Castle Perilous

Lower Levels

“I’m just not strong enough,” Linda was saying. “She’s frighteningly powerful. I could tell.”

Gene said, “I think you’re right about her being up to some kind of dirty work. No telling what. It must have something to do with that jewel, though.”

“Well, we can rule out stealing it. So she must want to tap the thing’s power.”

“Obviously,” Jacoby said.

“To do what?” Gene wondered.

Jacoby’s smile was strange. “To do anything she wants to do.”

“She’s in cahoots with the besiegers, that’s for sure,” Gene said. “So, it might have something to do with completing the final takeover of the castle.”

“She wants to take control of the jewel,” Linda said. “To take control away from Lord Incarnadine.”

“A good guess,” Gene said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve hit it right on the head.” He looked around, then pointed to the intersection of tunnels up ahead. “I’m pretty sure that’s the corridor we were in when the big cats hit.”

“Let’s face it,” Linda said. “We’re lost again.”

Jacoby let out a long sigh. “Oh, dear, I must sit down.” To no avail he searched the corridor for something to sit on.

“It’s just a little farther,” Gene said.

It wasn’t. They stopped to rest again, sitting down in the middle of the bare stone passageway.

“I don’t know how long it’s been since I slept,” Gene said, then yawned.

“Don’t start!” Linda said. But she caught it too.

A low rumbling sounded. The floor shook, and the walls seemed to become rubbery and pliant. It lasted for about twenty seconds, then stopped.

“No telling what that was all about,” Gene said.

Linda looked off, as if hearing or perhaps sensing something.

“Funny,” she said.

“What?” Gene asked.

“I’m beginning to develop a sixth sense, or something like it. She’s started whatever it is she’s up to.”

“Yeah? Any idea of what she’s doing?”

“Something magical. Probably putting a spell on that big jewel.”

“Maybe she wants to have it set in a nice eighteen-carat gold ring.”

“Or maybe …”

“Yeah?”

Linda shook her head. “I’m not sure. I get the sense that she’s going to destroy something, or undo something.” She drew her knees up and wrapped her arms about them. She looked off again. “Maybe the rock is more important than the jewel.”

Gene said, “Look, if you’re getting all these psychic vibrations, you should be able to get us back to the Brain room.”

Linda cocked a thumb over her shoulder. “I know it’s in that direction. But I don’t know what tunnel will get us there.”

“Oh. Kwip, how about taking a little jaunt through this wall and seeing what’s on the other side?”

“Aye,” Kwip said, getting up. He disappeared into the wall.

“Still can’t get over that,” Gene said, rising. “Christ, this floor is colder than a witch’s — well, whatever.”

“You’d better watch what you say, pal,” Linda said.

“Sorry.”

“You’ll get so bewitched, you won’t know —”

Kwip came striding out of the wall, shaking his head.

“Tis naught but solid stone. I began to feel a mite strange, so I turned about.”

Gene let himself fall back against the wall. “Hell.” He yawned again. “When the hell is my turn? I gotta get me some magic soon.”

“I thought you had it,” Linda said.

“You kidding? See me doing anything enchanting here?”

“No, I meant the way you sword-fought.”

Gene laughed. “You gotta be pulling my leg. Why, I barely —”

“I caught glimpses of your bladecraft,” Kwip said. “You gave a good account of yourself.”

“Against a professional soldier,” Linda said. “Gene, did you ever take fencing, or any kind of military training?”

“Never. Never handled a sword in my life.”

“But you held your own against a skilled sword fighter.”

Gene rested his left hand on the hilt of his broadsword. “It never occurred to me. You know, you’re right. I should have been mincemeat back there.”

“We’d best be going,” Kwip said.

They pushed on, but the labyrinth of bare passageways seemed infinite. Every tunnel that led in the proper direction ended in a T. No matter what direction they chose then, the passage always ran to an L forcing them back in the direction whence they’d come.

The shakes hit again, this time more severely. The walls appeared for a fleeting moment to be composed of shivering gelatin, taking on a translucent, insubstantial quality.

When things had quieted again, Gene exhaled noisily. “Jesus, that was pretty bad. I wonder what’s happening.”

Linda’s eyes narrowed. “Super-Bitch is still at it.”

“I’m getting worried about Snowy. If it were anything or anyone else, no problem, Snowy’d cream ’em. But her, I don’t know. I think she’s in a ballpark all her own.”

The tremors began again. A section of the right wall disappeared, revealing a blinding-white arctic landscape. Powdery snow blew into the corridor.

Gene had been leaning against the wall. He dug himself out of a snowdrift, spat flakes and said, “Damn it.”

“Gene, get out of there!” Linda yelled.

Gene took a step and keeled over into deep snow. Kwip reached and helped him out. They had barely recrossed the boundary when the wall materialized again.

“Jesus, that was closed!” Gene wailed. “Gimmie a break!”

“Things are getting more unstable,” Linda said.

“That might have been Snowy’s world,” Gene complained.

The tremors continued, slowly growing more severe.

“Keep walking!” Linda told them.

The floor turned to rubber and began to heave and pitch like some tricked-out device in a funhouse. Then even stranger things began to happen.

A gaggle of pink, flamingolike birds, about a dozen in all, came squawking and flapping out of the left wall. They waddled across the corridor and disappeared into the right. At almost the same time, paralleling the birds’ course farther down, a pale rider on a black stallion thundered across the passageway. Sprinting in the opposite direction came a pack of long-toothed wolflike canines in fur of silver and gray. Meanwhile, in the turbulent air of the corridor, glowing airborne splotches of color along with miscellaneous random images flew hither and thither.

The floor heaved in waves and began to move forward like a conveyor belt. Gene and Linda ran to the bottom of a steep trough, losing sight of Kwip and Jacoby. The walls shook like slabs of rubber. Gene ducked as an image of a giant human mouth came at him, its fleshy red lips parting to reveal rows of sparkling, photogenic teeth. But the apparition abruptly vanished, replaced with the image of a Manx cat wearing a lavender ribbon around its neck. It floated over Gene’s head; then it, too, blinked out of existence.

Gradually, these and other phenomena occurred less frequently. The floor settled down, then the strange visions ceased altogether.

“That was interesting,” Gene said when all was quiet.

The four of them lay on their stomachs, looking about cautiously.

Jacoby swallowed and said, “Do you think —”

“No,” Linda told him. “There’ll be more.”

Gene stood. Without warning, a trapdoor sprang open beneath his feet. Yelping in dismay, he dropped through the narrow aperture and was gone, as quick as that. The “trapdoor” closed, leaving no seams.

“Gene!” Linda screamed, and that was all the reaction she had time for before the next wave of anomalies hit. The floor commenced heaving again, and the waves bore her down the passageway like a surfboard rider on a rolling swell.

The wave motions propagated forward from a point just beyond where Jacoby and Kwip had come to rest after the last disturbance. Helpless, they watched Linda being carried out of sight while fleeting, incongruous shapes filled the air, and rats, bats, and other creatures skittered between the walls.

Eventually things got quiet again. They got up, and Kwip called out. There was no answer. He ran down the passageway calling Linda’s name, Jacoby huffing after.

They ran until Jacoby was out of breath. Linda was nowhere to be seen. Jacoby slumped to the floor, wheezing and coughing. Kwip leaned against the wall and stared off.

“A pity,” Jacoby finally said, his breathing still labored. “But we finally have a chance to talk. Let me first commend you —” He coughed elaborately, then took a deep breath. “You did a fine job keeping it from the soldiers. I saw you take it out of the knapsack and hide it on your person. For the life of me, though, I can’t imagine how you kept them from finding it when they shook you down.”

Kwip cast a cold eye on him. “To what do you refer, sir?”

“The jewel, of course. Or the piece of it you hacked off with the pickax. How did you manage to prevent them from finding it?”

Kwip shrugged. He saw no reason to deny it. He feared Jacoby as much as he did a garden slug. “There are ways,” he said. “There are portions of the body that no one thinks of palping, certain ways of twisting and turning, presenting those areas one wishes to present.”

“You could have run at first sight of them,” Jacoby said. “Gone off and run into a wall. Yet you stayed.”

Kwip scowled. “I didn’t, against my better judgment.”

“Perhaps you fancied Linda?”

“Perhaps. A fair lass. A woman of quality, I should say.”

“I found your staying rather strange behavior. You see, I took you for an experienced thief and a thorough scoundrel the moment I laid eyes on you.”

Kwip’s hand went to the haft of his shortsword. Then he relaxed and smiled crookedly. “I’ll husband my strength and not slit you from gills to gullet. But choose your words with care.”

“One thief and scoundrel to another,” Jacoby said, chuckling.

Kwip regarded him. “So?”

“In the world I hail from, my particular specialty is called embezzling. I was employed by a prominent London assurance company. Accounts receivable. Oh, it was a grand scheme, and it worked for years. Greed got me in the end, and an unexpected accident that kept me in hospital during the semiannual audit. Nothing I could do. The judge gave me three years. And you?”

“Twas the hangman’s noose for me,” Kwip said.

“I thought as much. And that story about getting lost in a friend’s house?”

“It happened on the eve of the execution. I was pacing the length and breadth of my cell for the thousandth time when I turned about and saw that the wall of the far end had disappeared. I walked out, and …”

“Of course. As for me, I couldn’t face the prospect of jail. On the eve of my sentencing I was sitting in my bedroom thinking seriously of ending my life. I was facing my own dark night of the soul, and that’s when destiny’s door swung wide.” Jacoby smiled. “We really have much in common.”

“That much, at least.”

Jacoby grunted and got to his feet. “And now you’ll be wanting to hand the jewel over to me.”

Kwip drew his sword. “Mark you, there is only so much —” A strange expression overcame his face. The muscles of his neck bunched into taut cords, and his arms began to shake.

“You walk through walls,” Jacoby said. “I control people. I make them do what I want them to do. You have no choice, no way of fighting me. It’s a pity I can’t control more than one person at a time. But with the jewel, that may change. Hand it over.”

Kwip’s sword arm spasmed, went rigid, then bent spastically to bring the point of the blade near his eyes. “No!” he gasped.

Jacoby’s jaw muscles twitched. “I want it, now.”

“It’s yours,” Kwip screamed. He then collapsed, dropping the sword. He breathed heavily for a moment, then looked up at Jacoby, who stood over him threateningly. He fumbled in the folds of his blouse near the neck, withdrew the amber jewel fragment and gave it up.

The fat man held the thing, admiring it, his eyes focused deep within its fiery interior. “At last. At last.” He scrutinized the fragment for a full minute, then exhaled and slipped it into the vest pocket of his tattered pinstriped jacket.

Kwip watched him walk away.