A waltz was playing somewhere.
Well, it certaainly felt like
a waltz was playing. After a terse conversation with Lady Elegans he
had been directed to this hall, hidden like her cellar behind an
impenetrable, unmarked wall. He had stepped in to find himself
floating up towards the middle of the room, and from there he had
discovered that walking--oddly enough--was an effective means of
propulsion along the corridor.
As such, it was quite the impressive corridor.
Ribbons and arcs of baroque pillars danced between each other, mostly
obscuring the long chamber's square profile. Occasional gaps revealed
plush carpeting, ornate dining areas, shadowed niches, abandoned
servants' areas, and other scenes of abandoned grand living. The
walls were odd, though he couldn't quite make out why, and each area
he passed felt like it followed the last, as though the long hall
were a concatenation of segments of time.
If you don't find something strange
about The Hall, she had said,
you can never help us and so will never leave.
Does floating through the air on a
predetermined track count? How about flying through an ancient hall
behind a solid stone wall? Perhaps the eery waltzing feeling as he
strode through the air, the lack of servants, the abandoned air in so
elegant a place?
He thought for a moment, staring off
into space. It was something simple--
What the-- What moved?
It took a moment to bring his thoughts back to reality...well, the
present reality. Something in the shadows cast by the pillars? The
sojourner began a slow and careful examination of the shadows. The
nearest ballroom looked well-lit by a chandelier or two out of his
line of sight. Still, they would be about there,
and the web of pillar-like laces was thin above there, so the wall
over there should
be...
Laced with shadows.
It was black. Not a trace of the ample
lighting was making it to the wall, and the lattices that landd there
seemed to have shadows lapping at their bases. The walls certainly
were odd light here where shadows should be, shadows bunched in plain
sight, the right shadows sitting the wrong way in some spaces, all
just orderly enough to evade the unwary mind.
Wrong shadows in a hall of memories...
