3MA

3MA | Chapter 11

11
CLAIMING

Inka must have alerted whoever is responsible for guarding the castle's front door, because a hundred feet from the entrance, the great, groaning doors slowly spread open, unfurling like the battered wings of an eagle that's grown far too old for flight.

We pass through the portal and enter a dim vestibule, at the end of which yet another massive, wooden gate is set into the wall ahead of us.

My knowledge of castles is limited to what I remember from my childhood fascination with Camelot, but I think the room we now stand in is called the gatehouse, a sort of antechamber between the outside of the castle and the true interior.

The second gate opens. These doors do not push outward like the entryway we just passed through, they're pulled upward to the ceiling with thick, steel chains. They remind me of the rattling gates in the Iron Cauldron that rise to permit fighters into the Octagon.

Amaris leads me into a desolate welcoming hall that appears to have not welcomed anyone since the word welcome was invented. A cobweb-coated iron chandelier the size of a cement truck hangs from the middle of the hall. It appears to be made of hundreds of cascading dragon arms, each scaled talon clutching a bouquet of sputtering candles. I narrow my stare, searching for a chain or a rope that secures the chandelier to the ceiling. But in the darkness of the welcoming hall, all I can see is blackness.

That's because there is no chain. It's floating, Marlon.

I shake my head clear and decide to focus on things I actually can see. The main hall stretches to my left and right, each end obscured by thick shadow. The walls are decorated with hanging tapestries that appear to have become ancient centuries ago. Countless rooms and entryways and grandly sculpted portals pierce the main hallway, some with magnificent wood doors, some with iron gates, others without any door at all.

The entire place smells like the inside of my apartment after a rainstorm; the charred, bitter odor of wind sweeping through the chimney and out the fireplace, mixed with the sweet, mineral scent of wet brick.

"Lady Amaris," a voice calls from a shadow to the left. A short, pudgy woman with red hair pulled up into a messy bun comes waddling over with as much speed as her short legs can lend her. She immediately circles Amaris and helps her remove her cloak, folding it over her arm and smoothing out the wrinkles.

"Thank you, Lorna," Amaris says. "I'm sorry if we woke you."

Lorna waves a calloused hand at Amaris. "Sleep is for the young. Your sister informs me that you've called a meeting of the Court. Says you're Claiming tonight. Has she been drinking?"

Amaris chuckles. "No Lorna. She speaks true."

She speaks true? Who talks like that? An unsettling answers rises to the surface: this is how Amaris really speaks. The words she uses with me are just an act. Just like the leather jacket.

Lorna's eyes squint in confusion. Then she turns her attention to me. "I assume this young man is...here to help you in some way?"

"No Lorna, this is Marlon Ambrosia. He's the one I'm Claiming."

Lorna's khaki green eyes take their time scanning my body, from my shredded sneakers to beer-stained sweatshirt. Finally they settling on the peaks of my scabbed knuckles. A slow smile forms on her lips.

"Look him in the eye, boy," Lorna says, lifting her chin and offering me the smallest of smiles. She grabs a sputtering torch from the wall and disappears down the hallway.

Amaris leads me through a square doorway, wide enough to allow Soggy Dempster, the obscenely overweight 3MA announcer, to fit through with ample space. We enter a vast dining hall lined with row after row of rough-hewn wood tables. The space appears big enough to comfortably feed every person I've ever met. Facing us at the end, a raised dais table perches high above the hall. Behind it hulks the shattered remains of a stained glass window; now, just a yawning black hole.