Relic Short Story: The Castle on the Hill

My mom recently found an old box of memories, and I was really surprised to find them. The box had been packed away in some corner of our last couple houses, and unlike my existing tablets and things that I had organized and review out of nostalgia every few years, I hadn't laid eyes on any of these documents and drawings for decades. Among them was this short story, dated June 2001, that I must have written as a creative writing assignment. I'm fairly impressed. For a story written by a 12-year-old, it's not half-bad. At least compared to some of my other jokes of attempts at creative prose.

The Castle on the Hill

I was born and raised in a small village in southern Britain. I seldom left my hamlet because my mother feared that outside the house was dangerous. When I reached the age of seventeen, I was allowed to leave the place so long as I carried a dagger with me.

One day as I wandered around the town exploring, I noticed a broken-down castle on top of an extremely steep-looking cliff overlooking the town. Nobody seemed to notice it because, well, it was kind of far away—ten miles maybe, and all the peasants were real busy.

I walked over to one of the merchants and started to ask, “Sir, do you notice that—”

“Hello, lad,” the man cut me off. “Would you like to buy a nice, big bag o’ haggis?” He held up a slimy sheep-stomach bag.

“No thanks,” I said quickly (I never liked haggis that much).

I then walked over to a scullery maid who was busy selling milk, cheese, and butter. “Excuse me, ma’am, do you see that castle up—”

“Hello!” She cut me off too. “Would you like some cheese, milk, or butter?”

“Well, I…” What could I say? I love cheese! “…alright.” I bought a small chunk of cheese for a very reasonable price (four shillings) and sat on a bench to eat.

“Who lives there, I wonder? Is it a dangerous climb up the cliff?” I thought deeply. Then I knew what I must do. “I’ll go and scale it,” I thought. “Yeah…”

*   *   *

A couple of days later, I finally had all the supplies I needed to go to the castle: flint, a torch, cheese, rope, sword, more cheese, a wound-tending kit, and cheese.

“Tonight,” I thought, “will be the day…”

Of course, my worrywart mother would never have let me go to some strange, dark castle on top of a hill, but I was older now, and I knew that anything was possible.

I snuck out that night towards the castle. It took me the rest of the night to even get through to the hill. I never imagined the terrain on the way there would be so rocky. I tripped like, eighty times, and every second it seemed that another bramble vine was in my way. Fortunately, I had my trusty dagger with me, so the brambles weren’t that bad.

It took forever, but at long last, I found myself in front of the hill. I looked up… way, way up, and almost threw up.

The top of the hill had to be at least a hundred meters straight up. Absolutely no handholds or footholds. Just absolutely up! My rope would never reach that ledge!

However, I hadn’t just walked and tripped for ten miles for nothing. I would not give up. I looked at the situation. How could I get up? My question was answered when I heard the wyvern.

I didn’t notice the sound at first. It was sort of like a whine a venom wasp would make, but really low and deep. Then it started to sweep upward till it was an unbearable roar. The roar was absolutely terrifying, but not as terrifying as the wyvern itself.

I saw it. A great, sickly-green flying lizard with vast, uneven bat wings, horns, and a spearlike tail. The worst part, though, was its eyes. Br-r-r-r-r! Those huge, red orbs glistening like evil rubies in its skull.

I was so scared I had to swallow five or six times to even breathe. My first thought was RUN!! My second was STAND YOUR GROUND!! I don’t know why I obeyed the second thought, but I did. The wyvern started to swoop, and for a split second I thought “It’s the key—the key to getting up!”

The speed on earth slowed down for some reason. I could see the wyvern diving towards me, its eyes glowing like beacons. I saw my hand rising up, up towards the wyvern’s leg. Then the speed returned to normal and something very peculiar happened: I couldn’t feel the ground beneath me, and I felt something I was clinging onto—something hard and clammy. I felt wind on my face. Then I realized that the wyvern was carrying me. I had grabbed its foot!

I looked down and saw a rock. As I went higher, the rock got smaller—so small that it finally disappeared altogether. That’s when I saw some grass—yellowish-brown, prickly grass. I suddenly realized that I was looking at the top side of the cliff! I jumped—I had made it!

…Well, not quite.

*  *  *

When I regained consciousness, I noticed that my body was aching and my lip was bleeding. I took a swab from the wound-tending kit (now quite dented) and rubbed my lip. “Well,” I thought, “at least I made it.

Indeed, I had made it. The castle loomed over me. “Great Scott,” I breathed. The castle was blad with lichen and vines snaking up the sides of it. Suddenly, I had a discouraging thought. “What if this isn’t worth it? What if there’s a wyvern nest in there? What if the place is desolate?”

I decided I didn’t care what was in it. I just needed to know. I walked up to the door and knocked.

I almost jumped at what I’d heard. It sounded like thousands of glass flasks shattering. The door creaked open and I found myself face-to-face with a fairly old man—sixty, maybe seventy years old. He wore spectacles and had a grayish goatee. His eyes were wide with fright.

“H-how did y-you get i-i-in?!” he stammered.

“Who are you?” I asked.

He took a deep breath and said, “My name is Dr. Tim. My golems call me ‘Master.’”

“What is a golem?” I asked.

“A golem,” he said, “is like a living statue made of natural materials that has no feelings, hopes, desires, memories, dislikes, or opinions. I am a proud builder of golems. But, oh dear, where are my manners? Do come in.”

I went in and explored the place. I saw “golems” everywhere, all made of different materials: stone, glass, rock, chalk, iron, gold, silver, wood, brass, diamond… It seemed that the varieties would never end. I had a hard time believing that they had no feelings, though in the back of my mind I believed it, because they always obeyed Dr. Tim.

“How about some tea?” Dr. Tim asked after a brief tour of the castle.

“Okay.” I remembered losing all of that cheese in the crash and was now quite hungry.

We had tea and chatted a while about the golems. Suddenly, I noticed something really strange: one of the golems was talking to another. “Er… Tim, sir…” I started to say.

“They really are nice. I have no worries with those dopes working all the time, and…” he yakked away.

“Sir.” My protests were getting impatient.

“…Of course, lately, a few have been acting up, refusing to do what I want them to, so of course I destroyed them with—”

“SIR! Your golems are planning something!” I snapped.

“What?” He looked confused.

“LOOK!” I pointed to the golems. There was now a small group of seven or eight golems. The big marble one seemed to be telling them something. Then they all looked at Dr. Tim and started marching in unison towards him.

“S-stop! Stop, I say! G-get away from me!” Tim was now looking quite frightened at the golems.

Despite his protests, the golems advanced towards him menacingly. “S-s-stop! STOP!!” He screamed at the golems, but more were joining the group and were reaching out their strong arms.

By now, Tim was shrieking with fear, threatening them with destruction of something called a Volt Altar. But suddenly the golems were upon him, cuffing him with their fists. I shielded my eyes from the scene. Tim was getting bruised very badly by them.

Suddenly, the marble golem spoke: “We are ver-ry ti-red of wor-king for you, ‘Mas-ter.’ Pre-pare to be des-troyed.”

Tim started yelling to me, “Activate the—OW!—Volt Altar! OUCH! Set the volt cap—OW! —acity to OOF! …A hundred! Go quickly, boy! It’s—OWWY! —downstairs!” He died shortly after that last word. I felt sorry, but I had to do what he said.

I ran downstairs where there was a large round sunken platform in the center of the room with a switch box next to it. I looked down the numbers on the switch box and looked for “100.” I found it, pulled the switch, and an explosion ignited.

The explosion was gigantic, with blue sparks every which-way. When the smoke cleared, I found myself in the middle of a big room full of golden nuggets, wood chips, pebbles, and other hunks of materials. “These must be the golems’ bodies,” I thought. I waded through the wreck upstairs where I found the body of Dr. Tim. I decided to take it home and bury it. It only seemed proper.

I’m not exactly sure how I got down to the ground. I jumped off the edge and, after a moment, I was back on the ground! I buried Dr. Tim and promised my mom never to leave the village and was grounded for life. I’m not exactly sure what I was grounded from, because back then we didn’t have computers… Then again, how did I type this anyway? Well, that’s my story.

The End.