They kept a wide berth as they rowed passed the Spirit, but from a distance they saw no signs of life aboard the ship. They beached their dinghy ashore and began the long, arduous climb up to the castle, following in the footsteps of the Spirit's passengers. They lacked both sustenance and accoutrements, as both had been swallowed by the Leviathan and the hungry sea. Exhaustion, thirst, and hunger gnawed at them.

Meanwhile, Nico's head was throbbing. It was like a flaming rod had skewered his brain — it felt, in truth, like he was once again under the spell of Danieli's Mindlock enchantment. He had been making steady progress in his recovery until now. But when he had been under Danieli's spell, he could sense her presence vividly in his mind. What he felt now was different — someone was inside his mind, but it was not Danieli. Someone — or something — had wormed its way into the still-raw wound left by her wicked enchantment.

Their dire circumstances did not dim Cosimo's enthusiasm. When, surmounting the hill, they came in view of the castle perched atop the soaring white cliff, he beamed with joy.

"Alas! We reach the terminus of our long and winding quest. Ilhen's Seventh Deathtrap — it is real, and we have discovered it!"

"You put it charitably,” Leo said. “Someone else discovered it, and we arrived second.”

In fact, they could see a grapple hook hanging from a third floor window. The passengers of the Spirit must have used it for ingress.

"A very, very close second," Cosimo said, beaming. "I have reconsidered my initial pessimism. This is in fact a rather fortuitous sequence of events in our favor."

"How? What could possibly be fortuitous about losing the Mint and dozens of innocent lives?"

Cosimo waved away Leo's objection. "There was nothing extraordinary about the Mint. Money is fungible; gold is abundant. Lives are cheap. But there is only one Ilhen's Seventh, and here we are."

"Late."

"No, in perfect time. Let those dumb bastards plumb its terrible depths, recover its treasures. We will wait here."

"Lying in ambush," Max said.

"Precisely."

“There’s no honor in thievery,” Gianna said.

“No,” Cosimo said with a wide grin, “but there is honor to be thieved.”

“If this is indeed Ilhen’s Seventh,” Nico said. “How do we know it is?”

“I was just about to ask that,” Max said. “And who builds a castle on a godforsaken rock in the middle of the sea?”

“A château,” Cosimo said, rubbing his stubbled chin, “not a castle. And I admit it’s not what I expected. But then again, Ilhen utilized a different medium for each of his works — a tomb, a temple, a mausoleum, a ruin… so on. A château seems a reasonable choice. Let us wait. We wait… and watch.”

***

They waited and watched. Hours passed, night fell. There were no signs of life in the château. Morning dawned, and they broke their fast on a wild hare. But it did not sate their hunger, and Cosimo’s optimism had deteriorated, replaced with cynicism and irritation.

“I’m not waiting forever,” he said. “Today we breach the château.”

“We should go in the same way the Spirit’s passengers did,” Nico said, pointing at the grapple hook hanging from the third-floor window. “If this truly is Ilhen’s Seventh, we’ll want to take advantage of any traps they may have already been disarmed.”

Cosimo nodded. “Ready when you are.”

***

They crossed the vast estate, moving as stealthily and speedily as possible. Leo was the first up the grapple hook, climbing with practiced ease. Gaining the window's ledge, he hoisted himself up into the dark room. But as he lowered himself into the room, he stepped on something round and uneven. Something fleshy. He nearly lost his footing — nearly tumbled back out the window. He caught himself against the ledge and looked down.

A corpse. A brown-haired man in his mid-thirties, physically-fit and quite tall. Leo did not recognize him. He knew most adventurers who operated in the Myriad Isles, either by acquaintance or reputation, but this man’s face was unfamiliar to him. He pulled the body away from the window just as Gianna gracefully climbed in.

“I see you’re up to your usual habits,” she said. “Killing indiscriminately.”

“This one was already dead,” he said indignantly. “Found him like this. Look.”

He pulled back the man’s collar, pointing at the red marks along the man’s neck. The neck was contorted as if he had been strangled with enough force to sever the spine.

“Asphyxiated,” Gianna said.

“Ass - what?”

“Strangled. But by whom? No man could do this.”

It was Nico, who was last up the grapple, who was able to answer this question. He pointed out that the corpse’s fingernails, which were caked with blood, correlated with lacerations on the neck. “He did this to himself. He was strangled by his own hand.”

“But how?” Cosimo said. “And why? What would drive a man…”

“Madness,” Nico said. That was the why. He did not know the how. “We had best not linger here.”

***

Leo led the way as they exited the room. He saw no traps, but he didn’t know whether to feel comforted or distressed about it. Perhaps Nico was right — perhaps this truly wasn’t Ilhen’s Seventh. But then where the hell were they?

They passed several rooms, each one fascinating and eclectic. One contained nothing but hats — the tall, pointy kind that some mages were fond of. Another held a vast display of igneous rocks. A third was all black, like an abyss or a portal to another world — it contained a diorama of stars and planets and comets, and it seemed if you stepped inside you would sink into a void.

In another room they found a palantir — a precious crystal orb with powerful clairvoyant properties. Danieli happily secreted the palantir into her canvas bag.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Onward, they continued. A peculiar sight awaited them at the stairwell.

Portraits on the wall had been vandalized, the eyes crudely gouged out. There were symbols painted on the wall in red ink — foreign numerals and geometric symbols. Impossible shapes that made Nico feel unaccountably ill to look upon. His eyes roamed the length of the hall, where a corpse leaned against the wall. There was a gaping hole in its belly, intestines and viscera pouring out. Not red ink, Nico realized, blood.

“He used his own blood to write these messages,” Nico said slowly. Since entering the château the throbbing pain in his head had intensified. It took all his will to repress the pain.

A small voice cried out from down the hall. “Hello? Is — is someone there? Help me. Help me, please.”

“Hey, I… recognize that voice,” Leo said. He started off in the direction of it, but Nico caught him by the elbow.

“Could be a trap.”

“This whole place was supposed to be boobytrapped to the gills, but I don’t see nary a one. I don’t know where the fuck we are, but it’s not Ilhen’s Seventh.”

Leo slipped past Nico, and the others followed him reluctantly. He strode to the room the voice was coming from. It was some kind of gruesome laboratory, filled with jars of pickled organs — spleens, intestines, fingers. A disembodied head was perched atop a glass vat which itself was filled with a smoky blue vapor. Tubes ran into the head’s open neck.

“I know you,” Leo said, as his companions filed into the room behind him. “You’re Phillipe, aren’t you? The Duke’s missing great grandnephew.”

“Yes yes yes it is me. Oh god, you’re finally here,” he said, and suddenly burst into tears. Tears of joy.

When Leo had last seen Marquis Phillipe a year ago, the boy was in his late teens and hardly a man grown. Now he looked far older than his years. His skin was gray and sallow and liverspotted, and there were deep lines etched upon his face. It was as though he had aged sixty years in one, and he was now scarcely recognizable.

“What the fuck happened here?” Max asked, stutter disappearing. “Where’s your body? How are you even alive?”

“I — I don’t know. He’s — he’s dabbling in the occult. He’s gone utterly m-mad, I tell you. He chose me because of my royal blood. Flayed me, boiled my skin in a cauldron.”

“Who?” said Cosimo. “Who’s gone mad?”

Phillipe looked at each of them in turn, his brow furrowed.

“Y-y-you don’t know? Ambrose. Th-this is his Winter Palace. Didn’t you know?”

Ambrose… the famous wizard who had helped tamed the Floating Library of Azkaya and performed Spectacles at the Duke’s Amethyst Festivals. Who dwelt in a secret palace in the Myriad Isles… this château.

“I thought — we thought this is Ilhen’s Seventh,” Cosimo announced. “The legendary deathtrap. We’re treasure seekers.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” Phillipe said. “Now please, there’s something you need to know. You’re in danger here.”

“From Ambrose?”

“No no no no. Ambrose is dead. Haven’t seen him in days, weeks. But there’s something down below. Something in the cellar.”

Nico’s ears perked at that. The cellar was the one aspect of Duke Ferdinand’s clue that had not been satisfied by Telemachus’ painting. In the cellar the prize awaits.

“Quit being coy,” Cosimo said, “what is in the cellar? Speak plainly man.”

“I — I cannot say,” Phillipe said, crying tears of blood. “But whatever it is, I think he used me to s-summon it. I — I can feel its presence in my mind. I am tethered to it, enslaved to it. It will enslave you too.”

“I feel nothing,” Cosimo said.

“Nor I,” said Leo.

“I do,” Nico said. “I feel something… reaching into my mind, canvassing my thoughts. I’ve felt this way ever since we stepped foot on the island.”

“Yes,” Phillipe said. “Presently it slumbers, but soon it will rouse. There is so little time, it never sleeps for long. You have to help me.”

“We can help you,” Gianna said, stepping up to Phillipe’s disembodied head, brow furrowed in sympathy. “There are — there are physikers at Skyborn capable of wondrous things. They can mend you.”

“No no no no,” Phillipe said. “All the magic in the world could not make me whole again. I don’t want you to mend me. I want you to free me.”

“Free you… how?”

But Leo understood Phillipe’s meaning. He had unsheathed Ice from its scabbard, the blade rasping against leather.

“No,” Nico said, raising an arm to block Leo. “If he is tethered to this — this demon — killing Phillipe might wake it.”

“No no no,” Phillipe said. “Please no. Please just end my torment. ”

“Soon,” Nico said.

“Not soon. Now! KILL ME NOW! I CAN’T TAKE ONE SECOND MORE OF THIS!” he bellowed, breaking into sobs, mumbling incoherently as the adventurers filed out of the room.

***

They descended to the main floor. A third body was hanging from the chandelier, its gray eyes sad and lifeless, its mouth agape in a perpetual yawn. As they approached the cellar, the pain in Nico’s mind was growing more acute. He felt warm and feverish. A bead of sweat rolled down his temple.

Leo took the liberty to yank open the cellar door. A pungent cloud of sulfur wafted up. Gianna invoked the Illumination cantrip, sending a pair of aquamarine orbs below, revealing neatly cut stone steps.

“Are you alright, Nico?” Gianna asked.

He had shut his eyes very tight. A bead of sweat rolled down his head. He looked to her, vision blurring.

“Yes. I’m fine.” He took a tentative step forward, and then down the stairs to the cellar, which looked to be a wine cellar carved from a subterranean cave.

“You may be fine,” Max said, “but I’m not. I feel sick to my stomach.”

“As do I,” Cosimo said. He was backing away from the cellar, hands covering his abdomen as though trying to prevent his bowels from spilling out. Max knelt down and vomited. Gianna’s cheeks had a green pallor.

“Oh, you delicate daisies,” Leo said, who alone seemed unperturbed. “Nico and I shall proceed alone.”

Nico’s stomach hurt, but that pain was mild compared to his head-splitting migraine. One more step down, and the pain was such that he felt his head might explode. He wobbled a bit, and then his knees gave out from under him, and then he was tumbling forward before he could stop himself, and he landed at the base of the stony cellar with an agonizing crash.

Blood trickled into his eyes, blurring his vision. But he could sense there was something wicked down here, something terribly vile. He could feel it in his bones, in his skin which had turned to gooseflesh. He looked up. At the end of the cavernous passage there was what appeared to be a large gray stone hand with too many fingers, undulating like a sea anemone. One of its fingers curled down and pointed at Nico. It had red eyes and a radial mouth full of serrated teeth like a lamprey.

I have tasted your thoughts, Niccolò, it said, through the raw gap in Nico’s mind, and you shall make a suitable substrate. Nhol-Xulul awaits.

Nico felt an irresistible urge to yield himself to this alien creature. He tried to stand up, propping himself on his elbows. For reasons he could not explain, he was desperate to submit himself to this creature. He crawled forward, inch by inch, before consciousness faded…

***

When he came to, he was outside. It was night, but there was an orange glow in the air. Leo and Gianna were gathered round him. His eyes roamed to his left — the wizard’s château was ablaze. Phillipe and the other souls trapped within were being liberated in death.

“What… what happened?” Nico said.

“You fell,” Leo said. “Bumped your head about a dozen times and eventually passed out. I had to carry you out like a damsel in distress.”

“And the key…?”

“Leo collected it,” Gianna said. “After you fell, no one else dared to go near the… whatever it was down there. We could all sense it somehow.”

“What was it? What was that thing down there?”

But Leo, who was normally so irrepressibly exuberant, only shook his head solemnly. “It was… indescribable…” A dark expression came over him. “I cannot say.”

“Try.”

“Something… amorphous and metaphysical. I could hardly look upon it, but I could feel its tendrils reaching out to me, trying to pry into my mind. It was telling me… telling me that…” he trailed off, looking anguished. “It’s not important. But look at this — look at the key.”

He held up the key in the orange light. Examining it, he knew without a doubt what door it opened. The key was crafted with one of the most famous symbols of the Myriad Isles.

The symbol of the Black Cabal.