The Far Castle
A Tale of the Savage Realms
Finen first heard of the place in passing. One of the reptilian primitives mentioned it to another as they exited the mines at the base of the butte, speaking in broken Dattaran.
“She go Far Castle if she think I do that.”
The drakelings both laughed, making their way back to their communal barracks.
The sentry assumed it was some sort of idiom, a linguistic artifact of the Drakonic tongue. Just as the reptiles were being weaned from their subterranean environs, they would be rid of the remnants of their old language soon enough.
Then a few days later, he heard it again. He was guarding half a dozen she-drakes down by the river, watching as they laundered the Assimilation Regiment’s uniforms. The reptiles all wore cloth around the tops of their heads, with slits cut in the fabric for them to see through. Apparently the daylight hurt their eyes.
One of the younger drakelings was speaking with the eldest.
“Where does the river go?” Though her rasping accent was still unmistakably Drakonic, her Dattaran was almost perfect. The youngest ones always picked up the dialect fastest.
“River go south,” the elder garbled. “Then go west, by valley. Near Far Castle...”
It wasn’t just an idiom. It was a location.
Finen met Kyth outside the captain’s office later that evening, just as the drakeling was finishing his work for the day. Kyth had been one of the first of his tribe to acclimate to Dattaran occupation, and he’d been rewarded with a post as the captain’s personal assistant.
The red scaled reptile started as he noticed the human standing just outside the door. The drakeling had to crane his neck to look up at him.
“Ah, Finen. I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Good evening, Kyth. If you’re not too tired I was hoping we could have supper together.”
Assimilation Regiment policy was to build genuine rapport with those they looked after. It made the transition from primitive to citizen easier and more appealing. Finen and his fellow sentries had shared meals with the drakelings out of obligation at first, but before long friendships had formed.
Kyth and Finen gathered their dinner rations from the commissary and found their usual secluded notch under one of the mountainous crags to the north of the mine. The human and reptile chatted idly in the lanternlight as they ate baked Rax-fish and coarse pillar-wheat bread.
“I heard a turn of phrase the other day I didn’t recognize,” said Finen, mopping up fish-sauce with his bread. “‘Going to Far Castle.’ Or at least I thought it was a turn of phrase. I heard it again today, but it sounded like they were talking about an actual place.”
“It’s both,” said Kyth, sipping his allotment of mead. “‘Going to Far Castle’ means someone’s trying to do something that’s impossible. Because it’s impossible to get to Far Castle. That’s where the expression comes from.”
The sentry frowned. “Impossible how?”
The reptile shrugged. “You just can’t get to it. It’s in the valley to the southwest. If you follow the River Rax through the Pillar-Lands you can get there in about half a fortnight. Once you climb to the rim of the canyon you can see it clear as day, maybe ten strides from where it should be. It’s big and tall, and at night you can see lights inside.
“It looks like it should be maybe a half a day’s walk to get there from the eastern side of the valley. And if you start walking toward the castle, it seems to get closer for a while. But after a certain point, you get stuck. Every time you crest a hill, it’s the same distance as when you last saw it. It doesn’t matter what direction you come from, or how fast you go. It’s always the same.”
Finen listened with rapt attention. “You say that like you’ve been there yourself.”
Kyth nodded. “I have. There’s another drakeling tribe on the western edge of the valley that we used to trade with sometimes. On one of the trips over I tried to hike to Far Castle while we were stopped for the day. It’s a bit of a tradition, I guess. After a few hours of walking without getting anywhere I decided to head back, and I was back at our camp in fifteen minutes.”
“What do you think it is? An illusion? Or is it actually there, and some kind of magic prevents you from reaching it?”
“I don’t know.”
The conversation continued, but the sentry was distracted for the rest of the meal and long into the night.
Captain Mabdell rested his chin on his interlocked fingers, skimming the sentry’s proposal again. His assistant, Kyth, stood at attention against the wall behind him. The captain raised his eyes toward Finen and shook his head.
“I can’t justify this sort of excursion.”
Finen blinked. “May I ask why, sir?”
“We’re on the edge of the Savage Realms assimilating a group of still unpredictable primitives – primitives particularly susceptible to Suvoran influence – with a limited force,” the captain explained. The drakeling lowered his gaze to the floor. “Additionally, we’re about to transition to the next phase of adjustment, and we’ll need all hands to maintain the current temperament. I can’t send a whole detachment away on some tenuous expedition.”
“Sir, I believe that this ‘Far Castle’ could be of strategic value. Either as an outpost, or for arcane research. With that sort of magic the Suvorans could be waylaid for hours, or days, or held in place while archers–”
“I agree, as does Admiral Strentis. The most fluent primitives were interviewed about the local terrain during the first phase of adjustment, and I sent the report back to command. Once our position is more secure they plan on sending a contingent of cartographers to survey the area themselves and an experienced mage to investigate the castle. …Listen son, I appreciate your initiative. But the matter is being seen to. If you’re still posted here when the contingent arrives, I’ll be happy to make sure you’re included on the escort.”
“…Sir, I still believe it would be worthwhile to send a preliminary expedition. Wouldn’t it be better if we had a firsthand account of the phenomena from a native Dattaran, uncolored by primitive bias? What if the Far Castle is just a normal ruin of the Forgotten Age, exaggerated by reptilian imagination, and command sends their mage all the way out here for nothing?”
Kyth was unable to suppress a wince.
“Sending a small scouting party to confirm the castle’s existence now could save resources later,” Finen finished.
Captain Mabdell rubbed his forehead as he considered the new proposition. “…How small a scouting party?”
The human and drakeling set off before sunrise, their knaps weighed down with a fortnight’s worth of provisions, and began following the Rax’s flow southward.
Daybreak peeked over the horizon, painting the tops of the column-like buttes of the Pillar-Lands in marbled pink before casting its light down on the travelers. They went without a mount – the regiment couldn’t afford to lend a horse, and it wouldn’t have been able to make the climb up to the valley’s rim anyway.
Kyth rummaged into his pocket for a well-worn strip of cloth, wrapping it over eyes and tying it behind his horns as the sun passed over his face. “…I didn’t imagine Far Castle.”
Finen raised an eyebrow. “I never said you did.”
“Yes, you did. You said it to the captain. Then you requested me as your guide.”
“Oh, that! I wasn’t talking about you, Kyth. You’re practically a citizen now.”
“But I’m the one who told you about Far Castle. Who else would you be talking about?”
“…I didn’t really mean it. I just wanted the captain to agree to the scouting party.”
“So you believe me?”
“Yes, of course! I wouldn’t have wanted to go see it if I didn’t.”
The drakeling’s lips pulled back in the hint of a snarl before settling on a sigh instead. “Well, you got what you wanted. And the captain certainly thought you made a good case.”
The human grimaced. “I didn’t mean to reflect poorly on you, Kyth. I’m sorry. I’ll tell Mabdell the truth when we get back.”
They walked alongside the river through the morning and afternoon, passing into plains that made up most of the Pillar-Lands. Chunks dried meat and hard-cracker softened in water satisfied their appetites during their intermittent rests. The Rax’s bearing shifted from south to southwest over the course of the day.
As the shadows of the distant mesas lengthened over them, Kyth led them to an outcropping of rock to make camp under for the night.
“When we made the trek to the tribe on the other side of the valley, we needed places to sleep out of the sunlight. They should work as shelter for us too.”
There were no trees nearby for firewood, so Finen made do by cutting swaths of the Pillar-Lands’ hardy shrubbery and grasses with his spear. Kyth caught them a pair of coneys with a borrowed knife to fill out their meal. Non-citizens weren’t permitted to own weapons.
The drakeling took off his face covering as the human held the rabbits over the fire on the end of his spear.
“Why do you want to see Far Castle so much?” Kyth asked.
Finen passed the makeshift skewer to the reptile and busied himself with loosening his armor to give himself time to think. He rolled his shoulders and flexed his fingers as he shed his helmet, pauldrons, and gauntlets.
“I don’t know,” he finally replied. “It sounded interesting, I suppose. And… I suppose I want to accomplish something out here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, obviously the Assimilation Regiment has accomplished a lot with you and your folk, and I am part of that. But that’s an accomplishment of the Regiment. Not my own. I want to achieve a feat of my own… And yours too, of course. If I can prove that this Far Castle is really there, or even work out how to reach it…”
“It is really there.”
“I know that. But I want to prove it.”
The drakeling opened his mouth to speak, then seemed to think better of it and took the coneys off the fire. “They’re done.”
The combination of rabbit and their nightly allotment of rations was enough to satisfy the reptile, but it left the human wanting.
The next four days passed in much the same fashion. They walked along the River Rax at a steady pace, veering ever more westward. The distant stone monoliths counted the hours like massive sundials, their shadows occasionally deigning to shade the travelers as they went.
Early in the fourth day, a mesa appeared on the horizon directly in front of them. It was wider than the others they’d seen so far, and shorter.
“That’s the rim of the valley,” said Kyth. “We should get there by noon tomorrow. Normally it would take days to climb, but I know a passage that should get us safely to the top by nightfall tomorrow.”
As they settled into camp that night, Finen stared at the bluffs until the sun sank behind their flat peaks.
The sentry set a rigorous pace the next morning, and the diminutive drakeling practically had to jog to keep up. They arrived at the base of the ridge an hour before noon.
Rather than the single, unbroken cliffs of rest of the buttes in the Pillar-Lands, the canyon rim seemed to be made of several mesas that had been dragged together, their mismatched swaths of strata abutting each other like planks of wood from different trees.
After a hasty lunch, they began their ascent. With the reptile leading the way, the human had little choice but to tolerate his more measured gait.
It was a steep affair, made more difficult by the sentry’s armor. He used his spear as a walking staff, anchoring it into fissures when the way was treacherous, levering himself up with it when the elevation was sharp, and resting his weight on it when the path was level.
Kyth removed his cover once the sun passed beyond the ridge, bathing the eastern side of the valley rim in its cool umbra. He waited patiently for his companion to reach him between each hurdle of the climb and took care to always stay within sight. It was easy to get lost in the vertical maze of jutting rocks, stone slabs, and sheer cliff faces.
They reached the summit just as the sky started to tinge with purple. The travelers panted as they dragged themselves across the plateau to its inner edge, and it was there that Finen caught his first glimpse of the Far Castle.
The architecture was reminiscent of the Forgotten Age, but it was no ruin. It was enormous, bigger than any structure the human had ever seen. Great spires of black stone circled around a central tower, getting taller as they went until they nearly matched the height of the canyon. Just before each of the turrets reached their conical rooves, their shapes suddenly widened, forming large round platforms. The resulting impression was that of a colossal spiral staircase with spikes resting on each of its steps, guarding the way to some unknowable destination.
The castle’s windows glittered with pinpricks of orange light, just as the drakeling had said, and as the shroud of twilight draped itself over the valley, the stars seemed faint compared to their counterparts below.
The grade of the valley’s interior walls was by no means shallow, but descending them was a stroll after the previous day’s trek. Contrary to the Pillar-Lands outside the canyon, the vegetation was dense and varied. Verdant trees and bushes completely foreign to the grasslands outside populated the basin in forests and coppices, with multicolored meadows and crystal-clear ponds filling the spaces between.
The sentry’s attention was momentarily pulled from the castle as he took in the scenery. “Why didn’t your tribe settle down here?” he asked Kyth. “It’s beautiful, and there’s so much of it. You never would have wanted for anything. That tribe you traded with doesn’t control the whole valley, do they?”
“No, they don’t even live in the valley itself.” The drakeling pursed his lips in thought. “I don’t know. I guess it just didn’t feel right.”
The crags of the canyon’s edge soon gave way to thick evergreen woodland, which in turn became rolling hills of grass and grove. The Far Castle stood straight ahead like an ancient monument, immense and imposing.
Finen set them at a brisk trot, his eyes locked on the faraway spires as they rambled up and down the sea of lush, flowing knolls. As they drew closer to the magnificent structure, the hills began to obscure its lowest towers, then taller ones, then taller ones still, until finally the whole building was hidden behind the next slope.
The human blinked, then squinted as he crested the hill. “Hmm.”
Kyth was close behind. He lifted his cover briefly to examine his companion’s expression and gave him a knowing look. “We’ve stopped getting closer.”
The sentry nodded. “It would seem so.” He’d been tracking their progress carefully. The castle was the same distance as when they’d mounted the last hill.
“We can go a bit further if you want, just to be sure,” the reptile offered.
“Yes. Let’s be sure.”
They walked another hour, scaling and descending several more knolls, all to the same result. The castle never moved.
“Why don’t we rest and have our midday meal?” Kyth suggested.
The hard-cracker and dried meat had long since lost any charm they might have once had, but the pair stomached them anyway.
“On our previous trips through here we were able to catch rabbits and fish around here, and there are plenty of herbs,” said the drakeling. “For supper we could–”
“I have a few methods I want to try,” said Finen, staring up at the dark edifice. “Ways we can try to get closer. Trick the magic, or spell, or whatever it is.”
“Uhm, sure. What did you have in mind?”
They tried going one at a time first. Kyth ventured forward alone while Finen hung back and observed. He watched as the drakeling descended the hilltop and climbed to the next one, all within plain view of the human. Then the reptile did it again for the following hill, this time disappearing out of sight behind the landscape, only to pop up a few minutes later at the top of the subsequent knoll. Then he did it again. Rather than reappearing farther away, however, he seemed to be in the same place as before. Another attempt yielded the same result. They were still stuck.
Finen repeated the experiment on himself, this time stabbing his spear into the ground as a marker for his progress once he’d crested the second knoll. In doing so he was able to get another hill further from his companion. Celebration at their success was short-lived, however – despite their increased distance from each other, the castle hadn’t budged. It was just as far as ever.
The rest of the afternoon was filled with more tests. They walked backwards. They went blindfolded one at a time, shouting instructions to one another to stay on course. They prayed to any gods of the pantheon that might be associated with the strange structure. It was all to the same effect. The Far Castle lived up to its name.
“Well, I think you’ve got more than enough proof now,” said Kyth, gathering up firewood. They’d retreated back to the outskirts of the forest for the evening and made camp. After over half a day of trekking toward the castle, the return journey was only half an hour. “You’ll be able to give the cartographers and mage a detailed report.”
“Hmm? Oh, yes.” Finen had been staring at the castle. The lights were flickering in the windows again. “…Well, there are a few more things I’d like to try. The spear method showed promise, I think. We may just need more of them. Or perhaps coming at the castle at an angle while one of us watches could work. And failing that, approaching the castle from a different direction altogether and reattempting the experiments from there...”
The drakeling struggled to hide his concern. Thankfully, the sentry wasn’t paying him much mind.
“We only brought enough provisions for a fortnight,” he reminded the human. “I don’t think we have enough with us to do all that and make it back to the outpost.”
“You said yourself there’s plenty of game in the valley,” said Finen. “I’ll lend you my knife so you can build traps. We’ll set them in the morning and save our rations for the return journey.”
“But Captain Mabdell will be expecting us,” Kyth insisted. “If we aren’t back on time–”
“The captain will understand. Once we know how the Far Castle works and how it can be used, it will be more than worth the delay.”
The days passed in fervent experimentation, all to no avail.
They spent half a day building snares to catch small rabbits and carving staves to plant in the ground to repeat Finen’s spear idea, and while it allowed them to widen the gap between one another, the castle itself never moved.
The next day the human had Kyth approach the structure from another direction while he watched from an angle. The new perspective allowed the sentry to see his companion for longer than a rear view provided, but eventually he still lost sight of him behind the rolling hills, and when he reappeared the reptile had lost ground. When they reconvened, the drakeling reported that the castle maintained the same distance it always had.
“We could build a sort of watch tower just outside where the Far Castle’s effect begins,” said Finen over supper that night. “So we’d never lose sight of each other. That could negate whatever the castle’s doing.”
“That would take months with just the two of us,” said Kyth, barely restraining a scowl.
“Yes, I suppose… One of us could observe from the canyon wall, then.”
“We would lose sight of one another long before we got near the castle.”
“Yes, that’s true… Have you ever seen any gryphons roosting in this valley?”
“How would we catch a–!?” The drakeling exhaled. “Birds don’t even fly near the Far Castle. Or hadn’t you noticed?”
The human raised an eyebrow. “Really?” He turned to face the castle. After staring intently for several minutes, it became clear that the birds were giving the structure a wide berth. “…You’re right.”
Kyth could no longer hide his worry. “Finen, I think we should start heading back to the outpost tomorrow morning. You’re– We’ve done all we can. Anything else will require more men, or magic.”
“No, there’s more we can do,” said the sentry. His tone was light and airy, but his haggard eyes left no room for argument. “We’re on the verge of working this out, I know it. And when we do, think of what it will mean! For us, and for Dattar! And that’s not even considering what might be inside!”
“Or who.” The reptile’s scales crawled as he eyed the castle’s glowing orange windows.
“Exactly! The castle itself is surely of the Forgotten Age! If its occupants are too, just imagine what they could tell us!”
“Perhaps that age is forgotten for a reason,” murmured Kyth, too quiet for anyone but himself to hear.
The experiments continued. The next morning they moved camp, circling the Far Castle in an arc until they’d gone about an eighth of the way around it.
“You mean to do the same tests seven more times!?” asked Kyth.
“Whatever magic the castle is doing this might only affect certain directions. Or there could be a specific path you need to take to enter it.” Stubble had begun to grow on the human’s cheeks.
“Maybe, but how in the world are you expecting us to find it?”
“Well, we definitely won’t find it unless we try, will we?”
It took two days to reconduct all the experiments at the new location. Once all of the sentry’s ideas had been exhausted, they moved further around the castle and began again. Then again. And again.
The human’s body seemed to sag a little more with each day’s failure. His whiskers grew into a patchy beard, then a thick one. His hair became greasy and spilled out from beneath his helmet. Lines of frustration furrowed his brow, and bags formed under his eyes, which remained unerringly fixed on the castle at all times they could. Unless one of his tests called for him to avert his gaze, he stared at the castle throughout the day. When they returned to their camp for the evening, he glanced back with every other step. Before bed he glared at the glistening lights, their twinkling beams simultaneously taunting and coaxing.
“…Finen?”
The sentry’s head snapped toward the drakeling. “What?”
“It’s been over a fortnight since we left. They might tolerate us being a few days late, but if we take too long they’ll send–”
“Then we’d better have this solved by the time they get here, oughtn’t we?” He was already turning back to the castle.
The reptile winced. “Finen–”
“What!?” He swiveled his entire body to face his companion. His eyes were bloodshot and unnaturally wide.
“You’re– I don’t– After we finish going around the castle, we’re done here. Right? We’re going home?”
The human’s expression was blank, and his pupils were ever so slightly askew. He looked back to the castle. “…We’ll be home soon. I promise.”
The completion of their circuit around the Far Castle loomed as they finished the last of their experiments at the eighth and final station. The past several days had gone by with hardly a word spoken between them. They went through their tests with practiced efficiency, performing each of their tasks in quiet desperation.
There was no headway to show for all their attempts. The castle remained stubbornly beyond their reach.
The silence lingered into the evening until the drakeling finally dared to break it.
“Tomorrow we’ll be back where we started.”
Finen sat facing the castle. His eyes never wavered. “…Yes.”
“So… So we’re heading back. Right?”
“…We’re going home tomorrow.”
“…Good.”
Kyth pretended to sleep until he heard his companion lie down. Once the man’s breathing slowed, the reptile crept over to him and slid the sentry’s knife free of its sheath.
The drakeling awoke in the morning to find Finen gone.
Their traps had caught a coney in the night, so the reptile cooked himself breakfast. His claws trembled as he scarfed down his meal. He felt sick.
Once the fire was doused, the canteens filled, and the campsite tidied, he set about unloading his pack, checking that everything was accounted for, and then stowing it all again. He slipped the knife in the bag’s outermost pouch.
He looked toward the castle mournfully, then turned to the canyon’s eastern cliffs. He could be back to the River Rax by dusk if he hurried.
The drakeling swallowed, donned his cloth, and started toward the Far Castle for the last time.
He spotted the sentry a few hills ahead, staggering toward the distant towers in a haphazard gait. His spear was slung over his shoulder, and he seemed to have lost his helmet. Kyth scurried to catch up.
“Finen! Finen!”
The human gave no indication he’d heard his companion’s call. He lurched onward like a ghost, heedless of the world around him.
The drakeling panted as he closed the final gap between them. “Finen! Stop! How long have you been walking!?” He slowed to the sentry’s pace as he caught up with him. “Finen!” He grabbed the human’s hand.
Finen blinked one eyelid at a time and stared down at the reptile. “Kyth.” He continued to walk.
“Finen, what are you doing!? I thought we were going home!”
“I am.”
“What?”
He blinked again. “I… There was something else I wanted to try.”
“No! You said we were going home! We need to turn around and start back to the outpost right now! Here!” He rummaged through his pack and shoved a canteen into the human’s hand. “Have a drink and a rest and we’ll go!”
The bottle fell out of Finen’s grip and clattered to the ground. “I want to go until I can’t anymore,” he said. He spoke more to himself than the drakeling. “Maybe that’s the trick. Keep walking. Through night and day. Then it’ll let me through. It’ll let me in.”
Kyth let out a panicked, choking sob. “Finen, you’re not in your right mind!” He ran in front of the sentry and pulled out the knife. The blade quivered in his grip. “You’re going to kill yourself! We need to go back now! I’m taking you!”
The human stopped. He tilted his head at the obstruction in his path like a confused animal. “Let me pass.”
“No!”
“Let me pass, Kyth.”
“NO!”
The sentry drew his spear and thrust it into the drakeling’s gut.
The reptile wheezed in stupid surprise, clutching his chest and toppling to the ground. Blood spattered the grass as he coughed and shuddered. “F-Finen… Wh-What did you…?”
The human’s stupor cleared for a brief moment, replaced by an expression of abject horror. His mouth started to form a word, then, just as quickly as the trance had faded, his face was hauntingly neutral.
He sheathed his weapon and started forward again.
“…F-Finen!? Wh-Where are you–!? St-Stop! Stop! D-Don’t leave me! Please! Finen! Don’t leave me here alone!”
The drakeling’s cries weakened and vanished into the infinite fields as the sentry pressed onward.
It didn’t take him long to notice. For most the change would have been too small to discern, but after spending the last fortnight staring at the unyielding edifice, Finen knew.
The castle was closer.
He crested the next hill, then the next. The towers swelled higher, and the windows grew larger. As late afternoon became early evening, the panes sprang to life with fiery orange.
Finen knew that it was the final hill from the moment he spotted it. A pair of boulders stood to either side of his path, as if marking some ethereal boundary. He quickened his pace, sprinting to the top of the last knoll, then stopping between the solemn megaliths.
The Far Castle was even more beautiful up close. Its turrets soared like mountain peaks, and its dark stonework was as black as night. Its glowing windows burned brighter than stars, and behind the glass distant silhouettes stood motionless, watching.
His eyes wide with child-like wonder, the sentry stepped over the threshold and down the slope, through fields of grass and groves of trees. The Far Castle stood like an ancient sentinel, observing with silent satisfaction as its doors opened and welcomed him home.