Work Text:
“Gentlemen,” said Cyrus Albright, a hand curled under his chin.
He had a cold cup of tea in front of him, diluted with milk. The hand curled under his chin was ink-stained, his hair was ruffled by his having run a hand through it so many times. He sat at a table right at the base of the stairs, with a sheaf of paper in front of him, a fully melted candle, and, for some reason, a stick of butter on a tray. The morning sun was cheerfully illuminating the menacing aura that rose from his shoulders like a summer mirage.
Therion felt a stab of fear that only the Professor, with a certain tone of voice, could elicit in him. It wasn’t because (and he hated admitting this) Cyrus could probably kick his ass to Marsalim with his unholy dark powers. There was a sort of inquisitive menace he could pack into his voice, a rumble of thunder that foretold an incredibly unpleasant revelation (about himself, because Cyrus had just divined and diagnosed his neuroses when he didn’t fucking ask).
Olberic, for his part, muttered something unintelligible about forgetting something and turned to walk back up the stairs. The façade came nowhere near fooling the Professor, who said, in his loudest, clearest, damn-who-hears voice, “Gentlemen, I do implore you both give me your consultation for a brief moment, only a minute of your mornings,” he began, his eyes fluttering shut and open as he spat out alliterative diction just to flex, “Because I have a mystifying case I just must unravel.”
Well, there was no getting out of this. Therion looked at Olberic, and Olberic looked at him, and they both knew this could happen now, or this could happen at lunch, in front of the Gods, Sister Ophelia, and everyone.
They sat at the table.
“It is my great shame that I have no tea to offer my fellow travelers, for the serving-staff took their leave precisely four and a half hours ago, at the hour of three,” Cyrus informed them, taking a long dreg of the tea he had procured anyway. Likely from walking into the kitchen and making it himself. “You see, I found myself faced with a puzzling situation last night that I simply could not rest until I unpuzzled,” he explained.
“Is that so,” Olberic asked.
“Yes. I was locked outside of my room all night.”
Therion felt the world spin around him.
“Very puzzling,” Cyrus continued, voice as flat as paper, eyes as sharp as a quill.
“I must have locked the door on instinct,” Olberic muttered, looking abashed. “I—”
“And this is what I thought as well!” Cyrus interrupted him, pointing a caffeine-shaky finger into the air. “But the incurable inquisitor I am, I could not help but look into the situation. ‘My friend Sir Eisenberg,’ said I to me, ‘is not a thoughtless sort. I informed him before he took his leave in the evening that I would be up late; he told me he would leave the door abraced if I would only knock before entering. Yet even with a knock, he did not stir! ‘Has something happened to my friend?’ asked I to myself, with a healthy amount of comradely concern.”
Damn, they were fucking in for it. Therion was doing everything in his power to hold still and not meet Cyrus’s eyes. Luckily, The Professor was fixated right now on making Olberic sweat. “I am thankful for your concern,” said Olberic, trying to steer the conversation.
No dice. “It was a simple measure to take a peek through the keyhole;” Cyrus continued, fanning out the fingers of one hand with a few subconscious sparks, “I saw nothing amiss. But since it only revealed to me a small cross-section of the room, I knew this required investigation! And the skilled investigator knows his best sources are other people, whose faculties of observation can tell him things mere surroundings never can.”
No, no—“So I did go down the hall to the room rented by our friends Alfyn and Therion, to ask if they had seen Olberic retire. And when I knocked on the door, it was opened to me by Alfyn, who was, I am sorry to say, woken by this visitation. But science does not wait for sleep, as I have impounded upon you all, so I still requested his assistance in puzzling this mystery,” he declared with some smugness. “Our friend informed me straightaway, which is one great talent of his, that he had gone to bed alone, not seen Therion or Olberic retire, though he had heard some scuffling in the hall in the dead of night.
“Scuffling! Naturally I was concerned, though Alfyn said he had scanned the hall after hearing noise himself and saw naught. Scuffling, in the dead of night, but no sign of any disturbance—but then I came to a curious supposition.”
Cyrus delicately folded his hands under his chin, using it as a rest to hunch upon as he leaned just a little further into Olberic. God, he might have had a pair of lackies holding Olberic down for how effectively he was able to menace him. His wide dark eyes were as sharp as flint. “Taking another round of the late-night waitstaff below, who I had already made familiar acquaintance with, I asked after my distinctively tall friend—had he been seen to retire? And found a witness to this very moment.”
Oh, come on, thought Therion miserably, just do it, Prof. Just end the misery. Take your fucking revenge on my useless ass.
“A young lady who is apprenticed to the cook confirmed that my friend had gone to bed, to the back door—and with our other missing friend! ‘What is the meaning of this,’ I wondered, but the lady would not say. To switch rooms without informing anyone, and then to lock the way behind them—these were not usual actions from the companions I know so well.”
Olberic just closed his eyes. There was nowhere to hide. He closed his eyes, folded his hands on the table, and let Cyrus go for his throat. “So I, making use of my rational faculties, realized that my most prudent course of action would be to request to board with our friend Alfyn for the evening, but something stayed my feet—I could not rest until I had puzzled, for certain, why it was that I had been locked out of my quarters, where my clothes and my spare ink are,” he said, with admirable venom. “As such I waited all night for the door to be unlocked so I could investigate what strange circumstances led to my snubbing.”
What would it be? Therion wondered miserably. Ice? Fire? How would his life be ended? Would it be fast and merciful, or slow and painful? Would Cyrus let them beg?
“Once it had been unlocked and I heard two pairs of feet make their exist to the washrooms, I entered the room to investigate. And here is the evidence I found:” Cyrus declared with a flourish of his hand, TERRIFYINGLY reaching under the table to pick up one of his bags.
Oh, fuck no. FUCK no.
“Here I have an article of clothing belonging to Therion,” he said, flicking his shirt onto the table, sweat-stained; “here the tools Olberic uses to polish his weaponry, cast carelessly aside, which is much out of his practice,” he spat, as he threw those onto the table with a clatter, “not even to mention that his treasured sword was unevenly tossed on the floor! And here,” he said, with a note of doom in his voice like the trill of an anxious violin, “HERE is the blade”—Therion’s knife—”which I found PIERCED into the WARDROBE in which I had PLACED my CLOTHING, STABBED into the side, which action had TORN my COAT.”
The knife clattered onto the table like it had been cast out of the hand of a man killed in battle. Therion felt his blood leaving his body and his heart going still.
“Aside from these things I found even more evidence which I was loathe to disturb,” Cyrus continued darkly, folding his hands again. “A purposeful shrouding of the room. The suspicious indisturbance of one half of the room, other than the molestation of my wardrobe. Stains,” he pronounced, his eyes flaring, “of a suspicious nature, which scent and appearance assaulted my senses. Have you gentlemen a clue of what conclusion I came to, faced with the WEALTH of information I uncovered?”
And with that, just as Therion feared, his eyes slipped from Olberic to himself and pinned him like a spear of ice pounded straight through his chest.
I DID IT , he screamed in his head, eyes frozen wide, I FUCKED OLBERIC IN YOUR ROOM, I RIPPED YOUR COAT, I STAINED THE BED WITH MY FUCKING SEED BECAUSE I’M SOME KIND OF FUCKING FIGHTSLUT, WHAT DO YOU WANT, YOU FUCKING DEMON?? WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?? HAVE FUCKING MERCY, DREAD NERDLORD.
“I naturally concluded,” Cyrus continued, breaking the tension with a snap of his hand back to smooth his hair from his forehead, “that henceforth, I shall be shelling out the extra coin to rent my own private room for use whenever we rest in an establishment such as this. I am a salaried professional and I can do what I want. Good day to you both,” he continued, snatching up his papers but leaving the rest of the clutter on the table, “and inform our fair companions that we do no traveling this day, for Professor Albright is abed.”
And with that, he stood to take his leave.
Olberic watched Cyrus’s exit with dread silence, his hands gripping the table as though he had been preparing himself to be tortured. Therion tried to wheeze something at him as he passed by and strode to the stairs, but for the life of him, nothing came out of his mouth.
After his footsteps had fully faded away, and a door upstairs primly opened and knocked shut, Olberic and Therion finally dared to glance at each other. Olberic looked like he had just gone through the most stupid, exhausting ordeal of his life; his face was screwed up and pale.
“…Should have just told him,” he muttered, leaning forward to brace his forehead in one hand.