Gregor Abney would never be mistaken for an attractive man.
He didn’t seem to have a firm grasp on shaving, though he clearly insisted on
trying. He also seemed to be hiding poor personal hygiene with fancy clothes and “exotic”
perfumes which, Sithe mused as she watched him from her vigil in a dark corner
of his basement, only made him as disgusting as the rest of the noble class in
Moonguard.
However, this added to the other unsavory things Sithe knew about the man’s character, and the
image was thoroughly ... unflattering, to put it so lightly that it might
well flutter away in a stiff breeze.
Sithe had come to realize that to gain the truest measure of
a man, it was necessary to catch him at his most comfortable. Not at his most
vulnerable, or his most impeccable, but simply when he thought no one else was
watching. Typically this meant alone at home. But for a man like Abney, home
was just a single layer. This basement, with its selection of shackles and
chains and observation tables, was the depth of it. The dark, dank truth.
Runes were carved into the stone walls. The same runes that
Sithe drew to summon her ... pets. But permanent. And, she realized quickly,
sloppy. Just looking at them was enough to send a shudder down her spine. She
thought the feeling running through her must be what a practiced musician feels
when a tiny child picks up a badly-tuned instrument and bangs it against the
floor.
There were no books, no scrolls, no diagrams. Sithe wondered
how this man possibly managed to
perform the sorts of acts that Fezzik posited he did. Just looking at him, at
the top of the stairs leading down into this sanctum, she could tell that he
wasn’t suited to memorize anything,
least of all complex incantations and chants in a language specifically
designed to bring nightmares to life.
A language that was dangerous. Deadly. It skittered across
the tongue like so many spiders, just waiting for a moment of weakness to bite,
inject, melt, ingest. It didn’t do to deal in magic of this caliber without
copious training and preparation.
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