Castle Perilous

by John Dechancie

  DuQuesne grinned at her. “Remarkable, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, well, this is just too much. How could I not have noticed?”

  “Part of the spell,” Thaxton said, having overheard. “Part of the magic.”

  “Magic … yes.” Linda sat back.

  “You got any raw meat, something still kicking?” Snowclaw asked, tossing the half-chewed turkey leg into the tureen of escarole soup.

  A blue, shimmering cloud with a vague suggestion of a human form within it approached the table, having ghosted in through the main entrance. It glided to an empty chair and seated itself.

  “Good morning,” came a voice emanating from within the phenomenon. The voice was feminine, and sounded as though the speaker were underwater.

  “Merikona, how nice to see you,” Thaxton said. “Where have you been keeping yourself?”

  Gene, Linda, and Snowclaw were watching, mouths agape. The other Guests smiled and went back to eating.

  “I found an aspect opening onto a world somewhat in phase with mine. I spent some time there. It was pleasant to have spatiotemporal intercongruence with one’s environment again. But I missed my friends here, and … as you can see —”

  “How nice,” Thaxton said. “Tea and scones, as usual? Some over there, I think.”

  “What’s on the agenda today?” DuQuesne asked brightly.

  Linda had recovered from the shock of Merikona’s entrance enough to ask, “How did … how did Merikona get back from the world she went into? I thought someone said the doorways or whatever you call them shifted around.”

  “I’m for tennis. Up for a few sets, DuQuesne?” Thaxton called.

  “I’d rather golf today, if you don’t mind,” DuQuesne answered, and immediately went on speaking to Linda: “Marikona traversed an aspect, of which the castle has 144,000, or so rumor has it.”

  “Ah,” Jacoby said. “A number pregnant with mystic significance.”

  “Quite so.”

  “Best of three sets, then,” Thaxton proposed.

  “Not today, Arnold, thank you. As I was saying, my dear, many of the castle’s aspects are stable. One may pass to and from those worlds without trouble. Unfortunately, most are very unstable. They appear and disappear with disconcerting irregularity. Lord help you if you wander through one. It could close up and leave you stranded on the other side. That could be most unpleasant.”

  Thaxton wouldn’t give up. “How about you, Dalton, old boy?”

  In the middle of lighting a cigarette, Dalton said, “And drop dead after the first set? No thanks. Golf’s my game too.”

  “Bother. Well, golf it is, then.”

  Linda asked, “Don’t these unstable aspects ever open up again?”

  “Possibly. No telling,” DuQuesne said. “And there’s no telling where in the castle they’ll appear if they do open up.”

  “It’s catch as catch can, I’m afraid,” Jacoby said.

  Linda sat back and smiled wanly. “I suppose the aspect leading back to our world is one of the unstable ones.”

  “I’m afraid it is,” DuQuesne said.

  “Isn’t there any way of finding it? Can’t we search for it?”

  “No one we know has found a way back,” Jacoby said.

  “But that doesn’t mean that a way back to our world won’t eventually be found, by somebody,” DuQuesne protested. “Or that somebody, some Guest, at some time, may not have found one and gone back to the world we know. This castle is thousands of years old.”

  “Then …” Linda’s right hand went to her face. “We’re stranded here.”

  “Temporarily,” DuQuesne said gently. “That’s the way it’s best to think of it.”

  Gene had finished his plate of ham, sausage, scrambled eggs, smoked whitefish, buckwheat cakes, lox, and herring in sour cream. He looked around the table and noticed there were serving plates of food more commonly appropriate for lunch or dinner. He helped himself to chicken cordon bleu, stuffed cabbage, rigatoni in meat sauce, and sauteed mushrooms, with an artichoke salad and a plate of coleslaw on the side.

  Snowclaw was munching the last of the candles, which he had been dipping in Thousand Island dressing first. Addressing Thaxton, he said, “What’s tennis? Sounds interesting. I’d like to take a try at that.”

  Linda gave a surprised squeal, and everyone looked.

  “Oh, this is it,” she said, shaking her head in wonder. “This takes the cake.” She was looking at something cupped in the palm of her hand.

  “What is it, Linda?” DuQuesne said.

  “A Valium. See?” She held it up between thumb and index finger.

  “Yes, Linda. What’s wrong?”

  “Just a minute ago I was thinking that I really needed a trank — a tranquilizer. I used to take them … a lot of them. Kicked the habit, but when you told me about us being stuck here, I was thinking to myself, God, what have I got to lose, I wish I had one right now, right in my hand. And I had my right hand clenched … and just now I opened it and looked … and, well, here it is.”

  Significant looks were exchanged around the table among the seasoned Guests.

  “Materialization,” DuQuesne murmured. “Interesting.”

  “How long have you been in the castle, did you say?” Jacoby asked pointedly.

  “Huh? Oh … uh, two nights. Yes. Two nights and a day.”

  “I see,” Jacoby said, and sipped his demitasse thoughtfully.

  Keep — King’s Redoubt

  Incarnadine strode around a railed arcade overlooking a high, expansive chamber, the entirety of which was occupied by an immense and astonishingly detailed simulacrum of Castle Perilous itself, showing the tumult of activity that now stormed about its southern perimeter. In scaled miniature the simulacrum displayed the new belfries that the besiegers had constructed, mammoth wooden towers whose tops rose above the thirty-story-high battlements of the inner curtain wall. From their perch atop the belfries Vorn’s archers now commanded the inner ward. With most of the parapets cleared of defenders, Vorn had brought up his siege engines to work at close range. A hail of boulders now pummeled the inner ward, flung from gargantuan versions of trebuchet, mangonel, and arbalest.

  Incarnadine made the circuit of the arcade, gaining every possible angle. He could see no alternative but to counterattack immediately. If the belfries were not destroyed forthwith, the inner gatehouse would fall to enemy hands and the castle’s reduction become an inevitability. The keep was possessed of its own fortifications — ring walls, turrets, bulwarks, and other structures — but Vorn would hardly let these daunt him now. Once the portcullis of the gatehouse was raised, Vorn’s soldiers would come pouring through to the grassy expanses of the ward, there to prepare for the final assault on the keep. Although the keep’s immensity would prevent it from ever being completely taken — even Vorn could not muster enough invaders to penetrate its every recess and sanctum — its penetration would complete the fall of Castle Perilous. This, then, was the final battle.

  Lines of soldiers protected by wheeled wooden barricades were hauling the last of the giant belfries into position. They were under light fire from the defenders, who had withdrawn to the flanking turrets of the inner wall. From there they could barely annoy the enemy, subjected as they were to a withering barrage of arrows from the belfry-mounted archers.

  Incarnadine stopped pacing and watched. The simulacrum filled the three-story-high chamber, the parapets of the keep almost touching the domed ceiling. Even at this scale individual figures were minute. He raised his right arm and with one finger traced a simple pattern in the air. The murky area at the edges of the simulacrum quickly grew to overshroud the whole scene, then parted, revealing a much closer perspective. In silence, the battle raged on. Incarnadine flicked his wrist once, and the scene focused on a single belfry. It was a gigantic construction, barely able to hold up its own weight without substantial buttressing in the form of an elaborate trelliswork of timber fanning out and down like a pyramidal skir
t from the tower’s midpoint. It had taken months to put together out of thousands of precut and partially assembled pieces. Vorn must have expected the tactic of undermining to fail, and had come prepared to take the castle by escalade if necessary. In fact, the battles in the mines, though they had cost Vorn dearly, might only have been a delaying tactic.

  A figure approached, walking along the gallery. Incarnadine turned to look.

  “My lord …”

  “Captain Tyrene.”

  The captain of the Guard saluted, bringing his right palm to his chest. “My lord, I have come to report that the south inner ward will soon be in enemy hands unless we attack with special forces now.” Tyrene turned to regard the simulacrum. “If my lord will forgive me. You likely knew this before I did, but I felt I had to report it to you in person.” Turning his dirt-streaked face to Incarnadine he added, “The situation is grave, my lord.”

  Incarnadine nodded and leaned forward, gripping the iron rail with both hands. Light from the simulacrum sculpted his bearded face. In his dark red cloak and saffron-yellow undertunic, he stood a head taller than the Guardsman. His face was extraordinarily handsome and perennially young. The dark eyes were intelligent, thick-browed and serene. His hair was dark brown, coming down to a bit below the ear in slight waves. Around his neck he wore a simple gold medallion on a gold chain; he wore no other jewelry. The medallion bore the image of a strange winged animal with the head of a demon.

  “Soon, my friend,” Incarnadine said. “When the belfries are completely manned and ready to be drawn up to the walls.”

  “Then I will return to my men.” Tyrene made a motion to leave.

  “No, stay awhile. I shall have orders to give you.”

  “Very well, my lord.” Tyrene took off his metal-studded black leather helmet, brushed dust off his chain mail doublet, and leaned against the rail. He took a deep breath and sighed.

  “Weary, are you?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “You have fought bravely and well against overwhelming odds.”

  “Thank you, my lord. Though I fear …” Tyrene’s gaze fell to his feet and he sighed again. He shook his head, his expression pained and vexed. “It makes no sense.”

  “What doesn’t?”

  “Vorn going to all this trouble. What are his motives?” Tyrene’s eyes rose to the simulacrum as Incarnadine changed the perspective again, this time to a wider view of the outer ward. “It’s insanity. What’s more, it’s bad war making. Vorn could have chosen to besiege a lesser fortress, thereby establishing his presence in the Western lands. He could have collected his quitrents and gone his way to finish the campaign in the South. He must know we have no offensive might to bring to bear against him. Instead, he allies himself with weaklings, the very ones he could have squashed, and pours his life’s blood into sands of our impoverished Pale trying to take Castle Perilous.” Tyrene pounded the rail with a mailed fist. “It makes no sense!”

  “He may succeed.”

  Tyrene’s face fell. “Yes, my lord. And I accept full responsibility.”

  “No.”

  “At risk of contradicting you, my lord, I —”

  “No,” Incarnadine said again, softly but firmly. “You will not berate yourself. You have done your very best and have inflicted grievous losses on the enemy. You have made him pay in blood.”

  Tyrene protested with a quick shake of the head. “Were it not for special forces —”

  “Tyrene.” Incarnadine’s smile was benevolently admonishing.

  The captain’s shoulders slumped. “Yes, my lord. I will say no more.” He shuffled his feet and muttered, “Still, it makes no sense.”

  “Don’t you think the castle a worthy prize for a conqueror?”

  “Why … I suppose. But what good can it do Vorn? Surely the last thing he needs is another fortress.”

  “Perhaps he means to steal our magic.”

  Tyrene knitted his brow, nodding. “Yes, maybe that’s what drives him. But even he should know that only a Haplodite can tap the castle’s deepest source of power.”

  “It may be he does not know. Or has been deliberately misled.”

  “Aye, it could be. If so, it’s her doing.”

  Incarnadine did not answer. He shifted his weight and placed his left foot on the lower crossbar of the rail. “Then, of course, there is always the attraction of booty.”

  Tyrene laughed. “I have lived all my life in and about Castle Perilous and have yet to catch even a whiff of where the treasure room might be.”

  “Again, he may not be aware of the peculiarities of this place.” Incarnadine mused for a moment, then said, “I think I would have trouble finding it myself. Haven’t been there in years. As I remember, it lies within one of the more stable areas, but its position may have drifted somewhat over time.”

  With a sweep of his hand, Incarnadine changed the scene below to full perspective.

  The line of gigantic belfries was moving slowly toward the curtain wall. The infantry marched in files behind, ready to mount the stairs inside the towers. When the belfries drew close enough to the wall, the invaders would pour out through the top, crossing to the wall walk by means of drawbridges let down from the tops of the towers.

  “Then again,” Incarnadine said, “it may be Vorn has taken a fancy to our Pale and wants a summer residence.”

  Tyrene regarded him gravely for a moment, then broke into sudden laughter. “A fine jest, my lord.” His mirth was disproportionate, being, as it was, an overdue release from the tensions of battle.

  Incarnadine waited until Tyrene had wiped the tears from his eyes, then took his foot from the rail and straightened.

  The infantry were marching in double-time, and had begun mounting the stairways inside the belfries.

  “The time has come,” Incarnadine said.

  “The sky dragons again, my lord?”

  “I think not — this time.”

  Incarnadine stood back from the rail and raised both arms. He closed his eyes and stood unmoving for a moment. Then, quickly and with great precision, he commenced tracing patterns in the air. Touching the tips of his index fingers together above his head, he parted them and brought them around and down in two semicircles to meet again at the bottom, thereby completing the Great Circle. He stepped back to examine his work, as if the figure were visible. Stepping forward again, he outlined a series of arcs linking points of the circumference, connecting the midpoints of these with lines to form a square within the circle.

  He executed more lines, more figures within figures, his brow knitted, tiny beads of sweat springing to it like a sudden dew.

  Watching, Tyrene stepped back warily.

  Presently, Incarnadine’s spell figure, composed of faintly glowing red filaments, began to take form in the air.

  Keep — Elsewhere

  “We’re lost again,” Snowclaw said.

  “Tell me something new.”

  Gene scratched his head and looked around. They had followed a spiral stairwell down to this, a spacious airy room with numerous window alcoves. An Oriental rug covered the flagstone at the far end of the room, and on it were positioned various pieces of furniture — a divan, a few straight-back chairs, two low tables. A sideboard set against the wall held several wrought-iron candelabras bearing the stubs of burned tapers. The alcoves were set at even intervals along the right wall; a single flush window was cut into the far wall, and to the left, an arched doorway led through to the descending spiral of another stairwell.

  Gene said, “Linda, do you remember Dalton saying to go right at that first landing? Or was it left?”

  Linda stepped past him, following Snowclaw toward the windows.

  “I’m sure he said right. And we went right. That’s all I’m sure of, though.”

  “Damn. Well, maybe we just keep following the stairs. But it seems to me we should have come to that grand ballroom by now.”

  Yawning, Gene walked to the far end of the room and flop
ped down on the divan. He yawned again and keeled over on his side.

  “Tired,” he said quietly, closing his eyes.

  Snowclaw said, “Hey, Gene. Come look at this.”

  Gene’s eyes popped open. “What?” He cranked himself up and shuffled over to the alcove into which Snowclaw and Linda had squeezed themselves. They were leaning out of the narrow Gothic window and looking up, Linda bending and ducking her head under Snowclaw’s outstretched arm. Gene craned his neck, couldn’t see a thing, so he stepped back and went into the next alcove. He looked out.

  There was nothing above but clear sky. Hundreds of feet below, waves crashed onto black rocks at the foot of a shear cliff. There was nothing below the window. Gene gasped and put his arms out, bracing himself against the stone jambs. The window was suspended in air, floating a few feet above the edge of the cliff. The angle was disorienting; the window was canted vertiginously forward, unnaturally raising the horizon ahead. The whole world out there was cockeyed. Gene stepped back and turned around. The room was level, just as before. He looked out again, trying to adjust to the strange perspective. Nearby, other craggy promontories rose from the water like the heads of sea monsters. He bent and looked out. The dark band of a squall line edged the horizon. Between it and the rocks, about a mile out to sea, a long, high-masted ship tacked through choppy waters, its sails billowing, a voluminous spinnaker blooming off the prow.

  “Hey, this is weird.”

  “You said it,” Snowclaw agreed. “Look at that thing.”

  “What, the ship?”

  “I guess you could call it that.”

  “What would you call it?”

  “I dunno. A floating city.”

  “Huh?” Gene leaned out as far as he dared and glanced around. “Where?”

  “Up there. You mean you can’t see it?”

  Gene looked up. “What’re you guys talking about?”

  “Great White Stuff! Gene, how could you miss it?”

  “Where? I don’t see anything but that sailboat out there.”

  “Sailboat. What sailboat out where?”

  “That yacht, or whatever you call it. Out to sea.”