The Baron of Vallaki †

Who

Vargas Vallakovich, Baron and Burgomaster of Vallaki. Author of the mandatory festivals, keeper of the Reformation Center, and the man who taught us what a metaphor is. "All will be well."

Family

His wife, the Baroness Lydia, who smiles, and his son Victor, who is perfect.

Status

Dead. Fëanor's silver lance killed him on his own stage at the festival, just after he told Izek to kill Sirius. Ireena governs Vallaki now, because we proposed her.

First met

Session 10, in his back office. We had been living under his rules since Session 7.

The Baron ran Vallaki on smiles. Festivals every other week, attendance compulsory, the stocks for anyone who missed one, and the Reformation Center for anyone who wouldn't smile. He was not lying about any of it. We checked, twice: he believed he was keeping the devil out of his town, and that was somehow worse. He hired us, took Fëanor as security for our good behaviour, and in the end bet his town on our word. We gave it to someone else.

Before we met him

We knew his rules before we knew his face. At the gate we registered every weapon and learned that saying the devil's name was a crime, and that speaking ill of the Baron was the second one on the list. Father Lucian told us the festivals had run every other week for about fifteen years, and that this Baron was a different sort of strict from his father before him. Roger said the old burgomaster ruled by fear and died suddenly, and that the son "didn't seem very sad." Lady Wachter called him no true lord, "a pretender. He is a weak man," and believed he had killed her husband.

The audience

Izek came for us with eighteen guards. "The baron wants to see youse." Past people carrying festival float pieces through his house, in an office at the back, the Baron was waiting with his wife smiling at his shoulder.

"Now, a little bird told me that you have been doing vigilante activities in my town."

He knew about the orphanage. We said we had only visited some orphans. "My sources are hardly ever wrong. I have eyes everywhere, you see." We assured him that all was well in Vallaki. "Well done. But you see, I don't think your heart was in that." Sirius talked him round on that one point, and he withdrew the doubt as if it had never been said. He did not withdraw the charge.

"The smiles of the people of Vallaki keep the devil out. As long as all is well, we make sure the devil does not darken our doorstep."

Sirius asked whether the little birds were actual little birds. There followed a full minute of the ruler of Vallaki explaining what a metaphor is.

Then the offer. He had heard awful rumours that Lady Wachter was in league with the devil. "Not just any random fiend, the devil. You know of which one I speak." We asked if he meant the one in the castle who flies across the sky in a red thing. "Yes. No more than that, please." If we brought him evidence, she would go before his "totally impartial judges" and to the Reformation Center, to "have her fixed." We would be his deputies, and when she fell, we would have the Wachter residence entire. The Reformation Center, he explained, was run by the twins:

"All I can say is the twins are marvellous at what they do. They are experts at this sort of encouragement to think in a more righteous way. Either people come out of the Reformation Center thinking more appropriately, or they don't come out at all. I prefer the first one, of course."

Of Stella Wachter, his son's broken betrothed: "I hate to put it this brutishly, but I think the lady was trying to pass off damaged goods." Of Victor, who studies the book of the Morning Lord in the attic: "My son is perfect, thank you very much." Of his burden: "It is a righteous duty. It is hard. But I bear this burden for the town." He let Sirius go up to see Victor, alone. "Izek? Don't let him in any of the other rooms." Sirius came down half an hour later remembering a five-minute chat.

He wrote each of us a writ and sealed it with wax. We asked about badges. "No badges, unfortunately. But flash this writ to anyone and your orders will be followed. My word is law." He had to fetch the paper himself: two of his three household staff had disappeared in the last couple of weeks. And at the door, as an afterthought, since we had technically broken the rules, Izek took Fëanor.

"This is just to make sure you understand who's in charge around here. He will not be harmed. And if you behave, he will be returned to you."

The rewrite

The morning after the canapé party, Izek came for a status report and gave us until the following morning to bring him physical proof. Within hours Henrik's vampires were loose in the streets, the church had burned and some fourteen houses around it had gone. That evening his criers told the town what had happened:

"By order of the Burgomaster, last night's outrage was the work of seditious agitators in the pay of a hostile house, wearing masks and manners of vampires to spread terror. There are no vampires in Vallaki. There have never been vampires in Vallaki. To answer this insult, the Festival of Blazing Sun is brought forward. It'll be held tomorrow at midday in the town square. Attendance is mandatory for every soul in Vallaki, whatever their circumstances. Bring your sick, bring your grieving. All will be well."

Izek brought Fëanor back to us that evening, missing two days, and told us the rest: Henrik was in the Reformation Center for harbouring the masked men, and tomorrow they would be relying on our testimony when they hanged Lady Wachter. He took her letter from the devil to the Baron.

At the festival the next day, in pouring rain, beside a ten-foot wicker sun, the Baron made his speech:

"We do not despair. Death is meaningless, easily forgotten. And with our diligence and merry-making, we will not suffer those who could not survive their own weakness. We have survived. We are worthy, not they. Let us burn the unworthy. All will be well. My friends out in the crowd, these five fine examples of heroism will attest that the Lady Wachter has been consorting with the devil. They have brought evidence, and they will attest. They will attest."

(He very nearly said the devil's name, and caught himself.)

The last festival

We did not attest for him. When the crowd began to listen to us, he took the letter out of his coat and held it up in the rain: "Proof, my people. The devil names Lady Wachter as Vallaki's next Burgomistress. Look at his seal. Look at her name." When Father Lucian swore before the whole town that the vampires had been real, the Baron called it sedition and told the guards to take him. Izek told them to hold still. "This doesn't seem right."

Sirius cast Zone of Truth over the stage, and the Baron could not resist it. Osric asked him why his son, of all people, was missing from a festival he had made mandatory for every soul in town. He began to explain, and could not finish. Lily asked whether the letter mentioned him. "Yes, of course it does." Would he read it to us? "No." Did the devil want him kept in his chair?

"What the devil wants matters not. The devil is the devil. Words from the devil. It should not be read out loud."

Somebody in the crowd threw a stone at him, and Sirius put his shield in the way. We proposed Ireena in his place, with Father Lucian beside her. Someone shouted "All is not well in Vallaki!", and the Baron and Lady Wachter both claimed the town at once. "How dare you? This is my town." The crowd turned on them both. Izek caught Sirius by the foot in his demon's hand, ten feet in the air, and the Baron gave his last order:

"I am the rightful lord of Vallaki. Izek, kill him."

Fëanor answered with Laeral's Silver Lance, a line of silver force down the stage that picked out the imp, Izek and the Baron and spared everyone in between. Izek shrugged off half of it. Vargas Vallakovich died where he stood. When the devil landed in the square a little later, he looked over: "I see my good old baron there with his brains blown out on the stage."

His house

Afterwards, on Ireena's authority, we went through his mansion. His son was gone from the attic by a spent teleportation circle. His office held books for the sake of books and nothing useful. And in a room on the middle floor we found a man in manacles, Udo Lukovich, whom the Baron had picked out of the Reformation Center's intake to take his temper out on. The house, the silver and the great map on the first floor are Ireena's now. She let us take the map.

The Baroness

We record her carefully, because none of us have stopped thinking about her. Her name is Lydia. At the audience she stood at her husband's shoulder the entire time with a fixed, unmoving grin. We called her Mrs Baron. "Baroness, I think, is the word you're looking for," said the Baron. On our way out, a voice we think was hers drew out "All, all, all, all will be well."

At the first festival she walked behind the procession holding a bouquet of wilting flowers, still smiling. At the second, Zone of Truth could find no will in her to resist. She sang a Vallakian hymn at the top of her voice, staring into the crowd, and Sirius sang with her. When the lance killed her husband she stood beside him smiling, spattered with his blood. When Lady Wachter surrendered, she waved. She followed us afterwards like a sleepwalker, until Father Lucian took her to the church. He had heard of an abbey near Krezk where someone can heal minds. Her name was not in the Reformation Center logbook we checked.

What we owed him

We took his commission and his writs, and we never delivered what he asked for. We promised Izek proof about Lady Wachter by the morning, and brought her letter from the devil instead. He promised Fëanor would come back unharmed, and Izek gave us "most of him."

What we still don't know

• Did he have Lord Wachter killed, ten years ago, as Lady Wachter believed?
• What happened to the two of his three staff who disappeared?
• What happened to the devil's letter? It was in his hand the last time we looked.
• What did the old Baron die of? Izek calls it "very mysterious circumstances," and says the twins came soon after.
• Who made the Baroness smile like that? Our theory has the twins in it. Can the abbot bring her back? See A Cure for Stella and Lydia.
• Why did the devil want him kept in his chair? Answered, more or less, Session 14: Vallaki under the Baron was "a lovely den of misery," and the devil liked it that way, until it bored him.