Castle for Rent (8 page)

Everyone froze for a moment. Then Gene said, “It's gotta be the Bluefaces."

As if to corroborate his remark, three Bluefaces stormed through the main entrance with drawn swords.

“Stay where you are!” the middle one commanded. “You are now under authority of His Imperial Domination, High Proconsul of Greater Borjakshann, and you are subject to his every whim, wish, and caprice!"

“Hey, Blueface!"

Somewhat nonplussed, the creature raked an eye up and down the table until it found the speaker.

“Who dares defy authority of Proconsul?"

Snowclaw rose to his full height. “Me, that's who,” he said.

The creature looked a trifle uncertain. “Any resistance will be dealt with harshly!"

“Yeah? What are you gonna do, bleed on me?"

The Blueface grinned with a satisfied malevolence. “For that bit of insolence, you will be put to death immediately!"

With a blood-congealing howl, Snowclaw sprang into a blur of motion. In one clean jump from a standstill, he was up on the table and running, huge clawed feet picking their way through the soup tureens and serving plates of prime rib, executing a neat end run around the carved ice centerpiece. At some point he became airborne, taloned toes leading, the claws of his hands swiping at the air, mouth wide and bristling with wickedly sharp teeth, gleaming incisors almost big enough to be tusks. A fire of diabolical ferocity burned in his alien yellow eyes.

The Blueface barely had time to point its sword in the proper direction. To no avail. The splayed foot of Snowclaw's long right leg, which had extended slightly, hit the invader squarely in the breastplate. The sword went flying, and the creature went down, Snowclaw crashing on top of it.

Gene had delayed only an instant. He was up and charging by the time Snowclaw had made his leap.

“Everybody out through the kitchen!” he yelled.

Four more blue-skinned soldiers stormed through the door, and a few of the other males and one woman jumped up and ran to meet them, swords drawn.

Sheila just sat there, a morsel of beef Stroganoff still poised on the end of her fork, her mouth hanging open.

Ohmygawd. What the
hell
is happening now?

Someone grabbed her arm. It was Linda Barclay.

“Sheila! Run!"

Sheila got up and joined the clot of people that had jammed up at the kitchen door. She looked back over her shoulder to see Gene Ferraro crossing swords with one of the creatures, while the big white beast karate-fought with another. The Blueface who had done all the talking was sprawled on the floor with purple gunk running out of its mouth. Sheila suddenly got very sick, and very afraid.

Gene swung his weapon and lopped off the sword-arm of his opponent. Sheila saw the severed blue member splat to the floor. She thought she would throw up then and there, but when Gene's next stroke clove the creature's skull in two, spraying purple liquid all over the place, she was too shocked to react. Meanwhile, Snowclaw had lifted his adversary over his head; he threw the creature against the stone wall. The Blueface hit with a bone-pulping thud, hung against the wall for an impossible instant, then clattered to the floor.

Gene ran for the door. “Come on, Snowy, there's too many of them!"

Snowclaw batted at one of the new intruders and sent the creature flying, but when he saw more reinforcements streaming through the main entrance, he broke for the back door.

Sheila had been watching all this, half hypnotized by the savagery of it, half paralyzed with fear. Linda yanked her back through the door as Gene came charging through.

Linda, Sheila, Gene, and Snowclaw raced through the cluttered, now deserted kitchen and banged out through the opposite door. They were followed by three survivors of the group who had joined the fight. The woman was not with them.

Once outside the kitchen, they pushed a huge sideboard against the door to block it. Immediately grunts and crashing sounds issued from the other side.

“They killed Morgana,” one of the men told Gene. “She chopped up one of them before getting it from behind."

“I saw,” Gene said. “We'd better split up."

The other nodded. “My favorite aspect is down this way."

“Maybe not such a good idea,” Gene said. “Better to get off into the remote parts of the castle. Of course, that's just a guess. You make your own decision."

“Good luck."

“Same to you.” Gene turned to Linda. “You and Sheila coming with us?"

“Of course. Gene, you were marvelous. I can't believe how good a swordfighter you are. Maybe you really are Cyrano de Bergerac."

“No, I just have a nose for trouble."

Sheila hoped he was Cyrano, Duke Wayne, and Sylvester Stallone all rolled into one.

 

 

 

164 East 64TH Street

 

He sat hunched over, his forehead in one palm, elbow on the desk, peering down at a sheet of paper that crawled with arcane mathematical symbols. A high pile of crumpled sheets lay to his right. Stacks of books lay about the desk, interspersed with pencils and other writing implements, three or four different types of electronic calculator, several empty aluminum soda cans, and a cup and saucer holding the dregs of two-day-old coffee.

He threw down his pencil, a weary scowl on his face. “Dung of a thousand kine!"

There was not much enthusiasm in the curse. “Shit,” he added, with not much more.

He exhaled and peered into the coffee cup. He
yecched
silently, got up, and carried it into the kitchen, where he set about inducing Mr. Coffee to do its job. He spooned grounds into a fresh paper filter and slid me little drawer holding the filter into the machine, then poured cold water into the top of the device.

In the living room, the computer beeped a warning. He rushed directly to it and sat at the terminal.

He typed, NATURE OF EMERGENCY?

The disk drive rumbled. Then the screen displayed:
DANGER
.

RANGE AND DIRECTION? he queried.

NEARBY AND CLOSING FROM WEST.

GROUND OR AIRBORNE?

GROUND.

NATURE OR EMBODIMENT OF DANGER?

UNABLE TO DETERMINE.

“That's a fine how-do-you-do,” he muttered. CAN PINPOINT PROXIMITY?

NEAR
was all it answered.

“Damn program is full of bugs! Full of them!"

He halted waving his arms and considered his outburst. “I'm losing it. I'll have to pull myself together."

His eyes closed and his shoulders relaxed. He remained motionless for several minutes.

Presently the intercom buzzed. He opened his eyes, took a deep breath, and got up.

“Yes?"

“Mr. Carney?” It was the doorman.

“Yes."

“Express package for you. Should I send the guy up?"

“Just take delivery. I'll be down for it later."

“He says you gotta sign for it."

He considered the matter. The package would doubtless be the books he had ordered from a small specialty bookstore in San Francisco, whose owner had promised to get them out on the next plane yesterday afternoon. He was not yet acquainted enough with the minutiae of this world to judge the degree of risk.

But he really had to know, didn't he?

“Have him come up."

He sat down and closed his eyes again, preparing himself, until the door chimed.

The express man was young and looked innocuous enough.

“Hi! Mr. John Carney?"

“You got ‘im."

The express man shoved the package toward him. It was heavy and he had to use both hands to accept it. Heavy enough to be books.

“Just sign here, sir,” the man said, proffering a clipboard and pen.

“Just a minute."

He turned, walked into the apartment, and laid the package on the dinette table. As he did, he heard the door close behind him. The computer began to beep frantically.

He whirled in time to see the delivery man drawing a large-caliber, silencer-tipped revolver. He dropped behind the dinette table just as the hit man fired, the bullet thunking into the package. He crawled behind an easy chair, then leaped out, diving toward the door of the darkened bedroom. The next two shots chipped wood from the doorframe above his head as he sailed through.

He crawled to the far end of the bed and remained on the floor.

Then, reaching into a place that was not exactly a place, which lay in a direction that was not quite up or down or to or fro, he summoned the thing that he found there, and it came forth. From what time or space or continuum the thing had come, he neither knew nor cared.

It stood above him, a mass of gleaming metal trimmed with strips of black synthetic material. Its arms ended in huge steel claws, and its head was a clear bubble housing whirling sensors and flashing probes. Thin, many-colored lines of light danced in crosshatch patterns on the walls of the dim bedroom, shifting and changing as the device took readings and measurements. In less than a second it was ready to move.

It clanked around the bed and rolled through the doorway into the hall.

There came a yelp, then another muffled gunshot and the spang of a bullet ricocheting off metal.

“DESTROY,” the mechanical thing stated, raising its arms. The claws swung to one side and dangerous-looking rods protruded from the cavities within the arms.

“No!” he shouted from the bedroom.

“I'm leaving!” the express man shouted.

There came the sounds of hasty retreat. Then the front door slammed.

“NOT DESTROY?” was the query with a slight note of disappointment.

“No. Scan premises for enemy."

“SECTOR CLEAR."

He came out from the bedroom. The machine was already fading.

“WILL NOT BE REDEPLOYED?” the thing asked.

“Return to post,” he ordered, which it was doing, anyway.

It was gone in the next instant.

He locked the door, slid the dead bolt, and affixed the chain. He retrieved the package. The books he had ordered were in it, one with a deformed slug inside that had bored clear through to page 457, which began a chapter titled “Incantations Useful in Interdimensional Quantum Transformations."

He went into the kitchen and poured himself a cup of fresh-brewed coffee.

 

 

 

Library

 

Osmirik carried the heavy folio up the stairs to his favorite carrel, which was tucked into a vault on the first gallery. He liked the spot, snugly surrounded as it was by his favorite things, namely books; but now it would afford him safe haven in more than a spiritual sense. That is, it would if all his hastily made plans worked out. He meant to take advantage of one of the castle's architectural peculiarities. If all else failed, an exit lay close by, should the need for such arise.

Arise it doubtless would, and soon. The invaders would hardly overlook the castle's library, surely the largest depository of learning in this world. If they coveted the castle's secrets, only its library could provide the key.

What Osmirik sought was the key to fight the invaders, and that could only be found in certain ancient texts contained in this library and this library alone. This huge folio was one such text, a work written by Ervoldt, the ancient Haplodite King who had “built” Castle Perilous—or, to be more accurate, had caused it to be created, some three millennia ago.

He sidled into the narrow carrel. Sighing, he sat down and opened the leather-bound volume, which in gilt lettering bore the simple title
Ervoldt, His Book
. The language and script in which the work had been written was called Haplan, which he had diligently studied since beginning his tenure as chief librarian at Castle Perilous, almost a year ago to the day. (The post had been vacant for fifty years before he took it up.)

He turned to the first page, and his former wonder was renewed. This was no codex, no painstakingly handwritten work of a copyist. This was a printed text, which would not be surprising were it not for the fact that it was over three thousand years old. The beautiful vellum paper was not even yellowed. Printing had not existed three thousand years ago, nor three hundred—except, obviously, in Castle Perilous, by whose magic all manner of things was possible.

The author's prefatory material was short. In fact, it was rather blunt:

 

Ye who scan this Book be well advised; that its Scribe be no Man of Poesy, nor Aesthete given to Niceties of Phrase. For Such and their Ilk I care not Pig Leavings. I set down the Words as they come, as they are needed for their appointed Tasks, and as I see fit; no more or less do I set down. For I, Ervoldt, King by the Grace of the Gods, have a Story, and I will let nothing bar the way of its Telling. I will leave out nothing of Substance. Neither will I embellish. What is ugly, I will render ugly; what is beautiful needs little by my Hand. I will tell what I must, and no more, and when the Telling is done, I will be done. If any find Fault with this, or me, I say read another Book, and be damned.

 

Somewhat brusque, but to the point, and possessing a certain admirable muscularity of phrase. But Osmirik had no time for literary criticism. His task was to glean practical knowledge from this work, not to judge its author's prose style. Moreover —

There came a loud crashing from below. Osmirik jumped up, left the vault, and went to the rail of the gallery. Below, the huge main room was as deserted as before—nothing but row upon row of open stacks with a few tables interspersed—but now he could identify the source of the noise. Someone was trying to break through the massive oak of the front doors, which were bolted and barred from the inside. Very likely the invaders were on the other side.

Another crash, and Osmirik saw the doors shake. He dashed back to his nook and drew out the parcel that he had laid inside. It was crammed with victuals, enough to last him days. A chamber pot lay underneath the table, along with a supply of candles and some blankets.

He stood and ran his hand along the back of the stone ribbing that formed the inside arch of the doorway. Finding a small block of wood there, he pressed it. There came the rumble of sliding stone. He stepped back as a massive stone barrier slid across to seal the vault off like a tomb. Osmirik exhaled and listened to the silence. This small chamber was one of hundreds used to store rare volumes of inestimable worth. It also made an excellent redoubt for a librarian.