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For Larry and Morguerat
The oaken door opened with an audible creak. Its sturdy frame had warped and twisted with the leaning of the tower, and could not help protesting under the former paladin's touch.
As wood gave way to air, a cloud of smoke spilled into the stairwell from the room beyond, which was now reluctantly revealing only parts of itself to the pair of visitors waiting outside.
It was a rich room, with dark carpets and long tapestries lending their warmth to the veiled smimmering of the flames in a near corner. There was barely a sound but for the lazy snapping of timber and logs, and the light tingling of tiny bells disturbed by the door's opening.
The few windows looking out over the courtyard, and the boggy lands beyond, were shut, shuttered and barred. Though the room knew all the basic instruments of an observatory, they served no purpose now but as near mystical decorations shielding the ancient stone walls from the unenlightened world.
A protection much needed, for already cracks wove their way through mortar and rock to dwarf any spiderwebs around the support beams. A light draft blew from the ceiling, the wind catching under the tiles that made the tower's roof. Some had already been dislodged years past, shattering into thousands of pieces on the ground below.
It was only when the echoes of unwilling hinges had well and truely died away that their place was filled by a distant voice from the far end of the tower chamber, thick with status.
"Enterrr..."
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