“He’ll be here to dust and change your litterbox,” I reminded Svartalf in my sternest voice. “You’ll have the run of the place, and you can fly up the chimney’s on the whisk broom anytime you want fresh air. But, the Brownie is off limits, bucko, and if I come back and hear you’ve been after him, I’ll take wolf-shape and tree you. Understand?”
Svartalf jerked his tail at me, straight upward.
Virginia Graylock, who had for an incredible few hours been Mrs. Steven Matuchek, entered the living room. I was so stunned by the view of tall slenderness in a white dress, straight aristocratic features and red hair shouting down to her shoulders, that the voice didn’t register except as a symphonic accompaniment. She had to repeat: “Darling, are you absolutely sure we can’t take him? His feelings are hurt.”
I recovered enough to say, “His feelings are made of tool steel. It’s okay if he wants to share our bed when we get back, I guess—within reason—but fifteen pounds of black witchcat on my stomach when I’m honeymooning is out of reason. Besides, what’s worse, he’d prefer your stomach.”
Ginny blushed. “It will be odd without my familiar, after these many years. If he promised to behave—”
Svartalf, who had been standing on a table, rubbed against her hip and purred. Which was not a bad idea, I thought. However, I had my foot down and wasn’t about to lift it. “He’s incapable of behaving,” I said. “And you won’t need him. We’re going to forget the world and its work, aren’t we? I’m not going to study any texts, nor visit any of my fellow theriomorphs, even that were-coyote family down at Acapulco who invited us to drop in. It’s going to be just us two, and I don’t want any pussy—” I braked as fast as possible. She didn’t notice, only sighed a little, nodded, and stroked a soothing hand across the cat’s back.
“Very well, dear,” she said. With a flick of her earlier self: “Enjoy wearing the family pants while you can.”
“I intend to do so all the time,” I bragged.
She cocked her head. “All the time?” Hastily: “We’d best be on our way. Everything’s packed.”
“Check, mate.” I agreed. She stuck out her tongue at me. I patted Svartalf. “So long, chum. No grudges, I trust?” He bit a piece out of my hand and said he supposed not. Ginny hugged him, seized my arm, and hurried me out.
The home to which we’d be coming back was a third-floor apartment near Trismegistus University. Our wedding this morning had been quiet, a few friends at the church, a luncheon afterward at somebody’s house, and then we made our farewells. But Ginny’s connections in New York and mine in Hollywood have money. Several people had clubbed together to give us a Persian carpet: a somewhat overwhelming present, but show me the bridal couple who don’t like a touch a of luxury.
It lay on the landing, its colors aglow in the sun. Our baggage was piled in the rear. We snuggled down side by side on cushions of polymerized sea foam. Ginny murmured the command words. We started moving so smoothly I didn’t notice when we were airborne. The carpet wasn’t as fast or flashy as a sports-model broomstick, but the three hundred dragonpower spell on it got us out of the city in minutes.
Midwestern plains rolled green and enormous beneath us, here and there a river like argent ribbon; but we were alone with birds and clouds. No wind off’ our passage got by the force screen. Ginny slipped her dress. She had a sunsuit beneath it, and now I understand transistor theory; the absence of material has as real an existence as the presence. We sunbathed on our way south, stopped at twilight for supper at a charming little restaurant in the Ozarks, and decided not to stay in a broomotel. Instead we flew on. The carpet was soft and thick and roomy. I started to raise the convertible top, but Ginny said we’d keep warm if we flew low, and she was right. Stars crowded the sky, until a big yellow Southern moon rose to drown half of them, and the air was murmurous, and we could hear crickets chorus from the dark earth below, and nothing else is any of your business.
XV
I knew exactly where I was bound. A wartime friend of mine, Juan Fernandez, had put his Army experience to good use. He’d been in the propaganda section, and done many excellent scripts. These days, instead of preparing nightmares to send the enemy, he was broadcasting a popular dream series, and his sponsors were paying him accordingly. In fact, everyone loved Fernandez except the psychoanalysts, and they’re obsolete now that scientific research has produced some really efficient antipossession techniques. Last year he had built a lodge in the country of his ancestors. It stood entirely by itself on the Sonora coast, at one of the loneliest spots on Midgard and one of the most beautiful. Fernandez had offered me. the use of it this month, and finny and I had set our wedding date accordingly.
We glided down about noon the next day. Westward the Gulf of California burned blue and molten, white. Surf broke on a wide strip of sand beach, cliffs rose tier upon tier, finally the land itself rolled off to the east, dry, stark, and awesome. The lodge made a spot of green, perched on a bluff just above the strand.
Ginny clapped her hands. “Oh! I wouldn’t have believed it!”
“You Easterners don’t know what big country is,” I said smugly.
She shaded her eyes against the sun-dazzle and pointed. “What’s that, though?”
My own gaze traveled no further than her arm, but I remembered. Atop a cliff, about a mile north of the lodge and several hundred feet higher, crumbling walls surrounded a rubble heap; the snag of a tower stood at the northwest angle, to scowl among winds. “La Fortaleza,” I said. “Spanish work, seventeenth century. Some don had an idea he could exploit this area for profit. He erected the castle as a strong point and residence, brought a wife here from Castile. But everything went wrong and the place was soon abandoned.”
“Can we explore it?”
“If you like.
Ginny laid a hand on my shoulder. “What’s wrong, Steve?”
“Oh . . . nothing. I don’t care for the Fortaleza myself. Even as a human by daylight, I sense wrongness. I went over there once after dark, wolf-shape, and it stank. Not so much in a physical way, but—Oh, forget it.”
She said soberly: “The Spaniards enslaved the Indians in those times, didn’t they? I imagine a lot of human agony went into that castle.”
“And left a residuum. Yeah, probably. But hell, it was long ago. We’ll have a look around. The ruins are picturesque, and the view from there is tremendous.”
“If you really are worried about ghosts—”
“Forget it, darling! I’m not superstitious!”
And we landed at the lodge and did indeed forget it.
The place was built in cloister style, white walls and red tile roof enclosing a courtyard where a fountain played. But there was also a garden surrounding the outside, green with leaves and grass, red and white and purple and gold with flower beds. We were quite alone. The grounds were elementalized for Earth and Water, hence needed no attendants; the other two elemental forces kept the house air-conditioned, and an expensive cleanliness spell had also been put on it. Since Ginny was now temporarily out of the goetic game, she prepared a Mexican lunch from the supplies we’d brought along. She was so beautiful in shorts, halter, and frilly apron that I hadn’t the heart to offer to teach her to cook. She exclaimed aloud when the dirty dishes floated back to the kitchen and followed to watch them dive into soapy water and frisk around. “It’s the most up-to-date automatic dishwasher I’ve heard of!” she cried.
So we had plenty of time for an afternoon of surf bathing. At sunset we climbed back a stairway hewn from the yellow rock, ravenous, and I prepared steaks by introducing them to a charcoal fire but allowing no further conversation. Afterward we moved onto a patio overlooking the sea. We sat in deck chairs, holding hands, and the stars came out to greet us.