"That's the computer I've been working with," Linda said, pointing to the latter grouping. "It's a mainframe."
"A mainframe?"
"Yeah, but it's different from your average computer. Works by magic."
"Magic?"
"Yeah. Come over and meet Jeremy. He's our computer whiz."
Linda led Melanie across the floor and around a U-shaped wall of instruments. Seated at a terminal in the middle was a thin young man in blue tights and a red tunic ― he looked no more than sixteen years old.
Jeremy looked over his shoulder. "You want to hold the portal, or can we let it float?"
Linda turned to Melanie. "Are you going to stay with us for a while? We can call the portal back any time."
"Uh, sure. Yeah, I'll stay."
"Break the spell, Jeremy."
"Sure thing."
Jeremy jabbed at the keypad, looked at the screen, then sat back and swiveled around. "It's broken."
Melanie looked back at the wall. The opening was gone, replaced by dark stone. She turned back to Linda, who, she now noticed, was dressed in black tights, pointed shoes, and an orange and white striped doublet. She looked like she was dressed to play Hamlet.
"Linda, where are we?"
Linda smiled brightly. "Welcome to Castle Perilous."
Two
Castle ― Queen's Dining Hall
The discussion had somehow gotten sidetracked onto music, having started out on the question of whether new inductees would benefit by a proposed formal orientation session. The upshot was "No," and that had been the end of the matter.
"Myself, I like classical," said the man everyone called Monsieur DuQuesne as he picked at a plate of clams in Mornay sauce. He was small and round-faced and wore old-fashioned round glasses. He was always dressed for the opera: white tie and tails. He was sociable, but no one knew much about him because he rarely spoke of himself.
"So do I," Deena Williams said.
DuQuesne was mildly surprised. "You do?"
"Yeah. What's the matter? Don't you think my kind can like that stuff?"
"It's not that. You've never said anything before."
"Well, I do. Oh, I like the kind you can dance to, all right, but I think classical's good too."
"Who's your favorite composer?"
"I listen to it, but I don't know much about it. I kind of liked that thing you were playin' when I came to get you for lunch."
"That was the Peer Gynt Suite, by Edvard Grieg."
"Grieg, huh?"
The dining hall was full. The Earth portal had been wandering lately and there were many new people from all over the world. Consequently, the table bore dishes representing many different kinds of cuisine.
Tall, curly-haired Gene Ferraro was sampling something he thought might be Balinese: rice, nuts, and vegetables in a ginger sauce. He chewed thoughtfully. Malaysian? Anyway, it wasn't bad, if you liked that sort of stuff. He swallowed.
"Edvard Grieg," he said, "was as fat as a pieg."
Deena Williams looked at him. "You say somethin'?"
A man called Thaxton, light-haired and distinguished, was seated to Gene's right. "He certainly did. He said that Edvard Grieg was as fat as a pieg."
"I heard him. _Pieg'? What the hell's that?"
Thin, balding, and middle-aged, Cleve Dalton was on Gene's left. "There's a term for that sort of rhyme, but it escapes me."
"It's called _cheating,'" Thaxton said.
"What brought on that bit of verse, Gene?" Dalton asked.
"Nothing. It just suddenly occurred to me that Edvard Grieg was ―"
"Et cetera, et cetera," Thaxton said. "Well, go on, man. Finish it."
"Finish what?"
"The clerihew."
Deena looked offended. "Cleri-what?"
Thaxton said, "At Balliol we used to improvise them at table."
"Balli-what?"
"Oxford."
A man in Nigerian tribal dress seated next to Deena said, "We used to do limericks at Trinity."
Thaxton said, "I shouldn't be surprised at anything they do in Cambridge." He turned to Gene. "Well?"
Gene regarded the stone-ribbed ceiling for a moment. Then, stumped, he took another bite.
"You don't start a clerihew without finishing it."
"Oh, I do it all the time," Dalton said. "Music? Let's see. Uh, okay. How about this: Gustav Mahler / liked to jump and holler."
Thaxton frowned. "It's all very well to start something. Well, I suppose I'll have to do your dirty work." He took another bite of Steak Diane and chewed thoughtfully.
"Right. I've got it." He got up and recited:
"Gustav Mahler
Liked to jump and hahler.
He wrote to perfection
The tune Resurrection."
Dalton scowled. "Not what you'd call inspired."
Thaxton sat down. "You can do better, I suppose?"
"Maybe."
Many of the diners were in costume. Not all were medieval, some shading into the Renaissance and beyond. Gene was dressed in something out of Dumas or Edmund Rostand. On the table in front of him, a wide-brimmed hat blossomed with a white plume. He had taken to training with a rapier lately and had become quite the proficient fencer. He was good with almost any kind of sword. He was in fact the castle's best blade-wielder, dazzling swordsmanship being his particular magical stock in trade.
Suddenly goosed by the Muse, he sat up straight. He blurted:
"Edvard Grieg
Was as fat as a pieg.
He wrote Peer Gynt.
I sure wish he dynt."
Groans around the table.
Dalton picked up the plate with a roast chicken on it and set it in front of Gene. "For that, you win the pullet surprise."
Thaxton said, "For that, you ought to be taken out and shot."
"One bullet through the head, please. Quick and clean. Except for a little blood and brains on the ground."
"Very little brains, I'm afraid."
"Hey, I'm eatin'," Deena complained.
DuQuesne said, "What are you up to these days, Gene? You're dressed fit to kill, and something tells me that should be taken literally."
"Snowclaw and I are staging a revolution in Arcadia."
"I don't believe I know that aspect."
"Keep, west wing, right next to the chapel."
"Human world?"
"Yeah."
"What do they make of Snowclaw?"
"Sheila tricks him out to look human. She's good at that."
Thaxton said, "I've never understood why that beast doesn't hang about with his own kind."
"I don't recall ever seeing Snowclaw's kind in the castle," DuQuesne said.
"Well, with the other nonhumans, then."
Gene said, "Snowy's always said that he basically likes the way humans smell. Reminds him of rotting blubber. He happens to like rotting blubber."
"Where do the nonhumans hang out?" Deena wanted to know.
"They have their own dining hall," DuQuesne said. "Haven't you ever been there?"
"No. Where is it?"
"North forebuilding, near the Hall of the Kings."
"The Hall of the Mountain Kings, perhaps?" Thaxton said slyly.
DuQuesne ignored him. "There are many other dining halls and Guest residences, you know."
Deena said, "That I know. I ran into one the other day. All kinds of people in there I didn't recognize."
"They would be Guests from human worlds other than Earth."
"I kinda figured that."
"They tend to keep to themselves. So do the nonhumans."
"As do we," Dalton said.
"Nerds of a feather," Gene mumbled.
"Speak of the nonhuman," Dalton said.
Everyone looked up as Snowclaw came striding into the room with his huge broadax, blade wickedly gleaming, balanced across his shoulder. Snowclaw was an immense ursine-humanlike creature completely covered in fur of the purest arctic white. Yellow-eyed and sinewy, mouth ferociously toothed, Snowclaw was something you would not care to be politely introduced to in a clean well-lighted place, much less meet in a dark alley.