For the Love of Tales: Short Stories

For a Promise

The castle was huge, with towers on all four corners so high that it would take about eighty men on top of each other to scale them. The outer walls were about ten feet thick, and in the night's darkness most rooms were still plunged in darkness. The vines that grew up to most windows were black and misshapen, mottling with death and decay. Ravens and vultures encircled the castle, obscuring the moon from view, and casting an eerie shadow dance on the castle on the whole.

Kitlon saw none of it. Or rather, if he saw it all, he gave it no import. The sole object of his focus was the open set of doors, inlaid with intricate woodwork, depicting the gods of the inhabitants being worshipped, ruling, and in quite a few intimate poses with each other. He frowned. What had pulled him across the continent was surely inside the castle, and still alive. He could feel it. Yet there was no sign of life. The path before them, the only one leading to the gate of the castle, looked as though it hadn't seen footsteps in over a decade. There were none going in, but none coming out either. There were no hoof prints to suggest horses, or signs that any wagons had ever travelled on the road.

He took another step to the gate, and he could swear the gate had moved. Not to an ordinary eye, but to his archer's eye, there had been a tiny movement. Kitlon immediately got off his mare, whipped out an arrow and nocked it against his longbow. Alert, he then took two more steps forward. There, the gate did move this time - Inwards, as though inviting him in. Kitlon decided he was simply a sitting duck, whether outside or inside. He calculated it was about a hundred paces from the gate to the inordinately carved doors. If he could run and shoot at the same time - He took off, without pausing to look at his horse, which had whinnied and backed away the second he left the reins. There was time to deal with that later, if he could get out alive, with his treasure.

By the time he was at the gates, they were wide open, and he stumbled a little when he noticed there was no one pulling on them. Pulling on the bowstring immediately, Kitlon pointed it upwards, then sideways on both ends, to look for any contraption to explain for the gates. There was nothing to be seen. A loud shriek from the castle made him turn around, but he could see nothing through the windows of the unlit rooms. Just as he made to relax, Kitlon felt a slight breeze on his neck, and turned instinctively, loosening an arrow. He had the next one nocked by the time the present one thudded against the now shut gate. Kitlon shivered in spite of himself; the gates had shut behind him without even a whisker of sound. The closed gates marked the sealing of his fate - a thing he had known for long.

Nothing else to do, he turned and moved for the door, alert for any hidden archers on the walls. The castle loomed over him, and a smell of death and decay reached him. He ignored his impulse to relieve his stomach and climbed up the stairs leading up to the door. As he reached the last step, Kitlon tensed seeing the door open without a sound, just like the gate. He hesitated for a moment to enter, and then decided he had to do it. For love. For himself. For a promise. And then he stepped into the castle, underneath the arching doorway engraved with the welcome phrase:

"Sleep not in the house of the dead"

* * *

Dead end. Maybe if he went back the way, he could go a different way from the hallway, Kitlon thought, as he turned and walked back up the corridor. The door in front of him was the same door he had opened countless times already, and would have to again. He turned the knob and pushed to enter a new room - a different one than the one he had traversed a few minutes earlier. He sighed, unsurprised but resigned and readied his sword. The undead could be anywhere, waiting for him. All the room held for him, however, was a table with a pitcher of water and dried bread.

Kitlon almost laughed in desperation and shouted. It was an animal bellow, nothing held back. The house would keep him fed, just to be food for the undead and carrion. In a fit of blinding anger he pushed the table, toppling the contents. Immediately realizing he had no clue when he could eat again he jumped to save the water from spilling. Then he settled down, and started munching on the dried bread.