[Here follows the tale of one Cordelia, a bag of holding in the midst of a group of unlikely thieves bent on successfully looting a mighty wizard’s manor.]
Ugh, here we are, standing in front of this stupid wall like a bunch of confused rats. If I had eyes, I’d be rolling them now. Honestly. I’ve never been with a more horrendous, idiotic, bumbling group of dunces in all my days, and I’ve had a few. I call myself Cordelia, which suits me more than any name any of my owners has given me—particularly my current one. He tends to refer to me as, “that damn thing,” which I think marks his level of intelligence fairly accurately. I’ve known trees with better personality than this jerk. Iago, he calls himself, although, “the bastard” is probably more accurate.
His companions seem to tolerate him well—idiots, all of them. We’ll stand in front of this wall for a precious long time as they make a simple decision, but I’m sure we’ll be back. And if we’re here until this damn wall crumbles in a fit of decaying magic, I won’t be surprised. My life’s been cursed since Iago’s laid his grubby hands on me.
“So, whaddya think?” asks the bastard now, staring past the wall and up to the impressive manor looming beyond.
“Eh, I dunno,” says Vlad, a tall, distinct fighter. “I already have a bit of gold. Want to go to the pub and get a drink instead?”
“But this,” says Sylvia, “this is Greenor’s Manor. Not only spoken of as the greatest horde of treasure in these parts, but famed for being exceedingly difficult to navigate through and return alive.” She wrings her nimble, thieving hands, an eager glare in her eyes. “If we do this, we’ll all return with both wondrous valuables and fame.”
François, the mage-thief, is standing with a strange expression on his face.
“The tales are not to be scoffed at. It is excruciatingly dangerous to enter here. This wall alone, for example—if we so much as touch it, a loud bell-like noise will sound, and won’t cease until whomever has touched it has died. Most who’ve tried don’t get far past this barrier.”
Iago starts cackling like the deranged madman he is. All eyes turn on him, including those of the assassin, who does not speak much. Including her, their group numbers five—five fools proceeding foolishly forward.
Iago shoves his disgusting, lumpy fist deep inside me and I shudder. Such violations…I can only hope he dies soon and leaves me to a better owner…but I rather doubt that given the current situation…He pulls out two immovable rods and brandishes them with triumph.
“We’ll get over the wall with these.”
The assassin nods and everyone else murmurs agreement, apart from me—but no one ever listens to sense, anyway. Without further conversation, Iago uses the rods to climb through the air over the wall like a shaky monkey. I feel nauseous, but it’s not the first time, and I doubt it’ll be the last.
Once over, Iago hesitates. One of his companions shouts, “throw them over!” but the jerk still remains motionless. He never likes to part with his precious crap.
Finally he tosses his immovable rods over the wall and the rest of the group crosses, one at a time, with the exception of François, who is carried across last by Vlad. Iago snatches his rods back, and the group glances at each other before proceeding up the sloping lawn toward the manor. They hesitate at the door before Sylvia breaks away, calling back to the others about scouting the perimeter.
Iago examines the door, and the others examine the windows and walls. Sylvia returns, explaining that the perimeter is a rather large rectangle.
Kill me now.
Iago has the bright idea to open the door and enter, clearly without a thought for my safety. The others follow him and the door swings shut.
We are in a long room full of tapestries, each portraying a man who obviously thinks he’s the greatest wizard that ever existed. Pose after pose of Greenor boldly stretched on tapestries urges the group toward the door at the far end of the room. The assassin lingers to peer behind a few of the most vomit-worthy wall hangings before following.
This door, like the last, closes behind our group. On the far wall, a band of musical notes dips and flows around, more likely affixed there by magic than painted. A pedestal in the middle of the room is lit in an intimidating light, and the group proceeds toward it.
They huddle in front of it, Iago pressing eagerly forward, and bashes me against the pedestal sharply in his need to get to whatever might possibly be worth getting to. I pass out from the blow, and come to hearing the lot of them mumbling dimly about whatever it was they had read on the pedestal, apparently a riddle of some sort. Iago and Sylvia’s voices are louder, quicker—they’ve decided they’ve worked out the mystery of the pedestal.
Both of them dash forward like hungry children, but it is Sylvia who reaches the far wall first and extends her hand toward the note representing B sharp. The note slides inward like a button, and a door opens to the left.
Beyond the door is a long hallway. The group peers down it suspiciously, and I sigh a baggy sigh. Sylvia steps forward for better examination, then steps back.
“Traps,” she says.
“Can you disarm them?” asks François.
“Of course.”
She proceeds, slowly, while the others hang back. Well, the others, apart from Iago—the bastard’s bouncing from foot to foot so eagerly that it is all I can do to keep down my inner contents. Finally she steps back, dusts off her nimble hands, and mutters, “there!”
Iago clearly needs no further encouragement, for he bolts forward like an arrow from a bow, me bouncing along beside him, clenching my threads in fear. The remainder of the group hangs back in the doorway and watches Iago’s mindless dash.
From behind us there is a large, dull thud that shakes through the floor and the walls, echoing menacingly toward us before fading away to a steady, gravelling rolling sound. My drawstrings are on end with fear as Iago turns to look behind him.
Rumbling down the corridor behind us, gathering speed, is a massive boulder, obviously the sort quite capable of squashing a handful of Iagos. For a brief moment I hope, then realize I too would be flattened, and urge Iago on by bopping more forcefully against his disgusting thigh.
He turns back around and dashes doubly fast down the hallway, me hanging along at his side. As he bolts and I bounce outward for a moment, I catch a glimpse of François stepping forward, gaze set on the boulder. I continue to watch in brief, unsteady glimpses, as the boulder begins to shrink, slowly.
The end of the hallway approaches, and it is apparent there are three doors waiting for us, one on the left wall, one on the right wall, and one directly in our path. Iago, of course, dashes right to the door directly in front of us, yanks it open, and spills into the room beyond.
Our mad dash ceases abruptly; the boulder, now reduced to the size of a grapefruit, rolls in behind us and comes to rest several steps away. Iago starts shuffling about like he’s attached to strings some invisible hand is pulling, and I bop about in tow, wondering how long it will take before I completely lose my sanity altogether.
Several heads peek through the doorway and stare; apparently the corridor is now clear.
“What are you doing?” asks Vlad.
“I can’t stop this damn dancing,” says Iago. “Fuck!”
The assassin throws a rope his way and Iago dances toward it, picking up the tiny boulder as he goes. I brace myself—there is only one place he plans to shove it. I choke down a small boulder, fist and all, before Iago removes his hand and grasps the rope. We are pulled in from the smooth dance floor and Iago’s feet quiet over the threshold.
The group exchanges glances, the bastard’s smeared with a vague silliness. The other two doors are examined. The one to the right appears to lead to a courtyard; the one to the left, to a room with a chair. And like the greedy fools they are, they steer toward the left. Sylvia checks the door for traps and the group proceeds.
We dump into a warm, dark room with paneled walls and wooden flooring. A cushioned chair sits in front of an empty fireplace with a common-looking clock perched on the mantle. Opposite is a window looking out on the courtyard, and on the far end of the room is another door.
The group splits up and sets upon the room like deranged, ravenous wolves, seeking treasure. There is a chair and a clock in here. I can’t understand them. Iago bounces about, his low attention span taking in various parts of the room bit by bit. The assassin examines the fireplace while Vlad stares out the window, and François and Sylvia engross themselves in the nature of the chair.
When I am questioning myself for the fifty-second time why they are so thick, they decide to proceed to the far door and open it. We enter into a warm, dark room, also with paneled walls, wooden flooring, a fireplace, a window, a cushioned chair, a clock…
The group sets to their monotonous task. If I could get my drawstrings close enough, I swear I’d strangle the lot of them, starting with the fool Iago. I can hardly believe I have to endure this madness…
After finishing their most thorough examination of the room, the group approaches the far door and enters boldly into…another room identical to the last. I sigh loudly and hope the others think it is Iago breaking wind again. They set into their tasks, examining the room, and I doze off.
When I awake I notice we are still in the room, although I don’t know how far we’ve progressed. The bipeds seem to be catching on—at least, they are all standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, asking each other in annoyed mumbles what to do. François, a particularly irritated expression on his face, parts from the group and grabs the clock off the mantle, attempting to secret it away on his person while the assassin approaches the door that the group came in from and opens it.
Iago bounds over to the far door and does the same. A small performance ensues while various people walk through the doors, randomly opening and shutting them in attempts to solve the mystery of the repeating room, but no solution is to be had. They rejoin in the center of the room, Vlad red with anger and frustration. François frowns thoughtfully at the chair.
“I have an idea,” he says. “You see that chair?”
“Fuck it,” snaps Vlad, and all eyes stare at him. The assassin raises an eyebrow. Iago seems amused, even eager, perhaps. Disgusting bastard.
Vlad makes a noise of annoyance in his throat and grabs the chair. As one, each member of the group steps back. How they can manage to do this when they have troubles with everything else, I cannot understand.
Turning toward the window, Vlad takes a step and hurls the chair with the force of a very strong, very angry person. It sails through the air and through the glass, landing in the courtyard outside.
Hardly has anyone taken a breath when the shards outside fly upward, hissing a path through the air back at us with all the force Vlad had put into the window’s destruction.
