The Keep

He heard a sound behind him and whirled, unsnapping the flap on his holster and resting his palm on the butt of his Luger. The Romanian government might be an ally of the Reich, but Woerma

The sound was repeated, louder now. Footsteps, relaxed, with no attempt at stealth. They came from a doorway in the rear section of the keep, and as Woerma

"What are you doing here?" Woerma

Startled, the mason leaped up and spun around, the anger in his face dying abruptly as he recognized the uniform and realized that he had been addressed in German. He gibbered something unintelligible—something in Romanian, no doubt, Woerma

"Speak German! What are you doing here?"

The man shook his head in a mixture of fear and indecision. He held up an index finger, a signal to wait, then shouted something that sounded like "Papa!"

There was a clatter above as an older man with a woolly caciula on his head pushed open the shutters of one of the tower windows and looked down. Woerma

"I'll be right down, sir."

Woerma

"There are sixteen thousand eight hundred and seven such crosses imbedded in the walls of this keep," said a voice behind him. The accent was thick, the words practiced.

Woerma

"I am Alexandra," he said stiffly, bowing slightly at the waist. "My sons and I work here. And we take no one on tours."

"That will change in a moment. But right now: I was led to believe the keep was unoccupied."

"It is when we go home at night. We live in the village."

"Where's the owner?"

Alexandra shrugged. "I have no idea."

"Who is he?"

Another shrug. "I don't know."

"Who pays you, then?" This was getting exasperating. Didn't this man know how to do anything other than shrug and say he didn't know?

"The i

"Who tells you what to do?" Woerma

"No one." Alexandru stood straight and spoke with quiet dignity. "We do everything. Our instructions are to maintain the keep as new. That's all we need to know. Whatever needs doing, we do. My father spent his life doing it, and his father before him, and so on. My sons will continue after me."

"You spend your entire lives maintaining this building? I can't believe that!"

"It's bigger than it looks. The walls you see around you have rooms within them. There are corridors of rooms below us in the cellar and carved into the mountainside behind us. Always something to be done."

Woerma

"Very well," he told Alexandru. "You may continue your maintenance tasks after we settle in. But you and your sons must check with the sentries when you enter and leave." He saw the older man shaking his head. "What's wrong?"

"You ca

"And why not?"

"It is forbidden."

"Who forbids?"

Alexandra shrugged. "It's always been that way. We are to maintain the keep and see to it that no one trespasses."

"And of course, you're always successful." The old man's gravity amused him.

"No. Not always. There have been times when travelers have stayed against our wishes. We do not resist them—we have not been hired to fight. But they never stay more than one night. Most not even that long."

Woerma

"What drives them away? Moaning? Chain-rattling spectres?"

"No... no ghosts here, sir."

"Deaths then? Gruesome murders? Suicides?" Woerma

Alexandra shook his head. "No one's ever died here. Not that I know of."

"Then what? What drives trespassers out after only one night?"

"Dreams, sir. Bad dreams. And always the same, from what I can gather ... something about being trapped in a tiny room with no door and no windows and no lights ... utter darkness ... and cold ... very cold ... and something in the dark with you ... colder than the dark... and hungry."

Woerma

"I want you to wait here until my men are across the causeway," he said, shaking off the chill. "Then you can give me a tour."

Alexandra's face was a study in helpless frustration. "It is my duty, Herr Captain," he said with stern dignity, "to inform you that no lodgers are allowed here in the keep."

Woerma

"Your warning has been delivered. You are faced with the German Army, a force beyond your power to resist, and so you must step aside. Consider your duty faithfully discharged."

This said, Woerma

He still had seen no birds. Did birds have dreams? Did they, too, nest here for one night and never return?

The command car and the three unloaded trucks were driven across the causeway and parked in the courtyard without incident. The men followed on foot, carrying their own gear, then returned to the other side of the gorge to begin bringing over the contents of the supply truck—food, generators, antitank weapons—by hand.

While Sergeant Oster took charge of the work details, Woerma