The Hour of The Wolves

Chapter XIX: (Alissarh)

Alissarh did not know how long she has been weeping on the floor, but slowly she calmed herself down.

“I need to go.” She thought. “ I literally the worst place I can be.” 

It took great strength from her the stand up, but after she managed, she could focus more on what had to be done. Like her past was cut away with a knife and allowed her to forget about all the disappointment, betrayal, and sadness. She was in the now, and now the most important thing was to learn more and find out what’s happening. She still felt so weak that every step took inhumanly effort, but she looked all over the house to find clues. The house was oddly kept in order. Everything was dusted, the stock full of food, the plates clean, yet it felt like nobody lives here. She went up for the first floor, to look around in the bedrooms. There were three of them upstairs, one for each boy and one for the parents. Both of the boys’ room were kept neat and spotless. But again, the beds looked like as if  nobody slept in them for years. When she entered the parent room at last, she was shocked by what she found. Both the parents were tucked in the bed and dressed up in sleeping robe. They looked like they were sleeping in the half-lit room, but the smell told her everything she needed to know. When Alissarh took a closer look, she could see that both of them were turned into a mummy. With that realization all the other things in the house made sense now. She was walking in a tomb for the last half hour. It was a terrible and grotesque memento for the deceased parents. She went back to the kitchen and sat down to think for a bit.

“Okay. What do I have here?” She started to think out loud.” Here is a mausoleum, but for what purpose. They needed to hide it from the neighbors, which means unnecessary risk if they didn’t have a specific reason to do so. It is either to hide something under this veil or because of some kind of weird religious tradition.”

The first reason made more sense to her, so she followed that line of reasoning.

“If  I went so far with distraction on the surface I would either put the thing I want to hid in a visible place as it would make it harder to find unless somebody knows what he looks for, or I would hid the real thing under some hidden place or in a hidden basement. As I don’t know what I am looking for I might as well star to look for a hidden place or concealed door.”

She reasoned and started to look around. At first glance nothing suspicious could be found, but something from her memories kept bugging her. A picture of them playing among hung clothes in a place with dim light under a staircase. She looked around the stairs which led to the first floor, but there was nothing suspicious also she could not find another stair in the house. She went back to the kitchen to take a rest and to eat something. As she reached out to take one of the fresh-looking breads another part of the memory came back to her. She saw them running around the kitchen then pushing one of the shelfs what concealed the way down to the basement. She could not find the same shelf now in the kitchen, but as she looked around on the floor for scratch marks made by the door as it passed back and forth she could find the way down behind a new looking cupboard. Alissarh collected her strength and gave a pull to the furniture and I gave in surprisingly easy.

“It must have some helping mechanism to make it easier to open it.” She thought and walked down the stairs. At the end of the way she found a door ornated with golden symbols. While she could not read them, she knew she saw them somewhere. She tried to open the door and to her surprise it wasn’t locked.  The basement was very different compared to her memories. The clothes and washing tools disappeared and four big bookshelves, a desk and dissection table took their place. Lissa walked around in the room checking for clues that might give a confirmation about Percy being the masked man. She could find man books about the lost empire and the bloodline of the emperor. One particular book gained her interest. It contained a family tree and there were some really familiar names on it. She was so lost in the book she didn’t hear the approaching footsteps so the hit on the back of her head came as a surprise. She fell on the ground with the room spinning, but surprisingly she was still conscious.

“You shouldn’t have come down here! You vile woman! I let you walk around the house even to distribute my dear  mother and father so maybe you get enough and go away. But know  should have known, you never get enough , you never did.” The hunched little man cried out in a thin voice. “ I should kill you, but my master told me that is a strict no-no.” He laughed out childishly.

“Please let me go. I never wronged you.” Begged Lissa as the little man kept hitting her. She tried to reach for her knife but each time she got hit with an iron pipe.

“What you tell me? You never wronged me? Hah! The best joke I have ever heard. You never let me play with you lot. I was too stupid too young, too hunchbacked to play with you all. I bet you don’t even remember my name. “ He rasped.

“I… I… “ Lissa’s mind worked wildly but nothing came to it. “ Jamie! You are Jamie. She tried, but she knew it was a weak try. For some reason, every memory of this young boy was clouded in her mind.

“No, it is not! I am Xavier.” He barked and started to smash her head with the pipe furiously.

Alissarh tried to kick, to fight back put she got to weak form the spells and didn’t regain her strength yet.

“So that’s how I will die. “ She thought.” It all because I lost my cool with that snob aristocrat. I am sorry father, Liam I have failed you both. “ A tear ran down her cheek and trough the blur of it she could see a pair of leg coming down the stairs, but a hit got her at her temple, and everything went dark.