The Keep

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 4Josyff pulled his hand away from the key quickly, taken aback by the ease with which it had turned. Though smaller and lighter than he was, Nyk had given the impression of considerable wiry strength and he had had a determined struggle with the protesting lock.

Probably just because it’s not been opened for a long time, Josyff reassured himself. Nyk must have shaken something loose. He would mention it when he saw him again.

He eased the door open very carefully.

It was indeed unusually thick and, as it swung out, it came between the light and the clock, seeming to darken the whole room.

Josyff leaned forward to examine the interior of the clock and once again felt as though the darkness was luring him forward. He had to force himself to smile at his foolishness, but he was nevertheless gripping the edge of the door as he began methodically staring into the gloom. As his eyes adjusted he made out the pendulum, shade within shade, swinging slowly from side to side. A purposeful, loud and resonant click accompanied each passing. And was it his imagination or could he hear a sound like the rushing of a wind as it passed? As though it were infinitely long and heavy and working a vast machine somewhere? It seemed suddenly to be a long way away. He reached out with the intention of stopping it then changed his mind. He might not be able to start it again and he had no desire to make himself foolish in front of Nyk or the others by having to run after him to get it started again. But that was a feeble excuse at the forefront of his mind. Behind it, ill-formed and menacing, was a feeling that he would not be able to stop it, that if his hand closed about it, it would draw him inexorably forward and bind him to its eerie fruitless journey arcing out a measure of the time of this place.

A dangling chain brushed the back of his hand making him jump.

Then he was falling.

Through the darkness.

His hands flailed wildly, snatching at the chains he could feel swaying about him, but they kept slipping away, as though taunting him.

Cold air rushed past him. Faster and faster.

His head was filled with the sound of his own terrified screaming mingling with jangling bells and rattling chains and...

Voices.

Voices chaotic with consternation and fear. Rising and falling with the scything hiss of the pendulum. Louder and louder.

He reached out to them — desperate — appealing.

Even as he did so, light flooded over him painfully and his body was shaken by a racking impact.

Gasping violently for breath and deafened by the pounding of his heart he made no attempt to move for some time.

Slowly he opened his eyes and, as they gradually focused, so the brightness of the light dimmed and both his body and his mind became quiet enough to identify where he was.

He was lying on his bed, staring up at the ceiling of his room.

He put his shaking hand to his face. It was damp with perspiration.

A dream, or, more correctly, a nightmare, he decided, as he cautiously levered himself upright and let out a noisy and unsteady breath. He must have dozed off after Nyk left. He forced himself to stand though it was no slight task — his legs were trembling as much as his hands.

He gave the clock a reproachful look which, with one finger drooping now, it returned.

As the trembling gradually faded he managed a nervous laugh though it sounded oddly flat after the echoing space within the clock. Ironic that only earlier he had been reflecting how rarely he remembered his dreams and how benign they were when he did.

“Enough,” he said. Voices, eccentric clocks, squires with nothing to do who just walk away. There was enough to think about here by way of straightforward technical surveying problems without all this nonsense. The words, “mountain madness” drifted into his mind.

No, he thought crossly. There’s no madness here. He was just unsettled by this place and its isolation. He was used to busier climes. The enforced idleness did not suit him. If only his brief and his instruments would arrive. Surely the people in the village were used to bringing goods and the like up here through the snow? How else could Nyk and the others survive the winter? With this thought came the unwelcome thought that perhaps the snow was particularly bad. He had no way of telling. Unseasonal, Badr had called it. What if it was so bad that the villagers couldn’t reach them? What if there was a chance they might run out of food and themselves be unable to reach the village?

He gritted his teeth, straightened up and swore at himself. If that had been a possibility, he was sure, even on his limited acquaintance of the man, that Nyk would have already mentioned it.

He went to the wash basin and splashed cold water on his face. Starting new jobs was always a little ragged and disorganized and this one was proving particularly so. He could ask Nyk about the snow and his equipment in due course. Things would take shape soon enough.

He looked at the clock as he dried his face, then through the window at the snow-covered mountains as though somehow they might have changed. He laughed again, though not as self-consciously as before. A nightmare — he couldn’t even remember having such a thing when he was a child — and in the morning too. So much for his early rising. But, in spite of this attempt at dismissiveness, an unease lingered.

As he put on his jacket he moved back to the clock. Gripping the key tightly and not without a hint of trepidation, he made to turn it. It resisted sufficiently for him to bring two hands to bear. Then, with a recognizable screech, it turned. Josyff yanked the door open, though more violently that he had intended. Inside were chains and counter weights and the steadily swinging pendulum with its reassuring and solid tick. The sound of the harsh opening was reverberating distantly.

He closed and locked the door and patted the side of the clock as though it were now an old friend.

* * * *

Josyff smiled as Badr ushered him into the little room.

“How did you come across this?” he asked.

“Nyk mentioned it,” Badr replied. “When I was asking him about your equipment.”

“Did he have anything to say about that? About the snow?” He was about to ask, “Are we cut off?” but changed it. “Will the guides be able to bring it through?”

“It shouldn’t be too much of a problem, apparently. The snow is early but it’s not bad enough to block the paths. Presumably the equipment — and the brief — simply haven’t arrived.”

Josyff was not sure that this was any more reassuring than the news that they were not snowed in. He had done the necessary paperwork before he left and ensured it had been received and acknowledged by the correct departments and that everything was in fact available. Even so, the New Order judged by results and was notoriously indifferent to excuses no matter how legitimate, especially where these might in some way reflect on shortcomings within its own bureaucracy. He had been sent here to measure this place, to prepare plans of it. Failure to do that, for whatever reason, would not be good for him. He might still find himself quietly dismissed from the service like so many others before him.

Still, there was nothing he could do here immediately. Give it a little longer, he decided. One of the advantages of this place was that there were no distractions. Once he was started he should be able to make good progress. Judging from Nyk’s attitude towards the New Order it was quite possible that villagers might just be “relaxed” about obeying its instructions — life was reputedly slower away from the cities he had heard. Or they could perhaps be waiting in the hope that the snow might clear. If necessary he could have Nyk take him back to the village to see what was happening.

He opened a box that was lying on the table. In it was a theodolite.

He shook his head and laughed as he examined it. “This is like travelling through time,” he said. “These things were old when I was just starting studying.” He was about to lift it from the box when an old memory asserted itself. Which way does this damned thing fit? More than once in his early student days irritating time had been lost at the end of a country-slogging exercise as he and his colleagues had struggled in failing light to replace recalcitrant instruments back in their boxes.

One way and one way only.

He noted carefully the marking dots and the position of the levelling screws then gently lifted the instrument out and placed it on the table.

“It’s been used a lot,” he said, rotating the telescope and running a finger over its scratched frame. “What on earth could it be doing here?”

Badr shrugged. “Perhaps this was a mountain survey station once,” he offered. “Or maybe this place has already been measured up.”

In the ensuing silence the two men looked at one another with a hint a dry amusement. Josyff was beginning to lose some of his early uncertainty about Badr. Perhaps he too was just another individual considering himself fortunate to have avoided the New Order’s “adjusting” of the civic order.

“I think we might perhaps ask Nyk about that,” he said conspiratorially. “Just in case he’s forgotten to volunteer the information. Even an inaccurate plan would be a great help.”

“It would indeed.”

Badr was retrieving something from under the table. It was a tripod.

A few minutes later the theodolite was mounted and roughly levelled. Josyff stood back and looked at it, not without some nostalgic pride. “I suppose I should be pleased about this,” he said. “Anything’s better than nothing. But seeing it makes me want our equipment more than ever. I really don’t relish working round this place in the ‘good old-fashioned way’.”

Badr grimaced in professional agreement.

Josyff gazed around the dusty, windowless room.

“What else is here?”

There was more than he expected. A rummaging search left them both dust-grimed and mildly triumphant. Another theodolite had been unearthed, but it was damaged. There was also a level together with various staffs, rods, chains, tapes, unused recording books, a drawing board and drafting instruments and, prompting a fatalistic in-drawn breath from Josyff, a book of mathematical tables.

“Now we’ve no excuse at all,” he said showing it to Badr in affected horror.

“It would seem so,” his Chief Assistant returned in similar vein. The instruments might allow them to measure the place, but calculations would be necessary if the measurements were to be transformed into accurate plans. And those same calculations could be time-consuming, grievously prone to error and generally deeply wearisome when done by hand.

For a moment a hope was held out as the removal of a sheet revealed a chest of long, shallow drawers for the storing of plans. Josyff opened each of the drawers in great anticipation but they proved to be a disappointment. Apart from copious dust-laden cobwebs and more than a few bewildered spiders, they were empty.

“Any use?”

It was Nyk, head peering around the door and his question addressed to the room generally.

“To a museum,” Josyff replied.

“Or desperate men,” Badr added darkly.

Josyff asked him how the equipment had come to be there and if there were plans already drawn, but was left unenlightened.

No idea where the equipment had come from. Been here as long as he could remember. No plans of the place that he knew of, but some very nice pictures in some of the rooms. “No good, then, all this?” Nyk concluded, indicating the spoils of the surveyors’ search and wrinkling his nose.

“It might get us started,” Josyff conceded, reluctant to seem ungrateful. “We’ll have to test it. See what state it’s in. But we really need our proper equipment. When...”

“Anything’s better than nothing, eh?” Nyk interrupted with an echo of Josyff’s own initial response. “That’s good.” And he was gone.

* * * *

All eyes turned to the tall figure standing in the doorway of the inn. He returned the collective gaze with an unnerving steadiness then inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement.

His voice was soft and cultured, but everyone heard it very clearly.

“I have to go to the Keep. I am looking for someone to guide me there.”