“It’s a doozy. Makes everything happen.”
The huge Caddy swerved between lanes, drawing honks from annoyed drivers.
“Blow it out your keister!” Mordecai drove with one hand on the mint steering wheel, the other casually holding the milk-shake. “Listen, Inky. You say you don’t know where in the castle the portal’s other end is?”
“No, if it’s whipping around here, it’s doing it castleside, too.”
“Hmm. I can get the car through, a portal’s got fuzzy edges. But if we come out into a hallway … Remember to push that second button if we get into trouble. That’s a protection spell.”
“I’ll remember,” Incarnadine said. “All I can do is try to influence the other end. I’ll try to make it come out in the laboratory. It’s mostly empty floor space and there should be some stopping room. With the protect spell we ought to be all right.”
“We’ll be fine,” Mordecai said with a serene smile.
“How do you like the food of the gods, Jonath?” Incarnadine asked, looking back.
Jonath swallowed. “I have never tasted such fare.”
“Try it with the sweet-and-sour sauce.”
Mordecai turned off onto a ramp and squealed around the long turn down to the Interstate.
“What are you getting now?” Mordecai asked.
“It’s close. I think it knows we’re chasing it.”
“Damn frisky things, portals.”
Mordecai bulled into the traffic stream, attracting more retaliatory honking. Still smiling, he took a sip of milkshake, left elbow angled out the window. The wisps of blue-white hair on the back of his head stood out straight, fluttering in the window wash.
“Up ahead somewhere,” Incarnadine said. “It’s weaving in and out.”
“It wants to be caught,” Mordecai said.
Incarnadine wolfed down the rest of his fish sandwich and wiped his mouth. “Can you get up more speed?”
“We got three hundred and ninety cubic inches in the engine and a four-barrel carburetor.”
Mordecai eased the accelerator pedal to the floor and the car’s engine throbbed with gas-guzzling power. Expertly and with equanimity, Mordecai piloted the huge vehicle through foaming channels of traffic, blithely weaving from lane to lane. More horns blared, dopplering in anger.
“I see the little devil now,” he said. “There she is.”
“You have sharp eyes, Uncle Mordy.”
“These glasses are fake, you know. Nothing wrong with my eyes at all. Twenty-twenty. Well, maybe not that good, but I really only need them for reading. How d’you like Florida, by the way?”
“Nice and hot.”
“Ever spend much time here?”
“No, not much. I can see it now.”
Ahead was a fuzzy area of grayness, a shimmering sheet like heated air rising from the hot asphalt. It seemed to move with the traffic, shifting from side to side.
“There we go,” Mordecai said. “We’ll have you back in the castle in no time.”
Behind them, a siren began to whoop.
Incarnadine looked back. “This could be trouble.”
“Don’t worry. I got handicapped plates.”
Mordecai shifted lanes, passed a bus, then swerved back to overtake a car via the inside lane. The speedometer was edging past eighty-five, muggy Florida air blasting through the open windows.
The siren was getting closer. Mordecai swung into the outside lane again.
“Whoops, there it goes!”
“There’s an exit,” Incarnadine said calmly.
The portal had veered to the right, heading off the road. Mordecai careened toward the exit and nearly took the front end off a camper. A chorus of horns screeched their execration.
The caddy shot onto an exit ramp and thundered down it in pursuit of the portal, the siren following. The ramp merged with a two-lane road, which Mordecai roared onto, ignoring the stop sign.
Trees flanked the blacktop, edging a wide shoulder. The police car was gaining now, its whirling red lights dancing in Mordecai’s rearview mirror.
“We may not make it,” Incarnadine said.
In the back seat, Jonath, quite unruffled, popped the last McNugget into his mouth. A smile crossed his lips.
“You married?” Mordecai asked.
“Yes,” Incarnadine said, eyes caged front.
“Children?”
“Two, boy and a girl.”
“Wonderful,” Mordecai said. “A man should be married.”
“I think we lost it,” Incarnadine said, leaning forward to peer through the wraparound windshield.
The road bent sharply to the left up ahead. The portal was nowhere in sight.
“We better think about slowing down,” Incarnadine said. “I’ll pay your ticket — or bail you out.”
“Don’t worry about it. I got friends in this county, and a wonderful lawyer.”
“Wait till the cops get a load of our getups — Mordecai!”
The portal had stopped just around the bend and was waiting for them, a vague patch of wavering nothingness. Mordecai’s foot didn’t have time to hit the brake pedal.
Thirty-two
Inferno, Then Paradiso
The lava flowed, the ash rained down. Smoke and fire rose from gashes in the earth. The tee was a bed of cinders that set the soles of their shoes to smoking. Thaxton had the honor, and drove into a magma flow. One lost stroke. He hit another and the ball bounced among the rocks and disappeared into a crevice.
Two. Gritting his teeth, Thaxton got out a new ball and shot again. The ball fell on the narrow fairway, where a herd of hippogriffs pecked and scratched. One got to the ball and gobbled it.
Thaxton threw his club into the bubbling tar pit. “Right! That’s it, that’s the bloody end! I’m damned if I’ll put up with any more of this!”
Dalton said, “I don’t blame you this time.”
Above, harpies shrieked their dismay, and great dragons soared on thermal updrafts. Smoke poured from the great volcanic cone that rose against the sun to the right. The air was filled with flying debris.
“Oh, damn. Damn!” Thaxton stamped his foot. With an air of resignation, he took out his three-wood, teed another ball, and drove. The ball bonked a hippogriff and hid in tall grass.
“To hell with it,” Thaxton said, rebagging his club.
After Dalton drove they struck out for the wastes, Cerberus following. They passed basilisks sunning themselves on the rocks. None spoke, none seemed to care; needless to say, the men paid them no mind.
Tremors shook the ground, steam-venting chasms opening up here and there. Dalton nearly fell into one, Cerberus clamping down on his shirttail to save him. His ball was lost, so he calmly played another.
Thaxton finally found his ball and chopped at it to get it out of the rough, then hit a good four-iron toward the green. The earth split where the ball landed.
Without saying a word, Thaxton dropped his last ball.
The erupting volcano exploded, raining ash and fire down on the course. By the time the men got to putting, the surface of the green was a smoking ruin and they were dodging boulders the size of cars. Thaxton virtually herded his ball into the cup.
“Make your putt!” he shouted over the din.
Dalton putted for a sextuple bogey, and they got out of there.
The land seemed to change as they ran. The thunder faded, and the smoke cleared. It was like passing from one diorama to the next in a museum. The sky became blue and trees sprang up. The grass thickened and greened, as did the shrubbery. Wildflowers bloomed in the rough. A soft breeze began to blow, carrying the scent of jasmine and lilac. The sun was bright and beautiful, sparkling off the lake and drenching the course in a yellow glow.
The fairway ahead was long and broad, few bunkers to mar its manicured prettiness.
On an oak near the tee was a sign:
HOLE 17½
Underneath, on a picnic table, was a bucket of ice with a magnum of ch
ampagne in it. Two inverted glasses rested on a sheet of white linen.
“How nice,” Dalton said. “Compliments of the management, I assume.”
“Or the Devil,” Thaxton said, taking the bottle out and ripping off the foil top. He deftly worked the cork up until it popped and flew. He poured.
Dalton sipped. “The real thing, from the Champagne region.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” Thaxton gulped it down and poured himself another glass.
Their clothes were in tatters, great holes burned in them. They were snowy with ash and their shoes were scarred and burned. Thaxton poured out a stream of champagne for Cerberus, and the dog lapped it up with relish.
All three were slightly tipsy by the time they were ready to play golf, but this didn’t seem to affect the play. Both players drove deep and true.
The fairway smelled of fresh-mown grass; ducks, simple unmythological ducks, paddled and dipped in the lake, and birds — robins, sparrows, and blue jays — twitted in the bordering woods. The sun shone down. Apple trees were heavy with late-summer fruit, and bees buzzed among the clover in the rough. They were through the fairway and onto the green in three.
The green was quiet save for the plock of balls dropping into the cup. Both men putted for par.
Thaxton replaced the pin and smiled. “Well, that’s that.”
Dalton sighed. “Yes. Best game I ever played. I’ll always remember it.” He slid the putter into the bag.
“Who could forget it?” Thaxton shouldered his bag. “And now we pay the piper.”
“Yes.” Dalton solemnly nodded. “Yes, we do.”
They walked through trees, following a path that bore gently uphill.
“I’d like to think I lived my life as well as I played that game,” Dalton said.
“Did you?”
“No, not as well. Sometimes I gave up, withdrew, didn’t care.”
“We all do that,” Thaxton said.
“But you get older, and you learn. There’s always time for redemption, for changing, for doing better. It’s never too late.”
“Well, I learned a few things, I must say,” Thaxton said. “Never say die, keep your pecker up, and all that.”
“Good outlook.”
When they came out of the woods the Devil was waiting for them.
He was sitting on a bench by the first tee reading a newspaper and smoking a thick green cigar. His scaly legs were crossed, the talons on his feet long and sharp. When the men approached, he lowered the newspaper, and a fangy smile spread across his gargoyle face. He took the cigar from his mouth.
“Enjoy your game, gentlemen?”
“Very much,” Dalton said. “I don’t think we ever want to do it again, but it was an experience.”
“Oh, but you must do it again. In fact, that’s the whole point of this place.”
“Uh, what’s the point?”
“Wait a minute. You’re lost souls, aren’t you?”
“No.”
The gargoyle frowned. “You’re not?”
“Not quite,” Thaxton said. “I’m afraid we blundered into your domain quite by accident.”
The gargoyle took a puff. “Well, I don’t see as how that makes a difference. You’re here, and you have to play.”
“Why?” Dalton asked.
The gargoyle snorted derisively. “Why.Now, see, that’s the kind of question that really bugs me. This is my universe, I run it, I set the rules. It’s my show. When you run the show, certain rights and immunities accrue to you, one of which is not to be constantly annoyed by piteous wails about how absurd it all is, about how senseless and futile it seems, and so on. Screw that noise! It’s the only game in town, so play already. Quit bellyaching.”
“I think we’ve learned that,” Dalton said. “But you only have to go around once. Once is enough.”
“Not if I say it isn’t,” the gargoyle said. “There’s the first hole. Go tee up.”
“There comes a time,” Dalton said, “when you have to stand up to the big guy and say, hey, that’s enough.”
Frantically Thaxton shook Dalton’s shoulder and pointed. “There it is!”
The portal, or what could have been it, was flitting about in the meadow behind the gargoyle. The phenomenon was a region of vagueness that now and then took the shape of a doorway. It floated, dipped, scudded, then rose into the air and settled once again.
“Run for it!” Dalton shouted, dropping his bag.
“Wait just a damned minute,” the gargoyle said, throwing down the cigar and rising.
Cerberus leaped on the monster and knocked him back against the bench. The bench flipped and dog and gargoyle went rolling in the grass. The two duffers took off across the meadow.
The gargoyle got up and retrieved his cigar. Puffing thoughtfully, he watched them chase down the strange doorway and disappear into it. Then the phenomenon vanished, leaving the meadow to its bees and flowers and other peaceful inhabitants.
The gargoyle turned to Cerberus, who had also watched.
“Hell, I was going to take them to dinner.”
Thirty-three
Laboratory
Osmirik was sitting at the workstation reading when something hit with a crash. He fell off his chair, then lurched to his feet. Frightened out of his wits, he looked toward the rear of the lab.
The Voyager was back. It had materialized at a good clip and smashed through some old lab equipment, finally hitting the far stone wall. The hull was intact, though the front end was crinkled a bit.
By the time Osmirik reached it the hatch had opened and a strange towheaded man in a battered baseball cap had his head poked out. He was grinning.
“Is this here another planet?” he asked.
“You are in Castle Perilous,” a surprised Osmirik responded.
The man looked around. “Shore is somethin’.” He climbed out, and was followed by an even stranger man.
“This here’s Dolbert, and ah’m Luster.”
“Osmirik,” the librarian said, bowing.
“We got it, Ozzie!” Jeremy poked his head out. “We got the data!”
“I am pleased,” Osmirik said.
Jeremy waved a mini-disk. “It’s all here.”
“Are you harmed?”
“Oh, we got shaken up a bit, but we all had seat belts on.”
Jeremy got out, followed by Isis, who threw her arms around him. They embraced.
“No time now,” Jeremy said, breaking away. “Got to get this into the program!” He started running across the floor.
“Jeremy, look out!”
Something huge and green flashed by Jeremy, barely missing him. There was a roar and a tremendous crash.
Everybody looked toward the adjacent wall. Out of nowhere had come this huge gaudy automobile. Now it was crumpled against the wall with its hood sprung and most of its windows shattered. Fenders fell away and white smoke issued from the engine.
They all rushed to it.
“Lord Incarnadine!” Jeremy tried to open the deformed door; it wouldn’t budge.
“I’m okay,” Incarnadine said, crawling through the window. Luster and Jeremy helped. “Get the old man out. Careful, he may be injured.”
“Injured, schminjured,” Mordecai said, his head popping above the roof. “You hit the button in time, we’re okay. Okay?”
Isis and Dolbert helped Mordecai out of the wreck, then were surprised to discover Jonath. Jonath wasn’t surprised in the least. More gods. Fine.
“Where did you come from?” Jeremy asked in astonishment.
“Florida,” Incarnadine said. “Never mind, explain later. Now, about that data from the interuniversal medium —”
“We got it.”
“You got it?” Incarnadine caught sight of the Voyager. “I see. Well, good work. Let’s go take a look at that cosmos-fixing program.”
As they walked to the workstation the lab door opened and at least a dozen Incarnadines filed in. The first one said, “The
re you are! Nice operation you have here. Can we take a look at it?”
“We’re busy,” Incarnadine said. “Look around but don’t get in the way.”
“Well, excuse us for existing.”
“I’ll deal with that later,” Incarnadine said.
Thirty-four
World
He crouched in the tall grass between two fiberglass buildings. Two soldiers walked by on the company street between the tents and the buildings. He waited till they passed, then stood up and began running his fingers over the outline of a window on the side of the building.
He knew Alice was inside. Clairvoyance? Call it “knowing the location of things and people that matter.” This was his magic; he had discovered it, so far as he knew. He could invent the nomenclature.
The window fell out, its screws and washers loose and falling free. He caught it and put it carefully and quietly down.
“Alice?” he called softly.
She came to the window. Inside was a storage space converted to a cell. She came through the window headfirst and he eased her to the ground.
They crouched in the weeds. More soldiers passed on either side of them. Voices. There didn’t seem to be any way to get out of the compound without being seen.
He suddenly had a wild idea. Why not?
“Alice, listen. We’re going to get up and walk out of this camp. No one will see us. They won’t be able to see us. Understand?”
She nodded.
He took her hand and they stood. He led her out of the weeds and onto the street. Two soldiers were coming toward them. He steered a path past them, not hurrying, trying to be nonchalant, confident, cool.
The soldier on the right looked at them, slowed, and frowned. He stopped and narrowed his eyes. He shook his head. Then he looked away and caught up with his companion.
They kept walking. Three more soldiers passed them; there was no reaction at all.
They walked right out of the camp, heading toward the VTOL field. He had another wild idea.
The cockpit of the VTOL was carpeted with dials and gauges, all incomprehensible to him. It didn’t matter. He sat in the pilot seat and grabbed the controls. Alice sat beside him. He reached for the hatch and locked the compartment.
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