On the afternoon of the third day, we were traveling at the base of the Dragon’s Mouth Mountains, a massif of sheer faces and summits which pierced the clouds, when Rockridge Castle, a black spider on a cliff of grey shale, came into view. It had not changed since that day, many years before, when I had visited it with Sharp – a fellow student, a good friend, and my traveling companion for several summers. Sharp had liked Rockridge, but I had been anxious to leave. The whole thing is built of rock and shadow, and even now it holds the taint of the twilight world. Treacheries are at home there, slithering down the halls like cold snakes in their pits, and untruths chirp like crickets beneath the stairs. No yule-fire could ever burn away the shadows of that place.
It’s outer curtain, a half-ring curving from the face of the mountain, has two stories. The upper half belongs to the soldiers, holding their barracks, armory, and storehouses. The lower hold stables and workshops. Eight observation towers rise from the wall, and from each arches a slender bridge to the main keep, the body of the spider. The kitchen sulks behind the keep, close to the moutain wall. Gardens – kitchen, herbal, ornamental, and trysting – cling to the slope above the castle, while deep in the stone beneath the keep lies the dungeons and torture rooms, so far below that the screams of the damned will not disturb the pleasure-seekers in the garden.
The keep itself has four towers. One holds the library and the chapel, a second holds Lord Guerney’s private rooms, the third is given over to the ladies and their servants, and the fourth is for the Steward, servants, and distinguished visitors.
Lord Guerney has many castles which perch on the spine of the mountains, but Rockridge is his seat and winter home. It guards a narrow pass to the Badlands, where gangs of bandits and wizard-kin live among thorns and prey on the weak. Below the pass huddled the town of Krast, where lived the families of those in Rockridge, both those who served Lord Guerney and those shut away in his dungeons.
And that was the monstrosity that my lord wanted to ally himself with.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Chapter 2.1
Author's note -- I assure you, when I have this printed up, I will not be heading each section with a number, i.e. 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, etc. This is only for the blog.
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Two miles from the gates of Songless Castle, the road forks. One branch follows the Gateway upstream to Slattern. This is the road traveled when I came to Songless Castle, ten years and a lifetime ago. The other road swings south and below the Eastern Green Forest, then plods northeasterly through the foothills of the Dragon’s Mouth Mountains. This is the road we took for three long, jolting, jouncing days. My main entertainment was Charles, who told me again and again just how badly the last messenger had been treated.
Lord Reinard had only given up, with an angry flip of his hand, that his last messenger had not been treated well and that he had received no response to his inquiries. From Charles’ lips tumbled horrors. The messenger had been given a cold, tiny room to sleep in, one that overlooked the stableyard. Soldiers were posted outside his door, and he was not allowed to leave. His meals arrived cold and half-eaten. When he could leave, he returned to find personal items missing. On the fourth day, he woke to find rats in his room. When he complained about this treatment on the fifth day, he was severely beaten, dumped into a farm wagon, and sent home. At no time did he find anyone who would answer his questions.
My Lord Reinard is such a wise man. To people who will not talk, he send a messenger who cannot speak.
When I wasn’t listening to Charles’ chatter, I was staring at the withered countryside. The fields were stubbly, with harvest leavings scattered across the brown earth, and a cold wind harried the clumps of dead grass. Here and there a rotten apple lay in the dirt. Trees reached bare branches toward the heavy grey sky, pregnant with rain but unable to deliver. The landscape warned of storms raging before the week was through, then bitter cold. Poor omens for my journey.
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Two miles from the gates of Songless Castle, the road forks. One branch follows the Gateway upstream to Slattern. This is the road traveled when I came to Songless Castle, ten years and a lifetime ago. The other road swings south and below the Eastern Green Forest, then plods northeasterly through the foothills of the Dragon’s Mouth Mountains. This is the road we took for three long, jolting, jouncing days. My main entertainment was Charles, who told me again and again just how badly the last messenger had been treated.
Lord Reinard had only given up, with an angry flip of his hand, that his last messenger had not been treated well and that he had received no response to his inquiries. From Charles’ lips tumbled horrors. The messenger had been given a cold, tiny room to sleep in, one that overlooked the stableyard. Soldiers were posted outside his door, and he was not allowed to leave. His meals arrived cold and half-eaten. When he could leave, he returned to find personal items missing. On the fourth day, he woke to find rats in his room. When he complained about this treatment on the fifth day, he was severely beaten, dumped into a farm wagon, and sent home. At no time did he find anyone who would answer his questions.
My Lord Reinard is such a wise man. To people who will not talk, he send a messenger who cannot speak.
When I wasn’t listening to Charles’ chatter, I was staring at the withered countryside. The fields were stubbly, with harvest leavings scattered across the brown earth, and a cold wind harried the clumps of dead grass. Here and there a rotten apple lay in the dirt. Trees reached bare branches toward the heavy grey sky, pregnant with rain but unable to deliver. The landscape warned of storms raging before the week was through, then bitter cold. Poor omens for my journey.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Chapter 1.9
I stood in the courtyard with a carriage behind me and Lord Reinard before me
He presented to me a traveling trunk and three guardsmen. Ison, the pikeman, was a heavy-set man with bushy red hair. James, the bowman, was tall and stringy, and his limp brown hair hung from a fringe around his freckled pate. Charles, the knight, had thick black curls framing his boyish face. He wore a silver crucifix and a rare steel sword. These were three of my lord’s best men.
That I should need such an escort, either for protection or to guard me, did not relieve my uneasiness.
My lord put a bracelet, a golden snake, on my left arm, and two rings, an opal and a sapphire, on my right fingers. "These will protect you. They can open locked doors; they can buy you safe passage home. Don’t hesitate to use them. Is there anything else you need?"
I had already, under pretense of needing a trip to the privy, picked up my sword from the stable hayloft, where it had been hidden for ten years. Now belted beneath my robe, Geldswan poked me in the ribs. But I had not been able to get to the closet that my lord had granted me for sleeping, and thus retrieve my other precious possession.
"I would like my harp," I signed.
He smiled warmly. "I thought of that. It’s in the trunk."
I drew in a sharp breath.
"Don’t worry. I had a Silent Monk do the packing, and you know how careful they are. It’s perfectly safe."
I slowly let out my breath, but not in relief. It is the way of my lord to think that anyone can touch a Bard’s harp. Yet if someone had to touch it, let it be a Silent Monk, for they have the only gentle hands in this cursed castle.
I bowed to my lord, nodded to the Silent Monk standing behind him, and entered the carriage. Charles climbed in with me, and James shut the door. I felt the carriage rock as he and Ison climbed onto the top. A whip cracked, signaling to the horses, and the carriage bounced forward. After ten years I was leaving.
I was leaving the few people who could understand the only language I could now speak.
The young knight leaned forward and said in a cheerful tone, "I hope they don’t put rats in our room."
He presented to me a traveling trunk and three guardsmen. Ison, the pikeman, was a heavy-set man with bushy red hair. James, the bowman, was tall and stringy, and his limp brown hair hung from a fringe around his freckled pate. Charles, the knight, had thick black curls framing his boyish face. He wore a silver crucifix and a rare steel sword. These were three of my lord’s best men.
That I should need such an escort, either for protection or to guard me, did not relieve my uneasiness.
My lord put a bracelet, a golden snake, on my left arm, and two rings, an opal and a sapphire, on my right fingers. "These will protect you. They can open locked doors; they can buy you safe passage home. Don’t hesitate to use them. Is there anything else you need?"
I had already, under pretense of needing a trip to the privy, picked up my sword from the stable hayloft, where it had been hidden for ten years. Now belted beneath my robe, Geldswan poked me in the ribs. But I had not been able to get to the closet that my lord had granted me for sleeping, and thus retrieve my other precious possession.
"I would like my harp," I signed.
He smiled warmly. "I thought of that. It’s in the trunk."
I drew in a sharp breath.
"Don’t worry. I had a Silent Monk do the packing, and you know how careful they are. It’s perfectly safe."
I slowly let out my breath, but not in relief. It is the way of my lord to think that anyone can touch a Bard’s harp. Yet if someone had to touch it, let it be a Silent Monk, for they have the only gentle hands in this cursed castle.
I bowed to my lord, nodded to the Silent Monk standing behind him, and entered the carriage. Charles climbed in with me, and James shut the door. I felt the carriage rock as he and Ison climbed onto the top. A whip cracked, signaling to the horses, and the carriage bounced forward. After ten years I was leaving.
I was leaving the few people who could understand the only language I could now speak.
The young knight leaned forward and said in a cheerful tone, "I hope they don’t put rats in our room."
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Chapter 1.8
Matters of love are best left to the Bards and the Heathens. We who see life and love as but parts of the greater nature of things know best how to love freely and easily, and how to travel the twisting paths of the entwined heart. We understand the ebb and flow of love, how whims and fancies can change with the phase of the moon. We work with love, rather than dictate to it and mold it into a sellable, tradeable commodity. A couple that has been sung together may be sung apart, if things do not work as they should.
Christians believe that marriage must stay as it was when it is bound, with no changes, no exceptions. It is an investment, and worthless if there is no dowry. Companionship and beauty mean nothing; only land or money makes a marriage good. And so it was with my lord, who smitten not by the lady, but by her dowry: the Eastern Green Forest.
I myself would not take the Eastern Green Forest, even if it came with a tower filled with beautiful maidens. At its heart lies an evil, a well-spring of the twilight world, and through its shadows roam bodies without souls and souls without bodies. The Silver-eyes live in that forest, they who feast on pain and treachery, and they claim all who step beneath the green leaves. No Heathen would go near such a nest of Faerie. Yet my lord was determined to have it.
Despite my warnings against the evil wood, he arranged to marry the Lady Laurice during the Harvest Festival. Yet the harvest had come and gone, and there was still no lady in Songless Castle. This was an omen, I told my lord, that the marriage was not fated to be – but he waved my warnings aside and sent a messenger to Rockridge Castle to ask about the delay. The news that messenger brought back had thrown my lord into a rage.
And now I was to go, the next sacrifice.
#
Christians believe that marriage must stay as it was when it is bound, with no changes, no exceptions. It is an investment, and worthless if there is no dowry. Companionship and beauty mean nothing; only land or money makes a marriage good. And so it was with my lord, who smitten not by the lady, but by her dowry: the Eastern Green Forest.
I myself would not take the Eastern Green Forest, even if it came with a tower filled with beautiful maidens. At its heart lies an evil, a well-spring of the twilight world, and through its shadows roam bodies without souls and souls without bodies. The Silver-eyes live in that forest, they who feast on pain and treachery, and they claim all who step beneath the green leaves. No Heathen would go near such a nest of Faerie. Yet my lord was determined to have it.
Despite my warnings against the evil wood, he arranged to marry the Lady Laurice during the Harvest Festival. Yet the harvest had come and gone, and there was still no lady in Songless Castle. This was an omen, I told my lord, that the marriage was not fated to be – but he waved my warnings aside and sent a messenger to Rockridge Castle to ask about the delay. The news that messenger brought back had thrown my lord into a rage.
And now I was to go, the next sacrifice.
#
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