The View From Castle Always

by Melissa McShane

  They ate in silence, even Tristram, who seemed subdued by the battle. Ailanthe looked out over the desert toward the distant, invisible city. If she could escape through this window, she would probably die before she ever reached its safety. But the window wouldn’t break, and she was too high up for her rope to reach the ground.

  She’d always wanted to visit Rius-zara, with its sprawling, vibrant cities. If Usael rather than Idantra were representative of his people, they were outgoing and kind and full of curiosity about other places. There were more Rius-zarans represented in the hero books than those of any other country. She ought to visit their museum room again, and it would be fun to try on some of the clothes—no, she’d have to face those mannequins again, and if Coren weren’t there….

  She shuddered. If the Castle could bring them to life, could animate suits of armor, there were whole rooms they’d have to avoid. And suppose the shadows tried to attack Coren, or Tristram? She felt a great weariness descend upon her. She would have to keep not only herself but the others safe, and she couldn’t be everywhere at once.

  “We will leave you now, my lady,” Tristram said, startling her out of her reverie. “Your companion and I will resume our search, and may I suggest you spend your morning in study of that book?”

  “What if something else attacks you?”

  “We can defend ourselves against most things, Ailanthe,” Coren said, “and I promise we will run screaming for you if that turns out to be a lie.”

  Ailanthe laughed at the image of two tall, strong men running down the halls of the Castle shrieking like children. “I’ll be in the Library, then,” she said, “after I retrieve the diary from the study.”

  “Did you not already do so, my lady?” Tristram said, indicating one of the chairs. The yellow-bound book lay atop it.

  Ailanthe crossed the room to pick it up. “How odd. The Castle didn’t remove this last night, like the sword.”

  “I thought you couldn’t use magic on magical things,” Coren said.

  “I can’t. I didn’t. But I wonder if it’s so magical, the Castle can’t affect it. Like it never takes away the key.”

  “That’s convenient,” Coren said. “It feels as if something’s finally on our side.

  “I agree.” She examined the diary as she walked down the stairs to the Library. Convenient, and fortunate, that she didn’t need to take control of it from the Castle. The was extremely magical and she was afraid her powers would have no effect on it other than to give her a blinding headache.

  She developed a normal kind of headache right away. The symbols still didn’t mean anything, and when she flicked her gaze quickly across them, she was only able to tell that what she glimpsed was in the Castle’s language and alphabet. She did this for about fifteen minutes, then searched the shelves, hoping somewhere in this room was a book on languages, or deciphering codes.

  She couldn’t find books in languages other than the Castle’s own; she recognized one or two titles of books she knew had been written by Idrijanese, or Eshkians, but the Castle had translated them from the original. Eventually she stumbled on a few books about how languages develop over time, which were interesting but quickly became too complex for Ailanthe to follow. She put them away with a sigh.

  She returned to the yellow-bound book and opened the front cover. Gweron. It was probably his study they’d found, the first real evidence someone had occupied the Castle before them. No way of knowing how long ago he—or was it a she? It sounded like a man’s name, an Enthalian name—had lived here, or when he’d left, or why he’d left, but he’d had powerful magic for a kerthor and Ailanthe wished she could meet him, if only to shake the secret of his diary out of him. Maybe the Castle had killed him. It would have killed Coren and Tristram, and probably her, if she hadn’t been able to overcome its control of the weapons.

  She flipped through the pages rapidly, catching glimpses of letters alone or in pairs, then shut the book, laid it aside and rubbed her forehead.

  The lights went dim. Ailanthe looked up and saw about half of them had gone dark. The remaining lights cast shadows across the bookshelves and the chairs. A stripe of shadow lay across the table she was working at, falling across her hands, and she felt a chill grip them. Across the room, the shadows shifted.

  “No,” she breathed, and tried to encompass the dark lights, pictured them blazing and sending the shadows fleeing. Something fought her for control. It held on to the connection the Castle had to the lights and made it iron-hard, unyielding, and she tried to snap it with no different result than if she’d tried to break an actual iron cable with her hands.

  The gray shadows bulged and spread across the walls toward her. She couldn’t stop watching them, how they hunched and stretched like rippling caterpillars, but faster, so fast she could only see their bodies’ movement as a pulsing flood of gray dust rolling toward her. She strained against the Castle’s control, but it was so much stronger than she was, and it felt so indifferent to her oncoming death she screamed at it in fear and fury.

  Then the shadows were upon her like a gray wave, wrapping her in their clinging threads. They burrowed inside her, choking her lungs and covering her eyes in burning cold spider webs. Lights whirled in front of her eyes, her dizzy, air-starved brain trying to make shapes of them but unable to stop them moving.

  In terror, she struck out, not at the cables, but at the Castle, putting all her anger and despair at being trapped into a scream that came not from her throat but from deep within her body, and it rocked back as if she’d punched it. In its moment of distraction, she reached past it and broke the connection and made one of her own, and willed the lights back on.

  The Library suddenly blazed with light. The freezing tendrils withdrew so quickly they seemed to slice her flesh like razors. Breathing the warm air deeply, she scanned the room. Nothing. She touched her face, expecting to feel blood, but her skin was intact and dry, parched as if the moisture had been sucked out of it.

  She rubbed at the places where the shadows had grabbed her, trying to erase both the numbing cold and the terror at how close they’d come to killing her. Trembling, she took control of the remaining lights so the Castle wouldn’t be able to try that again. Then she sat with her hands gripping the arms of her chair and shook. It had fought her and nearly won. It would have killed her if she hadn’t been lucky, and it wasn’t going to stop trying. The next time, it might succeed.

  She stared down at the diary. Somewhere in its pages was the key to her escape, and the Castle didn’t want her finding it. She opened it again. How could it be a danger to the Castle if she couldn’t even read it?

  Her hands shook, and she clenched them tight. Her right hand still hurt, and she thought she might have hurt it more in the fight with the weapons, but she closed it tighter, welcoming the pain as evidence that the Castle hadn’t killed her. Yet.

  A couple of tears rolled down her face, and she wiped them away impatiently. She didn’t have time for self-pity. She was alive, and that was what mattered, because as long as she was alive she would keep fighting the Castle and it wasn’t going to defeat her.

  She remembered the suffocating, freezing darkness, and then the tears wouldn’t stop flowing. Depending on luck to keep her alive was like throwing herself off that tower and expecting the air to cushion her fall. Someday soon her luck would turn, and the Castle would kill her, and nothing she did could stop that.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Footsteps sounded on the stones of the hall outside, and Ailanthe wiped her eyes. “Ailanthe, there’s something I want to show you,” Coren said. He was going to know she’d been crying and she didn’t want his pity. She wiped her eyes again and hoped her nose wasn’t red.

  “What is it?” she said, not turning around.

  “It looks like—what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I’m fine.”

  He knelt next to her chair. “You’re crying. That’s not fine.”

  His face was so full of
concern for her she couldn’t keep the tears from spilling over again. She stood and walked away from him, not sure if she was crying because she’d nearly died or because she was hopelessly in love with someone who would never love her in return, slant or straight.

  She took a few deep breaths and regained control of herself. “The Castle made a more direct attack,” she said. “It fought me when I tried to stop it. I’m just a little overwhelmed.”

  Coren put his hands on her shoulders and stopped her when she would have moved farther away. He gently turned her to face him and put his arms around her, drawing her close. “We shouldn’t have left you alone,” he said. “I thought, with how powerful you’re becoming…but I forgot how much more powerful the Castle is, and I was stupid not to realize it might attack you again. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault. I didn’t think of it either, and I should have.” She rested her cheek against his shoulder and let him hold her. It doesn’t mean anything, she told herself, we’re friends, but what might happen if she returned his embrace? She half-raised her arms, let them fall to her side again, embarrassed at the awkwardness of their embrace. She was a coward as well as a fool.

  “If you were hurt…Ailanthe, I would never forgive myself,” Coren said.

  “I told you, it wasn’t your fault.”

  “It’s not about fault,” he said. His voice sounded strange, and she looked up at him and found herself caught by that direct, serious gaze she remembered from the first day they’d met. “Ailanthe,” he said, then seemed at a loss for what to say next.

  Ailanthe’s heart beat faster. Slowly, she put her arms around his waist and drew him closer to her. For a moment, they stood there unmoving, Coren’s face expressionless, and as the silence stretched out she felt certain she had made a terrible mistake. He didn’t care for her. He was silent because she’d embarrassed him.

  She was about to tear free of his arms and run to her room to hide when he lowered his head and kissed her.

  She responded without thinking, leaning into his kiss as if she were drowning and it was the only thing keeping her afloat. He smelled wonderfully of musk and sweat and a trace of citrus, golden and sweet. She moved her arms from his waist to his neck and his arms tightened around her, his strong hands sliding across her back as he kissed her again, tenderly, his lips soft on hers. She felt more tears, these of joy and relief, spring to her eyes.

  Coren drew back and touched her cheek. “I’d hoped that would make you stop crying,” he said with a smile.

  A chill touched her heart. “Is that why you kissed me? To make me stop crying?”

  “I kissed you,” Coren said, wiping her tears away, “because I love you, Ailanthe. I’ve been trying to tell you for days now, but that damned Tristram kept interrupting me.”

  Ailanthe smiled, and if it was a little wobbly, he didn’t seem to care, because his own smile broadened. “I’ve wanted you to kiss me for so long,” she said.

  “I was afraid you’d think I only wanted you because you’re the first woman I’ve seen in six years,” Coren said.

  “Tristram told me you were slant, and I didn’t have a chance.”

  Coren’s expression went from astonished to angry and ended up amused. “Tristram is a lying bastard,” he said, “and I would go find him and beat him bloody if I weren’t so content with where I am right now.”

  “He was probably just mistaken.”

  “Ailanthe, men who look like Tristram have enough men throwing themselves at them that they learn to recognize the type. He knew I wasn’t slant and he probably told you that to give himself a better chance at winning your heart.” He kissed her again, harder this time, his fingers brushing the nape of her neck and sending heat flooding through her body that made her tighten her grip around his neck when he would have pulled away.

  “Don’t stop,” she whispered, and he brushed his lips against hers, slid his hands down her back to her waist and lower, caressing her until she felt she might explode. “My room,” she murmured.

  “Tristram’s coming back soon,” Coren replied between kisses. “There’s no time.”

  “Later. Promise me.”

  “I swear it.” He kissed her one last time and released her, brushing her cheek with his fingertips. “I really did have something to show you,” he said.

  “What is it?” She didn’t really care what it was, could only think about Coren removing her clothes and touching her with those wonderful hands, but obediently went to look at the thing on the table.

  “It was in the study,” Coren said. “We went back to see if there was anything we’d missed, and Tristram, the lying bastard, found a false back to that empty drawer. And this was in it.”

  It was a palm-sized lens set in a brass frame that had tiny buttons all around its rim. It glowed with magic nearly as strong as the diary’s. Ailanthe picked it up and touched one of the buttons, which slid along a faint groove in the rim. There was a click, and the lens went from clear to pale transparent blue. “It’s definitely magical,” she said, touching another button. The lens turned red. She picked up the diary and opened it, then held the lens over the page. “It’s still gibberish,” she said.

  “I’ll bet altering the lens changes what it can see,” Coren said. “Take a look around the room.”

  Ailanthe held it to her eye. “The magic on the books is stronger now. It looks like…sort of like snakes instead of rainbow sparkles.” She held it out to Coren, who took a turn.

  “Amazing,” he said. “Is this how it looks to you all the time?”

  “Not the snakes, but yes.”

  Coren pushed the first button back into its original position, which turned the lens a pale violet, then held it to his eye again. “No change.”

  Ailanthe accepted it from him. “Oh, ew,” she said, because through the lens Coren’s skin had become a transparent jellylike mess through which she could clearly see his muscles and blood vessels. She swung around to look at the tree in the center of the library and saw the bark had also gone transparent and she could see through to the wood underneath. “Let’s not use that lens again.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I like the way your outsides look.” She smiled at him, feeling another rush of joy that he loved her. Had she said she loved him? She ought to say it to him often.

  “My lady, is my discovery of help to you?” Tristram said from the doorway.

  Coren took a few angry steps toward the door. Ailanthe shook her head at him, and he subsided, glaring at Tristram. She said, “I think so, Tristram. Congratulations on your find.”

  “I have brought sustenance, if you would care to join me?”

  “I’ll be there in a minute. I have to…tidy things up.” When he was gone, Ailanthe said, “Don’t beat him bloody.”

  “I think I have a right to pummel him for making you miserable.”

  “I think it would be far more fun to let him believe he’s winning my heart and then, oh, we could start kissing in front of him or something.”

  “That’s pretty extreme, don’t you think?”

  “I’m kidding. Just…leave him alone. Don’t you think it’s enough that I’ll never love him? If he pushes the issue, I’ll let him down gently.”

  Coren laughed. “I think pummeling him would be more satisfying, but we can do it your way.”

  “Thank you. Now I’m going to eat.” She picked up the lens, then kissed him once more. “And then I’m going to figure out what this lens can do.”

  After lunch, Ailanthe settled down with the lens, a stack of paper and a pen and ink. The Castle didn’t fight her when she exerted her will over the last three items. That didn’t relieve her mind. The Castle’s attacks came at random, and in unexpected ways; Ailanthe would never have guessed it would have tried that trick with the weapons. Even so, she brought in her three lamps and made about fifteen more, and set them throughout the Library.

  Coren eyed her preparations grimly, but said nothing except, �
�We’ll be back in a few hours.” Tristram bowed, and kissed her hand, and gave her his dazzling smile, and Ailanthe smiled back and managed not to roll her eyes. Behind Tristram, Coren shook his head in mock despair.

  When they’d gone, Ailanthe set the lens back to its original, clear state, then drew a picture of the lens and its six buttons. With all six at the right side of their slots, the lens was clear. She held the lens up so she was looking through it, then pushed the button nearest to her, the one that turned it blue, and looked through it at the diary’s first page. Nothing changed.

  She looked around the room and saw nothing out of the ordinary. She drew a little sketch of how the buttons were set, wrote “blue” next to it, and a question mark. It might reveal something that wasn’t in this room. She set it back to the “start” position, as she thought of it, and moved on to the next button.

  There were so many possible combinations, and so many colors. She had to go back to her first note and change it to “lt. blue” and later to “vy. lt. blue” as more blue shades appeared. Most of the settings didn’t appear to do anything. There was the one that made magic visible, and the one that saw through living tissue, but there was another that turned all the sprites green and opaque, and one that made black spots in front of every light source and caused her to nearly drop the lens in fear that it had actually extinguished them. None of the settings made the symbols intelligible.

  After more than a hundred experiments, she pushed all the buttons back to their original settings and laid the lens down on the book. This might be a complete waste of time, but what else did she have to do? Well, Coren and Tristram might need her help exploring, to identify magic when they came across it, and she might provide a buffer because she wasn’t totally sure Coren might not still pick a fight with Tristram. She wouldn’t be terribly angry if he did, and it might make Tristram decide to leave, which would leave Coren and Ailanthe alone again in the Castle, and that had all sorts of possibilities.