CHAPTER 2

Although it was on top of a mountain, the Keep was fronted by a deep and steep-sided channel that elsewhere might have become a water-filled moat. As it was, in earlier times, coupled with the cliffs to the rear, it would certainly have been an extremely effective defensive feature, completely isolating the Keep from its surroundings and confining all approaches to the single entrance. This, in its turn, was served by a drawbridge which could be lowered and raised quite easily by one man through an ingenious arrangement of pulleys and levers.

Yet, the moat seemed to be unnecessary. Though he knew little of warfare, ancient or modern, Josyff could see that the very location of the Keep precluded any siege techniques that he had ever heard of other than a patient waiting for its occupants to starve to death. There was nowhere to erect scaling towers or to position artillery, and undermining was out of the question. The place would yield to modern weapons, of course. These could bombard it from the valley far below. But then, who would want such a place, either now or in the past? What conceivable strategic or commercial significance could it have, situated here, far from any great centres of population or important trade routes?

His feet crunching the fresh snow, he stepped out on to the drawbridge and peered cautiously over the edge. This was the only place he had found which offered any view into the gloomy depths of the channel, but even here he could make out only the occasional jagged peak rising out of the darkness. This couldn’t be a natural feature, surely? Yet, to be man-made, it represented an achievement every whit as daunting as the building of the Keep itself.

This place held so many questions.

A shiver shook him and, though no wind was blowing, he pulled his coat tight and hunched his shoulders against the cold. He looked up at the snow-covered mountains that surrounded the Keep. This would be a stern and forbidding place at the height of summer but the heavy grey skies, pregnant with yet more snow, added an almost tangible menace to it.

“Still puzzling our problem, Surveyor?”

Josyff started at the sound and turned to see the man who had greeted him on his arrival. One set of eagerly proffered papers had identified him as Badr ak-Herion from the Aggoran province, far to the south. Another set announced him as Josyff’s new Chief Assistant. When working in the east, Josyff had had an excellent team and he had recommended that it be kept together for this latest underta