Flames licked at the leather bound books, feeling their way to rolled parchment and ancient knowledge. Oaken shelves collapsed all about, spluttering into the inferno. Stray pages floated on the updraft only to be singed and brought crashing down with flaming beams. The shiny black stone from which the archive walls were hewn shimmered like a night sky with red-orange stars. Green and gold banners that had hung sedately, flapped as fire engulfed their length. Malaegar screamed his anger, lashing at the air with his torch. Dancing among the aisles of history and lore he could almost hear the cries of anguish of his ancestors as their legacies burned.
“Burn! Shrine of foul pride and boastful history, accursed altar to my forefathers!” He spat. Whirling among the carnage, his blue eyes glinted as they darted about the room with glee. “I will have no rank inherited from you; I have no duty to your memory. Your cursed lineage has culminated in me alone and I will make this land what I will.” He beat his chest. “I will carve my own tradition!”
Again he screamed and in a final act of blasphemy thrust his torch through a portrait of his father. Twisting it like a knife he panted in the heat as the paint warped and bubbled about the wound. Turning briskly, he tossed the torch and strode to the doorway. He took a moment to look about once again with satisfaction, closed the doors on the conflagration and turned the key in the lock.
***
A grey sky wept as the cock crowed. The gentle tears were constant and had kept the fire from spreading but the destruction of the archive had been total. Ash had mixed with rain water and congealed into a thick grey paste. Stray fragments of pages fought in the breeze for freedom from that mulch, to no avail. Charred beams thrust up from amidst the grey mounds providing crooked perches for the crows.
On the horizon, a lone figure stood hunched over his walking stick. A thinly bearded man with graying hair, wrapped in coarse grey cloth. The stranger tugged impatiently at the garment whenever the wind revealed the fine scarlet tunic beneath. Upon his finger a silver ring crowned with a small red jewel glistened and from his lips a whisper of gratitude to the gods escaped; for he had happened upon shelter. In this desolate land, even that castle, a smoking silhouette against a stark sky, was inviting.
It took a day to reach the castle across the moors, harassed by wild dogs through the stench of stagnant water. This region, so he had heard, had once been a lush land rippling with life. It had once bustled with farmhands and peasants, the steady rhythm of fields from fallow to harvest. Though now it was little more than moorland and swamp from which here and there the undulations of abandoned plough ridges and hedge-row stumps occasionally broke the waterline.
The approach to the castle soon rose into a winding path up the black cliff face. What had once been a carefully maintained cobbled walkway with twisting patterns of red and white stone had succumbed to the algal life of the swamp. The reds had dulled to brown and white had become tinted sickly green. Skirting the now nauseatingly patterned path were chunks of masonry fallen from the ramparts above. The stranger came to the final approach, a dark bridge spanned a ravine to the castle gate. To his right, a cottage with a blue-grey slate coned roof struck the stranger as once having been a guard’s station. The remains of a door hung open. As he passed by he caught a glimpse in the murk of a rack of rusting swords and spears and as the stranger continued to the main gate, the unmistakable scent of charred wood and smoke hung faintly in the air.
The black gatehouse walls were imposing. Polished smooth by wind and rain, they gave the impression of being solid seamless stone. There were no other openings, no windows, no loops; only the closed gate speckled with iron studs from which rust stains streaked like tears on the weather-beaten wood. Again the stranger fought with the wind for possession of his cloak and impatiently lifted the weathered bronze door knocker, ignoring its metallic protest and letting it fall against the door with a thud. The sound resonated inside the gatehouse and ravine, but no response was forthcoming. For a second time, the stranger let the ring fall, this time disturbing a murder of crows who streaked across the red sky cawing at this rude visitor.
As he lifted the ring for the third time, something stirred in the gatehouse. There was the sound of heavy chains pulled taught and a long metallic moan and a loud clunk. Much closer now, there was the rattling of keys then the rustle of a key in the lock to the sally port; whose outline could only be discerned when inspected closely. The door creaked open, dislodging accumulated dirt from its border. Gloved fingers curled around the door followed by a pale face framed with dark, unkempt hair, wearing a green cap. A young man with an air of a nervous rabbit, looked the stranger up and down.
“Who are you? What do you want?” he asked abruptly, keeping the door between himself and the stranger.
“I am a weary traveller, foreign to these lands. I seek shelter and a chance to get my bearings”, the young man maintained a suspicious stance.
“Are you known to my Lord?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.
“That is partly my problem, you see. I do not know which province I am in!” replied the stranger with a shrug. “May I have an audience with your Lord or at least ask for directions?” The young man looked unsure, as though the stranger’s request was diverting from a well-rehearsed script. “I have only my sword and this staff, you see.” the stranger lifted his cloak and turned full circle. “After all you would not leave an old man outside in this chill with crows and wild dogs at his heels?” The young man screwed his eyes for a moment, nodded and as if allowing the momentum of his conscience to guide him against better judgment and stepped back from the door.
“Very well” he muttered. “But you will have to hand over that sword and mind you stay close all the way, no wondering off like.”
“You are a true gentleman.” the stranger smiled and bowed his head as he crossed the threshold, unbuckling his fine patterned steel sword in its sheath and handing it to the young man. With a brief smile and a nod, tucked the sword under his arm, locked the sally port, retrieved a torch from the wall and set off into the castle.
It took a moment for the stranger’s eyes to acclimatise to the gloom. Above him, a large metal portcullis hung from iron chains. Ahead the young man shifted on his feet impatiently. He was dressed all in black with his waist-coat and laced shirt edged in silver grey thread. No longer harassed by the gusts outside, the stranger’s footsteps echoed clearly as he crossed a cobbled floor towards his guide who, as he approached, nodded again and led onwards.
As they emerged into a courtyard, the young man called out and the portcullis was again lowered with a crunch. From where they stood, the yard presented many doorways and alleys but the yard culminated directly opposite them in a dark gateway flanked by a turret on each side. The stranger’s gaze was led up to the heights of the castle, above and around him. He awed at the sight. From here, the structure was so immense that it appeared to lean and twist under its own colossal weight. The towers were so tall that mist formed and chased about their tops. Here and there, a bridge linked tower to tower, their looming forms broken only by the occasional loop hole or window. As they crossed the cobbled yard, the air grew cold in the long shadows and the call of crows echoed harshly through the still air.
The guide led on through the gate into a walled garden dominated by a dark staircase beyond. The path skirted a circular lawn bordered by red and purple flowers unknown to the stranger; beautiful, though their stems struck the stranger as particularly thorny.
“One could try for hours to pick a single flower and gain only a bloody hand” he mused aloud. In the centre of the lawn, a white marble figure bowed low as if welcoming the stranger. Contrasted against the setting sun, the statue faded to black as they walked the path to the foot of the stairs. The young man stopped and gestured for the stranger to lead.
The arched door at the stop of the stairs was impressive. Each panel on the door framed a wooden relief depicting a raven, wings outstretched, blowing a trumpet.
“I see they herald my arrival.” smiled the stranger back at his guide who had followed. The young man once again merely nodded, knocked at the door and quickly took his leave, closing the iron gate to the yard behind him. With a slight shrug, the stranger turned again to the door. He noticed the archway was peaked by a green and gold family crest, heavily scarred, and recently attacked by some blunt force. The doorway was set into a rectangular tower whose upper most floors overhung the entrance, its murder holes gaping down at him.
From within, brisk footsteps could now be heard approaching. The stranger looked back over the castle. He was now level with the blue slate roofs of the courtyard. To the west the sun threw up its last bloody resistance to the night, casting much of the garden below into darkness. As a key was turned in the lock, the stranger briefly noted a light in one of the widows high within the castle. The door opened.
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