A dark-black castle towers beyond the rushing river. Where the three rivers meet, a water fortress floats over the center of the estuary. Once the drawbridge is raised, no boats can get inside without the help of wings. At least that’s how it appears from here.
“Sure enough, it’s a spider’s web all right.” Even I can see it, having come this close. A silver, flickerin’ and flashin’ barrier is surrounding the castle. “Grr.”
I furrow my brow and squint. Concentrating my energy into my eyes, I try to bring the castle into focus.
“What seems to be bothering you?”
“Hmm, how do I describe it? It’s a weird feeling. The castle is floating.”
“Floating?”
The skin around my eyes tingles and cramps. Dryness stings my eyeballs and I can’t stop blinking. Bizarre. No matter how I strain my eyes, I can’t see right.
“I know I said it’s floatin’, but I don’t mean it’s hovering in the air.”
“I know that much.”
“It wasn’t like this when I last saw it. It blended into the surrounding landscape more. The castle was as much a part of the landscape as the rivers, trees, and rocks. Now it’s kinda…” I lick my dry lips. Closing my eyes, I scour my entire vocabulary. I try to put my vague thoughts into words. “It looks like an extremely huge mammoth monster crouching. Something alive that shouldn’t be there, that shouldn’t exist is…”
Was it humans who made this?
Is it humans who live here?
“Maybe it’s due to the barrier. Or is it because the overall outline of the castle looks like it’s been tapered to a point for some reason?”
“I just tried comparing what you see to your memories. You are correct. Sharp garniture has been added to it. Primarily to the roof and parapet.”
“Aah.” These castle renovations are where all the tax money squeezed outta the people went to. “Makes sense to me.”
“The new owner of a nest or den always wishes to erase the prior owner’s lingering smell.”
I hope that doesn’t apply to the interior too.
Deep within the monastery that’s fallen to ruins, I arrive at a collapsed mausoleum. Although the door is sealed shut, it’s easy to climb over the wall’s wreckage.
“Okay, Buttercup, hold down the fort here for a bit.” I stroke my favorite horse’s snout and release his reins. “Lucky for you, there’s plenty of grass to graze here. Take it easy waiting for my return.” The amber warhorse whinnies and nuzzles me with his snout. “I’m off then… Up we go!”
Moonlight shines into the mausoleum, casting sharp shadows. There’s a clear separation between the places with light and the places without. Following along the wall, I count the systematically lined-up sarcophagi. One, two, three… Five of the six sarcophagi belong to successive generations of abbots. But the final one is—
“…This is it.”
Originally, it was meant to be opened from the other side. It’s backbreakin’ work to open it from this one. A statue of a peacefully sleeping abbot is carved into the thick stone lid like the other five, but in reality the designer fashioned the secret guardian based on his own appearance.
“Then, this person is not eternally resting here?”
“Nope. They say he was as fit as a bill—at least at the time he finished making this.”
“He has quite the demented smile aesthetic.”
“Yeah, he…does.” I place my hand on the sarcophagus lid. “I feel like I could…have a good drink with…this…guy…umph!” I put my whole body into pushing the lid.
SCRAPE! SCRAPE! SCRAPE! RUMBLE! RUMBLE! RUMBLE!
“Ooof!”
Centering my strength in my lower back, I give it the final push.
SCRAPE!
The heavy stone lid turns horizontally by using one of the four corners as a fulcrum. It absolutely won’t fall. It won’t break.
“I raise my claw in salute to the designer’s talents. However, this is…”
Total darkness waits inside the sarcophagus. Moldy, humid air blows up from the hole, hitting me square in the face. Tastes like a grave and smells like one too.
“A staircase,” I answer for him.
I knock flint together. Sharp scraping sounds reverberate through the mausoleum. Sparks fly and catch my improvised torch, lighting it on fire—it’s come in handy, just like it’s supposed to. Lifting the torch up to illuminate it, the descending staircase looks exactly like some kind of endless road to the center of the world.
Step by step, I cautiously make my way down. Barely any traces of past use are left on the stone staircase. Lifeless moss clings loosely to the bottom of my boots, but less and less of it appears the farther down I go.
Not even moss will grow where the stairs end.
A stone passageway extends straight in front of me. Torch held aloft, I head deeper into the abyss. Thanks to my shared vision with Dragon, it’s pretty bright. But even he can’t see anything where no light exists. And our connection will be cut once I enter the barrier. It’ll be too late to panic once it happens. Nothing but unfathomable darkness pervades the castle’s underside.
“I am finding this somewhat difficult to comprehend. Why are you going underground? Is the castle not surrounded on all sides by water? Are the drawbridges and boats not the only ways in?”
Smart guys get hung up on what they see at times like this because of their incomplete knowledge. All the more so if they’re a smart lizard with wings.
“This castle exists because humans excavated the ground. After a great deal of digging they drained the water, and created an artificial wall to keep the water out afterwards. It looks like an island floating in an estuary, but it was originally a peninsula.”
“Oh!”
“Ya catch on fast, partner. This side’s a thousand times shallower than it appears to the blind eye.”
“This is quite the novel surprise.”
“Why didn’t you know that already?”
A long silence.
“It was not a scene from your memories.”
“…Well, yeah. Not like I was around to see ‘em actually build it. Just knowledge I’m aware of.”
Water drips down from the arched ceiling. The height of the pillars increases dramatically compared to where I just came from.
“I’m under the river right now.” The water I was looking down on earlier is now flowing over my head.
“Astonishing structural skill must have gone into the design of this marvel of human ingenuity.”
“Yeah, gotta wonder how they excavated it… Makes me dizzy just thinking about it.”
“Now that is surprising to hear from the man who easily built an animal pen and a tiny stool for milking without many tools.”
“I had your help for that. Besides…”
“Besides?”
Water trickles down again. Many droplets cling to the wall’s stone framework as well. The tunnel’s dampness makes it chilly, like staying out under a drizzle or in the fog of a mountain storm blowing in off the coast. Trenches dug on both sides of the floor drain the water seeping in, directing it away from the actual tunnel.
“I’m a knight. Not a stonemason.”
I sense his faint laughter. What’s so funny? I’ve yet to figure out what makes him laugh.