with Lydia’s before he ratted out in the courtyard, after all, and he’d only started flutterstepping hours later.
“Lydia, get me a binding to wrap this hand and... do we have an hourglass or something?”
“You wish a way to track how long it takes your new rarity to manifest, lord? We have a way. Hugo, who travels with the caravan, can track time down to the moment with his rarity.”
“Well isn’t that surprisingly useful. So go tell him to start counting, but don’t tell him why. When my rarity kicks in, I’ll check with him again.”
“Understood. I will notify Hugo and then return with the items you both need.”
“Thanks, Lydia.”
She smiled as she opened the carriage door. “You need not thank me, lord.”
As he tried to protest, however, she added something else.
“But it is appreciated.”
