Castle War! (35 page)

“Oh, you'll love the castle,” Mordecai said. “It's like a resort in the Catskills. All that's missing is the social director.”
 

“I wish we could get some results,” Isis said. “I hope Lord Incarnadine will let us know what readings he's getting on his instruments.”
 

Jeremy turned around in the swivel chair. “He said the effects wouldn't be spectacular. Things will just right themselves, calm down, and that will be that. But just think. What we're doing in this room is affecting the whole universe. All the universes!”
 

“It's a big responsibility,” Isis said. “It was a big job. But you did it, Jeremy. You got us through.”
 

“With a little help from you, Isis. With just a little help from you.”
 

“But that's simply my job. I'm a program, remember. I serve the user.”
 

“You serve me just fine.” He smiled up at her.
 

“Ah'd like to see the rest of this here castle,” Luster said. “Iffen it wouldn't be too much trouble.”
 

“I'll be glad to show you around,” Mordecai said. “I still remember how the place is laid out. You have to watch yourself, though. It can be tricky.”
 

“Yeah,” Jeremy said. “Be careful the first few weeks. After that you'll get used to the place and it'll be like home.”
 

“Wish there was a way t'get word to Momma,” Luster said.
 

“We have the coordinates for your universe. If you guys can fix the
Sidewise Voyager
, we can take you right home. Think you can do it again?”
 

“Well, ah don't rightly know,” Luster said. “Dolbert, you think fixin' that there contraption will be a problem?”
 

Dolbert thought about it, then guffawed.
 

“Dolbert says it'll be a challenge,” Luster interpreted, “but he thinks we're up to it.”
 

Jeremy and Isis exchanged looks.
 

Jeremy said, “Luster, how can you understand Dolbert? He doesn't talk.”
 

“Beg pardon? Why, he'll talk yore arm off, iffen you let him. Oh, I know he's hard to understand sometimes, but—”
 

“Dolbert must have his own language,” Isis said.
 

Luster scratched his head. “I guess he does, so t'speak.”
 

“He fixed the
Voyager
. He must be brilliant.”
 

“Wull, Dolbert's about the smartest man I know. He stays up nights readin'.”
 

Dolbert chittered some comment.
 

“Dolbert says he's ‘specially partial to the poetry of Sheats and Kelley.”
 

Jeremy nodded, then did a take. “Shouldn't that be ‘Keats and Shelley'?”
 

Dolbert chortled.
 

“Not where we come from,” Luster said.
 

Dolbert thought that was very funny indeed.
 

 

 

 

Queen's Dining Hall

 

“...so Sheila and I went back to the weird aspect where the cloud was,” Linda was saying. “We reversed the thing's rotation, and it started
absorbing
the clone Snowclaws. We told all of them to report back to the aspect for ... well, for getting sucked back up into the thing, and they went. Snowclaw's clones are good troupers.”
 

“That's because Snowclaw's a good trouper,” Dalton said. “But the question that arises is, what did they feel about vanishing into the oblivion from which they came?”
 

Linda waved the issue away. “We didn't ask. And I don't want to think about it.”
 

“If you start thinking about things like that when you do magic,” Sheila said, “you'll never sleep at night. I still have a submarine crew I created sitting around doing nothing—but that's another story.”
 

Dalton took a sip of coffee. “By the way, where's the real Snowclaw?”
 

Linda froze, then put down her toast and looked at Sheila. “Did you—?”
 

“Well, I thought
you
knew where he was,” Sheila said.
 

“Oh, my God,” Linda said, hands up to her face. “You don't think he got ... ?”
 

“Oh, I expect he's around somewhere,” Dalton said. “He can certainly take care of himself.”
 

“Well, anyway,” Linda said, “it's been a crazy couple of days. I hope the cosmic disturbance is over. I wouldn't want to go through that again.”
 

“You're sure all the strangers have been shooed out?” Dalton asked.
 

“Whoever's left, the Guardsmen ought to take care of,” Sheila said.
 

“What about the bogus Incarnadines?” Thaxton said.
 

“We don't know about those,” Linda said. “They all seemed pretty much immune to whatever we were doing. In fact, they all seemed to be having a pretty good time.”
 

“I hope Lord Incarnadine managed to get back,” Dalton said.
 

“I sent a page up to the laboratory to check. He ought to be reporting soon. I kind of suspect Incarnadine returned okay. Things are quieting down.”
 

“There he is,” Sheila said.
 

Gene and Snowclaw had entered the dining hall.
 

“Hi, guys!” Snowclaw said, throwing down his broadax.
 

“I found him sleeping in my room,” Gene said.
 

“I was tired. Besides, I was sick of looking at myself all over, so I thought I'd get some sleep. Great White Stuff, am I hungry!”
 

“Dig in,” Linda said. “I had the cooks bring your beeswax candles and Thousand Island dressing.”
 

“Thanks! Sometimes I like beeswax, sometimes paraffin. It depends on my mood.”
 

Snowclaw dipped a candle into a bowl of dressing and popped it into his toothy maw.
 

Thaxton looked disgusted and put down his Reuben sandwich.
 

Other Guests entered the hall, laughing and chattering away. Deena Williams waved and said hello.
 

“Hi, there!” Sheila called.
 

“I'll bet they all have stories to tell,” Linda said. “And I'll bet you have one, too, Gene. Whatever happened to you?”
 

“Got into a strange universe. But that's nothing new.”
 

“What about school?”
 

“Forget it,” Gene said. “I've had enough reality to last me awhile. Give me swords and sorcery. Can't get enough of that stuff.”
 

“Well, you came to the right place,” Dalton said.
 

 

 

 

King's Study

 

The room was filled with books and curios. The ceiling was high, supported by rib vaulting. Bookshelves reached almost to the ceiling. Star charts and astronomical gear—orreries and such—were concentrated in one corner of the study. A rank of instruments resembling grandfather clocks ran along one wall.
 

“What readings you getting?” one Incarnadine asked of another.
 

“Things are just about back to normal.”
 

“Well, that doesn't solve our problem.”
 

The other Incarnadines grumbled agreement.
 

“What exactly is our problem?”
 

“There is the ultimate ontological question.”
 

“Meaning?”
 

“Who's real and who isn't.”
 

“Why don't we let reality take care of itself?”
 

“Ultimately it will, but I for one can't regard myself as the product of some glitch in the supercontinuum.”
 

“Me neither. I don't hold with the notion of there being an infinite number of castles.”
 

“Why not?” asked still another Incarnadine. “Any rigorous quantum interpretation of things would accommodate them.”
 

“Well, quantum physics is so much whistling in the dark as far as I'm concerned. There's an irreconcilable conflict between quantum theory and relativity, and everybody pretty much agrees that relativity is right. You can't have both.”
 

“It depends what particular subuniverse you're talking about,” said a third Incarnadine. “The paradigms are polar opposites, but most continua are compromises between the two. Earth, for example, is pretty much fifty-fifty. The ratio has something to do with the amount of magical leeway per given continuum, but just what the mapping function between the two is, is unclear.”
 

“Let's drop all this chalkboard chicken scratching. I just want to know who the real McCoy is.”
 

“Damn it, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a philosopher!”
 

“Very droll. I tell you, it's relative.”
 

“It's not relative. There can only be one of us.”
 

“Why? Are we supposed to be a god, or what?”
 

“Well, that's never been very clear.”
 

“A demiurge, at the very least.”
 

“Anybody want to buck for Glaroon?”
 

“That's a special pocket continuum, and it's copyrighted.”
 

“Look, we're not getting anywhere. Why don't we all return to our respective ... whatever you call them. Continua, quantum glitches, Erehwons, reflections of reflections—”
 

“I kind of like this place a little better. Some nice equipment here that I don't have.”
 

“See? What you're saying is that we aren't merely reflections.”
 

“I never said we were.”
 

“I'm getting confused.”
 

“It is a confusing situation.”
 

“'Mirror, mirror ...'”
 

“Who's got the mirror? Endlessly regressing fleas, and all that. I say the question's purely academic, and I say to hell with it.”
 

“Well, we tried to settle it by force, and that didn't get us anywhere. Nobody ever gained anything by playing chess with himself.”
 

“Why don't we flip for it? Anybody have a coin?”
 

“Why don't we all meet in an aspect somewhere, bring guns, and start banging away at one another?”
 

“Primitive, but it ought to settle something.”
 

“That's what I was talking about at lunch. Some of you guys are just a little too bloodthirsty for my taste.”
 

“Well, all you liberal pantywaists can hold a raffle for the door prize.”
 

“Who's a panty waist?”
 

“Who's a liberal?”
 

“Wait a minute. Something's happening.”
 

They all looked at one another.
 

“You're all fading,” said one of them.
 

“So are you,” said another. “I can see right through you.”
 

“Anybody know what's going on?”
 

“The disturbance has been quelled. The problem is taking care of itself.”
 

Gradually the figures in the room grew transparent, save one.
 

One of the disappearing ghosts raised a hand. “Anyway, fellows, thanks for lunch.”
 

“See you around,” another said, his voice an echo.
 

Presently there was only one man in the room. He exhaled and got up from the chair he was sitting in. He checked the instruments again, nodding in satisfaction.
 

“So much for that,” he said.
 

On his way out he passed a mirror, and stepped back to consider his reflection.
 

“Anyway, I
feel
real enough.”
 

His image winked at him.
 

“You and me both, pal.”