by David Wood
He stepped into one corner, the light from his candle flickering and casting huge shadows up the racks of bottles. But the shadows did not hold his attention. Again, the architecture was what took root in his mind. With his many years of working with stone and buildings, his well-trained eyes could not help but notice the finer details of his surroundings: The twisting bends and corners, nooks, and even crawlspaces of the place were incongruent with a simple wine cellar—even a spectacularly large one such as this—and he wondered whether the maze-like design had been intentional. He could see the stone walls behind the racks contributed to the overall design. It was not just the rack arrangement, though, it was something else, something he could not put a finger on. Perhaps the quality of the stone differed? Was it a stone much harder, and thus more difficult to cut? Or maybe the room had been fashioned from a naturally occurring cavern in the mountain? The other possibility—that the room had intentionally been designed with a maze-like quality, to confound and delay those moving through it—seemed absurd. That was something that belonged more on a battlefield, not in a damp wine cellar. He tried to examine the stone through the spaces in the wooden racks, but his feeble candlelight and the smoothness of the stone made it difficult to determine the material. Probably local limestone, but why would someone polish the stone down here?
Then he found the door.
Other than the access to the spiral stair, the door at the far back of the cellar was the only other egress. But the wide wooden door was locked, and Wagner did not have a key. He spent a moment looking at the wall where the door sat obstinately taunting him. He examined the frame of the door, the floor, and the corners of the wall. Yet another mystery, for yet another day. This place will be fun.
Then he turned and strolled across the floor to the doorway to the stairs. He began his ascent, and he whistled as he climbed. As an alpinist that had climbed in Bavaria and the Swiss Alps, a long trudge up a spiral stair held little difficulty for him, and he was excited to explore the rest of this strange castle.
When the curious German was gone, one of the racks of wine bottles swung silently away from a wall, like a hinged door. The bottles themselves were so snug in their wooden beds within the rack that no glass tinkled from the movement. The hinges on the rack were well oiled and moved in absolute silence. Behind the rack, an open stone doorway revealed a large room with a bed and several grated holes in the floor. The man that had been quietly standing in the room and watching Wagner stepped out. He closed the gliding wine rack façade and moved further into the gloom of the darkened cellar.
He had no need of candlelight to see. He was used to the dark. Life with the Master had given him certain gifts and opportunities, while at the same time taking away so much more. He knew the Master had hired the German to come restore some of the stonework around the castle. He had been expecting the man. Still, he was surprised the stonemason had found his way down to the wine cellar so quickly. The man had watched through the rows of dusty green bottles, while the stonemason puzzled over the door to the Master’s private room. He wondered how much the German might suspect. Impossible to tell. He knew only that it was his duty to protect the Master.
The German was tall and thin. His hair was a shaggy blonde mane that fell to the bottom of his collar. He had looked harmless enough until he began scrutinizing the wall of the Master’s lair, as if he were considering how best to knock it down with a sledgehammer. But then he had left, defeated by the simple lock on the door, whistling his way up the stairs as if he had no cares in the world.
The man moved from the wine rack to the foot of the stairs and strained his ears. He could just barely hear the stonemason, far above him up the twisting steps. Too cheery. The German did not belong. I will have to do something about it. He started up the stairs, thinking about how he might kill the German and make it look like an accident. The Master need never know.
Chapter 7
When dusk finally came, he would awake from his long slumber. The servant waited just outside the room for him, in the dark. The Master would wake quickly each time, stepping from his place of rest with nimble agility, and moving rapidly to the door. The servant would always greet him. It had been this way each day, for years.
The servant longed for these interactions with the Master. Most days, he would perform his duties around the castle as rapidly as he could, so that he might spend more time waiting, just outside the door to the Master’s chambers. Today had been different because of the presence of the nosy German. The servant had followed the German intruder unseen throughout the day. The servant understood why the stonemason had been invited to the castle, but he instantly disliked the man. He also hated to wait on the man, always making sure to include some of his saliva in the warm food he prepared for the German.
But thoughts of the German quickly faded as the servant checked his fob watch and saw the time. Even in the dark of the cellar, with no windows nearby and no sources of light, he could tell when dusk was upon him. He did not really need the watch. He always knew when the Master would wake.
He reached out for the latch to the door with one hand, the key in the other. He was about to slip the key into its cold metal lockplate when he heard the presence on the other side of the door. The lock tumbled of its own accord. The servant stepped back and held his breath, prepared to behold his beloved Master.
A gust of wind blew the door wide, and it slammed against the hard stone wall. The servant dropped to his knees, as he had done so many times. He hardly noticed the rough surface anymore through the callused skin on his bony legs.
“Master,” he whispered.
The Master stood and glared, his deep eyes like twin pools of lava tumbling through a black void. He looked down at the servant for a moment, then gently waved his hand, indicating that the servant should rise.
As he stood, almost a head taller than the Master, the servant was eager for a command, but more than that, he longed for the Master to fulfill his promise. A promise of immortality.
“Tell me,” the Master said. His voice was like a smooth scraping of fabric over rough stone. His eyes were devastating, even in the darkness. The servant would not meet those eyes. Not if he could help it.
Looking at the floor, the servant stepped back to allow his Master to walk first through the maze of wine racks. “The German has come, my Master. He has fed and explored the castle, before he settled in to his room on the west side. I put him on the second floor.”
The Master swept through the darkened cellar with no difficulty—the pattern of the racks was known to him, and he had no need for light to see. “Fine,” he told the servant. He paused at the door to the spiral stair that would lead him up and out. Into the night.
“Is there anything else?” his Master asked. There was a hint of menace in his voice. The servant understood that somehow, the Master knew there was more. He always knew. It was useless to try to hide something from him.
“The German found the door to your chambers,” the servant said. He took a quick step back against the wall of dusty wine bottles behind him, in case he had displeased the Master. Not that it would have made any difference. The retreat was instinctual. “He studied the door before departing. I do not like him. Will you kill him?”
The Master turned his eyes—embers now catching into brilliant flame—onto the servant. The servant felt his head being raised, his chin lifted by an unseen force, until his eyes met those of the Master. He wanted to whimper and cry, but he knew that would do no good.
The Master was silent for seconds, but it felt like minutes to the nervous servant. “He is a mason, Petran. He is interested in stone. He is also my guest. I must afford him every courtesy.”
The Master turned his eyes back to the doorway into the spiral stair, and Petran felt the power that had grasped his face in the darkness release its hold. He lowered his eyes to the floor again, grateful for the reprieve from his Master’s terrible wrath, but sullen about the verdict on the German.
<
br /> “All the same, Petran,” the Master began to ascend the stairs, a slow and measured step at a time. “Let us see if we can dissuade the man from returning to the cellar for awhile. You will ensure that the door at the top of the stairs remains locked. And you will watch him.”
“Yes, Master.” Petran dipped his head under the doorframe and followed his Master up the steps. It was always the same. The Master woke ravenously hungry, but he would take the first fifty or so steps at a leisurely pace, before his hunger aroused in him a greater need. Then he would flee up the stairs with abandon, seeking his first meal of the night. Petran would dutifully follow up the steps, until he was left behind.
“I hunger, Petran. Where shall I go tonight?” The Master’s voice was still calm, the embrace of his need not yet fully upon him. He would remain civil and restrained until it had him in its grip. Petran had seen it countless times. How he longed to know that need. To feel that power.
“There is a lovely new serving girl at the tavern. She is young.”
“I know. I have…seen her already,” the Master stopped on the steps to remove his shoes. Petran waited, then reached out his hand to receive the black leather shoes. The Master stretched his arms and his back. He did not turn to face Petran. “Do not wait up for me, Petran. I need you rested in the morning, to keep an eye on the German.”
With that, the Master reached out his hands to one wall on the side of the stairwell. He stepped up on to the wall with his toes finding purchase in crevices too small for Petran to see. Then, crawling like a spider, the Master worked his way up the wall toward the ceiling of the ascending passageway. In a blur, he was gone up the stairs. A creature of habit. Always the same. When the Master needed to run, he preferred the high places.
Chapter 8
A week passed before Wagner met the Count.
There was much to do during that time. Wagner had wandered the dark halls and the crevices of most parts of the vast castle to which he had access. Some of the parts of the castle were still locked, and he had made a careful note of those sections on the map the absentee Count had left for him. Others were inaccessible from fallen rubble and burnt or splintered timber. He came to the conclusion that the castle had suffered from a fire at some point in the last thirty years, and entire portions of the castle appeared to have been abandoned as a result. Black scorch marks were still visible in some places on the gray stone walls, and more than once he had encountered a pile of debris so high that it almost resembled an intentional barricade.
Still, he was determined to survey the extent of the damage to the structure, and he had even gone so far as to explore the base of the building along the cliffs, utilizing rope—and in one case on the northwest corner, going so far as to employ his alpine abilities with hammer and pitons. The damage was mostly superficial. The building had stood for hundreds of years and would continue to do so. Wagner made extensive notes and diagrams for areas requiring work, whether the need was minor or major.
In the week of exploration, he still did not encounter a single servant in the castle, yet his meals were always laid on the table three times a day. His room was cleaned as well. By the fourth day, with no sign of the Count or his helpers, Wagner began to plan a way to spy the servant setting out his meals. He rose two hours earlier and made his way to the large kitchen, with the intent of spotting the servant laying out the morning meal. But when he arrived in the kitchen, his place at the table had already been set. He finished the food and left the kitchen, then unexpectedly came back twenty minutes later, hoping to find the servant clearing the dishes, but the dishes were still in place on the table. When he went away and came back in another twenty minutes, the table had been cleared, and the dishes washed.
He gave up his espionage and resumed his explorations of the castle and his inspection of cracks and joints for a few hours. He lost track of time—he had intended to again attempt to catch out the servant at lunch—and by the time he made it back to the kitchen, his stomach growling for a snack, the table had been secretly prepared again.
On the sixth day he left a note on the table, thanking the invisible servant for the meals, and inviting the person to remain behind, so he might speak to him or her and ask questions about the nature of the damage to the building. He also left a short list of needed supplies, both personal and professional.
On the morning of the seventh day, his meal was set at the table again, as usual. There was no sign of any servant, but the items he had requested—a blank journal, a pen, washing soap, a small hand trowel, a larger shovel, and a pick ax—were all either on the table or leaning against it. He inspected the assembled tools. They were crude, but they would work to help him clear rubble and dig away any crumbling bits of mortar, so he could see just how far certain cracks on the third floor went.
He still had the upper reaches of the castle to explore and document on his Map of Improvements, as he came to think of it. And, of course, there was the thing he had discovered yesterday before hunger drove him down to dinner and then to sleep. It weighed on his mind, and he yearned to investigate it.
Right. Everyone needs to take a day of rest, he told himself.
Wagner returned first to his spacious room with the tools, and left them on a dressing table. He collected a small leather backpack he had brought with him from Germany, and he placed the leather-bound journal and the fountain pen inside it. Then he went to one of his larger valises, a rectangular black case, and retrieved one of his most prized possessions. The tan paper tube was about a foot long, with shiny brass rings capping either end. One of the brass caps held a bulbous convex glass. The all-new, American, “electric device” would allow him to see in the dark in brief flashes, but the filament and the zinc-carbon batteries would need to be shut off and rested often. Still, this tool, given to him by his policeman uncle in New York, would be just the thing for his explorations today. The tube, carefully packed in its velvet-lined wooden box, went into the small leather backpack, and he set off.
He mounted the narrow stairs to the third floor of the castle with an enthusiasm he had been lacking in his previous exploits. On those days, he had been working, mapping, and analyzing damage. Today, he would be indulging his hobby. So when he reached the corridor off the wooden stairs that led to the darkened third floor hall, with its dreary stone walls and lack of windows, Wagner was not put off. He moved into the gloom away from the stairs, and waited until he could no longer see in the darkness, before he lit a match to get a glimpse of his surroundings. He had previously explored some of this hallway, and he remembered the double doors of banded wood that led to his destination. He would save the American device for later, when it would be more useful. For now, the flickering orange flame from his wooden match threw off all the wavering light he needed. He proceeded down the maroon Oriental rug that lined the long corridor until he reached the double doors. Outside the doorway was a black iron sconce with the three candles he had placed the day before. He lit them just as the match began to gutter. The first two candles caught, but the third did not. Still, the light from the two red wax sticks illuminated the hallway before the wooden match died. He raised one of the candles, careful not to allow any wax droplets to fall onto the carpet. He lit the third candle in the sconce and replaced the first stick in its place.
His hands now free, he moved to the double doors and swung them both inward, then inhaled the smell and smiled. The distinctive odor of a library swept over him, filling him with memories of his childhood. Paper. Dust. Glue. Leather. Some mildew, although he would not know the extent of the damaged volumes until he had taken an inventory of the place. He stepped into the blackness and stopped to squat on the floor. He removed his pack and the wooden box. Now was the time for the “flashlight,” as people were coming to call the American electric device. He would only be able to use it in short bursts, but it would be enough for him to determine whether it would be safe to bring some of the candlesticks in and light sconces or candelabra. He would not
risk setting an entire library aflame.
The blaze of yellow light from the carbon-filament device showed a massive room with what Wagner guessed must have been at least twenty-thousand volumes, all carefully resting on beautifully carved wooden shelving that lined the walls and ran up into one of the castle’s towers for at least three further floors. Delicate wrought iron spiral stairs led up into the upper reaches of darkness. Wagner caught his breath and shut off the tube. “Mein Gott!”
The floor appeared, in his quick glance with the electric light, to be all white marble and was clear of papers or books, so he now had no fear of using the candles. He stepped back out of the room and pulled a bare candlestick from the sconce on the wall, and then re-entered the room with it. The glow of the flame lent a far warmer feeling to the already magical room than the harsh electric light had. Wagner did not know if he had ever seen so many books in a personal library. It was like one of the great university libraries in Germany, the stacks seemingly endless. He turned to the wall just inside the doors and found more sconces with older yellow wax candles already in place. He lit all eight sticks before turning to again appreciate the room.
The sconces threw off a greater illumination than his electric tube had, and now he could see the rooms off to the side of the main foyer, the balconies of the upper levels, and the twisting turning shelves at the far end of the room. He was reminded of the wine cellar, with its peculiar maze-like design.
As he scanned the dim recesses of the cavernous library, Andreas Wagner thought he might be in heaven. A lover of reading since he was a boy in lederhosen, he would devour anything with a binding, whether a story or an instruction manual. He had known upon taking the job in Hungary that it might take him months, or even years, to finish his work, depending on the structural damage to the castle. He had been prepared mentally for a long stretch of no access to reading, due to the castle’s remote location. But now, seeing the Count’s immense personal library, Wagner wondered if it might be in his best interest to exaggerate the time it would take to complete the restoration work on the building. He could spend his entire life in this library and not read even half of the volumes it contained.