throne in the Great Hall. Moonlight fell through the row of tall windows in slanted silver rays, and the orange glow emanating from the candlestick in her hand contrasted vividly with the bluish gloom.
She had been studying the floor plan she had discovered in the library. For several nights she had looked it over, visualizing the halls and corridors, plotting her escape.
She was certain that the two dotted lines on the plan leading from the west end of the Great Hall indicated a secret passage out of the keep. To her frustration, the plan did not show her where this might go. Nor did it give her any indication of how long it went. The lines merely trailed off near the end of the page.
Hinkle ascended the steps onto the dais and approached the throne. Regally carved, the high-backed seat of Stel’ Calghād forked into two points, each topped with a wooden rose. Two larger roses bulged from the front of the throne where the ruler’s fingers might curl over the head of the armrests. She knelt and examined the sides for some switch or button, and walked around the back, squinting in the candlelight.
But there was nothing to be found. Nor was there any such device to be felt in the wall or floor behind it. Perhaps if she—Hinkle slumped into the throne, hoping it might give her a new perspective. The wood was cool and smooth. She fingered the roses on the front of the armrests. They were surprisingly comfortable. Her fingers fit pleasantly between the petals as if they had been designed to accommodate the grip of the sitter. She set down the candlestick and slid her other hand into place. Then, a sly grin spread across her face, as with a knowing intuition, she curled back her fingers and pulled up on the wooden petals. Her heart skipped as the roses gave way and rewarded her with a hollow click.
At once, the throne shook and rumbled and the great hall seemed to be drawing weirdly away from her. A cool draft blew against her bare feet and shins, carrying with it the dank smell of a cavern.
The throne had retracted, revealing a dark square opening at her feet in the floor of the dais. She leaned over the edge of the throne, holding up the candlelight as she peered down.
A rickety wooden ladder descended into a black shaft. Stale wind moaned from below and cobwebs swayed in the musty breeze. A tomb would have been more inviting.
Hinkle stole a final glance about the hall and the shadows of the gallery which overlooked it and climbed down into the yawning passage.
The ladder went down a good thirty feet. At the bottom, there was only a square-shaped hole just big enough for a man to enter—crawling on all fours.
Hinkle stooped down and peered reluctantly into the knee-high tunnel. She could not see far, but she could see it was braced with wood every so often. It looked more like an abandoned mine than a secret passage in a castle.
She did not like the look of that, not when she didn’t know how far it went. Who knew how sturdy it was after all this time? Worst of all, she wouldn’t be able to turn around.
But whatever her reservations, she feared the Skeravisi more. She tied up her hair then got down on her elbows and knees, and holding the candle out in front of her, crawled into the tunnel.
The going was slow and difficult. She was getting badly scraped. And it seemed the way was getting narrower. It seemed too that the darkness was becoming thicker, smothering her with that dense must. She broke out into a cold sweat. Her every thought was of the tunnel caving in, burying her alive.
She yelped in alarm as she put her hand down onto thin air, and shuffled quickly backward. The passage had come to an end and dropped off into a black shaft. The air felt different—cooler, and less imminent. Her voice was still ringing in her ears as her startled cry echoed from the walls around her—almost as if she had screamed from the bottom of—
Hinkle held out the candle and peered over the edge. Sure enough, some twenty feet below, she saw the orange light reflecting off the glistening surface of a pool. She was at the bottom, or more like halfway to the bottom, of a well. The well, she realized, for it could only be the same well which Lastell himself had poisoned so many years ago.
She wondered if the poison lingered still, but reassured herself that if she fell in, she would drown long before she met the same terrible fate as the residents of Stel’ Calghād.
Hinkle put the thought out of her mind and strained to look upward. Surely if this tunnel led to the well there must be a way out. A smile spread across her face as the candle-glow revealed a rusty iron rung set into the stone directly above her. She reached for it, and pushing off from the edge of the tunnel, grabbed hold of the next rung, and began climbing upwards, taking care not to blow out the candle.
It was nearly another thirty feet to the top. The well was covered, preventing the moonlight from shining down and illuminating her way, and concealing the ladder and passage from the outside. There was a trapdoor in the cover, fastened with a rusted bolt that would not budge. However, the trap door, rotten and brittle from ages of weather and neglect, offered little resistance, and as she banged her hand against it, it burst open with a soggy creak.
Hinkle climbed out of the well into the ward. At once, the wind swept across the dead lawn and snuffed out her candle; but it was a clear night with few clouds, and in the silver light of the moon she could see her surroundings well enough. From the outside, the castle seemed even larger and more foreboding than from within. The two immense wings of dark stone loomed up from either side—a hundred feet perhaps—to where the silhouettes of its ruined spires stood in jagged contrast with the whiteness of the moon. The ward, or courtyard, was enclosed by a high wall. A vine-entangled portico ran around the inside of it on two levels where the castle residents might take shelter from the sun, or enemy barrage. In places the wall and portico had broken down to nothing, shattered—she now knew—by the trebuchets of the Duke of Zaleón.
Not far away were the crumbling steps leading up to the main entrance of the keep and the tall, blackened doors she had been unable to open from inside. A flagstone path, since heaved up by roots and overgrowth, stretched from the main entrance to the gatehouse. The drawbridge was down, and through the bars of the portcullis, Hinkle could see the stone bridge that connected the castle to the mountain road—the route of her escape. If she could but raise that iron grate, she might, at last, be free from this horrid place!
Hinkle stole a wary glance up at the keep, half expecting to see the white face of her host watching from the dark windows. She saw no such thing, and hurried beneath the broad arch of the gatehouse and placed her hands on the rusted bars, wondering how they might be opened. The gate of the palisade wall surrounding her home village of Sweetwater was just two big wooden doors that a single man could open, and which at night was bolted shut with a heavy log. But a castle portcullis … She pushed up on the bars. They did not budge. Surely there must be some mechanism to open it.
She looked around. There was a stairwell nearby which led up inside the gatehouse. Hinkle crept up the dark steps, wishing the wind had not blown out her candle. Moonshine peeked through the narrow window slits and she made out two humungous wooden spools, each attached to a mess of gears and rusty chains. The larger of the two she assumed was for the drawbridge; but both had two sets of long levers sticking out of the spools—for two men to crank together, or at the very least, one exceptionally strong man.
Hinkle knew as soon as she saw it she would never be able to raise the portcullis on her own. But she couldn’t help but try. She went to the smaller spool and pulled back on the wooden arm. It remained stiff. She lifted her feet off the ground and set her whole weight against it. No movement. She braced one foot against the wall, grunting and gritting her teeth as she pulled down with all her might, but to no avail.
Desperation rising in her chest, Hinkle hurried out onto the battlements and peered over the wall. Perhaps she might climb down—but there was nothing to grip or use as a foothold. If only she could reach one of the heavy chains that ran from the drawbridge up to the gatehouse, she might be able to—but they were much too far …
Her last hope was the broken-down section of the wall. She knew it was at the top of a cliff, but maybe, just maybe …
Hinkle scurried down the steps through the portico and across the ward and knelt at the edge of the cliff. Her hair flapped in the cold wind as she looked down in despair. The bare limbs of tiny trees, dead and leafless, gleamed in the moonlight several hundred feet below. It was not a shear drop to the bottom; a skilled climber could make the descent. But it would be gruelling, treacherous work. And while Hinkle had no great fear of high places, the thought of scaling down from such a dizzy height with only the moon’s glow to lumen each hold made her heart sink. She dared not make such an attempt.
Crestfallen, Hinkle stood up and trudged back toward the well, clutching her extinguished candle against her chest, no less a prisoner.