The Keep

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 14“Well?” said Qualto.

Henk extended an arm towards the door, inviting him to open it.

“If this is a surprise party I have to tell you it’s not my birthday,” Qualto said caustically as he pushed past Henk.

The door was no different from many that could be found about the Keep: close fitting timbers shaped to the arched doorway, heavy iron hinges and a simple pivoting latch. Qualto lifted the latch and pulled at the door. Expecting some resistance from a door in such an unused part of the Keep, Qualto staggered slightly as it opened with ease. Henk reached out and steadied him. Badr, who had been watching the exchange between the two men with some amusement, stepped back as cold air wafted over his face and a sound like a low sigh filled the passageway.

“What the devil was that?” Qualto exclaimed, stepping back. He shivered noisily, provoking the same response in Badr, though he managed to disguise the movement.

“What was what?” Henk asked, watching Qualto intently.

“That noise, of course,” Qualto replied, angrily. “Like someone... like someone...”

“Someone in despair?” Henk finished the sentence as Qualto stumbled into an awkward silence.

Badr found his mouth was dry. He cleared his throat noisily and affected a cheerfulness he did not feel.

“It’s probably an outside door or a window open somewhere,” he said. “You can get all manner of draughts and noises in a great pile like this.”

“No.” Qualto and Henk spoke simultaneously.

“The only unlocked doors are those we use, and they’re all shut,” Henk added. “And none of the windows open.” He looked down at Badr. “And there’s no wind today.”

Badr felt that he should say more, but he knew enough of the Keep to know that Henk was correct. Both the sound and the chilling waft of air had faded but they hung in his memory as though the cold stones about him were softly whispering to him. He fought down another urge to shiver.

Qualto, however, appeared to have recovered from his initial alarm. “Is this what you dragged us all this way for?” he asked, irritably. “A draughty corridor?” Henk did not reply but swung the door to and fro a few times: it moved silently and easily.

Qualto eyed him. “You’ve been down here oiling the hinges haven’t you?” he said suspiciously. “Most of these old doors haven’t been opened in years and screech like crushed cats.”

Henk remained silent but once again held out his arm, this time motioning Qualto through the doorway.

“Where does it go?” Qualto asked.

“Where does anything go to in this place?” Henk retorted. “Up, down, round — rooms and more rooms.”

“After you, then,” Qualto insisted.

Henk ducked unnecessarily as he walked through the doorway, Qualto following him. Badr paused to secure the door open with a hook in the wall that dropped into a ring in the latch. He’d been trapped in strange rooms before now by ill-hung doors slamming, and when it hadn’t been embarrassing it had been alarming, not to say downright dangerous — as it could be here.

He noticed that the wall was unusually thick as he passed through the doorway, making it almost like a short tunnel. And indeed, as he stepped into the passage beyond the door he felt as though he had ended a journey. Something had changed. He paused and gazed around.

He was aware of Henk watching him silently.

“Feels different,” Qualto voiced his own response bluntly.

Yes, Badr thought, but where is the difference? He looked back through the door. It stood open and the passage beyond stretched off to end in darkness in the characteristic manner of the Keep. And the passage they had entered looked no different. Typical of many such in the Keep, it was generously wide with a low rise arched ceiling, a smooth, tight-jointed stone floor and equally smooth, undecorated walls. He took in a slow breath. There was no smell that he could detect. Not even the stale odour of long unmoved air, for unmoved it must be as there was no hint of the breeze that had greeted them when the door was first opened. Then again, he reflected, the way air moved about this convoluted building was a mystery in its own right — nothing ever smelled of stagnancy yet there was no apparent ventilation. He brought himself back to the present. There was no apparent change in the temperature to indicate they had moved into a deeper and older part of the Keep, but there was change enough to mist the breath and keep one from loitering.

“It’s in your head.”

Badr started. The voice sounded unnaturally loud.

“What?”

“It’s in your head.” It was Henk and he was speaking normally. “What you can feel. Everything looks the same, but it’s different.”

His manner was that of someone stating a straightforward fact, quite free from the combative justification that had coloured his exchanges with Qualto previously. Badr half expected Qualto to rebut the comment but the cook was silent.

“I don’t understand. What do you mean?” he said reluctantly and after a long pause. Just as Henk’s voice had sounded louder than it was, now his own felt hollow and detached.

Henk shrugged and tapped his head. “Voices,” he said. “Or things that would be voices. Like something trying to talk to us.”

Both Qualto and Badr stared at him. Badr alarmed, Qualto both alarmed and concerned. He took his friend’s arm and spoke to him softly and urgently.

“What’s the matter with you, Henk? You’re making a fool of yourself in front of our guest.”

Henk shook off Qualto’s hand, almost angrily. “Just listen!” he said, an unexpected passion lighting his face. Badr took a step backwards, abruptly all too aware of the fact that he had no idea where he was in this maze of a building or what these two people were really like. He took some comfort from the fact that Qualto seemed to be as surprised and concerned as he was.

“Maybe we should get back,” he said, in an attempt to restore a sense of normality.

“Just listen!” Henk said again, with even more force but with a note of entreaty. “It’s been like this for months.”

“You’ve been coming down here for months?” Qualto exclaimed, ignoring the plea. “What in God’s name for? There’s nothing needs doing down here, is there?”

“There’s work needed everywhere, all the time,” Henk retorted, more his normal self again, somewhat to Badr’s relief.

Qualto gazed up and down the passage with slow and wilful deliberation. “Well, I can’t see anything.”

Henk came the nearest he could to straightening up indignantly as he aped Qualto’s inspection of the passage. “That’s because you’re the cook,” he said definitively, snapping out the final word.

Qualto’s eyes narrowed and he seemed set on continuing the discussion in like terms, until a quick sidelong glance at Badr reminded him to be more circumspect. He raised his hands apologetically. “All right, all right, I’m sorry. It’s not for me to tell you and Nyk your jobs. But this is a long way from anywhere you normally go, isn’t it?”

Henk was silent, though it was obvious from his expression that he was struggling with something. Slowly he wilted back to his normal posture.

“I like to wander about,” he said, half reluctantly, half with relief. He became self-consciously comradely. “You know how it is. We grumble about the place but we’re part of it and it’s part of us.”

Qualto shuffled his feet uncomfortably but did not speak. Henk became defensive. “And it is our job to keep an eye on all of it, whether there’s work to do or not.”

Qualto gave a conciliatory nod, increasingly anxious to have this matter ended and to get back to his kitchen and normality, not to say warmth.

“But...”

“Just listen.” Henk was insistent. “Please.”

It was not a request that could be refused. Silence enfolded the group. Henk beckoned to them and began walking along the passage. Badr cast another nervous glance back at the open door then followed him, as did Qualto, conspicuously tightening his mouth to indicate he had a great deal to say, but wouldn’t.

All three moved like guilty late-night revellers returning to a darkened household, placing their feet carefully as if the least sound might bring retribution down upon them.

Badr noticed that the passage ahead of them was lit for a greater length than he had seen elsewhere in the Keep. He was paying particular attention to it, not relishing the moment when the lights behind them would go out and the door become invisible.

Why such concern about the door? he thought. It was securely held open — he had made certain of that. It had no bolts to tumble accidentally into place should another mysterious draught catch it, and it hadn’t been jammed into its frame with damp and age. They had passed through many other doors to which he had not given the least thought, yet it would not go from his mind, constantly enticing him to look over his shoulder. It was as though he had passed through a border into another land and the door was the only way back. In fact, it was almost as though he were no longer in the Keep.

“Where are we going?” he said in an attempt to gather his rambling thoughts. He found that he was whispering.

“Just a little further,” Henk replied, also whispering.

Badr and Qualto exchanged a glance in which they agreed to continue for the moment.

Henk was leaning forward slightly, as though listening to something. Badr peered ahead. The scene before him was unchanged — a typical Keep passage, albeit again lit more extensively than others he had seen. He frowned and narrowed his eyes. The feeling of strangeness would not leave him and its cause was like a familiar name slipped suddenly from memory and being buried deeper the more it was striven after.

Let it go, he thought. But he could not.

Something was wrong with what he was looking at — something subtle... and disconcerting... like a cunningly crafted optical illusion — lines meeting that could not meet — lines not meeting that could only meet.

What was it? Where was it?

He shook his head and the impression was gone.

Too long staring at the same thing, he decided.

But it returned after he had walked only a few steps further, like a reflection returning to a momentarily disturbed pool, but, unlike a reflection, it remained elusive — a shadow in the corner of the eye.

He looked at Henk, head craned forward. Could Henk actually be hearing something?

Well, even if he could, it would be no more than some freakish reverberation from another part of the Keep. Probably from outside, for all that the doors and windows were supposed to be closed. There were many openings into a building other than doors and windows. Badr realized abruptly that his thoughts were harsh and noisy as if, like a child, he were trying to shout down a growing unease.

He cleared his throat and wilfully forced his body to be silent and his mind to be still.

Whatever Henk might be listening for, Badr could not hear it. There was no sound except the rustling of their clothes, and their soft footfalls and breathing. And Qualto’s breathing was patently the overture to an impatient outburst.

Well, whatever’s troubling Henk — and me, for that matter — Qualto seems to be oblivious to it.

They reached a junction. The passage had widened and the three men stood facing two seemingly identical passages, one to the left, one to the right. Both were lit for quite a distance and appeared to be sloping slightly downwards and curving away from one another. Badr was startled. The lights had been coming on well ahead of them as they walked along but he could not remember seeing the approach of this quite distinct feature.

You’re walking about in a dream, he reproached himself, blinking deliberately and shaking his shoulders loose. Walking these long, monotonous passages with their damned retreating lights can be hypnotic. And this cold doesn’t help. Get a hold of yourself. But, despite this rationalization, the shock of the sudden appearance of the junction was reluctant to leave him and he was aware that his breathing was shallow and his pulse was fast. Qualto’s voice came both as a relief and a focus.

“Enough, Henk,” the cook said. “Are you going to show us something, or are you just going to walk us to death.”

Henk was looking doubtfully from one passage to the next.

“You don’t know where we are, do you?” Qualto exclaimed heatedly.

Henk did not reply but maintained his inspection of the two passages.

“I don’t remember this,” he said finally, just as Qualto was moving determinedly to face him.

“What do you mean?” Qualto asked, obviously taken aback by this admission.

Henk looked down at him. “I mean, I don’t remember this,” he said. “I was along here a week ago and these passages weren’t here.”

Qualto’s eyes narrowed and he leaned forward, looking intently at his friend. Badr risked an intrusion before Qualto could speak.

“Are you very familiar with this part of the Keep?” he asked. “These passages are all very similar — and it’s difficult to judge distance — especially with these lights...”

“They weren’t here,” Henk insisted, though his posture and expression gave the lie to this certainty.

Badr’s concern about what he had been seeing — or not seeing — finally dwindled into nothingness before his natural pragmatism.

“I think we should get back,” he said bluntly, taking Henk’s arm. “It’s cold and we’ve walked a long way, and these passages are disorientating at the best. Come on.” He made to turn Henk around gently, but the tall man did not move.

Qualto sided with Badr. He became conciliatory. “He’s right, Henk. Let’s get back. I’ll rustle something warm up and you can tell us what’s bothering you. It doesn’t matter if you can’t find it now. It’s not going to go anywhere, is it?”

Henk was shaking his head. “No, this is new,” he said, though apparently to himself. “It wasn’t here.”

“Henk, you’ve just made a mistake, that’s all,” Qualto said, his voice now a mixture of concern and irritation. He paused and, briefly, the latter prevailed. “I don’t know why you want to go wandering about this place. There’s nothing down here that needs attention.”

“It wasn’t here,” Henk said again, oblivious to Qualto’s outburst.

Then he was striding off down the left hand passage.