The Cursed Blood, стр. 67

Fazool glared back at each of them until they turned away and went about their business before continuing. “I’m fairly sure he’s the one he got the poison from in the first place, but sadly we could never prove it. As soon as he got the chance your grandfather hunted the foul man down like a dog… Artur was the only man that evil Wizard ever feared, and for good reason. But somehow, likely his own son was behind it, Artur was robbed of his revenge, the Wizard was condemned by Council orders to the catacombs instead of to the hell he so richly deserved.”

I glanced up at him sharply and he waved his hands about wildly. “Oh no, no, no, no, no, that was before my or your Aunt’s time serving, I assure you. Back when it was corrupt and some were thick as thieves with the darker powers, I put a few of them in their pine boxes myself… Well, it was more like matchboxes when I was done with them.” He smiled wickedly and poured some wine, swirling it about in the glass and sniffing at it with his eyes closed like connoisseurs do.

“Your Aunt, Grandmother, Artur, and I made quite the team in our time, but it was a messy, ugly, bloody business and we lost good friends…” He paused reflectively. “And family.” He raised his glass in salute of this and downed it. “I’d thought the bad times were over, though now I fear they have only just begun.”

Fazool walked me to the room I shared with Gramps and patted my leg encouragingly. “Go on in, Ben. I think you will find it will be alright. We let him breathe, remember?” I nodded uneasily and knocked twice and was gruffly ordered in to find Gramps sitting on his bed, head in his hands, a golden locket dangling from his hand as Aunt Milly patted his back soothingly. Manx was curled up on the pillows and glaring at me accusingly.

Gramps let out a long shuddering sigh that sounded a bit uncomfortably like a sob. I caught a glimpse of Fazool who offered me a weak smile and thumbs up before I shut the door with a creak leaving the halfling to return to his own room in peace. Aunt Milly coldly beckoned me over to stand before him as she tapped her foot impatiently on the thick carpeted floor. “What did he tell you?” Gramps asked hoarsely as he continued to stare with red rimmed eyes at the carpet patterns with his head in his hands.

“I’m guessing everything,” I answered honestly.

“Good. Saves me the trouble.” He gazed up and smiled sadly as he handed me the locket. “Go ahead, take a look.”

It’s an exquisite piece of Dwarfish make that exemplifies the age-old adage that “they don’t make them like that anymore” to a capital T. Square and tiny and richly engraved with ravens and mesmerizing patterns of interwoven vines and flowers, it opens with a tiny catch and on one side is a painting of a simply gorgeous woman with thick braided blond hair wearing a crown of braided tiny white flowers about her brow. On the other is a tiny clock that told time and moon cycles with gold hands over a rich purple background awash in a tiny field of diamond stars.

I stared at it in silence. “Gwenevere,” I acknowledge softly, and he nodded gravely. “While I loved your grandmother deeply and honestly, I never loved anyone else as much as I still love her.” He rubbed at the bridge of her nose.

“And she was taken from me, completely. That was what I feared my eldest son had in mind for you and your parents, Ben. I couldn’t risk it, I couldn’t allow him or his minions anywhere near my family,” he explained in a tone thick with sadness and agonizing regret.

“You can’t visit her at the Reunion like you do with Gran?” I asked innocently. Gramps stared past me sadly for a long moment, a tear running down his face as he cracked his knuckles and seemed to be in another place, far away and long ago.

“No, I can’t. Our wicked son made sure of that. Somehow her soul isn’t in the ether. She’s just…gone,” he answered in a barely audible whisper I had to strain to hear over Manx’s absurdly loud panting.

“I’m sorry,” I managed.

He peered up at me bleakly and smirked crookedly. “I know, Ben, but let me tell you something that will make your life ever so much easier when you grow up. There is no better apology than changed behavior.”

“Translation.” Aunt Milly eyed me narrowly with arms crossed and foot still tapping away. “There is nothing you should be able to trust more than family. Never doubt your grandfather’s intentions for you ever again. No matter how pig headed, stone skulled—” Gramps glanced up at her and grunted disagreeably, and she rolled her eyes and got to the point. “He, and us, always mean you well, Benjamin. If nothing else, believe that.”

“That being said,” Gramps added as he accepted back his locket, staring down at it a moment before clicking it shut and hanging it over his neck and under his shirt. “This really isn’t your fault. This whole place is toxic. It bleeds into your skin and leaves you less for it. It never used to be this way.”

He shook his head and anger flashed over his face and was gone before he continued. “My son has made a mockery of what our kind built. One of the many atrocities I will see to it he pays for with interest first chance I get.”

I was set off to get bathed and get in my pajamas in the palatial powder blue tiled and brass fixtured bathroom. Creepily decorated along the wall were bordello leftover crude roman tile frescos of nude lasciviously