Castle Perilous

Keep, Upper Levels

Kwip had been lost for hours; he didn’t think he could find his way back to the dining hall. But that was no loss, as there was nothing back there but suspicious eyes. He had no wish to conduct his business under their gaze. His hand went to the rucksack slung across his back. He had found it in a storeroom, and had filled it with enough victuals to last three days, five if he rationed them. He’d worry about finding more food when they ran out.

He was walking down a wide hallway with rooms opening off to either side. Most of the rooms were bare, a few sparsely furnished. Some had windows, and some of these looked out on strange vistas. Kwip had stopped to look occasionally. Lately he had not. Even the exotic can, in time, become mundane.

Nothing, nothing, nothing, Kwip thought. So huge a place, so empty, so useless. Why had its builders gone to the trouble?

A furnished room! Kwip hurried inside. It was a spacious bedroom with all the appointments, a grand room fit for a woman of high station. He flung open the armoire and tore all the fine gowns from their hooks, looked them over, tossed them aside. He went to a chest of drawers and rifled through it, finding nothing but more women’s things, all lace and fluff and silk. At the foot of the canopied bed he knelt to examine a leather trunk with a simple but effective lock. He stood and kicked the trunk, then grabbed one side handle and lifted. He could barely move it. He drew his sword and attempted to pry off the brass hinges at the back. He soon gave it up and tried prying the latch in front. For some reason it popped open easily.

There was nothing in the trunk but stones, and Kwip had the sudden suspicion that he had again become the butt of someone’s little joke. He glanced about nervously.

Presently he sighed and surveyed the room. There were other pieces of furniture, but he had no desire to continue the search.

He sniffed, smelling the sea.

He moved to the window, and a little of his original sense of wonder came over him. This aspect was suspended only a few feet above the open ocean. Whitecaps necked the windy surface, and the glare of sunlight danced on its waters. No land in sight. He looked out briefly, the salt spray hitting him; then he turned to go. But something made him turn back. Looking out again, he noticed it. The window was descending at a slow but steady rate. He stood and watched, estimating that window and waterline would meet within a very short time. He couldn’t conceive of what would ensue when they did, nor did he want to find out. He left the room.

There were no more rooms after that. The hallway continued for what seemed like a league, with no end in sight. After walking a good quarter hour, he stopped and thought of going back. Perhaps he had been to hasty.…

He heard a distant rumble. More battle sounds? No. He turned and looked back down the corridor.

Apparently the unthinkable had happened. A gray, churning mass of water was rushing toward him.

He ran, knowing he couldn’t outrun it, dashing on in the blind hope of finding a stairway, preferably one leading up, or a room with an aspect he could duck through and escape. Anything would do for the moment, anything but this endless corridor. The view ahead was not encouraging. The hallway continued its interminable way to an infinite vanishing point.

With the waters roaring at his heels, he saw an opening in the wall ahead and put on a burst of speed. It was a stairwell! — one that began on this level and led up. Jubilantly, Kwip dashed into it.

It went up two flights and dead-ended into a blank stone wall.

“Gods of a pig’s arse! Not again!” He halted, stumbling, then turned to regard the gush of water that had followed him up the stair.

He took a deep breath and contemplated his end. “Aye, so this is it.” Perhaps it was meant to be. He had escaped the hangman’s noose, only to die by water in a castle of dreams.

Ah, well, he thought. As good a way to die as any.

He backed against the wall as the water foamed up to the landing. He watched it rise until it filled the truncated stairwell and began lapping at his boots. By the time the water’s level had reached his knees, however, its rate of climb had slowed. Hope yet. But it was fleeting. Presently the flood tide began to rise rapidly again, reaching his groin, then his waist, his chest, his neck …

Soon he was floating, his boots feeling like lead weights. He kicked them off and found that he was able to tread water sufficiently well to keep breathing. But he was rapidly running out of breathing space. The chamber was small, and soon the water would fill it to the vaulted ceiling, at the apex of which, Kwip noticed, was a small round opening … a ventilation shaft, most likely. Kwip had a sudden idea. He had had no formal education, but as a boy he had passed endless hours playing with odds and ends around the house, experimenting and pondering the results. If he could plug that hole, the remaining air pocket might stop the water from rising, just as air trapped inside a submerged inverted cup prevents it from being filled.

His leather jerkin did the job. Stuffed into the hole, it made a dubious airtight seal, but the rising flood slowed, then stopped. Presently the waters began to recede, and in time Kwip was wading knee deep again.

It was definitely seawater. Bits of shell and other flotsam crunched underfoot, and scraps of seaweed floated about. Apparently the water had found an outlet and was draining away, flooding the floors below.

“Passing strange,” he muttered. “A deluge out of a boudoir.Damned queer.”

Shaking his head, he retrieved one boot and sloshed down the steps to find the other. Something grabbed his leg.

He struggled against it, grasping the iron rail above and pulling against it. Whatever it was tugged back. He strained and managed to raise his unshod foot out of the water.

A slimy, gray-green tentacle had coiled itself about his ankle. Kwip yelled, drew his sword and hacked at it until his foot was free. He shook the severed end of the thing off and backed to the wall of the landing as another appendage rose from the depths. It was of the same color but slightly thinner, and at its end rode a single unblinking, fishy eye. Balanced on its delicate stalk, the eyeball scanned the chamber, then swung around to gather Kwip into its view.

Not for long; a sweep of Kwip’s sword sent the Argus eye plopping into the water, the cut end of the stalk spurting pink and yellow humors until it sank below the waterline. A smile grew on Kwip’s face, fading as another eyestalk rose, this one forewarned enough to keep its distance.

More tentacles leaped up, these equipped with wicked, needlelike stingers at their ends. Doubtless they were poisonous. Kwip leaped to the side to avoid one while hacking at another. With some quick swordsmanship he succeeded in truncating four tentacles, but more were coming at him, many more. He backed up the stairs, swinging and slashing.

Very quickly his back was to the blank wall at the top of the stairwell. Three tentacles were drawing a bead for a simultaneous strike under the guidance of more eyestalks. He feinted a thrust at one and cut wickedly at another, but landed only a glancing blow as the thing ducked away. The sword hit the iron rail and went flying from his wet grasp, falling with a gentle splash into the water.

He screamed, “No!” but knew it was the end. He pressed himself against the wall, straining, pushing as though the stone could yield.

Suddenly he was falling backwards. He hit with his buttocks, rolled on his back, and leaped to his feet.

Silence. He looked around. He was in another hallway, this one dry and devoid of sea monsters. There was no door in the wall in front of him, no opening of any sort. It was as blank as the one …

On the other side?

“Gods of a poxed doxy.” Kwip examined the dark, smooth stone of the wall. The unmortared joints hardly showed at all. There was no way he could have —

A sudden impulse seized him, and he thrust his fist at the wall as if to strike it.

His arm passed through the stone like a ghost through a midnight fog.