Dragon Castle (14 page)

“No, dear.”

Father drew Mother aside and whispered in her ear. It was, however, loud enough for my keen ears to hear it clearly.

“Isn't it time, y' know, now that they are old enough, that you showed the boys, that which we do not talk about?”

My father looked around behind him to see if anyone was eavesdropping. Of course Georgi was there, his hands steepled, his eyes looking innocently up at the ceiling—that little smile twitching the corners of his mouth.

Father continued. “Y' know what I mean, in the cellar, the . . . er-ah?”

“Oh,” Mother said, understanding coming to her face that was always as lovely as a cloudless sky, “you want me to show them the dra—”

My father's index finger pressed gently to her lips cut off the word she'd begun to speak.

“Exactly,” he said. “I'll stay here and guard the door. Make sure no one follows.”

“Come along, dears,” Mother said, taking us by our arms. “Put down your knives and spoons. Time for you to see the . . .” My mother paused, noting that my father was making frantic gestures urging her to silence. “Well, you'll soon see.”

With that she led us to a hidden passage carefully concealed behind the painted tapestry hung on the castle's west wall whose shifting patterns I always found myself studying.

That day, I recall, I took note of the way the shape of the dragon itself seemed brighter and more prominent than usual. But the overall message of the tapestry was still impossible for me to decipher, unlike the secrets my less-than-clever parents tried to keep from me. Among them was that door my mother revealed by pulling back the tapestry. It was so well hidden that I had not discovered it myself until the day I learned to crawl.

“Look, boys,” she said.

Paulek wanted to get back to his new toys.

“Can't you just take Rashko?” he said.

“No, dear,” my mother said in a firm voice. “You must do this together.”

By now Georgi had produced a ring of keys and handed it to Father.

“Turn your back, Georgi,” my father said.

Then, as Georgi stifled the chuckle shaking his shoulders, my father chose the correct key. Not hard to do. It was the only one that had a large wooden tag labeled
“Tajny Prechod,”
Secret Passage, attached to it. Father turned the key in the lock and pulled the metal-bound door open with a loud creak.

Still with his back turned, Georgi handed my mother a torch. Had he not done so, my mother would likely have led us into total darkness and then stood there in confusion wondering why we weren't able to see anything.

“Watch your step on the corners,” Father cautioned.

“Yes, dear,” Mother replied. “Hold your brother's hand,” she said to me.

And we were off to the deep, secret cellars of Hladka Hvorka.

In all the old stories, whenever someone—usually a knight errant—finds his way into a hidden passage that leads mysteriously down into the earth, there are certain things one expects. Among them are the cobwebs, eerie noises, the eldritch markings of twisted magical runes upon slimy walls, and strange cold drafts—to say nothing of the innumerable traps where one steps on a loose trigger stone and is then impaled by sharp spikes or crushed by walls that grind inexorably closer. Then there are the yawning pits that open unexpectedly to send the unwary screaming down into dread depths.

Having heard several such grisly tales from Baba Anya by the time I was seven I was hopeful of adventure after we passed through the hidden doorway. However, none of the aforementioned perils were present in the well-kept passageway that led down below Hladka Hvorka. The walls were dry and freshly whitewashed, the ceiling absent of spiders or webs. All rather a disappointment to me. The prosaic stairs were so neat and free of dust that it looked suspiciously as if they had been quite recently swept in preparation for our little excursion. That impression was strengthened when I noticed the broom closet off to the side on the first landing.

That well-kept “Secret Passage” was further evidence of what I had come to realize, even by the age of seven. Our loyally competent servants were the ones who truly ran Castle Hladka Hvorka. There were no secrets they did not know. At times it made me wonder why they'd never taken advantage of my parents' innocent lack of awareness. Once or twice, I even pondered the possibility that my parents were not quite as unworldly as they seemed, that they actually knew more than they appeared to know.

My final conclusion, though, was that my parents' constant intentions to do good and to treat everyone who worked for them as valued helpers, inspired both loyalty and patience in all our retainers. I also think they all respect my father's great physical strength and my mother's, shall we say, special abilities that I first saw displayed that day when we descended.

On down we went, one neat stairway after another, every step so clean you could have eaten your breakfast on it. How boring, I was thinking. The only strange thing was that, for some inexplicable reason, I felt as if we were climbing rather than descending. It was as if we were ascending a mountainside rather than going down one steep set of stairs after another. But then we rounded the final corner. And there was another door, quite a door!

From that point on, things were quite different. Several things changed for me, including my opinion of my mother. Although little in the realm of intellect was familiar to her, I realized her other talent that day in the deepest cellars of Castle Hladka Hvorka. My, yes.

That door that loomed before us was unlike any I'd ever encountered before. Three times the height of a tall man, it was wide enough to drive a team through. It was made of neither wood nor metal, but a weird black stone that glistened with darkness. It seemed to glow and absorb the light at the same time. I was impressed—and also briefly bemused. How might it be opened? On its smooth surface there was no lock, no doorknob or handle, not even any visible hinges.

“
Velke dvere.
Big door!” Paulek said in a reverential voice. Even he was awed.

“Give me a bit of space, my dears,” Mother said, handing me the torch and pulling up the sleeve of her gown.

There was a commanding note in her voice I'd not heard before. Both Paulek and I were swift to react, taking several steps backward. It wasn't just what she said. She had visibly started to glow. Well, not all of her. Just the right hand that she held up in front of her. It was already twice as bright as the torch she'd passed to me.

As she took a step toward the massive door, her hand became as difficult to look at as the midday sun. The look on her illuminated face was more determined than I'd ever seen it, even more than when she was trying (with little success) to thread a needle. Sewing was my mother's favorite hobby, even though nothing she stitched together would have ever proved wearable, but for the patient assistance of Grace, Grace, Grace, and Charity.

Now, though, there was power and certainty in every step she took. She spoke again.

“
Teraz!
Now!”

The voice that came from her mouth was hers but different. It rumbled and rolled, echoed around us and through us, out beyond the edge of the world and back again. We were more than awed.

That is sooo loud,
I thought.
I hope Mother never yells at me with that voice. As soon as I get back upstairs, I am going straight up to her bedchamber to remove that frog I put into her sewing box.

Then she spoke again in that voice of thunder.

Yes, that's what she said.

Big door! Open!

Unexpectedly potent as my mother revealed herself to be at that moment, she also proved she was still predictably unimaginative.

As commanded, the door began to move. It lifted up a little—it had, I could now see, lots of little feet on the bottom—then waltzed backward and slightly sideways, leaving the immense portal open for our entrance.

“Dakujem, dvere,”
my mother said. “Thank you, door.”

Then to us, “Come along, dears.”

We came along. Neither of us uttered a peep. What could we say? Other than “Oh my!” or “Gah!”

The room we tiptoed into was vast. It seemed, rather troublingly, much too big to fit into the space below our castle. It didn't feel as much like a cavern in the depths of the earth as a cave that belonged high atop the Tatras. Its size, however, was only part of what we noticed.

All around us was the “er-ah,” my father had mentioned.

There were great heaps of rough nuggets. Innumerable coins spilled out of wooden trunks. There were finely worked goblets and statues, diadems and coronets, even chairs and thrones—some bearing scratches in their soft metal surfaces, as if they'd been at one time or another snatched up by sharp-clawed feet. Even though we were young boys, Paulek and I knew enough to be vastly impressed.

“Oh my,” I said, finally regaining my breath.

“Gah!” my openmouthed brother added.

“Ano,”
my mother agreed. “It is rather quite a lot of gold.”

 

 

THE DRAGON'S GOLD.

Note that I did not say “our gold.” No one in our family would ever dream of saying or thinking that. None of us are greedy. Not even Paulek. True, my brother did enjoy confiscating my childhood possessions and we still have been known to scuffle over the last turkey leg. But food and mutually owned toys are one thing. Mountains of precious metal and stacks of jewels are quite another.

Paulek and I understand certain lessons that Mother taught us. If you become possessive about wealth, it does strange things to you. Especially gold that is cursed. The best thing to do is to keep it hidden away.

A second lesson was equally simple. Don't attract too much attention. That's been the motto of our family since the time of Pavol the Good. Admittedly, when my ancestor caused a hill to rise and a sizeable castle to appear overnight, he did create a bit of a stir. However, mystically appearing buildings do not attract the avaricious the way that the glow of that soft heavy metal does.

Also, it was explained to Paulek and me, if one tried to remove too much of the er-ah from that cavern, even though it is, technically, under our control now—it might awaken the gold's unseen guardian. Not to say what it is, but it is big, scaly, toothy, and breathes fire, don't you know?

However, my family does not hoard that gold like jealous misers—or the dog in the stable that keeps the horses from the hay it can't eat itself. What my parents have always done with that treasure is to share it, a little bit at a time. The thing about cursed wealth is that those who are generous of spirit may actually use it, as long as it is for the needy and not themselves.

Thus Mother makes her twice-yearly foray down to that cave to fill a few picnic baskets with coins. Then, masked and hooded so that no one can ever guess who they are—unless that person takes note of the fact that beneath their masks and hoods my mother and father wear their usual monogrammed clothing and travel in our castle's ducal coach—she and Father distribute that wealth. Despite his rather limited grasp of economics (or history or geography or mathematics or virtually any subject, for that matter), Father can sniff out a swindler or thief from miles away. Thus only the truly needy ever benefit from my parents' largesse. Homes for orphans, food and clothing for those in need, and so on.

The help that my parents bestow is always accepted with gratitude. I know that firsthand. Paulek and I have accompanied them ever since our first visit to the cave. When we were little, it was a bit difficult for us to assist. Imagine yourself a seven-year-old boy lugging a large and suspiciously sagging picnic basket, while pretending that its contents are nothing more than a roasted pheasant, some bread and wine and cheese. Even a small handful of gold is heavy.

“Might I help with that, young master?”

“No, Georgi, unnnhhh, it . . . isn't . . . unnnhh, at all heavy.”

Naturally, there are rumors about our fortune.

“Oh, that old story,” my father always chuckles whenever some visiting outsider brings it up. “Rather exaggerated. Dragon's gold and all. Quite amusing. Wouldn't believe that if I were you.”

Within our dukedom, those favored by our family's subtle philanthropy always say thanks—rather amusingly at times.

Such as last summer when my father dropped sufficient gold coins into a famer's hands to enable him to rebuild his barn and house burned down by lightning.

“Dakujem, dakujem,”
the man sobbed, tears filling his eyes. “Thank you, thank you.” He grasped my father's hand and kissed it—something that always embarrasses my father, though he graciously did not attempt to pull his hand from the farmer's grasp. “Thanks to you and your wife, Duke—ooof!”

The “ooof” was a result of the farmer's wife elbowing the man firmly in his stomach before he could finish his sentence.

“Mysterious strangers,” she said, “we will always be grateful for your kindness.”

“Ano,”
said the farmer, having recovered his breath, “my wife is right. We thank you . . . ah, unknown people who have probably come from far away and not from any castle that we can see from our front door.”

He looked over at his wife, who had raised an eyebrow, but nothing more. “May you live a thousand years,” he continued.

“And,” he added, emboldened by her lack of response, turning his glance toward Paulek and me, both of us as mysteriously and ineffectually masked as our happy parents, “may good fortune always attend your two sons, Pau—ooof!”