Castle Perilous

Elsewhere

Linda was still in a snit over Gene’s ribbing her.

“Oh, come on,” Gene complained as they walked back to the portal, “I was only kidding.”

“You’ll be sorry. I’m going to conjure one of those things and have him tear you into beef jerky.”

“Well, now, that would be overreacting just a tad, don’t you think?”

“And then I’ll make you eat its brains — oh, I’m getting sick just thinking about it. That was the grossest thing I ever saw.”

“The most fantastic, too, I’ll bet.”

“You said it.”

The portal was where they’d left it, unchanged. Gene stopped, tugging on a handful of Snowclaw’s silky fur to get his attention. “Hold it a minute. I think we should come up with a plan of some sort before we go back in there.”

Linda looked around, found a tree stump, brushed it off and sat. “Shoot.”

“Huh?”

“What kind of plan? A plan for what?”

Gene scratched the stubble under his jaw. “Well, a plan of action. Some systematic way of searching for a way out.”

“Sounds great. Where do we start?”

Gene took a deep breath. “Beats the shit out of me.” He sank to his haunches, picked up a twig and made vague markings in the dirt. “Damn. If only we had an inkling of where to start.”

“Mr. Dalton doesn’t seem to think there’s a way out.”

“He said he likes it here.”

Linda looked around. “Yuck.”

“He meant the castle.”

“Double yuck.”

“Yeah. Hell.” Gene tossed the twig away. “We need answers. Nobody seems to have any.”

“Somebody has to.”

“The people who live in the castle might. Not any of the Guests, but the natives. The big cheese wheel who runs the place … what’s his name?”

“Lord Incarnadine.”

“Him. He should be able to tell us something. What we have to do is find him.”

Linda sighed. “I’ve heard he’s very hard to locate.”

“It can’t be impossible. He’s the owner, he should be around somewhere. We’ll get him and make him give us some answers.”

Linda shrugged.

“Yeah, I know. Fat chance. What do you think, Snowclaw? Oh, I forgot. He can’t understand —”

Snowclaw had been staring off into the brush. Suddenly he sprang forward and ran off the trail, broadax raised, disappearing behind an expansive broad-leafed shrub. There came a frightened squawk along with thrashing noises from behind the bush. Then Lummox came dashing out of cover. He scampered up the trail, saw Linda and Gene, squawked again, and ran off into the jungle.

“Snowclaw!” Linda admonished. “That poor little thing —”

“I don’t think he knew it was Lummox. Snowclaw …? Oh, hell, let’s get back into the castle so we can understand him.”

“I knew something was there, watching us,” Snowclaw explained when they had crossed the boundary. “Didn’t know it was that little lizard fella. Sorry I scared the compost out of him.”

“We should go back and find him,” Linda said with concern. “He could get lost.”

“We’re lost ourselves,” Gene said, then shrugged at Linda’s disapproving frown. “Oh, all right. Let’s go back.”

Linda’s expression changed to regret. “I’m sorry, Gene. As if we don’t have enough to worry about. It’s just that he looked so frightened. Sort of reminded me of myself.”

Gene gave her a little hug. “You’ve been great. You have a lot more courage than you give yourself credit for. Besides, you’re also Superwitch.”

“That’s me.”

“Conjure us up something to eat,” Snowclaw said.

“You hungry again?” Gene said incredulously.

Snowclaw poked him lightly in the ribs with one partly retracted white claw. “Listen, skinny. You hairless types might be able to keep going on a few nibbles now and then, but you don’t run a mighty engine of destruction like yours truly on birdseed.”

Gene rubbed the spot where he’d been poked. “Anything you say, big guy,” he said. “Anything you say.”

“Just kidding,” Snowclaw said. “But I do have an awful big appetite. Can’t help it.”

“You got it!” Linda said brightly. On the floor at her feet was a platter of kwalkarkk ribs.

Snowclaw sniffed. “Smell that shrackk sauce. Thanks, Linda.”

“You did that pretty easily,” Gene remarked.

“I seem to have gotten the hang of it, haven’t I?” she said. “It’s easy once you know you can do it. Once you accept the fact that you can do the impossible.”

“Superwitch strikes again.”

“Ta-daaa!” She scowled. “Hey, smile when you say that, buddy. How about ‘Supersorceress’?”

“Sure.” Gene was thinking. “The first time you did it, back at the armory — how did you manage to materialize something that you’d never seen before? Snowclaw’s ribs, I mean.”

“I really don’t know.”

“Snowy, do they taste like the real thing?”

Snowclaw grunted through a mouthful of meat and bone. “Best … I ever tasted,” he managed to get out.

“Well, maybe I’m picking up thought waves from Snowy,” Linda ventured.

“Which makes you a telepath as well.”

“Wow. I really don’t know.”

“Do you have to visualize, picture the thing you’re conjuring?”

“No. I just wish for it, and it’s there.”

Gene nodded. “That’s really something.”

Linda said, “What do we do now?”

Gene slapped the hilt of his sword. “Find a way out.” He noticed that Linda was looking off abstractedly.

“What is it, Linda?”

“I wonder if anyone’s discovered I’m missing.” She looked at Gene. “I’m a Missing Person, you know. Officially. So are you.”

“Yeah. My parents will be wondering how I could have disappeared inside the USX building.”

They were silent for a moment, thinking, walking along the dim corridor. Snowy had gone up ahead. He stood at the intersection of two hallways and sniffed in one direction, then the other.

He turned and said, “Which way, guys?”