Lilith: A Snake in the Grass

Chapter Nine The Castle

It was an imposing structure, I had to admit that. Nothing like it had existed in the civilized worlds for a thousand years or so, if then, except in children’s fantasies.

And they lived happily ever after.…

Towers rose on either side of the main gateway, a huge double door of some bronze-colored wood that filled a massive stone arch. Windows in various parts of the place, which looked big enough to house several hundred, were all of stained glass and alit with the varying colors of the artist’s hand. Judging from the lights, I deduced that at least the inhabitants were still up and I wouldn’t be waking anybody.

I looked around for some simpler entrance, but it seemed as if the huge wooden door was it. I wondered whether every knight on Lilith had such a building, or whether this was the aberration of Boss Tiel. Certainly on Lilith there was nothing that walls and gates would keep out to be feared by one of such power.

There being no bell, apparently, nor any other system for summoning those inside, I pounded on the great wooden doors as hard as I could without hurting myself.

I hardly expected an immediate response, and I didn’t get one. Vaguely, through the thick stone walls and gate, I could hear the sound of a crowd and some music, which meant I had to compete with some interior function. Still, I kept banging away, resting a bit between tries, although I was beginning to think I might have to camp out on the Knight’s doorstep until the Castle opened for business in the morning.

With all my muscles I could pound pretty good, and somebody did eventually hear the pounding. I heard a voice from above me call out “Hey! You, there! What the hell do you want?”

I jumped slightly, then turned to locate the speaker. He was standing at one of the small tower windows. He was too far away for me to see his features and how he might be dressed, or to get any idea of his rank.

I shrugged to myself. What the hell. “I’m Cal Tremon, sir!” I responded in my loudest, boomiest voice. “I just disintegrated one of your supervisors and I was told in no uncertain terms to get my ass up here.”

The man hesitated a moment, as if considering what to do. Finally he called, “Just a moment! I’ll have somebody come down and take care of you!”

I shrugged again. I sure wasn’t going anyplace until they came, having no place to go, I wondered what was going on inside. For all I knew I was speaking to the lowest servant in the place—or to the big boss himself.

After a few minutes the huge wooden doors creaked open a bit and a young woman emerged. She was tall and thin and had an almost aristocratic bearing about her. Years ago she’d probably been a really pretty woman, but she was now well into middle age and that usually didn’t wear well on this kind of primitive world. Her hair was white and her face more wrinkled than even her age should have permitted.

What was important was that she was fully dressed in a long dress or robe of deep-purple silk embroidered with gold—an impressive uniform. At least a Master, I told myself, feeling even more helpless and not a little embarrassed by my appearances.

She approached me and walked around me, examining me as if I were some prize animal stock. Her nose twitched a bit, indicating that mingling with the common stock was not altogether to her taste. She smelled of perfumes too sweet to remember the time long ago when she must have been out in the muck herself.

Finally she straightened up, stood back, and took the overall view. I decided it was better to say nothing until she did. No use in blowing protocol. Finally she said, “So you killed Kronlon, eh?” I nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Gior said you claimed to have, ah, disintegrated him or some such term?”

I could only nod again. “That’s true. He decomposed into dust at my touch.”

She nodded back thoughtfully, more to herself than to me. “You use those cultured words freely,” she noted, a trace of surprise in her voice. “Disintegrate. Decompose. And your speech is cultured. You are from Outside?”

I grimaced, knowing her thoughts on my filthy appearance. “Yes, ma’am. I’ve been here some time—how long I’m not sure.”

She put her hand to her chin in a gesture of deep thought. “What were you when you were Outside, Tremon?”

I tried to look as innocent as possible. “I was a, ah, gentleman privateer, ma’am.” • She snickered. “A pirate, you mean.” “For political motives,” I replied. “The Confederacy had a basic concept that I disagreed with and I took action against it.”

“Indeed? And what concept was that?” “Why, this notion of equality,” I responded, still sounding as innocently insincere as I could. This was far more my game. After all this tune I was back in my own element. “The Confederacy attempts to make everyone equal in all things, and to have everyone share equally in all its wealth. I believe that some people are simply more equal than others and acted accordingly.”

She was silent for a moment; then suddenly she broke into deep, throaty laughter. “Tremon, you are amusing,” she said at last. “I do believe you will be a welcome addition to the Keep. Please come in—we’ll see about making you look and feel a bit more in keeping with your background.”

She turned and walked inside; I followed, feeling quite a bit better. After all this time of slavery and subjugation I was beginning to feel more like myself again.

The entry hall was alit with oil lamps of some sort, giving it a bright but flickering appearance. The place was damp and seemingly a lot chillier than anything I’d felt since arriving on Lilith. But the cold dissipated as we entered the main hall, actually something of an enclosed courtyard. It was large—perhaps forty meters square—and covered with an ornate floor made up of tens of thousands of tiny square tiles in different colors that formed a number of pleasing designs. In the center of the place was a waterfall, incredibly—not a big one, but a waterfall nonetheless. The water spurted from some fissure in the rock far above us and cascaded into a pool that frothed with the action of falling water but did not overflow, indicating an outlet or many of them. I gaped in wonder at such a thing, which was in many ways quite beautiful and impressive and, more interesting, highly creative. Whoever had designed this place really knew his stuff.

My hostess noticed my admiring gaze. “It is nice, isn’t it?” she noted in a friendly tone. “Most impressive, really. I never quite tire of it. Under us the water is channeled into a number of different conduits, where it’s stored for fresh water, boiled for steam power and hot water, sent through the Castle for use everywhere. The excess runs off into an underground stream.” She laughed again. “All the comforts of civilization, my dear boy.” She gestured as she walked, and I continued to follow her.

Occasionally we passed people in the stone tunnel-like corridors that fanned out from the central hall. I was conscious of a lot of side glances and outright stares from the men and women whom we passed, but nobody stopped or questioned us. Many of the people were simply dressed, often in nothing more than a simple kUt and sandals or grass skirt, occasionally topped by flowing robes of varying colors and designs. Others wore odd-looking shuts, pants, and heavy boots, indicating a variety of ranks. None, however, was naked. Simple innocence ended with the pawn world most of these people probably seldom, if ever, encountered.

But, simple or complex in dress and rank, they all looked clean, neat, well-groomed, and, well, soft compared to the people I’d known up to now. This was civilization indeed, and I felt like a barbarian crashing a formal party.

I was led finally to a modest room off one of the corridors; it came complete with wooden door and inside bolt. The room was certainly nothing fancy by any Outside standards, but was heaven to somebody who’d spent the past few months crammed into a communal tree hut. It was perhaps five by seven meters and contained a small table on which sat an oil lamp plus a closet like recess with three deep drawers that rose from the floor before opening up into a reasonable hanging space. In the center stood a bed. A real bed, complete with silken sheets and fluffy-looking pillows. It had been an awfully long time since I’d seen a real bed.

The floor was carpeted with some sort of for, possibly from the nur, the large spider like giants raised by one Zeis village. It felt really nice and cozy.

“This will be your room until you complete your tests and begin training,” my hostess told me. “After testing and training well know just where you should be put.” She looked at me, and her nose twitched a bit again. “However, before you make use of it we’ll have to get that accumulated filth off you. Goodness! Don’t pawns ever bathe any more?”

“They do,” I assured her. “But under more primitive conditions—and their work load doesn’t allow bathing on a regular basis.”

She shrugged. “Well, you will bathe, Tremon, and tonight. Come along, I’ll set you up for it. Then I’ve got to return to the Banquet Hall. It’s not often we have a party here with so many guests, and I’m afraid you’re not as important as that to me.”

I took her comment without insult, since I could see her point. Comparative luxury or not, life in the Castle was probably as dull as everything else about this world, so social events would be like drop to the addict for those born Outside who knew a better, more interesting life.

She took me to the Baths, a series of small recessed pools with steaming hot water in them. Like the entry hall, the Baths were well tiled and styled by someone more artist than architect; the combination of tiny tiles and the smallest bricks I’d ever seen made the place classically elegant.

Some young women of Supervisor rank, judging from their leafy skirts with little else adorning them, waited for us. My hostess quickly turned me over to them. It was one of the most unusual, though pleasant, baths I’d ever had. I’d have been somewhat embarrassed back in the civilized worlds or even on the frontier, but after months as a pawn being in a hot pool with a bevy of attractive young women was something I didn’t mind one bit.

I was scrubbed all over by gentle, experienced hands using a frothy soap of some kind that was lightly scented; then I was given an expert rubdown and my nails clipped and trimmed, my beard and hair expertly cut and styled. If there was a more wrenching experience I’d never heard of it—from squalor to luxury in a matter of hours. I was enjoying the sensation thoroughly, feeling better and more relaxed than I’d felt since awakening aboard that prison ship. Even now, only an hour or two into this new life, those months of slave labor as a pawn seemed a distant nightmare, as if it had happened to someone else.

The women would answer no questions and seemed as expert in turning attempts at friendly conversation into inconsequential nothings as they were in bathing and giving manicures.

Finally I was led back to my room and left alone, the door closed behind me. I didn’t lock it; there seemed no reason. I just flopped on that great bed—the most wonderful bed ever made, I quickly decided —and let myself relax completely. As I was drifting off to sleep, somewhere in a corner of my mind Ti’s face and form seemed to peer out and look accusingly at me. I remembered no more.