Arcene: The Blue Castle

by Al K. Line

  Five paces was all she managed before people began coming up to her to talk or stare.

  She was polite, but made it clear she wasn't in the mood for extended conversations and the million and one questions they seemed to have. How did she get her hair to be silver? She didn't, it was natural. How come she was so tall? She wasn't, they were really short. Did the dog eat babies? Only naughty ones. What was it like on the outside? Nice. Didn't she get sick from the air? No. Could they touch her sword? No. Did she enjoy The Feast? It was an experience.

  In the end she hurried away from the hustle and bustle as by the time she made it to the middle of the plaza she had a large group of people around her with more coming from all corners. People were leaving their stalls, emerging from makeshift hovels, or dashing from who knew where to come gawk at the newcomer now the twins weren't with her to tell them off.

  Finally, she just ran, sword clattering against her back, pigtails bouncing and kilt feeling as great as it always did against her thighs. She jogged through an archway and found herself in a small courtyard where a tiny fountain, with mossy rocks at its base, bubbled quietly. Most of the small space was covered with gravel raked to perfection around stones that jutted from the ground like islands at sea.

  High walls made the courtyard private, with another arch opposite the one she'd entered leading to more courtyards and she assumed it went on and on at various levels around the castle, repeating as you got lower down until you were at the only way out, the gates and drawbridges in the outer wall — each opposite the other.

  Arcene stepped into the quiet and turned, wondering why nobody had followed her. It seemed they had gone back to whatever it was they were doing. They'd forgotten.

  "Come on Leel, let's sit in the quiet for a minute then carry on exploring." Arcene wandered over to a flat stone resting on the edge of the gravel and sat, Leel beside her. She stared at the rocks, tiny patches of bright green herbs at their base giving the impression of mountains with trees.

  "Do you like it?" came a voice from behind.

  Arcene reached for her sword, jumped to her feet and turned. "Oh, hello. Um, yes, it's very relaxing. I'm surprised there aren't more people here." She loosened her grip and sat back down — it felt rude towering over the tiny man who couldn't have been more than four feet tall if he stood on tiptoe. He had a jet black plait longer than hers, hanging over a simple tunic as dark as his hair and just as shiny. It was the first piece of clothing she'd seen that looked remotely new — this was pristine.

  The man caught her staring and said, "I make it myself, it's kind of tradition. I keep worms, they provide me with everything I need."

  "Worms? Oh, okay. I'm Arcene, this is Leel."

  The man nodded at Leel, smiled then walked right up to her without a hint of fear and reached to pat her on the head. "Good dog." He pulled his hand away and stared at it. "I think she needs a wash."

  "Oh, yeah, sorry about that. She got a little greasy last night and I forgot."

  "Ah, The Feast."

  He sounded like he didn't approve, which took her by surprise. Come to think of it he had all his bits and pieces too, even his ears. "Not your kind of party eh? May I?" Arcene indicated the fountain and the man nodded. They walked over and she scooped water over Leel's head and rubbed. It took a few goes but she was a little cleaner. The man washed his hands too and then they moved back to the seat and sat beside each other.

  It was strange, Arcene felt so relaxed, like the man gave off some kind of sedative. It was his manner: slow and unhurried, words chosen carefully.

  "Not really," he said. Arcene looked at him in confusion. "The 'party,' as you put it, it's not really my kind of thing. But what can you do? It is what it is."

  "It was rather..."

  "Deathy?"

  Arcene jumped to her feet. "Exactly. Very. I've never heard anyone else say that before. Cool." She sat back down and enjoyed the peace. She felt relaxed, there was no awkwardness, just two people enjoying the relative quiet, the sounds of castle life muffled by the walls.

  "I have lived here all my life, and so have my family for generations. Some things you cannot change, some things you can. People are strange."

  Arcene was expecting more, but the man was silent. He sat, hands in his lap, smiling at nothing in particular. "I like you."

  The man nodded.

  They sat, they listened to the gurgle of the fountain, admired the moss and the swirls in the gravel.

  Time lost meaning, there were just two people enjoying the absence of anything but the now.

  At some point the man stood and said, "I have pickle to make," and with that he left.

  "What a nice man, eh Leel?"

  Woof.

  Arcene walked along the path at the edge of the gravel and went through the archway.

  She realized she never got the man's name.

  Don't Mess With Arcene

  "Whoa!" Arcene watched the cleaver pass her cheek as she leaned away and turned, kilt tickling her thighs. Her sword was out and slicing before the man's weapon even came to the bottom of the arc and hit the ground.

  With a squelch it continued on its trajectory, the hand still clutched tight to the gnarled wooden handle, along with the arm to above the elbow.

  Arcene glared into the eyes of a shocked man as tall as her and three times as wide, a white, or once white apron bloodstained and tight around his copious belly. He stared at the arm on the ground, the reality sinking in, and screamed at the top of his lungs. Then he did something even more surprising: he charged Arcene, his remaining hand reaching for her throat. She took one step back for balance, trailed her sword along the cobbles with a cool sounding shleeeeeeek and sliced up and across before he came close.

  Momentum carried him forward and Arcene sidestepped as he crashed to the ground, blood pumping out of his neck.

  Lifeforce pooled around the fat head of the man; Arcene watched impassively as the body twitched once then was still.

  He was dead.

  I need to get out of this place. What is wrong with these people?

  Leel sniffed at the fat jowls of the corpse on the stained cobbles then wandered away to where the man had first appeared.

  It had all happened so quickly Arcene hadn't had a chance to see where she was or what on earth had made the man react so violently to her. She watched Leel sniffing along the floor, following the man's trail. She disappeared through a door into what seemed like a long room built into the length of the wall. Arcene followed her inside.

  It was a butchery.

  The man must have been the butcher and this was his place of work. On benches were animals in various states of wholeness, mostly sheep carcasses, but there were a few goats and, yes, several human limbs too, although they were hidden away in a sectioned-off room. The place was a mess, with little in the way of organization: meat and chunks of viscera dotted around the room at random, much of it smelling foul or close to being inedible.

  "Come on Leel, let's get out of here. Who knows what fat attacker we'll meet next." Leel came in an instant; there was definitely something wrong with the meat if the ever-hungry dog had no interest in gulping down as much as she could in what should have been a room where all her dreams came true.

  Arcene wiped her sword on a relatively clean rag she spotted near the door, then slid it carefully back into the scabbard.

  We need to leave here now.

  Outside, the air was warm, the sun shining cheerily. A pleasant breeze wafted by, cooling her skin. It felt like a lovely day, and it was, if only the huge pile of dead flesh like sour milk, all white and lumpy, wasn't lying on the ground attracting flies, now surrounded by a few traders and passersby. They stared at the body; not one of them seemed in the least bit shocked by the dead man. As Arcene walked up to them a few smiled at her, one even clapped.

  "Was he the butcher?" asked Arcene.

  "Yes ma'am," said one of the men. "Right nasty piece of work he was too. Always wanting to go chopp
ing things up, never got enough of it did this one." The man poked a toe at the butcher's side; flesh wobbled.

  "He attacked me for no reason. I walked through the arch and he just went for me." Arcene felt like she needed to explain, but nobody seemed interested, it was like this was a regular occurrence, him attacking people, not him dying.

  "That sounds like The Butcher, yep. I mean ma'am," said the man, nodding his head then smiling. "Well, at least he won't be after anyone else now. Bad one he was, bit funny in the head." He made a circular motion with a finger at his temple then nodded again. "Well, can't stand around chatting all day, things to do." With that he was gone. The rest of the small group nodded their thanks to Arcene or shook her hand nervously — they were fascinated by her, there was no mistaking it, especially when they all tried to bow or refused to meet her eye.

  They treat me like I'm their queen or something.

  "Hey, what about him?" shouted Arcene after the retreating crowd.

  One of the men turned and said, "Don't worry, the twins will be along soon enough, they'll decide what happens to him. Leave him be for now, he's too big to move anyway."

  Arcene was alone again.

  "Leel, I think we should go back to our room. This place is too dangerous, even for us."

  Woof!

  Thinking that a rest in her room would be welcome, Arcene headed back to the main castle, passing from carnage to the serenity of the courtyard with the gravel and the fountain, then to the main plaza where the noise was as loud as ever and the people stopped and stared as she passed, bowing or trying to curtsy. Arcene nodded at them all, tried to keep smiling, and didn't stop until she passed the guard at the gate, who clanged his helmet as he saluted and Arcene said, "The Butcher is dead," as she carried on walking.

  A few hours later, after a nice doze and a rather large lunch that Margaret brought to her room after appearing to ask if she wanted anything, Arcene became rather bored so decided to go for another walk. Events of earlier that day weren't forgotten but she knew she had to understand the castle if she was to leave without too much fuss.

  But more than anything she worried that the twins would appear at any moment and she wouldn't be able to get rid of them from her room, so a nice stroll would help to burn off her lunch and keep her away from the twins. She was rather surprised she hadn't seen them already that day, but Margaret told her in a whisper they often slept until the afternoon and didn't leave their quarters until late in the day sometimes, especially after The Feast — they slept an awful lot, she told Arcene, eyes darting around the room as if they might hear and she would be in trouble.

  So Arcene once again found herself walking around the perimeter of the castle, this time keeping her guard up and her hand ready to grab her sword at a moment's notice.

  As she walked, and walked, Arcene began to get a proper sense of the scale of Castle Kenyon and the life that people led behind its walls — she had to admit it was rather impressive, if odd, but then what wasn't odd?

  Then things got weird. Really weird.

  Not Very Flattering

  There seemed to be no end to the grounds of the castle. Arcene and Leel wandered through courtyard after courtyard, ducked under low arches, were confronted with huge plazas devoid of life only to pass through a narrow tunnel into an even larger plaza packed tight with people involved in the swapping of what to Arcene looked like pathetic rags but would in reality be a precious commodity. Arcene nodded and said hello to no end of people — how they could carry on their daily lives like normal after the previous evening she had no idea, but they took it all in their stride and didn't seem in the least bit concerned about what had happened.

  They met people whose lives mostly seemed to involve checking for weeds between cobbles, others tasked with trying to scare pigeons away, even a woman who seemed incredibly pleased to have the job of keeping inventory of brooms, a truly bizarre experience as every broom had to be accounted for each day, returned to the woman who guarded them like her life depended on it — which it may well have. The more she walked, the more Arcene despaired of how the castle ran.

  Rules and strange titles for seemingly pointless tasks were an obsession: everyone seemed to have some convoluted title or other they were proud of, and everyone was kept busy. The people seemed to have made up their own sets of rules to govern what they did and how they did it, warping over the years to make their jobs pointless and if anything just hindering the proper functioning of the castle.

  Why would you make people walk half a mile to get a broom, then have to take it back at the end of the day, when it should be stored near their place of work? It was bonkers.

  That was nothing compared to some of the strange things she saw, and the more she walked the more bizarre it got.

  What she couldn't deny however, was how impressive the various levels that descend from the main building were. There were large steps that led to lower levels, sheer drops, or beautiful curving walkways, all built hundreds and hundreds of years ago, although it was clear that many improvements and additions had been done since.

  Arcene wondered how they maintained it all until she came across The Repairer of Walls, a man with hands so big they even dwarfed Leel's huge paws. He was busy putting the finishing touches to a section of wall that retained a higher level where roses grew that somehow didn't have any fragrance and she asked the man why. He'd replied that they had been bred not to smell of anything as the twins had commented on them once, long ago, saying they made them sneeze — The Keeper of Roses had bred the scent out of them, not that the twins had ever returned.

  Enjoying a rest, Arcene admired his skill. He was good at his job but there was too much wall for him to ever finish his work. She had asked about the other men that repaired the walls but he'd stared at her like she was daft: he was The Repairer of Walls, it was his job. Arcene shrugged and continued her walk. How was one man expected to maintain a whole castle, let alone all the various walls for the levels and sections within it? And that was without the outer wall.

  Arcene left the courtyards, ever changing plazas and places of work, and moved through the endless rows of vegetables, testing the quality as she went — some excellent, lots barely clinging to life where somebody had forgotten whose job it was to tend them — and found herself in a field of wheat.

  She stopped dead in her tracks; Leel bumped into her. "Leel, how many times do I have to tell you? Oh!" Arcene stared at the massive construction ahead, surrounded by men and women, ladders of all description teeming with activity as people went up and down, the massive sculpture of wheat getting bigger and bigger as she watched with dread. What did it mean? Nothing good she was sure, not with the twins stood at the base shouting at the people as they worked faster and faster. She watched as a man fell from a ladder in his haste to please the twins, only to be carried away by two others as he screamed and pointed at the splinter of bone protruding from his upper arm.

  "We really need to get out of here today Leel."

  Woof, woof. Leel definitely agreed.

  The wheat scratched against her thighs, bending as she stepped into the field, finding its way under her kilt. It wasn't a particularly large field, and as with the other crops it was sectioned off by makeshift fences and scrawny hedges that had seen better days, the responsibility of one man by the looks of despair on a scruffy individual trying not to frown as his crop was ripped up to build the monstrosity Arcene couldn't take her eyes off. Leel loped forward, head scanning left and right for the chance of some hunting — Arcene didn't have the heart to tell her she would be severely disappointed.

  "Arcene, where have you been?" shouted either Fionn or Flynn; Arcene was past caring.

  She ignored their smiles until she got close, then said, "Is this what I think it is?" She pointed at the idol, the stubs at its base trampled as flat as her hopes.

  "What do you think it is?"

  "What do you like about it the most?"

  "I bet she likes the pigtail
s the best Fionn, I believe them to be exceptional," said Flynn.

  "Yes, they are spectacular," shouted Fionn, voice rising in pitch, his excitement evident.

  "Why have you done this? What's it for?"

  "For the wedding of course," said Flynn. His face showed obvious confusion, as if it was clear what the massive figure of Arcene signified.

  "The wedding? What wedding? Whose wedding?" Arcene knew, but she had to ask. They wouldn't, would they? No, surely not. She had probably got it all wrong and they'd built a massive, forty foot wheat idol of her as some kind of way to celebrate her visit. Arcene clung to the belief as she waited for the twins to reply.

  The twins looked at each other, then realization dawned.

  "Oh, we didn't tell you did we? See, that's what happens when you keep going off on your own Arcene. We've been out here since the morning organizing this and nobody has been able to find you. Well, we will have to put a stop to all this wandering about. The guards were supposed to keep an eye on you, there will be words with those fools."

  "What are you talking about!?" Arcene fought the urge to run, to just turn around and sprint as fast as she could. But where? How could she get out? She'd seen one of the gates that led to the drawbridge, there was no way she could open it on her own. What could she do?

  "We have decided that you will be our wife, Arcene," said Flynn with pride. "We talked about it throughout the night. Both of us wish you to be our bride but that will lead to too much trouble. We are brothers and we share our rule, so we shall share our bride."

  "Is that right?" said Arcene, staring at the twins like they were dirt on her boot. "You have decided have you? Talked about it did you? Made up your minds?"