Castle Spellbound (10 page)

Everywhere was the glint of gold, the sheen of fine marble.

Eunuchs stood guard between high columns with flower-petal capitals. Exquisite tapestries hung from the ceiling; fine rugs of intricate design adorned the walls and cushioned the marble stairways.

The main floor, a vast expanse of travertine, was filled with dancers, singers, musicians, and entertainers of every stripe: animal acts, acrobats, jugglers ... and so forth and so on—hundreds, perhaps thousands of them, leaping and somersaulting and vocalizing and running in circles. Elephants trumpeted, dogs yipped and walked on hind legs. Sword swallowers consumed their wares, fire-eaters ate and spat flame.

Comedians of every sort cavorted: clowns, harlequins, midgets, grotesques, slapping and kicking and tumbling and goosing.

All this activity raised quite a din, making it difficult if not impossible to hear any of the twenty-seven orchestras; nevertheless, these played doggedly on.

The immense chamber had several levels, and on a dais above the main floor two potentates reigned supreme over the proceedings. They were attended by scores of female servants, most of whom wore little or nothing at all.

King Thorsby rose on one elbow and stared glassy-eyed at the throng on the floor below. He was very drunk.

“Wh ... whassat?"

“Pardon, Your Greatness?"

“I said, wha's all that...?” He belched, then waved his arm vaguely. “Out there."

“The entertainment, Great One."

“Oh. That's still going on?"

“It will go on as long as you wish, master and lord."

“Well, it's...” A great belch again escaped him. “Blast. It's grown a bit hoary, it has."

“Master?"

“It's
boring
. Do something else."

“We will do anything you wish, Great King and Ruler."

“Splendid. I need a drink."

A drink was offered. Thorsby took a long draught.

“And what is your wish, master?"

Thorsby wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his satin toga. “Eh?"

“What is my master's wish?"

“I'll bite. Oh, my wish. Yes, well ... let me see. Uh, Fetchen? Fetchen, old boy."

Fetchen surfaced from under a sea of bodies. His lips were stained purple, his face smeared with pulp and juice.

Thorsby's eyebrows arched. “Whatever are you doing down there?"

“We're having a fruit-eating contest."

“Jolly good. I say, Fetchen, old boy, what do you fancy in the way of further diversion?"

“I've about got my hands full."

“Understood, old darling, but all this lot needs something to occupy their time."

Fetchen tilted a wineskin into the ripe air and drank. Done, mouth scrubbed on a nearby thigh, he said, “Let's have gladiators."

Thorsby brightened. “Capital idea! Splendid thinking, old darling. Yes, nothing like a bit of blood sport to set the old ticker racing. Right! You heard His Imperial Decadence. Let the games begin!"

The attending houris chorused: “Let the games begin!"

And indeed they did.

Keep—High Tower

Carrying three sacks of gold and jewels, Kwip climbed the spiral stairs of the High Tower, huffing and puffing. He was hating every minute of it.

Trying to get away from the confusion on the lower levels of the keep, he had first tried to reach the basement, only to find that the strange apparitions increased the lower he went. He had run to the nearest tower and begun climbing. He had been climbing steadily for the better part of an hour.

The High Tower was high indeed. But was it high enough?

Periodically he had stopped to explore a floor or two, finding more anomalies, more odd goings-on. Harlequins and troubadours milling about. Marching orchestras playing their “music” at unbelievable volume. How anyone could abide such noise was beyond his comprehension.

No matter. He would hole up somewhere, hie himself through an aspect and fritter away some time there until the tumult died down.

But you never knew about aspects. You didn't want to go blundering into one without reconnoitering. And loaded as he was with swag?—well, that was taking an enormous risk. He hoped to avoid risk altogether. The castle was a vasty barn; surely it was big enough to provide a hiding place. Surely the hurly-burly wouldn't spread to the entire castle.

Someone was coming down the stairs.

He suppressed an impulse to run back down. Better to brass it out.

A youngish man with a thin, scratchy-looking beard came round the bend of the stairwell. He was dressed in a slovenly T-shirt and faded jeans. Seeing Kwip, he halted.

“Did you ever wonder why the next line over in a bank moves faster than yours? And when you get in that line, the line you were in starts to move faster? That happens in supermarkets, too. Did you ever wonder about that?"

Kwip kept silent and continued marching up the steps.

“And did you ever notice that the lane you're driving in always ends in five hundred feet? It's never the other lane! Why is that?"

Kwip passed him and kept climbing.

The comedian didn't follow but kept on talking.

“Why can't you be ‘unkempt’ but you can't be ‘kempt'? How can you be un-something but you can't be the something? That's not logical. And did you ever wonder about—?"

“Blow it out your arsehole!” Kwip growled over his shoulder.

He kept mounting the stair, the sacks growing heavier and heavier. He was exhausted. He couldn't climb another flight. When he reached the next landing, he exited the stairwell.

“Gods!"

More pandemonium. Here were hallways choked with buskers, circus acts, ballet troupes, and vaudeville dance-and-patter teams. A juggler juggling muskmelons walked past. A trained seal flippered by, a huge beach ball balanced on its snout.

“Ye gods and green salamanders."

Kwip steeled himself, resettled the bags against his back, and struck out into the melee.

“I don't have any luck at all,” a stocky man complained in passing. “I'm tellin’ you, it's murder."

Kwip moved on.

Turning a corner, he halted in his tracks. Lions!

And a lion-tamer in jodhpurs and riding boots, whip in hand. There came a cracking and much roaring.

Kwip backstepped hastily.

He found another crossing corridor, this one relatively empty, and lit out into it. He proceeded cautiously. The din of all the huggermugger echoed in his ears, and the smell of animal dung assailed his nostrils. Shouts and commotion came from every quarter.

He wondered,
What in the name of all the gods is going on?
The castle had never been like this in all his experience of it. It was ofttimes a place fit for madmen, true enough; but its madness had never reached such a fever pitch. This was sheerest insanity. What lay behind it all? Witchery, he guessed. Evil spells. What else? Such was the cause of most of the trouble around here. Find a fracas, turn over the bodies, and you'd doubtless reveal one kind of magical trickery or another. The place was rife with sorcerers. Sometimes he had half a mind to quit it all, rush pell-mell through the first aspect that presented itself, and the devil take the hindmost!

A great maned lion came round the corner ahead. It stopped in its tracks and glowered at Kwip.

Kwip halted. He smiled weakly.

“Nice puss,” he said.

The lion snarled. Then it sniffed. Fresh meat.

“N-n...” Kwip licked his dry lips and swallowed. “Nice pussy. Dear pussycat.” He began to back off.

The lion advanced a few steps forward, still taking Kwip's olfactory measure. Its tail swished back and forth.

Kwip hurled the sacks at it and ran. At his back, the lion roared.

Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of trees and blue sky. An aspect! He altered his path and ran for it, crossing through an alcove. He streaked through the magic doorway. Into another world.

Coming out into fresh air, he sprinted across a grassy clearing. On reaching its other side he dove into low brush, hunkered down low, and held his breath.

He pushed a twig aside and looked out. The clearing was empty. The lion hadn't followed.

He exhaled and took off his cap, wiped his brow with his sleeve. Ye gods.

Ye gods! The gold! He'd left it strewn across the castle flagstones. He'd best get back there quickly.

He looked again. No great beasts in sight. But there was plenty of cover to hide a big cat. He didn't want to risk being caught out in the open. He'd better wait a bit.

But all he could think of was the gold. Glittering yellow metal, finely wrought into cups and plates and medallions and rings and things, all scattered about the castle, waiting for the first person to come along and scoop them up. Blast! It was likely all gone already! Where was that infernal beast?

He peered out once more. Nothing. He'd have to risk it. Now, where was the portal? There.

No. There. No, wrong again. It should be directly across the clearing. The grass wasn't tall enough to have bent in his path; no tracks to retrace his steps. But he hadn't run that far. The way back to the castle should be ... there.

Well, it was somewhere about, of that he was sure. With no lion to bother him, he would simply search until he found it. Unless...

Unless this was an aspect that tended to pop in and out of existence, as some were wont to do. In that case, the portal might have disappeared, and he'd be stranded. Best not to think of that, yet.

He put on his cap. He got to his feet slowly, looking around, then cautiously came out from cover. He began to walk back across the clearing.

He was halfway across when a tremendous explosion threw up great gouts of earth at the far end of the clearing. The concussion knocked him down, and clods of dirt rained down on him.

He was dazed, but was almost to his feet when another explosion hit in the woods he'd just left, to the same effect. More shocks followed.

He staggered for the tree line, and when he reached it, the portal was not to be found. He fell behind a bush, lay flat, and covered his head with his arms.

A salvo of artillery shells hit the clearing, shaking the earth and engendering in Kwip's benumbed mind the consoling thought that he didn't have to worry about the gold.

He would never see the castle again.

Piraeon

The assembled armada choked the harbor. There were almost four hundred ships, hailing from all over Arkadia, its possessions, protectorates, fiefdoms, and allies. Ships of every class lay moored to the docks and anchored as far out as the breakwaters: sailing vessels, galleys, longboats—even a few barges. A good number were warships of Arkadian design—long, sleek galleys-cum-sail with high curved stems and sharp low ramming-prows. But there were also modified traders, refitted fishing boats, and other improvisations. They'd scoured every harbor in the Central Sea to get this show together.

Trent sat at a table in front of his tent, which had been pitched on the leeward side of the hill above the harbor. He was trying to get some food into him. After what was going to happen in a very short while, he knew his appetite would vanish.

It was practically gone already. He had before him a very good ripened cheese from Tyras, a fine red Megaran wine, raw chopped lamb with olive oil, shallots and garlic, and good local bread; but he was barely able to force anything down. Nevertheless, he cut himself another wedge of cheese.

His young servant, Strephon, offered him more wine. That he could handle.

“Thank you,” Trent said.

Strephon bowed and went back into the tent.

Trent downed the wine, wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He pushed the cheese away.

No, food didn't go well with human sacrifice.

He looked up at the sky. It had been overcast for three solid weeks, the fierce winds bringing one storm after another. It was, he'd been told, the worst weather for this region in a century. The fleet had twice essayed a crossing of the Therean Sea to Dardanian waters, and twice foul weather had turned it back. Anthaemion was convinced the gods were against him, and was further convinced nothing less than a supreme sacrifice would propitiate them.

How did he know? He had been told so in a dream.

A frigging dream. Can you beat that?

Say, let's kill somebody. Why? Well, I had this dream, see
...

Right.

Trent sighed. No use condemning these benighted people. These were archaic, god-ridden times, centuries before the light of reason would dawn—if it ever would. (He had to keep reminding himself that this was not Earth and history did not have to unfold the way it did on Earth.) They didn't know any better; superstition was a way of life. Gods spoke in dreams, through oracles, out of the mouths of priests. If the gods demanded blood (and he also had to keep reminding himself that human sacrifice was fairly rare here), they got blood. Most of the time they were satisfied with a bit of roast lamb. But every once in a while they got a hankering for more exotic fare.

Damn. Trent drank more of the excellent wine. It was a little like a Valpolicella. Not much, but a little.

The thing that most upset him was that he couldn't do anything to prevent it. He had tried. He had talked, reasoned, argued, and cajoled until he was blue in the face. To no avail. Anthaemion remained adamant that nothing less than the sacrifice of his own daughter would ameliorate the wrath of those gods who had set themselves against the cause of the Arkadians.

Well, maybe she was his daughter. She was the daughter of one of his concubines, but it was common knowledge that they slept around. Anthaemion might not be the girl's father. He probably hadn't even known her name up until a day or so ago.

So maybe she wasn't his daughter. What difference did that make? That didn't make the cheese go down any easier. It didn't assuage Trent's vague sense of responsibility for having failed to talk Anthaemion out of it. The king had been on the verge of changing his mind several times, Trent had felt. If only he had pursued a point better, or presented something more to advantage, or tricked up some clever argument—