Castle Murders

John DeChancie

 

 

This book is dedicated to

 

 

Beth, Bettie, Bev, Cally (Cassy), Debbie, Deno, Jan, Jo, Kay, Leigh, Pamela, Romana, Sarah, Stephanie, Aaron, Bill, Brian, Brion, Bud, DDB, Grant, Irv, Jim, Joel, Jon, Lawrence, Nicolai, Patrick, Pete, Roy, Scott, Smokey, Steve, Stu, Tim, Tom, Walt, and the rest of the stalwart contributors to the Science Fiction Echo — part of a worldwide nexus called FidoNet — cybernauts all. :-)

 

 

 

And this huge Castle, standing here sublime,I love to see the look with which it braves,— Cased in the unfeeling armour of old time —The lightning, the fierce wind, and trampling waves.

— Wordsworth

 

 

 

The Eidolons of the King: Preface to the Castle Edition

 

Ordinarily an introduction or prolegomenon is expected to shed some light on the material it prefaces or introduces, enough so that the reader may find his way through an unfamiliar literary landscape. In the present case, however, this prefatory note to the work now known as
The Eidolons of the King: Tales of Castle Perilous
can serve only to delimit areas of shadow that shroud the work in mystery.
 

Particularly obscure is the question of its origin and authorship. To say that its provenance is mysterious is to put it mildly. To put the matter simply: the original paperbound volumes of the books of
The Eidolons
— cheap pulp paper, hastily glued bindings, garish covers and all — were found one day in the castle library, having been shelved among finely wrought leatherbound tomes of bardic sagas and epic poetry. No one knows who put them there.
 

Would that this were the only mystery! The deeper and more fundamental question, of course, is: Who wrote these books and how did their author come by his intimate knowledge of Castle Perilous? to say nothing of his apparent clairvoyance in producing these accounts of the storm of recent events that have raged round it.
 

Castle Perilous! At its very mention the heart skips a beat. For the benefit of the reader and especially for those castle Guests who seek a general orientation within these pages, it might do well to pause here and describe what the name evokes for we who make the castle our home.
 

For the castle itself is a mystery. Its very existence maintained from second to second by a transmutational spell laid long ago on a great demon, Castle Perilous is a magical construction. Its huge bulk — far more than what mortal hands could amass piling stone upon stone — bestrides a citadel commanding the bleak Plains of Baranthe in the Western Pale. The castle is a world in itself; but far more than that, it contains countless worlds.
 

Some explication is needed. As would any structure of its size, Perilous has innumerable doors and windows; but the anomaly is that some of these are portals to other worlds. Pass through any of the castle's "aspects," as they are called, and you cross into a strange new cosmos. There are exactly 144,000 aspects in the castle. Any resident or Guest of the castle can describe the sensation of wonder engendered when, after traversing gloomy hallways, one goes through an archway or alcove and steps out onto a vast savannah where herds of animals graze — or into a deep forest limned in cathedral light — or onto a desolate plain whereon sits a domed city under an alien sun.
 

But let us return to the controversy surrounding the authorship of
The Eidolons
.

Who is the man whose name is emblazoned (immodestly so, if I might add) across the covers of these "paperbacks"? Where does he live? As the language of these works is contemporary (if quasi-grammatical) English with lapses into pseudo-Elizabethan cant, one might well conclude that the author hails from the castle aspect known as Earth. But, truth be told, a thorough search of the appropriate reference volumes has failed to produce any mention of either the author or his works. Moreover, no trace can be found of the publisher whose name and address is printed on the verso of the title page! (There are attendant minor mysteries, of which we should make passing mention. The author's surname, for instance. What nationality is it? English, via Anglo-Norman? French? Anglicized Italian? The name is very possibly a pseudonym. And who are the individuals whose fawning endorsements are bruited on and about the cover? Presumably approving critics or admiring colleagues of the author, and we would be forced to conclude one or the other or both, were it not for the fact that no trace can be found of these people either. Phantoms all! Then there is the matter of the cover "art." What sort of deranged soul could . . .? But let us set these relatively trivial matters aside.)
 

What, then, are we to make of all this? The only conjecture to acquire any currency has it that
The Eidolons
originated in a world that is a variant of Earth and one in which the castle is a fiction, not the reality we know. Here we tread disputed ground, for some hold that there are more than 144,000 universes. In fact, there may be an infinite number of them, of which the assortment provided by the castle is only a random and constantly shifting sample. Be that as it may, the conjecture that these books were generated in some backwater universe does not explain how they came to the castle, nor how they were written. Indeed, it makes the issue all the more obscure, for how could a stranger to the castle, a stranger even to the universe in which the castle exists, have produced these highly romanticized but essentially accurate accounts, even to describing the intimate thoughts and sometimes inexplicable actions of the master of Castle Perilous, Incarnadine, King by the grace of the gods and Lord of the Western Pale?
 

We can dismiss out of hand the notion that His Majesty penned
The Eidolons
, for he has categorically denied it.

Who then? A Guest? If so, why the secrecy? What is he (or she) hiding?

I have no answers to these questions, but, as Royal Librarian, I can here offer a somewhat different explanation for the origin of
The Eidolons
.
 

The castle's library is an enigma in itself. Not a day goes by when the library staff is not surprised by finding some new wonder on its shelves, books that were not even suspected to exist. Marvelous books, strange books — even dangerous books. (One such describes the construction of a weapon so terrible that I cannot bring myself to describe its intended effects. Another provides schematics for an infernal device which, from what can be made of it, is intended for the express purpose of trapping a god. Which deity is to be bagged is not specified. Needless to say, these and other dismaying oddities have been sequestered in the Closed Stacks, where, if I have anything to say in the matter, they will remain indefinitely.) Where do these books come from? Not even Lord Incarnadine can say. He himself has added very few books to the collection. Thus, I am not beyond imagining that the library itself has magically generated
The Eidolons
. How? I know not. Why has it chosen to do so in such a peculiar idiom? I cannot fathom it. But the works exist, and that is enough for me. Their significance and importance cannot be questioned.
 

You hold in your hand a new edition of
The Eidolons
, painstakingly set in movable type from the originals, printed on vellum stock, and bound in fine-grained leather with gilt lettering and filigree. The text is faithfully reproduced without editorial emendation or gloss.
 

Read
The Eidolons
and wonder, taking with a grain of salt its melodramatic excesses. Written in an uneven style by turns breezy, serviceable, and sesquipedalian, these tales hew close to all the conventions of the popular romance, and are consequently guilty of the faults and foibles that go along with such fare. But minor narrative flaws can be ignored, as can the occasional textual solecism. (In the first volume, "portfolio" is used where "folio" is meant. A typo, or the result of the author's ignorance? We will charitably opt for the former, as "folio" does appear elsewhere.) It is the story, after all, that is of prime interest.
 

Above all, read the castle tales and enjoy them. The magic casements open; the perilous seas and all of Creation lie before you. . . .
 

— Osmirik, Royal Scribe and Librarian

 

 

 

Foreword to the Fifth Volume

 

Enigma upon enigma!

Initially only four volumes of the Castle Edition of
The Eidolons
were planned, for the simple reason that only four original paperbacks were found. Now, a fifth penny dreadful (Really — how long are these cheap books expected to last? — surely no more than a fortnight!) has appeared in its rightful place on the shelf next to its kin.
 

Curiously, the "Preface" to the first edition was reproduced in this new volume, thereby giving new life to the "inside job" theory of authorship. You may well imagine my chagrin at finding myself quoted on the back cover. "Read the castle tales and enjoy!", indeed.*

But what is absolutely mystifying . . . there are no words to express the emotion . . . is that this very "Foreword" appeared as well — paradoxically so, for I had not even begun to write it!
 

Yet here it is, written in an uncanny imitation of my own style, complete with expressions of my astonishment at finding it.

I will not begin an attempt at explanation. The librarian proposes, the library disposes!

Read on.

— Osmirik, Ryl. Scrb. & Lbrn.

 

 

 

 

[* Why the vaguely Yiddish usage? Incidentally, even this footnote appears in the original.]

 

 

 

Abelard, South Dakota

 

It was a stark and dormy night.

The campus was quiet. Northeastern State University wasn't the liveliest of schools, and it was Monday night, and it was snowing again, the wind howling out of the plains. Nothing to do but stay in the dorm and study.
 

There was enough on Melanie McDaniel's study agenda. Deadlines were approaching: a paper for Philosophy 101 on Aristotle's
Ethics
was due in three days, and one on Conrad's
Nostromo
, for English 125 (20th Century British Novels), had been due three days
ago
. There was a calculus test tomorrow. Other stuff. But Melanie didn't feel much like studying. She didn't feel much like doing anything but fiddling on her computer.
 

Fiddling was what it was. Melanie was on-line via modem to the campus's computer bulletin board system, or "BBS." Through it she was plugged into a worldwide network of amateur computer users called the CyberNet. The Net was a forum, a meeting place, for people who liked to gab about anything and everything. The discussions were grouped into topic-areas, with subjects ranging from current events to "Star Trek" to computer software. Melanie posted messages in many areas, but she particularly liked Woman Talk: The National Women's Forum, a cross between a slumber party and a backroom political caucus.
 

The cathode-ray tube of Melanie's IBM clone displayed:

 

To: Melanie McDaniel
 

From: Cindy Thayer
   
Msg 256

Subject: Men again!
 

I second the emotion. Men are congenitally polygamous, as in Higgamus Piggamus. When WE'RE that way, we're "sluts." You can't win, kid. Sorry you lost him. But there are a lot of fish in that sea — except that they're all kind of slimy and scaly. Keep your chin up. Bye!
 

Cindy

—

Origin: The Boardinghouse: Cooperstown, NY (1:398/276.9)

 

She looked out the window. Icy snowflakes ticked against the glass. Abelard was completely blotted out. Nothing was visible except an outside light in the quadrangle, a yellow halo in the darkness. She thought about Chad and about how the last thing he had said to her was that he needed "space" and that the relationship wasn't going anywhere and that he needed to be free of commitments in order to concentrate on getting through a tough term on his way to his economics degree. Maybe when he was through grad school and had his MBA he'd be ready for a serious relationship.