14: WHSE13

So mum, I hope you are well. You should be because only a few minutes should have passed since you read my previous letter. And this is when we find out what happens to Posey Meadows (that’s part of an extended metaphor, Mrs. Chard – Willow).

Brandy was left talking to the little boy. But he was a very strange boy indeed and spoke with many voices and seemed to know more than little boys should. Brandy told him that he had business in the house, and that he should go back to bed. The boy shook his head, though, and told Brandy he knew who he was. Brandy said he didn’t and that he was only a little boy, but I don’t think he believed it.

I think the strange boy was frightening Brandy, so he told him he had a sling and that he had killed a man with it, once. But that didn’t impress the boy who said, with his many voices again, that he wasn’t going to hurt Brandy, as he had something else in mind for him. I’m not sure what that meant. Brandy told him not to come any closer as he had friends outside who were about to come in. And although it was true, we were outside, we weren’t about to come in.

The boy asked Brandy to come upstairs with him where they could get this all sorted out. Brandy made the boy promise not to hurt him and then began to follow him upstairs, although he kept his eye out for a good opportunity to run away. And Brandy explained that he was a Lowhaven so if the boy tried anything he would have the whole clan to answer to. By now Brandy was very scared. I don’t know what made the little boy so scary, but he was.

The boy said they should chat about what Brandy thought was going on. Brandy said that was a big question for a little halfling, but he told the boy all about the three-legged goblin, the sewer monster and its magical colours, and the dead dwarf. Then the boy walked towards Brandy, and despite him telling him to keep away he touched Brandy’s arm, and the last thing Brandy saw was a glowing green magical fire, and then he fell asleep.

This is where it gets a bit complicated, mum. I will be saying stuff about Brandy in the next few paragraphs, but you have to remember that it might not be him. Brandy might be asleep in the house, with a magic spell on him, and the character I am calling Brandy might be the little boy pretending to be him. The boy might have the power to assume any shape he wants. He might not even be a little boy at all, and that might just be one of its shapes. I know it’s hard to get your head around, and it took me a little bit of thinking, too. And certainly, I had no idea what was going on, so in a minute when I write that Brandy ran out of the back door and told us to run, you have to remember that it isn’t really him, and that I didn’t know this at the time.

In the garden, Dreamy and I could see strange flashes coming from inside the house, a bit like the magical flashes around the sewer monster, but these were green. And then Brandy ran out of the back door and told us to run. So, we did run. Well, I ran as fast as I could and Dreamy did what I think they call a tactical withdrawal, where he walks calmly backwards with his arrow nocked making sure no one is following us.

I was soon on the top of the wall, and Brandy shouted for us to split up and meet back at the boat. Then he climbed a different part of the wall, not using our ropes or anything, and for a fat halfling, he made a surprisingly good job of scaling the wall without any equipment. I didn’t really think too much about it at the time, but looking back this may have been a clue that this wasn’t really Brandy. (Remember mum, Brandy is still asleep in the house, and this was the shape-changing little boy) (I agree it does get a bit confusing – Willow).

When we got back to the boat Willow told us about Morrslieb and how it looked like a skull licking its lips, and we all had a look, and had to agree that the more you looked at it, the more it seemed to look like that. On the other hand, that might just be about the power of suggestion, who knows?

Brandy told us about his time in the house (remember, It’s still not the real Brandy, are you following this, mum?) and we asked about the magical lights, and he said they were light traps, whatever that is. And he said he needed to go back up to the Half-measure, to check on something, and so he left. Blume suggested that maybe Brandy had stolen something from the Teugen house, and not told us about it, and was going to the Half-measure to sell it, which sounded reasonable.

We wondered what to do next. We only had about half an hour before midnight, and it seemed that something quite nefarious would be happening then. Willow sat inside a coil of rope with her hat on and had some Fuggleweed. And we had to break it to Blume that we never had any intention of capturing the sewer monster, and selling it for a hundred crowns, and even if we had, we wouldn’t have been able to do it.

So, in the end we just sat up on the boat and held hands until we were happy that midnight had passed and nothing nefarious had happened, and then we went to bed. It was a bit of an anti-climax. Even so, we still kept watch all night, in case something happened. Dreamy did go up to the Half-measure to see if Brandy was alright, but the tavern was closed and there was no sign of him. When Willow was on watch she imagined that she saw Morrslieb creep down from the sky and get under her blanket, but I think that was probably the Fuggleweed.

In the morning Brandy still wasn’t around. Willow had to go and see Friedrich Magirius. We checked with Josef that he wouldn’t leave without us. But he said he would be staying in town until the afternoon as he was waiting on a new cargo of wine that he had been offered at short notice by Magirius, who had paid over the odds. That sounds a bit strange now, but at the time I didn’t think much about it.

Willow offered to bring everyone to Magirius’ house with her, as she thought we might get offered a nice breakfast, and so we looped past the Half-measure on the way, just to see if Brandy was about, but he wasn’t. And they said they hadn’t seen him the previous evening either, so we left a message that we were looking for him.

Then we went to the Adel Ring and Magirius’ house was just as fancy as all the others on that street. Before we went in, Blume talked to a couple of watchmen and told them that we were looking for Brandy and asked them to keep an eye out for him. She gave them his description and told them the name and location of the Berebeli in case they needed to find us. That was nice of Blume, and showed she cared more about Brandy than she let on, but, as it turned out, it wasn’t a great move.

A servant opened the door to the Magirius house and told us we were expected and directed us to a wing of the house where the office was. The heavy oak door swung open ahead of us, but the room looked deserted. There was a big desk there, and an overturned chair. And then behind the desk we could see Magirius’ body. His throat had been cut and there was blood on the carpet. And next to Magirius’ body lay Brandy, unconscious, and holding a big bloody knife.

Blume knocked the knife away and tried to clean Brandy’s hands of all the blood, but I don’t think she made a good job of it. Willow screamed. I’m not sure whether she was screaming at Magirius’ dead body or the thought that Brandy might have killed him (mum, this is the real Brandy, now). I thought about slapping her, to bring her to her senses, but I knew how protective Dreamy was of his cousin, so I didn’t want to risk it.

There was a load of papers on the desk, and although he didn’t know what they said, Dreamy thought they might be important and so he grabbed some of them. And Blume noticed that on the carpet, in his own blood, Magirius had written a last message. It said WHSE 1?. We thought it might be the number of a warehouse, but we couldn’t make out the exact number. It was probably a 13 or a 17.

It was about then that Brandy woke up and surveyed the scene. He looked very shocked and insisted he hadn’t done anything. And despite all the evidence I was inclined to believe him, as clearly a lot of strange things were happening and not everything was as it seemed.

And at that moment we heard a shout from outside saying, ‘Help, Murder, Call the watch!’ and the servant appeared. And before our eyes, wreathen in flickering magic, he changed shape into the strange boy Brandy had talked to, and he said, ‘This is quite a pickle.’ And then he disappeared. And I don’t mean disappeared as in ran away, or went into another room disappeared, I mean a proper vanish before our eyes disappear. And through the window we could see four watchmen running towards the house.

We ran towards the back of house and as we were going through the pantry I managed to grab a string of sausages. I’m not sure this was the right time for that sort of thing, but Willow had promised us a nice breakfast, and Magirius hadn’t been able to offer us one, so it seemed like a reasonable precaution. When we got to the back of the house, we saw that just like Teugen’s house the garden was surrounded by a high wall. And this time we didn’t have any ropes or hooks.

Dreamy went to the bottom of the wall and told us he would help us all over. But despite that Brandy and Willow failed to climb up. Blume, being a bit taller, managed to reach the top of the wall, and then she helped me up. Then we let down the string of sausages to give everyone something to climb up, and after a bit of a fuss we all managed to get to the top of the wall. Then Dreamy climbed up last, just as the watchmen were about to grab him.

We thought about all splitting up and meeting back at the Berebeli, which was our usual plan, but as Blume had been so careful to give the watchmen Brandy’s description, and tell then which boat we all lived on, we decided to meet up five warehouses downriver of the Berebeli.

I went one way and Willow and Dreamy went another. And Brandy and Blume went a third. They do seem to be hanging out together rather a lot for people who aren’t supposed to like each other.

Willow and Dreamy were making their way through the back alleys towards the Ostendamm when they heard a mob coming towards them. Then they heard a voice shouting, ‘There they are, there are the fire starters.’ And they were shocked to see Willow running towards them laughing maniacally, and smoke rising from a distant building. (So mum, just as the Brandy who was behaving strangely and doing stuff Brandy would never do earlier in this letter, was not the real Brandy, but a shape-changing strange boy, so is the Willow running before the mob and calling for them to follow not the real Willow. I said it got complicated.) (It was complicated, Mrs. Chard, for a moment, I didn’t even know which Willow I was – Willow.)

The fake Willow ran past the real Willow and disappeared into a side alley (and perhaps disappeared literally, too), and the mob caught sight of the real Willow and began following her. Luckily Willow and Dreamy were able to lose them in the maze of alleyways. But when they were clear, Willow started crying and complaining that she didn’t know what was going on, but Dreamy reassured her that they were safe and that he would look after her. Eventually they found a good site, five doors down from the Berebeli and Dreamy handed Willow the papers that he had grabbed from Magirius’ desk.

There was a handwritten note which said:

‘When Teugen came to us from Nuln, he told us that, with our help, his sorcery could influence the economy of the Empire. Boegenhafen would become great again — greater even than Marienburg — and we would all become rich beyond our wildest dreams. That is why the Ordo Septenarius was established, and the lower ranks are no more than a smokescreen.

‘Everything was going according to Teugen’s plans until you discovered the temple under the Steinhaeger offices. I was instructed to reassure you — to make you go away, so that preparations for the ritual to make us all rich could carry on.

‘The ritual will take place tonight. I don’t know where yet, but I will get word to you as soon as I can. Teugen said that a human sacrifice is necessary to prepare the new temple, and that was too much for me. I didn’t realise anyone would have to be killed. You must help me. Going to the authorities is useless as Teugen and the Inner Council control them all. You are my only hope.’

The second was a more formal letter:

Black Peaks,

Grissenwald,

Near Nuln.

My Dear Friend,

Here is the scroll you require for the ritual you mentioned in your last letter. Do not forget that the temple for such an undertaking must be sanctified with fresh blood.

As ever, I am filled with awe at the heights (or should I say depths) to which your learning now reaches. It seems like only yesterday that we two dilettantes begged tutelage of the High Master, and now you stand on the threshold of the abyss itself. If you manage to find the time to record your researches, do write with details of how the ritual progressed. Perhaps one day I, too, might follow in your illustrious footsteps.

Your friend,

Etelka Herzen

The first letter sounded like Magirius had wanted to warn us about Johannes Teugen and perhaps he had been killed to keep him quiet. The second one dealt with undoubtedly nefarious issues, but none of us had ever heard of Etelka Herzen. Whoever she was, she was certainly nefarious.

We were wondering what to do next, and I took a quick walk up towards the Berebeli to see what was going on. There was a large group of watchmen hanging around the boat and so I left without drawing attention to myself. I noticed that the boat was high in the water, though, which meant it hadn’t been loaded up with cargo, yet.

It was now around dusk and we decided that we should have a look at the two possible warehouses as soon as possible, and that Dreamy and I would do 17 and Blume and Brandy would do 13, with Willow running between the two groups if we needed to communicate.

Warehouse 17 was a Ruggbroder warehouse, and it was open, and full of barrels. We had a look round, and realised it was the very cargo that we had just brought up on the Berebeli. We checked to see whether there were any trap doors in the floor or areas hidden behind the barrels but didn’t find anything.

We were interrupted by the shouts of a watchman. He asked us what we were doing, and I managed to think of the idea that we had just come to make sure Josef’s cargo had arrived safely. The watchman checked some papers and discovered that the stuff still needed a signature, so Dreamy scrawled something on the paper, and we left. The watchman had a big white beard and two dogs, so it must have been the same one that Blume said she had killed and fed to his dogs, earlier. I hadn’t believed her, anyway.

Warehouse 13 was a Teugen warehouse. The door was unlocked but there was no light inside. When Brandy, Willow, and Blume looked in, they could see that at the front of the warehouse many of the crates had been pushed back as if someone had been deliberately making some space. They had a look in the crates and found some Silas Hillberry of Appleford, bottled plums. It seemed funny to come all this way only to find some Mootland produce.

There were some stairs leading up to another storey. Blume loaded her gun and they all went up to find a few more storage areas but there was no one there, and they decided that whatever nefarious things were going to happen they would be happening downstairs. Blume and Brandy found some places to hide on the ground floor while Willow came running to warehouse 17 to tell us that they had found the right place.

Unfortunately, Willow’s tonic for Brandy’s galloping trots was wearing off, and Blume discovered that she had contracted the disease too. So the pair of them needed to leave their hiding places and find somewhere to relieve themselves.

They darted down the alley behind the warehouse but found it extremely embarrassing to be doing this in front of each other. Blume told Brandy never to mention the incident or she would shoot him, and Brandy told Blume to stop looking at him. And after some arguing, they managed to agree to turn their backs on each other while they went. To be honest, mum, when I promised to write and tell you everything that happened on my journey, that was not the sort of thing I was thinking I would be reporting on (It’s not very nice, is it, Mrs Chard – Willow).

Eventually we all got into the warehouse and we all took up positions on the tops of various crates where we could see the open space at the front. And we made sure we could all see Dreamy, so he could give us directions, or command us, or whatever it is that soldiers do in a fight, because we all thought that we could well be having a fight very soon.

We waited on top of the crates for a while, and then we saw the big doors open, and we could see the unmistakably large silhouette of Franz Steinhaeger enter the warehouse, flanked by two of his bodyguards.

So, Posey Meadows is still dangling over Miller’s Bluff, but I promise to write and tell you what happens next, as soon as I can, mum, because it is getting very exciting, and I’m sure you can’t wait to find out how this all ends.