Everyone stared at the bald bandit in surprise, and Lana's eye twitched, she was afraid that if Dick told her why he was out, she would be in trouble, 'Why did he wake up now?' the girl was ready to cry, and a shiver ran through her body. Lord Bondrewd stood up and walked towards his squire, the cold aura of his anger was in the air, the Lord was angry.
Bondrewd had forgiven Dick a lot, knowing his usefulness, but this failure for the first time in a long time made him wonder if he needed him, 'If his problems outweigh his virtues, I'll have to get rid of him... But that's later, now I'll listen to his explanation, maybe his blackout has something to do with this mansion.' Lana followed the Lord of Dawn with a dead pale face, the girl looked hopefully at Dick.
"Dick, would you care to explain yourself?" The Lord asked a question, the servants around Dick parted and Bondrewd caught sight of one detail he had not noticed before, namely, a large bruise on his right temple, Bondrewd had a fine understanding of human biology and immediately understood. 'The bruise is very fresh, it's only six hours old at most, from blunt force trauma, hmmm, this is starting to get interesting.'
The picture in Dick's room immediately came to mind, the unconscious man lying on the bed, and the frightened maid beside him, 'unlikely, but she may be involved in this case.' Bondrewd looked sideways at the lady, nothing unusual in appearance, except for the strange snake eye, 'Even if she attacked from the back, it's doubtful she'd have the strength to knock out a grown, trained man.' All these thoughts flashed through Bondrewd's mind in a fraction of an instant, while at the same time Dick hesitated a little as if trying to remember something.
"Well, as soon as you came out of the bathhouse I followed, and..." Dick's eyes collided with Lana's pleading gaze, the girl looked like a misbehaving puppy, and looked at him with big eyes and a face so pitiful that no one would be indifferent.
"So what happened next?" Bondrewd decided to hurry up, his squire, time was of the essence.
"Well, I went to the bath, threw off my clothes, slipped and fell, probably hit my temple on the corner of the bath, I do not remember further, I woke up here," Dick even through his helmet felt the assessing look of his master, and hurried to add. "I didn't drink, not a drop in my mouth, I swear."
"In that case, how did you come to be in your room?" Realising that he would get no answer from him, Bondrewd looked round at everyone present. There was an oppressive silence in the bathing room.
"If no one wants to answer, I'll have to..."
"It was me!" shouted Lana, from somewhere behind Bondrewd, the man turned silently in her direction.
"Go on."
"Well... I waited for a while, and decided to go to the bathing-house, I thought everyone had washed long ago, when I entered the bathing-house I saw Dick lying on his belly near the bathing-house. I was frightened and checked his pulse, realising there was no threat to his life I carried him to his quarters." Lana finished speaking, her face red as boiled cancer, the girl looked at her new master with fear.
"Why didn't you report it to me? And how did you even report him?" The last question was asked out of pure curiosity, the picture of Lana dragging a body twice her size up two floors was surreal in Lord's mind.
"I didn't know how it happened, maybe the mansion and its curse were to blame for his fall, or maybe it was just an accident,' Lana lowered her eyes to the floor and continued." I thought he'd recover quickly, and there's not much to say about the way I dragged him, but I did, with great difficulty, if anything, because he was heavy.
"I'm well aware of that," his comment was answered with a slight smile, and Bondrewd wanted to punch someone in the leg, his charges had made a series of wrong and stupid decisions, which made the Lord think. 'Perhaps the curse is to blame for their illogical actions, or maybe I didn't instruct them enough, or maybe the local servants are somehow involved, or most likely they're lying to me, but we'll deal with that later.'
"Okay, I think it can wait, can someone tell me what's going on, what are we all doing?" Bondrewd quickly explained the current situation, the bandit listened silently, his eyes were eager for battle, and at the moment of the monster's appearance he squealed. When Bondrewd had finished, Dick hurried to say.
"Come on, let's go beat up the local evil!" Dick instinctively reached for his blade and was surprised to find that it was not there; the man frantically wrapped his head round, and not finding it near him, jumped up sharply and went to a corner of the room.
Grabbing the mop that lay there, he broke off its flat tip with a blow against the wall, leaving a wooden pole in the man's hands, Dick turned round and said.
"Come on, time is of the essence." Everybody looked at Dick as at the last idiot, but Bondrewd smiled a little and came up to Dick and said.
"No need, I'll go alone, and you..." Bondrewd pointed his finger at Dick, - you stay here and together with Lana ensure the safety of the locals, or God forbid you slip, and I'll carry you." Bondrewd said with a sneer in his voice and headed for the exit from the bathing place, giving the bathing place and all its inhabitants a fleeting glance.
...
The lord stepped out into the corridor, and looked around, noticing nothing strange, the manor was quiet, the sense of danger was silent, and there was no magic. The man walked round the corridor of the ground floor just in case, and having found nothing he went to the second floor.
'Let's go,' Bondrewd mentally urged himself and stepped onto the stairs leading to the first floor. The man went up quickly and in the corridor he was met by a large painting, which looked like it had been hanging there for quite some time, but it did not show a flowering garden in which a woman was walking her dog.
Bondrewd would have walked past it, except that with the corner of his eye he noticed a fleeting movement, stopped for a second and turned his head.
The painting slowly came to life, the light colours gradually lost their tones, turning the whole composition into a black and red mess, the trees and flowers withered and crumbled to the faded earth. But the most important metamorphoses took place with the actors.
The woman lowered the leash and took off her hat, which half hid her face, and immediately turned into a bloodthirsty monster, her dress on the move crumbled to the ground, showing the outside observer, grey skin, covered with a thick layer of dried blood, the face of the girl distorted grimace of pain and anger, which is not surprising she literally did not have half of her head, under the hat was nothing, and in place where a normal person should have a forehead, skull and brain, gaping ominous void.
Perhaps this picture would have frightened an ordinary man, but Bondrewd only became more interesting, the man prudently continued to keep his distance, for he remembered well that pictures can be cursed, and with the dog even more interesting changes were taking place.
The dog, which at first looked like a quite ordinary representative of the younger brothers of human beings, roared furiously, the light hair was being painted in grey tones, the creature's mouth increased and having reached some unrealistic size, hung open, showing slender rows of crooked and sharp teeth, and as a cherry on the cake, two new pairs of eyes sprouted from the forehead with bloody fountains.
Bondrewd watched the transformation performance with genuine interest, and when it came to the end and everything was quiet, he turned his body to the picture and came a little closer, the dog and the lady synchronously turned their heads in his direction.
"Greetings," said Bondrewd, wishing to speed up the process, the woman in a furious grimace pointed at him, and the dog broke out of his seat and ran in his direction, quickly passing the visible parts of the painting, he disappeared behind the edge of the canvas, to appear a few moments later in the foreground, blocking all the space, the monster began to tear and throw, the canvas, gnawing into the invisible wall, c monstrous force.
With every moment, the dog was getting closer, gnawing its way into reality, drooling and bleeding, losing its teeth, like a true predator, it was moving towards its goal. Bondrewd, standing at a distance, began to feel the faint influence of the curse, but there was no reason to flee.
And the dog was tearing and throwing, only occasionally interrupted by a vicious growl, with every second of his work, the curse was gaining strength, but Bondrewd, mesmerised by this spectacle, did not even think of moving away.
"Gha," the Lord of Dawn spat out something slimy from his mouth, holding it on his tongue he realised it was his blood, the power of the curse was growing stronger and stronger and the man decided to move away, the dog howled disappointedly in response and ran to the edge of the painting, the smoke was no longer there.
Bondrewd analysed the information he had received, a plan of action was already forming in his head, but he was desperate for evidence backed up in practice. Bondrewd went down to the ground floor again, it was quiet, the man ran round all the rooms and corridors, and noticed one strange coincidence, there were no paintings at all on the ground floor.
'So I was right and they work as a kind of magical sensor, curious, but in that case how the monster was following us on the ground floor,' Lord of Dawn began to analyse all the actions of the night came to an unambiguous conclusion, the local servants were also a transmitter, for the curse consciously or not - this is the tenth question.
'Well, what we have in the end, every new owner of this wonderful place came here, and was either frightened by the local horror stories and ran away in tears, or if he was braver, began to vomit his own blood because of the curse, there was no lack of transmitters in this house, in the rooms and on the first floor they were paintings, and on the first floor they were servants, and I think even if they tried to destroy them, they failed, so ...'
"I must try it, too," Bondrewd finished his thought aloud cheerfully, and dashed off to the first floor with a bullet