The Spaces Between (A Drunkard's Journey) (29 page)

He swore as a gust of wind and snow tore through a gap in the branches. Cursing, he filled in the space with another branch. He worked until the fallen tree was bare. The final product was a crude, but effective, windbreak. Gryn then used the final bough to sweep away as much snow from the hard ground as he could. He flung his pack to the ground and sat on a medium-sized rock. He was panting.

“Fire,” he panted. “Now I need a fire.” The wind roared against the balsam branches, but they held. For now.

He groaned and reached for the pack. With a great sigh, he started fumbling inside. He dug out a container filled with dried birch bark. With the flick of a match, a fire was going, and he broke up the branches of the remaining bough. The tree had not been dead for long, so the fire was slow to start and gave off a cloud of thick, wet smoke. But it was still fire.

When at last he had caught his breath, he stared out at the snow and cursed. “Ar’Zoth, this is your work, and you will pay. You and your companions will pay.”

Gryn then dug deeper into the pack, produced the hand ax, and used it to chop pieces from the fallen tree. After a half hour of chopping, he had a pile of wood big enough to keep him warm all night. At last, he sank to the ground, which was now warm and dry. The lean-to succeeded in keeping the wind at bay, and it also provided some reflective heat. It was going to be a nice warm night in his little cabin in the middle of a howling blizzard.

He fell asleep as soon as his head touched the bedroll, and the blizzard raged throughout the night. When he awoke much later to feed the fire, he wondered how long the blizzard would last. This one had the makings of a multiple-day storm. He would have to conserve his wood and his food. But for now he was warm and protected in his shelter, and he slept again, well into the next day.

The snow did not stop.

Chapter 24 — A Fatuous Path

Have you tried to tie a knot upon a knot? And then do it again? And what is the result? What are you left with? A bulging bundle of completely useless and frayed fabric. Madness. Thus is the mad man.

Prophet Altyu-M’Zhkara, IV Age

“H
ow much farther?” Zhy panted. He motioned the others to stop. The ravine vanished into infinity to their left, and the sheer bank of thin balsams stretched up to their right…the scene itself was enough to induce vertigo, even if one wasn’t standing in the middle of it. Ahead of them, the trail took another gentle turn to the right, but the huge trees blocked any view of what was beyond.

Qainur beamed, even though his chest rose and fell in a slow but pendulous rhythm. “I don’t think much farther…the texts never really said. Just that a short path…led from Gray Gorge through this section of the Spires of Solitude…”

“You’ve been saying ‘not much farther’ for the last couple of days—well before that snowstorm in any case,” Zhy remarked, breathing heavily from exertion. “I’m not sure how much longer I can…keep on this trail. One wrong step…”

The warrior simply stared up ahead. His response was gruff. “I think we should keep moving. I’m sure we are not far. Let’s go another mile or so, and if we see nothing, we will stop.”

“I suppose…I suppose we could,” Zhy replied with hesitation in his voice.

Torplug hazarded a glance back along the trail. There was no longer an easy way out of there. Turning around and walking back would be just as dangerous as going forward. Best to continue and hope that the trail widened at some point. “Let’s keep going, then, but carefully,” he said.

Qainur nodded and continued along the dangerous path.

The scenery did not change much. Snow from the recent blizzard still covered most of the path along with some small obstacles. A wrong step upon even the smallest pebble could send a man into the vast chasm below.

Every so often a light wind would blow snow from the higher branches; the sun glistened off the multitude of crystals, and for brief moments the entire valley looked out of focus. Zhy again wondered how such big trees could grow here, when they were clearly above the tree line. Perhaps the seith’s powers were at work here.

After a while, the trail seemed to widen slightly, but each traveler still kept his eye on the snowy and uneven ground.

Qainur suddenly stopped. Zhy and Torplug nearly slammed into him and stumbled. Thankfully, they remained upright and didn’t go sailing down the canyon. The mercenary looked at a set of stone stairs and scratched his head. As his eyes rose to take in the strange structure, his jaw dropped. The others followed his gaze and were equally stunned.

A stone stairway rose in front of them. The canyon was still to their left, but the trees thinned as the rise seemed reached the heavens. The stairs were tiny and snow-covered. Tufts of wind would blow snow from the stairs, and one could see moss underneath the snow. The staircase ascended at an impossible angle and rose high enough to nearly touch the clouds—had there not been an enormous castle as their terminus. Zhy craned his neck, looking upward, and guessed the structure rose nearly a quarter of a mile, perhaps slightly less.

It is as big as the Counsel headquarters in Belden City
, Zhy thought.

The building was a veritable castle with ramparts, towers, and chimneys. An army could be housed there but only if the staircase could support the weight. The entryway was unusually small, however, barely enough for a horse and small cart. There was no great gate. But who needed that if the entrance had been so well protected? And how could such a structure have been built here?

He looked back along the route they had traversed and gasped. Even though most of the trail disappeared around a bend, they had still traveled a long way on a dangerous path—the great balsams stretched out almost endlessly towards Gray Gorge. Farther down the pass, a gust of wind sent a massive balsam branch snapping out into the trail. Zhy was thankful they had not been around, for the branch surely would have knocked one or more of them into the ravine.

Then he shook his head and slowly turned back to gaze at the gargantuan castle that didn’t fit here. It seemed to offer no excuses for its existence but stood stoic and proud against both man and nature. Its silent hulk seemed to whisper quietly. Or was that the wind? Zhy swore he heard a voice in the thin air and the ice-cold breeze. It said,
I am doom and despair.

Qainur swatted at something in the cold air.

“What is the matter?” Torplug asked.

“Thought I heard a fly buzzing,” the mercenary said. He too was staring at the strange castle, but again he swatted at something. His face was growing red with irritation.

“There are no flies around here.”

The mercenary grumbled.

“Maybe he hears the voices,” Zhy remarked to Torplug.

“What voices?” Torplug and Qainur answered in unison.

“Don’t you hear it?”

“No…” The mage shook his head slowly. “Maybe you—” He broke off, taking a quick glance along the trail, then up the long set of stairs, and finally at the castle.

“What?”

“This place…this place is wrong,” he muttered.

“I think that is stating the obvious.”

Torplug chuckled without levity.

“Wrong?” Qainur asked. “It’s just different.”

“No,” Zhy snapped. “Different is having a cat with two eyes of a different color. This almost has an odd smell even. Very wrong. It doesn’t fit.”

“Actually,” Torplug explained slowly. “It’s not that kind of wrong, either. I’m not exactly sure…but something isn’t right. Maybe I’m tired. So far I don’t sense any magic…maybe that is why.”

“Huh?” Qainur blurted, confused.

“I would expect magic to cover this place like maggots on a dead ox. If a great seith or warlock is here, there would be wards and traps, all sorts of things. But there is nothing. Just snow and rock.”

“But if his powers are warded…?”

“No, even then there would be something to hold him here. Maybe no one is here, and that’s why it feels so strange.” He paused. “Maybe…maybe…” The mage trailed off. “Well…” He was having quite an animated debate with himself. He would mutter something, shrug, hold out a palm in the air, smile, then scowl again, and shrug. Finally, he looked up. “Maybe there is magic, but it’s old. Or there are just remnants.” He paused again and whispered faintly, “Or it’s disguised.”

“I don’t get it,” Zhy said.

“Sometimes those without the gift of magic can still sense it, especially if it is the remains of powerful magic. Those of us trained at the University have learned to ignore such things, as the world buzzes with magic in many places, and we would go mad—” His line of thinking suddenly derailed. “Ah, but never mind. No, if the seith were mad, there would still be wards! It is all very strange.”

Qainur only shook his head. “That’s not all that is strange around here. So you think maybe there is no magic here?”

He shrugged. “It is possible.”

“Hrmph.”

Zhy thought for a moment. That could explain everything. A castle like this seemed very strange in the mountains—if it were abandoned, that would make it even stranger. And no magic?

Qainur interrupted his thoughts. “I think we should find out.”

“Find out what?” the mage asked.

“Find out if anyone is still here. I came this far to learn from him. Let’s see if he is here.”

A confused look passed over Torplug’s face. “I wouldn’t expect you to just stop here and quit!”

Qainur laughed, his breath pluming out in the frozen air. “Of course not! I just—well, it does seem kind of strange, doesn’t it?”

“If you say that one more time…” Zhy remarked, but there was no emotion behind it. He was exhausted and apprehensive. Apprehensive was an understatement. The thin air was challenging to breathe, but it wasn’t the altitude that had sucked the air from his lungs and set his heart racing. They had arrived. This could be it. The end. The destination. Someone or something—maybe nothing—awaited them atop those stairs. He felt like he had finally reached the warm beach only to find a hard scrabble instead of soft white sand. Or worse, like when he had gone out to find Father in the fields and found only a corpse. He shivered briefly and stared ahead. It had once been said that the end of a journey was the start of another, but Zhy only felt as if he were coming up against a blank wall, against a future that was black and meaningless. There was no way to stop it, no way to turn back.

Torplug gestured up the stone staircase. “After you.”

Zhy took another glance back at the trees, the mountains, and the endless snow and rock. He ignored the ravine below, wanting instead to focus on the fairly pleasant scenery. He sighed and then turned back and began the arduous climb up the stone stairs.

The massive, out-of-place castle loomed larger with each rugged step.

If looked at from afar, the mammoth castle would appear to have been set into the mountain with a careful hand. Or more accurately, it seemed like it had been placed gently into a clay mold, which in turn was left to harden. Even though it was enormous in size, it still resembled the castles Zhy had built on the beach, although he never imagined a castle covered in snow.
And we are in the middle of nowhere.

Snow-speckled rock hugged the smooth stone walls of the castle. While the walls rose up to level, even ramparts, the mountain on which they sat rose and dove in uneven waves. From some vantage points, one could make out tops of high mountain peaks in the far distance. In the high mountain air, the nearly precipitous rise upward was taxing—they felt as if they had walked miles but had only covered the first quarter of the massive staircase. And as the travelers inched closer to the structure, their view was slowly absorbed as the building loomed.

From Zhy’s perspective, it was like any other castle he had seen in Belden or in books. A tall square entryway led from the top of the stone staircase and led perhaps a hundred paces to a huge oak door supported by man-sized beams. Otherwise, the structure was all stone and rock. Walls stretched around to the right and left, following the terrain and back into unseen land. While it fit all descriptions of a castle, it was still…wrong.

No flags flew on the ramparts, and no sounds issued from within. Normally a castle would be crawling with people and activity. Where he expected to see smoke rising from cooking fires, Zhy saw nothing but charred hulls of chimneys. Something else struck him, too. There were no arrow slits or any other protective measures, apart from its location and the terrain surrounding the massive structure. Even in a peaceful nation, one never knew if such measures would ever be needed, so they were installed against possible future threats. This castle had no obvious protections, but then again, a fire built from all the trees in the valley would most likely only char the great wooden door. “This place is disturbing,” Zhy whispered. It was a castle, true, and it was strong against any attack, but it was out of place and…
wrong.

How many times can a word be used before it is meaningless? Wrong?
Everything is wrong!
he thought bitterly—or was he even thinking those thoughts? The cold was numbing. Wrong. Wrong? No, this is not wrong, it’s perfectly right. If only because it’s out-of-place, confusing, pointless, backwards, and utterly disturbing.