Episode 18 - The Red Tower
Andre and Brother David make their way back to the docks to consult with Brother Merovac but encounter a group of Venetian knights guarding the streets. Brother David deceives them by telling them he is pursuing an escaped leper and they leave him alone but not before he recognises the flail-like tattoo on their wrists. Cultists!
They encounter another Frankish knight by the name of Gilles de la Grave who agrees to help them. He leads them along a back alley in an attempt to circumvent the Venetians but the route takes them right into the very people they were avoiding. A fight ensues resulting the the evisceration of two of the Venetians. Brother David dispatches another from the shadows.
Before boarding the boat the group decides to investigate the package they discovered under the statue of the Virgin Mary. Inside is a scrap of parchment which has greek and latin script on it reading “He will come by the bloody tower at the behest of his favourite son and supplicant and the city will run red with fire and blood.” Also inside are a number of folio pages torn from a book and a small lozenge-shaped, clay case sealed with silvery wax with dire warnings written on it.
The pages detail a ritual written in greek, arabic and latin that will locate the Devil’s Simulare. It displays pictures of flayed corpses and the segmented body of the simulare split into pieces. It lists the ingredients required to complete the ritual which include a portion of fresh skin.
They board the ship but Andre’s eye has become horribly swollen and, whilst trying to tend to it, it bursts from his head. Brother David warns that the eye was being used to scry on the knights. Andre bandages his wound and they take the ritual to Brother Merovac.
He is extremely excited by their discovery and immediately begins to prepare the ritual. An unfortunate Venetian sailor is captured to provide the vital reagent which Gilles extracts. Brother David completes the magical rites over a bowl in whose reflection they see an image of a rust red tower. Gilles recognises it as the Red Tower, which is very close to the docks. The group leave immediately, believing the Turk Sedefkar, who Brother Merovac had warned them of, is heading there already.
On their route to the tower they see that the orgy of destruction and mayhem is reaching its climax. The revelers seem oblivious to them. They muster several Frankish troops and head on.
Before reaching the tower they meet a group of Frankish knights lead by Sir Goat-Marrys (sic). Brother David had already met the noble during the siege but notes that he makes a gesture unlike a Frank and more akin to someone from the east. A closer glance in the light of the rising sun reveals the iridescent sheen of the Devil’s Simulare worn by Sedefkar himself. Andre, screaming the Turk’s name, charges in a fit of rage. The other two follow accompanied by their allies. Frank fights Frank as they attempt to strike Sedefkar. A clean blow to the arm dislodges his armour revealing the ture nature of their foe who flees towards the tower.
As he escapes a terrible sight greets the pursuing knights. A flock of horrific, flying creatures erupt from the tower and descend on them. Their allies are beset upon and enveloped by the animate sheets of human skin. The knights fight them back as the devilish things attempt to consume them. Among their number is the grisly remains of Renaud.
The knights cut them down and arrive at the tower. Inside they are met by a dreadful sight of gore and horror. Scores of corpses litter the floors of the building, some rotting, some flayed. On one floor they find a collection of human torsos arranged in a strange fashion, obviously part of some occult rite.
As they ascend they see more victims of Sedefkar’s ambitions to summon his bloody deity. They continue finally arriving at the barred door of the top floor. They break through and see Sedefkar attempting to complete his ritual in a room decorated with a multitude of illuminated scrolls. He stands before a large metal circle across which has been stretched sheets of human skin. A bluish light shines from beyond them from some other place. They waste no time in engaging their enemy but Gilles, struck by the Turk’s wicked looking blade, finds himself paralysed with fear and pain.
In their moment tribulation Brother David opens the small lozenge shaped box in a vain attempt to turn their fortunes but finds the warnings on its surface to be truthful as a small section of human flesh leaps from the box and attempts to smother him. Gilles recovers and, along with Andre, takes the fight to Sedefkar who is finally defeated by Andre’s sword. He knocks Sedefkar’s armour off, which scatters across the floor, and knocks him back into the gate where they watch him melt away, calling out a curse.
Seizing the artifacts and scrolls they return triumphant to Count Baldwin who, in gratitude, allows them to found a knightly order, “La Fraternité de la disparition de l'écorcheur”. He seems extremely fond of Sedefkar’s knife which he dubs “The Serpent’s Claw”. The blade is returned to the city of Zara in Croatia in the care of Miho of Dubrovnik. The other artifacts are left to Brother Merovac. Baldwin is later crowned Emperor but is captured and killed, falling to Sedefkar’s curse.
In a room in 1920s Venice, Freddie, Genevieve and Nur ad-din finally begin to piece together the history of the Sedefkar Simulacrum as they discover that the heretic monk Merovac and the fiend Fenalik are one and the same.
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