The drake hissed savagely. He looked past the corpse, but saw only more moist droplets. The fiendish beast had made good its escape.
Suddenly, Morgis frowned. Continually he thought of it as a beast, a monster. It was both, but it was also highly intelligent. Not only did it know how to hide from its prey, but Morgis believed that only an intelligent killer would ever dream of skinning its victims. He thought back to what Kalena had told him of her discoveries and tried to connect that with everything that had happened.
Surveying the scene, something else occurred to him. He looked at Leonin’s grisly form and recalled all the other victims he had come across. His fist clenched tight, but he tried to hide it from the cat woman.
“Ssso…”
“I’m so sorry, Morgis… too late again.” Kalena, cloak shielding her body, shut her eyes for a moment. “He was a strong, good fighter.”
“And it availed him nothing.” Retrieving the blade and rising, he glanced behind them. “Come! There’s sssomething I want to sssee.”
“What, Morgis?”
“I would rather not explain now sssince I am not certain what it meansss.” The drake put his sword arm around Kalena. “I want you to ssstay bessside me at all timesss. Do not fall behind me, underssstood?”
Her expression indicated that she did not understand, at least not entirely, but she nodded.
The trail of blood still shone bright under the light of the torch as they followed it back. A few smears here and there testified to where Morgis had been unable to avoid stepping in some of the dark fluid.
When they reached the area where he had first discovered the trail, Morgis eyed the stone wall. He tapped it twice with the flat of the blade, then saw that for which he had been searching.
“Kalena, I will ssstand ready with the sword and torch, but I want you to touch that area up on the left. That jutting piece there.”
She carefully stepped up to the wall and did as he requested. Nothing happened.
“Harder, pleassse.”
The cat woman repeated her effort.
The wall suddenly slid open like a door. Kalena jumped back.
But Morgis was there to guide her forward with his sword arm. “It isss all right, Kalena. The danger is not within.”
Together they stepped inside. Flickering light suddenly danced about the room and more than a dozen pairs of staring figures stood waiting for the newcomers.
Morgis and Kalena reflected in mirrors.
Most were full-length, but some hung on walls. The majority had cracks. They had once been masterfully- crafted and expensive pieces, for the drake recognized gold and silver in the frames and even several with jewels.
And behind the array of mirrors, set against the walls of this hidden chamber, were several high, wide, and sturdy antique cabinets of the type designed for clothes.
Again, Morgis recalled what he had been told about Kalena’s horrific find.
“It displaysss itssself here,” he muttered, drawing the cat woman along with him. Morgis positioned the two of them before the most elegant of the mirrors, a high, gilded pane with genuine diamonds inset along the surrounding edge. “Thisss would be itsss favorite, I think, where it preensss itssself in its new coveringssss.”
In the mirror, Kalena’s eyes were wide and unblinking. She stepped from the drake’s grasp and in fascination touched the glass. “Each flayed with perfection, not the slightest harsh cut to the skin. That would have ruined the effect…”
“And whenever it wasss finished, it placed its prize in one of the cabinetsss, including one that it kept upssstairs, although why it left those where they could be so easily discovered-”
“Those are the favorites,” the cat woman whispered. “The best ones.” She touched her cheek, watching her reflection mimic her. “The ones without blemish, the ones young and full of life…”
Morgis glanced at the darkened cabinets. “Of course. Ssso simple. Alwaysss keep the favoritesss more handy… until it became evident that they were risked upssstairs.”
He stepped toward the nearest of the closets and with the tip of his sword prodded it open.
Hanging from hooks were seven skins so perfectly taken that Morgis could almost imagine himself being able to put one on. Humans, elves, another Syrryn, some canine-looking creature… the drake suspected that the variety he would find if he opened all of the closets would stagger him. Then he noticed that one looked slightly less than perfect at the edges and something else occurred to him.
“They don’t lassst. Eventually, they decompossse, but it can preserve them for a time.” He sniffed. “And whatever it pressserves it with smellsss like musssk.”
When Kalena did not answer him, Morgis turned to find her still staring into the mirror. Closing the cabinet again, the drake returned to his companion.
“One more thing. It took me a moment to find it, but I’ve ssspotted the late and unlamented D’Kairn’s body over in the corner, behind the first mirrors. Not quite finished with it-were you?”
He thrust the torch into the cat woman’s voluminous cloak.
The cloth garment burst into flames. Kalena opened her mouth, but out of it came no mortal scream of fear and agony. Instead, a monstrous keening, an angry sound, shook the chamber and sent even Morgis back a few steps in astonishment.
“My pretty one!” the cat woman’s mouth said, moving irregularly. “My pretty one!”
The fiery cloak opened up-and beneath the charring flesh that had once housed Kalena, a spider-black form moved in a manner not possible for any normal, living creature, with multi-jointed limbs that seemed everywhere.
Already most of the skin below the head had caught fire, but that did not appear to physically bother the horrid form beneath. It stalked toward the drake, growing taller and wider as it neared. Halfway to Morgis, it already looked down on him.
The twisted face of Kalena smiled at the drake. “My pretty one is gone, so my best one I will wear… a dragon’s skin, a rare thing here! I have never been a dragon before!”
“I will keep my own ssskin, thank you…” Morgis slashed with the blade, but the creature looked unimpressed by the threat, so he waved the torch instead. Unfortunately, the pain in his shoulder nearly made him drop it.
The cat woman’s expression changed to a frown. “Be careful! You might scar it more! I’ve been very careful, sacrificing all those lesser but pretty skins so they wouldn’t interfere… and so I could keep yours so clean, so unmarred…”
The thing had purposely saved Morgis for last, literally trying to protect his scaled hide from the Aramites so it could later claim the skin for itself. It had acted as protector, using Kalena’s feminine form to put both Morgis and the others off their guard. Even when D’Kairn had thought Kalena responsible for the deaths of the sentries, he had still seen her as more of a nuisance than a danger, using her as bait rather than slaying her when he finally had the chance.
“I will be most cautious when I remove it, I promise you,” the macabre horror remarked cheerfully, its voice growing higher-pitched as the last vestiges of the cat woman burned away.
From what remained of the cloak emerged four long, razor-edged appendages. Each curved blade had a fine point, perfect for precision cutting. They were made of something that to the drake resembled dark bone or shell and moved with such swiftness that they were little more than blurs.
He had no doubt that they would cut through even his tough, scaly hide with ease.
Morgis cursed. He had expected the fire to deal with the threat. The false Kalena had not suspected that he had discovered the truth, discovered the horrific lies.
For supposedly the most vulnerable of all of them, the cat woman had survived quite well. Even that would have not been enough, but in the end, the fake Kalena had made one misjudgment. Leonin had not perished quite so recently as it had looked. The blood had been drier than that on the floor. Based on that, he had died at least before D’Kairn, whose blood trail it had been that Morgis had mistaken at first for his partner’s. Yet, the cat woman had said that Leonin had just departed. Instead, his corpse had been dragged back to the passage.
All so that the monster could take Morgis when it thought it could do the least damage to the skin it so coveted.
