behind close-set, grainy ridges standing gray in relief; the studs and bands yet holding the stark, worn planks together were green with years of verdigris.
And still the castle shrilly wailed as of someone or something in unendurable torment.
As she stood before the portal, Liaze berated herself for not having brought wax to stopper up her hearing, for the anguished yawling was earsplitting, and it pierced her to the bone. She frowned and tried to locate the source, yet it seemed to come from the very stones themselves.
Gritting her teeth, she stepped o’er the threshold and into the hall beyond, but she took no more than a step or two before she was driven out by the agonized shriek, and she knew that not even beeswax could fend off such terrible grief.
Liaze backed away and stood a moment in painful indecision. Ah, Mithras, this is more than I can bear. And she turned and fled out through the gateway, and took refuge behind a bastion wall, where the howl was somewhat less piercing. She replaced the arrow in her quiver and shouldered her bow and slapped her hands over her ears to mute the sound even more, for she had to think.
Are the stones of the castle shrieking in pain? If so, how can I ride with the howling one? Lady Wyrd told me that I must take him with me, and a castle in the old tongue is a “he,” a masculin term, but I cannot take an entire castle anywhere! — Wait, Liaze, and think! Did not Lady Skuld also say “He is the one who loudly cried”? Perhaps there is someone inside who started this howling. But how can I find him when I can’t even get more than two paces inside the door?
Liaze sighed and shook her head and glanced back in the direction of the horses. Surely there must be a way, else She Who Sees Through Time’s Mist would not have said what she did. Liaze’s brow furrowed in thought. If she did not steer me wrong, then there might be an answer in her words. What else did she say? Recall, Liaze, recall:
You must soothe as you would a babe,
And speak not a loud word;
Silence is golden in some high halls;
Tread softly to not be heard.
Soothe as I would a babe? Soothe what? Soothe the castle itself? Again Liaze reviewed Lady Wyrd’s rede, seeking a different answer, but she could think of nought else to try. Though it sounds completely foolish, mayhap that’s the answer, or at least I think it might be. Ah me, if this works-ha! — only in Faery.
Liaze gritted her teeth and prepared to step into the full of the yowling again, wishing that she had something, anything, to lessen the wail somewhat.
Back through the gate she strode and to the very threshold, for ’tis said that the doorstone, though not the heart of a home, is the first test of approval, for it is there one might be welcomed to step within.
Liaze knelt on the stone and stroked it, saying, “Shh, shh, my sweet one.” She began crooning a wordless song- Soothe as you would a babe — and slowly the wailing diminished… and diminished… and diminished. And Liaze murmured, “Shh, shh,” and the wailing fell to a weak cry, and that in turn was replaced by a faint shh…
Liaze got to her feet and drew her long-knife and quietly stepped into the manor and crept down the corridor beyond- Silence is golden in some high halls / Tread softly to not be heard — and doors were standing open all along the way.
She looked into the rooms and chambers and halls, dusty with disuse, the furniture tatty, tables and chairs dilapidated, books and pamphlets yellowed, all things within shabby beyond redemption, and no person or persons did she see. As she quietly moved throughout, all about her the stone walls and floors and ceilings murmured shh…
She found no one on the ground floor nor the second or third ones. Up into the turrets she went, sections of the roofs open to rain, but, again, no one was there. She pondered a moment in the hush, and then nodded to herself. There must be chambers below ground. She found a lantern, its oil yet within. She knelt and huddled her cloak ’round in the hope of muffling sound, and she thumbed the striker. The lamp lit, and the soft shh… murmured by the stone of the castle changed into a faint whssh… of a burning wick.
Liaze took up her long-knife and the lantern and stood, and, with the blade in her right hand and the lamp in her left, she crept down to the first floor, where she found a way leading below, and at the bottom of the steps she came into the wine cellars ’neath. Therein were abandoned-perhaps useless-stores along with dusty bottles in racks, and large kegs along one wall. And she found an open door at one end of the cellars, with a stone stairwell leading down. Deeper she went, into dankness and darkness, her lantern illumining the way, heading for what she imagined might be and in truth were the dungeon rooms.
Past several barred lockups under the cellars and below the main hall she came to a large damp chamber, and water seeped across the floor, and a faint odor of excrement wafted on the air. Therein sat a bronze cage in the middle of the wet stone, a large padlock on the door, and within the pen lay a bundle of leaves amid a scatter of small bones and bits of fur and- No, wait! Those are not leaves, but a little person or a child in rags instead. Liaze raised the lantern for a better look. ’Tis a small man. He lay on his side, his knees drawn up against his chest, and his hands were clapped over his ears. His face was twisted in agony, with his eyes squeezed shut and his lips tightly clamped. He shifted in the glow.
Liaze reached through the bars with her long-knife and tapped the flat of the blade against the being’s arm.
His hands yet over his ears, the man jerked back and looked at her, his gaze flying wide, and then he squinted against the light, and flung up a hand to en-shadow his eyes. It was then that a second look of startlement flooded his features, and up he sat and took his other hand away from his ear and cocked his head and listened; then his face collapsed in relief, and he quickly pressed a finger to his lips and gestured a No, no to Liaze, for he would have her make no sound.
Liaze nodded in understanding, and then she motioned at the lock.
The being-a wee brown man in brown tattered clothes and standing no more than three feet tall-quietly got to his feet and pointed at a far wall. And on a peg hung a ring with a single key dangling thereon. Liaze fetched the key and slipped it into the lock. Snick! the lock opened, and the stones of the castle clittered Snick… snick… snick… over and over.
Cautiously, Liaze edged the door open, and the hinges emitted a muted squeal, and the castle began quietly squealing in kind: eee..
Out slipped the wee man, and he and Liaze crept up the steps and into the wine cellar above, and then started for the following stairs. But the wee man turned and tiptoed to the wine racks and took up a dusty bottle and then another, and he eased back to Liaze and up they went, and all the while the castle softly squealed.
They quietly stepped along the central corridor to finally reach the outside, and dusk was on the land. In the twilight, past the outer gate they went and through the woods and to the horses.
There the little man set one wine bottle down, and against a rock he broke the neck off the other and took a long drink. He then offered the bottle to Liaze.
Liaze gestured non and said, “What is your name?”
The little man shook his head and pointed to an ear and shrugged and in an overloud voice as of one who is hard of hearing, he said, “F’r the moment I canna ken y’r soft words, m’lady, f’r ma tortured ears yet ring wi’ ma verra own howls.” He glanced at the packhorses and said, “I see ye ha’e cookin gear. Could I borrow a stew pot? And ha’e ye anythin t’eat?”
Liaze laughed and stepped to one of the geldings and began unlading equipment and supplies, while behind her the little brown man took another long pull from the bottle, then reached under his shabby clothes and unbuckled and drew forth a many-pocketed belt.
27
As night drew down and Liaze unladed the animals and fed them each a ration of oats and then set them to graze, the wee brown man cleared a patch of ground and lay stones in a ring, and then he gathered a bit of dry
