Derryl groaned. His body ached from head to toe. A subtly lit room opened up around him, orange from the hue of a couple torches perched on the rough stone walls. Stacks of barrels and crates scattered around arranged like a vast maze. Shelves filled with weaved baskets and clay bowls and metal tankards up against one wall of the room. Circular, rusted metal chandeliers hung from the ceiling unlit. A pungent dank odor thick in the air.
He struggled to lift himself up, a bunch of broken crates popped and cracked under him. Had he broken them with his body? He surprised himself with his own resilience as of late. He stroked his hemp-knot bracelet, thoughts of Clarence flooding in his mind. Something they shared near or far apart. "Clarence, are you there?" he called out.
A piercing shriek echoed from the other side of the room, past a high pile of containers. A shelf crashed over there, bowls shattered, and a round basket rolled across the floor. A couple rats scurried off away from the chaos. Clarence crawled over the containers, emerging like a mole out of a mound caked in dust and cobwebs and streaks of red.
"What happened?" Derryl asked.
Clarence slid down next to his brother. His widened eyes darted to the dark corners of the room. "Where are we?"
"We were just home, then---" The breath caught in Derryl's throat. "How'd we get here?"
"All I remember is falling, then nothing until rats crawled over my legs." He gurgled, covering his mouth.
"We need to find out where we are." With an affirming nod, he took his brother's hand, which trembled in his own, and they ventured to the only door the room offered. The planks flopped, and their boots pressed to the hard stone floors. The doorknob was a giant metallic ring that resembled an oversized horseshoe, half-rusted. Good thing they had their tetanus shots. Pulling the ring, the heavy door creaked open. They peeked out into a long stone hallway that stretched indefinitely in one direction and a rickety wooden staircase at the end of the other. Torches hung snug in their metallic clasps on the stone walls evenly dotted apart.
"The stairs might lead to a house, and we can go home," Derryl suggested.
"What if someone's up there?" Clarence asked, wiggly as a weasel. He looked down the long, endless hallway. "Maybe we can find another secret way out and avoid getting caught."
Derryl shook his head. "Getting caught by who? There is no one." He sighed and pulled his brother along. They will get nowhere with him scared of every shadow that passes. They crept out into the hallway. It was eerily empty and quiet. Dank and humid. Smoke from the torches filled his nostrils. Their shoes echoed loudly in the stillness. Hiking boots are not great sneaking gear.
"Wait, why are we sneaking again?" Derryl asked out loud.
Clarence shushed him and whispered, "There might be kidnappers or murderers around any corner."
"You read too many horror stories."
"What other explanation is there?"
"You really think we got knocked out in our own backyard, inside a hole in the ground no less, at the same exact time and thrown on a bunch of barrels? Not to mention, the door didn't even have a lock!" He groaned, thinking of that hole in the backyard. "Mom will kill us."
Clarence covered Derryl's mouth with a sweaty hand and pulled him to a stop. Faint voices echoed from further down the hallway behind them. A cone of light fought against the darkness at the end of the hallway with several figures inside it. It slowly ventured closer and closer to them.
Derryl slapped away Clarence's hand and wiped his brother's slimy sweat off his face. "Get a hold of your nerves!"
"It's the murderers!" Clarence whispered, pulling him along toward the staircase. The stairs seemed like a good idea then, Derryl surmised. Daylight streamed in through the cracks of the wooden planked door at the top.
"Halt! Who goes there?" A deep, muffled voice called out. The figures ran toward them. The closer they got, the louder metal clanking against stone echoed through the corridors. "State ye' business or face the sword!"
Derryl snorted amusingly. "Sword? You've got to be kidding me."
"Look what you did, you idiot!" Clarence whispered frantically.
They scrambled up the stairs and burst through the old door at the top. Derryl couldn't help but look back at those supposed murderers of which his brother claimed. Three men, two of which fashioned mail and coats of arms. Long swords dangling from their hips in plain wooden scabbards. The third, and the biggest one, covered head to toe in steel plate armor. A bucket helm hid his face with nothing but a slit to see through and holes to breathe through. It looked like they stepped right out of the pages of a medieval fantasy novel, or a live action role-playing game. They ascended the stairs with the knight in lead.
Derryl shot his hands up in surrender. "I am but a poor peasant, Sir knight," he said, playing along. "Please have mercy on thee."
Clarence got wide-eyed. "Have you lost your mind?!"
The sword scraped from the knight's ornately encrusted scabbard, and it pointed directly at the brothers. It shimmered in the daylight tunneling down the stairs. "The sword it be, then, peasant. Ye' not permitted to be in the keep," he said, a deep voice muffled in his helmet. "In the name o' the king---"
Derryl was yanked into the hallway, brightly lit by a long line of windows without glass, and pulled into a sprint. He hadn't a clue how. Or where they went.
"Seize the intruders!"
They bolted through the maze of hallways, and found a staircase that led up a level, but not down any. Another maze run through the next level. Derryl felt weaker and weaker the longer they ran, his legs felt as wiggly as gelatin by the time they decided to hide in a room to rest. They had found an unoccupied room that looked like a lounge or meeting area of some sort. All stone and wood, and no lamps or electricity to be seen. Clarence rolled behind a marble statue of a half-naked woman, holding a long cloth over her bottom but not her top, on the far end of the room to hide. He didn't hear the clanking of the knight, so they must be safe. Derryl let his curiosity get the better of him and wandered around. Light poured in through the wide latticed windows, a warm breeze ruffling the blue velvet curtains. Floral arrangements centered on a low table in the middle of a bunch of brocade chairs and couches, filling the room with thick, sickening floral air. As if his allergies weren't bad enough. He already started to sniffle.
Paintings of men and women in old-fashioned clothes hung on the walls, either Victorian or medieval. Clarence knew since he wanted to study history, but he had disappeared behind the statue. The best painting was the man with a golden, gem-encrusted crown atop untamed red hair. Fancy tapestries hung between all the windows and between the portraits, gold lining on dark green fabric. The design, a golden leafless tree with roots expanding at the bottom, and lines curling in on themselves lined the edges. It reminded him of the one grandma hung in the living room back home.
"Clarence, come look," Derryl egged on his finicky other half. "Grandma has one of these." With no response. The door swung open. Derryl slipped behind one of the curtains to avoid detection and peeked through a narrow slit. The iron-clad knight emerged through the door, armor clank, clank, clanking, his leather-bound hand holding the hilt of his sheathed sword on his hip. The other two hadn't accompanied him. Perhaps it was another knight. He wondered why they were so important that they had a search party after them.
It had happened so fast.
"There ye' be," the knight said. He homed in, and cornered Derryl, sweeping the curtains aside. He snatched his arm, his fingers digging into the wound from the fall and pulled him along to the door. He struggled against it but the knight's grip was stronger than steel cuffs. He had no choice but to go along with it.
There was nothing behind the statue of the naked woman. He wanted to cry out for Clarence, but if he had a chance to get away, he must. They shall find each other later. He was sure of it. Somehow. The knight led Derryl through a series of halls and stairs until they approached giant wooden double doors with painted designs on them. A picturesque scenery with green grass and trees and a river, and one giant tree that towered over them all, roots sprawling down the lower half of the door. He banged on the door and pushed them open.
He must face a king in a place he did not belong. A being with the power to do with Derryl as he pleased.