The Keep

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 24“Shut in?” Josyff echoed. “What do you mean?”

“Just that,” Nyk said, with an uneasy mixture of irritation and helplessness in his voice that unsettled Josyff. “I can’t lower the drawbridge. We’re shut in.”

“I thought you said it was easy to move — counter-balanced in some way,” Josyff said.

“It is — was,” Nyk replied. “And it should be. But it won’t move.”

Unexpectedly, Josyff felt a powerful anger rising up. Couldn’t these people manage their own equipment, do their own work? They’d been here long enough! What in God’s name could he do about anything, if the man whose job it was couldn’t? He’d more than enough to do with this place without wasting time nursemaiding incompetents.

That such a response was unjust, he knew, but that barely mitigated it. Fortunately, he still had sufficient composure to keep silent and turn his face away from Nyk as this passion surged through him, so that it manifested itself simply in a tightening of his grip about the leg of the tripod he was holding, and a tensing of his jaw.

“Well, we’re surveyors, not engineers,” Badr said, almost jovially, as if sensing Josyff’s reaction. “I can’t imagine what we can do, but we can have a look at it with you, if you want.”

Josyff’s anger vanished as quickly as it had come, but it left him unsettled. He was not prone to such outbursts nor ever had been. It was completely out of character. Something was wrong.

But what...?

Both Badr and Nyk were looking at him as if for permission. He forced himself to smile and, with an effort, released his grip on the tripod leg.

“Of course,” he said.

The machinery for opening and closing the drawbridge was housed in a room that completely surrounded the gateway. Its existence was not immediately apparent however, as it was built within the thickness of the Keep wall. Only two nondescript doors, one on each side, indicated its presence.

Nyk led Badr and Josyff across the snow-covered courtyard, bright and cold under the clear blue sky. The Keep walls hid most of the mountains and Josyff found his eyes turning immediately to the gateway in anticipation of the light and openness it normally offered. The sight of the opening, now sealed, dark and ominous, felt like a blow and briefly he felt as though the whole Keep were closing about him.

Nyk opened the door on the right hand side of the gateway and held it as Josyff and Badr entered. They all paused for a moment after Nyk had closed the door. They were in an echoing and high arching chamber which, though well lit, seemed at first gloomy and oppressive after the sunlit brightness of the courtyard.

“Bigger than it looks,” Josyff remarked as his vision cleared.

“Up here,” Nyk said, setting off up a wide flight of stairs. The others followed. The stairs led directly on to the floor which spanned across the top of the gateway. Nyk pointed to a machine at the far side of the room — chains and pulley wheels defined it as lifting equipment. “That’s to raise and lower the drawbridge,” he said. He shook his head. “None of this makes any sense,” he muttered, largely to himself. “But this,” louder and to Josyff and Badr, “is what we usually use.”

He took hold of a large hand-wheel protruding from the wall and made to turn it. It did not move, even though he was applying a conspicuous effort.

“Normally, you can turn this with little more than the weight of your hand. Now...” He gave it a final frustrated push. “It’s solid — absolutely solid.” He stepped aside and extended a hand, inviting his listeners to test this for themselves, which, out of a mixture of curiosity and courtesy, they did.

“There’s no give in it at all,” Josyff remarked needlessly.

“Rock solid,” Nyk confirmed.

“Could it be the sudden cold?” Badr offered. “Something frozen somewhere?”

Nyk shook his head. “We get colder than this every year and it’s always worked as smooth as silk. Apart from the fact that I keep the main pivots lubricated, they’re actually heated. Whoever built this place really knew what they were doing. Far ahead of their time.”

“And the machine?” Josyff asked.

“Trips out immediately.”

Nyk walked over to the machine and pressed a button. There was a low hum and a soft thud and then silence.

“That’s what it’s meant to do — stop if the bridge is jammed,” Nyk explained. “It’s very sensitive, and it’s working fine. Never known the like of it before. I check everything out regularly. Not only because it’s in the Procedures but...” He left the sentence uncompleted.

Josyff looked at Badr and then back at Nyk before making a vague hand gesture.

“Is it possible part of the machine itself has failed — broken — and lodged in the mechanism?”

“Nah, look.” Nyk motioned them towards a descending flight of steps to one side of the machine. It led them down some way below the level of the courtyard. At the bottom he clambered over a guard rail and began pointing out the working parts of the drawbridge and the lifting equipment.

“Simple and straightforward,” he concluded. “And all in good order — nothing wrong with it — nothing jamming it, blocking it... nothing... but the whole thing is solid as a rock.”

Josyff felt for Nyk’s muted anger. Even in his limited acquaintance of the man he had come to respect both his ability and his conscientious commitment to his job. But he was at a loss. Though he could certainly bring a rational mind to Nyk’s problem he had no practical experience of dealing with such machines. He tried to ease the sense of urgency that Nyk was patently feeling.

“Exactly what does it mean?” he asked. “The gateway being sealed? What does it mean to us, here, now?”

“Right now — not much,” Nyk replied after a brief pause. “We’ve plenty food, water and such fuel as we need. But if we can’t get it open, then we’re trapped. Whatever this place is, or was, no one can get in or out except over the drawbridge.”

Josyff felt again as though the walls and ceiling of the chamber were closing about him, but the sensation vanished almost as if it had been ripped away by an unseen hand.

“Does anyone ever come up from the village?” he asked, grasping for support at the ordinary, though he knew the answer even as he spoke.

“No one comes here... except those with business here. And that’s usually only Henk, Qualto and myself. It’ll be spring before anyone even thinks about us.” He gave an odd shrug, half optimistic, half fatalistic. “Unless, of course, there are more surveyors and their superiors on the way.” He laid an unexpected and slightly caustic emphasis on “superiors’. Josyff noted it but wilfully set it aside, marking it as something that might possibly be of use in the future. “Still,” Nyk continued. “Even if there were, they’d be in bigger trouble than we are. As I said, there’s only one way in and out — they’d be locked out!”

“There’ll be a way out somewhere,” Badr said, speaking for the first time. “If between us we can’t find a way across that moat, I’d be very surprised.”

Nyk pulled a wry face. “You may be right,” he said, though it was a dismissal, not a concession. “But I doubt it. There’s certainly nothing here that’ll reach across the moat that I can think of. And you’ll need to be a rare climber if you’re thinking about going down into the moat.”

Badr was about to remonstrate with him, but Josyff interceded. “Either way, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. If we’re not going to starve to death in the near future then we’ve plenty time to find a solution.” He turned to Nyk. “We’ve not really started on our survey yet. Let’s the three of us look over everything here again. There may be something right under your nose that you just can’t see — it’s happened to me often enough. The last few days have been a major upheaval for you — upsetting your entire work schedule, I’m sure — plus it’s been tiring as well. Perhaps going through it all with us might just bring something to light.”

“No harm in trying,” Nyk conceded.

Badr was looking down at where the counterweight to the drawbridge seated against a cross wall.

“Have you got a crowbar?” he asked Nyk, who looked at him nervously.

“What for?”

Badr pointed at the counterweight. “Thought I’d try a little brute force. And a bit of impact — might just shake something loose. Have you got a hammer as well?” He held out his arms to indicate the size he had in mind.

Nyk did not seem to be over-enthusiastic about the idea, but receiving only a “why not?” shrug from Josyff, disappeared into the further reaches of the underground chamber. When he returned he was carrying a long crowbar and a heavy hammer.

“Excellent,” Badr said, climbing over the guard rail and taking them from him. Hefting the hammer proprietorially he walked along the length of the counterweight, eyes cast down, looking for a suitable place to implement his idea.

“This is a remarkable piece of work,” he announced after the second tour. “It’d be difficult to get a knife in here, let alone a crowbar.”

Then he had put down the tools and was kneeling and scratching at something. He produced a small knife from somewhere to help him.

“Well I’m damned,” he said as he crouched low and blew the remnants of dust from the small hole that he had exposed. “Look at this.”

“This” was a notch cut into the heavy metal edging that formed the seating for the counterweight.

“It looks as if it might be a leverage point,” Badr said.

“I’ve never seen that before,” Nyk said.

“You’ve never had cause to look before, have you?” Badr replied. “Besides, it was full of dust and grease. I only spotted it by chance.”

“It’s not a very neat job, is it?” Josyff said.

“Just what I was thinking,” Nyk agreed. He was examining Badr’s discovery closely. “And there are marks on the counterweight here.” He stood up. “It’s not part of the original manufacture — that’s all good workmanship — very good. This looks as if it’s been cut with a knife and fork.” Josyff smiled at the remark, glad of the momentary easing of the tension, but Nyk was thoughtful again.

“I wonder if this has happened before,” he said, vaguely indicating the closed bridge. He made a beckoning motion towards the crowbar. Badr handed it to him. “Let’s see if this will do the trick.”

The notch was wide enough to take the broad end of the crowbar and after satisfying himself that it was not likely to slip, Nyk heaved on it. Nothing happened. He shook his head. “We should be able to push this by hand from down here,” he said, running his sleeve across his brow.

“Let me try,” Badr said. “I’m stronger than you.”

Nyk relinquished the crowbar without demur.

“Are there any more notches we can use?” Josyff asked as Badr began pulling on the crowbar.

Before anyone could answer, Badr, his face reddening with effort, exclaimed, “It’s moving!”

Josyff looked down and saw that the line between the counterweight and the metal edging was slowly widening. Abruptly, he felt disorientated — he was part of a vast, silent emptiness and the gap, indeed the whole floor, seemed suddenly to be far far below him. Instinctively, he reached out to steady himself, but the impression vanished even as he touched the counterweight. He became aware of a commotion about him.

“What was that?” Nyk was saying; he too was steadying himself against the face of the counterweight, and there was the ringing clatter of the falling crowbar suffused all around by the fading echoes of a large impact.

Badr was staggering back. “God knows,” he gasped, his eyes wide. “The damn thing just... slammed shut.” He looked at his hands ruefully. “It just tore it out of my hands.”

“Are you hurt?” Josyff asked, anxiously.

Badr examined his hands again. “Just a little... and shaken.”

“What did you mean, slammed shut?” Nyk asked.

“Just that,” Badr replied. “It felt as though I was working against a great spring — some force that increased as I put more effort into it.” He became explanatory. “It didn’t have that unyielding feeling of something jammed solid — and it didn’t feel as though some obstacle was being broken or crushed. Very strange.”

A look of determination came into his eyes and he picked up the crowbar. “Let’s try again.”

Something deep inside Josyff said, “no!” but it was over-ridden by Badr’s sense of challenge, and he ignored it, compromising a little by repeating his earlier question. “Are there any more notches like this we can use?”

After some scratching and poking, they found another — cut rough and unfinished into the metal. Nyk said nothing, but his nose wrinkled as if in distaste and he looked little happier when, at Badr’s further urging, he returned with a second crowbar.

“I don’t use one of these once in a blue moon — now we’re using two...”

“You don’t see this jamming itself shut once in a blue moon either,” Badr retorted, obviously relishing the prospect of a battle with the recalcitrant drawbridge.

Though a reluctant volunteer, Nyk looked set to take charge of the second notch, but Josyff stopped him.

“I’ll do that,” he said. “You know this place better than we do. Watch what’s happening and call out if it looks as if we’re... doing damage to anything.”

Nyk handed him the crowbar with a grunt of acknowledgement and Josyff braced himself. At Badr’s command he began heaving.

“It’s opening again,” he heard Nyk saying, but he sensed too what Badr had spoken of. The resistance he was meeting had indeed an almost wilful quality to it. The more he pulled, the greater it became. Then it happened.