There was nothing above but clear sky. Hundreds of feet below, waves crashed onto black rocks at the foot of a shear cliff. There was nothing below the window. Gene gasped and put his arms out, bracing himself against the stone jambs. The window was suspended in air, floating a few feet above the edge of the cliff. The angle was disorienting; the window was canted vertiginously forward, unnaturally raising the horizon ahead. The whole world out there was cockeyed. Gene stepped back and turned around. The room was level, just as before. He looked out again, trying to adjust to the strange perspective. Nearby, other craggy promontories rose from the water like the heads of sea monsters. He bent and looked out. The dark band of a squall line edged the horizon. Between it and the rocks, about a mile out to sea, a long, high-masted ship tacked through choppy waters, its sails billowing, a voluminous spinnaker blooming off the prow.
“Hey, this is weird.”
“You said it,” Snowclaw agreed. “Look at that thing.”
“What, the ship?”
“I guess you could call it that.”
“What would you call it?”
“I dunno. A floating city.”
“Huh?” Gene leaned out as far as he dared and glanced around. “Where?”
“Up there. You mean you can’t see it?”
Gene looked up. “What’re you guys talking about?”
“Great White Stuff! Gene, how could you miss it?”
“Where? I don’t see anything but that sailboat out there.”
“Sailboat. What sailboat out where?”
“That yacht, or whatever you call it. Out to sea.”
After a pause that contained much bafflement, Snowclaw said, “What sea?”
“What …? Now, wait just a minute …” Gene left the window.
“Where in the world are you looking?” Linda asked as Gene came into the first alcove.
“Move over, Snowclaw.”
“Sorry.” Snowclaw edged aside for him.
The three of them looked out.
This window opened onto a different world. A drop of only a few feet ended on the grassy slope of a high hill. Below was a valley through which a tree-lined stream meandered. The day was bright and sunny, a stiff breeze stirring the tall grass.
“That’s what we were talking about,” Snowclaw said, pointing up.
Gene looked.
It was a city in the clouds, moving slowly and majestically across the sky. The main structure was a lens-shaped silver disk at least a mile in diameter, studded top and bottom with clear bell-shaped bubbles that housed complex structures within them. The silver disk gleamed brilliantly. The city had come out of a bank of puffy clouds, and now its leading edge cut into another. Gene watched as the clouds enveloped it. The city soared through and began to exit into a clear patch of blue-violet sky.
Gene shook his head slowly. “I’ve never …” He shrugged.
“Yeah,” Snowclaw said. He looked at Gene. “Now, what was that about a sailboat?”
Still transfixed, still awed, Gene delayed answering for a moment. Then he said, “Huh? Oh.” He scratched the stubble on his chin. “You better go look for yourself.”
Snowclaw left the alcove. Linda stayed, leaning her hip against the windowsill and absently resting a hand on Gene’s shoulder.
“Beautiful,” she murmured. “I wonder who they are and how they came to build such a thing.”
“And how the hell they did it,” Gene said. “Your genuine antigravity-type flying city. My God.”
“Or is it magic, I wonder?”
“Great White Stuff!” came Snowclaw’s shout from the next alcove. “Linda, you’ve got to see this.”
Gene continued to gaze at the airborne marvel until Linda’s squeal drew him away from the window. He walked past his companions and went into the third alcove down.
Here, again, was a totally different vista, this one of a vast desert of yellow sand wind-combed into furrowed dunes. Dark needles of rock poked up here and there, throwing stark shadows across the sand. Huge winged creatures — they were too big and too strange-looking to be birds — wheeled in a sky washed out by a searing, blue-white sun. With great batlike wings they soared on rising thermals, circling, searching. For some reason Gene didn’t think the object of the search was something that had died.
The next window looked out on forested mountains, and the drop to the ground was over a hundred feet.
The three of them began running from alcove to alcove — there were fifteen in all — oohing and ahing, yelling for each other to come look at this or that. There was another seascape, this one of an ocean washing a bone-white beach under a sky of bilious yellow. And another forest, though the vegetation was unearthly, funguslike and strangely colored. There were mountain views, wide aspects of parched wasteland, nightmarish landscapes with odd-colored skies, pleasant vistas of scenic countrysides. One window looked out into almost total blackness — nothing out there but a vague suggestion of looming shadows.
When Gene went back to catch one more glimpse of the flying city, it was gone. He noticed that the window was slightly higher over the hilltop now. These aspects, it seemed, were not entirely stable.
He left the alcove and went to join Linda on the divan.
Snowclaw sat with one leg up over the arm of a carved wooden chair, still musing over what he’d seen. “Crazy,” he said, shaking his head, massive white brow creased into a frown.
“Yeah,” Gene agreed. He sat down heavily.
Linda said, “I was wondering why every time I looked out a window, things looked different. I thought it was just because the castle was so big.”
Gene said, “You’ve run into this before?”
“Yes, but the castle was under me when I looked out. Not like this, floating along up in the air and all. I would have totally lost my mind.”
Gene considered it. “That might mean that the castle itself exists in other worlds. But not in all of them. Like the one we come from, for instance.”
“No big castle in my world either,” Snowclaw said. “Leastwise, none that I know of.”
“But it’s only under siege in one of them,” Gene said. “So far as we know.”
“We know nothing,” Snowclaw muttered. “We can’t even find our way to the pisser.”
“What was it we’re supposed to be looking for?” Linda asked.
“The armory,” Gene said. “Dalton suggested we might need weapons.”
“Oh. I’d like some clothes. It gets cold here sometimes, and this thing …” She plucked at her T-shirt disdainfully.
“Yeah, I’d like to get out of this monkey suit,” Gene said.
Smiling toothily and rubbing his white pelt, Snowclaw said, “I’m rather attached to this coat.”
Linda giggled. “It must keep you really warm.”
“Yeah, too warm for this climate. I should begin to shed some of it soon, though, if I stay here much longer.”
“Unfortunately,” Gene said, “it looks as though we’re going to be stuck here for a while.”
Linda’s face fell. “Yes. It is unfortunate, isn’t it.” She stared moodily into her lap. “I don’t know how long I can last before I go completely to pieces.”
“Sorry, Linda. I didn’t mean it to sound as if we’d never get out. If anyone thinks we’re going to stay lost in this funhouse on a permanent basis, they have another think coming. I intend to find a way back home. Somehow.” He reached and gave her shoulder a playful shake. “So buck up.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I’m scared shitless myself.”