The Revelation of the Vine: Graft

Chapter 29: The Desolate Crown

  To the left of the plaque was a long pillar that stretched up from the icy rock and supported the northwest section of the Crown above. On the pillar's surface were flat bricks that protruded in a zigzagged pattern for hand and footholds, but they were spaced too far apart to reach by normal means. Vine walk was necessary to help ourselves grapple up the wall. "The blasted door is frozen shut, V," Jurgen said, pulling his helmet off to rub his head, and staring up at the under part of the Crown's floor. Next to the top of the pillar in the floor there was a small, square trapdoor made of steel that was crusted with hoar frost around the seams and hinges. It looked like it hadn't been opened for days. I began to wonder just how long the Crown had been deserted like this. "Isn't there some special hug you guys can do again?" Tenbu joked. "Not this time," I laughed. There was no way to open it from underneath. There was no special saying, or platform to stand on, or special hug that would work this time. The switch to open the hatch was in the tower that sat on the wall next to it. Our only option now was to grapple our way up to the highest point on the pillar, and then rebound up the space between the mountain and the Crown's inner wall. "Well, it's a good thing my little rebound experiment on the ridge worked, but let's see how well it works going straight up." I said, hoping it would be as simple as the first time. "Watch and learn boys, watch and learn." I stepped up onto the first grips of the pillar, and from there Surged upward to grab the second, and then the next one, and then all the way up the pillar. I grabbed onto the highest grip with both hands and pressed the toes of my boots against the pillar. I focused on a spot on the mountain that was just under the floor of the Crown, where the red light that filtered down from above ended in a curved shadow. The mountainside closed in as I zoomed toward it, and I braced my legs for impact. I hit the wall with my feet, and crouched into the landing where the rock began to crack undrer the pressure. I began to slide down a little, as I tilted my neck back to look up at the top of the inner wall and rebounded up through the space between it and the mountain. I grabbed onto the ledge of the wall and pulled myself up and then over. "Over 700 years old, and still as agile as a flying-squirrel," Teion's comment echoed up. The wind and a smile tugged my cheeks, as my head slipped behind the wall, and I fell toward the floor. The thud of my landing blasted through the silent courtyard like rubble falling in a condemned ruin. I crouched with my shoulders hunched and looked around even though I felt surely that no one was here. "Lands like an ox," though, I heard Tenbu's muffled voice from below, followed by a few laughs. I headed to the door of the northwest tower's barracks across the courtyard and passed by the entrance hatch on the way. A thick layer of rime covered the top, so I stopped to break it off before I flipped the switch. It took a dozen good whacks with the pommel of my sword, as muffled grunts and surprised exclamations echoed up over the walls from the squad below, but the ice finally broke up enough to be swept away from the door. "Thanks for the shower," Falkir yelled. "No problem," I shouted at the door, hitting it a couple more times for emphasis. Then I turned and headed toward the arched silver door that led into the tower's first floor. A small, silver panel stuck out of the wall to the right of the door at a 45-degree angle. It had a thick-lined, black lemniscate in the center where I placed a finger and began to trace along the path. A thin, silver beam appeared from the right curve of the symbol and swiped across the lemniscate twice in quick succession. A pneumatic hiss released blasts of white steam from the cracks of the door, as it slid inward, and a female voice cut through the air. "Lemniscata GENE signature confirmed, Captain Virgil; your DNA caps are closed, and are no longer in a state of repetitive degradation. "Good to know Sophia," I said, "Give me a status report on what s happened, please." "Unable to retrieve status reports," Sophia replied in a monotone, scripted voice, "Status reporting has been deactivated and all previous files have been deleted. My Artificial Awareness module has also been removed. I am currently functioning in manual access mode only. I can, however, inform you that it has been 0 days, 17 hours, and 59 minutes since my deactivation." Her voice disappeared with a short buzz. The door slid open to the right with a whir and a faint screech, as stale air escaped from the tomb-like chamber and icy debris fell from the doorframe. The timeframe Sophia gave me for her deactivation coincided with the last time she spoke to me in the caves. A few tables were scattered about inside the rectangular room; chairs and benches littered the space between them. Some were pushed up under the tables, while others were scattered away at different angles like people had gotten up but didn't bother to push them back under. There were a few, narrow-arched windows in the wall opposite the door, with slender panels of glassy ice inside them. The construction theme of the keep had been a combined effort of natural architecture and technological achievement. The exterior walls were made with precision cut slabs of ice-rock taken from the construction of the keep's inner chambers within the peak, while the interior walls were covered with smooth panels of a strong, yet bendable metal that the Sages called Paladnium. They said it was easily replicated, invented by our ancestors, and was used by the Founders in the keep's construction. The Sages had always been a very secretive bunch. Even with me being a Captain of the Knights, I still knew relatively little compared to the High-Sage. Now I was wondering if they were in on the whole Veil-thing from the beginning; keeping us knights ignorant of what was going on across the sea while we spent days and weeks in the Unclaimed Territory, hunting the Soulless that crept out from the cage that they had made for the Corruption in the Rime. They never really entrusted me or any of my predecessors with much knowledge of any kind. And now, they were just magically gone, along with every Living Soul in the keep, without anything out of place or appearing strange to give me a hint or a clue as to how or why the Crown had become so deserted. A shiver crept up my spine from the thoughts that wandered in my mind, as I walked over to the switch that opened the hatch in the floor outside. Another of the silver, lemniscate fingerplates stuck out from the top of a pedestal by the left corner of the door wall. I swirled my finger along the path, and the light flashed by. This time an alarm blared through the room with three long buzzes that repeated three times. After the third set of blares, Sophia s voice cut into the air, "Opening the northwest entry hatch. Please stand away . . ." Four loud, metal slams released the locks from the hatch, and then a loud hiss of releasing pressure spewed, before I heard the metal hatch lift up and swing back on its curved hinge. "Thank you, Sophia," I responded, as I left the tower and stood out in the courtyard near the opened hatch, "Re-initialize all available systems." "Affirmative; re-initializing available sub-systems first, Captain," she said, and her voice once again disappeared with an electric crackle.