Astronomer’s Keep

“If we can’t swim,” said Charlotte, “and we certainly can’t fly, then we need a boat or we need to build a bridge.”

“Isn’t that a raft over there?” asked Sam, and pointed across the moat.

Across the moat, mostly submerged in the water, was a makeshift wooden raft peaking up on the far shore.

“That hasn’t been here for a hundred years, has it?” asked Will.

“I don’t think we can use it,” said Gralen, “but we can probably build one. We certainly have enough wood here, and we’ve got a supply of rope.”

“Hold on,” said Will. “It’ll take us half a day to make a raft, why don’t we look around the castle first and see if there is any other way across this moat? I hate to say that I miss being out of the mist, but now that we’re in the open again I want to be inside that castle well before nightfall.”

“Okay,” said Charlotte. “Let’s follow the moat.”

“You and I will take the right,” said Will. “You two,” he said to Gralen and Sam, “take the left. And don’t wander off!”

The castle was built atop a small hill, with the moat circling round it completely. Six towers of varying sizes rose above the stone walls, and the dome of another building rose slightly into view. The silence around what was once a fully populated castle was strange.

On the far side, off to the left, a huge war engine--probably once an attack tower or ramp standing forty feet or taller--had fallen into the moat and covered most of the breadth of the water like a huge wooden wall. But it was on its side, not flat.

“I can get across that,” said Sam.

“What about the rest of us?” asked Gralen. “I don’t think I could even begin to scale that wall.”

“We tie a couple of lengths of rope on this end, I’ll carry them, tie them on the other end, and the rest of you can use it for support.”

They called Will and Charlotte over, and then, after tying four lengths of rope together to make two long lengths of rope, under Charlotte’s instruction they wrapped the rope around a tree and handed both ends to Sam. Sam carried the ropes across, carefully scaling the vertical sides of the fallen machine using her hands as much as her feet. At places the rotted wood slipped beneath her, but she always found something else to hold onto in time.

Meanwhile, the rest of them unpacked their donkey, distributing what they could and tying the rest high into a tree.

“I hope he’s going to be okay,” said Will.

“Yeah, we’re going to need him when we get out,” said Gralen.

“You can’t come either,” Gralen said, speaking directly to the raven. “Stay out here and watch for trouble. And stay out of it yourself.”

Will looked at him.

“We do what we can do,” said Gralen.

Sam tied the four ends of the rope to a younger tree on the other side, one rope high and the other low to match what Charlotte had done.

Will volunteered to go last, “just in case”, so Gralen went next, gingerly holding onto both top ropes with his hands and trying--successfully--to keep his feet on the lower rope. When he stepped off of the rope, Charlotte took a deep breath and stepped on, gripping the ropes so tightly her knuckles turned white.

“Don’t look down!” yelled Sam, as Charlotte began to lose her footing while looking down into the moat. “You’ll get across a lot quicker if you relax!”

She struggled unsuccessfully to grab the rope her feet had been on, and landed with a huge splash in the water below. She went completely under for a second, then scrambled back up by grabbing onto the sides of the fallen war engine, bringing her head above water. She spit the slimy water out, brushed the stuff off of her face with a slimy hand, and waded across the rest of the way. The water was too deep to walk, so she had to pull herself over grabbing onto the sides of the wood.

Gralen and Sam pulled the lower rope even lower.

“Grab onto it!” they yelled.

She spit, and said, “I’m already soaked, I might as well stay safe.”

The moat here was also filled with skeletons. She had to push a few aside to get across. Gralen shrugged. Sam rolled her eyes. They let the rope back up.

“Safe,” said Sam. “Just you and a bunch of dead goblins.”

Charlotte was soaking wet when she crawled up out of the moat. Her tunic and hair hung down dripping. Will came across next, agilely crossing the rope bridge as if it were a real bridge. When everyone was across, they untied the ropes and pulled them across through the moat.

“See?” said Charlotte. “We still have the rope for later.”

“Next time,” whispered Sam, “use it.”

By now it was mid-afternoon. The sun was beginning to move down towards the Great Mountains far to the west.

“Let’s get inside,” said Will.

The plant life on this side of the moat was of a different quality than on the other side. There was more yellow in the grass, and the trees were smaller but slightly more gnarled and twisted than their taller cousins in the forest. None of them held their leaves, which were scattered loosely about the ground in red, orange, and yellow, leaving the trees stark and sharp in the afternoon light. They walked around to the broken drawbridge, passing beneath one of the front towers. Will reached out and touched the stones of the tower as they went by.

“I half expected it to not be there, this is all so unreal,” he said.

“ooooOOoOoOoooooOoOOO,” said Sam. “Ghost castles.”

But the joke fell flat.

“I’ve heard a story of a ghost castle,” said Will. “Somewhere in the mountains on a high plateau is an ancient castle that appears only on nights of the full moon. The castle holds great treasures and magic, but anyone who enters to get the treasure and magic never comes out.”

“If they never come out,” said Sam, “then how do you know there’s treasure and magic inside?”

“That’s the trouble with campfire stories,” said Will. “You can’t base your life on them.”

“This castle is real enough,” said Gralen, “and it’s not a full moon.”

“It is tonight,” said Charlotte.

“I was hoping no one remembered,” said Gralen.

“Full moons are good,” said Sam. “They light things up and they make lots of shadows to hide in.”

“Sometimes those shadows seem alive,” said Will.

“That’s because sometimes they hold people like me,” said Sam.

At the front of the castle walls they walked gingerly onto the portion of the drawbridge that remained intact, and even though they were not above water it still felt unstable and dangerous until they left it and came into the long murder hall. More dead men and dead goblins lay about the hall. At the end of twenty paces two tall doors stood open onto the inner courtyard. The ceiling was gone. Once wood, it had fallen in and cracked and rotted beams lay atop the dead warriors and goblins.

When they arrived at the far doors, they found that they didn’t stand open, they had fallen completely away, possibly battered in, possibly simply falling with age, or possibly a combination. Inside the courtyard the battle had obviously continued, and many combatants remained.

“Do we want to examine the guard towers?” asked Will.

“I think what we’re looking for will be in the main castle,” said Gralen. “There won’t be money or magic in the towers.”

“If there’s anything left at all anywhere,” said Sam. “What if the whole place has been ransacked.”

“Yeah,” said Gralen. “It might be that everything is gone. But I think there’s a reasonable chance that goblins wouldn’t have taken the scholarly research, and also that they wouldn’t necessarily recognize some of the treasures of a militant order.”

“Any gold and silver will probably be gone, though,” said Charlotte, “if it could be carried.”

“Crap,” said Sam.

They looked around again at the remnants of a hundred-years-old carnage. Inside the walls, the castle itself had two towers on the right, slightly larger than the towers at the four corners of the keep’s walls, and a large dome over the front and center. The dome was painted black. The rest of the castle was stone. Two huge doors on the front wall beneath the dome were closed, a faded moon painted on the left, a similarly-faded sun painted on the right. A faded gold clock stood on the dome atop the castle.

“I swear that clock is the right time,” said Gralen.

“It can’t possibly still be running,” said Charlotte. “Even if the goblins left it alone, clocks need regular care.”

“Let’s go see what the goblins have left for us,” said Will.

He walked across the courtyard with the others following, and he pushed the main doors open. They opened with difficulty. When everybody’s eyes adjusted to the lower light, they saw a small, circular room, with thin stairs circling either side leading upwards.

“No skeletons,” said Will.

“But it was broken into,” said Charlotte.

She pointed out the broken length of wood that had once barred the door and was now in two halves on the floor.

“Do you think we can rebar these doors?” asked Will.

“It won’t be as strong as it was originally,” said Charlotte, “but if we put one of the halves across the inner bucklers, it will hold against smaller... creatures.”

“Okay, let’s bar it and see what, if anything, has been left here,” said Sam.

They barred the doors as best they could. Charlotte pushed the second half of the bar so the point of its jagged edge was partially beneath the door.

“That’ll help keep anything out,” she said. “When they push, it will apply similar force back at them.”

They took their heavy packs off and put the stuff they’d taken from the donkey onto the floor.

“Don’t leave anything important,” said Will.

“Let’s head upstairs first,” said Gralen.

They walked up the grand staircase and came up to a platform overlooking the front courtyard that they’d already walked through. From above it looked even more desolate, and in contrast to the beautiful forest beyond the keep’s walls.

Charlotte looked up at the clock.

“It has definitely moved,” she said. “And I’m pretty sure it’s at the right time. Look at the three hands: one for the sun, one for the moon, and one for the zodiac. The smallest hand is pointing at Virgo. The middle hand is pointing at the full moon. It’s amazing enough that it’s still running, but it’s unbelievable that it’s kept the correct time for this long!”

“If no one’s bothered it, why wouldn’t it be running?” asked Will.

“It’s got gears inside,” she replied, “although you can barely hear them. They collect dust; they rust; birds try to build nests above them. A timepiece like this requires constant care to keep it running. The amount of care that went into the clock, compared to the amount of care that didn’t go into the castle... I would say that I don’t think the same people could have built both, but I don’t know of anyone who could have made this clock.”

“I think the clock’s too big to carry away,” said Sam. “Why don’t we go look for treasure.”

“We can come back later to look at the clock if you’d like,” said Gralen.

“We’ll have to,” said Charlotte.

To either side they could walk out onto the battlements through open doorways. Across one of the battlements, on the front tower, they saw burn marks. The door to the tower was charred and black. The ceiling of the dome that stood over the entrance room had tiny holes scattered throughout. They walked, single file, Gralen leading and Charlotte trailing, across the battlements and towards the blackened door. Gralen gingerly pushed the door open with his staff. Inside, in a scene they were rapidly not becoming used to, were more skeletons in disarray, but few of them were goblins. Most seemed human.

“My god,” said Charlotte, “did they all burn to death?”

Gralen tapped the floor with his staff. The floor was stone beneath the soot, so he stepped inside. The others followed. There were stairs leading up, and two more charred doors.

“I don’t know,” said Will, looking at one of the skeletons, “but it seems likely.”

He gently removed a sword from one skeleton’s hand and looked it over. It was mostly just the hilt, and about three inches of blade remaining, ending in a jagged break.

“This guy’s sword broke,” he said. “Look, there’s some markings on it.”

“I can’t understand it,” he added, and handed it to Gralen.

“I’ve never seen this either,” said Gralen. “That’s interesting. It’s not the ancient tongue, and it isn’t the Druids.”

“Do you see the rest of it there?” he asked.

“No,” said Will, after looking around further. “Maybe he broke it somewhere else.”

Gralen tied the sword hilt to his belt.

“Why would he be holding it here, then,” asked Gralen, more as a statement than a question.

Will shrugged.

Sam picked up another sword, which while intact was quite rusted, the leather around the hilt flaking.

“You still going to show me how to use one of these?” she asked.

“Let me find you a decent one,” said Will. “Or semi-decent, none of these swords have been cared for in the last hundred years, obviously.”

The one he chose for her was not quite as rusted.

“You can’t use it yet,” he said, “but I think we can work it into shape later.”

She took it and, having nowhere to put it, used it as a walking stick. Will winced as she did this.

“If I’d known you were going to treat it even worse than the elements, I wouldn’t have given it to you,” he said. “Give me your rope.”

He measured off a piece of rope, cut it, and fashioned it into a makeshift belt allowing her to keep the sword on her back.

The stairs leading down looked like they had been barricaded shut, from this side, though the wooden barricade was now laced with charcoal.

“They locked themselves in here, and then burned themselves to death?”

“Maybe they locked someone else out, and then that someone else tried to burn them out,” said Will.

“Christ,” said Sam.

The stairs continued upwards as well, around the curve of the tower. The door was open, and in the room, filled with papers and flasks, everything was covered in ash. There were a couple of skeletons here as well, lying on the floor, many with tattered cloth wrapped around their skulls.

Charlotte picked up one scroll of paper.

“Careful!” said Gralen, but too late. The paper tore in her hands, into two pieces and then three. She handed one piece to Gralen.

“I can’t read it,” she said.

“It’s ancient,” said Gralen. “Many of these old schismatic orders used the ancient tongue to keep their records. Some even spoke it, forbidding what they called ‘vulgar’ language.”

He looked at another scrap.

“It looks like some sort of recipe,” he said. “Sulfur, pitch, and quicklime among other things. Well, whatever it is it isn’t going to taste very good.”

Will looked out the window at the setting sun.

“It’s going to get dark in a few hours,” he said. “Unless you think there’s something else here, let’s go to the other tower.”

“Take that flask,” Gralen said, pointing to one soot-covered flask filled with a grayish liquid. “I think it’s silver of some kind. Might be worth something. It’s hardly piles of gold and silver coin, but it’s a start. When we’ve scouted this place out I’ll came back here and see if I can get these papers without harming them.”

Across the south battlement, in the other tower, the door was long since busted wide open and when they walked inside, found more remnants from long-gone battle. But here there were also the desiccated corpses of small animals and birds. Will poked at one with his sword and it dissolved into dust. Others looked fresher. Everyone looked around and up. Nothing else was moving here. Up the stone stairs leading up around the walls of the tower was a grayish curtain hanging down to cover the entrance to the upper room.

“It’s a spider’s web,” said Will, after they walked up the stairs.

Will brushed aside the light webbing and, after looking around inside carefully, he stepped inside. The others followed him. It was the upper level of the tower. A similar gossamer net hung across each of the windows. A tiny bird struggled in one, moving back and forth to eclipse the setting sun as if it were sending them signals.

Will took a dagger from his belt and cut the bird free. It stumbled in the air for a moment and then flew off.

“Aren’t you the nice one,” said Sam.

Will shrugged.

“Sor--” started Sam, and then she ducked and jumped at the same time as something large fell from the ceiling onto her and then fell off. The dark thing scuttled towards her on the floor. Gralen batted at it with his staff, crushing it, and then another one fell onto the floor next to him. They were clearly spiders, but spiders far larger than any they had seen before. Their bodies must have been half a foot across. Will and Charlotte tried to maneuver to where they could assist, but the spiders were small and they couldn’t attack without risking hitting their friends.

Gralen tried to crush the second spider, but it scuttled out of the way and he ended up just slamming his staff onto the floor. Sam tried to hit it with her short sword as it tried to bite at Gralen, and her sword clanged against the floor as well.

“Gaak!”

Gralen jumped away from the scuttling thing as it bit at him, and slammed his staff down at it again, just as Sam did the same with her sword. Both attacks found their mark, splattering the spider onto the floor.

“These are the biggest fuckin’ spiders I’ve ever seen,” said Sam.

“It makes me wonder what else is waiting for us in this old place,” said Will.

“What’s that behind that webbing?” asked Charlotte.

There was something reflecting light against the wall, but behind a lot of webbing. Gralen, still breathing a little heavily, brushed it away with his staff.

“This is what’s waiting for us,” he said.

There were two golden heads, studded with black gems for eyes and green for earrings. The gold atop the heads was pounded into curls for hair.

“They look kind of familiar, don’t they?” asked Charlotte.

Will took one of them from the shelf they were on, and a book flopped over onto its side.

“Are they solid gold?” he asked.

“No, they’re not solid,” said Charlotte. “If they were, you couldn’t lift it nearly so easily.”

“What are they?”

“Bookends,” said Gralen.

“But who are the images of?”

“Demons? The founders? Who knows?”

“More important,” said Sam, “is ‘how much are they worth?’”

“Depends on how much gold and what the gems are,” said Gralen.

“Duh.”

“Sorry, I don’t know.”

She nodded and took the other one from the shelf.

“Gold is as gold does,” she said. “We’re going to need our bags to carry this stuff.”

Will leaned out the window he’d cleared earlier. Across the side walls it looked out over an endless forest, and to his left the High Divide loomed tall, lit by the setting sun.

“The sun’s almost down,” he said. “If there’s nothing left here, let’s go back to our packs and drop this stuff off, then go down the stairs instead of up.”

“We’ll need my lantern,” said Gralen.

They returned down the stone stairs, past the hanging strands of spider’s webbing. At the bottom more long-dead combatants waited.

“This must have been one hell of a battle,” said Charlotte.

“A last-ditch defense?” said Will.

“Hey, this guy’s got his hands on something,” said Charlotte. “Jesus, he’s also got an arrow right through his forehead.”

The skeleton’s skull, where the forehead would be, was shattered and an old arrow lay in it like a wilting flower in a flower pot.

“He was crawling away,” said Sam, “when he died. He was trying to push this...”

She carefully moved the skeletal arm away, scrawling a line in the dust as she did so, and then she wiped more dust away with her hands.

“It’s a secret trap door,” she said.

She pushed down on one of the stones in the floor, and one section of the floor shifted down slightly. Sam pushed on it lightly, and then when nothing happened pushed more firmly. It creaked, loudly, as one square flipped down, revealing a dirt stairway leading down into darkness.

“It’s held by a spring,” said Sam.

She peered down into the hole.

“And it’s awfully dark down there.”

She slid down through the trap door.

“There’s nothing that I can see. Just a tiny hallway. But it’s too dark to tell where it goes.”

“Hold on,” said Will.

He ran back to their makeshift indoor camp and grabbed the lantern. He grabbed an empty bag while he was at it.

“Damn well better be treasure,” he muttered.

When he returned with the lantern, Sam took it down through the trap door.

“It’s a long empty hallway,” she cried back.

‘Hold on, we’re coming down,” said Will.

He lowered himself down into the hole, and was followed by Charlotte and Gralen.

It was a tunnel dug out of the dirt, with stone arches buttressing it here and about ten steps down.

“Look,” said Charlotte, pointing at the dirt, “footprints, and not Sam’s.”

“I don’t think this place has been entered since the goblin wars,” said Will.

“It looks like two people running,” said Sam.

“Let’s follow,” said Gralen.

“I wonder why only two of them came down here,” said Charlotte as they walked along.

“Everyone stop!” cried Sam.

“What?”

“There’s a trap here somewhere. Look at the ceiling.”

Everyone looked at the ceiling. It was stone and dirt, like the rest of the tunnel.

“I don’t see a damn thing,” said Gralen.

She traced--lightly--her finger across dirt floor of the corridor.

“See how there’s a slight depression in the sand here? Now look at the ceiling.”

“It’s worked differently here,” said Charlotte.

“I’ll bet my share of those statues it’s set to drop a ton of rocks when this depression is stepped on,” said Sam.

They looked further down the thin hallway. The light from their lantern faded into the darkness.

“I don’t think we should follow this until we’ve explored the castle,” said Gralen.

“I don’t think we should follow it even after we’ve explored the castle,” said Will.

“I think it’s an escape route,” said Sam. “If it leads anywhere, it just leads out.”

Charlotte took some chalk from her pouch and drew a vertical line on the walls.

“So we know where the trap is if we come down here again,” she said to the others.

“Good idea,” said Sam.

They returned back out the tunnel and up the trapdoor into the tower.

They walked down the long hallway back to the grand entrance, where all their stuff was. They passed several doors on either side along the way.

“Don’t we want to check these doors out?” asked Sam.

“Let’s start from the middle,” said Gralen. “More likely to be things of interest there than out here near the guard towers.”

They rolled the statue and some of the vials that Gralen had taken from the tower into their packs, and took more supplies out. Gralen took some flasks of oil out. Charlotte brought writing materials out of her pack.

“Let me make sure my lantern’s full,” said Gralen, and he did so, stuffing the remaining flasks into his pouch.

“Let’s check these large doors first,” said Sam.

They walked through the double doors opposite the entrance. The doors themselves, like the entrance doors, were stuck, but Will easily pushed them open. They were intricately carved with interlocking circles, bands, and curves, some bands occasionally ending in serpent’s heads, and some circles enclosing many-pointed stars. Tarnished silver lay green inside the engravings.

Beyond the doorway was a long corridor, with a stone wall on the right and a wall of marble arches on the left. The white marble was covered with dust and cobwebs. Everyone looked gingerly towards the ceiling and around them.

“Anyone see any more of those spiders?” asked Gralen.

“I don’t think so,” said Sam, pushing away at some cobwebs with her staff.

She cleared one of the arches so that they could walk through.

“Look,” she said, pointing at the floor.

A once-richly colored and embroidered cloth lay crumpled beneath the archway. It had once been dark blue and embroidered in gold stars. Now the color had leached away, and the dust faded what remained. When Sam poked at it with her staff, a silverfish crawled quickly away.

“There must have been curtains here,” said Charlotte.

Tiny gems were scattered on the floor around the arches, and they each pocketed a few.

“I suspect that there were hangings of some sort here,” said Charlotte, “and that’s what these gems were once in.”

They stepped through the archway, stepping over the cloth, and found themselves inside a large room filled with columns. Light shone through cracks in the ceiling and walls, producing nearly flat beams of light cutting through the dusty air. Will ran his fingers down one of the columns. It was marble, like the marble of the arches: veins of darkness twisting and curling throughout the pale stone.

Here and there throughout the columns more skeletons lay, some armored, and they had to step carefully to avoid disturbing the dead.

At the far corner of the room was a dais of black stone, and on the stone were three elaborate white marble chairs. One skeleton lay half draped over the largest, middle throne, parts of it on the floor along with its rusted sword.

“Do you think it was the king?” asked Will.

“The Orders didn’t have kings,” said Gralen. “It might have been their leader, but it might just be that this is where the warrior fell in battle. The battle must have ranged throughout the castle.”

“All of the skeletons are human,” said Charlotte. “The Goblins must have done quite a job on them.”

“Unless they were fighting each other,” said Sam.

Next to the dais, two great arched oaken doors were partially opened. Dirt, grass, and weeds grew slightly into the deserted hall.

“This leads outside,” said Charlotte.

They stepped through the doors and were in a wildly overgrown garden. Bright purple flowers flowed from vines hanging from trees, and the trees themselves drooped purple and yellow trumpets towards the ground, weighed down by the vines. Wrought-iron posts, ten feet tall, themselves covered in vines and weeds, and shaped like tall writhing serpents, held sparkling crystal birds shaped as if they were swooping to the garden.

“Someone help me get those things,” said Sam.

“What?” asked Will.

“Hold the post steady,” she replied.

She climbed up one of the wrought-iron posts while Will held it firm, and found that the crystal robin was easily removed. Beneath it was a candle holder, covered in dirty wax.

“They’re lights,” she said.

“We should sleep here tonight,” said Charlotte. “We’ve got nightlights.”

“Too many places for things to hide,” said Will.

Sam looked up at each of the five crystal birds.

“We’ll come back later for these,” she said. “I’ll bet they’re worth something, but if we carry them around in this place we’ll break them.”

She nudged one, a little hummingbird, and it spun around on the pole.

“Let’s go back and try the other hallway,” said Will.

They walked back into the great hall, around the columns and battle, and again into the grand foyer. The other hallway, the one which led back to the secret trap door in the tower, had many doors leading off of it. While the others decided, Charlotte drew their locations as quickly as she could on her paper.

The first door on their left, a simple oaken door that opened (with some force from Will) outward, opened onto stone stairs leading downwards. The stone here was simpler than the stone of the hallway. Large, grey stones of varying shades were inset into a cement which held them together. Gralen held his lantern out over the stairs. At the bottom was another door, this one of wood bound with iron and barred with a thick wooden pole.

“Well?” asked Will.

“Let’s go,” said Gralen. “This is likely to be the most interesting part of the castle. Especially if it was never penetrated by the goblins.”