The View From Castle Always

by Melissa McShane

  As she went down the stairs, something brushed past her legs—the cat again. He’d followed her on her investigation, vanishing at times, but always returning, as if his feline senses knew where she was at all times. Now he ran down the stairs, pausing to look back up at her. Clearly she was moving too slowly for him.

  “You look like you want food,” she said. For answer, he ran ahead of her into the kitchen and leaped onto the stone-topped counter in the center of the room. “Does Coren usually feed you? I suppose I could find you something, as long as I’m here.”

  A quick search turned up a tray of chicken livers, which she cut into morsels and set on the counter for the cat to eat. She put the rest back in the very cold room she’d found them in, so cold it had a bluish haze hovering inside it. It was full of all kinds of meat and fish, great slabs of beef hanging from hooks, smaller cuts laid out neatly on racks.

  “Who eats all of this?” she asked the cat, poking one of the carcasses and watching it swing gently. She sniffed the air and smelled nothing rancid, just the faint aroma of fresh raw meat. She eyed a neatly sectioned chicken and wished there were a fireplace in here, with a spit, or a gyrsta she could fry meat on. She sighed and closed the door, and contented herself with more fruit, bread, cheese, and something brown that smelled deliciously sweet and melted on her fingers when she broke off a piece. She ate it, licked her fingers—rich and sweet and delicious. She took two thick slabs.

  “This way, I can eat my breakfast without having to come back here in the morning,” she told the cat, who sniffed at her round of cheese. She fed him a nibble of the soft yellow stuff. “I didn’t realize cats liked cheese. I wonder what Coren calls you? I don’t plan to be here much longer, but I can’t just refer to you as ‘cat’. That would be rude.”

  She arranged her stack of food, took another bite of the delicious brown stuff, and climbed all the way back to the Library level. There was a bedroom near Coren’s stairs, close enough for an imagined companionship but not so close as to intrude. Ailanthe thought Coren might have been a fairly reserved man even before he was trapped for six years with no one to talk to, but those flashes of humor told her there was a real person inside the shell he’d built for himself, even if he did seem to like being alone. She, on the other hand, was already starting to feel anxious about not having anyone but the cat for conversation.

  The bed was too soft; she felt as though it might swallow her up. She piled her food on a low table at the foot of the bed, took pillows and blankets and made a nest for herself on the floor. Then she went back to the Library.

  Whatever magic had replaced her language with the Castle’s own had made her literate in the new language too. There were so many books she didn’t even know where to start. Finally she found a section of the Library devoted to books on all the countries of the world, and chose a volume titled Hesperan Journeys. Maybe this would give her and Coren some common ground for conversation. Or maybe he didn’t want to talk about home when he had no way of getting there. Well, Ailanthe thought, it doesn’t hurt to be well-informed about his customs. And I do love reading about other places. When I get out of here, maybe I’ll see some of them.

  The cat curled up in her lap as she sat in her nest, reading and eating, though she had to be careful not to get the sweet brown stuff on the book’s pages. After only a few chapters, however, she found herself reading the same line over and over again, and the weariness of the day’s activities settled into her bones with a dull ache that made her pillow look incredibly inviting. She closed the book and set it near her head, then stretched out, bumping the cat off her lap. It walked away without complaint, and Ailanthe realized she’d never heard it meow. Strange cat, she thought muzzily, strange castle, strange world, and sank into sleep.

  Someone passed a peach-scented cloth across her face, and she batted at it, her fingers passing through what felt like cold fog that made the peach smell even stronger. She opened her eyes, but saw nothing. Something was digging into her back and hips. She rolled onto her side and discovered she was sleeping on bare floor, her face level with the underside of the bed. Her pillow was gone. Her blankets were gone.

  She sat up quickly. A glance revealed her pile of food and her book were gone as well. She scrambled to her feet and patted herself; all her clothes were in place, and her small bag of gear was in the corner where she’d left it the night before. She heard her breath coming in quick, panicked pants.

  She made herself take slow breaths, then clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a shriek. The blankets and pillows were on the bed, neatly tucked in as if she’d never moved them. She reached out to touch the bed, then grabbed a handful of the top blanket and yanked it off, threw it as far from her as she could, and stared at it, willing it to do something mysterious. It lay there motionless. She kicked it, and it lifted an inch or so off the ground and settled back down.

  Ailanthe turned and ran for the stairs, pounding up them and into Coren’s chambers without thinking of what an intrusion it might be. He wasn’t in any of the rooms. She turned around and ran back toward the stairs and shrieked when Coren stepped out of the bathroom. His hair was wet and he had a freshly-shaved look to him. He blinked at her in surprise. “Are you all right?”

  “Something was in my room,” Ailanthe panted. She knew she must look like a madwoman, her pale brown hair flying like an untidy halo around her face and into her eyes, but she was too overwhelmed to care. “It took my food and my blankets and made the bed. What kind of insane creature lives in this place, and why didn’t you warn me about it?”

  “It’s not a creature, it’s the Castle,” Coren said. “I forgot you wouldn’t know about it. I’m sorry.” He did sound sorry, but even so, Ailanthe had to clench her fists to keep from yelling at him again. Probably he’d been here long enough he took all the strange things the Castle did for granted.

  “So it takes things away from you?” she asked, more calmly.

  Coren moved away from her toward the stairs. “It doesn’t like things to be changed,” he said. “Puts everything back the way it was around midnight. You can’t even move a chair so much as an inch out of position without the Castle moving it back again. Fixes broken things, cleans up messes, all that.”

  Ailanthe followed him down the stairs, almost running to keep up with his longer strides. “But the food is all fresh. If it just keeps moving it back—”

  “I don’t know how that works. It doesn’t reassemble the food we eat or we’d starve to death, what with it reclaiming loaves of bread and such from our bodies. Maybe it restores the food to its freshest state every night. All I know is there’s always enough food to feed a Castle full of people, which is a mystery by itself.”

  Ailanthe remembered 6YRS 23 DAYS and asked, “Does that mean…your wall, the Castle repairs it every night?”

  Coren nodded. “And every morning I carve a new number into it.”

  “But…” She couldn’t think of anything to say that didn’t sound like a criticism.

  “Castle’s going to keep me here, I’m not going to make it easy,” he said. His tone was light, almost joking, but his eyes were serious. “I told you, if I take something from the Honor Hall, the Castle will send me out into the world far from my home to have ‘adventures’ that will probably get me killed. I figure, maybe if I make it uncomfortable enough, it will get the hint.” He paused. “Now that I say it out loud, it sounds a little crazy,” he said, and laughed. “I guess by now it’s habit.”

  “No, I understand,” Ailanthe said, and felt a rush of sympathy for him, though she had to admit if she were in his place, she’d have given in to the Castle before a month was up.

  They crossed the blue hall to the kitchen annex. The counter where Ailanthe had fed the cat chicken livers was clean and glossy instead of stained with fluid—Ailanthe had figured out how to make water come from the pipe, but had found no cloths for cleaning.

  “Coren,” she said, “why do you take food all the way back to yo
ur rooms instead of eating here? That’s a long trip.”

  Coren shrugged. “I like the view from upstairs,” he said, “and it’s another way I can…I don’t know. Remind the Castle that I’m here and I’m not giving in to its rules. We can eat down here if you want.”

  “No, I’d rather the window room.” It raised her spirits to know he assumed she’d eat with him. The cat jumped onto the counter, startling her. She stroked his sleek black and white fur and went to the cold room for some chicken. “What’s the cat’s name?” she asked.

  “Don’t know. Never gave him one.”

  “Why not?” She began cutting the chicken into small pieces, pushing the cat’s nose out of the way of the knife.

  “Just didn’t think about it. He’s lived here longer than I have; maybe he’s got a name and he’s not telling.”

  Ailanthe looked at Coren sideways. “Are you being serious?”

  “No. I never thought about it, that’s all.” He grinned and scratched the cat under its chin briefly.

  “Well, I’m going to call him Miriethiel.”

  Coren paused in selecting fruit from a basket. “Isn’t that a girl’s name?”

  “It can be a boy’s name too—and how do you know that story?”

  “I read a lot, remember?” Coren surveyed her much smaller pile and added a few strangely-shaped yellow fruits to it. “That’s a lot of chocolate you have there.”

  “Is that the brown stuff? I love it. How much is too much?”

  “Why don’t you eat it, and you tell me.” He smiled at her, his eyes twinkling, and Ailanthe smiled back. It was so good to have someone to talk to who actually answered.

  This time, Coren sat by the western windows, which looked out over an ocean whose shore stretched in both directions without sign of human habitation. It seemed as though the Castle’s foundations went right up to the waterline. High, thin clouds obscured the pale light of dawn, making the waves below look gray under the whitecaps as they plunged toward the shore. Ailanthe leaned against the windowpanes overlooking the desert and ate bread and cheese and let her mind wander. Today she’d have to search the third floor. Maybe a quester would arrive today. Coren had said the timing varied; there was no reason people might not arrive two days in a row.

  “Here,” Coren said, holding out one of the curved yellow fruits. She came over to take it, but he snapped the stem at one end and peeled the skin back, revealing the pale yellow insides, then offered it to her. She gingerly took a bite. It was dry on the outside, but smooth and sweet on the inside. “I suppose this is called a yellow?” she said between bites.

  He grinned. “No, a banana. Comes from Rius-zara. I thought you might like it.”

  “I do. Thanks.” Something else occurred to her. “I haven’t seen any peaches, but I keep smelling them. Is there a tree in the Castle somewhere?”

  “Those are sprites. They live in the Castle, doing…I don’t know what they do. Float around, mostly. None of the books talk about them much. I think they might be loose magic. Sometimes they collect around me when I’m doing things, but not very often.”

  “Are they…alive, then? Creatures?”

  Coren shrugged. “I think of them that way because it feels like they get interested, sometimes, in what I’m doing. But they’re probably not.”

  Ailanthe surveyed the top of his head as he ate and stared out the window. You’re not as used to loneliness as you seem, she thought. “I don’t suppose there are any other useful things you didn’t think to tell me?” she said.

  Coren looked up at her. “It’s hard to guess what I know that you wouldn’t,” he said. “The Castle moving things. Chocolate. Oranges and bananas. You’ll probably come up with more questions,” he said with a grin.

  “Here’s one. Who built this Castle, and why isn’t that person around anymore? Why isn’t this place filled with people?”

  “I’ve never learned the answer to that. It’s not in any of the books I’ve read—though with as many books as are in the Library, it’s likely I haven’t found the right one yet. Maybe you will.” He stood and stretched. “I’m going to exercise now.”

  “Do you exercise every day?”

  “It’s something to do. Usually I exercise after breakfast, then I read for a while. Sometimes I go to the museum rooms or the galleries. There’s not a lot to do here in the Castle.”

  Coren took the big sword from where it stood under one of the windows and removed the sheath with a metallic rasping sound. He laid it on one of the puffy cubes and removed his tunic. He was well-muscled, with brown skin a few shades paler than his hair, and he moved so gracefully he made even picking up the sword look like the first moves of a dance. Ailanthe realized she was staring.

  “I, uh, I’ll just take my food to my room,” she said, and hurried away.

  Back in her room, she put the food on the bed and sat next to it. The Castle put everything away at midnight? How demoralizing. It was fortunate she had no intention of making a life here. She tore off a hunk of bread and bit deeply into it. The smell of peaches floated past again, and she turned her head, trying to isolate it. There, to the left, something that reflected the light just enough to reveal something was there.

  Ailanthe looked at it for a while and realized she saw it more clearly out of the corner of her eye. It didn’t look like a person. It looked like a sheet of transparent fabric that contracted and stretched as it floated through the air, sometimes bunching up like a wad of dandelion fluff and sometimes spread flat like a leaf. Ailanthe reached out to touch it. It didn’t avoid her touch; in fact, it curved around her hand and wrist before floating away in a different direction. It felt the way it had when one had woken her that morning, like dry fog she could pass her fingers through. In a moment it drifted into the wall, passed through it, and was gone.

  Ailanthe lowered her hand. Sprites. They weren’t even the strangest thing she’d seen all morning. She ate a little more until she was full, then stood. Third floor? Or the Library? She ran her hands through her hair, scratching her head, and felt the key bump gently against her cheek. She took it in her hand and turned it around, watching the silver streaks flow over the slender golden shaft. Or she could try a different approach.

  Chapter Five

  She ran back up to Coren’s rooms, finding him in the middle of some complicated exercise involving the enormous sword. He didn’t stop when she came in. “Yes?” he said. He was sweaty now, and Ailanthe had to make herself stop staring again.

  “I was going to ask you if you know what this key fits,” she said, waving it at him.

  “Just a minute,” he said. He continued through the movements of his exercise. Ailanthe shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other. He must be so tired of her questions and her interruptions. She was about to apologize and leave when he brought the sword around in what seemed to be a finishing move, laid it down, and crossed the room toward her. He held out his hand and Ailanthe removed the key from her wrist and handed it to him.

  He examined it in silence, holding it up to better catch the light. “It looks magical,” he said. “I didn’t think the Castle handed out anything magical.”

  “You said it couldn’t be keeping me here.”

  “Maybe I was wrong.” He held it close to his eyes. “I can’t think of any unusual lock it might go to. There are a lot of locked things in the Castle, though, doors and chests and trinkets. You might have to try every lock until you find it.” He handed the key back to her. “If you find out what it opens, I’d like to know. I’ve never seen anything like it before.” He paused, then, with a wry smile, said, “Any other questions?”

  Ailanthe flushed. “I’m sorry I keep intruding,” she began, but he shook his head.

  “It’s nice to have someone else to talk to,” he said. “But I’ve been alone a long time, so don’t be offended if I forget you’re there.” He smiled. Ailanthe smiled back.

  “I’m going to explore the third floor today,” she said. “So I’l
l…see you later.”

  He nodded and turned away, picking up the sword again. Ailanthe made her escape. He wasn’t as withdrawn as she’d first thought, and he certainly seemed welcoming enough now, but she still felt like an intruder on this strange, isolated life he’d made for himself. It was tempting to think in terms of doing him a favor by dragging him out of his isolation, but Ailanthe had never been good at deciding what was best for other people. She knew her interest in Coren was purely selfish: she disliked being alone, had always hated it, and she could admit to herself he was the only thing keeping her sane.

  She tossed the key in her hand, once, twice, catching it by the chain and letting it swing free. It must open something extraordinary, she thought, and remembered something Coren had said the day before, about the tallest spot in the Castle. That door had to be on this level somewhere; suppose it was the lock the key opened? Key in hand, she set off down the hall.

  Most of the rooms here at the top of the Castle were locked, but Ailanthe’s key was clearly too big to fit any of the doors. The windowless halls were only dimly lit by more of the glowing hemispheres, which seemed to burn more weakly than their counterparts on the lower floors, or perhaps they were only dirty. A dinginess hung about the place, a griminess that didn’t match the rest of the Castle. If the Castle really were repairing itself every night, it had overlooked this area for years.

  Shadows clung thickly in corners and seeped from beneath the locked doors. Ailanthe caught movement out of the corner of her eye and turned a little too quickly, thinking she saw the shadows move; it was only five or six sprites, drifting along as if the dimness and the increasing eeriness didn’t affect them at all. If they were just pieces of loose magic, that was true. They floated in her direction and circled her head twice, brushing against her cheeks and hair, until she waved them away. Coren must have understated their interest in people; they certainly seemed to be attracted to her.