House, Hills

...The house sprawled around the end of the lake, which itself nestled in a cleft between the two spikes which topped the mountain. It was difficult to imagine what it had been used for prior to its earliest known function as a hill fortress — its design was much too exposed. The oldest section of the house, right on the point of the lake where it drained off into the steep cleft between the horns, contained a number of very large halls, each with more than one fireplace. This section, three stories high, was covered by a steep peaked roof and capped by a tower. Under the peak ran a long corridor with rooms opening off it on either side, which served as the dormitory for all but the Frater himself, whose quarters were in the tower.

Beneath this dormitory floor was the balcony overlooking a room known inexplicably as the Parlor, a huge open two-story auditorium which could have been used for large public meetings or entertainments. Directly beneath the Parlor was the refectory, a dark, low-ceilinged expanse with long tables and numerous alcoves. In this refectory, as one faced the lake, along the right wall was the Frater's library, screened off by heavy wood paneling inset with translucent glass windows. The Frater's study could be entered through a door on the lake end of this small library. Outside, the lower porch made an ell around the left and lake sides of the refectory; the upper porch ran along the three outward sides of the Parlor above.

Set behind the refectory was the entrance hall, low and wide but not very deep, which was dominated by a huge ornate staircase, wide enough to drive a team of horses easily between its railings. This stairway led up to the Parlor, the balcony, and the dormitory. Beneath the entry was a cellar of uncertain proportions, which could only be reached by an ill-kept and rickety stairway hidden beneath a heavy table in the Frater's library (study?).

To the left and right were the ruins of what must have been a magnificent residence or, perhaps, a very well-appointed garrison. As one faced the lake, the left or north-east wing, which had been made of wood, looked like a long burial mound with the rotted stumps of planks and beams sticking out here and there. The right or south-west wing had been made of stone, and a few stretches of wall still remained standing, along with the shadowy outline of rooms approximately equal in size to those in the dormitory. Access to both wings had long ago been walled off by stones from the collapsed south-west wing.

Behind and down the hill from the house were scattered the foundations of outbuildings, all in ruins, with no hint of what their purpose might have been, although one or two of them must have been used for stables and barns.

The mountain itself, as has been said, continued upward on either side of the lake, terminating in two cliffs at the end opposite the house. Atop the cliff to the south-east was a ruined tower. The other, on the north-east, had no structure upon it. Both commanded views of the entire mountain and all of its approaches, the south-east cliff to the south and west, the other to the north and east. The only easy approach was from the east, where the town hunched in the valley below. It was possible to gain the lower reaches of the mountain from almost any direction, but no way to get near the plateau of the lake and house other than by way of the main road, unless one scaled impossible heights to approach the lake from the opposite side, right under the eyes of the lookouts on the twin cliffs.