Adventure of Klaus Von Vanderbilt 1

Augustus joins Klaus among the chapel’s fallen stones, lantern swinging from one hand and a pry bar resting against his shoulder. The household staff remain at the nearby road camp, tending horses and supplies.

Inside, the roofless chapel smells of wet stone and old ash. Beneath the cracked altar, fresh scrapes score the earth, and a shallow bootprint mars the dust.

Augustus wedges the pry bar beneath the altar’s broken edge and leans into it. Stone grinds against stone, revealing a narrow stairway descending into darkness.

The lantern light reaches only the first step. A worn holy emblem is carved there, its lines softened by countless hands or years of damp, while darkness waits below.

Augustus lowers the lantern toward the stairwell and holds position beside the opening, leaving the descent and its uncertain depths to Klaus’s decision.

Klaus descends carefully, testing each damp step before shifting his weight. Halfway down, his boot slips on grit; his knee strikes stone, and a sharp pain travels through his leg, but he keeps his balance.

The stair ends in a low chamber beneath the altar. Augustus lowers the lantern beside Klaus, revealing bare walls, a dry clay floor, and a cold draft threading through unseen cracks.

Lanternlight catches a shallow recess in the far wall, sealed by a plain stone slab. Dust lies undisturbed before it, while Klaus’s fresh boot marks end at the chamber floor.

Klaus borrows Augustus’s lantern and crouches before the recess. He studies the slab’s edges, the dust, and the softened carving around its frame.

Closer inspection reveals a narrow vertical seam and three shallow thumb-sized hollows beneath the holy emblem. One hollow bears a faint smear of fresh wax.

Klaus presses the lowest hollow while levering the slab’s edge with his fingers. A concealed latch gives softly, and the stone swings inward, exposing a small chamber beyond.

Lanternlight enters the hidden chamber, catching the outline of a long narrow bundle on a stone shelf. The air smells faintly of wax and cold iron.

Klaus takes the lantern in one hand and lifts the dark cloth with the other, folding it back without shifting the bundle beneath. The fabric is cold and stiff with age.

Beneath the cloth lies a narrow iron-bound reliquary, blackened but intact. A small silver cross is fixed to its lid, and a reddish-brown stain marks one corner of the metal.

Klaus studies the fittings without touching them. The reliquary bears no lock, yet its lid is sealed by a thin strip of dark wax impressed with a worn episcopal emblem.

Augustus leans nearer, keeping his hands away. The lantern flame bends toward a crack behind the shelf, and a faint draft carries the dry scent of old parchment into the chamber.

Klaus rewraps the reliquary without disturbing its seal. Augustus takes the lantern, and together they climb the damp stair, carrying the bundle carefully between them.

In the roofless chapel, pale afternoon light falls across the altar stones. Klaus spreads the dark cloth on a dry slab while Augustus holds the reliquary nearby.

Daylight reveals faint red stitching along the cloth’s inner hem: a bishop’s crozier crossed by a narrow sword. Beneath it, almost erased, are three Latin letters.