Vaesen: Of Stone & Steel: 06
Gottfried returned upstairs with a satisfied crunch of pickled onions echoing faintly in the stairwell. He was finishing off a small jar, the brine clinging to his fingertips as he wiped them clean with a well-worn handkerchief. The sharp tang lingered in the air behind him as he stepped through the doorway into the manor’s upper hall. The room had been hastily converted into a makeshift infirmary: a side table laden with bandages, a kettle long gone cold, and chairs arranged more for convenience than comfort.
Doctor Halvorsen, sleeves rolled to the elbow and spectacles slightly askew, was just finishing wrapping the last of the bandages around Sigrid’s hands. His touch was steady, but the expression on his face betrayed fatigue and something else—doubt, perhaps, or concern that hadn’t found words yet. The fabric he used was clean and neat, but Sigrid’s skin underneath looked raw and bruised, still bearing the harsh evidence of fire and splintered wood.
“So,” Gottfried asked, brushing crumbs from his coat with an idle hand, “how is everyone feeling?”
“Like I was attacked by a bear, Sir,” Sebastian muttered from his seat nearby. He hadn’t moved much since the morning, and his usual crispness had been dulled to a stiff weariness. He managed a crooked grin, but his eyes betrayed the ache that each breath carried.
Doctor Halvorsen gave a polite chuckle, though it lacked warmth. His hands paused on the bandages, and Celeste—leaning against the windowsill—narrowed her eyes slightly, sensing his distraction.
“Doctor,” she said gently, stepping forward. “About the Director’s death… earlier, you seemed unsettled. More than you let on.”
He looked up, slower than he might normally have done, and gave a tired sigh.
“It’s not uncommon,” he began, his voice gravelly, “for a man of his age, and with his ailments, to pass suddenly. Congenital heart issues, failing kidneys, bouts of what he called ‘sugar sickness’—diabetes, likely left poorly managed. But…” He trailed off, eyes unfocused. “But something about it felt wrong. Too quick. Too quiet.”
Gottfried, always direct, reached into his coat and pulled out a folded wad of banknotes. He offered it without ceremony. “For your time, Doctor.”
Halvorsen raised a hand without looking. “Sigrid already paid me.”
“Then this is for something more particular,” Gottfried said. “An autopsy. Discreet.”
The Doctor blinked, now fully alert. “You think something was done to him?”
Celeste stepped in smoothly. “We’re not making accusations. We just want to rule out anything unnatural—or intentional.”
“I can’t promise conclusions,” Halvorsen said slowly, “but I can look. I’ll need a second pair of hands—two, ideally.”
“You’ll have them,” Celeste replied. She and Gottfried exchanged a look and nodded.
The manor loomed against the horizon as they approached, its tall windows catching the waning afternoon light. The sky had turned the color of smelted copper, and long shadows pooled across the path. Workers from the forge were already drifting toward the gates, their boots heavy with the fatigue of labor, their faces tight with anticipation. Word of the Director’s death had spread like fire through dry straw.
Rather than approach through the front, the trio cut quietly around the side and entered through the servant’s entrance. The back halls were quieter, less populated. The stone walls absorbed their footsteps as they made their way up toward the Director’s chambers, the tension growing heavier with each turn of the staircase.
Inside, the room was still. Time felt suspended, as if the air itself refused to stir. The Director lay pale upon his bed, his posture unnaturally composed, as though someone had taken great care to arrange him after death. His hands, delicate and liver-spotted, rested at his sides. The hearth nearby had cooled, its embers dulling to a memory beneath the grey soot.
Celeste and the Doctor moved quickly and without unnecessary words, each going to a different side of the bed. Halvorsen opened his leather case, laying out small instruments and glass vials. Celeste retrieved a pair of gloves from her satchel and knelt beside the head of the bed.
Meanwhile, Gottfried began a slow circuit of the room. His eyes were sharp, tracing corners and surfaces with a practiced familiarity born from years of investigations. Near the hearth, something glinted beneath a discarded log bucket. He crouched and retrieved a shard of glass—fractured along one edge, its surface dulled slightly by soot.
Someone had thrown this, he thought. In anger. Or panic.
His gaze moved to the nearby table. Two circular rings had been left in the finish, just barely perceptible beneath a thin layer of dust. Glasses, recently placed and removed. Two of them.
“No signs of asphyxiation,” Halvorsen murmured as he gently opened one of the Director’s eyes. “No bruising around the mouth or neck. No water in the lungs.”
“Nothing mechanical, then,” Celeste added. She leaned in closer and inhaled slightly. Her brow furrowed. “Do you smell that?”
Halvorsen followed suit. His brow darkened. “Almonds.”
“Cyanide,” Celeste said. Her voice was even, but the word clung to the walls. Gottfried turned his head, one hand moving unconsciously toward his coat. He checked the door, half-expecting someone to burst in.
Without hesitation, the Doctor opened a smaller section of his case and began preparing a test. Gottfried handed over the glass shard. Halvorsen tested it with a drop of reagent—nothing.
“Not the glass,” he muttered.
Then he turned to the table, scraping the surface where one of the drink rings had been. The powder he collected was almost invisible, a faint dusting that only shimmered when tilted against the light.
He dropped it into a vial, added the reagent, and swirled.
The liquid shifted, darkening slowly. A vivid blue spread like ink in water.
“Cyanide,” the Doctor said grimly. His voice held no triumph, only the cold gravity of confirmation.
Sebastian, leaning against the doorframe with a hand pressed to his side, exhaled through his nose. “He didn’t just die,” he said. “He was helped along.”
No one disagreed.
The silence that followed was not of grief, but of realization.
Sebastian and Sigrid approached the front of the manor where a small crowd of around twenty villagers had gathered. The tension in the air was thick enough to cut with a knife. Both of them instinctively took positions at opposite ends of the group, flanking the gathering like cautious sentries. It was a calculated move—Sebastian with his sharp gaze and dignified poise, Sigrid with a casual presence that belied her keen alertness. They observed the villagers: some curious, others skeptical, and a few with wary eyes darting toward the manor.
A moment later, the balcony doors creaked open. August stepped out onto the platform above, dressed in a finely tailored coat, his posture composed, his expression solemn. A ripple of murmurs ran through the crowd, a mix of expectation and restrained suspicion. His gaze swept across the assembly as he raised a hand to silence them.
He began his speech with an announcement of the Director’s passing, citing the man’s long-standing health conditions and the toll they had taken. His voice was steady and measured, but to Sigrid, it felt like a performance—grief rehearsed and wrapped in velvet ambition. She narrowed her eyes toward the tree line that bordered the edge of the grounds and caught the shape of a slight figure, just visible in the gaps between the trunks. Lasse? She barely had time to register the thought before the figure retreated behind a tree and disappeared from view.
August continued, his voice rising as he spoke of mismanagement at the forge and the town’s declining prosperity. He declared that he would now step in as the new Director and promised to restore order and productivity. The word “reform” was used repeatedly, always followed by vague assurances of progress and difficult decisions. The murmurs that followed were less affirming now—grumbles and skeptical glances passed between workers who had long served under the forge’s old ways.
Then it happened. Two sharp gunshots cracked through the still air. The first struck the glass window above, shattering it with a thunderous crash. The second found its mark—August clutched his shoulder and cried out, stumbling backward through the balcony doors.
Sebastian moved instantly. Without hesitation, he pushed through the parting crowd to reach Sigrid’s side. She had already turned, and with a deliberate calm, pointed in the direction opposite the woods—away from where she’d seen the figure. It was subtle, but enough. The crowd surged in that direction, frantic and confused, searching for a threat that wasn’t there. The confusion bought them time.
Inside the manor, Celeste and Gottfried had been following the speech from the hallway. The moment the gunshots rang out, they were on the move, sprinting toward the source. They reached the main corridor just as August was being helped inside. Blood stained the fabric of his shirt, but the wound seemed superficial. He winced dramatically, hand clutched to his chest like a character from a melodrama.
His bodyguards wasted no time, forming a barrier between him and the approaching investigators. They barked orders, pushing Celeste and Gottfried back and insisting that their master needed space. One of them even drew a cloth to press against the wound, though August’s protests suggested more theater than pain.
Gottfried eyed the wound with suspicion. “It’s barely a graze,” he muttered. “He’s putting on a show.”
Celeste frowned. “He’s making sure the crowd sees him bleed.”
Doctor Halvorsen arrived shortly after, summoned by the noise and commotion. Celeste and Gottfried quickly moved to intercept him. Gottfried leaned in close as they walked together.
“Be careful,” he whispered. “We believe it may have been August who murdered the Director.”
Halvorsen’s brow furrowed in concern, his steps slowing. Without speaking, he reached into his coat and pressed a small iron key into Gottfried’s hand.
“This opens the Director’s room. I trust you’ll be discreet.”
With that, the doctor turned and followed the guards down the corridor, vanishing behind the closing doors.
As Sebastian and Sigrid made their way toward Fridhem Farm to follow a different lead, Celeste and Gottfried returned to the manor’s upper level and unlocked the door to the late Director’s chambers. They stepped inside, closing and locking the door behind them.
The room was quiet, dimly lit by the dying afternoon light filtering through the curtains. A heavy stillness hung over everything. The Director’s body lay upon the bed, pale and arranged with an unsettling neatness. Celeste moved quickly, removing her satchel and retrieving her crystal ball. She placed it gently on the Director’s chest and began to sprinkle a fine circle of dried herbs—sage, lavender, and something darker—around the bedframe. The scent rose like a mist, thick and aromatic.
The air shifted. The room seemed to breathe, and a subtle weight pressed on their shoulders. Then, a presence stirred.
A figure shimmered into being beside the bed—a translucent outline that grew more defined with each passing second. The Director’s spirit appeared, his posture straight, his expression one of confusion.
“Am I dead?” he asked, voice like wind across paper.
Celeste nodded, her voice calm. “Yes, sir. I’m sorry. And I believe you were murdered.”
The spirit blinked slowly, the weight of the revelation sinking in. “I think… I may have been.”
He began to speak, the words faltering at first, then gaining strength as memory returned. He recalled summoning August to discuss troubling concerns raised by the Society. August had grown defensive, his voice rising. Then came the outburst—a glass thrown against the wall, its shards still lying near the fireplace. August had stormed out.
But minutes later, he returned. This time, with two drinks in hand. The Director had taken a sip.
“That’s the last clear moment I remember,” the spirit murmured.
He shared that August had approached him for money several times, pleading for funding for new equipment and workers. More troubling, however, was what his manservant Klas had uncovered—discrepancies in the forge’s financial records. Money that should have gone to salaries, supplies, or maintenance had simply vanished. When the Director had confronted August, he denied everything. But the evidence, Klas said, was conclusive.
Celeste listened intently, committing every word to memory. “Thank you, Director,” she said. “We will make this right.”
The spirit’s features softened. He gave a slow nod, a faint smile touching the corners of his translucent face.
Then he faded, dissolving into light and smoke. The room grew still once more, the weight lifted, though the scent of sage lingered in the air.
Celeste exhaled and lowered her hands. “He’s gone.”
Gottfried stood by the window, peering out at the yard below where the crowd still lingered, voices rising and falling like distant thunder.
“Then we know what we have to do.”
Sigrid and Sebastian approached Fridhem Farm under a sky bruised with evening. The clouds above were dark with the threat of a coming storm, the heavy air clinging to their coats. The gravel path crackled beneath their boots. The farm itself was quiet—eerily so—but the barn door creaked open and shut with the breeze, swinging on its hinges with a rhythmic, unsettling cadence, like a pendulum ticking toward a reckoning—ominous and inevitable.
Sebastian narrowed his eyes and motioned for caution. “Be careful—he’s probably armed,” he murmured, loosening the revolver in his coat. His voice was calm, but the tension in his shoulders betrayed his readiness for violence, if it came to that.
Sigrid took position at the barn entrance, standing with an assertive posture, her voice calm but edged with steely resolve. “That was pretty stupid.”
A beat of silence passed. Then, from above in the loft, a voice replied. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Sigrid tilted her head, unimpressed. “Let’s not play this game, okay?”
Lasse emerged from the hayloft, boots crunching softly against the wood. His expression was a mix of defiance and exhaustion, his eyes sunken but alert. He brushed straw from his coat as he climbed down.
“We agree with your conviction,” Sebastian said firmly, “but not your methods.”
“Especially your aim,” Sigrid added with a note of dry sarcasm. “You could’ve killed someone.”
Lasse’s face twisted, his fists clenched at his sides. He turned and paced a few steps across the floor before stopping. “No one was going to do anything,” he snapped. “The Director’s dead, and August was just going to slide into his place like nothing happened. You lot were off in the woods getting eaten by bears while he was preparing to take everything. I couldn’t just sit and do nothing.”
“We’ve been working,” Sigrid said, crossing her arms, “on having Bergs-Erik deal with him.”
Lasse turned back to her, his brows lifted in disbelief. “What? Who?”
She met his gaze evenly. “Your great uncle.”
Lasse blinked, visibly confused. “Great uncle? I don’t have a great uncle. Hilma left before she was married…”
Sigrid gave a small shrug, her voice softening. “You should ask your grandmother. She’ll explain it better.”
Sebastian stepped forward, standing shoulder to shoulder with her. His tone was low and firm. “I promised August would face justice. I intend to keep that promise.”
Lasse scoffed, shaking his head. “You’re full of it. You don’t work for the government.”
Sebastian raised his hand as if to reply, then caught himself. His jaw tightened, but he said nothing, letting the accusation hang in the air unanswered.
“We covered for you,” Sigrid said. “We sent the crowd looking elsewhere. If anyone asks, you spent the afternoon with your grandmother. You need to lay low now.”
Lasse hesitated, visibly deflating. He nodded slowly. “Alright. I’ll keep my head down. Just… don’t let him get away with it.”
“We won’t,” Sebastian said.
Satisfied, the pair turned back toward the manor, the horizon now tinged with the violet hues of dusk.
A knock echoed on the door to the Director’s room.
“Why is the door locked? Who’s in there?”
Gottfried opened the door a crack, peering out with exaggerated caution. “Is it all clear? Is it over? Has the shooting stopped?” His tone was deliberately theatrical, meant to buy them a few more moments.
The maid stood in the hallway, startled but composed. Celeste stepped forward from the room’s shadowed interior, her voice warm and even. “We were assisting the doctor with a private investigation. We didn’t mean to alarm you.”
They began to gently question her, asking about the Director’s health, the mood in the manor, and who had come and gone in the past days. Through soft nudges and open-ended inquiries, they mentioned the argument, the timing of August’s visit, and the strange behavior of the staff. The pieces began to fit together. The maid’s expression shifted from uncertainty to dawning understanding as she slowly reached her own conclusions about August’s likely role in the Director’s death.
Eventually, she leaned in slightly and whispered, “Klas has locked himself in the library all day. Hasn’t spoken to anyone.”
They thanked her and moved toward the study. The hallway felt longer than usual, each footstep falling with a deliberate, weighted pace. Gottfried knocked gently.
“Go away, I’m busy,” came the muffled, exasperated voice from within.
“I’d like to help,” Gottfried said, lowering his voice and softening the edge of authority in his tone.
A pause followed, then the door creaked open. Klas stood there. His hands were stained with ink, and deep shadows clung beneath his eyes. His coat was disheveled, and a faint tremor in his fingers betrayed the toll of the day.
Without missing a beat, Gottfried reached into his coat and offered him a pickled onion.
Klas blinked, the absurdity of the gesture pulling a tired chuckle from him. He stepped aside silently. The door closed behind them and was quietly barricaded.
The library looked as though a paper storm had passed through it. Piles of ledgers, loose pages, and opened journals were scattered across the table and floor. Klas gestured wearily.
“I’ve been going through the forge’s accounts,” he said, voice rough with fatigue. “Something’s wrong. Money has gone missing—more than once. Quietly, but consistently.”
“And August?” Gottfried asked.
Klas nodded slowly. “After I found the discrepancies, the Director asked me to look into August’s personal finances. It was worse there. Hidden loans, questionable payments… forged authorizations. It’s all buried in misfiled documents and backdated entries.”
“August murdered the Director,” Gottfried said plainly. “And if he finds out what you’ve been doing, your life may be in danger too.”
Klas looked down at his ink-smudged hands. He turned to the desk and picked up a thick sheaf of folded parchment. “I wrote these,” he said. “The Director asked me to draft them. I’m not sure who all of them were for—investors, regulators, maybe people with enough power to stop him. I kept rewriting them, trying to strike the right tone. I think… I think he knew something was coming.”
Gottfried flipped open one of the ledgers but could make little sense of the tight rows of numbers. “Profits are slightly down from last year,” he muttered, more to himself than anyone else.
They agreed to remove the most damning documents from the manor. The less August could access, the better.
“Put them in a burlap sack,” Gottfried instructed. “We’ll move them quietly, discreetly.”
He turned to Celeste. “If anything happens—run. Find Sebastian.”
Celeste’s eyes were flinty, resolute. “I’m staying.”
Gottfried hesitated for a breath, then nodded. He turned back to Klas.
“Take the sack through the servant’s door. Look for my butler, Sebastian. Give the books to him. Tell him to take them to ‘the mountain man.’ He’ll know what that means.” His voice dropped to a whisper. The phrase carried a weight that needed no further explanation.
Klas bundled the ledgers and letters into the sack with careful urgency. He slung the rough fabric over his shoulder and slipped out the back, vanishing into the manor’s labyrinthine corridors, the soft rustle of burlap fading into silence behind him.
Celeste moved swiftly through the manor’s halls, her senses sharpened by a rising unease. She searched for any sign of where Doctor Halvorsen and August had gone, pushing deeper into the servant corridors. Every door she passed was either locked or silent. Then, she found it—a narrow doorway at the end of a passage that led to a musty set of steps. She stepped through, but as her foot touched the threshold, the wood beneath her gave way. She let out a startled yelp as she tumbled into darkness, falling down a steep flight of stairs into the cellar.
Celeste landed hard at the bottom, the breath knocked from her lungs. Pain flared in her hip and elbow, and she groaned softly as she struggled to push herself up. The room was dim, lit only by thin shafts of light from slats high on the wall. As her eyes adjusted, she spotted a shape—Doctor Halvorsen, unconscious and bound to a chair. The sour stink of blood, sweat, and damp earth filled the air.
August stood nearby, stiff and fuming, flanked by two large thugs. One of them stepped forward without hesitation.
“Grab her,” August barked.
The bigger thug lunged at her. Still on the floor, Celeste raised a shaking hand and whispered a trembling incantation. The air rippled, shadows bleeding from the corners of the room and gathering around her like a cloak.
The thug stopped dead mid-stride. His eyes went wide, pupils blown open in terror. He staggered back, letting out a strangled moan. Then he collapsed to his knees, clutching his head, twitching violently. His skin turned an unnatural pallor as he was overwhelmed by visions—endless horrors from beyond the veil clawing at his mind. A moment later, he collapsed in a heap, unconscious and twitching.
Outside the manor, Sigrid and Sebastian were approaching when a man jogged toward them, clutching a worn burlap sack slung over his shoulder. He was out of breath, glancing over his shoulder as if afraid someone might follow.
“Are you Sebastian?” he asked hurriedly. “Professor von Krause sent me. Said to give you this. For ‘the mountain man.'”
Sebastian accepted the sack with a nod, his eyes scanning the surroundings. “Thank you.”
Without another word, the man turned and headed back toward the village tavern.
Sigrid looked around cautiously. “We can’t take this into the manor. Too risky.”
They spotted a nearby woodshed, its door slightly ajar. Inside, they found a stack of firewood and a few old tools. Working quickly, they stashed the sack in the corner, covering it with a pile of logs before slipping back toward the manor’s main entrance.
In the cellar, the remaining thug roared and charged at Celeste, who had barely regained her footing. He slashed at her with a knife, the blade whistling through the air as she threw herself backward. The knife missed, but only just. Celeste screamed—not out of panic, but rage and defiance.
Above them, the door slammed open as August bounded up the stairs. In his panic, he tried to slam it shut, but Gottfried was already there, waiting. The two men collided.
August swung a cane in a clumsy arc, aiming for Gottfried’s side, but the blow missed completely. Gottfried’s expression didn’t even flicker. He drew his cane sword in a single, fluid motion and murmured, “Forgive me, Vater, for I am about to sin…” Then he slashed across August’s chest. The blade cut cleanly through his coat, and August shrieked, tumbling backward down the stairs in a flailing mess of limbs and fabric.
At that moment, Sigrid and Sebastian entered the manor. They paused as a distant scream echoed up through the floorboards.
Sigrid glanced sideways. “I think things have gone awry, Sebastian.”
Sebastian’s eyes narrowed. “Gottfried just stabbed a man. It could be something interesting, or it could be Thursday.”
Sebastian’s expression darkened. He reached into his coat, pulling out his brass knuckle dusters, slipping them on with slow, deliberate purpose. The metal glinted in the hallway light. Beside him, Sigrid turned to the nearest servant, shouting, “Go to the forge! Fetch help now!”
The servant nodded and ran. “Let’s move,” Sebastian said grimly.
Back in the cellar, Celeste twisted and writhed in the thug’s grip, trying to break free. He grunted, tightening his hold and dragging her against his chest, using her as a living shield. She kicked out, her heels scraping the stone floor, but couldn’t slip away.
The thug raised his knife again and tried to strike. Celeste jerked sideways just in time—the blade skidded off her shoulder harmlessly.
Gottfried advanced, his expression shadowed by fury. “Your employer is dead,” he growled, his voice low and threatening. “I plan on taking his ears as punishment. Shall I take yours as well?””
He raised his blade, but the thug shifted Celeste in front of him, her body now a barrier between them.
At that moment, Sigrid’s voice rang out from the top of the stairs, sharp and righteous.
“What is going on down there? You put that girl down! How dare you lay hands on a poor, defenseless girl!”
The thug hesitated, blinking up toward the sound.
Sebastian didn’t waste the moment. He vaulted down the steps two at a time, his feet barely touching the stone. In a single, fluid motion, he sidestepped the thug’s defense and unleashed a devastating right hook. It connected squarely with the man’s face—five clean knuckle points of impact. The sound was like a sledgehammer hitting a vase. The thug’s head snapped sideways, and he crumpled instantly, collapsing in a heap with Celeste tumbling free of his grip.
For a moment, the room was still—filled only with the sound of their breathing and the faint creak of the cellar door swinging gently above. Dust swirled in the low light. Celeste stepped back, regaining her footing, and looked toward Sebastian with a nod of silent thanks.
Gottfried stepped to the side and pulled the door fully open, eyes narrowed. “We’re not done yet.”
But for the moment, they had won.
