The High House Read online

  THE HIGH HOUSE

  James Stoddard

  Book One Of The

  Evenmere Chronicles

  Other Books by James Stoddard

  THE FALSE HOUSE

  EVENMERE

  THE NIGHT LAND, A STORY RETOLD

  This is a work of fiction. All events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1998 by James Stoddard. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

  Visit www.tinyurl.com/james-stoddard to learn more about the author

  To contact James Stoddard send email to: [email protected]

  Cover illustration and design by Scott Faris at www.fariswheel.com

  A Ransom Book

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing: July 2015 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  FOR KATHRYN

  FOR EVER

  Table of Contents

  Author’s Note

  Maps

  The High House

  Return

  The Tigers of Naleewuath

  Beseiged

  The Secret Ways

  The Path To The Towers

  The Clock Tower

  Captured

  Kitinthim

  Veth

  Beside the Rainbow Sea

  Innman Tor

  Evasions

  The Room Of Horrors

  The Angel

  Author’s Note

  Besides being a Story of Adventure this book was written as a tribute to Lin Carter and the “Sign of the Unicorn” fantasy series that he edited from 1969 to 1974. It is hoped that those who recognize herein references to countries chronicled by others will take it for the homage intended. As for myself, having been to neither New York nor Narnia, I must give equal credence to both.

  “… all the doors you had yet seen … were doors in; here you came upon a door out. The strange thing to you … will be, that the more doors you go out of, the farther you get in.” —Lilith by George MacDonald

  The High House

  The High House, Evenmere, that lifts its gabled roofs among tall hills overlooking a country of ivy and hawthorn and blackberries sweet but small as the end of a child’s finger, has seldom been seen by ordinary men. Those who come there do so not by chance, and those who dwell there abide long within its dark halls, seldom venturing down the twisting road to the habitations of men. Of all who have lived there, one was born and raised beneath its banners, the man named Carter Anderson, who left not of his own accord, and was summoned back in its time of need. His life and the great deeds he did during the Great War of the High House is told of in The Gray Book of Evenmere, but this is a story from long before his days of valor.

  He was born in the Lilac Room, where sunlight, diffused between guards of ivy, wafted through the three tall windows, brightening their rich mahogany moldings, casting leaf patterns on the red woven quilt and the dusky timber at the foot of the cherry-wood sleigh bed. The doctor pronounced him a “splendid lad,” and his father, waiting beyond the door, smiled and eased his pacing at the noise of his wailing cry.

  He remembered his mother only as warmth and love, and slender, dark beauty, for she died when he was five, and he wept many days upon the red quilt in the Lilac Room. Lord Ashton Anderson, his father, the Master of the house, quit his slow laughter after that, and was often gone many days at a time, returning with mud on his boots and shadowed circles around his pale blue eyes.

  So Carter grew up, an only child, a lonely boy in the great house, his companions the servants of the manor. Of these, he had three favorites: there was Brittle, the butler, a taciturn man, tall and thin, quite ancient, but still limber; and Enoch, the Master Windkeep, whose sole job was to wind the many clocks throughout the house. Enoch was the companion Carter loved best, ancient as a giant oak and nearly as tanned, older than Brittle even, but burly of frame and jovial by nature, with hair still jet black, set in tiny ringlets like an Assyrian. The boy often accompanied him on his rounds through the entrance hall, the dining room, the library, the picture gallery, the drawing room, the morning room, and then to the servants’ block to wind the clocks in the kitchen court, the servants’ hall, the housekeeper’s room, the back of the men’s corridor, and at the very top of a cherry alcove on the women’s stair, where hung a little cuckoo with a tiny yellow wren. After that, they went up the gentlemen’s stair to the bedrooms, the private library and others, then on to the sleeping quarters on the third floor.

  But on the days when Enoch took the door leading from the top of the third story up to what he called “the Towers,” Carter was not allowed to accompany him. The boy hated those times, for the Windkeep would be gone many days, and Carter always imagined him climbing a long thin stair, open on either side, with the stars to his left hand and his right, and he ascending past them to the Towers, which surely lay that far if he must be gone so long.

  The final companion of the three was the Lamp-lighter, whose name was Chant. He had a boyish face and a boyish smile, though the gray at his temples bespoke middle age. A bit of the gentle rogue lay upon him, and his eyes were rose-pink, which anyone other than Carter, who knew no different, might have thought bizarre. He had poetry within him; as Lamp-lighter he lit the globes at what he called “the eight points of the compass,” and he quoted Stevenson, saying his duties consisted of “punching holes in the darkness.” Carter liked Chant, though sometimes his conversation was too complex and sometimes too cynical. He had an odd way of turning a corner on the outside of the house and suddenly vanishing. Carter followed many times, racing around to catch some trace of him, but he never did, so that the boy thought he must be marvelously fast. But magic was commonplace in the house, and Carter saw it often without recognizing it for what it was.

  Because there were always rooms to rummage through, closets and crannies, galleries and hallways to explore, Carter grew up an imaginative, adventurous boy, full of curiosity. His father often entertained company during the times he was home, men not in frock coats and top hats, but in armor, or robes, or garb even more grand. There were seldom women, though once a tall, graceful lady came to the house dressed like a queen, all in pearls and white lace, who gave Carter beautiful smiles and patted him on the head, reminding him of his mother, so that his heart ached long after she had gone.

  These visitors did not come for pleasure; that was always clear, and they seldom entered through the front door; mostly Brittle ushered them in from the library, as if they had stepped fresh from a book. They ate dinner on the oak dining table, and afterward Carter sat in his father’s lap at the head of the table and listened to them talk. They spoke of wars and disputes in far-off countries, of ravaging wolves and robbers. Although the lord was a soft-spoken man, and his chair no higher than the others around the table, they treated him as a king, and implored him to resolve their difficulties. And often, near the end of the evening, when Carter lay sleepy in his father’s lap, Lord Anderson said, “I will come.” Then Carter knew his father would put on his greatcoat the next day, and his tall hat, and Tawny Mantle, that he would buckle his strange sword around his waist, the one terraced like a lightning bolt, retrieve his marble-headed walking staff, and be gone many days.

  One day, a week after Carter’s seventh birthday, it happened that he wandered perplexed in the drawing room, looking behind the gray stuffed sofa, crying softly, when his father entered the room.

  “Here, now, what are these tears?” Lord Anderson asked, laying his hand on his son’s shoulder. He was a kind man, if often sad, and Carter had the greatest confidence in him.

  “I’ve lost my red birthday ball.”

  “Wher
e did you last have it?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  His father thought a moment, then said, “Perhaps it is time to show you something. Come along.”

  Hand in hand, they left the drawing room, through the transverse corridor to the tall oaken doors into the library, an endless expanse of bookcases where Carter had often lost his way. Lord Anderson did not walk between the rows of books, but took his son through the four-paneled door to the left, into a small study, which Carter did not recall ever having seen before. It was windowless, with a tall ceiling, and a blue carpet with gold fleur-de-lis. There were seven buttercup lights already burning in the brass candelabra, but these were scarcely needed because of the stained-glass skylight, a mosaic in red, blue, and gold depicting an angel presenting a large book to a somber man. The angel looked both beautiful and terrible at once; his long, golden hair flowed to his shoulders and his face was bright where the sun shone through it. A golden belt encircled the waist of his white robe, and the sword strapped upon it gave him a fierce, warrior look. Carter liked him immediately.

  The study was furnished only with a kidney-shaped desk, having a leather top fastened with brass hobnails and a matching dark leather chair. Mahogany panels decorated the walls, a fireplace stood beside the door, and a bookcase with blue-leaded glass rested behind the desk. Unlocking the bookcase with a small skeleton key taken from the top drawer, Lord Anderson withdrew a heavy leather book lined with gold leaf. He set it upon the desk, sat himself in the leather chair, and bade his son climb into his lap. But he did not yet open the volume.

  “This is the Book of Forgotten Things,” his father said gently, but with great reverence. “When you cannot find a thing, when you need to remember something you have forgotten, seek it here. Now open it.”

  Carter slowly turned the pages. At first, the volume was blank, but to his delight, a picture arose and came to life at the sixth page, and he saw himself in his room holding his red ball. After playing with it a time, he kicked it under the bed and left.

  Carter shouted in pleasure, and would have slammed the book shut and rushed to find the lost toy, but his father held him, saying, “Wait, there is more. Turn to page seven.”

  Carter obeyed, and upon the page, written in gold, were seven words.

  “What are these, Father?”

  “These are the Seven Words of Power. They are in another language, but we will say them together, you and I.”

  So they did, the man speaking them clearly, the boy stumbling on their curious sounds, and as they pronounced each one, the gold letters burned like fire, but were not consumed, and Carter felt heat upon his forehead. When they were done, his father said, “You are young and will not remember the Words, but someday, if you become Master of Evenmere, you will find them again in the Book of Forgotten Things.”

  “Can I see the next page?”

  His father hesitated, but said, “Yes, but only one.”

  When Carter turned the page, it, too, appeared blank, until the kind, smiling face of his mother gradually rose upon it, her eyes filled with love.

  “Mamma,” he said softly.

  Then she told him how precious he was, and how perfect, and what a beautiful boy, and he smiled as he had when she had once said the words, three years before, though he had not remembered till just then. And then the picture faded, and he looked wistfully at the book.

  “It was Mother,” he said, turning to Lord Anderson. But his father sat staring at the wall.

  “We will go now,” the Master said, his voice quavering.

  They climbed down from the chair, holding hands. “Father, you didn’t look at the book at all, did you? You didn’t see her.”

  His father knelt beside him. “I did not see her, but I heard you call to her. None of us see the same thing when we look into the book, but only that which we ourselves have forgotten.”

  “But why didn’t you look?”

  Tears sprang to the corners of Lord Anderson’s eyes. “There are some things too painful to see.”

  * * *

  Two years passed, and Carter thought little of that day with the Book of Forgotten Things, as he played alone, or accompanied Enoch or Chant on their rounds, or sometimes Brittle. His father had acted less sad in the last year, though his absences had increased.

  One day, as Carter was playing with his wooden soldiers in an upstairs room, Brittle came to him. The tall butler looked down upon him in a way that was all Brittle, his eyes quite wise and not unkind.

  “The young master will need to accompany me now, to bathe and change clothes.”

  “But it’s the middle of the day, not suppertime.”

  The butler could be quite stern, but his severe mouth turned up slightly at the small rebellion. “It is indeed not suppertime, but your father has gone for the afternoon, and will be returning shortly with a guest. He wishes you suitably attired.”

  Mystified, Carter followed Brittle toward his own room, but it was late afternoon before his father returned from somewhere in the back of the house, accompanied by a tall, blond woman, dressed in sky-blue silk blossomed all over with sham daisies, gold bracelets on each wrist, and a carcanet studded in amethyst about her neck. Spiderweb lace, the same color as her dress, descended from a white, wide-brimmed hat, covering without concealing her brilliant blue eyes. Her gloves were white.

  “Lady Murmur,” his father said. “This is Carter. Carter, Lady Murmur is a friend of mine.”

  She was very beautiful, but when she looked down her long falcon’s nose, Carter saw a gleam in her eyes that made him shiver. Her voice was deep, as if she were always hoarse, and he did not much like it.

  “Hello, young man,” she said. “I have heard many good things about you. You are not as tall as a nine-year-old should be, nor yet as handsome as your father, though I am sure that will come.” She smiled sweetly at Lord Anderson.

  Thereafter, Lady Murmur came often, until she and Carter’s father were married in the spring of that year, beneath the blue skylight in the long picture gallery, between the rows of yellowed paintings of the former Masters of the house. Many people attended the wedding, until Carter thought the entire manor must be filled, and he saw lords and ladies, and even kings and queens, all splendidly dressed, so that he knew his father must be a great man indeed. He played all day with the children who had come, and it was a wonderful wedding, but that evening, after Lord Anderson and Lady Murmur left for their honeymoon, Carter went to his room, threw himself upon his bed, his picture of his mother clutched between his small hands, and wept.

  Everything changed after Murmur came to live with them. She rearranged all the furniture and moved all the pictures; nothing seemed to suit her, not even, after a time, his father. But when they had been married less than two years, she bore him a son, blonde and blue-eyed, who they named Duskin, and things went better for a while. And Murmur called the boy, “the little heir,” though never in Lord Anderson’s hearing. A nanny was hired to watch Duskin, and Murmur used every pretense to keep Carter away from the baby, so there was no joy in having a brother after all. During the times when his father was gone on business, Murmur acted especially cold to Carter; he could not see Duskin at all then, and her remarks made him ache a bit, deep inside, though she always smiled sweetly as she said them. Carter learned to avoid her. When Enoch was away, and the Lamplighter grew too cerebral for the company of a child, he wandered the house, playing alone.

  It happened one day, when his father had been gone an exceptionally long time, and Murmur’s comments had stuck like a thousand small pins, that Carter retreated toward the back of the house, to the servants’ stair, which led to the upstairs bedrooms.

  Taking his wooden soldiers with him, he opened the narrow door to the alcove behind the stair, a room he had never explored before. To his surprise, a gaslight burned, suspended on the wall about two feet from his head. It was a narrow room, with old hats and coats lying scattered among boxes brown with dust, and at its back wall
stood a thin, green door, which Carter tried at once, but found locked. The doorknob was of glass, with the most marvelous miniature inside, an image of Evenmere itself, complete with all its towers and gables, red roofs and brown cornices, colonnades and picture windows. Carter studied it in delight, tugged on it to insure the door was really locked, then sat down before it and looked around. Behind one of the boxes he discovered a marvelous toy carriage, carved with exacting detail in soft pine. Pulling his wooden soldiers from his pocket, he spent a happy hour in play.

  Wearying of that, lulled by the warmth of the room and the sputtering gaslight, he had nearly fallen asleep when he heard a soft, scraping sound. Glancing around, he saw the slow turning of the glass knob. He stood up, uncertain what to expect, until the door opened and Lord Anderson squeezed through. Despite his delight at seeing his father, Carter also noticed the wonderful keys the Master held in his hand—the ring was of bronze; a hundred keys slid around it, all different colors, bright as toddlers’ toys. The skeleton key that he had used to open the green door was green itself, but dark like malachite, with speckles of blue, as if carved of stone.

  “Father!” Carter cried, startling his sire so badly he fumbled for the Lightning Sword by his side. Lord Anderson looked weary, as he often did after his sojourns. There were deep crimson stains upon his greatcoat, and once he recognized his son he appeared little pleased to see him. He locked the door quickly and stuffed the keys into his pocket.

  “What are you doing here, Carter?”

  “Why, just playing, Father. But you’re home!”

  Lord Anderson took him quickly by the hand and led him out from beneath the stairs. “I don’t want you going in there anymore,” he ordered.

  Since his father was seldom stern, Carter looked about in confusion. “But, where does the Green Door lead?”

  “Nowhere you should ever go! I want you to promise to speak no more of it. Do you understand? And stay away from the stairs! Do you promise?”