Castle War! (29 page)

“What in the world was that?”
 

“The hellhound!” Dalton said, chuckling.
 

“Don't bloody laugh about it.”
 

Thaxton's approach went well and he was on the “green” (an irregular patch of unevenly trimmed bent grass) in two. He read the break brilliantly, successfully negotiated all the hills, bumps, and swales between the ball and the cup, and was in for par. Dalton chipped onto the green and putted for a double bogey.
 

“Where's the next hole?”
 

“I don't know,” Dalton said. “But there's a path of sorts. See it?”
 

“Yes, but—”
 

Another blood-freezing howl, this one closer.
 

“Good God, bloody Basil Rathbone will show up next in his mackintosh and deerstalker.”
 

“Look what
is
showing up,” Dalton said, pointing to a rise where an enormous black dog had appeared at the crest. It was a monstrous animal, yipping and snarling and pounding full tilt straight for them.
 

The men dropped their bags and ran, Thaxton for some reason keeping his putter in hand. They didn't get far before the dog caught up and began to pace them almost teasingly, snapping and slavering at their heels, yellowed fangs bared, foam dripping from the corners of its mouth.
 

It chased them for a quarter mile before Thaxton stumbled and rolled in the heather. The dog leaped over him, chased Dalton for a few paces, then turned back. Thaxton reached for the putter and raised it in desperation against the inevitable attack.
 

The animal stopped and panted, its long pink tongue lolling in and out. Its tail began to wag.
 

“What the devil?”
 

The thing whimpered and its tail wagged faster.
 

“It's friendly?” Thaxton said incredulously.
 

Dalton returned. “Looks like.”
 

“But it sounded as though it wanted us for supper.”
 

“Dogs can be very territorial. Maybe this is his turf.”
 

“Look at the thing. Paws as big as melons.”
 

“Nice doggie.” Dalton went up to it and scratched its enormous head.
 

The animal seemed to appreciate the gesture. Dalton patted its head and ran his hand up and down the neck.
 

“What sort of breed is that?” Thaxton asked.
 

“It's big even for a mastiff. Looks a little like one, though, around the droopy cheeks. It's a mutt, probably.”
 

“Mongrel from Hell.”
 

“Oh, this is a good dog—aren't you, fellow?”
 

“Whuuff!”
 

“Thank heaven it can't talk,” Thaxton said. “I'm full up with bloody sentient beasts.”
 

“It seems to understand.”
 

“God, look at it drool. Looks like marshmallow sauce. It's making me ill.”
 

“Looks like he wants to come along! Maybe he can find balls. Probably make a good hunting dog.”
 

“I'll fetch the clubs, you entertain Baskerville, here.”
 

“Wonder what his name is. Oh, wait, it says on the collar. You were right, Thax. He is a mongrel from Hell. ‘Cerberus.' Good name for an occult canine. Hey, where're you going, boy?”
 

The animal shot past Thaxton and bounded across the moor. Thaxton stopped and both men watched. The dog went straight to one discarded golf bag, picked it up gingerly by the fake-leather strap, went to the other and somehow managed to get hold of both of them with its mouth, hoisted them up, then ran back and dumped them at Thaxton's feet.
 

“Never saw a dog do such a thing,” Thaxton said.
 

The moor continued but became less boggy. They found the next hole, and from the tee it looked to present no special problems. Heather carpeted the rough, and this time there was an acceptable fairway of fescue grasses, though toughened with numerous rocks, deep swales, and pot bunkers. The green looked conventional.
 

“Let's call this par four,” Dalton said.
 

“Looks a little long for a four. And a little difficult.”
 

“Try a three-wood off the tee.”
 

“Do you really think? It looks over five hundred yards, Dalton. Par five.”
 

“That's about...” Dalton held his club out, using some undoubtedly arcane method of judging distance. “Four hundred fifty yards. A long par four.”
 

“Oh, all right. Where did I put my bag? I—”
 

Cerberus was standing beside him, Thaxton's three-wood in his mouth.
 

“Hmm. Thank you. Good dog.” Thaxton gave his partner a bemused look, shrugged, and took a square stance.
 

The sixteenth hole wouldn't have gone well even if the herd of wyverns hadn't shown up.
 

Dalton lost his ball in the rough. Cerberus found it for him easily enough, but it was a steep sidehill lie in the tall heather. Thaxton wound up in a deep swale and had to pitch his way out, but the lob shot merely put him into a fairway bunker.
 

Then the wyverns arrived, squawking and twittering, their stubby wings flapping noisily. Two-legged and green-scaled, they liked the tender leaves of tall bushes and could bend over easily to forage. As they did so, their long barbed tails writhed like angry snakes.
 

They got in the way. Thaxton's wood shot from the bunker hit one of them and sent the poor thing shrieking away. Cerberus chased them, woofing his delight, herding them this way and that and adding to the confusion. Wyvern claws chewed up the turf, wyvern teeth chewed up the rough, and wyvern innards landscaped the approaches to the green with wyvern dew. The place reeked.
 

Thaxton's ball landed smack in a huge pile. This didn't deter him. He hit a mean Texas wedge shot that splattered the stuff and sent the soiled ball bounding across the green and into a trap.
 

“Dung hazards!” Thaxton groaned.
 

“We shouldn't have to take this crap,” Dalton said.
 

They putted as best as they could. Both wound up with triple bogeys.
 

“Rum show, that,” Thaxton said.
 

“On to seventeen?”
 

“Of course. Why would we stop now? By the way, fairly soon we're going to have to face up to the problem of getting back to Perilous.”
 

“That's certainly true,” Dalton said.
 

“Have any ideas?”
 

“Why don't we start worrying about it after we've sunk the last putt? Or even after we've had a drink at the Nineteenth Hole.”
 

“Right. What good to worry now?”
 

“That's the ticket.”
 

They walked on, Cerberus tagging along. The moor petered out, giving way to rolling grass spotted with patches of sand. The sky changed, the overcast breaking up a little and revealing patches of blue sky.
 

“Looks like we're in for a bit of pleasant weather,” Dalton said.
 

There was a new smell in the air: the sea. It sparkled to their right, its breakers washing a rocky shore.
 

“Here're your golfing roots,” Thaxton said.
 

And indeed it was. What spread before them was an ancient course laid out on links land, the sandy grassland of the Scottish shores. Sheep grazed on the lee side of the hillocks.
 

“Lad, do ye ken the Highland fling?” Thaxton said.
 

“Aye. But I'd rather do the lindy. This is wonderful. I've always wanted to play on the real links. Wish we had some traditional clubs instead of these high-tech cheats.”
 

“Well, to my way of thinking, anything that helps to ... wait just a minute. Oh, no, not again.”
 

A fog bank was quickly rolling in from sea. It was thick, impenetrable, and seemed to possess a reality all its own.
 

“Uh-oh,” Dalton said. “Another change-fog.”
 

“Oh, dear.” Thaxton chose a flat rock and sat down. Cerberus lay down beside him and held his head up to be petted.
 

The mist rolled in, blotting out sea, sky, and land. It reached the golfers and their caddy-mascot and swaddled them in moist silence. Cerberus jumped to his feet and let out a few defiant barks, then lay back down and whimpered quietly.
 

“I have the feeling,” Dalton said as he settled down to wait, “that the last two holes are going to test our mettle.”
 

“I'm already suffering mettle fatigue.” Thaxton gave his partner a wink. “Sorry.”
 

“Well, you should be.”
 

They waited.
 

 

 

 

Country

 

The countryside was deserted, its fields silent, its eroded asphalt roads devoid of traffic.
 

They walked through overgrown hayfields and pastures, encountering the foundations of demolished farm houses and buildings, sections of rusted barbed-wire fence, and other remnants of what were once working farms. The fields had been allowed to go wild for so long that saplings had grown up in them, the surrounding patches of forest reclaiming lost territory.
 

They ate a lunch of wild raspberries. There was nothing to drink but creek water, which Gene didn't trust. They did find a well site but the pump was long gone. The raspberries' juice was enough to hold them, though, and they continued their cross-country journey, keeping away from roads and not staying too long in the open.
 

Occasionally they would hear the whine and roar of turbines and take cover. Rural areas were well patrolled. Gene wondered why.
 

He began to suspect the reason when they discovered a destroyed tank in an old cornfield. It had been hit in the turret with an armor-piercing shell. The top hatch had been blown off and the inside of the vehicle had burned out. Judging by the amount of rust and weathering, Gene put the event at four to five years ago.
 

They began to see evidence of recent battles—besides the hulk of the blasted truck, they found shell casings, ammo belts, and other military refuse. Nothing in great quantity: Gene got the feeling that this was debris missed in a general cleanup.
 

“Did you ever hear about what happened here?”
 

“No,” Alice said. “Never. But...”
 

“What is it?”
 

“A while back there was a Citizens' Mobilization Training Festival.”
 

“What was that?”
 

“We were ordered to report for training.”
 

“Military training?”
 

“I guess you'd call it that. We marched around carrying wooden sticks.”
 

“Not rifles?”
 

“No, just sticks to practice with. They didn't give us any guns.”
 

“Then what happened?”
 

“Nothing,” she said. “It lasted about a week, then there was a notice canceling the festival.”
 

“Was there anything on the screen then about ‘unsocial outside elements'? Anything at all?”
 

“Yes, a couple of mentions here and there, but no information.”
 

Gene mulled it over. Thinking aloud, he said, “There was a battle or a series of battles fought here not too long ago. The area is still being patrolled. That might mean that the front lines are not very far away. Maybe fifty miles to the east. Which puts it close to the portal.”
 

“Close to the what?”
 

“The thing that will take us to my world. A doorway. Never mind that for now. Let's reconstruct a possible history. This nation, whatever it was before, some variant of the United States, was taken over by this mysterious molecular entity called InnerVoice. The rest of the world wasn't taken over, or there were at least parts of it that remained free. These free nations or a group of them finally managed to invade the East Coast and work their way west as far as western Pennsylvania, meeting strong resistance all the way. Around here somewhere a decisive battle was fought, and the defenders threw back the invasion force. The front lines stabilized somewhere east of here, where they remain. Stalemate. The civilian population is kept in the dark, except for some hastily improvised mobilization effort. How does that sound to you?”
 

“I don't know. It could be true.”
 

“It has to be true. No other interpretation fits the facts.”
 

“How are you feeling, Gene?”
 

“Huh? Oh, fine. Fine.”
 

It struck him then that he
was
feeling fine. No nausea, no anxiety. He wondered if the battle inside his body had been won. If so, how? What inner resources had he drawn on? Maybe it had been sheer fortitude and willpower, with a little adrenaline added to help.
 

Somehow he doubted it. He had been thoroughly cowed, beaten. InnerVoice and its mechanisms were almost insurmountable for the ordinary person.
 

But he was not an ordinary person—at least his experiences were not ordinary. After all, he lived in a magic castle in a world of magic. Was something supernatural working here? He couldn't see how, because he was not a magician himself; rather, he was a bad one. He could cast a few simple spells but seventy percent of the time he botched them completely. And those spells would not help him here in any event. So, what was happening to him? He felt the faint stirrings of something going on inside, but he couldn't put a finger on what it was.