Castle War

Eight Fifth Hole — Par Four

The ball described a precise curved path across the green and dropped into the cup. Dalton straightened up and smiled.

“That’s a birdie three.”

Thaxton was holding the flag. “We really should have a caddy.” He looked forlornly around the course. “Haven’t seen a soul so far.”

“Must be a holiday.”

“Nonsense. There’s something wrong. Besides the landscaping, I mean. Bloody insane.”

The course had changed radically over five holes. Gone was the forest, replaced by pink rocks and stands of palm trees. The sun was hot, and desert breezes dried the sweat.

“Oh, I need a drink,” Thaxton lamented.

“Of course you do. So do I, but we’re playing golf, are we not?”

“Right. Sorry. Here, hold this, will you?”

Thaxton placed his ball and picked up the coin marker. He took his putting stance.

Dalton stood by and watched.

A bead of sweat dripped off Thaxton’s brow. He stood motionless. Then he drew back the putter, brought it carefully forward, and gave the ball a delicate tap.

Thunder sounded, and the ground shook. Thaxton’s ball was perturbed from its path and missed the cup. The ground continued to sway for thirty seconds, then subsided.

“A tremor! Look at that, it spoiled my putt!”

“Tough luck.”

“I get to take that over. I mean, really!”

“Don’t know the club’s rules.”

“You mean I should have to lose a stroke?”

Dalton replaced his putter. “Oh, go ahead if you want to.”

“It’s only fair.”

“Be my guest.”

Thaxton put his hands on his hips. “No, you’re right. Sorry. Don’t know what got into me. Earthquakes are hazards.”

Thaxton tapped the ball in. “Double bogey, damn it all.”

Just then a plume of steam erupted from the ground not far from the fairway. It sounded like a teapot gone mad.

“What the devil’s this, now?”

The steam dissipated. Then they watched smoke and fire pour from a quickly widening vent. Ash drifted down and began powdering the rocks.

“Looks like the start of a volcano,” Dalton said.

“I suppose volcanoes are hazards, too.”

“Certainly. Shall we move on?”

“I’m with you.”

They made for the beginning of a path that wound its way through an oasis. A mushroom cloud of black smoke rose at their backs, and gray ash sifted onto the fairway.

The gravel path wound through date palms and mimosa. Pink blossoms spangled the shrubbery. Dalton paused and drank it all in.

“Nice place for a picnic. ‘A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread — ’ Omar Khayyám never had it so good.”

“Don’t remind me of food. I’m still ravenous.”

“You have no romance in you.”

They walked on and soon came out of the oasis. Moving to the edge of the next tee, they looked out.

“Incredible.”

The fairway seemed a mile long, the green a faraway dot on the other side of a daunting network of sand hazards.

“Omar Khayyám? You’d have to be bloody T. E. Lawrence to get through that. And the green’s miles away.”

“It does look a challenge. About a par seven, I should think.”

“Par seven? This is obviously not a regulation course. It’s one of those balmy universes, I tell you.”

“Mighty interesting place, all the same.”

“Oh, it’sinteresting, all right. Dragons, volcanoes — what next?”

Something came out of the rocks to the right of the fairway. It was a strange animal about ten feet long and five and a half high at the shoulders. It had a feline body and the head and wings of a bird of prey. Talons tipped its two front feet, cat paws the rear.

“Looks familiar,” Thaxton said.

“I believe I had two of those on the front stoop of my brown-stone,” Dalton said.

“Yes, I know what you mean. Sphinx?”

“Gryphon.”

“Right. Beautiful thing, in a way.”

The beast turned its head and regarded them. It opened its curved beak and emitted a piercing cry.

Thaxton took a step back. “Then again …”

It did not move toward them. Instead, it flapped its wings, stalked across the fairway, and went out of sight behind a multicolored outcropping.

“You’re up,” Dalton said.

“But …that. No telling if it might come back.”

“I promise we’ll stop and have lunch after nine.”

“Lunch? What does that have to do —?Where, for the love of God?”

“We’ll find someplace. This is a golf course. It’s open for business, and patrons must be served. There’ll be something.”

“You’re a bit balmy, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“Well, we can hardly go back, can we?”

Thaxton seemed defeated. “Bloody hell, I suppose that’s true.” He snorted and drew himself up. “Right! Well, then.”

“About a par seven,” Dalton mused.

Thaxton teed his ball, cupped a hand to his mouth, and yelled, “Fore!”

“Nice touch.”

“Well, we don’t want any gryphons getting their craniums whacked, do we?”

“Certainly not.”

“All due respect for endangered mythical species.”

A geyser of smoke and fire burst forth from the desert to the right of the fairway, close to where the gryphon had broken from cover.

“Uh-oh.” Thaxton stared at the incipient volcano for a long moment. Then he glanced back at Dalton. “Right!” He addressed his ball.

They played through, dodging the occasional globules of red-hot magma that shot out of the brewing caldera, trailing a white streamer of smoke, and landed on the fairway. Noxious gases drifted by, and Thaxton choked and coughed. Dalton tied a handkerchief around his face and carried on. Despite it all, Thaxton hit a beauty of a five-iron that threaded between two enormous bunkers and landed an easy chip shot away from the green.

“I’ll be on in five!” Thaxton enthused.

Dalton fared not so well, ending up in one of the Saharas of sand. Wedge in hand, he struck out across the wastes.

Thaxton was on the green in no time and marked his ball. Dalton’s explosion shot came out of the bunker trailing a streamer of sand. The ball bounded across the green, barely missing the pin, and came to a halt in the taller grass at the edge.

“If it weren’t for the heat, the monsters, the falling bloody lava, and the fact that I’d bloody well kill for a drink and something to eat, I’d actually be enjoying this,” Thaxton said.

“Best course I’ve ever played,” Dalton agreed.

Ash began to drift down as the volcano grew angrier. The fumes got worse.

“We’ve got to get out of here pronto,” Dalton said calmly.

Thaxton sank his ball in one putt. “An eagle! A veritable eagle!”

“Congratulations.”

By the time Dalton two-putted his way to par, ash covered the green and the fumes were just short of lethal.

Thaxton gasped, “It’s like bloody Pompeü!”

They ran.

The next tee was thankfully far enough away to be out of danger, but this hole had its own peculiar problems. There was a lake around the green, but that was the least of the worries.

Thaxton surveyed the fairway. “Lava hazard,” he said.

A river of liquid fire ran down the left side of the fairway, bowing out in one place to leave a narrow strip of grass as a bridge to the green. There were two volcanic cones, one on each bordering strip of wasteland. The left one was the source of the lava. The one on the right spouted smoke only, but thickly.

They played. Sure enough, Thaxton’s drive hooked sharply and landed on the island of grass hemmed in by the lava stream. He cursed mightily.

“There’s no way to get over there!” he screamed.

“So you lose a stroke.”

Thaxton was adamant. “I’m not going to lose a stroke.”

“Then swim.”

There was an alternative. Near the tee the stream curled sharply back into the rocks, and at the bend the lava had slowed and cooled, turning solid and forming a partial dam. The flow was pinched in on the other side. The breach was narrow enough for a foolhardy soul to try jumping it, if he could get across the clot of congealed stuff without burning his feet off.

Thaxton was foolhardy enough.

“Surely you’re joking,” Dalton said, staring with fascination into the viscous, glowing goop. Sections of a scum of cooled matter floated on the surface.

“I’ve got spikes,” Thaxton said, lifting a shoe.

“I wouldn’t try it.”

“I’m not losing a stroke to a spot of liquid rock.”

“Suit yourself.”

Driver in hand, Thaxton jumped onto the shoal of solidified lava. He dashed across it and leaped the gap, landing with a roll on the singed grass. The soles of his shoes were smoking.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine, no problem.” Thaxton fanned his shoes, got up, and stamped his feet. “No damage.”

“How are you going to get back?”

“Same way, of course.”

“Hold on, now. If you fall on the solid stuff you’ll get burned.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Don’t quite know. Make your shot and I’ll think about it.”

“Right.”

Thaxton found his ball and whacked it, then went to the edge of the lava stream and scouted. He shook his head. No way. He watched Dalton, who was on the other side of the fairway making his shot.

He heard the screech of a bird above, and looked.

“Hmph. Now what.”

It was an enormous black bird, and it was gliding straight for him, sharp talons at the ready. The wingspan was staggering. The eyes seemed to have intelligence in them. Or was it malevolence? Thaxton pondered the question as the creature swooped.

The claws hit him and he was yanked into the air. The grip was like a vise’s but not crushing. He caught his breath and tried to pry the huge toes apart as the ground dropped away.

Of all the rotten luck, he thought, after my only good hole!

He wriggled and squirmed and managed to get one shoulder free. He lifted a leg and tried to kick the bird’s stomach, but couldn’t reach. He upended himself and kicked at the leg instead. He connected once, missed, connected again, thinking that he’d landed a good one.

He must have; the bird let go.

Of course by this time he was a good two hundred feet off the ground.