CHAPTER II: The Rooms of Confusion
Hateful to me as the gates of Niffleheim is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another. --- Dolores Ibarruri, High Priestess
WHAT HAS the world gone up to? That was the first thought that invaded my utterly perplexed mind when I entered the room. I was still reluctantly digesting the past events that came galloping into my life and yet, another equally bewildering and confusing situation had been thrown at me, bones and all.
The room, where I entered, had no window, was devoid of any furniture and decorations, and lighted only by two blazing torches clapped on two sides of the wall. The dancing golden flames emanating from the torches threw off a blurry of whirling and disconcerted shadows across the walls, creating an aura of mystery to the otherwise nondescript room. But to my mind, the more disconcerting thing than the leaping shadows off the walls were the three silent figures huddled together at the side of the empty wooden bed.
A dancer, a healer, and an assassin: my brother's mistress, my bosom friend, and my old enemy. The three people I least expected to see were all assembled in that gloomy room. What, in Bapho's name, are they doing here? I muttered. What is going on? Where is my brother? So many questions were burning on my mind. I needed answers, fast, or my mind would blow up into a flurry of confusion.
The gentle scraping of the heavy wooden door closing slowly behind me betrayed my presence in the room. The dancer was the first to notice me. She was slouched at the edge of the wooden bed, eyes closed, and her lithe shoulders heaving up and down in a slow and torturous rhythm. When she heard the almost inaudible sound of the gently closing door, she looked up, her gaze meeting mine. Those gray, sorrowful eyes, I sighed. It haunted me still, even now. As I locked my gaze into hers, her eyes flickered for an instant. Was it joy of seeing me? I asked myself. My heart is leaping with joy, Chi Huang Fei. I tried to tell her with my eyes.
She rose abruptly from the bed, clasping and unclasping her soft and delicate fingers. Her lovely face, illumined by the orange flames from the torches, was ghastly white, I began to notice. She was mouthing something when---
"BLOODY PORING!" Domenikos' husky voice echoed across the room. My healer friend had noticed me at last. He jumped from the bed and began striding in my direction. "Here, have a seat," he added, leading me to a solitary stone chair beside the wooden bed.
As I tried my best to feel comfortable in the stone-cold chair, I suddenly felt a sense of foreboding. An eerie feeling that made the hair in my neck stood upright---the man behind the shadow is watching me. I certainly knew who he was.
"---pal, you look a mess," Domenikos was saying. "Bad news, really. I do hope..." He suddenly sighed.
"Xander listen to me! Your bro---"
"Theophilus is dead." My healer friend interjected, cutting off Chi's speech. With a resigned air, Chi slumped on the bed and immediately relapsed into silence.
Theophilus, dead. I thought... My mind went numb. Suddenly, the room felt cold. I had the feeling of a cold gush of water slowly pouring down on me, soaking my body, and making me shiver in the chair.
"And you know what that means, BlackMoney?" at last, the man behind the shadow spoke. He sort of glided from the dark, shadowy wall towards the bed, his half-hidden face finally revealed. Gromico Bracklehurst. Chieftain of the most feared group of assassins in the whole kingdom---The Brotherhood of the Tomb. "It means... you're the next to die." His face broke into a smirk, a loathing way beyond the limit. The two slits that were his eyes were sparking with hatred as he stared at me venomously.
And the feeling was mutual. I could never forgive him for stabbing my father to death when I was still ten years old. I had been the only person who had witnessed his gruesome deed. As I stare back at those hateful eyes, memories of that fateful day came flooding into my mind. I could still smell the pungent stench of iron being melted in my father's forge on that day. My father. The image of his stooped figure throwing coals at the blazing furnace was as fresh to me as if I was still in the forge, watching him, admiring him.
Then the events that followed all became a blur to my young mind: The sudden apparition of a hooded stranger. The argument. And the hissing voice; that malignant, evil hissing voice. Give me back the Helm... the stranger was saying. The Helm, BlackMoney. But my father just chuckled good-humoredly. No, I don't have what you are seeking, Miklos. My father just turned his back on the stranger and resumed throwing coals at the furnace. Then, without a warning, the hooded stranger extracted a jeweled damascus from his bosom and plunged it into the back of my father's head. The blade made its way down with a sickening crunch, resting at the base of his spine. My father didn't have time to react. He just uttered a muffled groan and immediately fell down on the stone floor, a lifeless corpse. It was then that he noticed me, crouching at the back of a high-backed wooden chair. After pulling out the damascus from my father's back, he turned to look at me, focusing those two wicked and malignant eyes. Those eyes. Like the voice, it was malevolent and reeking with hate. And then he vanished, like a smoke.
I never thought I would see those hateful eyes again, nor hear that revolting voice, but here he was. In the flesh and in my brother's room.
to my insan: uhm sowe pow klahati pa lng ito sa chapter two. medyo nagloloko n nmn utak ko.heheh ayaw gumana. luv u chi!