J. Lennon - Castle

I shouldered my belongings and slowly stood up.

The castle had appeared quite imposing from outside, but now that I had come through the wall, it seemed smaller, and less threatening. It had more of the look of a ruin, as well. Debris that had fallen from the crenellated walls was piled, seemingly untouched, around the edges of the courtyard; a few stones even lay on the roof of the building to my left. The flagstones were heaved and cracked, and weeds — even entire trees, like the shrub I now stood behind — sprung up between them. And contrary to my observations of the path outside, I could detect no clear evidence of any human presence. If the Doctor lived here, he concealed himself well. The castle looked abandoned.

I took one last visual survey of the grounds, and began to move.

From over my shoulder I drew my bow, and an arrow, which I nocked and held at the ready. I kept close to the western wall, stepping stealthily, swiftly, keeping my eyes on those obstacles in the courtyard which might conceal a man. I sidestepped along the curtain until I reached the edge of the compound; then I inched silently east. I passed underneath a small square barred window, and soon reached the corner.

The only part of the courtyard that had been invisible to me from the tunnel opening was on the other side of this corner. This would be the small area underneath the large watchtower. There was likely to be some kind of entrance into the compound, and another into the tower; if my foe lay in wait for me, it was almost certainly around this corner that I would find him. In fact, it was possible that he stood there now, his bow aimed.

After another scan of the visible courtyard, I decided upon a course of action. I unchocked my arrow, gripped it and the bow in one hand, and took a breath. There was a wooden structure up ahead, a sort of crooked, broken table around which tall weeds had sprung, and it was there that I now directed my gaze. From behind it, I would be able to peer into the hidden corner of the courtyard. I marked my decision with a quick nod, and sprinted toward the structure.

Only ten feet separated me from my goal, but my feet slipped and skidded on the crumbling flagstones, and my mad dash felt more like a labored, heavily burdened trek. In any event, I made it. I crouched down behind the wooden table and inspected my body for wounds. There were none. If an arrow had been fired, it had missed me.

I took a moment to gather myself, then peeked over the top of the table.

The hidden section of courtyard was much as I had imagined it. There were open doorways, yawning into darkness, leading into the compound and tower, and a large pile of rubble that appeared to have fallen from the tower’s southwest corner. There was also another wooden structure, a kind of cage, with chains and other metal apparatus hanging inside it. The sight of this object gave me pause — it had an aura of sinister intent about it, and impending danger. No one was visible anywhere, but I smelled smoke.

I chose to wait a few minutes, in an effort to detect movement anywhere on the castle grounds. As I waited, I examined the structure I was crouched behind. I could see now that it wasn’t a table, not precisely — rather, it was a heavy, circular wooden platform balanced upon a roughly carved inverted wooden pyramid, the two attached by a fist-sized and tightly fitted peg. Overall it had the appearance of a very large child’s top. The platform, though thick, was cracked down the center from exposure, like an old kitchen cutting board left soaking in water. The flagstones underneath it were worn down and cracked, as if from its weight and motion.

Again, I felt uneasy looking at it. It seemed to evoke some nameless anxiety or desperation, which I could not put my finger on. I began to feel as if I were being watched. I quickly shot glances up to the four towers, the walls, the roof of the rock. But there was nothing, and no one. I was still alone.

At last it was time to move on. The nearest wall was that of the watchtower, so it was there that I dashed, my footing surer this time, the journey swifter. Again I arrived unharmed. I slid along this wall, peered again into the once-hidden area of the courtyard, and slipped around to just beside the watchtower door. After a brief pause to listen, I ducked in.

It was clear that no one else was here. My eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness, and a flight of stone stairs made themselves visible before me, spiraling up into dim light. There was a strong scent of rodents, and fungus. I climbed the staircase slowly, quietly, stopping after every three steps to listen for my enemy. In this manner, I reached the top and emerged onto the broken roof.

In the minutes I spent climbing, it had begun to rain, a stinging, spitting rain accompanied by a warm wind. Gunmetal clouds were racing in from the west, promising a powerful storm. Looking down, I could make out the overgrown path to Minerva Road, and the approximate place where I had avoided the bear trap; above me loomed the barren rock. No people or animals could be seen, not to the east nor in any other direction. The wind picked up, and I felt very desolate and helpless, in spite of my commanding view of the surroundings.

A few moments later I was back in the courtyard. Again there was no one. I moved along the castle’s north wall, giving the wooden cage a wide berth, and quickly arrived at the doorway that led into the compound. As in the tower, I smelled a rats’ warren, and the chemical tang of mildew; but in addition I again detected woodsmoke — and a human scent, the stink of living. Fear enveloped my body like a sack, and I suppressed a shiver. My eyes adjusted to the light, and I could see now that I was in a large open room, with the blackened remains of a fire off to the center, underneath a small hole in the peaked roof. A flat stone sat beside the fire, and a small pile of sharpened twigs. It appeared that food had once been cooked here, though there was no indication that the fire was recent. In front of me and to the left, a rectangular hole was dug in the dirt floor and a flight of crude stairs led down into darkness.

No — not darkness, not quite. There was light, and not the gray light of the stormy sky outside; rather, it was a yellow light, flickering faintly. A fire, somewhere below. That was where the smoke had come from — not the dead fire here in front of me, but the one burning at the bottom of those stairs.

Slowly, I crept across the room and began to descend. Once again I nocked my arrow and held it before me. One step, then another, and another — I paused between each, listening, knowing that this must be the place where he waited. Fourteen steps, fifteen, and I was standing one step from the doorway on the other side of which burned the fire. Smoke stung my eyes. I leaned against the stairwell wall and inched my head closer and closer, until I could see the outlines of a room. A rough corner, walls of stone. A bundle lying on the ground — blankets, perhaps, brown in the dim. And a pair of shoes. Moccasins, by the look of them, sewn together out of deerhide.

He was here — I knew it. The moment had come. I closed my eyes, breathed in and out to clear my head, and then stepped forward, into the light.

The room was about twenty feet square and undivided, like the room above, and I realized that it had been hollowed out underneath the rock. The walls, as I have said, were of stone, not milled and fitted together as in the castle walls, but irregular and jagged, as if they had been found on the ground outside, or dug up during the room’s excavation. The wadded-up bundle I had noticed was indeed a pile of blankets — a bed, in fact, laid right in the dirt — and the wall I faced, across the fire, was lined with bookshelves — crude, crooked planks, heavily weighted with books, their spines obscured by years of smoke. The planks were supported by the books themselves, so that the bottom few rows were hopelessly squashed and bent, their bindings ruined, and only the top two shelves’ contents were even removable.