Castle War! (34 page)

He set them to work.
 

Start the engine.
 

The starter motor cranked, turbine blades began to whir, then picked up speed. Fuel pumps pumped, and kerosene ignited with a roar.
 

Take her up.
 

Slowly the craft began to lift, its directional engine nozzles funneling the exhaust toward the ground. The vectored blast provided stability and safety, creating a magic carpet of force that defied gravity, working its own kind of magic.
 

He put his hand on the thrust lever and the other on the stick. He slid his feet onto the pedals. He didn't know how they worked, but it didn't matter, either.
 

Guide me.
 

He turned the craft east and vectored forward. The craft gained altitude and speed. He pushed forward on the throttle, and the nozzles automatically rotated toward the horizontal as the airspeed increased, their attitude computer-controlled.
 

The craft rose over the trees and headed for the darkening sky. He looked at Alice. She was smiling, confident as ever. He smiled back, then glued his eyes to the instruments he didn't understand.
 

He found the altimeter. It already showed five hundred something—feet, meters? The airspeed indicator was marked out in tens, and the needle pointed to one hundred. He pushed the throttle forward, keeping the foot pedals even. The craft jumped forward into full aerodynamic flight. Now the craft was a jet airplane. He didn't know how to fly a glider, let alone a jet airplane.
 

But for a master magician everything is easy. Let your familiars do the work. Anything goes. Pumpkin, become a carriage. In you go, Cinderella, honey. You're late for the ball.
 

They streaked east, deserted farmland rolling beneath them. It wasn't long before pursuit craft came up behind, faster than he had thought of going. He pushed both the throttle and the stick forward, and the craft dove and picked up speed.
 

His pursuit mimicked him. The lead craft fired a preliminary burst, nothing serious, just letting him know that they were around. They probably didn't want to lose an expensive VTOL. After all, where could he go? They'd just follow until he either gave up or was forced to land.
 

But he wasn't worried. The more he did and the longer he did it, the more powerful he felt, and the more things he felt himself capable of doing. He thought he'd try some more experiments. This aircraft had a certain operational speed capacity—or “capability,” as engineers insisted on saying. Nothing could push it over that limit. But what would happen, say, if from out of nowhere, extra fuel materialized in the combustion chamber and added to the mixture? Just that. A little extra fuel. Like an afterburner. Whoosh.
 

The craft shot forward, and the flashing lights of the pursuing gunships dwindled.
 

That had been most satisfying. Keep it up, gremlins. The bleak countryside rolled by, darkening in the twilight. He banked to the right, using the pedals and the stick, correcting course. The portal was ... where? Ahead. Another few miles yet.
 

The pursuit was catching up. Apparently these craft had real afterburners. Yes, now he understood. How about a little more fuel in the combustion chamber. No, let's not do something that might tempt physical reality. Don't want to overheat the chamber or cause it to explode. Do something else.
 

Invisibility? It had worked before. But maybe he couldn't do it for something as big as the aircraft. Anyway, the pursuit probably had infrared scopes and heat-seeking missiles.
 

He imagined what they would see through those scopes when they looked, and what the missiles would see with their heat-hungry eyes.
 

Multiple images! A hundred targets in their sights. A thousand! Diverging now, all heading in different directions, scattering to the winds.
 

That is apparently what they saw. The pursuing ships fell back in confusion, then split off in different directions.
 

He continued on. The portal was below. He powered down and the computers took over, rotating the nozzles and laying down the magic carpet.
 

The craft floated to the ground, blasting the tall hay in the twilight. The landing gear deployed and the craft settled. The whine of the engines died.
 

“We're here, Alice.”
 

Alice looked out at a lonely hillside. She didn't see the standing rectangle of darkness near the craft.
 

“There,” he said. “See that? It's the entrance to my world.”
 

They got out and walked toward it. A night wind was up. It was almost dark.
 

A VTOL came screaming out of the dusk, guns chattering.
 

He became angry. He had had enough. He raised his hand, finger pointing. He knew now that he could do anything, that he could, if he wanted, be a god in this world, a world that was beyond strangeness, beyond hope.
 

A bolt of yellow fire left his finger and lanced toward the attacking craft, enveloping it in blinding luminescence.
 

The VTOL blossomed into a fireball. The burning wreckage fell out of the crepuscular sky.
 

They watched the dry brush burn.
 

“I didn't want to do that,” he said. “But I did. I'm only human.”
 

“You did what you had to do,” she said.
 

They stood before the portal. He could see the stone of the castle's walls.
 

He grasped her shoulders. “Alice, do you want to come with me? This is not my world. I have to leave it, and I won't be back. This is your world. Do you want to leave it forever, leave it in the hands of InnerVoice? Or do you want to stay and change it, fight InnerVoice?”
 

The wind blew the hay around and stirred the trees, the sound almost drowning out the soft chirp of crickets.
 

“I want to stay,” she said.
 

“I thought you would. Listen to me. I'm a great magician, and I'm going to cast a spell on you. It will be a very special kind of spell. I will give you the gift of immunity. They can never saddle you with InnerVoice again. Your body will fight it off. You will be immune to it. But there's more. You will be able to pass on this ability to anyone you meet, anyone you come in contact with. It will be like passing on a disease, but it will be a benevolent disease. And the people you give it to will be able to pass it on to other people. It will be a gift that will be shared among people all over this world. In time, InnerVoice will be eradicated, and there will be freedom. Do you understand me?”
 

“Yes, Gene.”
 

“Good. I'm going to leave you in a moment.”
 

A few stars were out. The Big Dipper was up in the northern sky. He followed the pointers to the polar star, then turned east.
 

He pointed. “The Outforces are that way. I want you to get into the aircraft and fly about thirty miles east.”
 

“But I can't—”
 

“Yes, you can.” He laid a hand on her forehead. He imagined all the power and all the knowledge that he had flowing from him and into her through the channel of his arm. A tingling went through him, and she gave a little shiver.
 

“I've just given you the power. This kind of thing could happen in this world only once. The power comes from some kind of flux, some kind of flow between two very different universes when there's a tiny opening between them, as there is now. I don't know how long it will last. I don't think it will last very long, Alice, so you must leave now.”
 

She drew close to him. “Thank you. Thank you for all you've done. I'll always remember you. You gave me my name.”
 

They embraced. Then she turned and went to the craft.
 

He watched her get in and close the hatch. She looked as though she did it every day.
 

The engines started and the exhaust beat the hay around. The craft levitated straight up, rotated its nose toward the east, and moved off. It flew over the trees and out of sight. He listened to the sound of her engines fading in the night.
 

He looked at the stars again. They looked the same as they did on the world in which he was born.
 

He turned and walked back into the castle, his powers fading with every step.
 

Back to reality.
 

 

 

 

Keep—Near The Guest Residence

 

“I've never been more hungry in my life,” Thaxton said.
 

“Me neither,” Dalton said.
 

Something strange was coming down the hall. It looked a bit like Snowclaw, but it was yellow.
 

The strange creature ran past them, and for some reason, despite the fact that it was the most fearsome kind of beast one could imagine, it looked frightened.
 

It had reason. Something was chasing it. They heard a strangely familiar chuttering sound and turned. The thing that made the noise looked for all the world ... actually there was no question about it. It was a giant floating chain saw, buzzing loudly and angrily, and it was hot on the beast's tail.
 

The erstwhile golfers watched the anomalous machine go past. It paid them no mind at all.
 

“What do you make of that?” Thaxton wanted to know.
 

“No comment. Obviously a lot has been going on.”
 

They continued down the hall until they ran into Linda Barclay and the beautiful, red-haired Sheila Jankowski.
 

Linda ran up to Dalton and threw her arms around him.
 

“Whoa, girl,” he said. “We're all right!”
 

“We were so worried about you!” Linda looked with dismay at their smudged faces and the singed and tattered remains of their spiffy golf outfits. “My God, what happened to you? What were you two doing?”
 

“Golfing,” Thaxton said.
 

She kissed them both, then said, “You wouldn't believe what's been going on here. First, all the aspects went on the fritz, then some goofy twin of Gene shows up and stirs up all kinds of trouble, and then some goofy double of Incarnadine barges in with six hundred nasty Guardsmen, and then I almost freak out when
my
double tries to
kill
me, and—” She started coughing and couldn't stop.
 

“Take it easy,” Dalton said, thumping her back. “Calm down, Linda, honey.”
 

Wearing a beautiful vacation suntan, Sheila said, “She's been through a lot. She told me all about it. The thing about her double is weird.”
 

“What I want to know,” Dalton said, “is what the animated chain saws are all about.”
 

“It's a spell we cooked up together,” Sheila said. “The castle was full of people who didn't belong here. The situation was a complete mess. We wanted something really frightening that would chase them all back to where they belonged, and that's what we came up with. The saws pick out strangers, anyone who isn't from this world, and, like, harass them. A lot.”
 

Linda coughed and said, “Yeah, they really did the trick. All the strange Guardsmen are gone, and most of the yellow Snowclaws.”
 

“That's the other thing I wanted to ask about,” Dalton said. “The yellow Snowclaws. But maybe I better wait.”
 

“We'll talk about it over dinner,” Linda said. “Are you hungry? Some of the castle cooks came back already, so there might be some food up in the Queen's Hall.”
 

“Well, let's go. But what's this about your nearly getting killed?”
 

“It was my double. I must have some sort of deep nasty streak in me, because—”
 

Linda stopped when she saw Gene come out of a side passage.
 

“You're still here?” she said coldly.
 

“Hello,” Gene said.
 

“Where did you get that baggy outfit? It looks ridiculous. By the way, aren't you surprised to find me still alive?”
 

Gene looked at Sheila, then at Thaxton and Dalton, then back at Linda.
 

Linda said, “When I saw her pull the gun, I materialized a bulletproof vest under my blouse. I didn't expect darts, of course, and the dart did penetrate the vest, but it didn't break the skin. I faked passing out, and then...” Linda stopped, disturbed by Gene's curious stare. Only then did she realize who it was.
 

“Gene!”
 

She jumped on him and nearly knocked him over.
 

 

 

 

Laboratory

 

The mainframe hummed and bubbled, whirred and clicked. Tiny sparks ran through a glass tube in one component, wheels spun in another. It was the strangest of machines. But it was working superbly.
 

“The program's running fine,” Jeremy said, his eyes fixed on the screen. “It's nearly done.”
 

He took a bite of Hostess Twinkie.
 

Isis, Luster, Dolbert, and Mordecai stood behind him. Osmirik and Jonath were talking in another part of the lab. Osmirik was showing him some very interesting books.
 

“Shore is an interestin' place,” Luster said.