Tak

Experiments - Part 8

     He'd known he was embarking on a perilous undertaking when he'd first left Castle Nagra, though, and considering his thraldom to Khalkedon, who was likely to simply sacrifice him like a guardsman in a game of Klann sooner or later, the most dangerous thing he could do was nothing. He stepped cautiously into the room, therefore, and looked around.

     There was almost nowhere to step. Every inch of floor space was cluttered with boxes and crates filled with seemingly worthless blankets and papers piled up to the ceiling. If the secrets of the raks were in here, he might need weeks to find it. In one corner he saw an iron-strapped mahogany chest, too buried under several layers of old clothing for opening it to be anything other than a major undertaking. He kept on looking, hoping to find it elsewhere, thereby making the operation unnecessary.

     He climbed over a pile of sequined cushions and unpaired shoes to reach a chest of drawers standing against the far wall, and pulled open each of the drawers in turn, finding them to be full of assorted nick nacks. Small woodworking tools. Cheap ornaments. Poor quality jewelery, as well as a lot of stuff he couldn't at first identify. He sorted through it for a while, thinking there might be something important mixed in among it all, before wiping the dust off on his legs and moving on.

     Another cupboard standing next to it contained a lot of mouldy books that he pounced on eagerly before sighing in disappointment when he found they were only biographies of minor nobles he'd never heard of. He returned to the chest, therefore, now sure that whatever the room was protecting had to be inside. He spent an hour rearranging the room's contents so he'd be able to lift its lid. He was aware, even as he was doing it, that the mess he was making would be immediately obvious the next time Gannlow came here unless he spent twice as long putting everything back again, but he didn't let himself think about that. He focused on his work, thinking only of what he might find inside the chest when he'd finally managed to uncover it.

     The chest contained only a lot of old bottles, though, each one wrapped up in crinkly brown paper to protect it from bumps. There seemed to be no reason for such care as they were all empty, containing only cobwebs and the occasional shed outer skin of a spider. It wasn't as if they were antique bottles either, which might fetch a couple of silver pieces from a collector. They were just bottles. Probably ten or twenty years old by the look of them. Why take such care to protect them... Of course! The paper! The bottles were just a red herring! It was the paper they were wrapped up in that was the real treasure! Clever Gannlow!

     He picked up a bottle, ripped off its wrapping, smoothed it out on the chest's curved lid and examined it eagerly. It was ordinary wrapping paper. There was nothing written on it. No watermarks, no handwriting. No tingle of his magic sense to indicate a spell of some kind. Just ordinary, everyday, common or garden wrapping paper. He crumpled it into a ball and threw it across the room in frustration. There had to be something hidden in this room, unless...

     A sick feeling of fear settled in the pit of his stomach. Unless the whole room was a red herring. A trap to divert attention away from where he really hid his secrets. Gannlow would look in here in the morning, see all the mess he'd made and know that Tak had betrayed him while, somewhere else in the mansion, his real secret room remained safe and inviolate.

     What would Gannlow do to him? he wondered, trembling with fear. He was a rak, never forget that. Who knew what terrible punishments a rak might dream up, to torment him for the rest of his natural life? Unless he could put everything back the way it was before morning. What time was it now? How much time did he have? Better get started. He started by finding the ball of wrapping paper he'd thrown away, smoothing it out and wrapping the bottle up again.