Castle for Rent

Eighteen Elsewhere

Deena stroked the shaggy mane of the animal she called Buster. The hair was thick, soft, and smooth. Buster looked at her with huge golden cat-eyes and communicated warm feelings of friendliness, bordering on affection. Certain filaments of the strange and complex organ which blossomed antlerlike from Buster’s head appeared to undulate slightly. The organ, a light pink in color, looked somewhat like a stand of coral, with fine, featherlike hair covering some of the thinner tendrils.

“Yeah, I like you, too, Buster,” Deena said. “I started to like you when I found out you wasn’t gonna eat me.”

Barnaby lay in the grass with his head resting on the tawny flank of the one they had named Jane. Her purring had a strangely tranquilizing effect, and he felt at peace. He was watching the floating rectangle of the portal, which had steadily but slowly descended over the last few hours. It was now only about seven feet off the ground.

“If I could chin myself, I could get up there,” he said. “But I know I can’t chin myself.”

“Don’t worry, it’ll come down,” Deena said.

They waited while the sun inched down the sky and a cool breeze came up out of the forest. The other animals lazed in the grass, some sleeping, others giving themselves tongue baths or simply staring off, preoccupied with quiet thoughts. That these creatures were intelligent was very apparent. Once he and Deena had gotten over their initial fright, it had also been obvious that these strange animals could communicate emotions via some sort of telepathy.

Barnaby wondered about them. Were they truly intelligent, or simply emotionally sensitive and empathetic? Their life seemed a bit too idyllic to require much problem solving. He did a mental shrug. The jury was still out on dolphins and whales; who knew about these strange and marvelous creatures?

He checked the aperture once more. Still descending with clocklike slowness. He shaded his eyes. No, it had stopped. Or had it? It was difficult to tell. As long as it wasn’t rising. Then again, a stay here might not be too bad. He wondered what it would be like. Were these animals carnivorous? They looked the part. He couldn’t imagine them grazing and chewing cud. But they didn’t seem aggressive enough to be killers.

Life might be pretty nice here. It was warm and sunny and quiet. He rather liked the place even though he didn’t know much about it. He was very tired, and he needed a rest. The castle was simply too much for him. He had to find a place where there was no noise and no fighting and no huge white beasts with claws, no strange blue monsters. Just a nice quiet place where he could relax and not have to worry about … whatever. About getting back home. About castles and kings and knights of the Round Table and everyone running around like characters in an old Errol Flynn movie. Worse. None of it was real, of course. Couldn’t be. It had to be a dream, had to be. Just a dream, and soon he’d wake up and he’d be back in familiar surroundings and everything would be fine. The world would be right again, no more nightmare, no more … dream.…

“Barnaby, wake up!”

“Huh?”

Barnaby sat up. Jane got to her feet and stared into the forest.

Deena pointed. “Somethin’s going on over there. I smell smoke.”

So did Barnaby. “How long was I asleep?”

“I dunno. I was asleep myself. Look.”

A pall of gray smoke drifted above the trees, and the smell of burning wood came out of the forest on a hot, acrid wind.

“Forest fire!” Barnaby gasped. He turned and searched for the aperture. To his dismay, he found that it had risen to about ten feet. “Oh, no. My God, what’ll we do?”

“We either get up to that window or run.”

“I’ll never make it, Deena.”

“Neither will I. It’s too high to jump up.”

“Climb up on my shoulders.”

“Okay, say I make it. What then?”

“Look for something up there. A rope, whatever you can find. We’ll never outrun that fire. Come on. Alley-oop, and all that.”

After some initial tries, Deena managed to climb and perch on Barnaby’s shoulders. Shakily she tried to rise to a stand, but couldn’t get purchase on Barnaby’s sloping shoulders. He helped as best he could, letting her use his hands as supports. She tried again, slid off, and went tumbling in the grass.

All the animals had left the clearing except Jane and Buster, who stood looking on curiously, occasionally glancing back toward the rapidly approaching fire front. Streamers of thick black smoke now trailed through the clearing.

“That fire is racing a mile a minute,” Barnaby said worriedly as the roar and crackle of flames came to his ears.

Deena mounted again, circus style, stepping up on Barnaby’s angled thigh and leaping to a stand in one clean motion — but she lost her balance and fell again. It was the right approach, however, and they tried again. This time it worked, and Deena managed to balance herself precariously on Barnaby’s shoulders.

“I got it!” she yelled as she hooked her fingers over the lower rim of the portal. “Push me up!”

“I … I can’t —” Barnaby felt her weight come off his shoulders. He jammed the heel of his hand under her right shoe and lifted, then did the same with the left. He looked up and was struck by what would have been, to someone just arriving on the scene, the bewildering sight of a young black woman hanging on to a hole in the middle of the air. Grunting and puffing, Barnaby boosted her up as far as he could. Deena tried chinning herself, but her strength was not up to it. Her legs flailed out uselessly, with nothing to push against but air.

“I can’t do it!” she cried.

“Yes, you can!” Barnaby glanced toward the source of the eye-searing smoke that now began to engulf the clearing. He could see flames quite clearly now as they licked at the underbrush and raved in the treetops. He looked up at Deena again. “Swing your leg up!”

Deena swung from side to side to get momentum, then kicked out with her right leg. The heel of her shoe caught the outside lip of the aperture, but slipped off, and she very nearly lost her tenuous finger-grip. She tried again with the left, to no avail. Then she got an idea and began to swing back and forth through the plane of the window, as if on a parallel bar. She increased the arc of her swing, then tucked her legs in and let the sudden increase in angular momentum boost her to chinning level. Her right leg shot up over the windowsill.

“You got it!” Barnaby shouted. “Get your arm over!”

Deena got more leg inside the window until she hung almost upside down. Using her legs more than her arms, she pulled herself up to where she could hook her right arm over the sill.

Barnaby watched her disappear inside the portal. Then Deena showed her head.

“I made it!” she cried. “Now what?”

“Is there anything up there we could use?”

“There ain’t nothin’! No rope, no nothin’. Not even any furniture. Oh, Barnaby, I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” Barnaby said, turning to watch tongues of flame ignite the dry grass at the edge of the clearing.

“I’m gonna go get help,” Deena yelled. “Maybe I can find a rope.”

“Forget it!” Barnaby told her. “There isn’t time. I gotta make a run for it. I —”

He looked down. Jane was nuzzling the backs of his knees. Buster had something clenched between his teeth. It was one chewed end of a very long and very thick vine.

“Thank you,” Barnaby said in astonishment. He took the vine. It seemed long enough and strong enough. But now the problem was one of Deena’s ability to haul him up. He didn’t see how she could do it.

“Throw it up!” Deena yelled.

Barnaby took the vine in both hands and tested its strength. It had a tough, spiral structure that made it almost as strong as top-grade hemp. Barnaby coiled the vine — there was about twenty feet of it — and tossed it up through the aperture. Soon one end came trailing down.

“Tie it good!” she called.

“You’ll never be able to lift me!”

“I got help!”

Barnaby looped the vine around his middle and tied what he hoped was a nonslip knot. “Ready!” he shouted.

Slowly he rose. When he was high enough, he readied up and threw both arms over the sill and pulled with all his might. Two sets of arms grabbed him and hauled him up and through the portal. He tumbled to the floor and lay still, gasping and wheezing.

Having caught his breath, he sat up. Deena and a stranger were smiling at him. The man was dark-haired and bearded, wearing a green doublet and jerkin, green hose, and thigh-high boots of soft buff leather. A saber in a gilded scabbard hung at his side.

“Thank you,” Barnaby said to the man.

“’Twas nothing.” The man peered out the portal, through which smoke drifted.

Barnaby got up and looked out. Buster and Jane had reached the far end of the clearing. They stopped and took one last look back at the portal.

Goodbye, new friends.

Barnaby heard them as if they had shouted it. He waved, watching the two beautiful animals disappear into the brush.

A moment later, the clearing went up in an incandescent flash and they had to step back from the window.

“I owe you my life,” Barnaby said. “My name’s Barnaby Walsh.”

The man took his hand.

“Kwip’s the name,” the green-clad, dark-bearded stranger said.