34

 

After a few minutes, they heard loud clunks from the other side of the second story door. It opened to reveal a small, frail, old man. He was probably in his eighties, with wispy thin hair on a liver-spotted head. He walked folded over, nearly into a right angle, and held up by a gnarled, polished wooden cane.

“Willkommen in Neuschwanstein,” the man said in the same creaky voice Val had heard from the balcony.

Heinrich began to translate, and the old man interrupted them, speaking in the northern dialect of Val’s people.

“Apologies. Welcome to the New Swan Stone Castle.” He smiled a gap-toothed grin at them.

“You speak my language very well,” Val said, surprised.

“It is very similar to the Norwegian my grandmother spoke,” he said, dismissing the linguistic feat with a wave of his hand. “Come in, come in. It has been a very long time since I have entertained guests here in the castle.” He turned and hobbled back through the door.

“You are here with your family?” Val asked, following the man through the doorway.

“No, no. All gone now, aren’t they?” the man said, hobbling into a hall. The walls were adorned with paintings and tapestries, the ceiling hung with long disused chandeliers now covered in cobwebs. “Oh, this place is a beauty, isn’t she?”

Val thought the man’s form of speaking in questions was peculiar, and she soon realized the reason. “Are you here all by yourself, sir?”

He turned with a simple grin and nodded. “Yes, miss. Just me, Jan Werther. Last of my people. We repelled a lot of invaders when I was younger, and then they stopped coming. Well, when Frauke died—that was my sister, don’t you know? Well, it was just me here. She was the last of them to go.”

“I am very sorry, sir,” Val said.

“Oh, aren’t you a sweetie? What was your name?”

She introduced them both. “We also have some friends who will be coming this way in a day or two.”

“That’s fine, fine,” he said, leading them deeper into the maze of halls. Val had already lost her way, spending too much time gazing at the opulence around her instead of memorizing the way out. But she felt that she could trust this old man. Heinrich likewise seemed to feel at ease.

The floors were intricate patterned woods, and then flat stone tiles laid out in patterns. The walls were a cavalcade of colors and hues, with sconces, lamps, alcoves and columns. Parts of the castle were clearly original, stemming back who knew how many hundreds of years. Other parts had obviously been renovated with modern, post-cataclysm life in mind. Once-electric lamps had been replaced with thick candles that had dripped wax for so many years that they formed thick stalactites dropping down to mounds on the floor. Under the lamps, the mounds were beginning to form their own stalagmites growing upward.

In other cases, wooden and metal structures had been set up with ladders, allowing people to reach otherwise inaccessible parts of walls or fixtures. For what purposes, Val could not guess.

“Where are my manners? You said you needed help, yes, young Heinrich? What was it you needed?” The man spoke over his shoulder as he led them deeper into the bowels of the castle.

“We were looking for propane, a fuel used in the old days,” Heinrich said. If the old man heard, he gave no indication.

He led them to a small closet and opened it, revealing a room just barely large enough for the three of them to stand in. Along the wall were a twin set of ropes. Once he had ushered them in, he closed the door, sealing the three of them in the tight space.

“I’ve got a small garden in the back. Just enough for a lone man like me, you understand. Then there are the stores of dried goods. Yep, plenty of food here. There are also a few solar panels.”

The man grabbed one of the ropes and gave it a tug, with a surprisingly strong arm. When he did, the floor of the tiny room lurched downward. Then he turned to Heinrich. “Maybe you would be so kind as to propel us, son? My arms do get tired operating the lift.”

“Certainly.” Heinrich stepped around Werther and began hoisting the rope, hand over hand, slowly lowering the elevator car.

“I’ll let you know when we’re there,” Werther said. “So, where was I? Ah, yes. Lots of food. Frozen food. Jars and tins. Plenty to go around. And if you need to, this place is easy to defend. Although it’s been so long since anyone has been this way. From the towers you can see forever on a clear day. I’ve known you were headed this way for the last week. I left the front gate open just for you. I was hoping that those fellows following you were friends of yours and not chasing after you.”

Val smiled. “They are good friends. They have come to protect me on my mission.”

“Good, good,” Werther said, showing no interest in her mission.

As Heinrich lowered them, the open face of the elevator passed several doors, until they had descended deep underground. Heinrich let go of the rope when he could lower them no further.

Werther opened the door into a gray stone hallway, devoid of the upper floors’ charm. He ambled along the hallway, heading for a metal door at its end.

“How is it you have managed on your own for so long, Mr. Werther?” Val asked him, one hand slinking down to the handle of her long ax. The change in the environment had made her suspicious, although she had noticed no change in the old man’s demeanor.

“Oh, it has been lonely at times, but there’s always work to do, isn’t there?”

He reached for the handle on the metal door, and Val stepped ahead, reaching in front of him, grasping the handle. “Allow me,” she said.

The man just bowed slightly.

She flung the door open wide, and it swung inward on oiled hinges, revealing a huge open space. The floor was flat stone. Long tubes along the ceiling glowed white like the sun on a cloudy day. In one corner of the massive room was a strange four-wheeled vehicle with large metal prongs sticking off the front like tusks. Val could tell from its design and huge knobby tires that it was meant to lift heavy loads. She spotted a flat wooden pallet, stacked high with sacks, and guessed the vehicle was meant to lift the entire pallet and all its cargo at once. Along one wall of the room were several large waist-high white metal boxes, big enough for a human being to recline in.

But Werther pointed to a different wall, where there were tall white metal cages. They were adorned with writing in German and pictures of little propane tanks, along with other diagrams and images depicting the need to keep open flames away from the racks. Inside the spaces through the cages, Val could see forty bottles of propane, each one three times the size of the ATV’s extra tanks.

“Those the things you’re needing then?”