The Castle by the Sea - Prologue

The Pond House

In most forests the evenings are filled with the chorus of innumerable insects. The trees hum and sway together, joining in as best as they can. The stars in the vastness above listen in as a joyous audience. The forests near Kemenbar celebrate the coolness and peace of the evenings. For most, it is a time of joy, but not for all.

     

There is one particular forest, known as Tuwull, that lies away to the south. It is deep and dark and empty of all but the thickest of trees. It is entirely inhospitable. For years, no living thing bothered to enter it. Only one creature lives there. It is a creature without a name. For many lives of men, it had been entirely alone.

     

Until a spring evening found two unlikely visitors to Tuwull. It was a young woman, barely aged beyond childhood, and she brought with her a reluctant young man of similar age. He was reluctant not to be with her, but rather to be with her in that particular forest. Unfortunately, his reluctance to appear a coward in the presence of the young lady outweighed that of his desire to run away with all haste.

     

The young lady was an important person, for she was a princess. The young man was her suitor. As often as they could, each would leave their respective quarters and wander under the swirling constellations together hand in hand. Both were very much smitten with each other. They both lived for the evenings together.

     

The Princess slowly gained an appetite for more and more adventurous walks. Each night she would lead him a bit further into the wilderness. This was not enough adventure for her though. She desired to visit the place of her childhood nightmares. She wanted to go to the Forest of Tuwull. She pressed her will upon the poor young lad and under the weight of this pressure, he relented and allowed himself to be led to the forbidden forest.

     

The night air danced about them as they strode through the marshland surrounding the forest. The lad fought the repellence he felt about the whole place. He could not be seen as weak, he knew. Footfalls drummed through the tall patches of grass. The bulk of Tuwull rose up and grew bigger in his sight. He felt his heart give a panicked leap. He thought of running away with all speed. But there was her hair and it was long and the color of strings of starlight and was dancing all about as she hurried to the forest. She turned back to him and gave an encouraging smile. He tried to flash back a confident expression, which evidently he could not pull off because her smile melted into one of repressed amusement.

     

The young suitor found himself entering a wholly unwelcoming tangle of trees. The air no longer danced. It hung all around them, still and suffocating. There was no light of any use. All that he could see made him wish he couldn’t see anything at all. Tuwull was littered with trees that reached high and hide the outside world. No stars could be seen. That worried the lad.

     

The princess was awe-struck to say the least. She turned slowly around taking in all the things she could not actually see. She thought it was magnificent. In her excitement, she spun to the lad, grabbed both sides of his face, and pulled him in for a kiss. And without a second thought, she frolicked about enjoying the forest that was not meant to be enjoyed.

     

The young suitor was quite surprised and more than a little dumbstruck. Suddenly, the whole place didn’t seem quite so horrific. He still thought it was a miserable place, but it softened a bit in his viewing. He decided to give it a chance as long as none of the stories about it were true.

     

They journeyed through the forest, scrambling over enormous, slick roots. As they progressed further into the thick of the forest, the silence grew steadily more oppressive. It began to disturb the suitor’s good mood. In truth, he began to worry for his safety, though he pretended that it was for the princess’s safety.

     

“Think we should start heading back?” He asked tentatively.

    

She continued on, lost in a world all her own. He coughed a bit to grab her attention. She turned to him, “Isn’t this just wonderful?” she beamed.

     

“Yes,” he said, “absolutely wonderful.” She didn’t quite catch the sarcasm in his voice.

     

“I could stay here forever,” she said.

     

“Well sure, but I was thinking we could probably leave soon. It is late and I am growing weary of all-“ He did not finish his thought. Away in the distance, they heard a splash. They froze in horror.

     

The lad peered through the shapes of twisted trunks in the direction of the splash. He felt that every breath was an intrusion on the oppressive silence of Tuwull. He regretted coming there. He should never have let her pleading eyes sway his better judgement.

     

Old stories called to mind terrible images. He grasped her arm and tried to pull her away from the ominous noise. The princess was not in the same hurry to leave. It can be said that she thought the sound meant a grand adventure, which she was eager for. She broke free from his grasp and tore through the trees toward the one sound in a silent forest.

     

He did not want to take a step nearer than that dreadful sound, but the young lad did love that girl dearly. He summoned his courage and followed her between the hanging tree limbs.

     

To his surprise, he happened upon an open area of the forest. The tangle of trees broke apart and opened up to a wide, still pond that stretched beneath the starry sky. The princess was standing at the water’s edge and peering out across the glassy surface.

     

He was in awe of her utter foolishness. He hurried to her, grabbed her wrist and began to tug her back from the edge. Suddenly, her foot caught on some impedance and she tumbled to the ground, knocking him over as well. He spun around to make sure she was not hurt and saw wrapped around her ankle was a green vine. She went to untangle it from her leg, but the vine moved rapidly from her ankle and tangled itself around her wrists instead. The princess was in shock. She just stared at the vines twisting themselves around her arms. Then she recovered from the shock just enough to begin screaming.

The lad sought to prove his valor so he quickly attempted to untie them himself. The vines resisted grip. His fingers could not hold on tightly before they slipped off. The vines were covered in some slippery slime. There were small suckers on the underside, latching on to the girl’s arm. They were not vines, he realized. They were tentacles. He panicked and tried to ripped at them, but they clung yet tighter.

     

The girl screamed. He followed her gaze to the pond that lay behind him. Rising out of it, a hideous beast gazed at them with a great, sallow eye. Hundreds of tentacles danced and swung through the air. It rose still further until a gaping maw appeared above the murky water in the starlight. It let out a noise that seemed both roar and scream.

     

In one motion, the tentacle around the princess’s wrists pulled her straight up into the air. She was crying for help as it held her aloft. She begged the lad to help her. He grasped around for a stick or rock or anything he could use to save his Love. His hands met nothing but dried weeds.

     

He yelled at the beast to get its attention. It paid him none. It only watched the girl as she struggled to get free, even though escape would only bring her straight to its waiting maw. She screamed and cried. The boy yelled. The Beast watched.

     

The Beast was very ugly. And therefore is often subjected to preconceived notions of ill-intent. She was not trying to hurt the girl. Actually, her goal was to protect the small child. The problem was that she felt that the way to protect her was to bring her under the water. She did this and was thanked for her help by the girl lashing out at her tentacle. She decided that this strange thing must not enjoy water for some reason, so she lifted her out again and set her on the dry ground.

     

Both the boy and the girl were in shock. The tentacle that had grabbed her softly patted her head. They passed from shock to full-on disbelief.

     

“Did it just save you…?” The boy asked.

     

The princess just stared at it. “Thank you,” she said.

     

The boy whispered, “I don’t think it understands you.”

     

“It must,” she said.

     

Tentatively, the boy said, “Yes, thank you, uh, Sir.” The great, enormous beast did not respond in any way except to sink below the surface of the water and disappear. The only hint that a monster lay beneath the surface was a steady growth of bubbles floating to the surface of the peaceful lake.

     

The princess seated herself on the edge of the shore and the young lad joined her. They sat there for hours in the heavy, but now more welcome silence, thinking over the events of that night. They sat there until dawn without speech, only thought. Somehow in unspoken agreement, they had decided to trust the great beast.

     

Maybe her cold, yellow eyes shone a kindness rarely seen in any eyes. Or maybe it was pure, unfounded gratitude for a life saved. Either way, the two young humans sat at the edge of the Beast’s pond and watched the bubbles rise to the surface until the break of day.

     

By that point, both were more than exhausted. However, they knew they were already in enormous heaps of trouble and that they should hurry back to their respective abodes. And so they did. After several weeks, when their grounding periods were over, they each snuck out again to see the strange beast. The princess and even the suitor felt a tugging on their curiosity to see the great thing. Perhaps to assure themselves that they had really seen it.

     

When they arrived again, the Beast lifted her head out of the water and stared at them both for some time. Nigh on an hour passed in near total silence. At the end of the hour, a thin tentacle gave a soft pat to each of their heads. Throughout the night they would sit and gradually they began to talk. And in the silent forest where sound was often a stranger, the beast began to listen.

     

It cannot be said why they continued to visit the thing for many months afterwards. They were very much fond of her. And they were pretty sure the feeling was mutual. For each time they visited her, she would pat their heads and then sit down to listen.

     

The princess and the suitor visited him as often as they could. It was not until many months later that there late night adventures were discovered and made public in a disreputable, but apparently much widely read, tabloid magazine. And both of their royal families were so disgraced that they were forced to toss them out into the world and disassociate from any connection to them.

     

They did not know where to go at first. They had no available home. They had no money or food. Finding out that the cold, cruel world has no place for disgraced former royalty, they trudged to the only place they knew was home. They went to the pond in the forest of Tuwull. They went to look for their dear friend.

     

The two weary outcasts staggered through the tangled brush. Once again, they were hand in hand. He smiled at her through the exhaustion. She smiled back through the pain. Oddly enough, the loss of royalty was more a relief than anything. Now they could spend every night under the stars with the beast. That, at least, was their hope.

     

Coming out into the opening once again, they walked up to the edge of the pond and peered in. Winter was now fast approaching and a paper thin layer of ice stretched out from the edge of the pond. They looked all around. There was nothing to be seen. No enormous, yellow eye rose to greet them. No pat on the head to welcome them. Just ice. Ice and silence.

     

Now they felt despair grasp at their hearts. They felt immeasurably hungry and hadn’t felt their toes in hours. Also, something was wrong with the great Beast. They were alone and lost and most certainly going to die.

     

The suitor slumped to the frosty ground and barely felt the cold. The princess rested next to him. Their breaths came out in short cloudy puffs. Night was falling and they had no shelter. The princess rested her head on the shoulder of her suitor. And he rested his head on her’s.

     

They met the night in frozen silence, just like the forest. Sleep caught them in its grasp and laid them in icy beds. And like that they stayed while the moon made its trek across the sky.

     

When the princess’s eyes slid open, she could see no stars. Everything was complete darkness. It was not, however, completely silent. She could hear the breathing of herself and another and also a dull thrum. She sat up and realized she was warm.

     

This bothered her in her tired state. All she could remember about falling asleep was that she was cold. And now she was warm. She thought that was baffling. All in a panicked state, she called out for the suitor. She heard his groggy voice mumbling nearby. In the darkness, the princess stumbled to him and shook him awake. He sat up with a jolt.

     

“Where are we?” he asked as though he were accusing her of something.

     

“I don’t know.” She responded. She stood and with extended arms felt for something. The princess took two wary steps when her fingers brushed up against stone. But the stone was not cold like she had expected, it was warm and pulsing.

     

“The walls,” she said, “they’re warm.”

     

“Walls? What walls?” The lad asked frantically.

    

As he asked this one end of the structure they were in peeled away to reveal the bright, brisk morning. The two stumbled out into the daylight and peered around. The structure they had just been in was an enormous collection of huge rocks. Throughout the structure, vine-like material interlaced between them. The two young humans stared at it in awe.

     

“Beast?!” asked the princess.

     

In response, a single tentacle gave each of their heads a pat.