Monday 18 September 2017

Communal Book Project Part Four


Lord Logenburt Part Four

By Kit Danziger  


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Here is it! The long-awaited next installment of the adventures of Lord Logenburt. If you missed the other parts, catch up here!

Frederic followed the Baron out of the room.  The manor was very dark and cold.  Surely a man of the baron's stature and privilege could afford to light a few gaslamps, Frederic thought. But it wasn't his place to question a baron. He regretted laying his whiskey, in a moment of indecision, on a side table on his way out of the drawing room. Could he carry his glass into the baron's quarters? Frederic was no longer sure of the proper decorum:  strange young women addressing him by his first name, barons inviting him into their private chambers.  Maybe the rules of polite society had changed since he last visited.  He suddenly longed for his quiet study and a tumbler of his own whiskey in his hand, where just the night before, the clock had struck the hours like a tell tale heart of his dull life. He was no longer a young man, and perhaps pleasant and uneventful were the best he could hope for. It was good enough for the Lords Logenburt before him.

Baron Bleddyn was barely visible in front of him, and Frederic's eyes were watering besides. They walked down a corridor and then down several flights of stairs.  The gloom seemed to muffle their footsteps, and Frederic was glad when the baron appeared not to notice him stumble.

Abruptly, the baron stopped and swung open a great oak door. The baron beckoned to him.  "If it please you, my lord," he said. "Enter."

Lord Logenburt walked into the room.  Fortunately, here were a few lit gaslamps revealing a room that was decidedly not private chambers, but in fact, seemed much more cavernous. Frederic saw where all the duke's other gaslamps had gone.  They illuminated and warmed...a clutch of large, dark eggs.  Each egg sat in a type of large saucer warmed by a gaslamp underneath.  Frederic never thought he'd see this familiar scene again.  He gaped at the baron.  At the sight of the baron's smug smile, he recovered quickly, and looked over at the other, darker and colder, side of the room, where he could make out the vague form of a young woman lying on a stone slab.  A trough led from the slab to a channel in the floor that conveyed a dark liquid to the eggs.  Suddenly, Frederic realized that the eggs were lying in a gruesome sort of tea-warmer.  The blood filled the saucers under the eggs, and the gaslamps kept it hot.

"You're incubating the eggs in blood!" he said, aghast.

"Yes!" the baron replied.  "The iron in the blood will make the dragons strong. The nutrients will make them powerful!"

"But you must never use human blood! Only animal blood.  Human blood will create monstrosities, abortions of magic!"




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