Duo began to have doubts when the train galloped past the last major city.
When it chugged serenely past the last tiny town, he frowned at his map critically and turned it the other way up.
When it finally arrived at the station, the attendant refused to step off, and dropped Duo's suitcase in the drizzle on a platform standing alone in a swamp, surrounded by dead trees.
Seven feet after his stop, the neglected track rusted away into nothingness. The train stopped just long enough to allow its momentum to dissipate, before slowly rolling up to speed in the opposite direction without so much as a whistle.
Over the edge of the platform, he could see a path through the overgrown bracken. He eyed it thoughtfully, batting absently at the thick fog like it was a fly. As if in retaliation, it wafted so thickly he stood perfectly still so as not to step off the edge of the platform in the sea of white.
Once it cleared slightly in a gusting breeze, he lifted his suitcase with a mind to put his best foot forward. He climbed off the crumbling edge of the cement platform and followed the path.
With a great deal of concentration and only two wrong guesses it led him to a clearing, wherein a collapsed house was moldering with a distinct smell of rot.
It had been a small, poor house even when standing. Small gravestones came into view as he circled it in hopes the path continued and might lead him away. He blew on his gloves, rubbing them together distractedly, and tried to ignore the drizzle soaking through his braid. He pushed his hat down on his head, morbid curiosity attracting his eyes to the windows, where something white gleamed on the sill of the closest. He quickly looked away.
"Hope he's got coffee brewing," he said aloud in an artificially jolly voice. "Rum sort of place," he continued, swinging his suitcase broadly for emphasis. "What what."
To his unavailing relief, he spotted a continuation of the path, and tromped towards it, brisk as he could be in the squishy muck.
The rain began putting forth more effort to soak him, occasional fat drops dripping from the brim of his hat and sliding gracefully down inside his collar. The suction noises made by his new oxfords were cheering, if the creeping damp up his trousers was not.
It was threatening to become seriously dark now, and he walked faster, keeping a wary eye on the path ahead.
Just as the path three feet ahead began to vanish from view, and he resigned himself to emptying his suitcase in search of his pocket-torch, buildings loomed ahead. He ran forward, laughing with relief, only to slow to a stop.
Thunder rolled to a crescendo, gusts sending the rain in unpredictable directions and stinging his eyes, and he half-heartedly lifted his collar. He should have known, he thought. Unlikely the first sight of a prosperous village would be its buildings. There should be lights. The now-rising moon cast exaggerated shadows as the clouds roiled. In the shifting light, he looked up the overgrown street.
A slight rush of wind sent a door creaking on its hinges. Now that he was looking, he could see dim lights under one or two doors, but he couldn't hear any voices. He kicked at the brambles overgrowing the road, brushing the water off his cheeks and nose.
He watched his feet step into a much darker shadow, and looked up the sharp cliff overhanging the village.
Thunder roared.
The castle, silhouetted by the enormous rising moon, seemed out of proportion to the rest of the landscape, as if giants should ride forth, the thunder docile at their heels. He clutched the handle of his suitcase firmly.
The castle had sounded a rich joke in the warmth of the London office, a quaint retreat for the more determined student of history. He switched the suitcase to his other hand, clenching and unclenching his numb fingers. When he clenched them, water ran off his gloves like a squeezed sponge. He nodded once, rubbing the persistent water dripping off his nose, and marched his way through the dark village with a sarcastic, internal 'There you are, old chum.'
When he came close, he could hear the small iron gate to the path up the crags. It creaked open, before a gust clashed it shut again at irregular intervals. He kicked a rock to secure it open. The wind whistled through the surrounding skeletons of trees, their roots dead in the dense marsh.
The path up to the castle, typical of old-fashioned security, was barely wide enough for him and his suitcase together, and tilted out to a nasty drop-off over the fens. He held the case tightly, trying to prevent the wind banging it against his leg.
The stairs were steep, crooked, and erratically cut, so two steps of relative height were followed by one relatively short. After several stumbles, he kept one hand against the overhanging wall and felt for each step between the few stubborn weeds and fallen rocks.
Suddenly it branched off into two, and he paused, holding his hat on and squinting up at the dark shape of the castle. He went right. This seemed to go in the proper direction, and he followed it for some distance, wondering darkly if his watch would still be functional if he dried it out.
The raindrops had become less separate entities and more of a solid body of water. By now he was used to the sound of it pounding the crown and brim of his hat, a sound like listening to a seashell. His extremities were entirely numb, which had the advantage of hiding the feeling of the continual drip off his nose, though it still annoyed him when it landed on his lips. A steady luke-warm trickle ran down his chest and back.
The path dead-ended. He stood, one hand where it had hit the wall before he'd walked into it, then backed down again slowly and started up the left fork.
Several forks and wrong turns later, he stood in front of another dead end. The cracks in the rock had a distinct arch-like quality to his sodden fingers. He gave it a good kick. It probably was solid stone, he thought. In the gushing rain, he couldn't hear a difference in sound. He gave it a few more good kicks. It suddenly cracked open in the midst of a final kick. He lost his balance, and teetered against it, pushing it open.
The candle was blinding after the path. Once his eyes adjusted, his eyes made out the single lens over a pair of largeish protruding eyes. "Ah-ah, hello, pissing down out there, don'cha know," he said breathlessly. With no perceptible response, Duo ploughed ahead. "I, er, I'm Mr. Duo Maxwell. Sorry I'm late."
The man's voice was a whisper. "There is only one train."
Duo raised his eyebrows, nodding.
"I will take you to meet the doctor," turning abruptly on his heel and walking away.
Duo ran to catch up with the wavering candle flame. In the absence of any other light, he could make out none of the details of the castle. The stones of the floor and faintly glimpsed furnishings seemed to come into existence at the approach of the tiny sphere of light.
Focusing downward to feel out a spiral staircase, Duo became aware of the squishing sounds of his oxfords, and the dripping running from his hat and bangs, and off his nose, came scurrying back to his attention. The smell of wet wool surrounded him, the chill fabric clinging wetly to his legs and arms. The air in the castle wasn't appreciably warmer than the air outside.
The light suddenly turned, and Duo jerked after it into a dark hole of a room. The light from the candle glinted off something, and Duo started, realizing it was eyes. Barely visible, the doctor smiled, slowly standing to take Duo's hand. Duo removed his glove, and firmly shook the doctor's hot, dry hand.
"Tomorrow, it will begin," he said, and the candle turned to lead him away. Duo scurried to follow. When he glanced back, he could see the light gleaming off the doctor's eyes.
They wandered through the labyrinth again, though Duo was grateful there were hardly any more stairs.
Apparently arriving at their destination, the man unlocked the padlock and shoved at the heavy iron panels on a massive oak door. It opened with a grinding jolt and a breath of musty air.
Duo followed him inside. There was another candle next to a gigantic bed. The headboard was decorated with not only the bust of an enormous wolf, but also the front legs, leaping out in an attack. The teeth glinted in the flickering candlelight. After the second candle was lit, the cobwebs came into evidence, festooned in bridge-sized cords from one carved post to another, over the wolf, and over the mussed bed. His guide yanked the blankets up and straight in an explosion of dust, and slapped the compression out of the pillow. "There is no one who comes here," he whispered, "Now."
He turned suddenly, and was out with the door slammed behind him before Duo could reply.
After stripping off the sodden coat, hat, and gloves, Duo slowly lifted the candlestick. The rest of the bed was carved in relief, life-sized wolfhounds making up throne-like armrests on either side, forest, hunters, and several more wolfhounds along the headboard and lower edge of the canopy. In the unsteady light their eyes seemed to glint, their tongues lolling. Where the comforter had been yanked, he could see it was a rich dark velvet, though the rest was uniformly pale with dust.
There was still a depression on one side of the bed. He slowly turned, half-expecting the light shining off the eyes of other heads dotted about the room. He stared, fascinated, at the heads making up a massive mural of the woods. In several, shoulders, legs or tails protruded to make the illusion complete. He hung his shirt and socks over the antlers of a deer of some sort, and opened his suitcase. The ancient carpet felt powdery and gritty beneath his feet.
To his relief, the rain had only penetrated the very edge of the suitcase, leaving his clothes for the most part dry. He donned his nightshirt, slippers, and dressing gown, wringing his hair out in a far corner. There was a writing desk, he discovered, of the same architectural girth as the bed, near what might, under the grime, be a small barred window. The bars were on the inside, held secure by a padlock nearly as large as the two he'd noticed on the inside of the door. A cobweb caught his hair, and he brushed it aside.
The left side of the room appeared to be mainly bookshelves, with titles ranging from "REPORTS AND CASES taken in the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh years of the late King Charles As they were argued by most of the King's Sergeants at the Common-Pleas Barre... Now Englished, with an exact Table of the Principal matter therein contained, and likewise of the cases, both Alphabetical Collected and reported by that Eminent Lawyer SIR THOMAS HETLEY," to "Witchcraft De Maleficiis" and "Die Handschrift des Schnitt-und Augenarztes CASPAR STROMAYR in Lindau im Bodensee" which appeared to be a work on anatomy. The binding crumbled under Duo's hand, and he hurriedly slid it back on the shelf.
The massive chest at the foot of the bed caught his attention, but he merely laid his coat across it, before turning once again to face the bed. Walking back around it, one hand out to fend off any obstacles, he twitched back the blankets and let off a cloud of dust, the cobwebs waving like banners. He stepped back, coughing.
The cold was beginning to recede from his upper body, but it was beginning to creep up his bare legs and swirl around his ankles. The air was now even stuffier, but he dismissed the thought of sleeping with the door or window open. He climbed in the far side of the bed, where the blankets had kept out most of the dust, and pulled the heavy coverlet up.
The sheets were silk. From where he lay, far down in the bed, he looked up into the left eye of the wolf. He blew out the candle.