At last, however, he gathered his wits sufficiently to reply, “It’s not Derry; it’s me, Tobas.”
“Who?” The voice was almost plaintive.
“Let me in and I’ll explain.” He had no intention of giving up anything that might get him inside, away from all that empty nothingness, out of the ghastly colored light and the dessicating wind.
Tobas could almost hear the hesitation on the other side; although the pause could not actually have been more than five or ten seconds, it seemed like an eternity before the woman said, “Well, I suppose it’ll be all right. You feel harmless enough.” Almost immediately, Tobas heard a heavy bar being drawn back. Then a chain fell, a lock scraped, and finally the heavy doors swung outward, revealing a broad, torchlit hallway. Another equally massive pair of doors, some ten feet in, stood open; beyond that lay some thirty feet of passageway, the walls broken by side passages, and then yet another set of doors, this pair closed. The corridor was completely unfurnished save for elaborate wrought-iron brackets on the walls, holding torches, but demonic faces were carved in the stone at each corner of the ceiling, leering down at him.
Standing in the middle of the hallway was a lovely young woman, tall, slender, and dark-skinned, clad in an elegant crimson gown, her waist-length black hair spilling down across her shoulders. She watched Tobas warily.
“Hello,” he said, trying desperately to look harmless. “I’m Tobas of Telven, a wizard of sorts.”
“I am called Karanissa of the Mountains; I’m a witch. Did Derry, I mean, Derithon, send you?”
“No, he didn’t. Ah... if you’ll let me come in for a moment, I’ll try to explain.”
Karanissa hesitated. Tobas’ stomach unexpectedly emitted a loud growl, and he added, “And could you spare anything to eat?”
The self-proclaimed witch smiled, then nodded. “This way.”
She led him down a side corridor and through a small open door into the first place he’d seen on this side of the tapestry that seemed fit for humans rather than demons, a quiet, windowless, torchlit little chamber carpeted with furs, with banners on the walls, and furnished with several folding wooden chairs with fabric seats. Karanissa took one chair and motioned for Tobas to take another. When he had settled warily, she clapped her hands.
The air stirred, and Tobas shifted uneasily in his seat.
“Bring us food and drink,” Karanissa ordered, though Tobas saw no one else in the room. “Is there anything in particular you’d like?” she asked him.
“No,” he said. “Whatever is convenient. I’m hungry enough to eat almost anything.”
“Some sharp cheese, then, and the new bread, and the best red wine we have left, oh, and apples.”
The air stirred again, then stilled.
“Go on,” Karanissa said, her attention fully on Tobas now.
“Ah...” he said, “I don’t know where to begin.”
“Start with how you got here,” she suggested.
“Through a tapestry,” Tobas said. “I just tried to smooth it out, but I must have taken a step in and I couldn’t find my way back.”
“I know that story well enough! Derry left me here while he went to check on something, and I haven’t been able to get out since.”
Tobas’ spirits, which had begun to rise, quickly sank once more; did that mean he, too, was stranded here indefinitely?
Perhaps not; the mysterious Derry, or Derithon, had gotten out. “If you don’t mind my asking, who is this Derithon?”
“You don’t know?” The witch’s startlement seemed quite genuine and not just a sort of boast. “You never heard of the wizard Derithon the Mage?”
“I’m afraid not,” Tobas admitted.
“Well, this is his castle, he conjured it himself. And he made the tapestry I came here through, which I would assume is the one you came through, as well. Unless something terrible has happened, it should be hanging in a private room of his other castle, which was flying over the mountains of central Ethshar last I knew. That was some time ago, though.”
A strange realization dawned on Tobas as the witch said this. For an instant he refused to believe it, but by the time she had finished speaking, he was almost sure of it. He had assumed that she and Derithon were adventurers who had somehow stumbled upon, or rather, through, the tapestry, but now he thought otherwise. An adventurer would not consider either castle his own.
And the flying castle had been fallen and empty for centuries.
“Lady Karanissa, excuse me, but how long have you been here?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t know!” she replied, annoyed. “Ages, it seems, it can’t really be as long as it’s felt like, locked up here all alone, and there aren’t any days or nights here, so I just don’t know. Why? Do you know how long it’s been?”
“You said that when you came here, Derithon’s other castle was still flying?”
“Yes, of course!” Tobas had startled her again. “You mean it isn’t anymore?” “No, no, it isn’t — and it hasn’t been for a long time — and I’m afraid that Derithon was killed when it fell. At least, I think he must have been; my companion and I found a body near the tapestry that must have been his.”
“Derry’s dead?” She stared at him, open mouthed with shock.
“I think so; I can’t be sure it was he.” Tobas was apologetic.
“What did he look like, this dead person? No, don’t tell me. You said that the castle hadn’t flown in a long time? How long, then, months? Years?”
“Years, at least.”
“Gods, how long have I been here? What’s the date?”
“It’s the... let me see... the fourteenth of Harvest, or maybe the fifteenth by now; I don’t know how long I’ve been here.”
“What year, you idiot?” Karanissa shouted.
“Fifty-two twenty-one, by Ethsharitic reckoning.”
She stared at him, dumbfounded, then demanded, “Is this a joke? Are you playing some sort of trick on me? Is Derry in on this?”
Taken aback, Tobas said, “No, of course not!”
“It was the twenty-seventh of Leafcolor, in the Year of Human Speech four thousand seven hundred and sixty-two, when Derry and I came in here for a private evening together! Are you trying to tell me I’ve been sitting here waiting for that damn wizard to come back for four hundred and fifty-nine years?” With her final words she rose from her chair, shouting directly into Tobas’ face.
Tobas simply stared back, unable to think of any reply.
After a moment the witch sank back into her chair and stared at the ceiling for a long, slow breath. “Derithon of Helde,” she announced, shaking a fist at the air, “if you weren’t already dead, I’d kill you myself for getting me into this!”
CHAPTER 20
As the two sat glaring at each other, a tray appeared through one of the doorways, wafted into the room as if it weighed nothing and were merely drifting on the wind, like a falling leaf in the autumn. Karanissa, thus distracted from her fury, plucked it out of the air and offered it to Tobas.
It held exactly the food and drink she had requested. After a brief hesitation, Tobas helped himself generously; he was just as hungry in this eerie otherworldly castle as he had been back in the mountains of Dwomor.
The wine was not good at all, very acid and laced with gritty sediment, but after four hundred years that was to be expected. Tobas was too polite, and too unsure of his situation, to complain to his hostess. The bread and apples were fresh and tasty, however, and the cheese only slightly overripe.
When both had eaten their fill and calmed down somewhat, it was decided that Karanissa would first tell her story all the way through, and Tobas would then tell his, rather than both of them asking questions back and forth and confusing matters.