Chapter 14 : Pest control.

Martin Chatwin/The Beast POV

Deep in the halls of The Castle That Isn't, the crisp clicking of boots echoes in the pindrop silence as I walked down the hallway to the dungeons. A deliberate action, it instilled maximal dread in my dearest guests. I could almost taste the fear, radiating off of them in waves and pinging against my psychic sense almost like the music of chimes in a pleasant spring breeze as they began pleading, 'not me, not me, not me' in a near maddening state.

I couldn't help but smile, though they couldn't see it, and wasn't that a shame?

Oh, I just love the smell of pants-shitting terror in the morning~

"Now then...." I came to a halt at the center of the corridor and swept my eyes across the floor, barely resting my gaze upon the denizens of the cellar sitting taut against the corner, like the scum they were- still, I applaud them, at least they knew there place- my bugs buzzing with delight as I spoke, "who shall I visit today?"

And thus, pandemonium broke out, a cacophony of wails and pleas and prayers to whatever deaf gods they fancied; and I began my count.

"Eeny meeny miny mo, catch a tiger by the toe~" My finger traced the cells one by one skipping to the beat and I delighted in their little whimpers as it passed them by, "If he hollers let him go, eeny meeny miny...." I came to a stop outside a familiar door, my smile widening into an inhuman grin, "You!"

The occupant's eyes went wide and he began to shiver as I flipped my hand.

The doors unlocked and slowly creaked open to the sickening whispers of a decrepit old man, dressed in rough, tattered rags and chains to the wall. He cowered as I enetered, scampering into a corner shaking like a kitten in the rain, though he was hardly a tenth as cute, when he was screaming perhaps....

"No, please Martin, you don't have to do this, please, please, I took you in when you needed me most, I'm the only one who understands you....please. For old times sake..." he begged.

Once he stood so tall and proud, holding his authority over me as he...took me, over and over.

Now?

I smiled, a musing tone in my voice.

"Oh, yes indeed. You took such good care of me, Christopher...." I summoned the phallic thorned mallet to my hand, "Now allow me to return the favor....."

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A phantasmal instrument burned into his eye, flash boiling what little mixture of blood and tears was left within.

"Scene is a June night,

Flooded with moonlight,

Fragrant roses in bloom~

Garden bench with just room for two~"

I hummed, acknowledging the irony of the song, as I watched the eyeball sizzle and steam, burning with a ghostly flame and I made a gesture with my hand, superimposing my index fnger over the ring finger, pulling my hand back. A prismatic slice of his eyeball slicked out with a bubbling little squelch and Plover wriggled like a fish out of water, his nerves twitching wrapped around his chans like growing moss, his screams having died in his chest hours ago- Oh how time passes when you're having fun-, or maybe it was that I had ripped his throat out?

Hmm, can you scream without a throat, I wonder?

Amateur question, I know, but surprisingly one that hadn't occurred to me after all these years.

Let's find out!

I waved my hand and the flame cutter disappeared, replaced by a wriggling tube with forked teeth bent into it.

A bit extravagant and definitely not worth the Living Metal it took to make it but the sweet screams it elicits from even the most weathered and wrung warriors as it races a course through their veins is.....mmah! Bellissimo!

"Bless your little heart, honey~

Everyday would be so sunny..." I continued humming as I pressed the instrument against his arm, muttering the chant for the activation spell, when suddenly I felt the space around us shift, like a curtain flapping in the breeze.

I turned around just in time to see a messenger bunny pop out of thin air and drop to the floor. I recognize this one, it was in the delegation I left with the hirelings in the Neitherlands.

"Report. Disturbance. Explosion. Fire." The bunny announced.

Hm? An incident in the Neitherlands? So soon?

My, dear sister, what are you playing at now?

I smiled, finishing the spell with a motion of my hand, and the instrument came to life, digging right into his arm and tearing a bloody trench through it and Plover's hollow eyes snapped to life as he let out a scream. Or at least he tried to. Unfortunately, without a throat all that came out was a low, squeaky whistle.

Well, that answers it. You can, in fact, scream without a throat. The more you learn I suppose.

"Now, what's this about an explosion?"

I flickered out of the palace and traveled to the Neitherlands with a thought, startling the mooks dawdling around the Fillory fountain.

I could immediately see the problem here.

The forest around the fountain was on fire, flames climbing high above the perpetual misty haze that occupied place and reaching fr the treetops. A fir crumbled before my eyes, the wood cracking with a thunderous boom as it crashed into the wall of the neighbouring fountain, breaking in two over it, covering the pristine white marble with soot and chips.

A fire. In the Neitherlands.

I'm surprised the Order hadn't put it out already, but then again, they haven't been too keen on the up keep here, not since the labor strikes some years back. As long as it doesn't affect their previous books.

I sighed, snapping fingers as I swiped my arm across the flame, before bringing it down. The wind stirred with my motions and enveloped the blazing forest patch like a whirlpool, snuffing it out.

Instantly the fire died, choking on its own embers, bereft of air and, reduced to a smoky mess of ash and overgrowth.

With that dealt with I turned to the spectators.

"Which of you gowed-up rotten eggs was on duty here?" I asked, scanning the gathered idiots.

Two came forward, heads bowed in fear.

"Tell me, how did this happen?"

"We didn't do-" "It was his idea, sire-"

"Shut up!" I roared, my voice echoed across the fountains sending ripples in their pools, and pointed at one of the two.

"You. Start from the beginning."

The man nodded, gulping thickly and began.

"I think it all started on the day of my birth. Both my parents failed to show-"

"Not that far!" I groaned, rubbing my temples. And just like that my mood was soured.

Why did I ever hire these idiots?

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"So there was an explosion, and you two left your charge to investigate what was an obvious distraction?" I asked, my tone cold and cruel, carrying promise of retribution and my annoyance made clear.

"We-" They tried to speak, but all I had to was pinch my fingers and the fountain returned to a a sweet symphony of muffled moans swimming across the eerie silence.

"Did I allow you to speak?" I asked coldly.

The two fell to their knees, clawing desperately at their throats as they choked to death, slowly and painfully, all the while their comrades watched in muted horror.

It was only once their flailing stopped, did I let them go and they fell to the floor like puppet with their strings cut.

I let the other mercs soak in the moment and swept my gaze over them before I spoke.

"Now, unless the rest of you want to join your friends here in the afterlife....Get. Me. Some. Answers." I turned my back to them, prepared to return and hunt down whoever had trespassed into my kingdom, when one of them spoke up hesitantly.

"Sire...there is one more thing...."

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I examined the mutilated corpse with my psychic sense, unwilling to get my suit dirty in the bloodied muck but even a blind man could see the over-the-top violence was a sign. A warning.

The only question was, from who and to whom?

Not something sister dearest would even think of. It was too cruel and sadistic, and Jane, oh she was a girl scout if I had ever seen one, bleeding heart through and through. This wasn't her.

This wasn't the only thing that raised my suspicions.

I glanced at the bloodstained footprints left behind by the perpetrator. Shoeprints and not just any shoeprint. These were proper oxfords, the wearer male, at the youngest in their twenties.

"Was this the only one you found?" I asked the mook beside me, just to be sure.

"The only one in this....condition, sire." He replied.

"And at the Earth fountain?" I felt there was a connection between the two, somehow.

An Earth magician infiltrates Fillory on the same day as this?

Coincidence? I think not.

"There was one of us. Eve. We thought we found her sleeping on the job after you called us to assemble sire, but when she didn't wake, we checked her pulse. ...She was dead."

"Of?"

"Electrocution. A spell likely."

That was certainly up their alley. Painless, simple, effective. It was reeked of lazy, Earth magic. Refined to the point of obscenity. Nothing like what happened here.

Hmm...I scratched my chin thoughtfully.

Was I wrong?

Was it just a coincidence?

I looked up at the Anubis statue on the fountain. New Kemet, the last refuge of the Ennead and a barbaric world perpetually stuck in the bronze age. Given, they had advanced their bronze spinning magic and cursed arts to an appreceable degree, it was still, a world where people could not, and would not wear shoes. Sandals perhaps, boots even, but not shoes. And these were proper oxfords.

Then there was the small matter of where the shoeprints led.

I looked in the direction of a fountain in the distance.

Farr Mithras. A world about as advanced as Earth, at least back in 1947 when I had visited it. It was where I learnt Alchemy and Human Transmutation, knowledge that greatly aided my efforts in guiding my budding mutation.

And if it was someone from that world.....

I silently cast a locator spell for the mystery gentleman with said world as the target and watched it fizzle out.

No results.

That put a frown on my face.

Did I cast it wrong?

Or perhaps ...were the circumstances miscalculated.

The spell was meant to find one individual. With one soul.

But what if the target had more.

A man with a thousand souls. A million souls. There was one, in that world, wasn't there?

Father, he liked being called that.

His theory on the separation of the self and the soul had helped me excise my shade, the part of my soul that had become a festering cancer within me. It had freed me from mortal constraints like a conscience and morality. From the pain of existence. I had much to be grateful to him for. And I would be if he hadn't tried to turn me into one of his little puppets, his... Homunculi.

He had a mad plan. Usurping the god of his world in some grand blood ritual.

If he had succeeded.....he would definitely go after the gods of other worlds.

This. I looked at the grizzly scene, unfazed. This would fit his modus operandi.

Yet, I couldn't help but feel a seedling of doubt sprout within me. Something seemed off about this. Very off.

The Ennead are famously skittish about invaders and their numbers alone would deter most of the ill intentioned visitors. Horus alone was a powerful god, even with one eye. But not only did he apparently invade New Kemet, he even escaped successfully?

That was hard to believe.

Maybe one final confirmation....

"Leave." I ordered the mooks, who offered me a quizzical look, "I need a private moment."

They nodded, bowed and without a word, walked away. Once I was sure they were out of sight I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out a golden key attached to an enchanted silver chain. I held the key in my palm for a moment, feeling its weight, more metaphysical than literal, and soaked in the aura of divine power wafting off of it. Then, with conviction I raised it to my temples and pressed it against them.

"Show me, key. Show me my destiny."

In an instant, I felt my stomach sink, a feeling I had long forgotten manifesting within me. Butterflies in my stomach- and not the one that made up my stomach, this was in a more metaphorical sense-, a tickle running up my spine, a chill I had seldom felt since my less than ideal childhood. The fear of the future.

And with it came a vision.

Me, kneeling in a forest I recognized. The Flying Forest.

That wasn't much different from the usual. Almost all my visions of the future recently have ended there.

I looked around and found myself surrounded by six figures. Figures that I, again recognized. Five of them at least.

Quentin Coldwater. Margo Hansen. Eliot Waugh. Alice Quinn. And my personal favourite, Penny Adiyodi.

But unlike my usual visions, there was a sixth member here. One with a face shrouded in shadow and mist. I saw the same whenever Ember tried to pull one over me. Telltale sign of a higher being, someone who could either resist divine enchantment or was protected by a divinity all their own. My eyes pored over the details of his being that I could make out. He wore a suit, properly tailored. I reconized the stitching, the spells woven into it. This was Henry Fogg's tailor. And yet, the figure did not match that of Fogg. Looking down, I saw a pair of oxfords. The very same kind as the shoeprints left here.

They said something, I couldn't quite make out to Penny.

"No. Let's end him here." Penny insisted.

A plea for me?

Why?

"You can use someone else for your experiments." Penny argued.

Ah. As a test subject. Interesting.

That sounds more like Father. Always searching for ever higher truths.

I broke away from he vision and put away the key.

So it is him.

I sighed for he second time today. The songs had left me and there was only the annoyance, buzzing around in my head like a fly.

Four fountains over. This was too close for comfort. A shame too. I would have spared him if he had kept his distance, if only for old time's sake.

But now...if he so much as dared to look at my kingdom, my Fillory....I will make him wish he died in his little flask.

I turned back, and made my way back to the Fillory fountain. Time for some pest control.

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Yo!

That's the chapter for today. Next chappy, next week. Got an exam day after tomorrow. Wish me luck.

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