SWNOVELS Chapter 19 Empty Village
When peregrining was over, William looked around first of all. He was standing in the middle of some street. It was late night. There wasn’t a single soul around and the street looked completely empty. There were gloomy houses all around him, and even in the dark William understood at once that they were empty and that nobody had been living there for a long time. The doors of the houses were open wide and there was no glass in the windows. This whole area instilled the feeling of desperation and its mere sight killed all hope for anything good.
“Illuminatio!” William whispered.
Nothing happened. For some reason, his feather refused to illuminate that area. And then, frustrated with the fact that he didn’t even know which way to go, he started looking around the gloomy street again, trying to see at least anything in it.
He forced himself to stare at the house signs with numbers attentively, but it seemed like an impossible task to make out anything in this black-pitch darkness or to see the small signs with numbers. Very well aware that each moment could cost El’s life, he started spinning around again, trying to make out at least something, but then stopped suddenly, his insides growing cold with fear. Behind the row of houses, he could see a barely visible dull light flickering in the window of one of the houses. There couldn’t be any doubts: it was the house he needed.
First unsure and slowly, then faster and more confident with each step, he headed towards the lit window. As he was approaching it, he realized that the light was in only one window and that window seemed to be boarded, because the light was coming out of it in beams, not the whole of it. Besides, the light was shining in the window of the second floor.
Reaching the house soon, he found himself on the porch. The moment he touched the door, it opened inwards with a quiet creak. Unlike the second floor, the first floor was pitch-black. He paused in the doorway and made sure that he would be able to see anything in here only if it was very close to him, then started moving slowly forward. And as he moved deeper into the house, his eyes started to grow accustomed to darkness. Now he could make out silhouettes of objects, though not very clearly. He made a few steps and saw stairs before him.
William could feel the feather in his hand stretching out rigidly and was surprise to realize that he wasn’t the only one nervous right now. Holding his feather tight in his hand, he started going upstairs slowly and carefully. When he had reached the second floor, he found himself in a wide corridor, partially lit by the light coming from the room. In this dim light, William saw that the furniture in this house hadn’t been used for a long time. A thick layer of dust and garlands of cobweb in the corners were the proof of that. William carefully headed to the room where the light was coming from.
When he had reached the doorway, he realized that the door was opened only halfway. Then he stopped, pausing for a moment, listening attentively for a voice that could be coming from the room. William became all ears, tying to hear almost every rustle, each tiny sound. But it was dead quiet in the room. Then he collected himself, clenched his feather and stepped into the half-open door resolutely.
Prepared for the worse, William froze in the doorway. He quickly looked around the whole room, holding his magic feather at the ready. But he saw nobody. Then, still not moving from the spot, he started examining the objects, trying to see the surroundings better. Thick semi-darkness, only partially diluted with the dim light of a candle by the window, was getting in the way of this task. But even weak light was enough to immediately recognize the table standing in the centre of the room. That was the table he had been sitting at and writing a letter to Neuville in that dream.
So this was the same house. He squinted his eyes, trying to focus on other objects, and then he saw El, who was lying unconscious on the floor in the far corner of the room. He dashed to his friend, put his feather into his pocket, grabbed El by the shoulders and started shaking him with two hands, trying to wake him up. But to not result. El was still showing no life signs.
“Come on, El!” William shook him harder. “Wake up, you! Come on!” He didn’t want to believe that after everything that had happened, it would turn out that El had died.
William wasn’t going to give up until the end and he was trying to wake his friend up in all possible ways.
In the silence, broken only by the voice of William himself, there was suddenly a quiet sound. William thought that it sounded like someone had touched piano keys briefly. The sound ended as quickly as it appeared. So quickly, that after listening to silence and not hearing anything apart from his own breathing, William decided that he was just hearing things. He attempted to wake El up again. He was shaking him as hard as he could, when the sound came the second time, but this time more clearly. It was definitely caused by keys being pressed. William froze. He really wanted to find out the nature of the sound at once, but he couldn’t make himself turn around and look at the person whose fingers were making these sounds now.
But the next moment his frozen state was replaced by open terror and fear. In the semi-darkness of the room, the disconnected sounds of the keys gradually turned into a grim melody. There was world’s sadness clear in that melody and it also reeked with death. That strangely attractive melody sent shivers down the spine and cold sweat appeared all over the body.
Paralyzed with fear, William froze on the spot, as he continued listening to that grim music as if enchanted. He was barely breathing, afraid to reveal himself with a clumsy movement. But then his eyes fell on El again, who was still showing no life signs. This gave him strength at once and helped him find courage when he needed it the most.
William slowly turned his head and in the opposite corner to El and him, barely lit with the burning out candle, he saw a dark silhouette of someone calmly sitting by the piano. The next moment, the room was filled with a calm voice, cold like ice and instilling terror.
“To be waiting for this moment for so many hundred years just to be unprepared for it now, William…” that voice, which seemed to be coming from under the tombstone, had so much dead sadness in it, so much cold…
The voice itself wasn’t frightening, but the absence of life in it and inexplicable weariness turned it into something rotten and horrible. William was sure he was hearing that voice for the first time. Meanwhile, the sitting man continued:
“You get shivers all over your body just from hearing my voice, right, William?” These words really made William tremble. “Yes… I can sense your fear… You’re afraid, Calhoun.” The calm and weary voice of the speaking man overlay the grim melody he was playing. “Who could have thought that the Offspring with Proud Blood in his veins,” the two words ‘noble blood’ were said with extra sneer, “trembles at the mere dull shadow of Duke Baelzidar!”
This name made William’s breathing hard. He expected to meet Neuville or Lauderdale here, or other counts mentioned in the news, but in the end he met the one who was more dangerous than all of them together. He remembered Welbeck’s story about Baelzidar very well. He immediately recalled all the pictures he imagined while Welbeck was telling his story, the horrible things that the terrible wizard had done many centuries ago. And now he, William, was kneeling beside El, who wouldn’t wake up, and opposite to them, just a few steps away, was the one there mere mention of whom could terrify legions.
“Fear of fear is more than just fear…” he continued as if reading William’s thoughts. Baelzidar suddenly laughed with his husky voice, then spoke again: “Old man Deverell would have turned over in his grave at the sight of his pitiful offspring.” With that, he stood up from his chair and slowly stepped into the light.
Strange as it would seem, his face was familiar to William. He recognized the same fair-haired young wizard the photo of whom he saw in the newspaper back then, in Alpurg, in the enrolee living room. He recognized Henry Lauderdale in him, the murderer of the literarium. Surprise, together with fear, burst inside of William suddenly, when he noticed that the melody didn’t stop when Baelzidar had stood up and approached him, and it was playing as before. When he took a better look, he saw a feather that was playing the piano, running over the keys.
“What do you want from me?” William asked him, finally, in a trembling voice.
Now he was looking straight at Baelzidar. Hearing William’s voice, he reacted immediately:
“You’re making progress, William!..” Baelzidar sneered. “You’ve learned to speak in my presence already! I’ve got a vague suspicion that if we stand here for another minute, you will jump at me and kill me in fear.”
Those words made anger flare up in William like thunder and he felt courageous again.
“I’ve asked you a question, warlock! What do you need from me?!”
“Bravo, Calhoun! Bravo!” Baelzidar’s voice sounded as sneering as before. “Genes in you get their own, after all!”
“Answer me! I’m waiting!” William raising his voice, feeling even bolder.
“Well, now, it doesn’t befit His Grace Duke Baelzidar to keep you waiting!” He moved closer to William and when he was very close, he grabbed William by his throat with one hand and he stretched the other one backwards. The melody was suddenly interrupted and a long black feather that by itself seemed no less dangerous that its owner obediently flew across the room and right into the Baelzidar’s outstretched hand. “I need what you’ve already given me by coming here,” he whispered into William’s ear.
“Now or never!” William thought. Holding on to his feather in the back pocket for a while now, he took it out in an instant and pointed at Baelzidar, intending to cast the Shield Spell.
But he didn’t have time to utter even a word, not mentioning a spell. Baelzidar, who seemed to have expected such a reaction, acted faster and stroke a blow first, throwing William into the wall with a light wave of his feather. William was quickly losing consciousness from the blow and closing his eyes. But before blacking out, he had time to see the room suddenly being brightly lit by blinding light.
That was the last thing William was to see at the Number 4, Empty Village.