Coltislava

by Lost_Marbles

Coltava Report - Second Entry

Three light knocks jolted me out from a dreamless sleep. Pain rushed up my front right leg. I couldn’t move. I kicked and struggled against whatever horror had me in its suffocating grasp, only to realize I was just tucked tightly in a bed. After wiggling myself free of my comfy confines, I saw my leg wrapped in bandages. I could picture yesterday vividly up until Rook and I entered the castle gates. It was too dream-like to be real.

Sunlight flooded the surprisingly clean room I was in. I almost forgot I was in an ancient, dilapidated castle. The grey stone walls were dusted and smooth. Paintings of the castle from different angles and different seasons hung from the walls, and nails and some rectangle, sunbleached-spots on the walls implied that many had been removed. A royal-red rug with golden tassels and threaded holes stretched across the cold stone floor.

I could see the dust dance in the air with a light breeze that blew through arched, paneless windows. Birds sang outside in the courtyard, and the sweet smell of brown sugar danced in the air. This is not at all what I had pictured Castle Coltislava would be like, considering the horrific history and tales of murder and sacrifice surrounding this place - it felt more like I had woken up in an ordinary castle. Well, it felt like what I thought it would be like to wake up in an ordinary castle, but this was the first time I’d ever woken up in a castle.

I stretched and got out of bed.My hooves hit something hard, and I lost my balance but caught myself on my wounded leg. Pain stabbed my ankle. My bags laid next to my bed, attentively placed where I would trip over it. I limped over to the chamber door and called out, “Hello?” but nopony answered. I pulled open the door; again, nopony. The hallway was empty except for a few faded paintings, unravelling rugs, moth-eaten banners, and chipped pottery. The thick, sweet smell of sugar and oats hung in the air, and at my hooves I found its source: a hot bowl of oatmeal. I looked back down the hallway and called out, “Anypony there?” Again, no answer.

Regardless, I took the bowl and said, “Thank you,” loud enough that I hoped somepony heard me. I found a note stuck under it. In very neat lettering, there was an invitation from Rook, which I’ve included below.

Bonbon,

Or is it Bon Bon? I’m not sure. I’m terribly sorry if I offended you.

Please enjoy this oatmeal I’ve prepared for you. I’ve added some sugar. I hope you like sugar. Your cutie mark is candy, so I assumed you like sugar.

When you’re finished with breakfast, come meet me in the front hall. It’s to your right and down the stairs. I’ve got a surprise for you!

Please enjoy your stay here at my castle.

Sincerely,

Rook

The oatmeal with the sugar and kindness sprinkled on top made me forget the depressing setting that stewed all around me. I took the empty bowl and spoon with me down to the hall to the main entrance. At the end of the hall, I came to the top of a magnificent set of stairs that descended down into the large grand room spread before me.

Hanging from the high, arched roof was a chandelier the size of a small star, but many of the crystals on it were cracked or missing. Across from me, another staircase mirrored my own, and the two flowed into each other like two angular rivers before descending toward the center of the room. Huddled close around a fireplace near the far wall were several fancy chairs with cushions of faded red and purple cluttered with books and scrolls - a stark contrast to the neatly stacked pile of chopped wood that leaned against the wall. Rook sat on one of the chairs, his nose deep in a book. My first step down echoed in the cavernous entrance.

He jumped to his hooves and greeted me with an enthusiastic smile. “Good morning, Bonbon! I hope you slept well. How are you feeling?”

I favored my injured leg as I continued down. “I’m fine, but my leg’s still a little sore.” He ran up to me and offered to take the bowl and support me on my way down. I could manage the stairs my own, so I gave him the bowl. It slipped from his hooves clattered down the stone steps.

He laughed it off. “Butterhooves.”

Perhaps it was a good thing he didn’t help me down the stairs.

Rook offered me a seat, snatched up the bowl and spoon, excused himself to the kitchen, and vanished in one of the several doorways on the first floor. The old musty sofa with paint peeling off its legs groaned under my weight. A strong musk from the books and scrolls that piled around the chairs polluted the air - that same smell that perfumed the antique bookstores that kept to the corners of Canterlot. Upon closer inspection, very few of these books were less than a decade old, or even in present-day Equestrian. Encyclopedias and books on foreign countries and species that inhabited them were stacked messily alongside atlases and essays of culture and etiquette with no rhyme or reason. Several book titles had quite the romantic charm of antiquated ideas of class: The Stallion’s Book of Etiquette and Manual of Politeness, The Mare’s Guide to True Politeness and Perfect Manners, and the wonderfully titled Lady Bridle’s Guide of Practical Etiquette for Mares and Stallions in All Social Crises. However, the book that Rook was looking at earlier bore a title that stood out from the rest: De Occulta Philosophia.

I leaned over and gingerly flipped through the musty tome with the thick, hard-leather cover. Cockatrices, owlbears, sea serpents, hydras, bushwoolies, gizmonks, changelings and beasts that I had never heard of were sketched throughout, along with highly-detailed maps of places all throughout Equestria and beyond. Lines that ran along noticeable geographic landmarks formed patterns of stars, spirals, and septagons, with markings emphasizing where they intersected. The language was distinctly Prench, but even what I knew wasn’t useful. Guessing from the possible age of the book and the unusual vocabulary, this was a dialect that hadn’t been spoken in centuries. I continued through the dog-eared pages until I came to several pieces of folded papers.

Notes. All of them written in the same language as the book. There were scribbles of maps and plants on some of them, but all of the notes were on much newer paper than what the book contained. Rook must have written these, or at least somepony else who lived in the castle. There were also a series of letters in present-day Equestrian. The hoofwriting on these were very different than Rook’s, in that it was always written in a slant and all the I’s were dotted with little loops instead of solid dots. One letter I glanced at was mostly about potions, remedies, and curses. But the letter was made out to a “Mr. Gate Keeper” and was signed by a “Dr. Eir.”

I moved the papers aside and saw a drawing of a creature the likes of which I’d never seen before. It stood upright like a gizmonk, but had stouter, stronger limbs and flatter hands and feet. The face was hideously flat with a high forehead and thick brows that shaded its dark, beady, intelligent eyes. The artist took great detail in its teeth and claws, with sharp, vivid canines and nails for ripping flesh. Above it were two bold words: le Wer.

Before I could continue digging further into my find, the giddy clops of hooves clacked down the hallway, so I threw De Occulta Philosophia back to Rook’s couch, snatched up a closer one to me, and threw it open. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting!” said Rook with a smile on his face. “Are you ready for your surprise?”

His face reminded me of foals who had completed something their first time all by themselves. The unbridled happiness and eagerness in his face was a bit unsettling, but it beamed of an unquestioning sincerity. I returned his exuberant smile with a humble one, but I warned myself to be wary of his intentions. Not every surprise is a good one. “You’ve got me curious. What could this surprise of yours possibly be?”

“Well, you are the first pony I’ve had as a guest in a long, long time. You’ve done me a great honor by staying with me, and you deserve to have the best host ever! Please, come with me!”

I closed the book and got up from the chair. “Now, you didn’t have to go out of your way to do that for me.”

“Oh, but I must!”

“It’s not too fabulous, is it?”

He turned around and trotted ahead. “I hope so! I’ve never had a mare as a guest before, but I’ve heard that mares love this, so I prepared one just for you.”

I hesitantly chuckled as I sped up to keep up with his enthusiasm-powered trot. He made a turn from one empty hallway to the next, passing dusty portraits and broken statues of unicorns until we came to the very back of the castle; and as I turned around the last corner, he pushed his front hooves up on a slightly-larger-than-average door, excitement plastered on his face. His large, puppy-dog eyes and smile vanished when he saw me limping up to him. He whacked himself once on the head and pulled at his mane.

“I forgot you were injured! Why didn’t you tell me to slow down?” he said. “I’m so sorry, Bonbon. I--”

“Hey, now. It’s alright.” I walked up to him while trying not to favor my leg, but he still pulled at his mane. “Don’t rip out your mane over a little boo-boo like this. I’ve had much worse.”

“Well, yes, but--” He sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Sorry, I-- uh. Your surprise! Yes.” He leaned against the doors to the back of the castle. “I hope this will help you feel better.”

The doors creaked open, and sunshine washed away the gloomy shadows. Ahead of us was the most pristine and orderly garden that I had ever seen. All sorts of grasses, flowers, and other exotic plants were filed neatly in a series of equal-sized squares. Even the vines climbing on all three walls of the courtyard had distinguishable borders between them. Between these beds was a matrix of weed-free cobblestone paths. This rigid system of plant life continued beyond the confines of the courtyard, taking up every inch from the castle to the rear outer wall. So much care and work went into cultivating and refining this garden that I was completely blind to what sat just beyond the courtyard: a large, brass bath tub propped up on stone blocks over a small fire. Rook skipped straight out towards the steaming tub, and I followed.

Rook swerved around and threw his hooves out. “Ta-da!”

I looked at the steam rising out of the bubbling water, then at the other buckets sitting to the side. “What is it?”

“Your surprise! Do you like it?”

“A bath?”

He nodded with a smile that matched his glowing sense of pride. “Only the best for my guests.” He stuck a hoof into the water. “Hmm, seems a bit hot. What do you think?”

I tested the water myself and recoiled with an audible “Ouch!” The poor fellow was mortified. “It’s perfect,” I said while blowing on my tender frog. “If you’d like some Bonbon soup.”

“Oh by the stars, I’m so sorry! I’ll fix it right away. Put your hoof in that bucket.”

As I humored him by soaking my hoof in a bucket of cold water, my host put out the fire. With all his strength and shaky legs, he lifted a full bucket of water, brought it up to the tub’s edge, and spilled cool water into the bath. He dropped the half-empty bucket with a grunt, and the remaining contents splashed up in his face. His indomitable spirit for good hosting was so admirable that I felt bad for laughing when he splashed himself.

Now that the bath was at an agreeable temperature, he excused himself to give me privacy. After he had gone back into the castle, I climbed into the bath and sank up to my chin in hot water. I felt as though I were a rich model in a secret resort that catered exclusively to the richest of the rich. I had to remind myself why I was here in the first place.

I took the time to further study my surroundings: in the far corners within the castle grounds were plots of land without flora of any sort. Stones of various sizes rose up from the ground and cast shadows over the flowers that surrounded them. Their shapes varied from looming obelisks and statues of the stars to little piles of broken, flat stones and smooth, ankle-high plaques. I could make out etchings carved into their faces, and even from the tub, I could see that the land, while crowded and disorganized, was still diligently maintained. I made a mental note to investigate after my bath. I don’t remember when I closed my eyes.

---

Water rushed up my nose, and I awoke with a startle. I don’t know how long I had dozed off, but the sun had already begun its descent to the west, meaning it was already about three or four in the afternoon. The water was cold. As excited as my host was to present me with this wonderful bath, he had forgotten to leave out a towel. I got out and shook off as much of the cold water as I could while standing on three legs, but it wasn’t enough. My mother had scolded me once for coming in the house soaking wet when I was a filly, and her voice rang in the back of my head as I dripped my way through the garden and back inside the castle. I’m sure she’d understand--the mountain air was cold.

I stopped just after getting into the door and called out for Rook. He came trotting from around the corner, towel in mouth. He placed it delicately on the floor in front of me. “I hope you enjoyed it. Here--” he nudged the towel towards me, and it unrolled along the ground. An ornate brush made out of gold and encrusted with diamonds and sapphires was tucked inside.

The bath was generous of him, but this? This was too much. “Oh, Rook, I couldn’t…”

“It’s not for you,” he blurted. It took a moment, but he heard what he had just said. “Oh goodness, I’m so sorry. What I meant to say was, ‘I’m just lending it to you.’ I don’t mean to be rude, but that’s the only brush I’ve got. It’s an antique and it means a lot to me. Belonged to one of my great aunts.”

I felt like a complete jerk.

After another round of apologizing between us for accidental rudeness, he escorted me back up to my room to where I could freshen up.

“When you are done, pull on these strings.” He walked under the bells that lined up on top of the wall next to the door and pointed at a bunch of low-hanging strings. “The servant bells all over the castle will ring, and I’ll know you’re ready. We’ll take a tour of the castle, and talk and, well, other things… gosh. I haven’t had a guest in what seems like forever. I’m so happy to have you here. You wouldn’t believe--”

He had walked out of the room, but he didn’t stop chattering. At some point, he stopped talking to me and entered a conversation with himself.

When I was certain that he was gone, I closed the door, placed the towel and brush on the bed, and quickly checked my belongings. I found nothing missing, but there was a new addition to the room: a bucket. I dried myself off and brushed my mane. With body and mind well rested, I reached out for a string.

But which one? I thought. He said, “Ring them,” so I rang them all one by one. When I pulled the first one, I didn’t hear anything. The same with the second, and third. How far away were these bells? How could Rook tell if these still worked and the ropes hadn’t snapped ages ago?

I pulled another, and this time, I heard a tiny echo far down the hall. Faint, like the whisper of a songbird, followed by the excitable stomps of a full-grown foal. The bells worked.

---

“And this was the nursery,” Rook said as he opened another door on rusty, creaky hinges to another dust-filled room of cobwebs and shadows. A strong must rushed out as the room took its first fresh breath in decades. Tucked in the farthest corners of this ash-gray chamber were ancient cribs. The bedding inside was torn. Some paintings were leaning against the walls, most likely the same ones that had been removed from the bare rooms and hallways. Layers of dust hid the paintings underneath from the dim light that came in through the dirty window. Oddly enough, I didn’t see a single toy. “In old times, the family would leave their youngest in the care of nursemaids and each other. When the family was at its largest, this room was alive with little ones.”

He shut the door and continued down the hall. I followed close behind on my newly bandaged leg. He had been a bit vague, always talking about the past and the family at its glory days and how everything was perfect and harmonious. Nothing like I read in the books. I wasn’t going to get anything more concrete without digging. I asked as naturally as I could, “So, where did they all go?”

“They’ve all gone,” he said without stopping or looking back at me.

Still too vague. “Oh, I’m sorry. Certainly you still have some relatives around.”

He stopped and shook his head, but never looked directly at me. “Remember how I said I stayed for my family?”

“You don’t mean...?”

“I buried my last uncle a few years ago.” He wiped at his eyes and turned to me with a smile. “But that’s why I’m so glad to have company! Now come on, slowpoke. There’s still more to show you!”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said, but he was too focused on his tour to be distracted by condolences.

Besides a few rooms that sat between the main hall and the garden, most of what he showed me was unused and dilapidated. Broken furniture, vases, decorations, and paintings were stored in a few of the many dark corners that littered the castle. One room had a trunk with a smashed lock. Another had a broken mirror.

Except for one room on the second floor hidden under the lone tower’s shadow. Beckoning beams of light seeped through the cracks of the aged wooden door. “What is this room?” I said as I nudged it open.

Bookshelves, display cabinets, and tables overflowing with books, parchments, and nick-knacks covered every inch of the wall. Rays of light broke through the clutter, tinged purple and pink and green by the jars of pickled potions and plants that lined the shelves; on the wall opposite of the entrance was his desk, littered with lamps, leaflets and letters. A laughing pony skull leered back at me.

My curiosity hadn’t gone unnoticed. The door slammed shut, and Rook shoved me aside. His face twisted as he verbally beat me down. “Do not go in there! Ever! You are NOT allowed in my--” He stopped himself mid breath and dropped back away from me as if I had struck him.

“No, no! I’m so sorry, I shouldn't have brought you here,” he said. “This is a very personal room to me, filled with irreplaceable things that my family--” He pulled at his mane and turned his back to me to hide the wet frustration building in his eyes. I never took my eyes off him. I didn’t move. My stomach was a block of ice.

The stabbing silence didn’t last long before he choked out an apology. “Look, I’m sorry, Bonbon. I got so excited that I forgot myself. This room, this part of the castle, is off limits.” He turned his head slightly, and his wet cheeks glistened in the afternoon light shining in through the window. “This whole castle is open to you, except for that room and the tower.” He pointed at an arched doorway further down the hallway that opened to a stone spiral staircase.

Like a scolded foal, he turned back to me but avoided my eyes. “That is, if you still want to stay.”

I watched him silently squirm and shrink into his little ball of pity.

“Rook, I’m tired. Can you show me back to my room?”

---

The rest of the afternoon was spent in my room summarizing the first two days of my time here. I jotted down every detail I could possibly remember., since anything could be a clue, but also because keeping a mental tab on every minutia was maddening. This was my very first field assignment and very first report. If I left anything out, it would undoubtedly end up being the piece that puts everything into place; and even if it wasn’t, the therapeutic wonders of dumping my brain on the paper would keep me sane for another day. It no longer felt like I had a nest of angry ants in my skull.

As my boss Furlong had driven into my head over and over: “No detail is too small.”

Now I had a new concern: Had I brought enough paper?

---

Rook had been very subdued, but still very polite and considerate, since our last discussion. He brought me a vegetable broth for dinner.

“Thank you so much, Rook,” I said before asking the question I should have asked him long ago. “Could you tell me where the bathroom is?”

“You want to take another bath?”

“Umm… no.” I gave up on subtlety. “I need to use the toilet.”

“Oh-- oh.” With an embarrassed smile, he pointed at the bucket in the corner of the room.

“Oh my… what do I do when--”

He marched toward a window and pointed outside. I looked over his shoulder to see a brown open space at the farthest corner of the courtyard, past the graveyard. “Just throw it in with the rest of the compost.”

“Too bad you don’t have running water. If you did, you could really turn this place into a fancy hotel and bring in a lot of ponies!” I semi-joked.

“Nopony here has running water,” he said before leaving. “Ring the bells if you need anything.”

For the rest of the evening, I didn’t hear a peep from Rook.

---

I would have left this detail out, but what followed I cannot: I had to use the bucket.

I found myself unable to go to sleep knowing that my leavings were only a few meters away from me. So, I carefully took the chamberpot with me through the dark castle and out to the courtyard. The stars and waxing moon that crowded the sky illuminated the garden well enough that I could easily find my way to the compost pile. I dumped the contents and turned back to the castle, and that was when a light at the very top of the tower caught my eye.

Perhaps that was his bedroom. It’d make sense that he’d open his whole castle to me like he had and still want to keep his privacy. His outburst was rather unsettling, but if he had been living up here all by himself in what many would consider a haunted castle, perhaps he was just not used to having visitors. That might explain his clumsy protection of his privacy.

The graves that I passed to get to the compost pile reminded me of just how little he had left. Under the starlight, I could read some of the details clearly. Cutie marks of wands, moons, and constellations were carved above dates and names. The oldest gravestones that I could read were over five hundred years old. The most recent one that I saw with a date was about ten. I couldn’t find the grave of Rook’s uncle, as quite a few of them were unmarked, only bearing the cutie mark of the deceased.

As much sway curiosity had on me, it could only keep me out in a graveyard at night for so long. I picked up my bucket and hobbled my way through the garden. The stones crunched together under my feet as I passed by the bath and the still-full buckets of cold water. I used what was left to rinse out the toilet bucket, and while I did so, I looked up again at the tower. There was movement. A shadow.

A unicorn.

Icy claws scraped my spine, and I dropped the bucket, ran back into the castle and into my bedroom, threw the bolt and shoved my bed in front of the door. That was when I huddled up in the farthest corner and feverishly scribbled everything that just happened, as I couldn’t think of anything else to do.

But now that I have revisited everything, I’m beginning to question what I really saw and if I overreacted. The shadow was at least four stories above me, and I was just walking through a graveyard in a unicorn castle. My surroundings may have persuaded my mind, but it felt so real at the time, I can’t think of anything else it could have been. Maybe Rook wears a nightcap? What if it wasn’t the shadow of just one thing, like a pony shadow overlapping that of a coat rack? And why did I freak out so much? It’s not like I saw a ghost. It was just a shadow. And ghosts don’t cast shadows.

The more I write about it, the sillier I feel.

I’m going to try to sleep. I’ll probably have a clearer head in the morning.

---

I can’t sleep.

All the bells rang at once. Just a few feet above me, since I pushed the bed against the door. They rang madly and stopped as suddenly as they started. My heart was racing. Never before had something scared me so bad that it hurt. I stared at them in confusion and wonderment. How could all the bells ring at once? Why?

They rang again.

I grabbed all the pillows and blankets off the bed and threw them together into a pile in the farthest corner. I can’t take my eyes off the bells. I can’t stop thinking about them. I can’t stop thinking about what might be at the other end of the strings.

I can’t sleep.

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[Yellow Gate]

I want moar!