F. Paul Wilson - The Keep

"Papa—"

"Go!"

Magda stood and stared at him. How could he speak to her this way? She wanted to cry, wanted to plead, wanted to slap some sense into him. But she could not. She could not defy him, even before Molasar. He was her father, and although she knew he was being brutally unfair, she could not defy him.

Magda turned and rushed past the impassive Molasar into the opening. The slab swung closed behind her and she was again in darkness. She felt in her waistband for the flashlight—gone! It must have fallen out somewhere.

Magda had two alternatives: return to Papa's room and ask for a lamp or a candle, or descend in the dark. After only a few seconds she chose the latter. She could not face Papa again tonight. He had hurt her, more than she had ever known she could be hurt. A change had come over him. He was somehow losing his gentleness, and losing the empathy that had always been part of him. He had dismissed her tonight as though she were a stranger. And he hadn't even cared enough to be sure she had a light with her!

Magda bit back a sob. She would not cry! But what was there to do? She felt helpless. And worse, she felt betrayed.

The only thing left was to leave the keep. She began her descent, relying on touch alone. She could see nothing, but knew that if she kept her left hand against the wall and took each step slowly and carefully, she could make it to the bottom without falling to her death.

As she completed the first spiral, Magda half expected to hear that odd scraping sound through the opening into the subcellar. But it did not come. Instead, there was a new sound in the dark—louder, closer, heavier. She slowed her progress until her left hand slid off the stone of the wall and met the cool air flowing through the opening. The noise grew as she listened.

It was a scuffling sound, a dragging, fulsome, shambling sound that set her teeth on edge and dried her tongue so it stuck to the roof of her mouth. This could not be rats ... much too big. It seemed to come from the deeper darkness to her left. Off to the right, dim light still seeped down from the cellar above, but it did not reach to the area where the sound was. Just as well. Magda did not want to see what was over there.

She groped wildly across the opening, and for a mind-numbing moment, could not find the far edge. Then her hand contacted cold, wonderfully solid stone and she continued downward, faster than before, dangerously fast, her heart pounding, her breath coming in gulps. If the thing in the subcellar was coming her way, she had to be out of the keep by the time it reached the stairwell.

She kept going down and endlessly down, every so often looking back over her shoulder in an instinctive and utterly fruitless attempt to see in the darkness. A dim rectangle beckoned to her as she reached the bottom and she stumbled toward it, through it and out into the fog. She swung the slab closed and leaned against it, gasping with relief.

After composing herself, Magda realized that she had not escaped the malevolent atmosphere of the keep by merely stepping outside its walls. This morning the vileness that permeated the keep had stopped at the threshold; now it extended beyond the walls. She began to walk, to stumble through the darkness. It was not until she was almost to the stream that she felt she had escaped the aura of evil.

Suddenly from above there came faint shouts, and the fog brightened. The lights in the keep had been turned up to maximum. Someone must have found the two newly dead bodies.

Magda continued to move away from the keep. The extra light was no threat, for none of it reached her. It filtered down like sunshine viewed from the bottom of a murky lake. The light was caught and held by the fog, thickening it, whitening it, concealing her rather than revealing her. She splashed carelessly across the stream this time without pausing to remove her shoes and stockings—she wanted to be away from the keep as quickly as possible. The shadow of the causeway passed overhead and soon she was at the base of the wedge of rubble. After a brief rest to catch her breath, she began to climb until she reached the upper level of the fog. It almost completely filled the gorge now and there was only a short distance to the top. A few seconds of exposure and she would be safe.

Magda pulled herself up over the rim and ran in a half-crouch. As she felt the brush enfold her, her foot caught on a root and she fell headlong, striking her left knee on a stone. She hugged the knee to her chest and began to cry, long, wracking sobs far out of proportion to the pain. It was anguish for Papa, relief at being safely away from the keep, a reaction to all she had seen and heard there, to all that had been done to her, or almost done to her.

"You've been to the keep."

It was Glenn. She could think of no one she wanted more to see at this moment. Hurriedly drying her eyes on her sleeve, she stood up—or tried to. Her injured knee sent a knifing pain up her leg and Glenn put out a hand to keep her from falling.

"Are you hurt?" His voice was gentle.

"Just a bruise."

She tried to take a step but the leg refused to bear her weight. Without a word, Glenn scooped her up in his arms and began carrying her back to the inn.

It was the second time tonight she had been carried so. But this time was different. Glenn's arms were a warm sanctuary, thawing all the cold left by Molasar's touch. As she leaned against him she felt all the fear ooze out of her. But how had he come up behind her without her hearing him? Or had he been standing there all along, waiting for her?

Magda let her head rest on his shoulder, feeling safe, at peace. If only I could feel this way forever.

He carried her effortlessly through the front door of the inn, through the empty foyer, up the stairs, and into her room. After depositing her gently on the edge of the bed, he knelt before her.

"Let's take a look at that knee."

Magda hesitated at first, then drew her skirt up over her left knee, leaving the right one covered and keeping the rest of the heavy fabric tight around her thighs. In the back of her mind was the thought that she should not be sitting here on a bed exposing her leg to a man she hardly knew. But somehow...

Her coarse, dark-blue stocking was torn, revealing a purpling bruise on the kneecap. The flesh was swollen, puffy. Glenn stepped over to the near side of the dresser and dipped a washcloth into the water pitcher, then brought the cloth over and placed it on her knee.

"That ought to help," he said.

"What's gone wrong with the keep?" she asked, staring at his red hair, trying to ignore, and yet reveling in, the tingling warmth that crept steadily up her thigh from where his hand held the cloth against her.

He looked up at her. "You were there tonight. Why don't you tell me?"

"I was there, but I can't explain—or perhaps I can't accept—what's happening. I do know that Molasar's awakening has changed the keep. I used to love that place. Now I fear it. There's a very definite ... wrongness there. You don't have to see it or touch it to be aware of its presence, just as sometimes you don't have to look outside to know there's bad weather coming. It pervades the very air... seeps right into your pores."

"What kind of 'wrongness' do you sense in Molasar?"

"He's evil. I know that's vague, but I mean evil. Inherently evil. A monstrous, ancient evil who thrives on death, who values all that is noxious to the living, who hates and fears everything we cherish." She shrugged, embarrassed by the intensity of her words. "That's what I feel. Does it make any sense to you?"

Glenn watched her closely for a long moment before replying. "You must be extremely sensitive to have felt all that."