Castle Murders (3 page)

"A mainframe?"

"Yeah, but it's different from your average computer. Works by magic."

"Magic?"

"Yeah. Come over and meet Jeremy. He's our computer whiz."

Linda led Melanie across the floor and around a U-shaped wall of instruments. Seated at a terminal in the middle was a thin young man in blue tights and a red tunic — he looked no more than sixteen years old.
 

Jeremy looked over his shoulder. "You want to hold the portal, or can we let it float?"

Linda turned to Melanie. "Are you going to stay with us for a while? We can call the portal back any time."

"Uh, sure. Yeah, I'll stay."

"Break the spell, Jeremy."

"Sure thing."

Jeremy jabbed at the keypad, looked at the screen, then sat back and swiveled around. "It's broken."

Melanie looked back at the wall. The opening was gone, replaced by dark stone. She turned back to Linda, who, she now noticed, was dressed in black tights, pointed shoes, and an orange and white striped doublet. She looked like she was dressed to play Hamlet.
 

"Linda, where are we?"

Linda smiled brightly. "Welcome to Castle Perilous."

 

 

 

Castle — Queen's Dining Hall

 

The discussion had somehow gotten sidetracked onto music, having started out on the question of whether new inductees would benefit by a proposed formal orientation session. The upshot was "No," and that had been the end of the matter.
 

"Myself, I like classical," said the man everyone called Monsieur DuQuesne as he picked at a plate of clams in Mornay sauce. He was small and round-faced and wore old-fashioned round glasses. He was always dressed for the opera: white tie and tails. He was sociable, but no one knew much about him because he rarely spoke of himself.
 

"So do I," Deena Williams said.

DuQuesne was mildly surprised. "You do?"

"Yeah. What's the matter? Don't you think my kind can like that stuff?"

"It's not that. You've never said anything before."

"Well, I do. Oh, I like the kind you can dance to, all right, but I think classical's good too."

"Who's your favorite composer?"

"I listen to it, but I don't know much about it. I kind of liked that thing you were playin' when I came to get you for lunch."

"That was the
Peer Gynt Suite
, by Edvard Grieg."

"Grieg, huh?"

The dining hall was full. The Earth portal had been wandering lately and there were many new people from all over the world. Consequently, the table bore dishes representing many different kinds of cuisine.
 

Tall, curly-haired Gene Ferraro was sampling something he thought might be Balinese: rice, nuts, and vegetables in a ginger sauce. He chewed thoughtfully. Malaysian? Anyway, it wasn't bad, if you liked that sort of stuff. He swallowed.
 

"Edvard Grieg," he said, "was as fat as a pieg."

Deena Williams looked at him. "You say somethin'?"

A man called Thaxton, light-haired and distinguished, was seated to Gene's right. "He certainly did. He said that Edvard Grieg was as fat as a pieg."
 

"I heard him. 'Pieg'? What the hell's that?"

Thin, balding, and middle-aged, Cleve Dalton was on Gene's left. "There's a term for that sort of rhyme, but it escapes me."

"It's called 'cheating,'" Thaxton said.

"What brought on that bit of verse, Gene?" Dalton asked.

"Nothing. It just suddenly occurred to me that Edvard Grieg was —"

"Et cetera, et cetera," Thaxton said. "Well, go on, man. Finish it."

"Finish what?"

"The clerihew."

Deena looked offended. "Cleri-what?"

Thaxton said, "At Balliol we used to improvise them at table."

"Balli-
what
?"

"Oxford."

A man in Nigerian tribal dress seated next to Deena said, "We used to do limericks at Trinity."

Thaxton said, "I shouldn't be surprised at anything they do in Cambridge." He turned to Gene. "Well?"

Gene regarded the stone-ribbed ceiling for a moment. Then, stumped, he took another bite.

"You don't start a clerihew without finishing it."

"Oh, I do it all the time," Dalton said. "Music? Let's see. Uh, okay. How about this: Gustav Mahler / liked to jump and holler."

Thaxton frowned. "It's all very well to start something. Well, I suppose I'll have to do your dirty work." He took another bite of Steak Diane and chewed thoughtfully.
 

"Right. I've got it." He got up and recited:

 

"Gustav Mahler
 

Liked to jump and hahler.

He wrote to perfection

The tune
Resurrection
."

 

Dalton scowled. "Not what you'd call inspired."

Thaxton sat down. "You can do better, I suppose?"

"Maybe."

Many of the diners were in costume. Not all were medieval, some shading into the Renaissance and beyond. Gene was dressed in something out of Dumas or Edmund Rostand. On the table in front of him, a wide-brimmed hat blossomed with a white plume. He had taken to training with a rapier lately and had become quite the proficient fencer. He was good with almost any kind of sword. He was in fact the castle's best blade-wielder, dazzling swordsmanship being his particular magical stock in trade.
 

Suddenly goosed by the Muse, he sat up straight. He blurted:

 

"Edvard Grieg
 

Was as fat as a pieg.

He wrote
Peer Gynt
.

I sure wish he dynt."

 

Groans around the table.

Dalton picked up the plate with a roast chicken on it and set it in front of Gene. "For that, you win the pullet surprise."

Thaxton said, "For that, you ought to be taken out and shot."

"One bullet through the head, please. Quick and clean. Except for a little blood and brains on the ground."

"Very little brains, I'm afraid."

"Hey, I'm eatin'," Deena complained.

DuQuesne said, "What are you up to these days, Gene? You're dressed fit to kill, and something tells me that should be taken literally."
 

"Snowclaw and I are staging a revolution in Arcadia."

"I don't believe I know that aspect."

"Keep, west wing, right next to the chapel."

"Human world?"

"Yeah."

"What do they make of Snowclaw?"

"Sheila tricks him out to look human. She's good at that."

Thaxton said, "I've never understood why that beast doesn't hang about with his own kind."

"I don't recall ever seeing Snowclaw's kind in the castle," DuQuesne said.

"Well, with the other nonhumans, then."

Gene said, "Snowy's always said that he basically likes the way humans smell. Reminds him of rotting blubber. He happens to like rotting blubber."
 

"Where do the nonhumans hang out?" Deena wanted to know.

"They have their own dining hall," DuQuesne said. "Haven't you ever been there?"

"No. Where is it?"

"North forebuilding, near the Hall of the Kings."

"The Hall of the Mountain Kings, perhaps?" Thaxton said slyly.

DuQuesne ignored him. "There are many other dining halls and Guest residences, you know."

Deena said, "That I know. I ran into one the other day. All kinds of people in there I didn't recognize."

"They would be Guests from human worlds other than Earth."

"I kinda figured that."

"They tend to keep to themselves. So do the nonhumans."

"As do we," Dalton said.

"Nerds of a feather," Gene mumbled.

"Speak of the nonhuman," Dalton said.

Everyone looked up as Snowclaw came striding into the room with his huge broadax, blade wickedly gleaming, balanced across his shoulder. Snowclaw was an immense ursine-humanlike creature completely covered in fur of the purest arctic white. Yellow-eyed and sinewy, mouth ferociously toothed, Snowclaw was something you would not care to be politely introduced to in a clean well-lighted place, much less meet in a dark alley.
 

"Hi, everybody!" He came over to the table and threw the broadax down, knocking over a tureen of crab bisque. "Oops, sorry."

"Think nothing of it," Thaxton said, mopping his lap with a serviette.

"Your spell wore off," Gene observed. "We'll have to stop by Sheila's world and get you fixed up."

"So, Gene," Dalton said, "you and Snowclaw are off to war and revolution. Who are you overthrowing? What sort of potentate? King, prince, sultan, pharaoh, what?"
 

"I'm embarrassed to say that we're aiding the royalists against an anarcho-syndicalist regime that came to power by revolution. The regime's been so monstrous and bloody that it makes a monarchy look utopian by comparison."
 

"I'm surprised there are any royalists left."

"There are almost none in the country itself. Most of them are émigrés in a neighboring state."

"Well, it sounds like a good cause."

"It does kind of recharge the old moral batteries," Gene acknowledged.

"How do you feel about it, Snowclaw?"

Snowclaw sat down. "Don't know about that stuff. I just like it when the fur flies and the guts go splattering all over the place."
 

"Energizing the ethical dry cells, as it were," Thaxton said.

Just then Linda Barclay walked in with Melanie in tow, Jeremy bringing up the rear. Introductions were made all around.

Deena asked, "How do you like it so far, Melanie?"

"Fine, so far."

"Wait till the creepy stuff starts happening."

"Uh . . . like what?"

Deena set her coffee cup down. "Well, let's see. A while back we had the Blue Meanies invadin'. Then the devils from Hell. But that's nothing compared to when the whole place goes crazy and the walls turn to rubber and things start shakin' and shiftin' around."
 

Dalton said, "The castle has been unstable at times. And there are permanent areas of instability. But you keep away from those parts."
 

"Oh."

"Soon you'll acquire a sixth sense about the place, and you'll be able to find your way around. And depending on what your magical talent is, you'll be able to use that to advantage as well."
 

"Magical talent?"

Linda explained, "Most people acquire the ability to do magic when they get to the castle."

"Most people," Gene said. "Then there are the retards, like Snowy and me."

"Don't listen to him. Gene's the best swordsman in the castle, and Snowy can teleport."

"Not very well," Snowclaw said. "Last time I tried it I slammed myself into a wall and got knocked out for an hour."

"You never mentioned it," Gene said. "That's strange."

"It hurt."

"Do you have to run to start teleporting?"

"No, I usually stay still and just think. Then I take like one or two steps, and I'm where I want to go."

"Then how did you wind up slamming into a wall?"

"You tell me."

Gene thought about it. "You must have materialized inside the wall."

Linda flinched. "Oh, my. That's a terrible thought. Don't do it again, Snowy."

"I won't. I never liked doing it."

Dalton looked at Melanie. "Most people's talents don't get them into trouble if they exercise a little discretion and watch what they're doing."
 

Melanie nodded. "I see. What will my talent be?"

"Oh, there's no telling. Anything from materialization to teleportation, to —"

"Dowsing," Gene said. "Necromancy, palm-reading."

"Not that stuff," Linda jeered.

"Channeling?"

"It'll be something useful, Melanie."

"Channeling is useful," Gene said.

"Right."

"I happen to channel a thirty-thousand-year-old high priest of Lemuria."

"You do?" Melanie said, a trifle awed.

"Sure. On the astral plane he's thought of as a very wise being."

Dalton asked, "So what's the name of this wise astral being?"

"Well, if you're just going to scoff," Gene said.

"Sorry. I'm asking nicely now. Who is he?"

"No, your skeptical vibes are queering my karma."

"Oh, come on," Dalton mock-pleaded.

"Only if you're sincere."

"I'm sincere. What's the name of the entity you channel?"

"Murray."

"Murray?"

"But he likes to be called Skip."

Melanie turned to Linda. "They're kidding, right?"

"They're always kidding. Pay no attention to them."

"It's going to be a while before I get used to all this," Melanie said.

"You will," Dalton assured her.

"After lunch," Linda said, "I'll give you the Cook's tour."

"Is it lunchtime?" Melanie asked.

"Well, it's after nine p.m. Eastern, so maybe you're not hungry."

"I didn't eat dinner because I didn't have any appetite, but I'm kind of hungry now."

"Try this cheese plate," Thaxton suggested. "The Camembert is the real thing. And these truffles are authentic, if I'm any judge."
 

"I like this curried lobster," Deena said. "You like curry?"

"Quiche?" Dalton said, proffering a dish past Gene's nose.

"Get that wimp food out of my face," Gene said.

"A thousand pardons."

"We dashing, non-quiche-eating types stick to meat and potatoes." Gene pointed to Snowclaw. "He, on the other hand, likes beeswax candles dipped in Thousand Island dressing. But, as they say,
de gustibus non disputandum est
, cha-cha-cha."
 

"I like paraffin candles sometimes," Snowclaw said. "It depends on my mood."

Gene noticed that Melanie's green eyes had gone apprehensive. "I'm sorry. Didn't we introduce Snowclaw?"

"No," Melanie said in a small voice.

"Melanie, I want you to meet Snowclaw, a friend of ours."

"Hi, Melanie," Snowclaw said.

"Hi."

"I'm not as scary as I look, Melanie."