The Keep

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 2Although it was on top of a mountain, the Keep was fronted by a deep and steep-sided channel that elsewhere might have become a water-filled moat. As it was, in earlier times, coupled with the cliffs to the rear, it would certainly have been an extremely effective defensive feature, completely isolating the Keep from its surroundings and confining all approaches to the single entrance. This, in its turn, was served by a drawbridge which could be lowered and raised quite easily by one man through an ingenious arrangement of pulleys and levers.

Yet, the moat seemed to be unnecessary. Though he knew little of warfare, ancient or modern, Josyff could see that the very location of the Keep precluded any siege techniques that he had ever heard of other than a patient waiting for its occupants to starve to death. There was nowhere to erect scaling towers or to position artillery, and undermining was out of the question. The place would yield to modern weapons, of course. These could bombard it from the valley far below. But then, who would want such a place, either now or in the past? What conceivable strategic or commercial significance could it have, situated here, far from any great centres of population or important trade routes?

His feet crunching the fresh snow, he stepped out on to the drawbridge and peered cautiously over the edge. This was the only place he had found which offered any view into the gloomy depths of the channel, but even here he could make out only the occasional jagged peak rising out of the darkness. This couldn’t be a natural feature, surely? Yet, to be man-made, it represented an achievement every whit as daunting as the building of the Keep itself.

This place held so many questions.

A shiver shook him and, though no wind was blowing, he pulled his coat tight and hunched his shoulders against the cold. He looked up at the snow-covered mountains that surrounded the Keep. This would be a stern and forbidding place at the height of summer but the heavy grey skies, pregnant with yet more snow, added an almost tangible menace to it.

“Still puzzling our problem, Surveyor?”

Josyff started at the sound and turned to see the man who had greeted him on his arrival. One set of eagerly proffered papers had identified him as Badr ak-Herion from the Aggoran province, far to the south. Another set announced him as Josyff’s new Chief Assistant. When working in the east, Josyff had had an excellent team and he had recommended that it be kept together for this latest undertaking. However, while no formal reply had come to this, the members of the team had subsequently received instructions that would take them all far from one another.

“The New Order’s greater vision,” one of them had said flatly as they parted.

“Yes,” he had replied in like vein.

“I apologize, Surveyor, I startled you.” Badr’s hand was extended as though to prevent Josyff from lurching over the edge of the drawbridge, though he was too far away to have done anything should that have happened.

“Yes, Badr,” Josyff replied, stepping back awkwardly. “I’m afraid you did. This is a very puzzling building. It’s easy to become engrossed.”

Badr was a short, heavily-built man with short-cropped hair and a round face that would have been jovial were it not for the small deep-set eyes that pocked it. He gave Josyff the impression of being two people: the one with the rolling gait that could be seen as he pursued his allotted tasks, and one somewhere else, quiet and still, who watched and noted. Still, his manner was affable, and his work — so far as he had been able to do any — had been competent. Josyff reproached himself for his unspoken judgement. Nevertheless, despite the confines of their working circumstances, he felt it would be politic to make no effort to be anything other than pleasantly professional with him.

Badr nodded. “Indeed it is,” he said. “What do you think it might have been?”

Josyff’s reply was deliberately casual.

“I’ve no idea. It’s enough for the moment that it’s going to be no easy job surveying it. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.” He met Badr’s gaze. “Have you had any experience of anything like this?”

The deep eyes blinked slowly and the Chief Assistant turned away to look up at the high curving wall with its narrow windows. “No,” he said. His examination moved down into the darkness of the moat and he let out a long misting breath into the cold air. “I suppose we’ll have to measure that as well.”

There was a ruefulness in his voice which twitched the edges of Josyff’s mouth into a faint smile in spite of himself. He abandoned it as Badr turned back to him.

“I haven’t had a full brief yet,” he said. “Perhaps when it arrives we’ll be spared that.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not.” Badr gave a resigned shrug and turned back to the gateway.

More than likely, perhaps not, Josyff thought, watching him. The New Order collected information relentlessly. Not a bad thing in itself, he reflected, but there was an indiscriminate quality about it that was unsettling. There seemed to be no judgement of what was being learned, no ordering of it, as if it were being gathered for its own sake rather than illumination — a jumble of words rather than a narrative, a heap of bricks and timber rather than a house.

Then again, who was he to judge the New Order’s vision?

Who indeed?

Let it go.

Unconsciously he copied Badr’s glance up at the walls of the Keep. Their solidity seemed to anchor him. He had to make an effort to remind himself that it was only three days since he had clambered up the final slope on foot, carrying his fortunately modest baggage.

“We can’t ride the horses any further,” his guides had told him as the snow started to fall. “And if we walk with you we’ll not be able to get back before nightfall.” Their leader had taken his arm and pointed. “You’ll see the Keep when you reach the top of this rise. There’s only one way, and it’s quite narrow. You can’t get lost.” He had looked Josyff up and down as if to satisfy himself on this point. “It’ll take you about an hour.”

Josyff had had considerable reservations about carrying on alone through the whitening landscape, but there was both a reassurance and a gentle finality in the guide’s tone that forbade any serious argument.

He nevertheless voiced his concern. “What if the snow worsens... or a mist comes down?” he asked.

The guide peered up through the falling flakes, dark against the grey sky, and shook his head. “It won’t,” he said unhesitatingly. Then he looked at Josyff squarely. “You are quite safe, Surveyor. We wouldn’t leave you otherwise. But we won’t be if we don’t turn back now.” He held out his heavily gloved hand and Josyff shook it automatically. “You’ll see the Keep and the way to it from the top,” he said again, releasing Josyff’s hand and indicating the path ahead once more. “And you’re expected. We are not.”

Josyff tried to look confident. “You’ll bring my equipment...”

“As soon as it arrives,” the guide replied. He was checking the fastenings on Josyff’s pack in an oddly paternal manner. “We must leave now.” He patted him on the arm.

And with a final farewell, he and his companions were striding quickly away.

Then they were gone.

Alone, Josyff stood still and awkward in the muffling silence of the deepening snow, looking after his vanished guides. After a moment, an eddy of alarm at his isolation started to whirl in the pit of his stomach and he momentarily considered calling, or even running after them. Then he forced himself to smile at this childlike impulse and the alarm faded. He might not be used to either mountains or snow, but over the past days the grandeur of the landscape he had found himself entering had moved him — awed him, almost — and the silence now descending with the snow brought a peace with it that seemed to enter into the heart of him — quietening him. The guides had been attentive to his needs throughout the journey so far and there had been no hint of concern in their manner as they had left. All would be well.

He hitched his pack needlessly and set off up the winding path.

As the guide had said, the Keep came into view when he reached the top of the rise. Josyff stopped and stared at it for a long, timeless interlude. Even from a distance and with its outline softened by the falling snow, the Keep exuded a massive presence: a sense of timeless patience and resolute purposefulness, an ominous focus. It was as though it were pressing down, perhaps even trying to crush, the mountain vantage on which it stood. Yet, too, it belonged there. It was no arbitrary addition.

Josyff could not have said how long he stood there but when he recollected himself he set off towards the Keep with some urgency, concerned that, notwithstanding the guide’s assurance, he could yet be caught by the failing light. As he walked on, he had a sense of the Keep watching him, and of its great weight drawing him forward.

Somewhat to his surprise, it was almost exactly one hour since leaving the guides that, snow-covered and with legs aching and unsteady after the final steep slope, he was standing at the edge of the moat, opposite the closed drawbridge.

“You are expected,” the guide leader had said, but Josyff could see no signs of life about the place — no movement on its walls, no lights at its windows. Nor could he see any way of announcing his presence. There was just the Keep, powerful and dominating — and seemingly unreachable.

Looking from the raised drawbridge down into the dark maw of the moat, the fear of abandonment he had felt briefly when the guides left him began to return.

Then, as if in response, and almost noiselessly, the drawbridge had descended.

As he had walked across it, the sound of his heavy tread had seemed intrusive in the mountain stillness.

Badr had been waiting to meet him, standing under a dim light in the shelter of the arched gateway. He thrust his papers forward before speaking.

Josyff recalled the scene vividly as he turned away from his contemplation of the moat and followed Badr back through the gateway.

Only three days ago, he reflected. He felt as though he had been there much longer. Perhaps it was the stillness of the place. He was used to working in bustling places where, after some initial curiosity, people simply moved around him as they went about their various businesses, treating him as though he were little more than part of the buildings he was measuring. Then again it might be the pace at which he was working which was hardly spectacular. Not that this concerned him greatly. The early days of any mapping were invariably spent in wandering about, quietly familiarizing himself with the new challenges and working out the best way to approach the work. And it was obvious from the outset that the Keep was going to be particularly difficult with its seemingly innumerable rooms and halls, and its elaborate winding passages and stairways. Still, initial confusion was usual. It would resolve itself eventually and the building would gradually shrink as he found the order that must lie within it. Then he would need his equipment. It was beginning to trouble him that it had not yet arrived. He looked back over his shoulder at the now obscured track as if the very thought might conjure the guides into being, hauling his paraphernalia through the snow. But there was nothing: just the unchanged white stillness.

He remarked on the delay to Badr as he caught up with him.

“It may not even be at the village yet,” the Chief Assistant replied. “I’m not from around here but this snow is both heavy and unseasonal, I believe. Perhaps it’s causing problems further afield. At least we’ve plenty of food.”

“The New Order provides,” Josyff said stiffly, hesitant to become involved in anything that might imply criticism of his employers.

“Indeed,” Badr agreed, tight-lipped, though there was an unmistakeably ironic edge to his voice. Josyff’s assessment of the man shifted briefly. He had presumed him to be just another of the New Order’s people. Many of the functionaries of the previous government — insofar as it could be called a government — had been either dismissed or, bewilderingly, found themselves with no duties — or salary — without any form of notification. There had been no pattern to this silent purging that Josyff could see, but the equally silent message he received — hovering ever-present in any bureaucracy — was that he should be still and watchful and not draw attention to himself. Whether it was this or his true worth that spared him he could not have said. He was simply grateful that he was still there when it was all over. And, on the whole, like many, he had not been too displeased with what had happened. The Government that the New Order had replaced had been inept to the point of irrationality, and, startling and unexpected though the New Order’s emergence had been, even from his comparatively lowly position, and with his disdain for politics and politicians generally, Josyff could see that many of the changes they had brought in were both valuable and necessary.

But that was then. Now, an early intolerance of difference had grown, and with it, brutality. Many good people had gone, he knew. People who had much to offer. And those who were replacing them, particularly those in high office, few though he had met, were... strange... cold and distant.

But then, he reflected, strangeness was not a quality that was confined to the upper echelons of the New Order. Take, for example, the other three who were at the Keep when he arrived.