The First King of Shannara - Terry Brooks [108]
The stairway ended at a massive iron door. No locks bound it.
No magic warded it. Above its rusted, pitted frame, the words CHEW MAGNA were carved in stone — but those words only and nothing else of what had been written on the wall above the fissure into which they had entered. The others of the little company crowded close. On hands and knees, Preia Starle examined the ground before the doors, then rose and shook her head. No one had passed this way in a very long time.
Tay probed the doors and the spaces between. Nothing revealed itself. He stepped forward then, seized the great iron handles, and pulled down.
The handles gave easily, the latches released, and the doors swung inward as if perfectly balanced. Misty light poured through the opening, streaming down in a surreal shimmer, as if filtered through a pane of rain-streaked glass.
A massive fortress stood before them, its stone blocks so ancient the edges were worn smooth and its surface so cracked it seemed as if spiderwebs had covered it over. It was a wondrous construction, a balancing of towers atop battlements, an interlinking of parapets that cantilevered forward and back at every turn, and a spiraling of catwalks that suggested the intricacy of tapestry threads woven on a loom. The castle rose high and then higher, until its farthest reaches were barely discernible. Mountains ringed the castle, opening to the sky through a ceiling of clouds and mist. Trees and scrub grew thick along the rock wall at the higher elevations, branches and vines drooping inward toward the castle spires, letting daylight slip through in a ragged seam. It was from here that the light took its odd cast, spilling down through the filter of the leafy canopy and swirling haze to coat the fortress stone in its watery illumination.
Tay moved through the doors and into a vast courtyard that spread to either side and toward the central structure of the keep.
He discovered now that he had passed through the castle’s outer walls, which abutted the peaks themselves. He stared back at the walls in astonishment, realizing that with the passing of time, the mountains had shifted, closing and tightening about the ancient fortress until its walls had begun to crack and crumble. Inch by inch, the mountains were reclaiming the ground on which the fortress had been built. One day they would close about it for good.
The company advanced farther into the courtyard, glancing about guardedly. The air was damp and fetid, smelling of swamp and decay, strange for where they were, so deep in the mountains.
But they had descended a long way since coming through the fissure in the crater wall, and Tay felt they might again be nearing sea level, far enough down to encounter marshy conditions. He glanced up again at the trees and scrub and vines growing high above them on the cliffs, and realized that the mist was almost a rain. He could feel the damp on his face. He looked at the fortress doors and windows, black holes in the gray haze. Iron hinges and locks hung empty and useless; the wood had rotted away at every turn. Moisture worked at the stone and mortar as well, wearing it down, eroding it. Tay walked to the wall of the nearest tower and rubbed his hand across the stone. The surface crumbled like sand under his fingers. This ancient keep, this Chew Magna, had the unpleasant feel of a place that would collapse under a strong wind.
Then Tay saw Vree Erreden. The locat was on his knees at the center of the court, head lowered between his shoulders, arms braced to keep himself from collapsing completely, his breath a harsh gasp in the near silence. Tay hurried over and knelt beside him. Preia appeared as well, then Jerle, their faces anxious and intent.
“What is it?” Tay asked the stricken man. “Are you sick?”
The locat nodded quickly, pulling his arms into his body, sagging against Tay for support, shivering as if struck with a terrible chill.
“This place!” he hissed. “Shades, can you feel it?”
Tay held him close. “No. Nothing. What do you feel?