Beyond, in what 'tis plainly the dining hall of the castle, several people art seated about a long table by the light of the cressets no less dreary and dismal than those in the hall. In the strange, uncertain glow, their faces art touched with a gloomy cast, with a lurid distortion; and it seems to yea, Traveller, that shadows hardly distinguishable from the figures art gathered 'round the board. But, ne'ertheless yea recognize the woman in the emerald green who hadst vanished in so doubtful a fashion amid the pines when yea hadst answered her call to succor.
At one side,looking very pale and forlorn and frightened, 'tis one of yea Companions. At the lower end reserved for retainers and inferiors, there sits the guides' man-servants and the others who hadst accompanied yea party to the rendezvous.
The Ard Rhi Muradb turns to yea with a smile of sardonic amusement.
"I believe that thou hast already met everyone assembled,"he observes. "But thou hast nae been formally introduced to mine Lady Wife and Queene, the Ard Rhighan, who 'tis presiding o'er the board. Milady, I bring thee our guest, a Traveller of teh Forests of the Vale."
The woman nods slightly, without speaking, and points to a chair opposite yea Guides. Yea seat thyself, and the Ard Rhi Muradb assumes according to tribal custom the high seat at the head of the table beside his Queene.
Now, for the first time, yea notice that there art servitors who come and go from the room, setting upon the table various wines and viands. The servitors art preternaturally swift and noiseless, and somehow 'tis very difficult to be sure of their precise features or their costumes. They seem to walk in an adumbration of sinister insoluble twilight. But yea art disturbed by a Feeling that they resemble the swart daemonic ruffians who hadst disappeared together with the woman in green when yea approached them in the forest.
The meal that ensues 'tis a weird and funereal affair. A sense of insuperable constraint, of smothering horror and hideous oppression, 'tis upon yea; and though yea want to ask yea guide and Companions a hundred questions, and also demand an explanation of sundry matters from yea host and hostess, yea art totally unable to frame the words or to utter them. Yea can only look at yea Companions and read in their eyes a duplication of yea own hopeless bewilderment and nightmare thralldom. Nothing 'tis said by the Ard Rhi Muradb and his lady,who art exchanging glances of a secret and baleful intelligence all through the meal;and the guide's man servant and cook art obviously paralyzed by terror,like birds beneath the hypnotic gaze of deadly serpents.
The foods art rich and of strange savour;and the wines art fabulously old, and seem to retain in their topaz or violet depths the unextinguished fire of buried centuries. But yea and yea Companions barely touch them;and yea see that the Ard Rhi Muradb and his lady do nae eat or drink at all.
The gloom of the chamber deepens;the servitors become more furtive and spectral in their movements;the stifling air 'tis laden with unformulable menace, 'tis constrained by the spell of a black and lethal necromancy. Above the aromas of the rare foods, the bouquets of the antique wines, there creeps forth the choking mustiness of hidden vaults and embalmed centurial corruption, together with the ghostly spicce of a strange parfum that seems to emanate from the person of the Ard Rhi Muradb's Lady. And now yea art remembering the many tales from the legendry of Folcuth, which yea hadst heard and disregarded; art recalling the story of an Ard Rhi and his lady, nae the last of an old Name but certainly the most evil, who hadst been buried somewhere in this forest hundreds of years ago; and whose tomb 'twas shunned by the peasantry and the nobility alike since they were said to continue their sorceries e'en in death. Yea wonder what influence hath bedrugged yea memory, that yea hadst nae recalled it wholly when yea hast first heard the name. And yea art remembering other things and other stories, all of which confirms yea instinctive belief regarding the nature of the people in to whose hands yea hath fallen, Traveller.
Also, yea recall a folklore superstition concerning the use to which a wooden stake can be put; and realize perhaps why the Ard Rhi Muradb hadst shown a peculiar interest in the hornbeam staff. Yea hadst lain the staff beside the chair when yea sat down; and yea art reassured to find that tis nae vanished. Very quietly and unobtrusively, ye aplace yea foot on it.
The uncanny meal comes to an end;and the host and his lady arise.
"I shall conduct thee to thy rooms,"says the Ard Rhi, including all of his guests in a dark, inscrutable glance. "Each of thee shall hath a separate chamber,if thou so desire;or thy Guide and his man-servants can remain together;and thee with thy Companions ."
A preference for the latter 'tis voiced by yea and the Guide. The thought of uncompanioned solitude in this castle of timeless midnight and nameless mystery 'tis abhorrent to an insupportable degree.
Yea art led to yea respective chambers, on opposite sides of a hall whose length 'tis but indeterminably revealed by the dismal lights. Yea Companions and the Guide bid each other a dismayed and reluctant good-night beneath the constraining eye of yea host. Yea rendezvous 'tis hardly the one which yea hath thought to keep; and all of eya art overwhelmed by the supernatural situation amid dubious horrors and ineluctable sorceries yea somehow became invovled. And no sooner hath yea left the others than yea begin to curse yeaself for an idiot because yea hast nae refused to part from yea Guide;and yea marvel at the spell of drug-like involition that hath borrowed all yea faculties. It seems that thy will 'tis nae yea own, but hath been thrust down and throttled by an alien power.
The room assigned to yea and yea Companion 'tis furnished with a couch, and a great bed whose curtains art of antique fashion and fabric. 'Tis lighted with tapers that hath a funereal suggestion in their form,and which burn dully in an air that 'tis stagnant with the mustiness of dead years.
"May thou sleep soundly," says the Ard Rhi Muradb. The smile that accompanies and follows the words 'tis no less unpleasant than the oily and sepulchral tone in which they art uttered. Yea Companion and yeaself art conscious of profound relief when the Ard Rhi goes out and closes the leaden-clanging door. And yea relief 'tis hardly diminished e'en when yea heaar the click of a key in the lock.
Yea art now inspecting the room;and yea go to the one window,through whose small and deep-sest panes yea can see only the pressing darkness of a night that 'tis veritably solid, as if the whole place 'tis buried beneeath the earth and 'tis closed in by clinging mold. Then, with an excess of smothered rage at yea separation from the others, yea run to the door and hurl yeaself against it, yea beat upon it with yea clenched fists,but in vain. Realizing yea folly, and desisting at last,yea turn to yea Companion.
"Well, what do yea think of all this?"yea ask.
Yea Companion makes an oath 'ere he answers;and his face hath assumed the vizard of mortal fear.
"I think,"he finally replies,"that we hath all been decoyed by a malefic sorcery; and that yea, myself and the others, art all in deadly peril of both soul and body!"
"That, also,'tis mine thought,"yea say. "And I believe 'twould be well that yea and I should sleep only by turns; and that the one who keeps vigil shouldst retain in their hands mine hornbeam staff, whose end I shalt sharpen with mine dagger. I am sure that yea know the manner in which it should be employed if there art any intruders; for if such should come, there twould be no doubt as to their character and their intent. We art in a castle which hath no legitimate existence, as the guests of people who hath been dead, or supposedly dead, for more than a millenium. And such people, when they stir abroad, art prone to habits which I need nae elaborate and specify."
"Aye." Yea Companion shudders;but he watches the sharpening of the staff with considerable interest. Yea whittle the hard wood to a lance point, and hide the shavings carefully. Yea even carve the outline of holy symbols near the middle of the staff, thinking that this might increase its efficacy or savce it from molestation. Then, with the staff in yea hand, yea sit down on the bed,where yea can survey the little room from between the curtains.
"Yea can sleep first,"yea say to yea Companion. Yea indicate the couch, which 'tis near the door.
The two of yea converse in a fitful manner for some minutes. After hearing yea Companion's tale of how the other Guide and Companions and himself hast been led astray by the sobbing of a woman amid the pines, and hadst been unable to retrace their way, yea change the theme. And henceforth yea speak idly and of matters remote from yea real preoccupations, to fight down yea torturing concern for the safety of the others. Suddenly yea become aware that yea Companion hath ceased to reply;and see that the fellow hath fallen asleep on the couch. At the same time an irresistable drowsiness surges upon yea, Traveller, in spite of all yea volition, in spite of the eldritch terrors and forebodings that still murmur in yea brain. Yea hear through yea growing hebetude a whisper as of shadowy wings in the castle halls;yea catch the sibilation of ominous voices, like those of familiars that respond to the summoning of wizards; and yea seem to hear, e'en in the vaults and towers and remote chambers, the tread of feet that art hurrying on malign and secret errands. But oblivion tis around yea like the meshes of a sable net; and it closes relentlessly upon thy troubled mind, and drowns the alarms of yea agitated senses.
When yea wake at length, the tapers hath burned to their sockets; and a sad and sunless daylight 'tis filtering through the window. The staff 'tis still in yea hand; and though yea senses art still dull with the strange slumber that hath drugged them, yea feel that yea art unharmed. But peering between the curtains, yea see that yea Companion 'tis lying mortally wounded ,pale and lifeless, on the couch, with the air and look of an exhausted moribund.
Yea cross the room, and stop by yea Companion. There tis a small red wound on his neck;and his pulses art slow and feeble,like those of one who hath lost a great amount of blood. His very appearance 'tis withered and vein-drawn. And a phantom spice arises from the couch---a lingering wraith of the parfum worn by the Ard Rhi Muradb's lady.
Yea succeed at last in 'rousing yea Companion;but he 'tis very weak and drowsy.He cannae remember a thing of what hath happened during the night; and his horror 'tis pitiful to behold when he realizes the truth.
"Twill be thy turn next!" he cries. "These creatures mean to hold us here amid their unhallowed necromancies 'til they hath drained us of our last drop of blood. Their spells art like mandragora or the sleepy sirups of Salque; and no man can keep awake in their despite!"
Yea art trying the door; and somewhat to yea surprise yea find it unlocked. The departing creature hath been careless, in the lethargy of her repletion. The castle 'tis very still; and it seems to yea, Traveller, that the animating spirit of evil 'tis now quiescent; that the shadowy wings of horror and malignity, the feet that hath sped on baleful errands, the summoning sorcerers, the responding familiars, were all lulled in a temporary slumber.
Yea open the door, yea tiptoe along the deserted hall and knock on the portal of the chamber allotted to the Guide and his manservants and yea Companions. The guide, fully dressed, answers the door immediately. And yea see o'er his shoulder yea Companion. She 'tis siting listlessly on the bed with a mark on her white neck similar to the wound that hath been suffered by yea Companion. Yea know, e'en before the Guide begins to speak, that the nocturnal experiences of the group hath been identical with those yeaself and yea Companion in the other chamber.
Yea thoughts art now busy with a rather curious problem. No one 'tis abroad in the castle;and 'tis more than probable that the Ard Rhi Muradb and his lady art both asleep after the nocturnal feast which they hath undoubtedly enjoyed. Yea picture to yeaself the place and the fashion of their slumber; and yea grow e'en more reflective as certain possibilities occur to yea.
"Be of good cheer," yea say to yea Companions. "'Tis in my mind that we mayeth soon escape from this abomniable mesh of enchantments. But I must leave for a little and speak to the Guide whose help I shalt require in a certain matter."
Yea go back to yea own chamber. Yea Companion 'tis sitting on the couch and tis muttering prayers with a faint, hollow voice.
Yea say a little sternly,"Yea must gather all yea strength and come with me. Amid the gloomy walls that surround us, the somber ancient halls, the high towers and the heavy bastions, there tis but one thing that veritably exists;and all the rest 'tis a fabric of illusion. We must find a the reality of which I speak and deal with it like true and valiant individuals. Come, we wilt now search the castle ere the Lord and his lady shalt awaken form their lethargy.
~Exploring the Keep~