At exactly eleven of the clock the next night, a figure, barely seen in the darkness and shadows that clung to the chateau walls, lifted a hatchway in the roadway that was used to gain access to the cellars of the building, he slipped quietly down into the space below and the hatchway door lowered back into place without making a sound.
Deep inside the lowest levels of the chateau, in the vaulted spaces, where the empty wine barrels were stored, there were rooms which had not been visited for many years. The figure, first found in the shadows of the street above can now be rediscovered stalking the lowest levels, alone except for the elusive rats. He moved quietly through the dark corridors without seeming to be in need of light, sure of foot and sure of his destination he was soon crouching at the base of the staircase that led up into the kitchens, looking up and listening for any activity above. Satisfied that this part of the building was asleep he climbed the stairs and peered out into the great kitchens, a place that was normally a hive of activity, now peaceful and serene in the sombre light of a single lamp, turned low and guttering.
Moving out into the room, he began to gather all the cloths that he could find, a whole rack of aprons and all the other random cloths that a kitchen requires. He piled them up in front of the great cooking fireplace, then, searching amongst the pokers and cooking rails to find just the right ones that he needed, he stepped inside the fireplace and proceeded to jam the rails and pokers across the massive chimney which served the fire itself, working with his arms above his head .When he was sure of his work, he lifted the pile of cloths, pushing them up into the chimney itself, past the rails which he had set in place, prodding them into the corners so that no chink was left that the smoke, gently rising from the ashes of yesterday’s fire, could escape by. Instead, the smoke wound its way out of the fireplace and started to coil, sinuously out into the room. Not satisfied yet with the effect that had been created, the man started to load more wood onto the fire and inevitably as the fire started to take, the smoke produced, thickened and grew in volume, gathering at first along the ceiling before swelling downwards and beginning to seep out through the top of the doorways into the main parts of the castle.
Davide Sandor, for it was he, stood back to assess his work, the fire was now flaring up well and the smoke was now billowing out into the room so that he needs must bend down to breath freely. He threw several more logs onto the fire and then, taking up an apron that had proved surfeit to requirement, he dipped it into a large jug of liquid which was left there on the table, he threw that dampened cloth, for good measure, over the fire. The fire, too ferocious to be stifled, proceeded to double its efforts to produce smoke and the figure tending it, now on his knees, coughed lightly. ‘Time to go.’ He said to himself quietly and made his way in a crouched position back the way he had entered, closing the door at the top of the stairway as he passed down into the bowels of the castle.
We do not see him again until the hatchway in the road lifts a centimetre or ten, and then after a couple of breaths time, rises quickly to give birth to the same figure who entered not an half of one hour earlier. Only pausing to quickly scan the roadway in all directions, he melted back into the shadows and was seen no more.
The Guardians of the Cave 