As he hurried across the twenty or so paces between the trees and the wall, Morgan tried to map out an ascent path. He saw plenty of gaps in the mortar beneath the right-hand window, so he ran that way. When he stood against the stone wall, the window suddenly seemed higher, and the stone blocks looked a lot larger. The bottom row of blocks stood as high as his knees, and he could only imagine the feat of engineering someone went through to get them up on this plateau shelf to build this keep. Or maybe they’d been quarried right here? He shook his head and concentrated on the task at hand. Morgan reached up, got a firm grip between two blocks where some mortar had crumbled away, and then jammed the toe of his boot into a gap, pulling himself up three feet.

He hugged the wall and reached for a new hold; when he felt it, he lifted his left leg, found a grip for his toe, and push-pulled himself up again. He had the stump of his left arm splayed out and his chest flat against the keep, knowing that if his foothold slipped, he’d be hanging by one hand. Gingerly, he repeated the process, and after a few more pulls, when he glanced down, the ground seemed much further away than it should. “Perspective is everything,” he muttered between gritted teeth. Either by luck or skill, Morgan managed to scale far enough that when he reached his hand up for a new hold, he grabbed the lip of the stone window sill. He stretched his hand in, grabbed the inside edge, and pulled himself, scrabbling with his feet, high enough to see through the open window.

The room beyond the window was in ruins. The wooden slats of the ceiling had collapsed in areas, and the furniture and rugs were weather-beaten and falling apart. A door hung loosely on the opposite wall, and cobwebs and dust liberally coated the space. Morgan felt safe pulling himself through, as the room looked like no one had been in it for decades. When he’d mounted the stone sill and carefully slid to the floor, he gingerly applied his weight to the creaking, dry floorboards, and they held.

Morgan carefully glided across the room to the crooked door, his ears straining for any sound that might give him a clue as to the goings-on in the keep. Only when he was standing directly against the door, his ear turned to the gap between it and the wall, did he hear the first sound that didn’t originate from him: a man's distant, screaming voice. “So it’s not just Issa and the flying creature in here,” Morgan whispered, easing some fingers around the edge of the crooked door and giving it a stiff yank. It pulled free of the doorjamb and slid toward him a few inches.

Morgan wished he had Issa’s camouflage cloak, but simple old sneaking would have to do. He pulled his sword free and, holding it ready, slipped out through the door. He found himself in a dusty hallway that was much less damaged by the elements than the room he’d just come through. The floorboards still creaked, but less so, and the plaster still clung to the walls, mostly intact. Morgan looked left and right, noting a corner not far to the right and more doors on his left-hand side. Those doors likely led to the rooms with the other windows he’d seen outside. As he contemplated his choice, another faint, warbling scream echoed through the hallway to the right, so Morgan took that as a sign. He slunk over the floorboards and peered around the corner, hanging to the shadows.

Another short hallway ended at the head of some stone steps leading down. Morgan moved noiselessly to the steps and activated his Azure Sight, looking down into the shadowy stairwell. Nothing moved, and he could see that the dust on the steps was undisturbed. He silently began to descend the stone steps, counting out twenty-two steps by the time he came to a flat landing. A short corridor continued straight ahead about five paces and then bent to the left.

Morgan crept to the corner and peeked around, holding his breath in anticipation. He saw another battered wooden door a few paces further on, with daylight seeping through the cracks in its weathered slats. Continuing forward, Morgan held an ear to the door. Several heartbeats passed before the sound of something large shuffling around came to him, off to the right and below the door. Then he heard a strident male voice, speaking quite loudly, “Oh, that’s a lovely girl, aren’t you? What did you bring me this time?”

“Cwoo, Cwoo!” It was the moth-bird thing! Morgan strained to see out the gap in the boards but could only make out a continuation of the hallway and then a railing. Daylight seemed to be streaming in over the railing. Was it a central courtyard?

“Oh, a sheep, that’ll be delicious, won’t it, lovely? And we can feed the pets, too.” Morgan didn’t like the sound of the man’s voice, but then it struck him—he’d called whatever the bird-moth had brought back a sheep. There were no sheep on this world. Holbyis looked like sheep, though. Was this man calling a holbyis a sheep? Was he from Earth? Morgan tried the latch on the door and found it unlocked. He pulled it gently and steadily, gritting his teeth as it scraped along the stone floor, the hinges sagging from age and rot.

The man had begun to hum, and the giant bird creature was making that warbling sound, so the door’s slow scrape seemed to go unnoticed. Just as Morgan began to creep through the gap he’d created, another shriek of abject misery echoed up from the depths of the keep, much louder here, now that he’d opened the door.

“Oh, dear! It sounds like Gunther is being a little rough with the stock. What do you think, lovely? Should I go rescue the poor wretch?”

“Cwoo!”

“Oh, I agree, I agree. Gunther needs his pleasures, too, doesn’t he? Let’s instead get a start on our dinner. Keiry!” He shrieked the final word, and Morgan almost stumbled at the force of it as he was edging closer and closer to the railing, trying to stay in the shadows and as silent as possible. He had just made the corner of the wall where it met the railing when a new voice, this one feminine, spoke up.

“Yes, Lord?” Morgan peeked an eye around the corner and looked at the scene below. There was, indeed, a central courtyard in the tall, narrow keep. The courtyard was, by necessity, also tall and narrow with a railing on the second floor, where Morgan hid, fully encompassing it. Down on the first floor, piled in a corner, was a nest of branches and grass with the huge, moth-like bird nestled in its center. On the flagstones in front of the nest, a bloody holbyis lay, and standing over it was a tall, skeletal man that definitely looked human. A diminutive Ardeni woman stood before him, completely nude, her bright blue hair shorn to a stubble. The man, clothed in yellow-gold robes bearing dozens of stains, ran a hand through his long, greasy hair and looked down his nose at the Ardeni.

“Isn’t it obvious? Lovely has brought you supplies for dinner! See that you prepare something delicious. He gestured to the dead holbyis.

“Yes, Lord, I shall, though I fear our herb supply grows thin.”

“Nonsense! I just stocked them!”

“Lord, that was several months ago. I’ll endeavor to make do, though. Might I get some assistance lifting the holbyis?”

“Holbyis! Bah, enough with the nonsense words. I’ve told you that animal is a sheep! Here, I’ll make it easier to carry,” the “lord” said. Then, he took a step back, pointed a finger at the holbyis, and made a gesture. The dead animal’s head separated as though struck by a guillotine. He gestured again, and the rear half was sectioned, spilling intestines and organs out onto the flagstones. “Be sure to scrub this mess after you’ve carried the meat to the kitchen.”

“Yes, Lord,” the woman said, bending to lift a front quarter of the dead holbyis, and that’s when Morgan noticed the pale gray collar she wore. She grunted, hoisting the bloody chunk to her chest, thoroughly drenching herself in gore.

“By the way, what of Lovely’s gift from last night? Has the creature woken?”

“I believe so, Lord. Gunther’s put her in a cell with the other female stock.”

“Excellent! I’ll need to inspect her later. She seemed a promising specimen, don’t you think, Keiry?”

“Oh, yes, Lord. I'd wager that she has advanced her racial traits quite a few times.”

“Good, good. Now get to the kitchens!” The scarecrow-like figure cackled as Keiry turned and hustled back through the doorway that, presumably, led to the kitchens. Morgan watched him with a growing sense of disgust. He was talking about Issa; that much was clear. So she was being held with other “stock.” Morgan didn’t like the sound of that at all, nor did he like the idea that a human was here and armed with some dangerous Energy abilities.

Could he be from Earth? Could humans exist on more than one planet? Morgan tried to gauge how dangerous that man’s abilities were based on what he’d seen him do to that holbyis corpse. He imagined he could do some damage to a corpse with his Vortex Lance, but the man below had casually sliced through the body several times, with almost no visible effort. He was definitely dangerous.

It seemed like the woman had been enslaved to him somehow. Was it the collar? How under the man’s control was she? Could Morgan approach her for help or information, or would she be compelled to expose him? Morgan was tempted to try to sneak down to the courtyard and kill him, but he didn’t know if that would be suicidal or not. What if he pointed at Morgan and sliced him in half? Morgan needed more answers, and it sounded like Issa had a little more time before things got critical for her. She was being held, and this “lord” still wanted to inspect her, so Morgan didn’t think whoever Gunther was would be a threat to her just yet. That decided, he focused on gathering some more intel, which meant snooping around and hopefully getting a chance to talk to Keiry.

Morgan could see an opening on the far side of the courtyard almost directly above where Keiry had entered the keep; the walkway he was lurking on led around to it. Keeping low, and hugging the stone wall of the keep, as far from the railing as possible, Morgan crept around the courtyard, listening to the man below humming and talking in a sing-song voice to his giant moth-bird. After several tense moments, he slipped into the hallway leading away from the courtyard. He crept forward, searching the abandoned rooms and hallways on the second floor until he finally found another set of steps leading downward. Noise and heat came from the wooden door at their base, and he felt he’d finally had some good luck—he’d descended right to the kitchens.

Slowly and gently, he depressed the door latch and pulled open the door just a crack, peeking through. The kitchen was empty of people, though a glowing fire smoldered in the huge cast-iron oven. A central butcher block counter held three pieces of the dead holbyis, though Morgan thought Keiry was probably off picking up more of the dead animal. Seizing his moment, he opened the door, slipped into the kitchen, and moved to the doorway on the far side of the room. He slipped behind the door and silently waited.

Just a few moments later, he heard the slapping sound of bare feet and Keiry’s grunt as she hefted a large portion of the holbyis onto her shoulder. She strode into the kitchen and slammed the hunk of meat and bone onto the butcher’s counter. “Ancestors, help me!” She sobbed, bracing her hands on the countertop and shaking.

Morgan gently pushed the kitchen door closed, then he turned to the sobbing woman and said, “I’m not your ancestor, but maybe I can help.”