The Secret Of Qyl

  

 “Are you comfortable?” the seated figure asked his guest.
    The nobleman sitting across the table affected a very distinctive, very strange appearance. He elected to cover nearly every inch of flesh on his body, including parts of his face. Strangely shaped velvet gloves in black covered his hands and forearms, hose and boots covering his legs, strangely elaborate collar and frills running all down the back, and large hat with what might have been a wig under it. The ears remained hidden.
    Montag, in his relatively simple clothes, felt somewhat overwhelmed at the sight of his host “Within reason sir.”
    “I'm sure you have heard something of my reputation? They say I'm quite the idler, don't they?”
    “I may have heard something to that affect, Mister Qyl.”
    “You may be frank with me.” Qyl's eyes seemed to deepen. “Didn't old Mister Veldair try to enlist your help the other day? Something about a barge run aground?”
    A servant appeared and poured brandy. Qyl watched while Montag drank.
    Montag shook his head rapidly “I'm not sure it was about that, I...”
    “You will obey my voice.”
    Montag realized that his host's strange face had become his focus “Yes.”
    “Did you go to where Veldair had men working on the grounded ship?”
    “I did. I was by the abandoned mill, just a few paces past where the water wheel broke off. I did not stop for long, not more than a few minutes.”
    “Could you see what he had the men hauling out of the ship?”
    “I saw them taking rounded black objects out of broken crates. I thought they might be eggs of some kind, but they were very large, the size of a man's head.”
    Montag came to at the front hall of the elaborate house, Mister Qyl handing him his coat. He could remember little from the time he'd arrived.
    The following day, Montag found himself entering a tailor shop with a full purse that had been left on his dresser. He had a series of expensive suits made and then went and took up residence in one of the most respectable hotels in town, even hiring a carriage. He scarcely knew why, but he gave everyone the name of Granville.
    “I've just come in from Loudun,” he told someone in the lobby. “I was hoping rather to acquaint myself with a local entrepreneur, a Mister Veldair?”
    “But of course!” exclaimed the man. “My cousin Claude works for him.”
    Later at dinner, a lady shyly approached the mysterious Monsieur Granville's table “You look quite alone, sir.”
    “Not if you join me, miss?”
    “Oh, I am with another party, but I felt certain I had seen you somewhere before?”
    “I have not been in the city for long, I have only recently arrived.”
    “Forgive me, but I thought you bore a resemblance to someone I saw with Mister Qyl.”
    Granville gave a sophisticated laugh “I'm afraid I've never met the gentleman. I understand he is something of a libertine.
    “Who can say? Rumors always surround a well off fop like him.”
    “I don't believe I've had the pleasure?”
    “My apologies. I am Madame Blaire, the niece of Mister Roger Veldair.”
    The following day Monsieur Granville received an invitation to Roger Veldair's expansive estate. His carriage rolled through the sprawling gardens of the front ground and came to a halt beneath the towering pillared edifice of the house itself.
    A servant conducted Granville to a solarium where the massive Veldair sat playing chess with an ancient woman.
    “Ah,” the turned to his guest, “so you are the illustrious Monsieur Granville who has turned so many heads recently?”
    “Very pleased to make your acquaintance, Mister Veldair. Your reputation resonates in Loudun.”
    “And beyond,” Veldair laughed. He ate from an opened box of chocolates. “My niece mentioned you are rather interested in some sort of business? Something do to with steam-powered vehicles perhaps?”
    “It is a sort of shipping venture, you might say.”
    Later, out in the garden, Granville briefly thought he glanced a group of workmen hauling off a well dressed man. He thought nothing of it until he drifted away from the group out in the rose garden and stumbled on a refuse pile, behind which lay a corpse who's face had been melted away.
    That night, Granville had a drink at the restaurant in the hotel. He overheard a conversation between two men seated behind him.
    “... if it was only once or twice I should simply dismiss the whole thing as the chatter of drunkards,” said the first, “but now there have been 6 reports of that kind from all along the outskirts and some have come from respected scientists.”
    “So what do you think accounts for it all? Surely they can't have seen what they say they've seen?”
    “Who knows? You know what my grandfather always said: if you're the only one in the room who can't see the unicorn, perhaps you're the one who is crazy. They all said...”
    “But nothing can fly like that. Apart from hot-air balloons and kites, but this is supposed to have been different, some kind of heavy metal object, how could that remain in the air?”   
    “The astronomer, Baldreille, had a theory about that he told me over dinner. He claimed that an object heavier than the air could remain aloft if it had a means of mechanical propulsion. If a way could be devised to pump air of flame downward with enough rapidity, then flight might be achieved.”
    “But this object is also said to have crashed. Somewhere in the bogs near the old mill.”
    Granville stood and marched to the balcony.
    A voice spoke to him out of the shadows “Montag, I see you have begun to suspect.”
    “Who are you?”
    “You know me, I'm the one who sent you here. I am the only one who knows you are not Granville.”
    “I don't understand,” Granville said. “How am I doing all of this? I have never been able to move in society or speak with ladies, or joke with wealthy men.”
    “You don't know half the things you might do until you try. I have made use of your sleeping talents.”
    “I still don't know what is going on.”
    “You do not need to know all the details. You already suspect there is something amiss about Veldair. I need only for you to be the catalyst. He cannot harm you while you are under my power. Go again tomorrow and we will see what comes.”
    Although Granville could make out no other people on the balcony with him, as he turned to leave he briefly glimpsed what appears to be a kind of black tail vanishing among the ivy.
    In the morning, Granville went to a salvage yard near the river and asked for a Spaniard, named Juan Giacomo Garcia.
    “How may I be of service to a gentleman such as you?” asked the pale man, who looked almost skeletal and wore and uneasy smile.
    “A firm I'm employed with has a need of salvaged boats for an experimental purpose. I was told in town that you were the gentleman to see in that line.”
    “We have many wrecks here. Scrap lumber can be very charming...”
    “I rather had my eye on a barge, the Celeste Duvall.”
    The changed in the Spaniard's expression and posture was violent, shaping the smile briefly into a murderous sneer and the carefree gait now like the heavy-footed strut of the condemned. “I would have to consult my records if you had a specific vessel in mind. We are very busy.”
    “Of course. If you would contact me at my hotel I should be grateful.”
    At the estate of Veldair, Granville was again greeted by servants. The head butler told him he would find his host in the second floor library of the East wing.
    Granville proceeded across find persian rugs through the large and cavernous house. The way took up up short flights of steps and down elaborate spiral ramps. He passed huge paintings and ornate carvings, and no end of expensive couches and chairs. Lights and shadows cast by colored glass windows fell on his finely dressed form and his body flashed in and out of existence like a small fly in a beam of forest sunlight. An observer at a distance might have found his eye deceived by the impression that two shadows followed the young man.
    “What can it all mean?” Montag asked himself. “How have I fallen into this? What makes me do and say these things?”
    He crossed a kind of bridge over an indoor garden with fountains, under a great skylight with the faces of the four winds illustrated on it. The library beyond was all in shadow, the curtains drawn.
    Granville thought he discerned the silhouette of his host on the far side of the gloomy chamber and called “Mister Veldair? What are...”
    A blow came down on the back of his neck and several pairs of hands seized him.   
    In pain and confusion, Granville came awake to find a group of rough looking men carrying him along an old wooden footbridge among the reeds along the edge of the bog.
    When they reached the old fishing pier that came out about 40 feet into the water, the men forced Granville to his knees. One pulled a large hatchet from his belt.
    Graville looked helplessly down at the worn planks and saw the dark stains where men's life had run out before. Deep down, he knew he couldn't play a bold man's game like this.
    Before the blow could fall a scream issued from one of the henchman's throats and a dark form knocked one back into the water. Granville stumbled and looked up to see a terrible black shape swoop down and the dock and rend one of the killers into a mess of bloody flesh.
    The hatchet fell onto the planks and Granville dove for it. As he made to stand one of the remaining killers saw him and flew wildly at him and both men pitched into the dark water.
    His attacker's head struck a rocky outcropping and the body floated limply at him. Granville looked up to the rippling surface and saw musket balls shooting down through the water towards him. He swam downwards into the shadowy bog. Something lay down there, some indistinct object that seemed to bear a shape almost like a great smokey piece of quartz, only of gigantic size.
    The whispered voice in his head said “Swim to it! There lies salvation.”
    In the watery gloom, Granville swam further down until he perceived a kind of opening in the large object. Inside he surfaced into stale air.
    A dim light, almost like amber candlelight, only steady, revealed interior chambers of the same hard straight character, all apparently made of some species of metal. He climbed onto a sloped decking and walked through what proved to be a sizable ship. He asked himself how could there be such a thing? A metal ship? Remaining below the water? Without breaking open or floating up?
    Granville walked along and came to an open space, a room with thick glass portals that looked out on the water. Lights glowed from places in the walls and on tables, and seemed to give no heat or smoke.
    “What is this place?” he asked himself aloud.
    The light grew brighter, coming from the ceiling now, small sounds came from throughout the ship.
    A dark figured entered the chamber where Granville stood. It was some kid of draconic beast, a lithe manlike thing covered in shining black scales, delicately clawed hands and feet, a great serpent-like tails coming out behind, and great wings folded in back. The horned head regarded him without expression.
    Granville didn't know what to do, the presence of the beast was too powerful.
    He managed to say “Don't- don't hurt me, I...”
    A clawed hand reached up to the chin of the dragon's face and peeled it back, revealing the face of Qyl.
    “But...” Granville stammerd. “That's some kind of costume?”
    “No, Montag. We men of my world have two faces. We are like you humans in many ways, but out bodies are more like your reptiles.”
    “That's why you dress the way you do?”
    Qyl smiled “I very much like dressing the way I do. But I could hardly shake hands with exposed claws, people react so badly to that.”
    “Then this is your ship?” Granville asked.
    Qyl crossed the floor and sat on one of the chairs, his wings collapsing into his back “No, this belonged to another member of my race. Many of us come to Earth and find ways to fit in. However, when we are discovered there is often trouble.”
    “Then, those eggs...?”
    “The young of my species. Veldair found out about them and wishes to use them to further his own power and influence.”
    “I don't understand. If you can do everything that you can do, why don't you just stop him?”
    “He can use the eggs as a shield against my influence. He has in his employ a kind of witch-doctor, I man who worked both for and against my people in the jungle cities of South America. If you can recover the eggs and stop him, we can beat him.”
    Nobody saw Monsieur Granville emerge from his hotel for days, but some saw his assistant and private secretary, Louis Clairmont, run some errands for him. Nobody seemed to remember when Clairmont first appeared. He looked a little like Granville himself, but taller and thinner. He said little, but he received visitors and packages.
    Four nights after Granville vanished, Clairmont rode in a hired carriage run by a gentleman who wouldn't mention the trip if the right bottle were provided.
    Veldair paced back and forth in the large office on the main floor of his mansion “We must take more precautions.”
    “We have hired on more men,” said his groundskeeper. “You can hardly expect to be attacked by a dead man.”
    “It's not the man I'm thinking of,” Veldair grumbled. “It's that creature. We're dealing with something we can't understand.”
    “You can't honestly believe that story the men told. They must have been drinking.”
    “I hardly call four men dead...”
    A sound like a crash of thunder rattled the window and a bright light shined into the room. Both men ran to the window and saw that one of the greenhouses had been destroyed by explosion and the others were now in flames.
    The ground were filled of shouts of confusion and people ran in with buckets towards the blaze. In the chaos, no one noticed the black-clad figure of Louis Clairmont creeping along a path that lead to the cellar door at a corner of the main house. In short order he was inside and stalked around the dark cellar, able to see by virtue of a small devise that looked like a jewelers' eye.
    The cellars were a series of interconnecting chambers, much like the rambling house above. Here was stored wine, in bottles and large casks. He entered a connecting chamber in time to see a party of men vanish back up the stairs. Here lanterns burned and the intruder could see plainly the strange purpose to which the room had been given over.
    “My God,” Montag whispered, for it was he.
    Metal tubs had been set up in which a dozen large black eggs rested. An ingenious apparatus kept warm oil flowing in the tubs, ensuring the eggs never grew cold. On the stone floor around the tubs, a kind of irregular pentacle was formed in blocks marked in strange runes and pictographs.
    As the invader, Clairmont, Montag rolled up a wheel barrow and began to load the eggs into it, padding them with wads of burlap.
    “Are you sure they'll be warm enough?” said a gentle voice behind him.
    Clairmont spun to see Madame Blaire standing in a white dress, completely incongrous with her surroundings. “I... I suppose. You needn't worry.”
    “I'm not worried,” she giggled. “You're not going to leave here.”
    “I'm a desperate man, you mustn't try to stop me.”
    “Is that disguise supposed to trick me? Your turn as Clairmont is hardly more convincing than your turn as Granville.”
    Clairmont drew a pistol from his coat “I would advise you to step aside.”
    Madame Blaire whipped her left hand out and cord flew from her palm with a string spun from sunlight. It wrapped around Clairmont's legs and he realized he couldn't move.
    “You should not have interfered,” she said. “I know you are merely an agent of that creature who calls himself Qyl. I could smell his influence on you from the first. They always thought so little for me, but I can see through their clumsy disguises just as I can see through yours.”
    “I don't pretend to know what you mean, but you shouldn't help your uncle. What he's doing is...”
    “He's not my uncle or anyone's, he's an only child. I told him I could help him gain power, it was easy. I can't let you take those eggs away, I need them more than he does.”
    “Madame Blaire, this is ridiculous, you...”
    “Let's both stop pretending, Monseiur Montag,” she pulled off the white dress revealing a series of chains and amulets snaked around her neck, and her exposed nakedness revealed a flat masculine chest, albeit bereft of hair, Aztec symbols tattooed on the stomach, and finally... “Not Madame Blaire or Madame anything. The elixir of youth left my appearance more feminine, so I posed as a woman to better manipulate stupid men like Veldair. I am no young man, either, in fact centuries old.”
    Montag looked down at the couple of eggs in the wheelbarrow and at the others in the warm tub, the center of the pentacle. “Alright, so you're old. You're some kind of witch-doctor. Do whatever you want then, I can't prevent you.”
    Blaire looked at him, the pretty face contorted in malignant expression “That's right, you can't!”
    A blast of force issued from the white body of the witch-doctor, when it hit the body of Montag, a strange reaction occurred. Rather than being destroyed, as the girlish man had intended, a kind of flare bloomed from his body and repulsed the force. The concussion knocked back the immortal witch-doctor and the glowing bonds that had held Montag in place vanished.
    “The pentacle,” a voice whispered in his mind, “You must break the pentacle!”
    Montag kicked the stones away, destroying the pattern. When the witch-doctor appeared to stir he hurled stones at him. The body rose again and in his haste, Montag jumped into the center of the oil tub, amongst the black eggs.
    Veldair ran into the basement chamber, and expression of rage on his features. “What is this!? What on Earth is happening here? Destroy him!”
    Blaire turned to him “Why don't you try?”
    “What kind of a girl are you anyway? You said your sorcery could best my rivals! You said we'd be married, you'd bear my children.”
    Blaire reached out and grabbed Veldair. His body jolted as if struck by lightning and he fell to the floor dead. “You would never have had me.”
    “Is no life sacred to you?” Montag cried.
    “Only my own!”
    From the shadows of the wine cellar, a black form swooped in. The dragon's claws closed on the soft white flesh and dragged Blaire away.
    “No!” he cried.
    “Your reign of terror is ended,” Qyl said through the dragon maw, “Your powers are undone.”
    The dragon blasted up through the ceiling and out through the house, carrying his prey. High in the night sky, above the flaming gardens of Veldair's crumbling empire, Qyl's fine claws tore the marking of immortality from the flesh of the ancient wizard.
    Blaire screamed as he dropped back down through the air, to crash in the flames of the servants' quarters.
    Three men appeared in the cellar and helped load the rest of the eggs into carts and helped Montag to get away.
    “Who are you?” he asked one of them.
    “We're like you,” he answered. “We're servants of Qyl.”
    “Are we slaves?”
    The man laughed “I doubt it. There's no toil here. He doesn't make us work all the time, and he never asks anything unless he's sure you can do it.”
    “He's so powerful, though. How often could he need help from us humans?”
    “You'll find out, in time.”

https://www.deviantart.com/leothefox