“Well, we’d appreciate any help.”
“Aye.” Kwip was not keen on taking two fledglings under his wing. Such obligations tend to slow a man down. Still, he could not very well leave them to fend for themselves. He had no wish to trip across their corpses in a day or two. “I know a place,” he said. “I sometimes take my mid-day meal there. It’s well away from the Guests’ quarters.”
“Fine,” Barnaby said. “We’d love to go along with you, if you’ll have us.”
“’Twould be my pleasure, sir.”
See that you don’t get underfoot, Kwip thought sourly. Damn me for a softhearted fool.
They exited the room and made their way down a narrow corridor which led to a short staircase. The stairs descended into a great hall furnished in chairs and tables and hung with colorful pennants. They moved through the room to a far door, which opened onto a hallway. Turning right, they walked a stretch, then swung left at an intersection.
“You seem to know where you’re going,” Barnaby observed.
“Be quiet!” Kwip whispered.
“Sorry,” Barnaby mumbled.
Kwip held out an arm and Deena bumped into it, Barnaby bumping into her. Kwip tilted his head, listening a moment to far-off noises. Then he crooked two fingers and beckoned his companions forward again. They advanced down the hallway slowly.
A tremulous wail sounded in the distance. It was like nothing Kwip had ever heard. A chill went through him.
They stopped, Deena and Barnaby instinctively linking hands. Kwip turned to them.
“The invaders?” he asked quietly.
“I don’t know,” Barnaby said in an awed tone. “I can’t imagine what that was. Sounded like some horrible … thing.”
Kwip lifted his eyebrows, nodding emphatically. “Aye, it gave me a start. But many a strange beast walks this place.” He drew his saber and motioned with his head. “Come on, then. And keep a sharp eye out.”
They moved off. A few paces down they encountered a spiral stairwell. Kwip led them into it.
“I know a shortcut,” he said.
They hurried down the well, their footsteps making hollow, muddled echoes against the curving stone walls.
They came out into one end of a long hallway, the T of a crossing passage a few paces to the left. Barnaby edged to the right, peering into a dark alcove across the way. Kwip decided to check out the intersection and peeked around the left corner.
Kwip had never seen a demon, but he knew the creature for what it was the moment he saw it. He could barely comprehend what he saw. It was big, about seven feet tall, and its head and face were a horror that he would half remember for nightmares without end. The eyes were not human, but seemed to radiate an intelligent malevolence like heat from the glowing tip of a torturer’s pincer. The face was generally triangular, and the mouth gaped, heavy with numerous black, ragged teeth — charred stumps in a burnt forest. Its coloring was generally red, mottled with blotches of bilious green and diseased black. The torso and legs were powerfully muscled, and the three-toed feet ended in great curving talons. The area between its legs gave no hint of its gender, if it had one.
What Kwip found eye-defying was that the creature glowed with a strange interior light. The thing did not seem to be composed of ordinary matter. It was as if the figure were a three-dimensional painting, an artist’s embodied rendering of a nightmare. A diffuse greenish glow surrounded the thing, and banners of shifting auroral color played about it here and there.
The sight hit Kwip as one telling blow. His pulse stopped, his blood froze, and his mind emptied of everything but a numbing fear.
The thing apparently had heard them coming out of the stairwell and had tried to creep up along the wall. It stopped when it saw Kwip, its mouth widening into a horrible travesty of a smile. Then it spoke one word.
“Death,” it intoned. Part of the vibrations of which the voice was composed rumbled at the bottom end of the range of human hearing. The remaining, more audible component sounded like clustered notes pounded out on the lower octaves of a spinet’s keyboard, combined with shrieking overtones that rasped against the ear.
Shocked into immobility, Kwip watched the thing raise a huge bladed weapon that was a cross between an ax and a scimitar. Faint multicolored flames played about the curious, evil-looking blade. The creature’s glowing eyes nailed him with a look that pierced his heart, their hot, withering gaze searing the very nub of his being.
Hands yanked him back, and the demon’s blade struck the wall at a point directly across from where his head had been. With a cascade of violet sparks, the stone fractured, pieces of it sailing off. Smoke rose from the impact point.
The next thing Kwip knew he was running faster than he had ever run in his life, and the thing was chasing him. He was dimly aware of the young man and woman running beside him.
They ran for a short eternity, the corridor an endless treadmill. Finally they reached the branches of a cross-tunnel.
“Split up!” Kwip shouted over his shoulder.
“Barnaby, this way!” Deena yelled, grabbing her fat friend’s shirt sleeve and swinging him round. The two raced off down the left branch of the crossing.
The demon let them go and chased after Kwip.
Library
Osmirik was tired. He had lost track of time. It seemed that he had been locked in the vault for days on end. He had not slept yet, and his eyelids felt like lead weights. He forced himself to read on. There was no choice. Indeed, the fate of the castle might hang on what information he gleaned from the stacks of curious volumes that lay about the table.
So far, he had had no luck. Ervoldt’s journal had proved a difficult read. The difficulty lay not so much in what the ancient King wrote as in what he omitted as irrelevant or of limited interest to the reader. What was sound editorial judgment on Ervoldt’s part was vexatious obscurantism to the scholar. True, judicious paring had made for a lean and powerful narrative. Osmirik had marveled at the King’s account of how he trapped the demon Ramthonodox and transmogrified it into a great castle. But exactly what supernatural means had he used to accomplish this feat? Ervoldt had written simply:
“The Enchantment hath such Convolutions as to make the Brain fairly reel. I shall not bemuse the Reader by setting it down herewith.”
Such bemusement was devoutly to be wished! But this was not the spell that Osmirik sought. There was another mentioned in the sections in which Ervoldt described his magical construct, Castle Perilous. The first of these chapters began with a typical understatement:
“I found the Castle possessed of numerous Peculiarities.”
Indeed. Ervoldt went on to describe the inherent dangers of the castle’s unusual fenestration; Perilous had, in effect, 144,000 open windows, through which any manner of invader might trespass. There followed a catalogue of the aspects which the King explored, listing what was found therein and assessing its potential as a threat. The catalogue was short; apparently Ervoldt meant only to include a sample of what he had found.
“It took me a Year and three-quarters, trudging through and through the Place. Much did I see.”
Obviously the King had covered a good deal of ground.
Ervoldt went on to describe some particularly troublesome aspects, outlining what measures he took to ensure that they would be no danger to the castle. There was one aspect which he had found especially alarming:
I did then discover a Cosmos like no other I had seen. Vast and drear and fearful it was, a place of blackness and despair, yet Beings dwelled there, having such horrific Lineaments and foul Mien that I bethought them Demons, to be numbered among the very Hosts of Hell. I did but escape with my Life out of that Place, and laid a Spell of Entombment on the Way that led therein, and the Gods forfend its unbinding, at peril of the world — nay, of Creation itself! I say, beware this Place, in which is contained a surfeit of malign Cunning.
This was the only reference Ervoldt made to the Hosts of Hell, and to the natu
re of the spells used to seal off especially dangerous aspects. Osmirik had searched through volume after volume of arcane magic, chasing down spells similarly named. He had found restraining spells, binding spells, immobility spells, and confinement spells, but nothing that carried the connotation of the Haplan verb tymbut, which Osmirik had translated as meaning “to place within a tomb or burial place.” Ervoldt’s offhand mention suggested that the spell was common, one that could be found in the standard spell manuals of the day. Indeed, the King had mentioned other sorts of spells, and those Osmirik had located. But he could find no trace of a spell specifically designed for the purpose of sealing something or someone in a tomb or burial place.
It was a puzzle. Why would Ervoldt use a spell of this kind? What, indeed, could be the common use of such a curious enchantment? Why would anyone be interested in sealing the dead inside their tombs? It was a common practice to equip burial places with magical defenses to ward off ghouls and grave robbers, but these certainly were not meant to inhibit the dead from getting up and walking out.…
Osmirik rubbed his eyes and looked about the tiny, candlelit chamber. He had stacked almost two hundred books inside it, and he had just about riffled through them all. He sighed, leaned back, and stretched his arms, his cramped muscles throbbing. Then he gave a protracted yawn. It would be so good to lay his head down on the table, just for a moment, just to rest.…
No. Lord Incarnadine had charged him with this vital mission, and he could not fail his sovereign liege.
He groped in the satchel for something to eat, coming up with a loaf of bread and a wedge of cheese. He used his dagger to slice the cheese, hands to tear off a chunk of bread. There was a bottle of wine under the table, but he was wary of opening it. A few good swallows, and he’d be out like a candle.
He ate voraciously at first, then slowed down as his mind returned to the problem at hand. Had live entombment been a common capital punishment in ancient times? If so, it was not widely known, but would explain Ervoldt’s not bothering to be specific about the method used. Of course, he may have wanted to keep the spell a secret to guard against someone’s tampering with it.
Of course. That had to be the reason. Still, it could be a simple and fairly common enchantment.…
Something clicked inside his mind. The only motivation for laying such a spell on a tomb would be an inordinate fear of the dead. Necrophobia was widespread in ancient times, and was no rarity even today. The ancient Hunrans, who were in Ervoldt’s day called Tryphosites, had a cult of the dead — rather the opposite of a cult, for the Tryphosites believed that those who died became evil spirits in the afterlife, occasionally returning to Earth to work their devilment on the living.
Yes!
He tossed the bread and cheese aside. If Ervoldt had used an existing spell, he might have borrowed it from the Tryphosites, whose magic he must have studied.
Osmirik slammed his bony fist against the table. There was a book on Tryphosite magic in the library. But he would have to leave the vault to fetch it! That would be the bravest of deeds. The blue-skinned Hosts of Hell were certainly out there. Yet he had to do it. He had to run the risk of losing his immortal spirit to demons from the fiery bowels of Perdition.
Something nagged at him — a triviality, really. The blue creatures had not struck him as proper-looking demons. They were brutish, monstrous, and ugly as sin — but not quite what one would expect of genuine evil spirits.
No matter. They were dreadful enough. So be it.
He rose and went to the outside wall, feeling along the stone ribbing for the switch that would send the stone slab rolling back into its slot in the wall. He found it and rested two tremulous fingers on it.
A cold sweat broke out along his forehead. Keeping his fingers lightly on the switch, he bent and blew out the candle.
It was worse in the dark. He did not know if he could bring himself to do it. Could he face Evil itself? Could any mortal? He stood awhile in agonized indecision. Then he lowered his hand.
He groped along the table for the flint wheel, found it, and struck a spark. The oil-soaked cotton flamed, and he lit the candle.
He would have his last meal, then venture out of the vault to meet his fate. Surely no one could expect him to face an eternity of torment on an empty stomach. Besides, he needed time to cogitate. There must be an alternative, one he was simply not thinking of. Now where the devil was that bottle of wine … ?
Pennsylvania
The temperature rose a bit as they drove farther west and crossed a weather front, but it was still chilly. The sky was cloudless, spangled with cold winter stars. The road wound through dale and over hill, farmlets sleeping to either side. An occasional dimly lighted window alleviated the darkness, the loneliness.
“Do you know exactly where Ferne’s estate is?”
“I’ll be able to pinpoint the gateway,” Trent said, “which amounts to the same thing.”
Incarnadine looked out into the darkness. “Bleak,” he said.
“What do you expect for the wilds of Pennsylvania on a winter night?”
“A roaring fire, a bottle of good wine, some good music.…”
“Sounds nice. Want to bag out of this and go and get some of that good stuff?”
“I could hardly do that.”
Trent shrugged. “Let the gods-damned castle go to the devil. Choose a world and live in it, never leave.”
“I’ve often considered it.”
“Do it. Let Ferne have the old rat trap, let her be Queen of Creation.”
Incarnadine took a long breath. “What you said about going to the devil — it’s looking more and more as though that might be literally true.”
“Well, that demon semi back there wasn’t Ferne’s style, if that’s what you mean.” Trent flicked on the high beams, and the trees along the road loomed like tall gray specters. “Do you really think it’s the Hosts of Hell?”
“I have no doubt. Naturally they’ll be laying for me — us — at the portal. We’ll need all the magic you can muster. Otherwise, we’re sunk.”
“Well, I hope I’ll be able to summon the portal when we get close to it. Going to be rough, though. They’ve got it nailed down pretty tight on this end.”
“Do you think proximity will make any difference?”
“Hard to say. All I know is that doing it from New York was impossible.”
They came into a small town, turning left at a junction with another highway. Now and then, pairs of headlights came at them, receded into the night.
“Getting close?” Incarnadine asked.
“Yeah. It’s off on your side somewhere.”
A turnoff to the right came up and Trent took it. The road took a slight dip directly off the highway, then bore gradually uphill, a split-rail fence running along its right side. They passed a very large and very imposing stone barn, then a few other outbuildings.
“Some big farms around here.”
“Gentlemen farmers, it looks like,” Trent said. “The country estates of the super-rich.”
Other farms rolled by. Trent took a side road to the left that arched over a hill, then ran along a winding valley, crossing a stream via a stone bridge. Then it twined upward through stark, bare-limbed trees. They went by the entrance to a gravel-paved side road that was barred by a steel-pipe gate. A mailbox stood off to one side.
A quarter mile farther down the road, Trent said, “That was it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Want to try a head-on assault?”
“No. That gate looked pretty sturdy. Let’s see if we can’t find a hole in their perimeter defenses.”
The road branched and they bore to the right. The road wound through forest, a chain link fence paralleling it on the right.
“This looks like the back end of the property,” Incarnadine said.
“That fence doesn’t seem like much,” Trent observed. “Not even barbed wire along the top. Electrified, maybe.”
&nb
sp; “I doubt it.”
“Then they must be confident of their magical defenses.”
“One would tend to think so, if that big ghostly rig was any indication.”
Trent pulled off the road, parked on the narrow cinder-strewn shoulder, and turned off the motor. He doused the headlights. Quiet fell, save for the sound of a cold wind through the treetops.
“Want to try it right here?”
“Well, not in the car.”
They left the Mercedes and walked to the chain link fence. Trent raised his arms and traced small circles with his index fingers, looking off, as if testing.
“This is going to be difficult.” He looked around. “Hate to do it in the open like this. If somebody comes along … ”
“They’ll be mighty suspicious but will probably drive on. Let’s give it a try.”
Trent nodded, then began to trace elaborate patterns in the air. After a time, thin suspended filaments of light appeared, taking their shape from the path of his fingers, forming a luminous grid that hung between the two brothers.
“Nope.” He lowered his arms and examined the pattern. He was not satisfied. “No. It won’t work. They have it anchored too firmly. They own the door, Inky. And they have the key. We’ll simply have to go in there and crash it down.”
“So be it. Are you ready?”
With one finger, Trent drew a diagonal slash across the pattern: the Stroke of Cancellation. The luminous design faded quickly. “As ready as one can be to die, which is what the upshot of this enterprise is likely to be. But first, let me deal with this fence business.”
Trent waved out a simple pattern, and the fence took it upon itself to give up a few of its chain links, to the accompaniment of much clinking and snapping of metal. A section of steel mesh split down the middle and fell away like a torn curtain.
Castle for Rent Page 15
