Airel - Aaron Patterson [76]
Bookshelves were stuffed handsomely full on every wall. I couldn’t resist scanning the spines for titles, seeing some I recognized, and a lot I didn’t. Some looked so old I was afraid to touch them. I felt as if I had spent too much time already, so I left that room and moved on.
I found myself standing at the head of another long hallway, this one aglow with wall-mounted torches and curving to the right so that I could not see the end.
I stopped and listened to see if I could hear anything, but all I heard was the faint popping and crackling of torches. Like on the second floor, there were doors on each side of the hall about every twenty feet. I opened a few and found that these rooms were clean and used, or at least ready for use.
I couldn’t help wondering if my kidnapper had many guests. Was he a partier or something? Yeah. This place is party central. Did he have people over to dance the night away in the great ballroom? What was he doing, flying them in? Somehow I didn’t think so, but it was strange that he had all this space for a single man. I guessed wealth just made people eccentric. Which is polite for really weird.
Toward the end of the hall I found another staircase leading down. Unlike everywhere else, it was pitch black. An earthy smell wafted up in a draft of cold air. I wondered if it might lead to the outside and if so, whether or not it would end under the waterfall. I didn’t want to find out. My nerves were shot. Besides, in front of me was quite the curiosity. It was a massive double door, filling my end of the hall like a sleeping dragon.
I didn’t notice how large the corridor was until I stood in the shadow of these gigantic doors. They were made from huge slabs of wood, carved and inlaid with copper and gold, forming an image of an angel fighting a beast with two heads. It was stunning. The sword in the angel’s hand looked like there was light bursting from it and each ray was accented with silver and glass. At the top, the two doors arched toward each other and met in the middle. Big black pulls stood like hands at about shoulder height for me.
I stood in awe, unable to move as I studied the engraving. It was indeed very beautiful, but it was unnerving at the same time. I wondered who had done the work, but had no illusion as to whom this room belonged.
The killer. He had no name to me. I figured he fancied himself a scholar of history or something. Maybe he brainwashed himself into thinking he was doing the world a favor by taking girls and doing God knows what to them. I had a feeling in the back of my mind that my conscience, and maybe even She, did not approve of what I was about to do.
I turned the large handle, pausing to gather my nerves, then pushed. The door was so heavy that for a brief moment I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to open it. At last it swung in, silent on its hinges. The room was dark. But as the door opened my diminishing candle, aided by the torches in the corridor, threw an orange light into the room. My shadow fell long and fuzzy across thick carpet.
Straight ahead in the darkness was a canopy bed, very ornate. It stood on a raised platform against the wall. I crept in and closed the door gently behind so I wouldn’t announce my presence, if I hadn’t already done so.
I held my candle aside and down, waiting until my eyes adjusted a little. I kept my back to the wall. This room was round too, and opposite me were large windows much like the ones in the ballroom, showering the floor with starlight. I sneaked boldly to the bedside. Nothing stirred in it as far as I could tell.
I came to the windows of tall etched glass and observed a setting moon, blood-orange, against the snow of a distant mountain range. There was a trailhead at the edge of the porch