Bride of the Castle Read online

The fearful apparition laughed derisively. “Bruce?”

  “I call him Brucie. That’s his name.”

  There was general merriment. The demon with the still-gushing stump stood there giggling along with the rest.

  “‘Brucie’?” the warrior-demon sneered. “What kind of name is that to strike fear into the heart of your enemy?”

  “I got it secondhand,” Rance muttered. “That was the name given the sword by its maker, and in order to take advantage of all the magical stuff you have to invoke it by its name, and that’s its name. Bruce. That’s all there is to it.”

  “Well, it’s ridiculous!”

  “Well, I’m sorry,” Rance said with some hauteur.

  “I suppose your dagger is named Murray. And the horse? Butterfly Love Moon? Or perhaps Tittybum Upyourarse-on-the-Leeward-Side?”

  The innkeeper especially loved this. Convulsed, he rolled on the ground repeating “Butterfly Love Moon” over and over.

  Rance boiled. “Right, that tears it. Laugh if you must, but you’ll be laughing out of the other side of your helm when you get a taste of Brucie’s cold steel.”

  “Oh, steel-tasting time, everyone!” the handless one minced. Then, an aside: “I hear the real pros spit it out and go on to the next sample.”

  The spectral mount suddenly charged, its rider’s sword swishing like a scythe.

  Rance backstepped his mount, jerked the reins to the right, then heeled into a canter. He swung and blocked his attacker’s slashing swipe. Then his mount broke into a gallop down the middle of the street.

  The dust became a mire, his mount’s hooves sinking to the first joint. The animal whinnied piteously, struggling to disengage itself from the muck.

  The mire did not seem to impede Rance’s attacker. The dark rider turned, reared again, and bore down.

  Rance fended off another onslaught, then dismounted and led the beast out of the mud, which now began crystallizing into dry crackling.

  He remounted in time to ward off another savage blow. This time he followed up and decapitated the rider. The helmeted head fell to earth and shattered like a glass sphere.

  The town faded, its new-ancient gables blending with the gray sky. Soon the phantom hamlet was no more, and the hillside was clear again.

  But a faint voice lingered. “Ooo, talk about rough trade . . .”

  He sheathed his sword and continued down the slope. Big rocks blocked his path, and his mount scrabbled around them down to level ground. The valley of the Zinites was nearer now, but darkness hovered at the edge of the world. He decided to make camp.

  The night was long. Voices wailed in the distance, naming the unnameable, invoking powers of darkness. Greenish mist choked the valley below. Vague shapes moved against the night sky. Rance thought they were dark clouds, but was not sure.

  He kicked another dry stick into the fire and huddled closer to the flames.

  Presently he opened his bedroll, spread it out, and lay down. He took out a parchment scroll—a back issue of Graverobbers’Forum—and read himself to sleep.

  Nothing disturbed him during the night.

  He stood looking up at the pinnacle of the immense burial pyramid. The structure was at least as tall as it was wide, and it was very wide indeed, and was set off in steps—he counted seven. An involved sequence of ramps, each quite steep, led to the top. A forced entrance had been cut into the west side of the thing, a gash in the stone like a wound that had never healed.

  He could see that there was zero chance of recovering anything of value from this site. Hundreds of tomb robbers had plundered it, perhaps thousands. Generations. What was of value was long gone.

  He looked around. And there was nothing else. All had been picked over, searched through a thousand times. He had sifted through piles of bones, skulls—remains of ancient Zinites, or squatters who had died almost as long ago? Zin’s history was a muddle. There was no telling. The bones were probably those of ghouls who had succumbed to the inevitable curses and protection devices.

  He tethered his mount and untied a packet of tools and other paraphernalia. He slung it over his back and strode forward toward the lowest ramp.

  CHAPTER THREE

  at thirty-five, Maximilian Dumbrowsky knew his life was a mess, but there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. He had tried.

  In fact, he had tried: (1) psychotherapy; (2) Zen; (3) various forms of meditation; (4) good old-fashioned psychoanalysis; (5) existential therapy; (7) biofeedback training; (9) jogging; (10) running; (11) massage; (12) screaming; (13) macrobiotic and other diets; (14) drugs; (15) sex; (16) and assorted cheap thrills.

  None of the above had done him any good.

  He had done almost everything there was to do, gone with every fad, every New Age flimflam. He had dared to be great, tried to win through intimidation, pulled his own strings, got himself together, found his own private space, sensitized himself, desensitized himself, sought union with the cosmic Om, only to find in the end that he was . . . OK.

  But he didn’t feel it. In truth, he was fed up, more than a little desperate, and was seriously thinking of looking into pyramid-selling schemes.

  Everything was a mess. He lived with not a farthing to his name in three squalid rooms in the student/aging-hippie section of town. His career history, spaciously laid out with embarrassingly long periods of unemployment, was a sorry record of job-hopping. His present job was excremental, and his boss, Herb Fenton, was a dolt of the first water.

  Regarding (15) [see above], Penny wasn’t returning his calls to her phone recorder. Hadn’t for three weeks. The least of his worries, actually.

  And his present psychotherapist—he was back to (1) again—was giving up his private practice to work in a large university hospital upstate. He handed Max a card with the address and phone of another therapist, to whom he had referred Max’s case. Max had glanced at it, slipped the card into a pocket, and promptly lost it.

  He just couldn’t face starting over again. He had checked with a physicians’reference service, got a few names, but hadn’t done anything about getting a new shrink.

  Working late again. Printer’s deadline for the updated hardware catalog.

  Coming back from dinner, Max snapped on the light in his cubbyhole of an office. The place was cramped, windowless, and drab. There was a desk with reams of paper and old catalogs piled around a battered typewriter and a telephone. A filing cabinet occupied one corner. The rest of the room was stuffed to the ceiling with cardboard cartons. Max sat down at the desk. A note taped to the telephone read: max, call me—herb.

  “I’ll call you ‘Herb,’” Max grumbled. “You have about as much brainpower as a sprig of parsley.”

  He tore off the note, crumpled it, and threw it in the direction of the gorged wastebasket.

  The phone jingled. Oh, God. Not Herb.

  “Hello,” Max answered dully.

  “Mr. Dumbrowsky? Maximilian Dumbrowsky?”

  “Yes?”

  “Hey,” the squeaky male voice said. “I’ve been trying to reach you for weeks.”

  “Sorry. I’m not home much. Who is this?”

  “Dr. Jeremy Hochstader. You called a physicians’reference service, about a psychotherapist? You gave your work number. I traced it, and just by chance we happen to work in the same office building.”

  It took a few seconds for Max to make the connection. “Oh, right. I remember now. Um, look—”

  “I was wondering if you still needed help. I’m in the business of helping people, though you might think that my methods are a little, you know, unorthodox—”

  “Listen,” Max broke in, “I’m . . . well, I’m really not sure I want to continue therapy at all. If I decide to, I’ll give you a call. Are you in the book?”

  “Uh, not really. But first, let me tell you a few things, you know, like inducements. My therapeutic techniques are very unconventional, and a helluva lot more effective than the usual mumbo-jumbo. And my fees are very low. I just h
appen to be in my office tonight. Why don’t you drop down and we’ll talk it over? Sixth floor.”

  “Uh, let me think about it.”

  Whoever this bird was, he sounded young. Very young. Sounded like a kid.

  Hochstader babbled on for a bit, but Max cut him off, pretended to write down the phone number, and abruptly hung up. Rare bird, Max thought. Sounded like a kid selling magazines to get himself through college.

  Max tried to work on the catalog. He did a few product descriptions, working from the data sheets, checked the pasteup on the graphics computer in the art room, went back and banged out two more product descriptions on his word processor, and then fell into a yawning fit.

  He couldn’t stop yawning.

  “Sheeesh!” Max rubbed his jaw. It was sore.

  “Why the hell am I so tired all the time?”

  He needed some chemical stimulation.

  Max got up and shuffled out of his hole, went through the main office and out into the dark corridor. He paused briefly to look at the stenciled lettering on the front door. fenton associates—brochures, catalogs, presentations, advertising. Max shook his head. A long slide from Bulmer, Lewis, and Teller, a big agency where he had worked fresh out of college. Nothing like starting at the top and working your way down.

  Thinking of BLT made him think of Andrea. Long-lost Andrea. She and Max had shared a Cleo nomination for their work on a Kleenex spot. So long ago.

  He took the elevator down to the sixth floor, where there were some vending machines. He bought a can of soda, tore off the tab, and drank as he meandered through the gloomy halls of the old office building.

  He passed a lighted office. Another exploited fool. Then he saw the name. jeremy hochstader, P.Hd.

  He did a take, noticing the spurious punctuation. P period capital H small d? Right. This joker can’t even abbreviate his degree.

  His new shrink. How bloody convenient. Well, what the hell.

  The door was slightly ajar. Max eased it open.

  “Come in, come in,” the strangely adolescent voice Max had heard over the phone sang out. There was no mistaking it.

  Max stopped when he caught sight of the smaller lettering under the name on the frosted glass. He pushed the door open wider and looked at it. It read portals unlimited.

  “Come in, Mr. Dumbrowsky.”

  Max looked around. Seated at a table in a far corner of the office was a pint-size kid, looking no older than eighteen, dressed in faded jeans and a tie-dyed T-shirt. His hair was a bit long and mussy, and his general scruffy appearance went well with a face that was aggressively nondescript, tending toward the feral. He was hunched over the terminal of a personal computer, hunting and pecking at the keyboard with long fingers, eyes fixed on the CRT screen.

  “You’re probably wondering what ‘Portals Unlimited’is all about,” the kid said.

  “How did you know it was me?”

  Hochstader stopped typing, looked over at Max, and grinned impishly. “Just a stab in the dark. Thought it might be you banging around out there. Come on in. I’m ready to help you.”

  Max sauntered in. Hochstader gestured to a chair, and Max, having nothing really better to do, sat down.

  “You’re Hochstader? Doctor Hochstader?”

  “That’s me. Actually, the degree is kind of honorary.” Hochstader stopped Max’s next utterance with a raised hand. “You’re going to say I look young.”

  Max shrugged, nodding. No denying it.

  “I have one of those faces that don’t age. I’m a lot older than I look.”

  Max studied him. “You can’t be any older than twenty-five. What’s your degree in?”

  “Uh, computer science. Why?”

  Max laughed. “And you’re a licensed psychotherapist?”

  “No, I don’t do psychotherapy. I don’t have patients, I have clients. And I get results for them.”

  “Clients, eh?” Max took a sip of Coke, looking around at the office. It was a mess; boxes and piles of computer printouts littered the floor. Otherwise the place was a shabby dump; but that accurately described the office building it was in.

  “Okay, so you’re not a therapist. What about these radical new techniques you mentioned? I have to warn you, I’ve seen and done just about everything.”

  Hochstader resumed typing. “I think I can surprise you, Max. You don’t mind if I call you Max?”

  “Go right ahead. What is it, biofeedback?”

  “Nope.”

  “A new kind of exercise?”

  “No.”

  “Some new diet?”

  “Hardly.”

  “Drugs.”

  “Uh-uh. Max, you’re never going to guess it. I’ll have to show you.”

  “So show me. But why can’t you tell me?”

  “Well, my technique involves travel between alternate worlds.”

  Max choked on his soda.

  “Parallel universes, alternate time tracks,” Hochstader went on, “call ‘em what you will. ‘Aspects’is what we in the trade call them.”

  “Uh, yeah,” Max said warily, rubbing his throat.

  “Oh, I realize you don’t believe me, but if you wait just a second, I’ll give you a free demonstration.”

  Max studied him. This twerp had the look of a high-school dropout. P.Hd., indeed.

  Characters danced across the CRT. Presently, Hochstader stabbed a final key and looked up at the result. “Right,” he said. He slapped the desktop, stood up, and strode past Max. “Follow me for a free demonstration.”

  Like flies to dung, Max thought. I always seem to attract them. He shrugged helplessly and followed Hochstader into a dark adjoining office. The twerp walked straight on through to the far wall, where a curtain hung in an arch. Light came from beyond it.

  Hochstader held the curtain open for Max. “Go on in.”

  Max passed through and stopped in his tracks, disoriented.

  He found himself in an immense Gothic chamber of dark gray stone, its high ceiling complexly vaulted. The place was filled with odd stuff, contraptions that looked like fugitives from a B sci-fi movie. Spark coils, wheels, banks of switches: the laboratory of a mad scientist.

  “What in the world—? Hey, where is this place? Did we walk into the next building?”

  “Welcome to Castle Perilous,” Jeremy said as he passed, grinning impishly.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “do you think we took the hem up too far?”

  Red-haired, freckle-faced Melanie McDaniel stepped back from the oaken table. On it stood her friend, Linda Barclay, blond bride-to-be.

  “I like it the way it is.”

  “I think it’s too high.”

  “It’s a nice wedding gown, Linda.”

  “Do you think eliminating the bow is going too far?”

  “Well, you said you wanted a modern look.”

  “Maybe something more traditional would be better for a wedding in a castle.” Linda reached down and turned up the hem. “Maybe a train?”

  “You said you didn’t want to feel like you could trip at any moment.”

  “I don’t. But I don’t want the dress to look too modern either. I mean, this is a castle.”

  “They why not go with the medieval costume thing?”

  “I don’t want it to be a costume ball. It’s supposed to be a wedding. My wedding. We run around in silly clothes enough around here.”

  “But in Castle Perilous, silly clothes really aren’t costumes. They’re the clothes people actually wear. And they’re not silly.” Melanie looked down at her own outfit, that of a minstrel.

  “Sorry, point taken. But still—Anyway, I think it’s too short.”

  “Depends on what effect you want. Bionda, what do you think?”

  Bionda, the Castle seamstress, looked on as if only mildly interested. After all, Linda, a powerful sorceress, had conjured the gown herself. Bionda was there only to offer professional advice, if it was needed and wanted.

  Bionda stepped b
ack and took a fresh look. Linda and Melanie waited expectantly for her opinion.

  Bionda cleared her throat. “I think it much too short, milady.”

  Linda’s face fell. “See? I was right.”

  “I think the train would be nice,” Bionda said. “Gives a bride dignity. Adds pageantry to a ceremony.”

  “Well, maybe I should go with the train.”

  “But milady, your wedding day draws near! Perhaps you might take this as impertinence, but you really shouldn’t have waited until now to settle these important matters.”

  “Oh, it’s no problem,” Linda said. She snapped a finger.

  Instantly, the dress changed. Gone were the clean modern lines, replaced with lace, brocade, and sequins. A long train cascaded from the bustle and flowed out over the table.

  “Well, now you’re going way in the other direction,” Melanie said.

  Bionda was a little ruffled. “I forget, milady, that you can do that so easily.”

  “Nothin’to it,” Linda said, lifting the veil. “Except it won’t last overnight, if I conjure it now. That’s why I had to wait until so close to the wedding day.”

  “I see.”

  “I’ll whip it up late tomorrow night. It’ll last well into the next day. Just have to remember this configuration.” Linda looked back. “And remember not to overdo the train.”

  “I think it’s beautiful, if you like traditional,” Melanie said.

  “Oh, hell, I don’t know,” Linda despaired. “I can’t decide. Maybe I’ll just go back home and pick out a dress at Wedding World.”

  “Linda, you don’t have time for that.”

  “Oh, right. Forgot.”

  Melanie looked up at her. “Linda, are you having . . . uh . . .” She gave a sidelong glance at Bionda.

  “Second thoughts? I’ve been thinking ever since Gene proposed to me. I wonder if we’re doing the right thing.”

  “You can still call it off.”

  “What? After all those engraved invitations? To the royal family, yet. They R.S.V.P.-ed, kid. Too late now.”

  “Well, canceling would be better than making a mistake you might regret—”