The Keep

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 26The gap between the counterweight and the edging began to widen as Josyff and Badr levered together.

“It’s opening!” Nyk shouted, excitedly. He was leaning with his shoulder against the counterweight, pushing, reluctant to leave the remedying of this — his — problem to outsiders.

But even as his cry echoed around the chamber, Josyff felt a deep sense of the wrongness of what he was doing rising through him, and a deep fear, although in some way, the fear did not seem to be his. He had scarcely time to reflect on these unbidden sensations, when the sense of disorientation he had felt before returned, not only in full force, but magnified many times. Like the fear, his limbs, his whole body, seemed no longer to be his. He was being stretched and flattened, made both infinitely heavy, yet dispersed, intangible. He was many things at many times in many places. Strange images, giddying, distorted perspectives overwhelmed him.

And as abruptly as they had come, they were gone and he was in the drawbridge chamber again — breathtakingly snapped back into normality. All around him was noise and confusion. The crowbar was being torn from his grasp and he was...

Falling?

A reflex — far faster than his lumbering and bewildered mind — turned his head to one side and brought a hand up to protect it as he crashed forward into the counterweight. For an instant it seemed as though he was being crushed into it — great weights pushing him mercilessly.

Then he was staggering backwards violently under the impetus of his own protective reaction. After several uncontrolled paces, his legs finally buckled and he landed gracelessly but relatively painlessly on his behind.

The chamber was ringing with the remains of a loud noise, though he could not immediately recall having heard one. It was both screechingly high — the memory of gulls he had dreamt of flickered briefly into his consciousness — and profoundly low, shaking him deep within, as though the mountain itself were trying to speak. As it faded, Josyff thought he saw the upper reaches of the chamber walls bending and buckling, like waves at a shore edge.

He blinked, and the impression was gone, as was the noise. It was replaced by the sound of his own gasping breath and by the exclamations of Badr and Nyk.

Badr was stamping his foot and shaking his hand violently. Nyk was leaning against the counterweight with his head in his hands.

Josyff stood up, unsteadily.

“What happened?” he asked Badr.

“God knows,” Badr replied, through gritted teeth. “The crowbar just slammed into that damn thing and took me with it. I don’t know how I avoided getting my fingers broken. As it was, it just caught the end of my fingers.” He paused to grimace and blow on his fingertips. “I’ll be all right in a moment. See how Nyk is.”

Nyk, too, was now standing, gingerly massaging one side of his face.

“Banged my face,” Nyk said, before he was asked. “It’s nothing. What the devil happened? It was opening, then...” His voice faded and he gave a helpless gesture.

“It’s your drawbridge, you tell us.” Badr was forcing words out in a continuing attempt to take his mind off the pain in his fingers.

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” Nyk said, as if the repetition might inspire him in some way. He put his hand hesitantly against the face of the counterweight. “This, I can push by hand...” Once again the sentence was left hanging. He took his hand away, stepped back and looked at the unyielding surface. His voice was steadier when he spoke, though with a hint of desperation in it. “I know this machinery inside out. I look after it, I understand it. It’s clever, reliable, simple, it works, it... There’s nothing — nothing — that could make this happen. If some part had somehow... fallen off... which isn’t possible — we’d be able to see it. No, it can’t do it, not jam shut like this. And as for slamming like that...”

“Well, jammed it is, and slammed it did,” Josyff said. “And with enough force to knock all three of us over.”

An uncomfortable silence fell on the trio.

“We have to get it open,” Nyk said eventually.

“If what you say about getting out of here is true, then indeed we have,” Josyff said. “But we’re not going to do it this way.” He nudged one of the crowbars with his foot. “That’s perfectly clear. You two were hurt and I was lucky — just dumped on my backside. Who’s to say what might happen if we try again? Are you all right, now?”

This last was addressed to Badr, who was still pacing up and down nursing and shaking his hand, but whose foot stamping had stopped.

“Yes,” he replied with a rueful smile. “It’s down to unbearable pain now. I’m just waiting for the time when I can look back on this.”

Josyff chuckled at this unexpected humour, and turned to Nyk.

“And your face?”

Nyk’s fingers tested his cheek. “I think it’ll be tender for a day or so, but no harm done. It was the shock, mainly. It was as though someone pushed me. Just couldn’t stop myself.”

Josyff took unequivocal charge.

“Gentlemen, this is obviously serious, but it’s not yet urgent. I suggest we retreat and regroup in the face of superior force. Let’s find Qualto and reflect on this over a little food.”

They did not have to find Qualto however. He and Esyal were heading hurriedly across the courtyard as the three of them emerged into the bright snowlight.

“Did you feel that?” Qualto asked, obviously agitated. “What was it?”

“What was what?” Josyff asked.

Qualto’s arms fluttered. “That rumbling, that shaking. Surely you heard it — felt it. I thought the place was going to fall down. Very alarming.”

Josyff forestalled an open-air discussion. “Let’s get into the warm and talk there,” he said, pointing towards the open door. Qualto turned about as one of his busy hands made a signal of agreement. Nevertheless, regardless of Josyff’s injunction, he continued with his tale as they walked the short distance.

“I’d just taken Esyal to find some clothes in the stores when everything started to shake — even the walls and the floors — you could feel it...” He shuddered. “And a deep rumbling sound — like someone rolling a huge boulder. All the clothes were jigging about on the racks — they looked like things possessed. The room seemed to be going round and round. I thought I was going to be sick.”

The warmth of the Keep closed about them as Nyk closed the door and Josyff glanced as Esyal. She was pale, and patently exerting control over herself but, catching his look, she nodded to confirm what Qualto had said.

They came to the common room and by some unspoken consent all sat down around the table, rather than in the more comfortable chairs ringed about the fire.

“When did this happen?” Nyk asked.

“Just now,” Qualto replied. “As long as it takes to get from the stores to the courtyard.”

Josyff and Badr looked at Nyk. He nodded but did not speak.

“Everything was shaking, you say?” Badr asked Qualto. “Floors, walls?”

“Everything,” Qualto confirmed.

“It’s been an earth tremor — a slight earthquake — I’ll wager,” Badr said. “It must have happened just as we were struggling with the drawbridge. We were just too preoccupied to notice any noises and shaking. It was probably something similar that moved the ladders in the book room last night.”

“There was no noise last night,” Qualto objected. “And the walls and floors weren’t shaking.”

Badr gave an airy wave. “Well, something woke me. I wouldn’t pretend to be an expert on earthquakes, but I remember one from when I was a boy, travelling with my father — only a small one, but it made everything shake — very frightening — feeling the ground you’re standing on moving. And they come in clusters — big shocks and little ones — little ones could have been happening for days. Why you didn’t notice anything last night, I don’t know, but there’s no saying how a massive building like this would respond to vibrations.”

“That’s true,” Josyff agreed. “And it’s as good an explanation as any. It was no small thing that slammed that drawbridge on us, just now.” He turned to Nyk. “If it’s balanced so delicately, perhaps, like Badr’s ladders, it was responding to smaller tremors when it was opening and closing of its own accord.”

Nyk nodded appreciatively, more than a little relieved to have a mystery reduced to a problem. “I suppose it’d account for what’s been happening — and if there’s been movement of the ground itself, maybe the pivots have been misaligned. That could jam it badly. I’ll have a look afterwards.” He drifted into practical considerations. “Mind you, I don’t know how we can fix it if that’s happened.”

Qualto was still doubtful. “We’ve never had anything like that before.”

“They’re rare,” Badr said, matter of fact. “Very rare in this country.”

“Do you think there’ll be any more?” Qualto asked.

Badr waved a hasty disclaimer and repeated his claim not to be an expert.

“Perhaps even that... voice... we heard last night was something to do with it,” Josyff said. “Parts of the building... moving... creaking, maybe. And I seem to remember reading somewhere that all manner of odd things happen before an earthquake — mysterious lights appearing, animals being agitated — picking up things that we can’t feel.”

The prospect of a rational, albeit unusual, explanation to the events of the past few days was alluring, but even as he spoke, Josyff knew that this was wrong. His voice rang in his head with the echoing urgency of a frightened child shouting in the dark. With a certainty that defied reason, he knew that there had been no earthquake — no new cracks would be found in the building, Nyk would not find the drawbridge pivots damaged — there had been a will behind the closing of the drawbridge — an intent.

“You’ve gone quite pale.”

Esyal’s voice made him jump.

Josyff forced a smile and unearthed a hasty excuse. “I’m fine, thanks. Probably just a bit of reaction to that fall.”

“It certainly sent you staggering,” Badr confirmed.

Josyff shrugged and somehow managed to force aside his unwelcome revelation. “No harm’s been done — except to my dignity. As I said, I think a slight earth tremor’s as good an explanation as we can manage at the moment. Unless you need any special help, Nyk, Badr and I will get back to our work.”

“I’ll look in the old logs,” Qualto said. “See if there’s ever been anything like this before.”

“Logs?” queried Josyff.

“The records of the work we do,” Qualto explained. “Keeping them isn’t the most favourite job for some of us.” He looked significantly at Nyk, who studiously avoided his gaze. “But I quite enjoy it.” He became enthusiastic. “They go back for I don’t know how many years. I keep threatening to dig out the really old volumes and study the place properly, but...”

“You never get round to it.” Nyk completed the sentence, a note of satisfaction in his voice indicating that this was no new boast.

“Well, now your routine’s been thoroughly disturbed, this might be the opportunity,” Josyff said. “Do you think they go back to the time when this place was built?”

Qualto became pensive. “I wouldn’t imagine so,” he said. “But to tell the truth I don’t know. The older logs are a little... disordered.”

“They’re a mess,” Nyk intruded. “Looking after them’s not on the Duty Orders so they’ve been neglected for years.”

“Even so, I’d be interested to look at them, if it’s no problem,” Josyff said.

“It’s no problem, providing you don’t mind dust,” Nyk replied.

“Maybe I could start tidying them up.”

It was Esyal. She looked at Qualto.

“I shouldn’t think helping you is going to take all day and I’ve got to do something useful while I’m here.”

Qualto looked at Nyk who gave a moue of indifference. “No harm in it,” he said. Then the moue became a slight grin. “Though you’d better have a look at them before you volunteer for too much.”

“They are bad,” Qualto agreed.

“I’m growing more intrigued by the moment,” Josyff said. “Can we have a quick look now, before we start work again?”

“Certainly,” Nyk said. “They’re kept by the book room. They...”

He stopped abruptly.

Standing in the doorway was Henk, his arms around the apparently unconscious form of Adroyan.