Forest Kingdom Trilogy 1 - Blue Moon Rising

Bright light flared round the edges of the door, throwing back the darkness. Julia and the Seneschal fell back, startled by the sudden glare, and Bodeen moved quickly forward to stand between them and the door. He waited a moment while his eyes adjusted to the new light, and then gave the door a quick push with his foot. It swung slowly open, and Bodeen whistled softly as bright daylight flooded into the corridor.
    'Come and take a look,' he said slowly. 'You're not going to believe this . . .'
    Julia glared about her warily, before moving over to join the Seneschal at Bodeen's side. Her sense of imminent danger had faded to a vague unease, but she still couldn't shake the feeling they were being watched. Nerves, she told herself angrily, and looked through the door. She blinked dazedly into the light for a moment, and then realised she was looking out into an endless sky. Clouds floated before her, soft and wet and puffy, so close she could almost reach out and touch them. She looked up, and then gasped as her stomach lurched. Far above her, a hundred feet and more, lay the ground. The view was upside down. Julia closed her eyes, and waited for her stomach to settle before looking again. Heights didn't usually bother her, but the up-ended view's casual defiance of the natural order of things disturbed her deeply.
    'Interesting,' she said finally, forcing herself to look up at the ground.
    'Yes, isn't it,' said the Seneschal happily, and Julia was disgusted to note that not only was he looking up and down with no sign of distress, he was actually smiling while he did it. 'It's a view from the South Tower, Princess, or at least from where the South Tower used to be. If you look down, or rather up, you can see the moat quite clearly. Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. It's not just an illusion, you know.
    Somehow, within this doorway, space itself has been inverted. I can feel it most distinctly. I suppose if someone were to step through this door, they'd fall up, rather than down.'
    'After you,' said Julia, and the Seneschal chuckled. Bodeen stared up at the ground, frowning.
    'If the Tower's been missing all this time,' said Julia slowly, 'why hasn't anyone noticed it before? It should have been obvious from the outside.'
    'Actually, no,' said the Seneschal, still studying the view. 'The Castle's exterior is mainly illusion.'
    'At least now we know what happened to the other parties,' said Bodeen suddenly, and Julia and the Seneschal stepped carefully back from the door before turning to look at him.
    'Obvious when you think about it,' said the guard calmly, still staring out into the sunshine. 'Like you, sir Seneschal, they must have decided to enter the Treasury through the South Tower. It was the main entrance, after all. Unfortunately, their trackers weren't in your league. They had no way of knowing this door had become a death trap. So, blinded by the light, they just walked right in and fell to their deaths.'
    'But. . . someone would have found the bodies,' protested Julia.
    Bodeen shrugged, and turned away from the door. 'Like as not they ended up in the moat, or near it.
    And the moat monster's always hungry.'
    'We can't be sure all the parties came this way,' said the Seneschal. 'And even if they did, I can't believe none of them would have survived the trap.'
    Bodeen smiled grimly. 'Maybe there are other traps we haven't found yet.'
    For a long moment the three of them just stared at each other, and then the Seneschal shrugged, and turned away to stare through the doorway.
    'All right,' said Julia, 'where do we go now? We can't get to the Treasury this way.'
    'Actually, I rather think we can,' said the Seneschal. 'I've just had an idea.'
    Julia looked at Bodeen. 'Can't you just feel your heart sinking?' Bodeen nodded solemnly.
    'The South Tower may be missing,' said the Seneschal, 'but the door that leads to the Treasury is still there. I can see it, just a little further along what is now the outer wall. Even more to the point, there's a stairway that connects these two doors, built on to the wall.'
    'A stairway,' said Julia. 'Is it intact?'
    'Mostly. The supports that held it in place seem to have vanished with the tower, but it looks secure enough. As long as we're careful.'
    'Let me get this straight,' said Julia. 'You expect us to go out that door, crawl along an unsupported crumbling stairway, carefully ignoring the hundred-foot drop, just to reach another door that's probably locked anyway?'
    'Got