Carack

Carack Ch7 p2

Gerent took his plate back to the living room and then wandered around the ground floor, each room was much the same, bare stonewalls, high windows and stone fireplaces. The castle was quite warm for all this stone and had an overall cheerful feeling. Gerent helped himself to more ginger beer before going up to the first and second stories of the castle. Here he found himself in bedrooms when he opened doors and peered in, finding a long gallery that overlooked the main entrance hall. The wall was covered with a huge painting and he gazed at the mural depicting many people building a huge castle, probably this castle, he thought, for a smug looking, life sized man in the foreground of the mural.

The paint looked very old and loose but as Gerent looked at the man in the foreground he thought that he looked very familiar. He thought that the man looked similar to Sancret, as if related. The man was standing with his head turned toward Gerent and in his hands he was displaying to the viewer, an unrolled piece of parchment that had what looked like plans draw on it. But to Gerent, the plans did not seem to be for a castle, they looked more like the drawing of a circuit board, but Gerent instantly dismissed the thought, as he was not an expert in plans. As he looked at the figure, he noticed that the man had what looked like a silver wristwatch on his arm. Gerent peered closer still, it was either a bracelet or a wristwatch he thought, definitely a wristwatch he decided as he realised he could actually make out the time it was showing, which was four o’clock. Gerent thought he would ask Sancret about that later, as no one here had anything like a wristwatch, they used the sun to tell the time.

The castle, in the mural, appeared to be under construction and had wooden scaffolding up against the incomplete walls; there were images of brownies throughout the painting who appeared to be doing the construction work. The edges of the mural were faded to grey, as if going into fog or mist and Gerent could see several grey ponies depicted grazing on the open hillside beyond the castle.

Moving on he reached a row of windows and could see that the sun was now beginning to set; it would not be long before Meendhu returned with N’zar, Gerent mused. The Long gallery looked out on the ground floor but led to only one room, on entering the room Gerent saw the large cupboard that he had seen in the observation room minus its doors. He was about to leave when he glanced up at the ceiling and stopped in wonder. Just above his head there whirled a large grey cloud like mass, some parts of the cloud were drifting slowly round and others were racing, it varied in colour from almost white to charcoal and seemed to contain in it round objects that looked like planets. These were rotating about their axis, as well as drifting round in the current of the cloud movement. There was no noise, no wind and no obvious reason for the phenomenon, Gerent gazed fascinated, and he walked around the room looking up at the cloud mass in the centre.

He wondered if it could be made to go faster or slow down and spotting a long pole, used for opening the high windows, leaning in a corner he grabbed it and pushing it into the cloud he stirred the cloud with vigour. The speed of the clouds rotation increased and a couple of the planets hit each other causing sparks to fly like lightening. Gerent thought it was very entertaining andhead tilted back to watch he tried to slow the flow by stirring the other way and reversing the direction of the current.

At that moment the door of the room burst open and Meendhu hurtled across the floor and dealt Gerent such a blow that he let go of the pole and was sent flying into the wall, where he was knocked unconscious.

When he came around he was lying against the wall, exactly where he had fallen, he gradually became aware that Cam was pacing the room in front of him in an angry manner. Looking up he saw that the swirl of cloud had become very thin and lethargic and that the planets contained within it had all but faded out.

‘What hit me?’ Gerent moaned and moved a little.

Instantly Cam was standing over him and with a voice that betrayed a barely controlled deep rage, Cam snarled at him.

‘How could you? You certainly fooled us all, Madron made a good choice in you, a consummate actor. Were you on his side from your arrival then? ‘Zar said I was too generous in my judgement of you. Get up!’ Cam kicked his foot, Gerent was somewhat surprised at this reception, after all it had been he who had been hit by Meendhu. He struggled to his feet.

‘What do you mean? Why did Meendhu hit me, what’s going on?’ he asked bewildered.

‘Ah yes, as if you did not know, how poisonous can you get? You will not have me believe in you again, Lord Hugh. Brunnstan!’ Cam shouted out the brownies’ name over his shoulder and the brownie appeared at once. He looked as if he was not far from tears, he bowed to Cam and looked daggers at Gerent.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Gerent even more concerned than before, ‘Why won’t somebody tell me?’ neither man responded to him, but Cam said to the Brownie.

‘Place him in the cell as N’zar suggested, we shall keep him there until we decide what to do with him.’

Brunnstan bowed once more and reaching up he took Gerent by the hand. In an instant Gerent found himself transported and standing in the dark, in a place that was damp and cold. He felt Brunnstan let go his hand and he said with urgency:

‘Please Brunnstan, tell me what is going on!’ hoping to get a reply before the Brownie disappeared again, ‘Why have you brought me here?’

‘How can you ask when you have nearly killed mage Sancret, Stirring up him essense like that. It was a good job Meendhu got back when he did and knew what was happening as soon as he saw the mage’s face. How could you hurt him so when he befriended you? The other Brownies laugh at me now because I was proud of having shown you our home. How could you? Mage Sancret is very ill and may die and you are to blame! You!’ The brownie disappeared, Gerent could tell by an empty lonely feeling in the dark room he was in, he held his hands out in front of him and stepped forward to reach a wall where he sat down on the floor with his back against the wall. He could feel the damp creeping in through his shirt and trousers, but he did not care, Sancret was very ill and they all blamed him. He could tell what they had said was true as he had heard the quivering sound of tears in Brunnstan’s voice that told the seriousness of the situation. Gerent moaned and buried his head in his hands.