Castle Kidnapped (6 page)

“I want to find Gene just as much as anyone. After all, we're buddies."

“However, there may still be a problem concerning the locator spell,” Osmirik said. “Might I inquire, what is the approximate human population of your world?"

Linda said, “Last time I heard it was five billion."

Osmirik was stunned. “Five ...
billion
souls, you say? Five thousand millions?"

“Is that a lot?"

“Well, I should say so. I had no idea. The task of locating Gene out of that mass of humanity..."

“Looks like we're getting nowhere fast,” Sheila said glumly. “Maybe we should concentrate on looking elsewhere."

“But Gene never passed through the portal,” Linda objected. “You keep bringing up the possibility that he might be off in another aspect somewhere. Why?"

“Because of that darn portal wandering,” Sheila said. “It's just possible there's been some foul play here, somebody fiddling with the portal's placement. Maybe Gene did it himself."

“But Gene's no magician."

“Someone he was with? Maybe Trent ... though I can't bring myself to believe that. Or maybe what's-her-name is back. Princess Ferne."

A troubled silence fell.

Dalton broke it by directing an aside to Jeremy. “Castle politics, son. Palace intrigue."

“There's a lot going on here that I don't understand,” Jeremy said.

“Well, look,” Sheila said. “I'll go to Earth and work on the problem at that end. Linda, you stay here and help Osmirik at this end. Search the castle first, then start looking for some way of finding out if he went through another portal."

“Easier said than done,” Osmirik said. “The task of processing endless data through the spell is the real problem."

“Processing data?” Linda said. “Too bad you can't mix computers and magic."

“Who says you can't?” Sheila wanted to know.

“Well, we don't have a computer, anyway."

“Here's one,” Jeremy said, and everyone looked at him. He brought the Toshiba up from the floor and set it on the table. He flipped up the screen.

Osmirik jumped up and went over to him. “May I see that, please?"

“Sure.” Jeremy turned on the power supply. “Works on batteries.” He jiggled the switch. “Funny thing. You know, the first time I tried to turn it on in the castle, it didn't work. I didn't know what was going on, ‘cause I know I recharged the batteries the other day, and I haven't used it since. But I fiddled with it, and now it works fine."

“Boy, that's a first,” Linda said.

“Huh? What do you mean?"

“Electricity isn't supposed to work in the castle."

“Yeah? How come?"

“Only magic works here."

Sheila said, “That may be his talent."

“Everyone gets a magical talent in this place,” Linda told him. “Yours might be being able to work a computer without electricity."

Jeremy chuckled. “C'mon, you gotta be kidding."

Osmirik was watching numbers and symbols dance across the screen.

“Very interesting,” he said.

 

 

 

Cenotaphs

 

Violet sky, cloudless, a small blue sun low over a distant ridge, sand and fine gravel underfoot, a steady wind blowing across a plateau peopled with stone monuments of myriad shapes. Overhead, a triangle of bright stars. This world was always the same.

He walked among the monuments, gravel crunching under his boots, the only sound on these stark plains save for the faint murmur of the wind, melancholy and drear.

All was simplicity, clarity, peace.

The monuments were of various geometrical shapes, some towering into the bluish-purple sky. No one knew who had created them, or why, or what purpose they served. As objects which inspire contemplation, however, they served admirably. Perhaps that was their proper function, after all. He often walked this plain when he had some thinking to do, or when he needed to clear his mind.

He had just completed a hard year negotiating a settlement to a protracted war. The belligerents had been obstinate to the point of exasperation, but reason had won out in the end. The terms of treaty served the interests of the state which he had a hand in governing, and in which he himself had considerable personal interest, as his family resided there. The castle was no place for small children.

Monuments at either hand: on his left a truncated pyramid; to the right an inverted trapezoid juxtaposed with a sphere. He paused to study this latter arrangement. Presently he moved on.

He had come full circle, back to the two-dimensional oblong of the doorway between this world and the castle. After casting one last look over the silent plain, he passed through the portal and entered the fortress of his ancestors.

The cenotaph world was one of a number of interesting landscapes in the Hall of Contemplative Aspects. He wished for the time to visit them all today, but duty called. He had been away much too long. He left the Hall and began his descent of the spiral staircase that would take him to a tunnel, thence through to the castle keep.

Halfway down the first turn, he stopped suddenly.

There it was again, the same strange feeling he had experienced on arriving back in the castle. He could not put his finger on it, but something was awry. Something not right. He closed his eyes and attempted to pin it down.

Whatever it was, it resisted pinning.

“Most interesting,” he murmured.

He cocked an ear, as if listening. There was no sound to hear. Odd. Now everything seemed fine. Or had there been a subtle change?

“Curious. Very curious."

He continued down the stairwell. He would have to look into this.

Perhaps he had simply been away too long.

The passageway leading into the basement of the keep was silent and dim, illuminated only by an occasional jewel-torch.

Incarnadine.

He stopped. What he had heard was not unusual. Castle Perilous contained many voices, many spirits. The bones of his ancestors lay in crypts all around, three thousand years' worth of bones. Sometimes the voices called his name. Mostly they nattered unintelligibly. The castle itself had a voice, the voice of the demon out of which the castle had been magicked long ago, but that voice had been silent for the last few years. The only other spirit in the habit of babbling at him was the ghost of his first betrothed, the Lady Melydia, who had died an unnatural death a few years ago, victim of a consuming madness.

This new voice was different, however. He oriented himself this way and that, as though his body were an antenna.

Incarnadine, hear me.

There! It was coming from one of the family crypts; one of the oldest ones, in fact. He felt obliged to answer such a venerable source.

The tunnel branched off ahead, and he bore right, down a narrower and even dimmer passage, at the end of which stood a cast-iron door set about with various fanciful creatures in bas-relief.

He waved his hand, and the door emitted a sharp click; then, seemingly of its own volition, it swung open with much creaking and groaning.

A strange pale light emanated from the chamber within. He approached carefully, and looked into the crypt.

He beheld a strange sight: the vaporous image of a man standing beside an ancient sarcophagus. Tall, gaunt, bedecked in kingly robes, the specter regarded him enigmatically for a moment. Then it spoke.

“
My hour is almost come,
” it said, “
when I to sulphurous and tormenting flames must render up myself.
"

“Alas, poor ghost,” Incarnadine replied.

“
Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing to—
"

“Begging your pardon, Ancestor,” Incarnadine broke in “but do we really need all the traditional ghostly rhetoric? It's rather a bore, if you don't mind my saying so."

“
Frightfully sorry
,” the ghost said. “
This is my first haunting, you know. Didn't quite know what proper form was. Sorry, Sorry. Well, then—
” The ghost seemed at a loss.

“Why don't you just warn me against whatever it was that you were going to warn me against?” Incarnadine said. “That more or less was what you were about to do, wasn't it?"

“
As a matter of fact, yes. Well I seem to have gone and botched the whole thing, haven't I?
"

“Not at all."

“
You're so very kind. See here; do you know who I am?
"

Incarnadine looked off, mentally counting crypts. “Let's see, you'd be ... Ervoldt the Sixth?"

“
Seventh. Quite all right, I was a nobody and damned well know it. Just happened to be handy when the job came up. Well, we might as well get on with it. You would do well to heed these words, Incarnadine. Someone has been tampering with the interdimensional forces which hold the worlds together.
"

“I know."

“
You do?
” The ghost of Ervoldt VII was crestfallen. “
Well all this seems to have been of doubtful utility, I must say.
"

“Not so. I had merely suspected. Now I know."

“
Eh? Oh, I see. Quite so, quite so.
"

“You have my humble thanks, Ancestor."

“
It's nothing, nothing at all. I'm told you're a fine boy, a worthy continuation of the family line. Done rather well for yourself.
"

“I do my best. Grandfather, do you have any idea of who might be responsible?"

The ghost chortled. “
Not the bloody vaguest idea! You'd think so, wouldn't you? Most people think the dead know everything. Truth is, you can't see a blessed thing from the other side!
"

“Then how are you so sure about the tampering?"

“
Oh, no mistaking that. It makes my head hurt, actually. Celestial spheres ringing, bonging, all sorts of clanging about. Dreadful racket!
"

“I see. Again, you have my thanks. One thing, though. You were fooling about the sulphurous and tormenting flames, were you not?"

“
Of course. Don't want to let on what it's really like. People would be killing themselves to get here.
"

“What's it like?"

“
Oh, splendid, splendid! I was just sitting down to a game of seven-cards-up when the call came. You should see—
” The ghost gathered himself up. “
Well, there I almost went and put my foot in it. The others might take a dim view of me tipping our hand. Eh?
” He laughed good-naturedly.

“Your secret is safe with me."

“
Stout fellow.
” Lacking anything more to say, Ervoldt shrugged. “
Well, must dash off. May the gods watch over you. Be well.
"

“Farewell, Ancestor."

The apparition turned abruptly, strode toward the wall, and passed through it in classic ghostly fashion, disappearing into the stone.

“Not a bad haunting, after all,” Incarnadine said. He closed the crypt and continued on his way. He had a great deal of work to do.

 

 

 

Wilderness

 

He had traveled about seven hundred miles in three days, not bad progress for an off-road vehicle over rugged terrain. But thousands of miles of sand and rock still lay between him and Annau. In the past, transportation on the planet had not always been so difficult, but the Umoi had eventually ripped up their vast highway system to allow the planet to revert to its natural state. An underground pneumatic tube network was still extant, but city had informed him that it was in bad repair.

He was still in communication with Zond, but Zond had no way to rescue him in the event of a breakdown. Fortunately, the teardrop-shaped Umoi land rover seemed in no danger of failure, its nuclear-fusion engines humming smoothly, its shape-changing “tires” flowing over rock and ridge like giant amoebae.

He was enjoying the scenery. It was a colorful world for all its desolation, ocher sky arching over the deeper yellows and browns of the desert, both relieved by pink strata thrusting up at sharp angles. Gene never tired of watching the terrain roll by, bleak as it was.

He did not have to drive, as the vehicle was quite capable of directing itself. It merely needed specific instructions now and then: stop in two hours for a maintenance check; continue on this course until told otherwise; take the safest route, not necessarily the fastest; etc. Nevertheless, he did like to take the controls at times, just for something to do.

He was at the helm now as the vehicle came out of rugged country, easing down a slope toward the edge of a wide, flat depression that stretched ahead for miles. He checked the controls, then switched the vehicle over to automatic. Intending to get some sleep, he climbed into the aft compartment.

He was optimistic about his chances of making it to Annau. What he would do when he got there was another matter. Annau was also a machine intelligence, but Zond had lost contact with it and the rest of the cities ages ago. If Annau was still operative, Gene intended to establish communication with it and beg its help in finding the interdimensional device. Then...

One step at a time, he thought. First get there. Let's not think about the rest of it. The whole enterprise was the longest of long shots, anyway. Best not to dwell on the —

The vehicle shook under a strong impact that knocked him out of the hammock affair he used as a bed. He crawled into the forward compartment and looked out the right view bubble. Nothing. After another concussion hit, he stuck his head into the left bubble, looking toward the rear.

He was shocked by the sight of a huge, three-horned, six-footed beast ramming its massive head against the side of the vehicle. Looking like a cross between a rhinoceros and a giant armadillo, the creature had already done some damage, albeit superficial.

He upped the power control and looked back again. The animal matched speed easily. Obviously it could move fast. He had never pushed the vehicle over thirty miles an hour and was unsure of its top speed. There was no telling what the animal could do. For all its bulk, the thing looked capable of hitting fifty at a walk. The ground shook as it ran, its powerful legs, as thick as tree trunks, moving like pistons.