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(Thirteen) ◀◀◀◀◀ Chapter Fourteen ▶▶▶▶▶ (Fifteen)
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A tiny voice echoed up the basement stairs after nearly two hours of silence; at long last a crack in the glacier of suspense that glommed over the entirety of Torrissio's sitting room in his and Sethys's absence.
It was the latter of the two who appeared first—the owner of that tiny voice, albeit one that became more and more audible as he ascended the basement stairs.
"…so you see? There's no reason to get so bent out of shape over these things," Sethys prattled on. "Most Ophidians really were but ordinary people. Mundanes, as you would call them."
Torrissio listlessly shuffled along in his wake, his eyes glazed, his mouth fixed in a quarter-yawp. "Mundanes. Indeed," he mumbled.
"Right? So their lives hardly revolved around such grand cosmic secrets as you described. That simply wasn't the reality for most of us—er—them." Sethys coughed. "Furthermore, there was a terrible war going on when that document was penned. My guess is that whoever wrote it was only trying to produce something helpful for the people living right here on this Isle."
"Helpful. Yes. Indeed." Torrissio huffed a little. He displayed no known emotion besides resignation, and he made no attempt to hide it when he reached the top of the stairs and beheld the interlopers still squatting in his beloved sitting room.
This would be Stefano's cue to scramble out of the reclining chair in a panic, flinging Torrissio's priceless first edition copy of A.G. Fishmor's Bloodied Blades and Buxom Beauties onto the ground, where it handily blended in with his mottled fur rug. "I say! Uh, Seth! Were you able to read the, uh, the thingummy thing he wanted you to thing the thing with?" he asked.
Sethys took a moment to straighten out his jacket and pince-nez. "Oh yes!" he replied. "Thinging the thing was a doddle—I suppose he's never seen Ophidian longhand cursive before, that's all."
"Cursive, bah! Cursive, he says." Torrissio groaned. "Can you believe that, Mortegro? Imagine that risible cipher of the snake people in cursive!"
"I see. Yes, the writing did look especially loopy."
"In more ways than one," said Torrissio, haughtily waving it off. "Sadistic bastards, hardly ever worth the bother. But I suppose your nephew did an adequate enough job in dictating the contents of the wretched thing."
"Good. So the deal is done, then?" Mortegro probed, turning to Sethys.
"I should think so. I think he accepted my translation. He… He did say so, sort of, mostly, I… I mean, I think so, yes." Sethys scratched his head, uselessly. "But Mr. De Vitis, are you sure you don't want the original anymore? If only for its value as a rare antiquity?"
Torrissio's bloodless and sunken glare did not belong to a disbeliever; he was a man disillusioned, disappointed, perhaps even a little disgusted. He raised a hand when Sethys reached into his coat pocket. "No no, son! That will not be necessary. Perhaps your Xenkan colleagues shall find a more suitable place for such rubbish in their vaults. You'll find that I am far more selective with the artifacts I choose to curate. Monetary value is not as important to me as the item's cultural significance, its magical capacity or relevance to an adept such as—"
"I told you Seth, he only wants Ophidian death devices," rounded Stefano. "Like that deadly fountain pen he tried to jab into your throat."
A low, strained hiss came whistling through Torrissio's clenched teeth; this would serve as the first warning. "Anyway. It is now time for you to go. I should think," he said, restraining each seething syllable.
Petra perked from her corner, her eyes aglow with electric hope. "Me too?"
"All of you, I'm afraid. After all, a deal's a deal. Isn't it." Torrissio curtly snapped his fingers.
His idling automaton valet registered the sound and blinked to attention. "Greetings, signore Torrissio. Do you have a new task for me?"
"Marvello, see this lot to the door. Quickly."
"Yes, signore," said Marvello III, immediately registering the command as permission to return to his usual amber-eyed Valet Mode. "This way, please."
"So I'm free, then? I'm really free? Just like that?" Petra's hollow metallic voice modulated with joy, an impossible feat for any other automaton. "I can't believe it!"
"Believe it, Petra," said Mortegro. "Despite everything, Torrissio is ultimately a man of his word. Usually."
He watched with a detached sort of pity as Torrissio waddled across the room and planted his bandaged foot upon a book that'd been carelessly left splayed spine-up across his rug.
Torrissio sneered and swore to himself as he bent to retrieve it, but he had no response to Mortegro's testimony; the distortion of his tidy mustache as he chewed on it from within would be the second warning.
"At the very least, he knows when he has been outmaneuvered," Mortegro observed further, then shrugged it off. "Come on."
"Gladly," said Petra, while she and Mortegro made a swift exit.
Stefano wasn't done yet; he laughed heartily and gave his ancient ally a firm, friendly clap on the shoulders. "Outmaneuvered indeed! Well done, old bug eyes!"
Sethys laughed sheepishly. "Uh…"
The third warning was not a warning at all; it was the sudden eruption of Mount De Vitis. "Ooh, well done, well done! Everything worked out so fan-dabby-dozy for you, didn't it?" Torrissio bellowed, spewing mockery the way a seasick sea serpent spews fish guts and former pirates. "Get out of my house you smut-sucking drink-thieving hell-hated dandy-bandit, b-before I change my mind and have you s-stuffed and mounted in my curio cabinet! And take your p-prized pet mouldywarp with you!"
"At least…" Sethys approached him gingerly, forwarding a familiar brass-shafted object like an offering. "Well, here's your pen back."
"Ugh! Just keep it! Consider it a bonus for being so bloody clever, just as one might expect from a relative of that insufferable sod."
"Oh! Thank you!" Sethys brightened, perhaps too relieved to detect such subtle modes of communication like sarcasm or spite or even his own imminent destruction. He broke into a backwards toddle as he bowed all the way out of the room. "Thank you! Thank you very much! W-wait for me, Mortegro!"
Until only one remained—alas, the most pernicious pest of them all, the most worthy of the same "white slipper" treatment that Torrissio provided for the resident cockroaches. However, the day now verged upon the hour where weariness would overtake the wits and settle in one's bones, bringing with it the single-minded desire to doze in a beefy yet ergonomically supportive reclining chair, warmed by a roaring fire in the hearth and one's own thoughts of petty revenge.
"Why haven't you left yet?" he begged, unable to conceal his desperation.
"It's only that we shall be departing the Isle of Beyond in the morning and I'm not as keen as my friends to leave things on a sour note," said Stefano. "I understand that losing Petra—again—must be rather difficult for you and I just wanted to say, well, my previous offer still stands! If it's any consolation at all."
He grinned and wiggled his eyebrows.
"What offer?"
"Oh, you know! About me relieving you of the burden of becoming the Magelord and all. I wouldn't mind a bit!"
"I bet you wouldn't."
"In fact, unlike you and Morty, I would treasure the opportunity to throw my hat into the ring that is our fair Moonshade's gubernatorial snake pit. What say you, hm?"
Torrissio tented his fingers and pondered the question for precisely the correct length of time. He said: "Marvello?"
The ever-obedient Marvello III lurched forward. "Yes, signore?"
"It would seem that our would-be Magelord here is going to require more a direct method of direction than afforded by the already breathtakingly obvious requests of his would-be constituency. So get to directing, would you?"
Marvello III readied his arms with a strident, rust-encrusted shrieking that hinted towards months of neglected maintenance and the promise of tetanus. The greenish blinking in his bottle-bottom eyes signified yet another shift in his service program, this time into the one Stefano liked to call "Bouncer Mode".
"Understood," he replied, stretching his eminently capable hands towards the target.
"Well!" Stefano gulped. "Can't say I didn't try, eh?"
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