They spent a good ten minutes sightseeing, then went back inside.
“Well, at least I have a sense of the boundaries of this place,” Gene said. “It isn’t endless.” He sat on a stone bench. “What we have to do is head downstairs.”
“We’ve tried that before,” Snowclaw said.
“Yeah, I know. But we have to try again.”
“Okay,” Linda said. “Say we make it down all that way. Say we find an elevator. We find the front door, we get out. What do we do then?”
Gene shrugged. “At least we’ll be out of this madhouse.”
“But what’s out there? A strange world we couldn’t possibly live in.”
“Exactly,” Jacoby said from the leather armchair in which he’d ensconced himself. “My boy, you’ve a lot to learn. You must rid yourself of any notion that your being in this castle is a predicament that needs getting out of. The task at hand, inasmuch as we don’t know what our position will be vis-à-vis the besiegers, is to try to maintain what we have here.”
Gene looked at him sourly. “You’re saying that I don’t know how good I have it.”
“Precisely.”
“So we all stay in this Gothic funhouse until we either get eaten by slime creatures from another dimension or go bananas. Is that it?”
“Hardly. One simply makes the best of one’s situation.”
“I still say we should try to find an exit. If there’s a way in, there’s a way out.”
“Not necessarily.”
Kwip was pacing slowly in a circle behind Jacoby’s chair. Until he saw the sweeping view from the terrace, he had thought the castle a human artifact, albeit an enchanted one. Now he was convinced otherwise. Its sheer bulk alone argued for a supernatural origin. And its lord could not possibly be anything less than the Prince of Demons.
“Anything wrong, Kwip?” Linda asked.
“Eh? No, nothing.”
Gene stood. “One thing for sure — we’re not going to find anything hanging around here.”
“You’re right about that, Gene, old buddy,” Snowclaw said. “I don’t know about you people, but it’s too damn warm in this place for me. I got to find me some snow and ice or I’ll go ‘bananas’ too … whatever they are.”
“You want me to conjure a snowbank for you?” Linda said.
“Thanks, Linda. No, not right now, but if I get desperate, I’ll let you know.”
“Let’s look for a way down,” Gene said.
Linda said, “I don’t want to leave the castle, Gene. Not for that wasteland outside.”
“Neither do I, now that you mention it. I was just thinking that we should try to find a way downstairs. If the portal to our world is still open, it’d be down there somewhere. That’s where we came in, I think. Looked like the basement, anyway. Right, Snowy?”
Snowclaw shrugged his massive, furry shoulders. “Hard to tell.”
“Yeah, I know. But let’s give it a try anyway.”
“Sure.”
Jacoby was laughing silently.
“You don’t have to come with us,” Gene said sardonically.
“Sorry,” Jacoby said, “but your stubbornness is rather amusing. Quite admirable in a way, though.”
“Thanks. Linda, are you coming?”
She looked at Jacoby, then at Gene. “Sure,” she said.
“Oh, I’m game for anything,” Jacoby said, rising. “Shall we look for a lift, then?”
Linda said, “Don’t be silly, Mr. Jacoby.”
“Hey,” Gene said, “maybe he has something.”
“Only joking, my boy. As far as I know, there aren’t —”
“No, what I mean is, Linda can conjure one up!”
“Huh?” Linda said, wide-eyed. “Conjure an elevator?”
“Why not?”
Linda thought about it, then threw her arms wide. “Well, by golly, why not?” She stood and stared at the near wall, putting a finger to her chin. Her brow wrinkled. “Hmm,” she mused.
Kwip looked confused. “Pardon —”
“What is it, Kwip?” Gene said.
“At times your speech is passing strange. Pray tell, what is an ‘elevator’?”
“Just watch.”
Before Gene had finished speaking the words, a soft chime sounded. Gene turned his head and saw elevator doors opening in the near wall. Above them an inset light shaped like an arrow glowed red; the arrow pointed downwards.
“Going down?” Gene called.
“Do you think it really works?” Linda said with some concern. “I don’t know anything about mechanical things.”
Gene walked into the small metal cubical and looked it over. “It’s pretty convincing.”
“It could all be an illusion.” Linda entered and stood beside him.
“The food you whipped up certainly was no illusion. I even got heartburn from the béarnaise sauce.” Gene examined the controls. “This looks like your average automatic job, only no floor buttons. Just Up and Down, and, let’s see, what this … Open Door, Close Door, and Emergency Stop. Standard.”
“But why doesn’t it have floor buttons?”
“I don’t know. It’s your elevator. Why doesn’t it?”
Linda brushed a wisp of blond hair from her forehead. “I wish I knew how I do what I do.”
“Yeah, that voodoo that you do so well. Maybe you should give it some thought. C’mon, gang, all aboard.”
They all piled in. With Snowclaw it was a little crowded. Gene checked for toes sticking out, then hit the Close Door switch. Outside and inside doors hissed shut.
The car remained motionless.
“Well,” Gene said. “Here goes.” He hit the Down button.
The floor dropped out from under them. Jacoby shrieked, Linda screamed. Gene yelled, and the car was suddenly a crawl with floating bodies. The elevator plummeted. Gene frantically tried to swim back to the control panel, but Snowclaw’s hairy white bulk was in the way.
They fell for a short eternity. Gene grabbed handfuls of white fur and shook.
“Snowy! The red button!”
“Huh?”
“Hit the button! Hit the button! ”
Snowclaw got the idea and slammed his fist into the control panel. There came an ear-splitting squeal of distressed metal, then a horrendous clanking and groaning, followed by a loud, heavy thud.
It was an abrupt stop. Everyone wound up in a heap on the floor. There were moans and muffled, urgent requests.
“What?” Snowclaw asked.
“Get … off … my leg,” Jacoby puffed.
“Oh, sorry.”
“Everybody okay?” Gene asked after he got his breath. “Linda?”
“I thought we were going to die.” Her face was fish-belly white. “I’m going to be sick.”
Kwip picked himself up and exhaled. “This is an elevator, then?”
“Not quite,” Gene said. “It seems to lack certain mechanical necessities.”
“We must have fallen a hundred stories,” Jacoby said, his face a cadaverous shade of gray.
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” Linda said.
“It was my idea,” Gene said. “I should have known that nothing mechanical would work inside the castle. Forget it. Let’s get this door open.” Gene bent to examine the juncture of the inside doors. He tried to pry them open with his fingers. “They probably lock automatically,” he said. He looked at Linda. “You okay?”
She burped. “Excuse me. My stomach is still ten floors up. Yeah, I’m fine. Well, not fine.” She rubbed her middle and scrutinized the control panel. “Why not just hit the door button?”
Gene thought about it. “Why not? Just don’t touch that Down switch again.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t,” Linda said. She held her breath, then gingerly pressed the Open Door button.
The doors rolled apart, revealing a solid stone wall.
“Of course,” Gene said.
“Allow me,” Kwip said, stepping forward.