Castle for Rent

Nineteen Elsewhen

The ruins looked Mayan only because of the jungle setting, but the architecture was just as strange, the carved glyphs just as enigmatic, the hidden crypts as dark and foreboding. Froglike inhuman faces stared out in bas-relief from the walls of buildings whose functions were difficult to guess. They could have been temples, or just as easily dormitories or warehouses. Inside, bare rooms were laid out in bewildering mazes. In one of the larger buildings there was a spacious, rotundalike chamber which did evoke a religious atmosphere, and it was there that the foursome stopped to rest after touring the ruins. The heat was awful, the jungle air a sodden, mist-hung pall that shrouded everything, stifling and oppressing.

The interior walls of the “temple” were profusely decorated in enigmatic frescolike paintings.

“Real interesting,” Gene remarked sarcastically, dabbing at his forehead with his undertunic, which he had doffed, along with his cuirass, in the heat.

“I think so,” Linda said, examining a curious mural which depicted strange bipedal beings doing even stranger things. She couldn’t quite make sense of it.

“Well, I wanted civilization,” Gene said, stalking around the huge polygonal room. “I didn’t count on a dead one, though.”

“No,” Linda said, “I guess there’s no chance of finding a super-weapon here.”

“A knife, maybe, good for cutting out the hearts of sacrificial victims.”

“Yuck.”

“Don’t worry. If they indulged in that sort of thing, they’re long dead.”

Snowclaw said, “Ghallarst miggan.”

“I was wondering how it was affecting you,” Gene said, walking over to his white-furred friend.

Snowclaw sat down wearily on a stone bench and let his sword clatter to the floor.“Hallahust ullum nogakk, tuir ullum miggast kwahnahg.”

“Don’t die on us, Snowy,” Gene said, laying a hand on Snowclaw’s snout and turning his head a bit. “Your eyes do look glazed.”

“How can you understand what he’s saying?” Sheila asked.

“I don’t, not really,” Gene said. “But you can get the general drift. I’ve been listening to his jabber for almost a year now, while at the same time listening to a simultaneous translation. You get to the point where the jabber becomes semi-intelligible.”

“That’s amazing,” Sheila said. “Back in the castle I could understand Snowy perfectly, even though I knew he was doing a lot of barking and growling. But now it sounds just like a lot of barking and growling.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. It took me a long time before I could understand him at all this way.”

“But I still don’t see how.”

“Well, I heard somebody say once that if you watched enough foreign movies with subtitles, you’d eventually learn the languages. I never believed it, but it seems to be true. Either that or it’s some kind of holdover effect of the castle’s magic. I really don’t know.”

“What’s Snowy saying?”

“He says he can’t stand the heat, and that he has to cool off somehow, and soon, or he’ll get really sick. He may even die.”

“Oh, no.”

“Yeah, it’s going to be a problem.”

“Hallosk ullum banthahlk nak gethakk.”

Gene answered, “Sorry, chum. I wish there was something I could do.”

Snowclaw said something else, and Gene nodded.

“What did he say?” Sheila asked.

“He said he’d be okay, but not to count on him in a fight. He’s not feeling up to snuff.”

“Poor baby.” Sheila went over to Snowclaw and stroked the top of his massive head. Snowy encircled her waist with a sinewy arm and squeezed gently.

“Well, wonderful,” Gene declared. “Here we are, stuck somewhere in the goddamn eightieth dimension. Just our luck. We had our choice of worlds — universes, for Christ’s sake! What do we do? We pick some wild, jerkwater aspect that appears in the castle every two hundred years, or something. We buy ourselves a one-way ticket to Rod Serling’s game room, that’s what we do.”

“It won’t do any good to complain,” Linda said.

“Do you mind if I complain just a little bit?”

“Be my guest,” Linda answered with a shrug.

Gene stared at the floor awhile, then said, “I’m sorry, Linda. You’re right.”

“Forget it, Gene. There really isn’t much we can do.”

“What we have to do is some thinking.” Gene plopped down on the edge of a circular stone platform that could have been an altar, or perhaps a stage or dais. “Thing is, I don’t have a thought in my head. How do we go about chasing down a portal that could appear anywhere in this world, if it ever appears again?”

“It may crop up somewhere near,” Linda said. “We just have to keep a sharp eye out for it.”

“Our chances are pretty slim, Linda. We might just have to face that.”

Linda looked away, her face set grimly. “I’m not sure I can. I don’t have any magic here. I’m back to being what I was back home. Sort of a nothing.”

“Linda, don’t say that.”

“It’s true.”

Gene frowned reproachfully. “You’re not being fair to yourself.”

“Please don’t lecture me.”

“I’m sorry.” Gene wrung his hands for a while, clenching his jaw muscles. Then he stopped. “Did you actually try your magic?”

Linda was staring off. She came out of her reverie and said, “Huh?”

“I said, did you try your magic here?”

“First thing. I got all kinds of weird feelings, but nothing materialized. How about you?”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to tell for sure until I get into some sort of combat situation, but I suspect I am no longer ze greatest sword een France … or anywhere else, for that matter.”

Linda looked off again, head cocked to one side, as if hearing something in the distance. Her eyes narrowed. “Something tells me mere is magic here, somewhere.”

“I sort of get that feeling, too,” Gene said.

“But it’s a different sort of magic. Very different. Not like the castle’s.”

“Yeah. Lot of help to us.”

Brow furrowed, Linda fell into deep thought.

Sheila said, “Something tells me you guys will work it all out.” She smiled wanly and gave a helpless shrug. “You guys are magicians. You can do anything. I’veseen you do absolutely mind-boggling things, things that nobody would ever believe. And you did them as easy as falling out of bed!”

“Yeah, but that was back in the castle … ” Gene broke off, something catching his eye across the room. He jumped up, crossed to the far wall, and stood with hands on hips, casting a critical eye over the strange mural. Moving nearer, he scrutinized several details, then stepped back again to take in the entire scene.

“There’s something here,” Linda said, slowly looking around the great chamber. “In this room.” She stared curiously at the circular platform.

Sheila got up and walked to Gene’s side.

“What does that look like to you?” Gene asked her, pointing to the middle of the painting.

“Where, there?”

“Yeah, that rectangle near where the thing with all the teeth is. Behind it.”

“Yuck, what is that?”

“That’s what I’m asking you.”

“No, I mean the thing with all the teeth. What a horrible-looking thing.”

“Some kind of demon or monster. And I think it’s guarding that rectangle.”

“What rectangle?”

“Well, it’s hard to see with all the gingerbread. I missed it at first. Sort of ignore all that rococo stuff around it and inside it. See that box?”

“Oh, okay. Yeah, now I see it. Could it be … ”

“Yep, I think that’s the portal. And I think this place was a temple for the cult that worshipped it. Or whatever they did. It stands to reason that strange, inexplicable holes in the air would wind up being thought of as miraculous things. Doorways to the realm of the gods, whatever.”

“Yeah, it stands to reason, all right. But what does the painting mean?”

Gene lifted his damp shoulders. “Who knows?”

Linda called, “Gene?”

Sheila and Gene walked back to the stone altar. Linda was standing in the middle of it.

“I feel something here,” she said. “There’s some kind of force, some kind of …thing going on here.”

Gene turned around and looked back at the painting. “Hey, that’s it! It’s gotta be!”

“What is it?” Linda said.

“The portal materializes here,” Gene said, pointing to the middle of the altar. “Look at the painting, underneath the rectangle. A circle. It’s gotta be this thing we’re standing on.”

“That must be it!” Sheila jumped once and clapped her hands.

“If they built a temple around this spot,” Gene went on, “it must mean that the portal appears here every so often.” He sighed. “Of course, the question is how often. Every hour? Every other Tuesday? Once a year? Or maybe once a millennium.”

They surveyed the room, looking at the other wall paintings. All were just as enigmatic as the one with the portal, if not more so.

“It’d take a team of archeologists to make any sense of this stuff,” Gene said cheerlessly. “All the answers are written all over the damn walls, if only we could read them.”

Linda said, “I guess the only answer is that we have to wait. Wait for the portal to appear.”