Dreams in Eldrim; Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Gelem Castle



As the sun had just finished dipping over the horizon, Erica Leger looked sadly out of her bedroom window at the courtyard outside, and the massive wall that surrounded it.  In a sense, she thought, that wall kept her on one path in her life.  Hers was the life of a courtyard citizen, and the small town nestled inside Gelem Castle was the only place she'd ever seen in person.  Of course, in school, she'd heard of a lot of other places all over the kingdom; places like Troma, which wasn't that far off, or like Aree; the spiritual city.  However, the place that she most wanted to visit was the city of Teist, because they had even bigger libraries than the castle itself.

Erica was still very young, but she loved to read, and she'd learned how to at a very early age.  She loved the way the lettering looked on the page, the feel of the paper under her fingertips, and even the solid, dependable feeling that she got from having the binding of the book in her hands.  She loved learning and seeing new things, too, which was something that only books and genuine exploration could accomplish.  She'd always wanted to travel; to see other cities in person and learn about them firsthand.  However, she was starting to realize that her life was probably never going to involve a lot of traveling or exploring.

Huge walls, intended for protection, surrounding Gelem's courtyard town, and the only ones who ever entered or left that walled-in space were the knights.  Besides, Erica never would have known how to survive without the castle's protection, or without her parents.  She was still very young, and although she dreamed about leaving home at times, to travel and have adventures, she knew that she was probably destined to become a castle librarian or something equally local.

"Erica?"

The question had come from behind her back, but the young girl knew who'd asked it.  The voice had belonged to her mother Vanessa.  Erica's father Job was there too, but he didn't know very much about how his daughter felt.  Her mother understood a little more about the feelings that her little girl kept bottled up inside of her.

"Are you alright?" Vanessa asked, getting a little closer to where her daughter was; seated on the side of her plain, wool bed and looking out the nearby window, "What are you looking at?"

"Nothing." Erica replied, not taking her eyes away from the window, "Just the wall."

That was all that Vanessa needed to hear on the subject.  She must have known what was bothering her daughter, so she quickly grabbed a nearby chair, and took a seat.  After a few seconds, Erica turned around, climbing over to the other side of her bed, to look at Vanessa sadly.  There wasn't any mystery about her feelings at that point.  She'd never been able to keep things like that from her mother.

"Mom..." Erica said at last, still sitting in the soft wool that composed most of her bed, "I'm pretty depressed.  I want to see other cities; maybe even live in one, but I don't think I'll get the chance.  I just...  I feel pretty down."

By that point, both Vanessa and Job were starting to look a little lost, as if neither one was sure how to reply to their daughter's problems.  They'd both had fairly happy lives in the courtyard town, and they'd been proud to live so close to the royal family, to say nothing of how the presence of the protective walls and knights gave them fantastic peace of mind.  It was, for them, comforting to be so well-protected, but for some reason, Erica didn't share those feelings at all.

The people of the castle were more varied than anywhere else in the country.  It had priests, soldiers, judges, teachers, jerah masters, diplomats, librarians, hunters and blacksmiths.  Pretty much the only things it didn't have were woodcutters and farmers, because the land right next to those huge, castle walls wasn't exactly the best environment for farming, and there were too few trees nearby, to make a job out of cutting them.  Wood and food were imported from the other towns in the kingdom, however, so nothing was really lost.

The people of the castle courtyard, and of the castle itself had ready access to all the things they needed, and yet, Erica was unhappy.  She wanted to see other places; places with a smaller variety of resources.  It seemed to have surprised and puzzled Vanessa.  She obviously didn't really know what to do about how her daughter felt, so instead, she just gave her the best advice she could think of at the time.

"Well, try not to worry about it, Erica.  I'm sure you'll get the chance to see some of those places when you get a little older.  You still have plenty of time to travel."

Vanessa's reply didn't make her daughter feel any better at all, but regardless, the young girl still gave her a smile, to try to cheer her up.  Her mother had done her best, and she didn't want her mom to go to bed feeling sad.

"Thanks, mom." Erica replied, not sure whether Vanessa was fooled by her smile or not, "I'll try to get some sleep."

"Good night, Erica."

"Good night, dad.  Good night, mom."

Finally, Erica's parents had left her room, closing the door behind them, and she breathed a sigh of relief.  To her, it was always a chore hiding how she really felt from her parents, and it had been especially hard at that point, since her mother had been trying to cheer her up.

Erica usually stayed awake for at least an hour after bedtime, to read by candlelight, but in that instance, she decided, it would be better to just go to sleep.  As much as she'd tried to make them feel better, the young girl knew that she'd been making her parents very worried, and that, in her mind, was enough of a reason to do what they wanted her to for at least one more night.

In just a few seconds, Erica had blown out the candle on the small table next to her bed, and lay back on the soft, wool cushion, pulling the thin, fuzzy blanket over her.  However, hours passed, and she couldn't get to sleep.  She tried her best to get comfortable and nod off, but even after another half-hour of tossing and turning, nothing came of it.

At last, after five more minutes, Erica was fairly certain that she wasn't going to be able to get any sleep that night, but that was when she heard a noise from outside.  It sounded like a light scratching noise; barely audible at all, but she could just manage to hear it in the silence of the night; while everyone else was asleep.  Quickly, she sat up in bed and looked out the window in the direction that she was certain the noise was coming from.  It sounded, she realized, like it was being made by something on the other side of the courtyard wall, just opposite her room.

Several more seconds passed, as Erica continued to listen to the noise, being careful to make no noise of her own.  For a moment, she thought that it might be a deer, sharpening its horns on the castle wall, but that thought quickly faded from her mind as she realized that the source of the sound was moving upward.  It was, she realized, the sound of someone or something trying to climb the wall, and that wasn't too hard to imagine.  The wall of the castle was perfectly upright, but it was also made of stones, cemented together, so a skilled climber might have found some hand-holds in it.

For a while longer, Erica just watched the wall nervously, not sure what else to do.  At any point, she could try to wake her parents, and they could sound the alarm if there was any kind of threat to the castle, but on the other hand, if it turned out to be something harmless, then sounding the alarm would make her look pretty silly.  When she thought about it that way, she decided that her best bet would be to wait until she could at least see the outline of whatever was climbing the wall in the moonlight, then let people know if it looked dangerous.

The young girl nearly held her breath in anticipation as the noises traveled further and further up the wall, and at last, a very small being reached the top of the courtyard wall and stood up, looking around.  Erica was amazed by the sight, because there was no mistaking the stature, length and proportions of the creature that had made it to the top of the courtyard walls.

The mysterious invader was a boy, no older than Erica herself, and probably even a couple years younger.  It was an astonishing sight, because she would never have imagined that such a young boy would be able to scale the courtyard wall like that.  He did have some rope with him, but he didn't look like he'd used it for climbing.  In fact, he barely even seemed winded after his astonishing feat.

For a few moments, the boy looked around, as if checking to make sure that no one had seen him enter, then gripped the other side of the wall with both hands and swung himself down over it.  A second later, he started scampering down the wall like a monkey or a very large spider.  Erica had never seen anything like it in her life, and the moment that she saw the young kid performing that incredible feat, a word shot through her head; one she'd heard from storybooks and poems, but never in practical conversation.

"Marri."

Of course, Erica had no proof that the young boy was a marri child, and even if he was, there was nothing about the stories of the marri that specifically said they were evil.  It was possible that the new arrival in town wasn't any danger to the people of the castle, and she couldn't deny that she was very curious about him.  Still, she knew that she couldn't leave her room to follow him, even if she'd had the courage.

It was a hard choice to make, but in the end, Erica decided to just go back to bed and try her best to get some sleep, though she knew it would be even harder than before.  There was a chance that the boy didn't really want to hurt anyone, and even if he did, she decided, she'd be better off just trusting the guards and the knights.

Erica continued trying to reassure herself with thoughts like those for quite some time before she was able to get to sleep.



Don was starting to feel just a little winded as he finished his descent down the wall, though it was more from excitement and worry than from physical exertion.  He'd never climbed all the way over a stone wall before, and he wasn't entirely sure that the people of Gelem would have smiled upon his recent feat of acrobatics.  Regardless, he'd needed to get into the castle courtyard somehow, and since the gate had been closed, and no one had answered when he'd knocked on it, he'd really only been left with one option for how to get in.

As his breathing returned to normal, he looked up at the castle, and was amazed by its sheer size and beauty.  Don had read books about the castle, of course; seen paintings of it in the past, represented faithfully by the kingdom's artists, but he'd never seen Gelem in person before.  It was the biggest, strongest-looking building that he'd ever seen, and in a way, its high towers and sturdy walls were accented extremely well by the beams of moonlight, which reflected off its surface.

Don knew quite a bit about why and how the castle had been built as well, and those historical facts briefly ran through his head as he gazed up at it in wonder.  He knew that the castle had been constructed, originally, to serve as a stronghold for the knights and the royal family who appointed them, as well as anyone whose help was needed to teach and equip them.

From the castle, it had been decided, the knights could go anywhere else in Gram after riding for a relatively short time, and after that, they could return to the castle and rest after the battle.  Since the various towns and cities of Gram all needed protection, knights had eventually been stationed in many of them.  However, all of the knights reported to Gelem Castle and got their equipment and supplies from there.  Gelem was the center of Gram's defense force, and it needed to be strong, or else the kingdom would crumble and everyone would be in mortal danger again.

Motivated by the need for strength and security, to protect the survival of Gram and its people, the castle's foundation had been planned carefully, and a great deal of stone had been used in the process.  The inner walls of the castle, and much of the outer construction as well, had been built from stone, held together by concrete.  Once the initial construction was finished, a secondary wall was erected around the keep as an additional defense, and when people started to build houses around that wall, another wall was built around those houses for their protection, forming an additional courtyard around the castle, in which thousands of people spent their whole lives.

The area inside of Gelem's outer wall was really more city than courtyard; full of tall buildings, small houses and thriving businesses, as well as every kind of public service in the kingdom.  The strength of the castle and the protection of the knights had attracted people from all the other cities in Gram, each bringing their special skills with them.  At last, when the castle's construction was completed, a special kind of chemical had been used to guard it against the effects of aging, but that had been over a thousand years before, and a lot had happened to the castle since it had first been built.

For one thing, as more architects, craftsmen and artisans had moved into town, the castle's original walls; made of basic stone and concrete, had been added to and paved over, then reinforced again.  No protruding stones could be seen on the walls of the keep itself, or the castle's inner courtyard wall.  The walls of the castle were still as hard as stone; as strong as they'd always been, but that stone was only an outer layer; added much more recently, and that layer was almost perfectly smooth, and painted over in a blueish color that looked amazing, even from a distance, and in the dark of night.  Work had already been begun to do the same thing to the outer walls, which would have made it much more difficult for Don to climb them if the job had been complete.

In the meantime, the artisans, proud of the chance to improve the symbol of their kingdom's strength even further, had built, painted and sculpted new decorations for Gelem.  The inner wall of the castle, just before the keep, was lined with many of the best sculptures that had been made in all those years, although none of the paintings were there, since there would have been no way to protect them from the rain, snow or humidity.

From what Don had heard, the inside of the keep was just as finely-decorated, with sculptures lining each and every support column in the building.  Its highest tower was the lookout point.  From there, a person could see for a huge distance on a clear day, so that an invading force could be spotted and reported several minutes before they actually arrived.  Gelem was the greatest stronghold of the human alliance, and also quite a spectacle to look at.

Don found the castle to be an incredible and inspiring sight, but it wasn't just because of how pretty it was.  Deep down inside, he knew that all of the incredible architecture and beautiful art that had gone into making the castle had been built by human beings, all working together, all motivated by a common dream and desire; to improve the place they lived in, so that their children and their grandchildren would have the chance to live even better lives, and there was another desire, which was even more inspiring as well.  The humans of Gelem had recognized their place in the world; that they were contributing their time and effort to something bigger and more important than any of them could be individually.  It was stunningly beautiful on more than one level.

The red-haired boy from Troma couldn't help but find that hopeful.  It was, for him, an even greater motivation to continue pursuing his dream.  The fact that all of that art, culture and hard work on the part of his fellow man even existed was an encouraging thought, and it gave him even more to protect.

However, Don had been on the move for most of the night, and he was feeling really tired, no matter how inspired he felt.  Quickly, he headed for an empty spot near a couple of houses at the edge of the outer wall of the castle and set up his tent, then lay down and gradually fell asleep.  It wasn't easy, he soon discovered, to fall asleep on the ground, but he suspected that he'd get used to it eventually, and in the end, he nodded off in the early morning hours, just inside the courtyard town of Gelem.



By the time Don woke up, it was almost noon, and for a moment, the thought occurred to him that he was going to be late for class.  It took him almost thirty seconds before he remembered where he was, and that his classes were finished.  He reminded himself, once again, that he was a graduate of Troma's school system, and that for the moment, he was all by himself, on his quest to become a knight.

The magnitude of that fact hadn't really hit Don until just then.  Somehow, it just hadn't occurred to him that he didn't have the support of his friends anymore.  In that respect, however, Sal's disapproval seemed like it had actually done him some good, because he hadn't really felt that much less lonely in his own hometown, thanks to the way his father had always come down on him for his dreams.  Because of that, even once he realized just how alone he was in the densely-populated Gelem courtyard, Don found the strength to focus on his goals; on what he had to accomplish before he could go back home.  It wasn't easy, but he'd left Troma and gone to Gelem for a reason, and he couldn't just turn back.

As Don packed up his tent, however, and hid his belongings in a wooden gap under a nearby house, he knew that he was going to have to face some big problems in the near future.  For one thing, he still knew next to nothing about how knights were trained and selected, and finding more information about that was probably going to be difficult, particularly since he didn't really know anyone in town who he could have talked to about it.

Because of that, Don spent the next couple of hours wandering around town in frustration, not at all sure where to go or what to do with his time, and absolutely convinced that no one in Gelem would recognize him or volunteer information.  Because he was so confused and didn't have a clue about what to do next, he was in a pretty nasty mood, and he made no real secret about it, scowling as he walked around town in the hopes of meeting a knight or someone who knew something about them.

That morning, he listened in on over a hundred conversations, but none of them really had anything to do with knights or knighthood.  It only made Don feel even more frustrated, the longer his fruitless search continued.  He'd been so certain that the people of Gelem would talk about the knights all the time, living so close to them, but their discussion topics seemed to be basically the same as the ones he was used to hearing in Troma; their jobs, families, problems and recent victories.  In a way, he felt even more frustrated by just how banal the people of Gelem seemed to be, because it made him even lonelier.  He was starting to realize that people who dreamed of fighting the enemy were almost as rare in Gelem as in the town that he'd grown up in.

What really upset Don, however, was that he was sure that the people of Gelem knew a lot about the knights, and just weren't bringing the subject up.  Don knew that if he could just ask one person about the knights without it seeming suspicious, he'd get the answers he wanted, but he wasn't sure he could do that.  A young boy, having recently arrived in town, asking a bunch of adults for information on the knighting process would have been almost unheard-of, and he wasn't sure that he wanted to take that route anyway.  He'd never had an easy time talking to adults.

However, realizing that he had problems talking with adults forced him to make yet another hard decision, and after thinking about his problem for a few moments, he decided to just try to get the information he needed from the children of that city, and headed towards Gelem's main school, his mood starting to improve just a little as he moved on.



As it turned out, Gelem's main school wasn't all that difficult to find.  Signs everywhere pointed it out, and once the young boy got there, he waited outside for a few minutes, not completely sure what the local class schedule was like.  However, he could see that there were still kids in the classrooms, so even if he had to wait by the front door for hours, he knew that he was going to get the chance to ask his questions.

Don didn't have to wait for very long, though, before the classes for the day ended and the students started filing out the front door.  For the time being, he decided to try mingling with them a little.  Even though he was new in town, and had been a graduate in Troma, he looked younger than he was, so it would have been easy for an onlooker to mistake him for another one of the students emerging from that school.

Once he was mixed in with the crowd of kids, Don started listening for bits of conversation that might be steered onto the topic of knighthood, but he was shocked when, a moment later, a girl of about the same age as him, who looked a little older, walked right up to him, and spoke to him directly.

"Hi." she said, holding out her hand to him, "I'm Erica Leger.  I don't think we've met before."

"Uh... Don Deley." Don replied, a little hesitantly, "I'm... new."

"I'll say." Erica replied with a knowing smile, "When I saw you last night, I thought I was dreaming.  I still can't believe it.  How'd you do that?  Climbing over the wall, I mean..."

For a moment, when Erica had started talking like that, Don's heart had nearly jumped into his throat, because he was worried that he might have broken some law or something, and that Erica was interrogating him, but when he shoved his nervousness aside and looked directly into her face, he couldn't see any trace of an accusation there.  Erica, he realized, wasn't probing for evidence of a crime; she was admiring his work.  Those thoughts quickly changed the way he felt about that situation; from fear to flattery.

"I guess I should have expected somebody to see me." Don admitted with a nervous grin, "Did you see the whole thing?  I mean, did you see me climbing down the..."

Erica just nodded rapidly, still obviously in awe of the new arrival.

"Oh." Don replied, still nervous, "Well, I didn't really want to be secretive, I just had to get into Gelem somehow, and the gate wouldn't open.  Somebody aught to get that fixed, just in case there's a caravan or something trapped outside.  I'm from Troma, by the way."

Don was almost certain that that wasn't the right way to greet someone new, but he'd completely forgotten all his etiquette lessons in his nervousness over that new situation.  It made him feel a little upset with himself, but not very much.