Chapter 234

Chapter 234: Dead

Dark clouds appeared in the sky as noon approached. They quickly spread, and the clouds loomed over Temeria, blotting out the sun. The sky was overcast, and cold winds blew in the air. Eventually it started drizzling. This was fall’s first rain. The weather was already chilly even though it was only early fall in Temeria. Most people were hiding under their roofs, taking shelter from the rain and the cold, though they were all shivering.

Everyone was staying out of the rain, save for three men in cloaks. They were trotting on the street, and the rain seemed to fall off an invisible barrier around the men, never touching them no matter what it did. The drizzle eventually became a downpour, and the world was filled with the shouts of raindrops. A silver screen covered the kingdom, blocking everyone’s sights.

Eventually, the mysterious men were drenched, and they ran to a house in the temple area’s Banyan Street to stay out of the rain. One of the men took his cloak off and shook the rain off. He stared out at the great rain that obscured everything in his sights. “Goddammit! Is the Lionhead Spider stopping us from looking into its cult?”

The rain came all too suddenly, and the timing was really bad. It delayed the witchers’ investigation by a lot.

“Is the couple’s home nearby?”

“Number one hundred and twenty three of Banyan Street.” Auckes stared at the door plate. “Yeah. We should be there if we just go north for a little bit.”

The witchers put on their cloaks again and ran across the rain until they came to an old, two-story house made of bricks. There was a big yard in front of the house. Wooden stakes with strings tied between them were strewn across the place, and there was a big bucket too. It was supposed to have some clothes in it, but there was nothing. The greyish-black wall on the side of the house was filled with moss and marks caused by stones. There was graffiti on it as well, and one of it depicted a family of three. The parents stood on the side, smiling and beaming, while a girl in braids stood in the middle. She was holding their hands and smiling sweetly.

“I guess this girl is Abigail.” So this couple was the family who took her in, but they were nowhere to be seen after Adda’s curse reawakened a few days ago. It’s like they disappeared with Abigail.

The witchers did not come in through the front door in case their target was still inside. They leapt up to the second floor and went in through a half-open window. The corridor was dimly lit, and the scarce light that shone from the window illuminated a decaying wooden floor. A dirty table sat near the window. There was an oil lamp on it, but there was only half the oil left.

That was how the poor in Vizima lived. All of the richer ones would use magical lamps. The witchers listened closely to the corridor, but there was no sound coming from it. They curled up and went in three different directions to search for their target. Auckes searched the bedrooms on the second floor. Well, there was nothing but a closet, a dressing table, and a mattress on the floor. Serrit and Roy tiptoed down the stairs and came to the first floor.

There was a wooden sofa near the wall of the living room. A squalid red rug slept on top of it, and a square wooden table stood in the center of the living room, though one corner of it was chipped. Serrit sniffed the air. He smelled something rancid in it. When he looked around, he saw a meat pie on the table, but it was half-eaten. That was odd, since the poor would never waste something so expensive. It had been there for a while now. A cockroach was having a feast in it. Aside from that, there was nothing in the living room.

The witchers went deeper into the living room. There was nothing much on the first floor. A living room stood beside the door, and a place resembling a kitchen stood inside. It was a cramped space with a cauldron hanging on the hearth in the middle.

Roy stirred the pot. There was half a pot of soup in it, but just like the pie, it had been left there for three days at least. The soup had soured, and it smelled rancid.

“Anything?”

Serrit came in. “No. I don’t even see anyone here. All I found is this.” He tossed Roy a leather book. The cover depicted a lionheaded spider in a net, and its name was written on the cover—Grayba the Black, Coram Agh Tera.

Roy took it and skimmed through it. The book talked about the faith and creed of the Omen God cult. Every single creed had a few lines of notes recorded behind it. It was probably the couple’s thoughts on it.

They noticed that the cult members mostly had traumatic experiences in their lives. For example, they lost their loved ones before. They also noticed that the cult members were either those who had frequent brushes with death, or they loved pain. Killers, soldiers, and bandits were attracted by the cult’s creed.

They believed that death was eternal, and life was pain. They believed that every separation was temporary, and they would be reunited in the eternal web weaved by the lionhead spider. This couple lost their daughter a while back, so they took in Abigail and professed their loyalty to the Lionhead Spider. Roy could see that they missed their daughter. Their records told him that.

Auckes muttered, “If we go with that logic, witchers are perfect believers of this god. Our job is dangerous, and we die horribly most of the time.”

“You’re going to be a believer?”

“I believe in nothing but my sword,” Auckes said. “If these guys were real believers, they would have taken their scriptures with them everywhere they went. They wouldn’t leave this work behind even if they were going into hiding.”

“Yeah. Even death can’t destroy their faith.” Roy suspected that they missed something, so they searched the room and found a locked basement in the corner of the kitchen. Since they had no key, Serrit blasted the door open with Aard. They were first assailed by a wave of dust, and the air was filled with the scent of humidity and mold. There was also the smell of something rotten in the air.

The witchers had gone through a lot to realize that the smell belonged to corpses. It was not too heavy, but it was fresh. Human corpse.

The witchers jumped into the basement, and what they saw was a mountain of sundry items. They followed a trail pointed out by their sense of smell. Eventually, they came to the corner where the stench was thickest. One of them then knocked on the floorboard.

“It’s hollow.”

They exchanged looks. There was a big crack between the floorboards. It was not even strengthened with nails. Someone just covered it with something. The witchers pried the floorboard open easily with their blades, and what they saw was a hole underneath.

The moment they pried it open, the stench of blood and rotting flesh was unleashed. They froze for a moment. What they saw was a man and a woman lying on the ground underneath, looking as if they were just asleep.

They were wearing grey hemp shirts and pants. Their faces were white as tombstones, and a hint of black was appearing as well. The couple was still holding their hands tightly, even in death. The witchers could see the wounds on their wrist. They were cut open by something sharp. Blood congealed near the wounds. It was a big, deep gash. The broken, blackening vessels and bones were exposed to the air.

Blood drenched the nearby soil and their sleeves. There was a rusted dagger buried in the pool of dried blood. Roy hopped into the hole, and a mountain of bugs swarmed out of the clothes, escaping into the darkness below.

Roy did not care. He had seen too many bodies at this point, and this did not faze him. He stared at the couple’s fingers. The joints stood out, and it was filled with calluses. They were doing hard labor for a long time before their deaths. “This is the laundry lady and her husband.”

“Killed themselves out of fear?” Serrit tore the male corpse’s clothes open and checked on his body. “Scared that the princess would get back at them?”

The witchers went through the corpses, but there were no wounds other than the ones on their wrists.

“If there’s no foul play involved, then this is a suicide case. A double suicide from the looks of it. Died from excessive blood loss. Probably dead for more than three days. Almost the same time as the curse’s reawakening.”

“Odd…” Roy was surprised. “Three days should be enough for them to start a new life outside of Temeria. Adda didn’t tell the king about this either. Why did they kill themselves?”

“Hell if we know,” Auckes said. “They went through some tough shit, didn’t they? Maybe Adda’s curse was just a trigger for them to kill themselves so they could reunite with their daughter in the ‘eternal land.’ If they did follow the creed to the end, I could see them embracing death willingly.”

“Odd. Something’s off,” Roy said. “How many cultists are left in Vizima?”

“Including this couple? Sixteen families.”

“Let’s go. We need to check out the others.”

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