The Aperture

Chapter 7

Carnage at the Castle Maray

It was still dark when the insistent rap came at Connie’s door. The sharp, strident sound of the knocking eventually roused her instantly from her sleep.

“Alyndia! Wake up. We have to be leaving soon,” came Jalban’s voice beyond the door.

“What are you talking about? It’s not even daylight.”

“Yes, I know that. But Rahl wants to leave early.”

Connie lay in bed for a while, contemplating her situation. She felt better this morning than she had in a while, and her wakefulness was not greeted with the disembodied feeling she had the day before.

The rap came again. “Alyndia! Do you hear me? If you don’t get down here right away, you’re going to miss breakfast.”

“Hold your hanyaks. I’m coming,” she said as she pulled away the downy quilt that covered her.

Downstairs at the table, there was another among them who was unfamiliar. Rahl introduced him as his older brother, Yalden. Yalden was a large man who, though not as large and well-built as Rahl, was definitely a contender for sword-wielding muscle. She saw the resemblance between the two men, especially in their green eyes and the bridge of their noses. Yalden’s overall appearance was more boyish than Rahl’s. While they were eating, Sind sat demurely by himself at the end of the table. Connie realized that Kiban was not present.

“Where is your brother, Sind?” she asked.

Sind looked up at her, his eyes filled with sadness and longing.

“The lady took him,” he answered quietly.

Rahl elaborated for him: “Jenada took him back to the cottage this morning.”

“Hey, child,” Yalden said. “Brighten up. Jenada will tend him fine.”

“When will I see him again?”

“Soon,” Rahl replied. “We will try to get you employment at the Castle Maray. That is, if they will have you.”

Sind did not look enthused at the prospect.

“He will be fine,” Connie said, resting her hand affectionately on his shoulder.

Sind gazed into Connie’s with an acutely tragic look. “I trust you, Alyndia. If you say he will be fine, then I know it will be so.”

Connie smiled at the boy. “Thank you for the vote of confidence, Sind. We wouldn’t let you down.”

A half hour later, the six of them, Connie, Rahl, Jalban, Sind, Yalden, and Theo, were mounted and on their way out to the Castle Maray. The morning was chilly. Connie wrapped her cloak around her shoulders to keep warm. With her belly full of hotcakes, she wished she were back in the warm, comfortable bed at Wendsar’s Inn. As they rode, Connie again noticed a dry, green haze covering the ground. It swirled about with the movement of the hanyak’s hooves.

The day turned out to be hazy with green clouds. The light crept up slowly. It was a few hours past sunrise when the clouds began to dissipate slightly, though the sun still could not be seen. Grassy pastures framed with low walls of round stones stretched to the hills on either side of the road. The farther they traveled toward the castle, the fewer grazing animals could be seen in the pastures and fenced fields adjoining the small farms. Now they saw empty pasture after empty pasture. Connie felt something off in the air that was difficult to place—a kind of deathly stillness. She gradually noticed that no sounds of songbirds emanated from in the trees as she had heard earlier, and no birds flew overhead.

After they had been riding for three hours, they stopped for a rest. Connie, Sind, Theo, and Yalden sat on one of the low walls while Jalban prepared betanna root drink for them. Rahl hopped over the wall and walked across one of the pastures to the crest of a hill in the distance. After looking over the other side, he walked back to the group, where he addressed Connie and Theo.

“Can either of you spellcasters predict the weather?”

Connie and Theo looked at each other. Connie shrugged. To her, Rahl’s question sounded ludicrous.

“I cannot predict the weather,” Theo said to Rahl. “It is an air spell. Connie can cast it for you.”

“You are mistaken, Theo. I don’t have such a spell.” She looked at Rahl. “Sorry, Rahl. I can’t predict the weather for you.”

Rahl frowned at her and walked off in a huff.

Jalban handed Connie and Theo a tin cup of the betanna root drink. Connie took a sip of hers.

“What’s gotten into Rahl?” she asked Theo.

Theo drank the entire contents of his cup before answering.

“He’s upset, naturally. Why didn’t you cast a spell for him?”

“I don’t know how. Why don’t you all believe me? And why is Rahl so concerned about the weather, anyway?”

“He’s hoping it will not rain. If it does, there may be trouble.”

“Why? His armor might rust?”

“No. Chaos.”

“What about it?

“If Chaos is present, rain from the clouds will wash it into the soil, and the foliage will taint.”

“Then what happens?”

“I’ve only heard that bad things happen, but I don’t know what these things could be. Perhaps Rahl would know more. He’s the Swordbearer. Ask him.”

Connie considered doing just that, but Rahl seemed visibly disturbed at that point. She did not wish to involve himself in the maelstrom of his emotions.

A short while later, they were on the road again toward the castle. The clouds persisted longer, but fortunately, no rain fell. Passing over the crest of a hill, the Castle Maray came into full view. Connie was awestruck by the castle. It reminded her of the spired, great fortresses she had seen in Germany on her many visits to Europe on assignment. The tall walls of the fortress were surrounded by a village whose structure clustered closed to the wall like ducklings to their mother.

Rahl stopped short at the sight of the castle. He stared at it in the distance. Connie rode up to him.

“Is that the castle?” she asked.

“Yes. That is the Castle Maray.”

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

“Could be,” he replied enigmatically. He held his hands over his eyes. “I can’t tell from here.”

“What are you looking for?”

“Tell me, Alyndia. Do you see any moment?”

Connie scanned the scene in the distance. She saw no movement on the walls of the castle, nor the village sprawled outside its walls. “No, I don’t see any movement at all. But we are very far away. I doubt we would see any movement from this distance without a pair of—” she wanted to say binoculars, but she couldn’t find the phase.

A moment later, Theo joined Rahl and Connie at the front of the group. “What is the problem?” Theo asked.

Rahl explained what they were looking for. Theo reached into his belt pouch and pulled out a few, small, mummified animal organs. “I have just the spell for this,” he said proudly.

Connie smiled to herself. Oh, this is going to be good, she thought.

Theo cradled in his hands what looked like a mummified chicken heart. He held the heart above his head while muttering a seemingly nonsensical incantation. Then, holding the organ in one hand, he ran his hands over Rahl’s eyes. Rahl did not flinch, then he suddenly frowned, not taking his eyes off the castle in the distance. He muttered some curses under his breath.

“What do you see?” Connie asked, really intending to ask, “What do you see now that you couldn’t see before?”

“Death,” Rahl replied.

“How do you know that?” she asked, now straining her eyes to see what Rahl saw in the distance.

“Behold,” Theo said to Connie.

He reached over and waved his hand slowly in front of her eyes. When his hand moved away, she suddenly found herself standing in front of the castle, or at least it appeared that way. She turned Theo. She could barely make out his appearance in the blur. She looked around herself. A clump of trees they passed twenty minutes ago appeared so close she thought she could walk right into them.

“What did you do to me?” she asked Theo, alarmed at the extraordinary change in her vision.

“Hawkeyes,” he replied. “I cast a Hawkeyes spell on you.”

“But I’m so farsighted now.” She rubbed her eyes and then looked at Theo again, but he remained a blur. “I can’t even see you.”

“It will last for only a short time.”

Reluctantly taking his word for it, she returned her vision to the castle. Immediately, she saw what Rahl meant. The castle and the village surrounding it were in shambles. Dead animals and humans were strewn in the streets. An overturned cart and some sort of household furniture could be found here and there. A few burned-out buildings smoldered from a fire that probably raged several hours earlier. There was no sign of life anywhere. Although the castle appeared structurally intact, the roofs of many of the nearby smaller structures were collapsed. The highest tower of the castle was draped with a tattered red pennant. A dead man hung out of the window of the tower. A quarter league beyond the castle was a high gray wall that stretched off in either direction as far as she could see.

“That must be the Calphous Wall, the Barrier to Chaos,” Connie said to herself, recalling Rahl’s words.

With its round stones and construction of great antiquity, the sight of it reminded her of the Great Wall of China, which she has visited twice in her life. If the wall were really as long as Rahl suggested, then it would definitely be a rival to the Great Wall itself. But this could not be true, for she had never heard of this particular wall until a few days earlier.

Connie’s vision suddenly reeled back to normal, giving her a sense of vertigo so strong she nearly fell off the hanyak. She turned to Theo, who had been watching her as she stared off into the distance. She gasped, not knowing what to say about the wondrous experience of being able to see unaided as if she were wearing binoculars.

“I apologize to you, Alyndia,” he said. “I should have requested your permission before I cast the spell on you.”

“No, that was incredible. How did you do that?”

“I already told you: Hawkeyes,” he replied as if the answer were obvious.

“Was that an illusion, or could I really see such a distance?”

“You saw with the eyes of a hawk.”

“Amazing, Theo. I’m impressed.”

“It was easy.”

Connie turned to Rahl to corroborate what she had seen at the Castle Maray, but he was already away from her speaking with Yalden and Jalban. Connie rode up to them. “…it will be dangerous,” she heard him say.

“Then we should head back to town,” Jalban said. “We have no purpose there if they are already dead.”

“We don’t know that they are all dead. We must go there to look for survivors,” Rahl said. “This didn’t happen that long ago.”

“I agree,” Yalden said. “There might be survivors held up somewhere in the castle. We must go to them.”

“Rahl, I don’t like the idea.” Jalban said. “Perhaps the boy, Alyndia, and I can wait here while you, Theo, and Yalden here check it out.”

“No, we must stay together,” Rahl insisted. “Besides, we will need Alyndia’s spell-casting abilities in the event we run into trouble, and we might need your healing herbs in case one of us is injured.”

“Wait just a minute here!” Connie said on hearing about her role. “If you all think I’m going to cast spells to save your asses, you’ve got another thing coming.”

“Your cowardice disgusts me, Alyndia.” Yalden said gruffly.

“Indeed, this is not the time to be weak,” Rahl said in a more diplomatic tone. “And while we sit here bickering, there may be people trapped within the castle. We must go now. Time is of the essence.” He turned his hanyak and rode away from them toward the castle.

“Let us follow,” Yalden said, riding off to follow his brother.

Connie, Jalban, and Sind, left by themselves, rode some distance behind Rahl and Yalden, with Theo covering up the rear. Just before they reached the castle, Connie rode up to Rahl.

“Rahl, I really don’t think I can live up to your expectations on this,” she said.

“Let it not trouble you, Alyndia, I fully expect that you will remain calm and collected no matter what we encounter at the castle.”

“I mean, about the spells.”

“Cast whichever spell you think will help us, Alyndia. I will rely on your good judgment in the matter.” He then shouted back to the rest of the party, “Whatever you do, do not touch anything. And stay on the road. Do not lose sight of your fellow man, or else you may never see him again.”

Now the carnage came closer within view. Dead livestock covered the road. Connie looked at the creatures as they passed. It seemed no two died for the same type of wound. The only trait they had in common was that the deaths were messy. So messy, in fact, the ground was stained a deep, dull green with blood.

They also passed a few cottages with their front doors and windows broken in. Rahl called out to a few cottages in case survivors hid inside. No one answered his call.

Theo held out his rune-covered wood staff with a brass loop affixed to its end. He ran it over the carcasses on either side of him as he rode. “Dead too long,” he muttered, and then he cursed.

Once in the town, the carnage of human life was most prevalent. Mutilated bodies were strewn across the streets. The deaths were strange; bloody skulls sat outside mushy-headed bodies. A man seemed choked to death by his own dismembered arm. Another was flayed alive, quickly, as the skeletal body left footprints up to the point of its demise. The body of a naked old woman lay sprawled on her side in the street, her complete, intact spinal cord laying beside her along with a few rib fragments. Then there was the blood. Blood was everywhere—smeared on the walls, smeared on the overturned carts in the street, smeared on the signs to the shops twelve feet above the ground. All was still and silent. Not even the wind blew. Only Rahl’s occasional call to survivors broke the quietude.

“Don’t look, Sind,” Connie said as they made their way through the carnage. Her request came too late. Sind’s face displayed the horror of the scene. He began to vomit partially digested hotcakes all over the neck of the hanyak and the new clothes Connie bought him the day before.

“By the gods!” Jalban said, guiding the hanyak around a pile of dismembered corpses. “What could have done all of this?”

“Chaos,” Rahl replied.

“But what creature?”

“Pray to your gods and hope you never learn firsthand what sort of creature has done this,” Rahl replied.

Once they reached the town square, they stopped to take stock of the scene. The drawbridge to the castle was down. Its surface was covered with the mutilated bodies of men at arms, many of them only partially dressed. Rahl mentioned that he suspected the attack came at night while town was asleep, probably before dawn. This is why there was little sign of struggle, and consequentially, no one escaped.

If they continued straight ahead, they could pass within the castle walls. Both other roads lead out of town. Rahl sat for a moment, sniffing the air. Connie saw him do this.

“What are you doing?”

“Sensing Chaos,” he replied.

“So, what do you think?” she asked, taking his words at face value, wondering if Chaos really had a tangible scent.

“I don’t sense it now, but it might not be far off.” He called Theo forward. “You’re the spirit mage. What do you think? Is there anyone alive around here?”

Theo closed his eyes and held his staff high above his head. His violet robe fell back, revealing his wiry arms. The party watched him in silence while he whispered some quiet incantation. Gradually, with his arms remaining outstretched, he lowered the staff in the direction of the castle. He suddenly opened his eyes and peered through the gates. He looked perplexed. “I am not sure,” he said. “I am detecting something from within the castle, but I am not sure what it is.”

“Is it alive?”

“Possibly. If they are living beings, their life force is scarcely detectable, or they are close to death.”

“What do you mean, they?” Jalban asked with a slight tremble in his voice.

“There are six of them.”

“You said ‘living beings.’ Living beings as opposed to what?” Yalden asked.

“I’m not sure. They’re definitely not animal, but they’re not like us, either.” Theo looked at this staff. “Unless my enchantment is failing, I’d say they were—” his puzzled expression suddenly returned. He looked to Rahl. “I dare say they are spiritual beings. Might I suggest angels, or possibly demons?”

“I don’t like the sound of this,” Jalban said.

“Neither do I,” Yalden added, resting his hand on the hilt of his sword. “It might be a trick of Chaos or something to lure us into a trap.”

Rahl spoke to Theo. “That’s a big castle. Do you think you can find them in there?”

Theo nodded, his staff clutched tightly. “Yes, I think so.”

“Then we must investigate this,” Rahl said to the group. “Do I have any volunteers to enter the castle with Theo and me?”

He looked at each member of the group. Jalban and Yalden looked away when Rahl’s eyes fell on them.

“I will go,” Connie said when Rahl’s eyes rested upon her.

Jalban gasped. “Alyndia!”

“Shut up, Jalban. You’re not my father.”

Jalban gasped on hearing this, looking as if she had just slapped him hard across the face.

Rahl smiled at her. “Very good, Alyndia. Your spells may come in handy. Does anyone else want to go?”

“I want to go!” Sind said.

“No,” Rahl said. “It is too dangerous for a young one such as you.”

Sind’s eyes plead with Connie so that she might take him along.

“You wait here, with Jalban and Yalden,” she said. “This shouldn’t take very long.”

“You hope,” Yalden added for her.

Rahl dismounted his hanyak, and with his shield in one arm and sword in the opposing hand, he took a few steps toward the yawning mouth of the castle. “Come Theo. Alyndia.” He called back to the three that would remain outside. “If we do not return by noon. Do not seek us inside the castle. Return to the Zeranon to warn them of the tragedy that has taken place here. And see to it that the Ruling Council in Roggentine is warned.”

The Connie took a last lingering look at those left behind as they passed through the great walls of the castle. Sind watched her with teary eyes. Jalban looked worried. She felt somehow responsible for the both of them. Fortunately, it seemed Yalden would be able to hold in their defense perchance any trouble cropped up.

Theo walked ahead of Rahl and Connie with his staff outstretched before him. Rahl walked next. Connie lingered slightly behind. Inside the walls, Connie was awestruck by the immensity of the structure. The walls were fully at least twenty feet thick. The tall towers seemed to scrape the bleak gray-green clouds that moved slowly overhead. Connie had to smile. For all the carnage around her, she realized this was a very authentic-looking medieval castle. It was amazing that modern people, the soldiers and inhabitants, actually lived in this kind of structure whose era had faded with the Dark Ages.

They entered the castle perimeter through the main gate on the other side of the drawbridge, stepping over the remnants of a smashed-in portcullis and other debris. From there, they walked down a wide wooden ramp into a rectangular expanse of grassy courtyard. The courtyard, like the streets of the town outside the castle, was a bloody tangle of corpses. The bodies of men and hanyaks lay everywhere. As in the village, the causes of death varied widely from victim to victim. There was no sign, dead or alive, of the enemy that had slain them.

At the far end of the courtyard were the smoldering remains of a wooden barracks building. To the right of the barracks, across a rectangular courtyard, stood a high-roofed chapel. Compared to the rest of the castle, for all its stained-glass windows, the chapel alone seemed intact. It was in this direction that Theo pointed his staff.

As she followed Theo and Rahl through the courtyard, Connie surveyed the wide variety of medieval weapons scattered about. It looked like a Renaissance fair gone mad. Her eyes rested on a large, ornamented sword with what looked like a gold-plated hilt. The weapon was lovely, and he looked like it had hardly ever been used.

She stopped to pick it up. Just as she reached for the weapon, she heard Rahl’s call out to her: “Don’t touch it!”

Connie looked up to see Rahl facing her, looking very worried. Theo had stopped walking and was now watching them, seemingly with keen interest.

“Come look at this sword, Rahl. It’s got to be worth a lot.”

“Leave it,” he said.

“Why? The guy who was using it obviously doesn’t need it anymore.

“It may be tainted.”

“Tainted or not, I would feel much better with more than a dagger for protection in this place.”

“Stay close to me. I will protect you.”

Connie gazed down at the shiny weapon resting innocuously on the grass. Its blade seemed to shimmer in the light of the green sky above.

He motioned for her to follow. “Come, Alyndia. No weapon, no matter how valuable, is worth your sanity or your life.”

With heavy reluctance, Connie took a last, lingering look at the weapon and rejoined Rahl and Theo. They followed Theo through the courtyard until they reached the large oaken double doors of the chapel. A decapitated, naked male corpse lay sprawled at the base of the doors. It appeared that his head had been ripped from his body. Out of perversity, Connie scanned the immediate area for a head that might match the body. It was nowhere within sight.

Theo stood in front of the doors, holding his staff outward toward the portal, his eyes shut, deep in concentration. Connie and Rahl waited in silence on the steps next to him. At last, he opened his eyes and rapped his staff against the doors. He then turned to Connie and Rahl, his face awash with dread and apprehension.

“They’re just beyond this door,” he said.