Keeper of the Black Stones

by P. T. McHugh

  I’d felt this way before, I realized, in the shed at home. This strange sense of knowing something I couldn’t possibly know. It had been the stone showing me where to go, then. Here … could it be the same? Had the stone somehow shown me what would be in this room? Or was I just imagining that I knew where everything was?

  I pointed my flashlight back at the stairs and knew immediately that there were 102 steps waiting to carry us out of the basement, despite the fact that I couldn’t see them. I also knew that some truly horrible things had taken place in this room. If I concentrated hard enough, I thought, I’d be able to hear the screams of the men and women who had been tortured here. The thought made me sick to my stomach, pressing in on my brain the way it did, and suddenly I needed to get out of the room, away from this dark, haunted place.

  “We have to get out of here,” I whispered, my voice shaking.

  Paul turned his flashlight toward my face. “Hey, are you okay? I didn’t even think to ask.”

  I took a deep breath and nodded, trying desperately to keep my emotions in check, and started walking. Reis had reached the end of the wall in front of us at that point, and was looking up. He turned quickly toward us when we reached him.

  “Okay, ladies,” he ground out, motioning us closer. “If Jason and the history books are correct, we’ve got less than ninety-six hours to find Doc and save him before the Battle of Bosworth begins.” He glanced down at his watch, then back at the stairwell in front of him. “Looks like these stairs are the only way out of this room. Any questions?” He paused for a moment, waiting, and nodded curtly.

  “Let’s go.” He bent to retrieve the bag he’d dropped, then straightened and looked at me. “Are you ready for this?”

  I nodded firmly, and shouldered my way past Paul and toward the stairs. ‘Ready’ was a serious understatement, and Reis was right; we’d already wasted too much time in the room with the stone. We had ninety-six hours to cross a county we didn’t know without a vehicle, while avoiding several armies, to find Doc. I was starting to get nervous, and I hadn’t even let myself think about the fact that we were in the mid-1400s yet.

  Reis put a hand out to stop me, and shook his head. “I’ll go first, kiddo. I’m the one with the gun here.” He adjusted the strap of his rifle and turned the weapon toward the staircase. We moved behind him to the dark opening, and looked up expectantly. The stairwell was steep and rounded, without benefit of torches or windows. Reis’ flashlight cut a small swath of light across the deep shadows, but petered out at the first turn.

  He sighed, then chuckled to himself. “Well, at least we won’t get bored. Here we go.”

  I stepped onto the bottom stair after Reis, following as closely as I could without actually tripping on his heels. Tatiana and Paul edged in behind me, their shoes squelching against the moisture on the stairs. As we climbed we started moving faster, hugging the interior column and its excuse for a handrail. The stairway felt as though it was closing in on us, growing tighter as we went.

  “I wish I knew where these stairs went,” Tatiana huffed quietly from behind me.

  “They go up,” Paul quipped, laughing at his own joke.

  Reis growled in front of me and quickened his pace. I rushed to catch up with him, struggling to find purchase on the wet, mossy steps. We’d been climbing the stairs for several minutes when they ended on a cramped landing with a large, oval-shaped door. We slid to a stop, staring at the door in front of us and breathing loudly. The thick wooden planks were scarred and discolored with age, and banded in corroded iron. It was exactly the kind of door I would have expected to see in a castle, and twice as creepy as I had thought it would be. It had one circular handhold and no keyhole. That meant we had no way of seeing what–or who–lay on the other side. Reis exhaled sharply through his nose, then glanced back at us and signaled for us to get against the wall behind the door. He unlatched the safety on his gun, stepped toward the door, and pushed.

  The door swung open a couple of inches, revealing a large, empty hallway, and we breathed out as one.

  “One point for us,” Paul whispered. “It would have really sucked to come all this way and find ourselves locked in the basement.”

  Reis turned back toward us, scowling. “I know it won’t be easy,” he said quietly, “but I need you to try to stop talking for a while. It’s not a request, Paul.”

  Paul looked over at me, eyes wide. “Yeah, sure, I think I can do that.”

  Tatiana snorted. “Or you could just shoot him. That would shut him up.” She grinned.

  Reis cast a quick glance her way. “You’re not helping. In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re in a bit of a tight spot here. If would really help if you all started acting like grownups.”

  He ran his eyes over the three of us, eyebrows raised in question, and nodded at our silence, then placed his shoulder against the door and leaned until it opened enough for his body to slip through. We watched breathlessly as his head and shoulders disappeared slowly through the opening. Within seconds he was back, beckoning us forward.

  “Okay, it’s now or never,” he snapped. “Follow me, and keep your mouths shut!”

  The stench of the basement dissipated in the hallway, but not by much. Several dimly lit torches lined the walls, casting more shadow then light. There could have been a dozen soldiers standing motionless against either wall, ready to slit our throats, and we wouldn’t have been able to see them. Let alone do anything to stop them. A seed of doubt crept into my head as we snuck away from the basement’s door and began to inch our way forward. What were we doing here? Was it smart to be moving so slow? Shouldn’t we be hurrying? I felt myself tensing up, getting ready to spring forward, but stopped when I felt Tatiana’s hand on my back. I cast my eyes over my shoulder to find her shaking her head and making calming motions with her hands.

  “This way,” Reis said suddenly, turning left in front of us.

  “Wait,” I whispered. I looked at the corridor he’d chosen and shook my head. We needed to go the other direction. I was sure of it, the same way I’d been sure that the empty peg would open the door down to the stone. I pointed that way, hoping they wouldn’t question me.

  “The courtyard is this way,” I said quietly, looking at Reis.

  “How do you know?” Paul asked.

  I shook my head. “There’s no time for that right now. Just trust me. This leads to the courtyard. That’s where we’ll find the main gate.” Reis stared at me for a moment, then nodded his head slightly, turned, and went in the direction of my choosing.

  We stumbled our way through the hall, walking more quickly now, and keeping our shoulders against the damp stone wall of the corridor. A gust of fresh air blasted down the hall, blowing against our faces. We were close to the outside world. Close to escape. Or capture.

  Suddenly a cackle of laughter shot through the air, its low pitch echoing off the stone walls around us. We froze, pressing our backs against the stone of the hallway. Reis threw his right hand up, signaling for us to be still, and we shrank back into the shadows. The laughter dissipated, but the deep tones of men speaking took its place. We stayed motionless for an eternity, trying to become one with the shadows around us, and hardly daring to breathe. I dug my fingertips into the wall behind me, hoping with all my might to avoid the owner of that laugh. Suddenly the talking became louder, along with the scraping of boots on dirt and stone, and the rattling of metal. Swords swinging in their scabbards, I thought. Whoever these men were, they had swords and they were coming straight toward us.

  “We’ve got to make a run for it!” Paul whispered nervously.

  Reis’ turned his head slowly to glare at Paul, the word ‘no’ on his lips. Then, in a slow, almost rhythmical movement, he crouched even lower to the ground. He brought his arm down with him, signaling us to mimic his action. Now he brought his rifle up to his shoulder, pointed the barrel at the far end of the empty hallway, and waited.

  “I said the man must have lost his mind, a
ttempting to treat Lord Dresden like that. Anyone in his right mind could have seen that no good would come of it.” The words hit me like a hammer. They were loud and crisp. And uttered by a man who had lived and died over five hundred years before I was born. My head began to spin, but snapped back into place as other men answered the first.

  “He signed his own death sentence by doing so, that be for certain!” another man said. A chorus of laughter erupted in response, and the hair on my neck stood up.

  “I believe Dresden would kill his own mother if she looked at him wrong,” yet another man added. This man was quickly hushed by another, who whispered his response fearfully.

  “You would all be well-advised to keep your voices down, if you know what’s best. That man has eyes and ears everywhere, and we are all expendable.”

  Dresden. They were talking about Dresden. I bit my tongue hard enough to draw blood, and didn’t breathe again until the crunching sounds of footsteps and metal began to subside, along with the rough voices. We crouched against the wall, waiting for them to fade completely. Only then did we come back to life. Reis stood up, glanced quickly around the corner, and motioned for us to move forward again. We crept quickly after him, our ears straining for the sound of more guards.

  We hadn’t gone 5 feet when Paul jumped, squeaked, and skittered backward several steps. I backed up to avoid him and ran into Tatiana, who stood just behind me. She sunk her nails into the skin of my back, and I closed my mouth on a yelp of pain. I felt rather than saw something run across my left foot, and directed my flashlight toward the floor just in time to see two rats the size of barn cats scurry into the darkness.

  Rats. They were only rats. I grabbed my chest and fell back against the wall, willing myself to calm down.

  “It’s just a couple of rats, calm down!” Reis muttered. Tatiana pulled her fingernails from my skin and giggled nervously.

  Reis looked at us and frowned, shaking his head with what I assumed to be disappointment. He met my eyes, muttered something to himself, and swung abruptly around to stride into the corridor ahead of us. We shuffled after him, sticking close to the shadows against the wall. After a few seconds of walking, we came around a corner to find ourselves at the end of the hallway, beneath a large stone arch. Beyond us stood a courtyard the size of my school’s field. A flood of fresh air reached my nostrils and filled my lungs, giving me a rush of energy in the process. I had never realized that fresh air could both smell and feel so good.

  Suddenly Reis dropped to one knee behind the wall, motioning for us to follow him. I peeked around the corner and glanced quickly around the yard, looking for enemies, friends, and anything that might tell us where to go. It was late afternoon or early evening–that time of day when light grows scarce, and things lose their depth. No darkness to hide us, then. The large courtyard was surrounded by the castle’s walls, one of which was lined with colorful stained glass windows, presumably marking the location of the chapel. Another wall, directly to our left, housed a small door sandwiched in between two large stone chimneys. Several piles of firewood as tall as my head lay stacked beside the farthest chimney. A well, complete with two buckets and a rope-and-pulley system, along with a broken cart, completed the picture. My eyes flew from the door to the firewood to the well and back. It wasn’t enough to hide us, I thought. We needed to get to an exit, but we’d be completely exposed until we were through it. That posed a problem.

  A sudden clattering sound brought my attention back to the small door, which opened to reveal the light of the castle’s kitchen. The doorway grew dark as a man passed through into the courtyard. He was massive, at least a foot taller than Reis, with long, stringy black hair and a bushy black beard. His eyebrows were straight and very low, barely leaving room for the two deep-set eyes under them. He wore a tattered, sleeveless shirt and dark trousers. His arms and legs were as big as tree trunks, and his hands looked like they could crush my skull without any trouble at all.

  He was walking right toward us.

  Suddenly a heavy hand dropped onto my shoulder, pulling me back around the corner and out of sight of the giant. I glanced back to see Reis putting his right forefinger against his lips and nodding in assurance. He’d seen the man, then, and knew what to do about him. I blew a breath between my teeth, trying to calm down, and turned to glance at the monstrous man again. He hadn’t been coming for us, I realized suddenly. He’d stopped at the woodpile and was now making his way back into the kitchen, his arms loaded up with firewood. I closed my eyes for a moment in relief, then resumed my observations of the courtyard. We didn’t have time for these kinds of shenanigans. If I was going to do anything to help Doc, I had to settle down, and fast.

  The last of the three walls in the courtyard contained one massive window, broken up into six sections, and a heavy set of wooden doors. They were at least 60 feet from us. Beyond the wall and gate, the buildings of Doncaster rose into the sky. That was our way out, then.

  Reis’ thoughts must have run parallel to my own. “Okay, we’re going to stay close to the wall on the left. First we run for the woodpiles, then we run for the well. From there, if we’re lucky, we’ll make it to the cart and then the main gate without being spotted,” he said in a harsh whisper. “Questions?”

  “You think we’re all going to fit behind the well?” Paul asked.

  Reis either didn’t hear his question or decided to outright ignore him, because he suddenly launched into action, sprinting along the wall toward the first of the woodpiles. We followed, racing toward the wood in hunched, staggering gates. We made it to the first pile, took a couple of seconds to rest, and then ran for the second.

  There, Reis held a hand up to stop us. He glanced back the way we’d come, his eyes panicked, and motioned violently for us to get down. Paul, Tatiana, and I dropped to our bellies on the ground. Reis crouched above us, staring at the corridor from which we’d just emerged. I glanced back, wondering what he’d heard, and my breath caught. We were 30 feet from the gate, but we weren’t safe yet.

  Four soldiers dressed in matching tattered uniforms–white with crude red crosses stitched into the front–came out of the corridor and strolled casually toward us.

  “What do we do?” I asked under my breath.

  “We’ve got to run for it!” Paul said, a little louder than I thought he should have.

  “Don’t move!” Reis said in a guttural whisper. His hand descended slowly onto Paul’s head, pushing his face down into the dirt to keep him quiet.

  The soldiers walked toward us, coming to a halt several feet from the woodpile. Tatiana, laying next to me, moved her hand onto my arm and tightened her grip. The solders in front of us ranged from an old man to a boy no older than I was. Two of them held pieces of meat, while one had a tankard of some sort of liquid. They settled themselves into comfortable stances and began to talk and laugh while they ate and drank.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Paul muttered. He’d freed himself from Reis’ grip and was glaring at the soldiers through a hole in the woodpile. “They’re having a picnic now?”

  One of the soldiers glanced in our direction, frowning, and I almost choked. I turned slowly to stare at Paul, willing him with my eyes to stop breathing and do his best impersonation of a rock.

  Then the soldier turned back to his friends and laughed at something one of them had said, and I sighed in relief. I looked anxiously over at Reis, moving my head and eyes as slowly as I could. His eyes were racing across the courtyard toward the gate, his mouth drawn down in a frown. Suddenly his eyes met mine, and his frown deepened. He didn’t have to say anything for me to know what he was thinking–we had to get to that gate, and fast, if we were going to escape. Instead, we were trapped here by the soldiers in front of us.

  Suddenly he came to a decision and dropped to his knee beside me. The butt of his rifle came up against his shoulder, the nose peeking up over the firewood, and my fingers clenched involuntarily, digging into the ground beneath me. That w
as his plan? A gunshot would alert every soldier for miles to our presence, and get us captured for sure. I glanced from Reis to the soldiers and back, panicked at the thought. If we got caught now, Doc was as good as dead. When my eyes flew to the soldiers again, though, I almost laughed in relief.

  There was a sudden lull in the conversation, and the four of them straightened as one. Chicken legs were dropped and the tankard cast to the side as the four began a sloppy march back into the hallway. Within moments, the courtyard was empty again, and we were free to go.

  My eyes flew to Reis, who was strapping his rifle back into position on his back. He grabbed his duffel bag, glanced once in our direction, and sprinted for the cart beside the gate.

  I was running before I even realized I’d given my legs the order to do so. I heard two sets of footsteps pounding along behind me, and prayed that they belonged to Paul and Tatiana rather than guards or giants. We slid to a stop at the wagon, and crouched down next to Reis.

  “We’ll have to make a run for it from here,” he hissed. He looked to his right and then to his left, motioned for us to be still, and sprinted across the open area toward the gate.

  We stayed put, hiding behind the cart as well as we could, and keeping our eyes on the open space in front of us. Thirty seconds later, Reis was back. He dropped to his knees, taking in gulps of air and wiping the sweat from his eyes.

  “Okay, there’s a sentry just outside the gate on the right. But he’s watching for people coming in, not people going out. I want the three of you to follow my lead, walk straight and confident, and act like you belong. Oh, and carry your bags and packs on your left shoulder, away from the guard,” he said. He turned away, then quickly turned back to address us again.