“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?”
Keep, Upper Levels
Kwip had been lost for hours; he didn’t think he could find his way back to the dining hall. But that was no loss, as there was nothing back there but suspicious eyes. He had no wish to conduct his business under their gaze. His hand went to the rucksack slung across his back. He had found it in a storeroom, and had filled it with enough victuals to last three days, five if he rationed them. He’d worry about finding more food when they ran out.
He was walking down a wide hallway with rooms opening off to either side. Most of the rooms were bare, a few sparsely furnished. Some had windows, and some of these looked out on strange vistas. Kwip had stopped to look occasionally. Lately he had not. Even the exotic can, in time, become mundane.
Nothing, nothing, nothing, Kwip thought. So huge a place, so empty, so useless. Why had its builders gone to the trouble?
A furnished room! Kwip hurried inside. It was a spacious bedroom with all the appointments, a grand room fit for a woman of high station. He flung open the armoire and tore all the fine gowns from their hooks, looked them over, tossed them aside. He went to a chest of drawers and rifled through it, finding nothing but more women’s things, all lace and fluff and silk. At the foot of the canopied bed he knelt to examine a leather trunk with a simple but effective lock. He stood and kicked the trunk, then grabbed one side handle and lifted. He could barely move it. He drew his sword and attempted to pry off the brass hinges at the back. He soon gave it up and tried prying the latch in front. For some reason it popped open easily.
There was nothing in the trunk but stones, and Kwip had the sudden suspicion that he had again become the butt of someone’s little joke. He glanced about nervously.
Presently he sighed and surveyed the room. There were other pieces of furniture, but he had no desire to continue the search.
He sniffed, smelling the sea.
He moved to the window, and a little of his original sense of wonder came over him. This aspect was suspended only a few feet above the open ocean. Whitecaps necked the windy surface, and the glare of sunlight danced on its waters. No land in sight. He looked out briefly, the salt spray hitting him; then he turned to go. But something made him turn back. Looking out again, he noticed it. The window was descending at a slow but steady rate. He stood and watched, estimating that window and waterline would meet within a very short time. He couldn’t conceive of what would ensue when they did, nor did he want to find out. He left the room.
There were no more rooms after that. The hallway continued for what seemed like a league, with no end in sight. After walking a good quarter hour, he stopped and thought of going back. Perhaps he had been to hasty.…
He heard a distant rumble. More battle sounds? No. He turned and looked back down the corridor.