Wednesdays in the Tower

by Jessica Day George

  “So that’s what ate all my shoes,” Lilah remarked, looking at the griffin. She shook her head, then gave Rufus a smile and let him sniff her hand. “I might forgive you, if you turn out to be nice,” she told him severely.

  “When did that happen?” Celie asked, pointing to the blocked archway.

  “Just a little bit ago,” Bran said. “We were in the holiday feasting hall when the Castle spit us out into the main hall.”

  “It did what?”

  “That’s the way I’d describe it,” Pogue agreed. “One minute we were standing there, looking at the books, and the next we were all out in the main hall.” He rubbed his elbow. “I hit the arch on the way out. I’d only just come in with the leather cloaks that fell out of the chimney.”

  “The leather cloaks?”

  So much had happened in the last few months that Celie had to struggle to remember what Pogue was talking about. Then the memory came: sitting in the winter dining hall with her family, opening her mouth to tell them about Rufus, and having a bundle of strange cloaks fall down the chimney into the fireplace and distract them.

  “They’re griffin-rider cloaks,” Pogue said. “They’re wearing them on the tapestry and on the cushions.”

  “They are?”

  “Yes, but the tapestries are so faded that you have to have a keen eye to see it,” Bran said. “And it makes sense: the leather is soft but very heavy, so the cloaks wouldn’t blow around as much. And they’re cut so that they wouldn’t interfere with the griffin’s wings.”

  Celie immediately resolved to take one of the cloaks to the seamstresses and see if they couldn’t make one in her size.

  “Bringing them into the holiday feasting hall, as you call it, was a foolish idea,” Wizard Arkwright said, his voice cold.

  “If you want to explain why, we would appreciate it,” King Glower said, and didn’t bother to hide his irritation. “First you accuse my daughter of theft, then you make these enigmatic statements about the cloaks. I want to know what you’re not saying.”

  “Did I miss anything?” Rolf came running up, panting. “The Castle is huge now!” He put his hands on his knees and tried to catch his breath.

  “That’s because it’s all here, isn’t it?” Celie looked Arkwright in the eye and dared him to dodge the question. “I could see it when Rufus and I were flying overhead. Everything looks like it fits together just so. It’s all here. And the holiday feasting hall is the center.”

  They all waited in silence for a long moment, and then Arkwright gave one stiff nod.

  “We didn’t call it the holiday feasting hall,” he said at last. “It’s the Heart of the Castle—of the Glorious Arkower. And it was the throne room, when my father was king.”

  Chapter

  24

  It was quiet enough in the main hall—just outside the Heart of the Castle, as Arkwright had just called it—to hear Rufus’s tail brushing across the stones of the floor. The Glower family, plus Pogue, stood in a huddle around Wizard Arkwright, waiting for him to say more. Celie felt a little thrill of excitement, mingled with fear, run through her.

  “Ah! My fluffy, silly little girls are snug into their beds now!” Lulath announced, hurrying into the hall. “It will for them be safer there, I think!” He smiled around, slightly nonplussed, sensing the tension. Then he caught sight of Rufus.

  “Oh, the Celie,” he said, taking a breath. “Such the magnificence!”

  “Thank you,” Celie said, smiling slightly as Lulath admired Rufus. But she refused to be distracted. “And now, Wizard Arkwright, explain!”

  “Oh, is he doing the telling of what he knows?” Lulath turned to face Arkwright. “I have long thought he knows more than he will say that he is knowing.”

  “Precisely,” King Glower said. “Please continue.”

  The king’s brows were drawn down and his arms were folded in a way that almost made Celie feel sorry for Arkwright. Almost, but not quite.

  “Who was your father?” Queen Celina prompted. “And when, exactly, was he the king?”

  “According to our beliefs, his name must not be spoken,” Arkwright said stiffly. “Because he has passed beyond. He ruled in the Castle over five hundred years ago, before it came to Sleyne.”

  “How is that even possible?” Rolf demanded. “If your father was alive over five hundred years ago, then you—”

  “I am five hundred and fifty years old,” Arkwright said.

  “Impossible,” King Glower said with a snort.

  He looked like he was going to dismiss Arkwright as a madman. Celie’s mouth was open, and she remembered to close it as Bran spoke.

  “That explains a great deal,” Bran said, eyeing his fellow wizard. “Like the amount of research you’ve been able to compile.”

  “Yes,” Arkwright said. He sounded defeated. And although his face didn’t look more than forty years old, his eyes looked every one of those five hundred fifty years, Celie thought. “I’ve done much, and seen much, and now I’m tired.” He rubbed at his face.

  “We brought the Castle here to protect it, and the last of the griffins,” Arkwright continued. He was staring at the bricks of the archway as though they had the story inscribed on them. “My people were dying. The Hathelockes, our most bitter enemies, had attacked and killed so many of us. And then the final blow: a sickness swept through the Castle, which brought down both griffin and rider. Those who were not infected were locked into the portions of the Castle that could be spared, and sent here. It was the only thing our wizards could think to do to save us.”

  “And then what happened?” Celie asked softly.

  She was the only one who spoke, or moved. Even Rufus was still, watching Arkwright with his head tilted, his long tail gently sweeping the stones.

  “The unicorns,” Arkwright said, his face growing even bleaker. “There were unicorns here, in a vast meadow. Carefree, untouched by man or hungry beast. Our griffins had been cooped up too long. Our supplies were low. The moment the stones settled, they leaped from every window and attacked. We could not control them. All we could do was chase the remaining unicorns away. One of our wizards followed, driving them to the sea and making sure that they found safety.”

  “In Larien,” Lilah said slowly. “The stories were true.”

  Celie wondered if Lilah still wanted a pet unicorn, like she had when she was younger. For a moment she imagined that they could find unicorns in Larien, and bring them back to Sleyne. Lilah would surely be delighted.

  Arkwright nodded his head, which was hanging so low that he almost banged his chin on his breastbone, and his shoulders were slumped with regret. “And after all that, the griffins began to sicken and die anyway, and so did many of the riders. We had brought the plague with us, to our great grief. Those of us who survived made a decision. The griffins were gone, our people were almost all gone, and we had only one treasure left to protect: the Castle. The people outside the valley were angry that the unicorns had been killed or exiled. They were afraid of us, with our strange magic and strange ways. We were frightened that they would try to destroy the Castle, or send it—and us—back to our world, where only death awaited us.

  “So we did what we could to erase all memory of the Glorious Arkower, our true home. We erased the griffins. We erased the unicorns. We kept our secrets close, destroying or sending back anything that bore images of the griffins or our homeland, any songs or poems that made mention of them. But the Castle …” A faint flicker of a smile lit his face. “The Castle cannot be thwarted. The flags could not be changed. Tapestries would appear, we would take them down, and others would replace them.

  “My younger brother became the king here. He married a lady of Sleyne, to help appease the people of this land. They called him Glower the First. And when his bride had gone beyond, and he should have been an old man but was not, he turned the throne over to his son and left. I do not know where he went. And even more of our past turned into legend and then faded away, as generat
ions came and went.”

  “That is terribly sad,” Lilah said. Her voice wasn’t sad at all, though. She sounded annoyed. “But that doesn’t really answer our most urgent questions: How did Celie get an egg to hatch, after all these years? And why is the Castle doing what it’s doing right now?”

  “Ah, good point, Lilah!” King Glower shook himself.

  Like the rest of them, he had been so caught up in Arkwright’s story that he’d forgotten why they were here. Even Celie was blinking, clearing her head of the images of dying griffins and frightened unicorns running through the woods.

  “I can only guess what has happened back in my world since the days of the plague,” Arkwright said. “But something has happened in the last few months that has threatened the Castle and caused it to bring the rest of itself here. There were a few of our people left behind— mostly the dying, but some who refused to leave. I had not thought that there were any griffins left, but perhaps there was one, or perhaps the Castle worked some magic to save that egg until now.”

  “For Celie,” Queen Celina said, and put her arm around Celie’s shoulders.

  “Yes,” Arkwright agreed. He turned and bowed slightly to Celie. “I am sorry, Your Highness, that I accused you of stealing the egg. I can see that you have bonded with this griffin, which indicates that you cared for him tenderly and with a pure heart at his hatching. Otherwise he would not have accepted you.”

  Celie felt like she herself was flying when he said this. She had been worried for so long that she wasn’t taking proper care of Rufus, that she wasn’t supposed to have him. And now a wizard, and one who knew griffins, was complimenting her on her griffin training!

  “As for the Castle closing a part of itself this way,” Arkwright said, indicating the brick wall in front of them, “I can only guess again that it’s hiding the things you’ve collected. Every book that mentions a griffin, every tapestry that depicts one, even the anvil with the old crest of my people has been placed here, in the Castle’s Heart. Now it’s keeping them safe.”

  “Safe from whom?” King Glower said.

  “Safe from me, I suppose,” Arkwright said. “After all, I’m the one who has taken away other books and burned them. I’m the one who smashed the statues that once rested atop the towers, and I have shredded I don’t know how many tapestries, and the Castle knows it.” He looked ill at the memory. “I thought I was doing it for the good of the Castle,” he said, looking pleadingly at King Glower. “I thought I was protecting the last fragments of our people.”

  “I want to get in there and see what is left,” King Glower said decisively. “Also, I need time to think about what’s going on. Not the least of which is that my youngest child has been raising a griffin!”

  “I’ve been trying to appeal to the Castle, but it won’t open for me, either,” Bran said. He looked wan, and his hands were shaking from pushing so hard against the brick wall. “Perhaps you should try, Father. You are the king, after all.”

  Looking self-conscious, King Glower went forward and put his hands on the wall. He whispered to the Castle for a moment, while the others all looked elsewhere and tried to give him some privacy. But after a minute or two, he sighed and shook his head.

  “I don’t think it will listen to me,” he said.

  “Oh, then the Celie must try,” Lulath said. “For it will of a surely let her and the wonderful griffin inside!”

  Now it was Celie’s turn to feel self-conscious. She moved through the knot of her family to the blocked archway, Rufus following her. She, too, put her hands on the brick wall and bowed her head. Under her breath she muttered a prayer for the Castle to open the archway and let them in.

  Nothing happened.

  Then Rufus let out a scream and gouged at the bricks with one talon. The bricks melted away, revealing the holiday feasting hall and its strange assortment of tapestries, cloaks, weapons, and memories. Rufus lunged into the room, and the Glower family, Lulath, Pogue, and Wizard Arkwright trailed after him. They all looked around in varying moods of wonder, curiosity, and, in Celie’s case, sudden tiredness at the things she and Rolf had collected.

  Pogue had also brought some of the things from the Armor Gallery. There was a sword with a griffin etched on the side of the blade, which was long and curved and heavier at the tip. There was one of the hollow lances that spewed lightning, which had so worried Bran, and which Celie realized she had read about in the book, as well as seen on the cushions—though on the cushions they were just leaning against the rider’s shoulder, so no lightning was in evidence.

  King Glower looked at the tapestry draped over the table in bemusement. “The clues were all around us,” he said. “We just didn’t see them.” He slumped onto a bench, and the queen sat beside him.

  “If the Castle was in danger back in the Glorious Arkower,” Queen Celina said, “does that mean we’re in any danger? Could something have followed the rest of the Castle here?”

  “An excellent point, my love,” King Glower said, straightening.

  “I doubt it,” Arkwright said. “The Castle is all here, and we would know by now if any hostile forces had hidden inside it.”

  Rufus went over to the leather cloaks and sniffed at them. Then he started chewing on the edge of one, and Celie tried to pull it away. He fought her, so she got Flat Squirrel out of her sash and waved it in his face until he stopped.

  “So, will you be able to put back the bits of the Castle we’re not using?” King Glower frowned, looking around the room. “This is all very well, I suppose, but I prefer my old throne room. And Ma’am Housekeeper seems to think that all the extra bedrooms and linen closets will just make more work for her staff, not really enhance the Castle.”

  “I don’t really dare, Your Majesty,” Arkwright said. “I don’t know what’s happening on the other end.”

  “Could we go look?” Rolf asked eagerly. He’d been pacing around the room, but now he came to stand in front of Wizard Arkwright. “Could you and Bran and I, say, go back there and have a look around?”

  “Absolutely not,” King Glower said. “Much too dangerous!”

  “Can such a thing be done?” Bran said. “It’s not you bringing the rooms of the Castle here and sending them back when we don’t need them. It must be the Castle’s own inherent magic. Will the spell that brought it here work both ways?”

  “No,” Arkwright said. “To protect ourselves, we devised a spell that would only work one way. But you are right: the very stones of which the Castle is built are magic, and it is alive in its own way. Certain parts of it come and go, but to keep it here we rooted many of the rooms, like the main hall and what is now the throne room, to the Sleynth soil; they cannot go back.”

  “What happens if the Castle isn’t under attack anymore?” Lilah said timidly. “What if it decides it’s safer to be … back where it’s from, and leaves? Will we all be left here, or will it take us there?”

  “No, no,” Arkwright reassured her. “It cannot go all the way back, and it can’t take anything vital with it, like a person.”

  Bran was frowning. He plucked at the pages of the book of Karksus’s poetry, and ran a hand over the anvil.

  “That’s impossible,” he said finally. “It goes against every bit of information I’ve managed to glean about the Castle. It goes against my experience growing up in the Castle, besides. If it can’t take anything vital, how did it bring Rufus’s egg here? How does it bring the food for the holiday feasts?”

  “It’s magic—” Arkwright began.

  “You and I both know that simply saying something is magic doesn’t mean anything,” Bran snapped. He folded his arms, rocking back on his heels. “Magic is a science: there are rules. There are rituals and ingredients to any spell. The Castle cannot simply make a feast out of thin air. It could not have saved a living griffin egg for five hundred years and then brought it here, especially if what you say is true. Any transport spell can be reversed—at least, any that I know. And speaking o
f knowing: knowing the Castle, even if you did root some of the rooms here, it would find a way to move them just to prove that it could!”

  Wizard Arkwright closed his eyes. Celie thought he was looking older by the minute. Already thin, he now looked like a stiff breeze might blow him over.

  “There was one last step to our spell that assured the Castle would stay in Sleyne,” Arkwright said, his voice barely a whisper.

  They all moved closer to hear him. Rufus started to snap at the dangling laces of Lulath’s sleeve, and Celie brandished Flat Squirrel to make him behave.

  “We removed something, something very important to the Castle,” Arkwright said. “A part was kept by one who stayed behind in the Glorious Arkower, and a part was kept by me.”

  “What part?” Bran demanded.

  Arkwright pointed to the fireplace. They all looked at the circular indentation on the mantel that had always caught Celie’s eye.

  “The Eye of the Castle,” Arkwright said. “We broke it in half, crippling the Castle, in a sense. My uncle kept half and stayed behind. I took the other half with me.”

  “Bring it here,” Bran said, his voice cold.

  “That would be most unwise,” Arkwright began.

  “I don’t care,” Bran said. “We live here. This is our Castle now. It chose our family and our father, descended from Hathelockes or not. It chose my little sister to raise what is likely the last griffin in this or any world. Now you tell me that among all your lies and deceptions, you have taken a key part of the Castle and kept it in order to cripple it?” Bran’s voice had risen to a shout, and everyone was staring at him in shock. “Bring it here. Now.”

  Chapter

  25

  The Eye of the Castle was an enormous round medallion, almost the size of a dinner plate, with a smooth green stone in the center. Around the stone was heavy gold in a pattern of running griffins, and this was what had been broken. Half of it was gone, and Arkwright reluctantly showed them how a post sticking out of the back of the Eye would go into the hole in the mantel and hold it in place.