Chapter 8: The Brand Beneath the Bell
The Thorn & Thistle stood still in the hush of midnight. No fire cracked. No laughter stirred. Every chair had been turned down, the shutters closed and latched, the last cup cleaned with slow, ritual care.
Inside, Mr. Merrit sang quietly — not in a language known to this age, but in Elven, old and slithering like curling ink in a bowl of wine. The words were not songs but spells, once sung across the marble halls of the Underdeep — before the fall, before the black banners.
He scrubbed the bar in circles. His cloth moved like a ritual, slow and exact. His eyes, violet now, glowed faintly in the dim. He hummed still, even as the small bell at the rear door gave a tink — sharp, sudden.
He stopped.
The cloth dropped.
He turned.
Across the backroom he padded soundlessly, paws silent on the worn boards. At the door, he paused only long enough to smile.
Then he opened it.
Two sacks of coarse burlap had been dumped on the stone step. Hessian, heavy, soaked slightly through. One shifted faintly. The air stank of straw, moss, and a sickly sweetness — the smell of binding magic.
Mr. Merrit’s smile widened.
“Well done,” he whispered. “Right on time.”
With more strength than his small frame should hold, he dragged both sacks inside, one by one, the burlap snagging on the rough floor.
He shut the door — slammed it.
The lock turned with a click.
He made his way to the rear of the tavern, to the wall behind the wine rack. There, hidden behind a cask of plum brandy, was a knot in the wood that did not belong. He touched it.
With a soft shushhh, a hidden panel opened.
Violet light spilled out — not from runes, but from the dark crystal bowl that rested on its pedestal, filled with shimmering, watery light that pulsed and twisted as if alive.
This was his heart. His anchor. The vessel of the old pact.
The weasels were still there — frozen in time where he had last left them. Mouths open in horror. One with a hand half-raised, caught mid-spell. Time held them like insects in amber.
He smiled at them, almost tenderly.
“Still sleeping?” he whispered. “Good. There’s more company now.”
He pulled the sacks into the chamber. Opened them.
There lay Bofkin and Flopkin — still unconscious, still twitching faintly with old magic. He stood over them for a long moment. Then he reached into his coat and drew a long black pin made of bone. One at a time, he dipped the tip into the violet bowl and pressed it to the bare skin behind each ear.
The liquid hissed as it burned into their flesh — forming a spiral that smoked faintly violet and pulsed once, twice…
…Then disappeared.
The twins stirred, as if in pain. But did not wake.
Merrit, no longer the kindly marten of cider and songs, leaned over them now. The illusion faded — his body darkened, skin blackened to coal-glass sheen, his eyes bright with ancient fire. His true form emerged: The Drow, cast from the buried courts of shadow.
He placed a clawed hand on each head and whispered an invocation from the forgotten tongue — old elvish, but fouled with war-magic and betrayal:
"†Mal’kaeth virrun tor ach’nual… Bind through root, bind through breath. Awake not as yours — but mine."
The bowl pulsed. The liquid shimmered.
The bond was made.
They were his.
His voice softened.
“Sleep now, little mice. The town will find you. Worry. Weep. Nurse you back. But the string’s in my hand now…”
He chuckled low in his chest.
“…and when I tug — you’ll dance.”
The light dimmed.
He dragged them back out into the night, his form cloaked once more in the image of Mr. Merrit. The kindly marten with the warm eyes.
He left them in the hawthorn grove, just at the edge of the moor, where the brambleflowers bloomed.
When he vanished back into the Thorn & Thistle, the panel slid shut.
And the tavern knew only darkness once more.
Entered by: 0xe9a1…78d3
Chapter 9: Straw and Shadows
The next morning dawned pale and uneasy. A low fog clung to the edges of Grimthorn Hollow like a hand that refused to let go. The lantern at the fork still bled red light, though no one dared speak of it aloud.
The town woke to rumors — two sentries missing. The hamsters, Bofkin and Flopkin, last seen arguing near the bridge, their little lantern swinging gently above the mossy stones.
Only straw remained — a scattered pile where they'd stood. No blood. No struggle. Just that uncanny scent of field and fear.
Panic took root.
Search parties were formed by midday. Squires, smiths, and farmers took up lanterns and poles, sweeping through briars and heaths. Even the mole from the flour mill abandoned his post to dig beneath the roots of the twisted trees where shadows lingered too long.
The Thorn & Thistle remained open — Mr. Merrit served stew and cider with his usual politeness, though his smile was thinner now. Tired, perhaps. Preoccupied. His paws never quite left the bar, always cleaning, always watching.
Each night, new volunteers took to the bridges and the roads, clutching spears with hands that trembled more than they admitted. The lantern’s green glow flickered more often. Once, it died entirely for the space of a breath, and only the howling wind remained.
Then, on the fourth day, they were found.
At the edge of the moor, just before the hawthorn grove, a shepherd’s dog whined and refused to walk forward. When the villagers came with ropes and caution, they found the two small forms lying side by side in the underbrush.
Bofkin and Flopkin.
Their clothes were torn, their fur matted with dirt, thorns, and dried straw. But they were alive — barely. Unconscious, breathing shallowly. Not a mark of violence, yet something clung to them like smoke.
The town rejoiced at first. They were carried back on stretchers, their paws twitching, eyes fluttering now and then.
But something was… off.
They didn’t speak.
Not at first.
They slept too long. When they woke, they seemed dazed — moving like clockwork toys just out of time. They smiled, but the smiles were crooked. Their voices were theirs, but only just — too calm, too smooth. They said they had no memory of what happened. “A dream,” Bofkin murmured. “Like a maze of fields. Endless. Empty.”
Flopkin claimed he remembered a scarecrow whispering to him. “Said we were his now.”
The town healer swore they were healthy — no poison, no fever, no damage. Just… changed.
Some called it trauma.
Others whispered darker things.
Kalo and Lukan, still days away on the road east, would not know yet. But the Hollow had shifted.
The twins had come back.
But not entirely alone.
Entered by: 0xe9a1…78d3
