Spectral Crown: Chapter Eight

“It’s the end of the trip as I know it”

Hey, I’m finally back in Illinois!  Hopefully!  I’m writing this apprehensively, so that’s assuming that I left Illinois at all, went to New Hampshire, and made it back in one piece.  And that Illinois ever existed in the first place and wasn’t actually some sort of Truman Show-esque scheme to keep us placated until the government could perfect their organ harvesting techniques.  Now wouldn’t that be a twist ending?

I probably still don’t have a whole lot of time to prepare a full blog post, so here’s another chapter from the ever-expanding Castle Blestem.  I think that it’s starting to get to the really good part.  I say “really good part,” because if I just say “good part,” that implies there’s a bad part of the book, and that isn’t really a very good marketing strategy, is it?

Chapter Seven can be found here, probably.

Spectral Crown, by Andy Sima: Chapter Eight

            It took a bit of time to unload not only the trunks and luggage of the royalty, but also those of myself and the other servants.  We were left to our own devices to this end as Iacob lead the Uradel royalty out of the stable and to the great hall.  I was thankful for this, as it was much better to work alone than it was to have Reinhard breathing down our necks.

            As we unloaded heavy boxes laden with fine clothing, we came across boxes similarly loaded with odds and ends that King Adalbert had been preparing to present to the leaders of Umbra as gifts.  It occurred to me that the idea of gifts was most certainly one of Simon’s workings, as the King would never have considered the necessity of gifts when meeting fellow royalty.  Simon must have felt strongly about his prospects here.

            “Say, Simon,” I asked, as I pulled down a wooden trunk labeled as ‘fragile,’ with the assistance of another servant.  “What kind of gifts are you presenting, anyway?”

            “Whatever I found of value that the King would not miss, mostly,” Simon answered.  “Uradel lacks the funds to commission any sort of fine jewelry, save some small pieces here and there, as most of our finances are sunk in the holdings of the King, Queen, and Prince.  So I collected what jewels I could spare and made a few deals with craftsmen in the valley to make some new pieces out of what I provided.  There was little else I could do.  It is, as I hope, enough to delight the Princess Sorina and her parents into marrying Maynard.”

            “You really want them to get married, huh?” said one of the other handmaids as they assisted my mother in moving trunks.

            “In fact, I do,” Simon said.  “Iacob was correct when he said that an ocean port would be beneficial to us.  It could help with our trade routes.  And,” Simon paused, vaguely confused and frightened.  “And there was something else, too.”

            “What is it?” my mother asked, shutting one of the carriages

            “I’m not quite sure,” Simon answered.  His brow began to sweat.  “I recall something else that Prince Iacob told me, something important that would be beneficial to the kingdom.  But I cannot recall it.  Strange, as it was of great significance.”

            “Seems like something that ought to be remembered,” I said, likewise shutting a carriage.  “Something so important that you steal from the King and Queen to get it.”

            “It was not stealing,” Simon flustered.  “It was repurposing, for a greater good.  Like I said, they won’t miss it, anyway.”

            “You better hope they won’t miss it,” I said.

            “Or Reinhard will have your head,” someone added.

            “Yes, thank you for reminding me of the risks I take for our country,” Simon said.  His brow had stopped sweating, but his lips were thin as he removed one last box from the royal carriage and stacked it with the others.  “Now, since the carriages are taken care of, I must go and see about our quarters, and where all these trunks may be taken.  I will be back shortly.”

            “What are we supposed to do, then?” one of the servants asked.

            “Relax,” Simon said.  “I suspect it will be the last chance you get.”  His words ran fingers up and down my spine, striking me in all the wrong places.  From somewhere, a wind blew through the stable, stirring the hay on the ground and making the horses tramp in their stalls.

            “I suppose there isn’t much else to do, then,” said a servant, and he sat down, back against one of the many wheels of the carriages and removed a pipe from his garb.  He stuffed it with sickly green leaves and picked up a particularly thick piece of hay from the ground.  He touched it to one of the torches on the posts, and it caught fire easily.  With a reverent air, he took the lit stick and placed it to his pipe, which began to smolder dragon’s breath.  He sighed and inhaled.

            His name was Franz Brandt.  He wore a thick red beard that would undoubtedly turn to the same color as his pipe smoke, one day.  Much like his sister, Freda Brandt, he had been born into service to the Uradel family, perhaps for some crime committed by his father or perhaps because there was simply nothing else to be done when one lived in the castle.  No one remembered, least of all Franz or Freda.  Their parents died of the plague years ago.  Now here they were, on this journey to a strange land with us.

            Both Brandt siblings were maybe ten years older than I, and were tall, stocky figures of labor.  They earned their keep, or earned their right to live, by hauling materials up and down the mountain trail, from the village in Stalpert Valley to the chateau above.  When traders needed assistance, or one of the attendants could not bear a shipment on their own, Franz and Freda were called upon in all their fiery strength to help move it, loading it onto carts or carrying it up the mountain.  Their hair matched their temperament, and I wondered if maybe they had originally been from some other country.

            I, too, leaned my weight against a carriage for support.  I was rather surprised that the Prince or Queen had not asked my mother or myself to attend to them.  But then, I supposed, all hands were needed to move the large crates of gear up into the quarters of the castle.  We waited for what felt like ages, making small chitchat among ourselves in the hay and the scent of horse manure.

            “How did you handle it?” I asked my mother.  “The trip here?”

            “It was fine, thank you,” she said, sitting on a carriage across from me.  “A bit odd, but fine.”

            “Odd how?” I asked.

            “Odd in that it went so quickly,” she said.  “From what Iacob and Simon said, I would have expected it to take considerably longer.  But we arrived in just under a day.”

            “It was rather unexpected,” I agreed.  “And what of that… line we crossed?”

            My mother seemed to shiver at the memory, and I felt the same.  “I can’t explain it,” she said.  “But I know what you’re talking about.”

            “Coulda been a storm front, ye know,” said Kolte Vogel, a lanky sailor of many years who stared out at us from watery eyes.  I was not quite sure what manner of events transpired to bring Kolte, a man who had grown tired of the sea, back to his home town in Stalpert valley, nor do I know how he managed to gain access to this voyage.  He was not of any particularly useful making on land, though I had heard he could sail like no other.  But I have no way of knowing the truth of the matter.  Kolte says nothing of himself, and anyone who remembers him from before he was a sailor is long dead.  That seemed to be a running theme of all workers in Chateau Uradel.

            “A storm front?  You think?” I asked.

            “Could be.  Nasty weather on the sea has nasty warnings,” Kolte said.

            “If it was a storm front,” the sunset-haired Freda Brandt asked, “then where’s the blasted storm?”

            Kolte shrugged.  “Could’ve passed it in the night,” he said.  “Though that was a mighty strong storm front, I’ll tell ye.”

            “Don’t think that was no storm front,” Franz said from his seated position.  “Don’t know what it was, but it ain’t no weather.”

            “What do you suppose it was, then?” my mother said.

            “Couldn’t tell you, missus Josefa,” said a squashed woman by the name of Ema Koch.  She perpetually wore her hair in a swirl about her head, to keep it out of her face and hands, and out of the food, too, as she was the head cook for the Uradel royals.  The royals, of course, did not know her, and it was Simon who had given her the position she held.  Ema was proud of her position, and worked industriously to improve her craft, even for ungrateful recipients such as the Uradel court.

            “What I’m really wondering,” said the quiet boy who had been my traveling companion in the carriage, George, “is where the soldiers went.”  He had returned from trying to find his brother, apparently.

            “I wonder that, too,” I told him.  His frightened eyes looked up at me, then shifted away, and he disappeared to some corner of the stable to pet the horses.  Like the pale, blond specter he was, he flitted in and out of my perception.

            “They must’ve gone some other way,” Franz said.  “What other option is there, hmm?”

            “I didn’t see any passages in the wall,” Kolte the sailor said.

            “Nor did I,” added Ema.  Freda nodded her head in agreement.

            “Perhaps they have already met up with the King, or they are with Iacob now,” my mother said.

            “I would suspect not,” Kolte said.  “That pale prince said they were with the Umbra soldiers, probably being briefed.  If I remember anything from my time in the navy, it’s that briefings take far too long.”

            “You were in the navy?” I asked, glancing at the ship’s mast figure of Kolte.

            “I believe so,” he said.  “Couldn’t tell ye when, though.”

            “Now you’re just makin’ up stories,” Ema said, wagging a fat finger at Kolte.  “You old coot, you couldn’t even tell us what you ate for breakfast this morning.”

            “Can so!” he said, indignantly.  “We didn’t eat breakfast this morning.”

            “That’s the only reason he remembers,” growled Franz.  “Because he’s still hungry!” And he laughed through his pipe, pushing smoke upward.

            There then fell an uneasy lull in the conversation, as Kolte shot Franz a wry look and the sailor readjusted the wide-brimmed hat he kept on his head.  Ema and my mother talked about whether they would be cooking with the Umbra chefs or if they would be cared for, like guests.  Both were under the impression, as was I, that we would not be treated as guests here, but as more mouths to feed.

            There was more idle small talk as we stood around in the stable, horses snorting and pawing at the ground and carriages rocking in the cold wind from outside.  I noted that as the horses pawed at the ground, there seemed to be a sort of hollow resonance, like an echo from below.  But I couldn’t figure out what it was, since I didn’t see any stairs leading downward.  The only part of the room that seemed out of place was an old desk in the corner, covered in tobacco stains.

After sitting and doing nothing for what felt like ages, I was tempted to go explore the stable and try and pinpoint the door we had passed through, but it was at the moment when Simon finally returned to us.

            “Quickly, everyone!” he called to the assembled help.  “We must bring the gifts to be presented to Princess Sorina.  We are about to meet her for the first time, and we must be prepared!”

            “What about our quarters?” Franz asked.

            “And something to eat?” Kolte added.

            “In all that time you haven’t met the princess yet?” Ema asked dubiously.

            “No time for questions,” Simon was somehow out of breath, as though he had run a long distance.  “This is a pivotal moment in the histories of both the Uradel and Blestemat families!  You only get one first impression!”  He dashed about the stable with the air of a madman, picking out small boxes and trinkets as gifts to Sorina.  “You, there, grab that box.  Saelac, grab that one.  Josefa, bring this.  The rest of you, grab what other gift boxes you can find.  This must be grand if we are to survive the night.”

            “Survive the night?” someone exclaimed.  “What are you saying, Simon?”

            “No time, no time!” he yelled, and ran to the door at the end of the stable, one that I presumed lead into the castle proper.  “Follow me!”

            There was a confused scramble about the stacked boxes and various trunks that were strewn about the floor of the stable, and all the servants grabbed what boxes they could.  Simon stood tapping his foot by the exit, holding what looked like a jewelry box engraved with the images of dragons and knights, locked in a perpetual wooden battle.

            Once we all had something of perceived value in our hands, Simon wiped the sweat off his face and turned around, to the door.  “Let’s get a move on,” he said.  “Move quickly, do not stop.  They’re expecting us.”

            He threw the wooden stable door open, and darted into a stone hallway.  It was just as magnificent a hallway as I expected from Castle Blestem.  Arched ceilings of stone, colored twilight, and polished grey marble floors beneath our feet, free of any debris or dust that would have accumulated in other castles.  The whole hallway was impeccably clean, and even the torch sconces were free of soot.  I wondered how many servants must have worked in this castle to keep it as clean as it was.

            But we lacked the time to truly appreciate the cleanliness of the hall and we hurried onward, odds and ends clinking around inside the boxes.  I carried a trunk with the help of my mother, and between us we had no idea what was in it.  It had ‘Fragile’ engraved on it, though, and Simon had not protested to it, so I could only assume it was a gift box.  Kolte and Ema each held a glass vase, stained by a Stalpert craftsman, and Franz and Freda hefted two crates apiece.  Befitting of Franz and his sister, one of their crates was emblazoned with an image of a pipe.  It must have contained tobacco or other similar products to bring to the royalty.  The remaining servants and maids carried other crates that I was not privy to the contents of.

            After we hustled our way down the stone corridor for far longer than I felt we should have, we reached another large wooden door, this one bearing the crest of the kingdom of Umbra, same as the one tattooed on Iacob’s back.  Simon grabbed the handle, doing his best not to drop the small box he cradled, and pushed the door open.  It swung away from us with the hiss of wood on stone, and we entered out into the grand foyer of Castle Blestem, and I must say, it put the foyer of Chateau Uradel to shame.

            It was large, more impressive and more exciting in every way than the foyer at home.  The ceiling seemed to disappear into the darkness of the space above, and the floor was as immaculately polished as the shadowy marble had been in the hallway we just exited.  Multiple enormous glass chandeliers, twisting and turning in their intricate, subtle designs, hung from the endless roof above and shed light on the activities below.  Great pillars of stone stood at the corners of the room, and hallways and doors and niches and other secrets seem to phase in and out of view on every edge of the room.  The foyer seemed to act as a central hub to the castle, a place from which everywhere else could be reached.  But it was the staircase, at least one hundred feet across and leading up a good fifty feet, that impressed me the most.  It put the huge wooden door behind us to shame, as the stairs were shining white, reflecting light out against the dark stone of the rest of the castle, a mirror in moonlight.  At the top of the stairs, two other stairways split off; I could only assume they went to higher reaches of the castle.  But there was also a dark door, arched like everything else in this castle, and made of a pitch-black stone I didn’t recognize.  It, too, bore the crest of the Blestemat family.

            I thought at first that the foyer was empty, as its imposing nature dwarfed everyone else within it, but as I looked towards the stairs, I eventually realized that the Uradel royal court, and the pudgy head of Richter Reinhard, were assembled at the bottom of the staircase, decked in their fine garments and colors.  Simon hurried up to the King and bowed deeply.

            “My apologies, your majesty,” he said.  “We bring gifts to present to Princess Sorina and her parents.”

            “Oh, gifts!” I heard Maynard exclaim.  “I had not even considered gifts!”

            “I had,” King Adalbert said.  “I am glad you remembered me saying that, Simon.”  Simon’s shoulders slumped ever so slightly.  It was clear that the King never said anything of the sort.

            “Yes, your highness.  I do recall,” Simon said, and glanced at the King’s thin face and white beard.  “Sir, I believe that Prince Maynard should present this box to Princess Sorina as our first impression.”

            “First impressions tend to lie, you know,” Prince Iacob said from the top of the stairs.  I had not heard the black stone door open, but yet there he was, standing where only moments before there had been no one.  “Come, come, I am glad you are ready to meet the Blestemat court,” he said.  For a second, he stared at me and my mother.  “All of you can meet the court.  It shall be good for relations.”  Prince Iacob drifted down the stairs and stood before the King, Queen, and sallow Prince of Uradel.  “You may ascend the steps when you are ready,” he said.

            “I think we’re quite ready now, thank you,” Queen Annalise said.  Prince Iacob extended his arm to her in a gesture of good will, and they moved upwards towards the black door.  King Adalbert shot a look at his son and then stepped forward.

            “I don’t see why we should have to take the stairs,” Prince Maynard said.

            “How else would you get to the throne room, you cretin?” his father chastised.  Then he called to the rest of us, with anger, “The rest of you shall follow us.  come with those gifts behind the court.”

            “Yes, yes, do hurry!” Reinhard called from the king’s shadow.  His little pig eyes and twisty mouth seemed to leer out from the King’s backside.

            “You heard him,” Simon said dutifully, returning to our ensemble.  “Let’s move.”

            “We don’t need to be told to move three goddamn times,” Kolte said.

            “Oy!” said a low-ranking court member.  “No blasphemy!”

            “I’ll show you blasphemy,” Franz said under his breath.  He and Kolte snickered, but the rest of us remained silent.  I had an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach that, when we entered the room behind the black door, we would experience something similar to what we had felt when we crossed the border into Umbra.  As we made our way up the stairs, my mother and I carefully hefting the fragile trunk between us, we reached the door, where Prince Iacob stood with the Queen and the rest of the Uradel court.

            “This door is made of the finest obsidian, crafted in my grandfather’s grandfather’s time,” Iacob explained.  “It was quiet expensive, but I believe that you will find that the cost was well worth the protection it affords the throne room of Castle Blestem.”

            And he was right.  Much like I had first been when I saw the exterior of the castle, I was again stunned by the sheer magnitude and wealth of the Blestemat family.  Stepping through the threshold controlled by the obsidian door, I had to shield my eyes temporarily from the brightness within, and nearly dropped my trunk in doing so.  When my eyes adjusted, and I saw the throne room, I was awed.

            It shimmered and sparkled as if it existed in multiple states at once, much like its inhabitants, and it was hard for me to perceive and pin down one point of being.  But I remember the singular chandelier, high overhead, spinning slowly in its own way, sending bright beams of candlelight down through glass panels.  It looked much like the other chandeliers in the foyer, but on a giant scale.  Interestingly, the chandelier was the only light source in the massive room, but it was more than enough to brighten up the entirety of the enormous chamber.  I could see every corner of the room, free from shadows of any nature.  The grey marble floor glinted in perfect cleanliness, and the pillars of dark stone that held up the vaulted ceiling stood about like massive sentinels.  But it was the thrones that took my attention the most.  There were only four of them, at the top of another set of stairs, and they were exquisite.  They were carved out of some sort of green crystal and were a shade somewhere between sea foam, tea, and a sunset seen through thick fog.  At the heart of these mint-hued thrones, which were jagged and appeared almost to be hewn straight from one single piece of enormous mineral, there was a darkness that pulsed and swam.  But instead of being frightening, it was enchanting and powerful.  It gave me wonderful impressions of artistic beauty, and I was drawn towards it.

            Of the four thrones, two were in the direct center of the throne room’s back wall, with one each, smaller is stature, off to the left and right.  Strangely enough, no one sat in the two thrones at the center, the thrones for King Titus and Queen Viorel of the kingdom of Umbra.  However, Prince Iacob sat in the throne off to the right of the larger cathedrae, and he reclined as if he had been sitting there for hours.  In the other seat, off to the left, sat the beautiful woman we had seen in Iacob’s painting of her; Princess Sorina.  Dressed in a royal black, she was lovelier than any of us had anticipated, even at this distance.  There was no one else in the room.

Our entourage of King Adalbert and company was stunned into silence by the scale of the room we had entered, and how disappointing our own castle seemed in comparison.  After he gathered what little wits his frail body contained, King Adalbert stepped forward, separating himself from our crowd at large.

“Prince Iacob, Princess Sorina.  Royalty of the family Blestemat, of the kingdom of Umbra.  I,” he trailed off, looking for words and distracted by the lights of the swirling chandelier overhead.  “I would like to ask where King Titus and Queen Viorel are.”

There was a moment’s silence, and I felt as if something unspoken passed between Iacob and Sorina, on their thrones.  They did not move, but I thought I saw their eyes twitch ever so slightly towards the center thrones.

            “They have fallen gravely ill,” said Princess Sorina.  Her voice was as gorgeous as her face.  “They send their regrets, and have appointed us as their proxies.  Hopefully this is acceptable to you.”

            “Yes, yes, of course,” the Uradel King said, after a moment’s thought.  Then, as an aside to his blue wife, “I wish I had known they were sick before making our way out here.  I hope we will not catch it.”

            “It is not contagious, in fact,” Iacob answered from his throne.  The king stepped back, as did the rest of us, mentally.  How had Iacob heard him, from across the room?  “Do not worry.  Sorina and I are more than capable of acting in our parents’ stead.  You will see.”

            “Of course,” the king said.  He muttered something to himself, and Iacob smiled on his throne.  Then the king proclaimed, “We, of the kingdom Uradel, would like to propose a marriage between our Prince Maynard and your Princess Sorina.  It will be a wonderful union between families and kingdoms, strengthening both of our positions.”

            Maynard only seemed to have eyes for Sorina as she spoke.  “Indeed, it would be a wonderful union,” she said.  “Come here, Prince Maynard, let me see you up close.”  She did not stand up from her throne.

            The Uradel prince, on shaky legs and with a liquid smile, stumbled his way across the throne room until he stood before the crystal throne in which Sorina sat.  Now she stood up, and I saw that she was taller and better built than Maynard; in fact, she was nearly the same stature as Iacob.  She had a look of strength about her that belied her delicate facial features.

            She extended her hands forward, with thin white fingers, and held Maynard’s face.  He shifted uncomfortably at her touch, or perhaps too comfortably, and his thin body was framed against her pitch-black dress.  For a split second, I had the notion that she was going to break his neck, right there before all of us.  Sorina simply held his face in her hands and stroked his hair, staring deep into his eyes.  Almost like she was inspecting him for quality.

            After a minute of this or more, Queen Annalise of Uradel cleared her throat loudly and forcefully.  King Adalbert got the message.

            “What are your thoughts on the matter, Princess Sorina?” he asked.

            The princess was silent another moment, and then let go of Maynard and turned him around.  She placed her hand on his shoulder, possessively.  “I find this union acceptable,” she said loudly.  “Let us prepare a wedding.”

            There was a series of feeble hoots, hollers, and cheers that rose up from the Uradel court assembled behind the king, and us servants soon got the message and chimed in our own voices.  I glanced at Prince Iacob.  He was smiling, hungrily.  Smiling, I thought, at me.

This was a pretty long chapter, an interesting way to end about a month straight of only Spectral Crown.  Hopefully that’ll keep everyone satisfied until the next chapter, whenever that is.  Or, if you really, really liked it, I could probably be convinced to release more chapters soon…