He thought of Gene and Linda again and wondered what they were doing, whether they were okay. They could be in trouble. He was a bit worried. He grasped the bars again and shook. The cage rattled, and the hairless soldier turned to glare at him. Up your mud hole, Bare Butt. Give your dirty looks to someone else.
No use. He sat and leaned his broad back against the far wall of the cage. His thoughts returned again to his friends. He was convinced, somehow, that Gene was in trouble. Linda he wasn’t sure about. But he was certain that Gene needed him. He had no idea how he knew that, but he knew it for sure.
He could almost see Gene. He closed his fierce yellow eyes. He could! He could actually see his buddy now, and it was true, the little hairless guy was up against it.
He jumped to his feet. “Gene!” he called out. “I’m coming, pal!”
Snowclaw could almost reach out and touch him. He didn’t know what was happening, but whatever it was, Snowy was all for it.
Melydia sprinkled more incense onto the glowing coals. Smoke rose from the brazier.
She was not adept at visualizing spells, though her sense of them was keen. But her perception of the enchantment cast around the Stone had become so palpable that she saw, or thought she could see, an intricate network of glowing filaments surrounding the Stone like a spider’s web, each strand pulled taut with extreme tension. As she recited the opening lines of the Spell of Abrogation, the web shimmered and vibrated, emitting a sound like an ethereal harp.
The beast in the cage made noises again, but it did not distract her. She barely noticed it.
She finished the Greater Invocation. Soon, Incarnadine, soon. You will show yourself, and you think you will have me, but you will be wrong. I am now far more powerful than you — than anyone one in this world. And once the demon is loose, it will do my bidding. You will control it no longer.
She regarded the Stone again. Around it, glowing strands of red, green, purple, and yellow entwined sinuously in a filigree of magic. She blinked her eyes and it was gone. Then, slowly, it returned. Yes, it was really there. She was not just imagining it.
She looked over her shoulder. The servants sat huddled as far away from her as they dared. The young one looked frightened. She would try to prevent him from dying immediately, so as not to upset the others. It would be difficult, though, as the spell called for a great quantity of virgin’s blood. She would endeavor to put the least amount to good use. She cared nothing for the boy. At one time, long ago, she would have balked at such an act. In fact, it would have horrified her. But after years of delving into the Recondite Arts —
“Your Ladyship.”
She turned her head. It was the soldier.
“What is it?”
“The beast. It is no longer in its cage. It is nowhere to be found.”
“Have you been watching it?”
“Yes, my lady, just as you said. But it … it disappeared. One moment I was looking at it, and the next —”
“No matter,” she said. “Do not bother to search for it. I doubt it will return here. Return to your post and do not disturb me again.”
“Yes, Your Ladyship.”
Sometimes she forgot that everyone in this castle was a magician to some extent. Be that as it may.
She began another incantation.
Elsewhere, And Back Again
“At last I have you, Count Ciancia!”
From the floor Gene looked up at a man who was dressed in something that vaguely evoked The Three Musketeers and similar costume epics.
Gene said, “Huh?”
“I know not by what thaumaturgy you have contrived to change your appearance, or how this secret chamber was instantly revealed, but I know you, Count, for the fiend you are.”
“Wait a minute,” Gene said, struggling to his feet.
The man drew a rapier, whipped it about briefly, and fell into a fencing stance. “Be on your guard, sorcerer!”
“Hold it!” Gene yelled, raising his hand. “You’ve got it all wrong. I’m not this Count whatever you call him. You —”
“More lies!” the man hissed, anger flashing in his eyes. “You spew them like vomit from a drunkard!”
“That’s getting personal.” Gene glanced around. He couldn’t figure what happened after the floor had swallowed him. He’d fallen, but not far, and had wound up in darkness, briefly. Then the lights had come on, and … Was he still in the castle?
“Have at you!” The man charged.
Gene barely had time to draw his sword. He sidestepped the middle-aged man’s lunge, ran out of the alcove in which he’d found himself and into a spacious seventeenth century drawing room. He instantly realized that he’d just crossed a portal.
His antagonist chased after him, still yelling but now quite unintelligibly. On this side of the portal there’d be no communication at all.
Gene backed away, brandishing his sword. The weapons were mismatched, of course, broadsword against rapier, but Gene didn’t know enough about weaponry to guess who’d have the advantage, if any.
He found out quick. His opponent was a passable swordsman, and the rapier’s tip nearly skewered Gene three times before he had time to back out of range, parrying desperately. If Gene could bring the full force of the broadsword against the thin steel of the rapier’s blade, the rapier would break. But his opponent wasn’t about to let him do it. The man stayed with feint-and-lunge maneuvers that kept the rapier unpredictably darting about, avoiding contact with Gene’s heavy weapon.
The portal might close any second. He would somehow have to maneuver back toward the far wall. But Gene was not in charge. His opponent would determine who would go where. On the positive side, the man was no expert. Although he couldn’t fathom why, Gene had the feeling that he could hold his own with a fencing sword too. This flashed through his mind when he saw the crossed épées above the mantelpiece.
His back to the fireplace, he swung wildly with the broadsword and fended his opponent off, then overturned a stuffed chair to block him. Taking advantage of the momentary distraction, Gene reached back and fumbled with one of the crossed swords — it fell and rolled away. He reached again, grasped the remaining épée by its cupped hilt, and ran off toward the alcove.
“Coward!” the man yelled when Gene had recrossed the boundary. He was in the castle again — he could tell by the distinctive purplish-gray stone — but the chamber was a cul-de-sac. He had nowhere to run.
Gene switched the épée to his right hand and put it up against the man’s thrusting attack, neatly parrying and delivering a riposte that the man had trouble beating away.
The man’s expression changed. He was a little less sure of himself.
“Just who the hell are you?” Gene demanded.
“As if you didn’t know!” came the answer, along with a forceful beat against Gene’s sword and a savage lunge.
“I’m not Count Whozis,” Gene said, calmly beating back and riposting. “Isn’t that apparent by now?” The sword felt like part of his hand, as if he were born to be a swordsman.
“No other human dwells in this place. If you are not Giovanni Luigino, the Count di Ciancia, then you are one of his familiars, and if that is true, I should be dead! But I’m not. So you must be he, though you bear no resemblance to the fiend.”
“Okay —” Gene feinted, then attacked the man’s left shoulder. His opponent parried, but couldn’t riposte due to Gene’s expert follow-up attack to the middle. “What’s this guy done, anyway?”
“Damn you to hell! You know more than I what foul deeds are yours. I know only —” The man overreacted to Gene’s feint, leaving himself open to a quick lunge, which he had to hastily beat away, retreating. “I know only that you have raped my baby daughter and have forever soiled her reputation.”