No one knew what significance had instructed the builders of the Argenton castle keep to give it eight towers. Whatever deeper meaning there might have been to this number, if there was ever one, had perhaps long been forgotten with the people’s forebear. For neither the people who now occupied this fortress nor its town were the same race who had built it. The current lord’s lineage had ruled for only two generations, and the people since this land was conquered ages ago.

One thing was clear: the keep’s past masters had not concerned themselves with aught historical values, nor to preserve the original anatomy of their seat of power. Added wings and makeshift chambers which further complicated the mighty keep’s complex interior, oft with little pattern or logic to their placements. Worming behind thick walls, winding passages as startlingly conveyed one from the great dining hall to the kennel as from the kitchen to the crypt; a stairwell dropped straight from the mews to the dungeon, the barrack lay adjoined the chapel and atop the stable, which could be accessed from the courtyard as well as the second level of the southeast tower.

There were some senses, at least, to the arrangement of Cordelia’s chamber. A circular affair near the top of a western tower, situated just above the children’s room. Lightly it was furnished: a writing table, a stool, an ancient chest whose lock made creaky sounds, a less ancient chest without a lock, a straw basket forgotten by the servants who had prepared the room for the new owner’s arrival, and a bed for two. Two, for there was no place in the barrack full of men for Esme. But both girls had agreed to share the tower’s top which was in fact wide enough for two, provided they only use it for sleeping and not sparring or pacing around within. It was the smallest tower of the eight, backed against the sheer cliff where the ramparts dropped straight down the rocky side of the hill. Nor did Cordelia complain about this arrangement, for its only window commanded a breathtaking view of the plain behind the castle, and beyond the barren fields at the onset of winter, a virgin wilderness laid cold and silent as far as the barrier of the distant forest’s treeline. She favored it over the eastern towers’ views of the town, for the simple fact that she had never possessed a strong liking for urban places or people in general. As a matter of fact, of the many abodes she would eventually reside in in this world, a good number more luxurious and spacious, this quaint and forlorn chamber lightly shuttered against the keen wind was perhaps the only one she would always recall with a certain unmarred fondness, save for certain incidents were to follow.

Separately the girls were introduced to their charges, Esme to the barrack and commander of the garrison, Cordelia to the children.

It was certainly not her place to complain, seeing as how without their existence, she could have easily been assigned to the more laborious tasks within the castle. And after all, of the many professions she had seen in town, the post of a governess could be seen downright as a privileged honor.

Only she was no good with children.

And what’s more, Sir Kamaric’s children proved a handful pair.

It was easy enough to imagine them behaved creatures elsewhere. They first appeared with a plump nurse at their back, dressed in silk and polished manner, and when made gently to greet her they obeyed splendidly. A brother and sister, eleven and twelve respectively, whose hair was a rustic red as their father’s, and who stood very close to each other, as though afraid of welcoming a new tyrant into their lives. The previous tutor apparently had married a man from another town, and according to the nurse was lenient in all subjects but dictations. Mayhap then, she guessed, they feared her to be far worse a taskmistress.

After the initial impression, the brother, Eric, introduced himself in stammered syllables, beet red as though suffocated by the situation. While his sister, Etna, looked at her brother, and then the nurse, then Cordelia last, and cried out, “Hussy!”

“Hu-hussy?” Cordelia choked on her word.

A scolding from the nurse ensued after this sudden antagonization. And the brother looked away. And the sister looked away also, but indignant. Amid this awkwardness, Cordelia excused herself with a promise to start the lessons tomorrow.

Once the door had closed behind her, she sighed. And she told herself that it did not matter if she was not well-liked in this house. Little doubt it was less than ideal, but they would only be her temporary wards till Esme was knighted. Nor had she a reason to get on their good side, nor dictated by her conscience to fawn over some snotty children. At hand there were far more pressing matters requiring her attention. And so, for all sake’s sake, let them be deprived of an education if they were so inclined!

“So even you could be petty, eh, Mistress?” Mastema remarked.

She hushed the thing and descended the tower, for it was true she had another place she wanted to visit ere the day was dark.

It took no time at all till she realized she was lost in the keep’s maze-like structure. In her frustration, she passed the kitchen, but the urgent clamor of the staff preparing supper discouraged her from asking for directions, instead she walked down a passage nearby, hoping to gain the courtyard which she dimly recalled to lie somewhere in that direction.

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Indeed through the low apertures she gained hopeful glimpses at the wide cobbled ground where the ox carts were kept. She trod carefully, hands outstretched in the unlit passage to touch the damp walls, but long though she walked, no eventual entrance was found open to the outside. Instead the apertures grew sparse and the air unwholesome. Before she knew it, Cordelia had advanced into nigh darkness. The dusty smell now invaded her nostrils, the hanging cobwebs betrayed the path’s long years in disuse. Though annoyed with herself, Cordelia was not fool enough to persist this way, but just as she was thinking to retrace her steps, the corridor took a sharp turn, and she arrived at a moldy door whose cracks admitted unmistakable daylight. The door yielded readily enough a push, opening into a small, untended courtyard. With guarded hope, she reckoned it to be somewhere between the northwest towers.

In truth it was an open space, if accessible only to the door she had gone through. A closed-off garden it seemed. There was in the center a stone structure which eerily reminded Cordelia of the first time she had beheld the shadowed head of the World Serpent, only this time the bleak light of day clearly illuminated its silent surface. It was as large as a small house, but no place for residence. All stone made without the usual thatched roof she had seen in town, it seemed the construction of another era. The triangle upon the threshold was etched in time-worn images and broken shapes, and in some spots the vestige of once white plaster could still be gleaned. Great chains and an enormous lock secured the pair of metal doors. Two willows stood on either side, littering the ground with years of unswept leaves. This place she later learned to be the sepulcher where many generations of Argenton lords and ladies had been inurned. But as Sir Kamaric’s father had perished in battle in a faraway country and naught of his line had yet been buried here, its interior had not been visited or tended to in nigh a century.

Even then, she began to guess the place’s nature without knowing yet its function. Though it was near wintertime and the long walk in the unlit tunnel had caused a chill in her, the drop in temperature was most markable as she drew near the structure.

Then suddenly a strong wind rose and flung wildly her gown and loose tresses while, she realized in horror, not so much as disturbed the dead leaves on the ground. ‘Twas an unreal movement of the air which affected herself, her clothes, and nothing else.

Gradually, yet before she knew it, the all too familiar sourceless whispers grew audible. Chants of the dead, whines of loathing, and cries of a terror utterly alien--all muffled and distorted by a barrier sturdier than stone, yet had crossed over to this side, overcoming that impassable separation between the two realms that should never have been allowed commingled.

This perished all doubts as to the place’s nature. These were the very voices that had assaulted Cordelia’s sanity that time in the unlit morgue.

This time, even the failing light of day could not allay but in fact lent fresh unearthliness to these unknown voices, all further made dreadful by the unhallowed ground’s barreness, so much farther it seemed from wholesome civilization than the morgue back then.

At once and wisely she fled, commanded mostly by her instinct and the tightening grip of the familiar upon her wrist. And as she hasted through the dark passage, the raven Huginn’s warning rang in her ears, “Approach not aught places where death and like elements exude!”

A small eternity after, she found the kitchen without incident, save for an amount of cobweb her hair had caught. The kitchenmaids’ wholesome chatters were gratefully received this time. Once she had steadied her breaths, she stopped a maid to inquire about the closed courtyard.

“Pray, miss,” said the young maid after informing Cordelia of the crypt’s function, “Go not that way again! We all of us have heard strange things down that path a month since, we have! Noises, miss, noises they say behind the locked door, the kinds no mice or aught rodents could make, and it without a crack for even a tiny one to get in! The dead’s a-stirring or whatever else evil! ‘Tisn’t good to even think about in daylight, God forbids!”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Cordelia said honestly. “Know you which way to the library?”

Thus she crossed into the courtyard through the kitchen and made for one of the east towers.

In case she was beginning to get confident in the safety the keep provided, that damned crypt was a stark reminder no place was safe. She cursed silently, dreading the next time the castle master would leave on one of his excursions. Even now, in her eyes the keep appeared almost undefended, a contrast to the formidable front as she had observed from the outside. For so large an abode Sir Kamaric had kept most of his garrison posted at the outer walls or the gate.

Crossing the courtyard and making her way through the castle there were servants of various functions to be seen, mostly women and old men, but very few fighting men. Suppose the undead were to burst through the crypt and invade from within, what would they do? She shook her head. It was an unpleasant thought and she did not like the look of the rusty lock binding the door. But then again, there were magical barriers, even if she could not yet understand their mechanism. They should be able to do something against mindless evil, she wanted to believe, because she could not imagine any usage otherwise they could have provided, them having already demonstrated so little stopping power against feys with somewhat clever mouths to cheat their way through the front door.

In the end, all this only highlighted her greatest weakness no amount of intel merchants could amend. She lacked knowledge, heavily and fatally so, of the world she was in and the threats she might face in the future.

And so she hastened her steps towards the tower where Sir Kamaric’s library and his wealth of knowledge was located. And there, she should learn what she might of this unknown world. Hopefully.