Castle for Rent (3 page)

Alice sat up. “Oh."

“I realize that thirty years is a long time, and your records...” “Well, as a matter of fact, we do have a number of open files. Authors whose estates or heirs we can't locate. It may very well be—” She got up. “Won't you please wait here while I check with our accounting and legal departments?"

 

He cashed the check at a local bank and walked down Madison Avenue, heading for a little curio shop he used to know in the Lower East Side.

It had been tough persuading Alice Sussman—and the people in accounting—to cut him a royalty check this very day. The domination spell he had cast over the entire office had barely worked. Back home, everyone in the Bishop Publishing Galaxy would have been his willing slave. They all would have leaped out a ten-story window for him, single file. Here—forget it. The spell had only oiled the machinery a little bit. But it had worked. Done the job.

Well, there'd been a little give-and-take. Allie (at lunch she told him to call her that) had just about insisted that he submit an outline and sample chapters of a new book. Instead, over chicken lo mein, he spun out the plot of a sequel to
Fortress Planet,
quite off the top of his head, and she loved it. Well, the spell helped there a little, he had to admit. He hadn't written a word of fiction in years, and it must have been dreadful bilge he spilled out. Anyway, she'd offered a $14,000 advance, and he couldn't bring himself to refuse ... Besides, he was stranded here and needed the money.

All in all, New York hadn't changed as much as he'd expected. Numerous landmarks had disappeared, replaced by austere modern structures (he rather disliked the ubiquitous Bauhaus influence), but plenty of familiar sights were still left. He remembered this part of town well.

He began to notice that there were more distressed people milling about than he recalled seeing during the Great Depression. He passed a slovenly middle-aged woman who carried two great bags stuffed with debris. She was followed by an emaciated man in a filthy overcoat who seemed to have difficulty controlling his tongue. These and other unfortunates made up a good percentage of the sidewalk population.

Wetting a mental finger and putting it up into the psychic wind, he got a subtle but overriding sense of decay, of desuetude, of things coming apart. Pity. It was a good town, but it had once been a great town.

The curio shop was just where he remembered it to be. The shops around it had been long since boarded up. A derelict lay unconscious on the sidewalk a few doors away. In the other direction, a nervous-looking youth regarded him from the doorway of an abandoned storefront.

He entered to the soft tinkling of a bell. The place was stuffed to the ceiling with an amazing collection of miscellaneous junk, and he was astonished to recognize some pieces from years before. Obviously business had not been brisk. The place smelled of must, dust, and stale cigar smoke.

There was a sallow young man behind the counter. He did not smile when he asked, “Can I help you?"

“Is Mr. Trent in?"

“Why ... yes, he is. Who shall I say is calling?"

“Carney. John Carney."

“One moment."

The young man slipped through a tattered curtain into a back room. There was a murmuring of voices. Then the young man returned.

“Mr. Trent will see you. This way."

He followed the young man into the back room. There, seated at an ancient rolltop desk, was a man in his early sixties wearing a gray suit of fashionable cut, along with a burgundy tie, a tailored shirt with a crisply starched collar, and oxblood loafers burnished to a mirror shine. Even in the dim light he cut an imposing figure. His hair was blond-white, his face thin. His eyes were ethereal blue disks over a thin blade of a nose. The mouth was small and precise. He regarded his visitor, eyes narrowing, straining for recognition. At length and with some astonishment, he said, “It
is
you."

“Hello, Trent."

Trent rose and offered his hand, nodding to the young man, who retreated through the curtain.

“Incarnadine,” Trent said.

“Greetings, my long-lost brother,” Incarnadine said in Haplan, the ancient tongue of the even more ancient tribe of the Haplodites. “How dost thee fare?"

“Thou art a sight for longing eyes,” Trent answered. “Let's stick to English,” he added, “or Alvin will start to wonder."

“Alvin looks okay. I'll bet he's heard many a strange thing back here."

“You're right. Have a seat.” Trent dragged up a battered hardback chair.

Incarnadine sat. “It's been a long time."

“How did you ever manage to get here?” Trent said.

“Well, I've been meaning to crack the problem of the lost gateway for the longest time. Just recently it occurred to me that it could be one of the orbiting variety, the kind that don't necessarily stay inside the castle. So, I whipped up a flyer, searched the sky over the castle—and sure enough, there it was. Had a devil of a time chasing it down, though."

Trent lit a small brown cigar and puffed on it. “After thirty years, you decide to do this. Why?"

Incarnadine shrugged. “Any number of reasons. I miss New York ... I miss this world. Lots of memories here.” He smiled. “I thought you might have been stranded here when the spell stabilizing the gateway went on the fritz."

Trent looked hard at him. “You thought. And it takes you thirty years to decide to find out for sure?"

“What is time to a spawn of Castle Perilous? Sorry. Were you stranded? Are you?"

“You said yourself that you found the thing floating in the sky. Where did it leave out?"

“About three thousand feet over the East River."

Trent whistled. “And you were flying a magical contrivance?” He shook his head. “Tough spot to be in."

“Yeah. I'd really forgotten how hard it was to practice the Recondite Arts around here."

“What did you do?"

“Well, when the plane dissolved, I tried just about everything on the way down. At about three seconds to impact I tried a simple protection spell, and that saved the day. And my hide. I hit pretty hard, though. Fortunately, it was only a few strokes swimming to shore. I didn't get a drop on me."

“You were lucky. Still, I wonder why you risked it."

“We've been getting a lot of Guests from here in the past few years. Some of them would like a way back. I'm here to see if I can establish a permanent gateway again."

Trent's pale brow rose. “You did it for the Guests? Those losers?"

“It's the least I could do. I would have seen to it long ago, but—one, I've been busy. Two, most of the Guests like the castle and want to stay. But some don't, and I thought we owed them."

“How about all the rest?"

“Some have stabilized gateways. The others ... well, someday I mean to do something for them, too."

“Most of those damn holes should have been plugged long ago,” Trent said, scowling. “The place is nothing but a big, drafty fun house."

“Do you realize how much power it would take to keep all the aspects sealed up? Keeping the particularly nasty ones shut up uses enough already."

Trent chewed his cigar. “Well, I'm no expert on castle magic.” He took the cigar out and tapped the ash into a ceramic tray. “So, you say it never occurred to you to find out what happened to me."

“I'm embarrassed to say that although I certainly wondered, I always thought you could take care of yourself in any situation."

“I see.” Trent's smile formed a small crescent. “Actually it was years before I discovered the gateway had skedaddled. I like it here, as you knew."

“One of the reasons I never really worried about you."

“Well, you were never very solicitous of my welfare."

“Nor you of mine, Trent."

Trent grunted. “Let's be frank. We were rivals for the throne. Dad favored you, and that's all there was to it.” Trent tapped out the cigar. “Look. We have lots to talk about. Let's drive out to my place. We'll have dinner, hash over old times. What do you say?"

“Sounds friendly."

“It is, Inky. Wait a minute.” Trent got up, parted the curtain, and called out: “I'm leaving early. I'll drive. Get a cab home."

“Yes, Mr. Trent."

Trent unhooked a camel's-hair overcoat from an antique coat tree and pulled it on. “Let's go."

The car was a blue Mercedes sedan, meticulously polished and parked next to a sign that read ABSOLUTELY NO PARKING.

“Hell of a nice car to leave on the street,” Incarnadine remarked.

“I have a few friends on the police force who look after it for me."

“Nice to have friends."

They got in and Trent started it up and headed east.

“I'm surprised you still have the old shop. Still need a front?"

“Nah, not really. You were very lucky to find me there. My employees open the place up maybe two, three days a week. Most of my business is strictly legitimate these days. Real estate, stocks, the usual. The shop's still a good write-off, though.” He chuckled. “I've been depreciating the same inventory for decades."

“Still deal in art?"

“My old hobby. I own a gallery on the West Side. Keeps the creative juices flowing.” Trent honked at a taxi that cut in front of him. “Tell me this, why the hell didn't you try to stabilize the aspect from the other side? Why did you risk coming through and getting stranded?"

“I tried everything I could think of back home, but nothing worked. Something's changed. The stresses between the two universes have shifted over the years. It's not the same. Probably why the old spell failed."

Trent nodded. “I see.” He made a series of lefts and rights, then turned north on First Avenue.

They were in the midtown tunnel when Trent asked, “Do you think you can tunnel back?"

“I'm going to give it the old college try. If I flunk out ... can you take on a new employee?"

 

 

 

Ice Island

 

Snowclaw had been kneeling all day on an ice floe, waiting for a huge sea animal called the
jhalrakk
to come within range of his harpoon. But the jhalrakk had other ideas. It was content to stay where it was, just out of reach, half submerged in the shallow icy waters of the inlet. It had been feeding all day, ingesting vast quantities of water and filtering out what was edible. Only when it had its fill would it move out to sea again, and maybe—just maybe—its course would take it near Snowy's position.

Snowclaw knew it was a big jhalrakk (the word was sort of a growl, done with a snap of the jaws). He'd wanted to bag a big one all his life. This might be his chance.

It was cold. It was always cold here; the perennial question was
how
cold. Today, it was
very
cold. Bone-freezing cold. You had to watch when you took a leak outside, so as not to wind up stuck to one end of a pisscicle. It was
cold.

Snowclaw hadn't moved for a very long time. Slowly he brought his four-digited hand to his belly, where the fur was a little thinner and finer than that which covered the rest of him, but just as milk-white. Bone-white claws extruded from the ends of his fingers. He scratched carefully, exhaling.

His feet, which were huge and padded with thick spongelike tissue at sole and heel, were cold. His left knee was cold. His butt was cold.

Damn, he thought. I'm
cold.

He didn't know whether he'd be better off bagging the jhalrakk or not. If he did, he'd be all night gutting it, cutting it, and dragging the carcass back to his shack. And tomorrow would go to rendering blubber, seasoning hide, and doing a hundred different other things with all the products and by-products that jhalrakks produced. He didn't look forward to any of that; it was all hard work. He just might freeze if he had to stay outdoors any longer. On the other hand, if he didn't bag something soon, he would starve. But at least he wouldn't have to break his back doing all that damn work.

It had been a very lean hunting season. He needed a little luck, or he didn't know what he was going to do.

The jhalrakk suddenly began moving. Snowclaw tensed, his left hand coming up to grip the front of the harpoon's shaft, his right moving back along its length.

The jhalrakk was heading straight for the floe. Snowclaw rose to a crouch and brought the point of the harpoon in line with the sharp, spiny back of the jhalrakk as it cut through the water, steaming toward him like a great ship, the kind Snowclaw would spy far out to sea sometimes. The spine rose, revealing the broad rubbery expanse of the beast's flanks. Then the head came out of the water. Its six eyes seemed to focus right on Snowclaw. The beast's great maw opened, revealing row on row of needlelike teeth.

Snowclaw swallowed hard and ran his tongue across his frost-white fangs. He stood up.

Come on right at me, big fellow.

Snowclaw made his shot. The harpoon skidded off the blubbery flank of the jhalrakk and plopped into the water. Snowclaw grabbed the line but his numbed hands couldn't stop it until it had paid all the way out, pulling taut against the iron anchor spike which had been pounded into the ice. Snowy growled and pulled on the line, but the jhalrakk had run over it, and now the big animal was diving. The beast slid out of sight, disappearing into the frigid, blue-black depths of the inlet.

Big it was, the largest that Snowy had ever seen. The jhalrakk was now underneath the floe. Snowy prayed that it would stay submerged and pass on out to sea. But the way it had looked at him...

The floe lifted out of the water, tilting sharply to the right. Snowclaw threw himself flat and hung on to the iron spike.

The floe soon became almost vertical and seemed about to tip over. Snowy knew he was in for a dunking, anyway, so he let go and slid into the water, hoping that he could swim away before the huge slab of ice flipped over on him.

It didn't. Snowclaw surfaced and watched the massive ice island slide off to one side and slip back into the water edgewise. The jhalrakk appeared satisfied that it had done enough damage. With a mocking wave of its flukes, it moved off serenely toward the open sea.