Castle War!

  Castle War!

  John DeChancie

  This one is for

  Dorothy and John Taylor

  Fate sits on these dark battlements and frowns,

  And as the portal opens to receive me,

  A voice in hollow murmurs through the courts

  Tells of a nameless deed.

  -Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823)

  The Mysteries of Udolpho

  Throne Room

  Incarnadine, lord of the western pale, sat in state on the Siege Perilous.

  “Bring in the prisoner.”

  High in the cavernous chamber, a bat screeched. Something small and furry skittered across the floor and vanished into a shadowy corner.

  Wrists manacled, the prisoner shuffled in, dragged by two Guardsmen. He was pushed to the floor in front of the throne.

  “Rise.”

  Chuckling, the prisoner got up slowly. His frayed gray tunic was filthy, his black tights torn and ripped.

  “Your Majesty. How kind of you to grant me audience.”

  “We welcome our faithful vassal, Sir Gene Ferraro.”

  The irony fairly dripped.

  “How does His Majesty fare?”

  “It goes well with us.” His Serene and Transcendent Majesty smiled crookedly. “You, on the other hand, look rather pale and haggard. Aren't my jailers treating you properly?”

  “Not a day goes by when I am not the beneficiary of their kind attentions.”

  “I am glad. Getting enough to eat?”

  “Unfortunately, sire, there is only so much rubbish one can consume at a sitting. So much slop, so much swill.”

  The King looked saddened. “No appetite? I will have your rations reduced so that this no longer presents a problem.”

  “His Majesty is too gracious a host.”

  “No amenity must be spared a true and faithful servant.”

  “I fear I am not quite that, sire.”

  “No? Perhaps not. Perhaps ‘servant’ is not the proper designation. Can you think of one more apt?”

  Sir Gene smiled thinly. “I am sure His Majesty can supply any number more apt.”

  “Traitor, perhaps? Regicide?”

  “Failed regicide,” the prisoner corrected.

  “Murderous villain?” The King's voice boomed inside the dark chamber. “Foul usurper?”

  Sir Gene shrugged. “Again, unsuccessful. Regarding murder, may I remind His Majesty that I learned the art at the knees of a true master. You—”

  The Guardsman to the right drove a mailed fist into the prisoner's side just under the rib cage. The prisoner doubled up and sank to his knees. He was some time in getting up again.

  A silent, fluttering movement in the darkness above. Another bat.

  The King settled back in his throne. “You learned not well enough.”

  Sir Gene drew a painful breath before answering. “How well I know.”

  “We have more lessons to teach. There is the discipline of the wheel, for instance. And the brand, and the boot.”

  “Ah.”

  “You hide your fear well. But you will scream as loudly as the others.”

  “I trust it will amuse His Majesty to contemplate that this time the victim will not be entirely innocent.”

  A royal scowl. “Spoils the fun, really.”

  “True, true.”

  “But we'll do our best to enjoy the proceedings.” The King sighed. “There is not much else to say. But I suppose protocol demands that I pronounce sentence.” He raised his right hand, took a long breath, then said hurriedly, “By the right and power vested in me I hereby condemn you to a deliciously prolonged death with all the trimmings.” He grinned.

  The prisoner bowed.

  “Take him away.”

  The prisoner was led out of the throne room.

  In the corridor outside, the Guardsmen steered their charge to the left. At the next intersecting hallway they turned right, went down a stairwell, and turned left at the landing.

  The three were walking along when suddenly the prisoner stopped and doubled over, groaning.

  The Guardsman on the left said, “What's with you, then?”

  “My side ... it's on fire.”

  The other one snickered. “Only a taste of what's to come.”

  “Please, you must—”

  “No malingering, now.”

  “I ... can't walk.”

  “You landed him a good one, you did,” the one on the left said. “It likely burst something.”

  “It was just a tap.”

  “Let's be on our way back to the cell. You can lie down there.”

  “I want the court physician!”

  “Can't oblige, good sir knight.”

  “If I die prematurely, Incarnadine will have your heads.”

  The one on the right looked worried. “He's right, you know.”

  “I suppose he is. Come along, we'll take you to the sawbones straightaway.”

  “I tell you, I can't walk!”

  “Pick up his feet.”

  “You pick up his feet. I've got the rest of him.”

  “Just our luck if he dies. I've got a good mind to—”

  The prisoner kicked out and connected with a solar plexus. One Guardsman doubled over. Then, pivoting quickly, he swung his manacled fists around and clouted the other alongside the head.

  Both men went down, and he ran.

  He dashed left at the next intersection, having a certain destination in mind. It was one of the castle's lesser known aspects, and if he could get through it, he could lose himself in dense forest. He knew a cave not far away where he could hide.

  Shouts echoing behind him, he willed what was left of his strength into his legs. He lurched left at the next crossing passageway, ran, turned right, ran, then bore right again.

  He burst into a spacious room. In the darkness to the rear lay the arched entrance to a small adjoining chamber, which he made for directly. Once through the archway, he halted and gasped in dismay.

  There was supposed to be an aspect here, a magical doorway to another world. Instead, there lay before him another long, nondescript corridor, of which there were countless thousands in the castle.

  He desperately glanced around. This was the right chamber. He knew it well. A veteran Guest in Castle Perilous, he had a keen sense of direction and layout. One needed such talents in the vast labyrinth of the castle.

  The magical doorway was clearly gone. Aspects were known to disappear on occasion, but this particular one was extraordinarily stable, or had been since he had taken up residence in the castle. Rotten luck to have it vanish when he needed it most. Double bad luck to have picked this one when there were two or three others close by that would have served in a pinch. But this world had offered a forest to hide in; the others provided less ideal cover.

  Footsteps closed outside; too late to make a dash for one of the alternate escape routes. He was cut off.

  He bolted forward. The only choice was to keep running.

  But he knew it was only a matter of time before he was chased down. The alert would go out.

  His one chance was to make it to one of the unstable areas of the castle, where wild aspects flickered in and out of existence, where doors opened to anywhere, sometimes to oblivion. But even oblivion was preferable to the refined diversions that Incarnadine's torturers had in store for him.

  He raced on into a gloom relieved only by a few strange lighting fixtures in the shape of faceted jewels that glowed faintly blue. He ran by an occasional blind alcove, no aspects in them. He passed two stairwells, then came to a third. He entered and went down two floors, stopping at the landing to check the adjoining corridor. No one. He sprinted to the left, then made a series of turns, running blindly now, unaware
of exactly where he was heading.

  He ran until his diminished stamina gave out. He jogged along, then loped. He stopped to get a second wind, and jogged some more. His pace gradually petered out to a walk.

  Breathing hard, he stopped, leaned against the dark stone wall. He slowed his breath and listened.

  Nothing. No footsteps, no voices.

  Could it be? Had he truly lost his pursuit? The quiet closed in around him.

  Miracle of miracles. Now he would have a chance to find an amenable aspect. He knew of several where he could hide out awhile. He knew of others into which he could disappear for a very long time indeed, and that is what he desired. The castle was no longer safe. He had tried to take it, make it his, but had failed miserably.

  No matter. Incarnadine would never find him. He would hide, biding his time. It would take years, perhaps, but somehow he would raise an army and return. He would invade Castle Perilous, depose Incarnadine, and take the throne.

  Good, he thought. It was essential to have a plan, to keep ambitions alive.

  He began walking again. Suddenly he stopped, looked about.

  Something was strange. His castle sense was giving him mixed signals. The surroundings were familiar, but there was something odd. He could not grasp quite what.

  He shrugged it off and continued. He wandered for what seemed like hours. No one was about.

  The sense that something was amiss did not leave him. He could not shake the feeling that somehow, in some inexplicable way, he had left the castle. But that was impossible, for clearly he was still inside it. He had not crossed an aspect.

  Or had he? There lingered an inescapable feeling that he had. There was a sixth sense about that as well. He knew when the castle gave way to one of its contingent worlds. There was always a sense of going out, of leaving.

  As now. But what had he entered? What sort of world was like the castle itself?

  He turned a corner and collided with a Guardsman.

  “Gene!”

  Stunned, he regarded the man, whom he recognized and knew well. It was no less than Tyrene, Captain of the Guard. What he could not fathom was why Tyrene was giving him the friendliest of smiles.

  Tyrone's gaze lowered to Gene's hands, and his expression turned quizzical.

  “What's this? Lady Linda playing some sort of prank?”

  Sir Gene looked at the manacles, then at Tyrene. He had no answer. Nor did he have an explanation for why Tyrene looked different, until he realized that the ugly, cancerous mole on the man's right cheek was gone.

  Tyrene laughed. “Too embarrassed to say? Here.” He reached into a pocket and pulled out a ring of keys. “I should have a master here somewhere.”

  Sir Gene remained silent as Tyrene searched for the key, found it, and released him.

  “Thank you,” Sir Gene said, rubbing his wrists.

  Tyrene examined the manacles. “Did Linda conjure these, or do they come from the dungeon?”

  “Ah ... I'm afraid I don't know.”

  “It's all right. It's a rare prisoner we have these days. I'll see that they get stored away properly.”

  “Thank you. Thank you very much.”

  “Well, must be going. Duty, you know. With Lord Incarnadine away things tend to get a mite frantic.”

  Tyrene walked off, whistling off-key.

  Sir Gene stared after him, amazed beyond words.

  When the silence returned, he fell into contemplation.

  At length, he reached a conclusion. He did not understand why or how, but it was clear that he had been presented with a golden opportunity.

  Sir Gene Ferraro was not a man to let such pass by.

  Queen's Dining Hall

  It was breakfast and everyone was up early. The long dining table was heavy with food in every variety imaginable. The coffee flowed and so did the conversation.

  Linda Barclay turned to one of the servants. “Orrin, did you wake Gene early?”

  “I did, milady.”

  “He's hard to get up sometimes. Do you know when his plane leaves?”

  “Your pardon, milady, I do not.”

  Linda sipped her coffee. She looked up at Orrin again. “Do you know what an airplane is?”

  Orrin wasn't sure. “A flying machine?”

  “Right. I'm never sure how much you born castle people know about our world.”

  “Oh, we know a bit, milady. I've never seen a flying machine, but I'm very sure I wouldn't fancy taking a ride in one.”

  “I've always been afraid to fly, too.”

  The man whom everyone called Monsieur DuQuesne was sitting across the table. “I've never flown in my life,” he said.

  Cleve Dalton, thin and middle-aged, was seated next to him. “I always liked flying. Always meant to get a private license. Took lessons, even soloed, but never took the written test.” He lifted his coffee cup. “By the way, what's Gene going back to school for?”

  Deena Williams answered. “You mean why is he going back or what's he gonna study?”

  “I guess I mean both. Sorry, I'm always out on the golf course, so I don't know what's going on half the time.”

  Thaxton, a dapper man in his late thirties, said, “You don't know what's going on half the time out on the course, Dalton, old boy.”

  “I know enough to beat you more than half the time.”

  “Golf's not my game, you know that.”

  “Yes, of course. It's tennis, which I hate.”

  “Gene's going to study computer science,” Linda said. “Grad school at Cal Tech.”

  “Very good school,” Dalton said, impressed. “Why computers?”

  “Well, Gene has always had this inferiority thing about his not being very good in magic. He needs to compensate. Computers he thinks he can handle.”

  Jeremy Hochstader came in yawning. He looked in his teens but was a bit older.

  “Speakin’ of computers,” Deena said, “here comes the whiz kid now.”

  “Morning, everybody,” Jeremy said between yawns. “Sorry. Up all night with the castle mainframe again.”

  “How's the rebuilding going?” Dalton asked.

  “Oh, so-so. The CPU is working but the operating system is still full of bugs.” Jeremy helped himself to eggs and bacon.

  Linda said, “Gene also thinks he can help with the magic if he learns computers.”

  “Magic and computers,” Deena said with a shake of her head. “Crazy.”

  “Incantations, pentacles, all that stuff is old-fashioned,” Jeremy said. “Why can't you run a spell through a computer?”

  “Why not?” Deena said with a shrug.

  “Can't stop progress,” Jeremy said.

  “I also think that Gene needs to get back to reality,” Linda said. “I think maybe all of us need to get back sometimes.”

  “Not me,” Dalton said. “I'll take the castle over reality any day.”

  Thaxton buttered some toast while commenting, “According to our host, the castle is reality. Everything else is just an adjunct.”

  “What's an adjunct?” Deena asked.

  “Something that's secondary. The castle creates all the worlds it provides access to.”

  Linda said, “Well, that's not entirely true. The way I understand it—I mean, the way Lord Incarnadine explained it to me—is that there are an infinite number of possible universes, but they don't really exist in the normal sense. They just sort of hang out there until the castle makes them ... real, I guess.”

  “That's more or less it,” Thaxton said.

  “And the castle chooses 144,000 of these universes and creates access doors that we all go traipsing through.”

  “You've hit it on the head.”

  “But I really don't emotionally accept it,” Linda went on. “I still can't accept the castle as anything but a long-lived fantasy. I think Gene has trouble with it, too. That's why he feels he has to get back once in a while. Back to the gritty, real world we came from.”

  “All good luck
to Gene,” Dalton said, “but I'm staying right here.”

  “I ain't goin’ nowhere, either,” Deena said. “I didn't have it so great back in Bed-Sty.”

  Dalton said, “I think all of us are here because of problems in the so-called real world. That's what opens a door into this place. A willingness to chuck it all and leave.”

  “You really think so?” Linda said.

  “Of course. Haven't you ever wondered why only certain types show up here?”

  “Now that you mention it, I have.”

  “Sure. And haven't you ever wondered why whole worlds don't come pouring through? It's because only a few people—beings—can get through those magic doorways. To everyone else they are shut tight.”

  “We have had a few invasions,” Linda said.

  “Well, I was speaking generally, of course. The Hosts of Hell were certainly an exception.”

  “And so were the blue meanies a little while back,” Deena said. “I hated those dudes.”

  “I wonder how they got in, then?” Linda said.

  “Perhaps a whole world full of beings can hate their own world,” Thaxton said.

  “I doubt it,” Dalton said. “It just goes to show that there are no hard-and-fast rules to Castle Perilous. You have to be on your toes all the time.”

  “Good morning!”

  All heads turned to Gene Ferraro as he came striding in lugging two huge suitcases. Unlike most of his fellow Guests, who were in vaguely medieval garb. Gene was dressed in sweat pants, running shoes, T-shirt, and windbreaker. He also wore a big grin.

  “You're finally up,” Linda said.

  “All ready for my first day of kindergarten. And you won't even have to walk me to the school bus.” He dropped the luggage and sat down. “Hope I have time for breakfast.” He started heaping flapjacks onto a plate.

  “What time is your plane?” Linda asked.

  “Eleven-ten. Hope they're ready at Halfway to take me to the airport. It's a long drive into Pittsburgh.”

  Orrin said, “I'm to tell you, sir, that Hulbert is standing by with the motorcar.”

  “Fine. Bert's the best driver of the lot.”

  Dalton said, “Before you arrived, Gene, we were all speculating as to why you were going back to school. Why don't we get it from the horse's mouth?”