“You’re taking this the hardest of all of us,” Dalton said.
Linda heaved a sigh. “He just seemed to hold this whole world together. Without him, it’s all like a crazy dream.”
“I know what you mean.”
“It’s always seemed like a dream to me,” Melanie said.
“But even here,” Dalton said, “death is a fact of life.”
“Yeah, it’s so inevitable.”
Thaxton leaned over to say, “I’m told the funeral will be quite a big do.”
“Should be a real pageant,” Dalton speculated.
“I hate funerals,” Deena Williams said.
“Who likes them?” Melanie asked.
“I get all depressed.”
“Wonder why.”
“And I never liked church either.”
“Well …”
“There’s going to be an orchestra, I hear,” Dalton said, craning his neck. “Back there in the choir loft, I guess. Mozart, Beethoven, and a bunch of stuff from other worlds by composers I’ve never heard of.”
“He liked music,” Linda commented.
“He was a singular man,” Dalton said. “With all his powers, his gifts, it’s hard to believe he was only human. There was something of the demigod about him.”
“I never thought of him as godlike,” Linda said. “He was human to me.”
“Well, you’re a great magician. You and he had something in common. You both could handle the castle’s magic.”
“I’m hardly in his league.”
“Maybe not, but you’re up there.”
They all sat silently for a moment, listening to the strangely lilting strings.
“I can’t figure out whether that music is tonal or atonal,” Dalton said.
“Damned lugubrious,” Thaxton opined.
“It’s positively funereal.”
Thaxton eyed him. “That’s one,” he said menacingly.
“Shhhh!”
The two former golfers looked back at Deena.
“Y’all ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
“You always get me into trouble,” Dalton whispered.
Chastened, they sobered up and were silent.
Presently Linda rose.
“You’re right, I should eat something. I think I’m actually hungry now.”
“I’ll go with you,” Melanie said.
“If you want. After, I’m going to rest up for the funeral. It’s going to be a strain.”
“You better believe it. This place will be packed.”
“Yeah. On second thought, I’m just going to have supper served in my room. I’m tired. Gonna sack out till tomorrow. See you guys later.”
They all nodded. Linda began the long walk to the door, her boots clacking against hard flagstone.
“Family been here?” Dalton asked Melanie.
“Yeah, they were here earlier. I went up to pay my condolences. Are you going to?”
“Never met them. Kind of awkward, but I should, I suppose.”
“Well, of course you should, old man,” Thaxton said. “Only proper.”
“Yes. I will. This is all so damned bloody awful. What will we do without him?”
“At least we know Trent is a good guy,” Melanie said.
The erstwhile duffers exchanged looks.
Dalton said, “He’s not Incarnadine.”
Twenty
Shaft
“Here it is!”
Gene had hoped that mining engineers so bent on safety would have thought of providing escape shafts in case of accident. Shafts that went all the way to the surface. They had indeed provided them.
He pushed against the panic-bar and the heavy blastproof door gave. He stepped halfway in and confronted a small landing which abutted a spiral stairway constructed of unpainted metal. The shaft was lit with tiny blue lights glowing dimly.
“This is convenient.”
Sativa poked her head in and looked up and down the shaft.
“We’re near the bottom level. It’s a long way up.”
They entered the shaft. Gene closed the door quietly. They then began a cautious climb up the spiral.
“I don’t like the idea of being trapped between levels,” he said in low tones.
“It’s a chance we must take. Do you think it goes all the way to the surface?”
“Stands to reason. Opens out onto the slope of the hill, probably.”
“Damn it,” she said. “This is no good.”
“Why?”
“They’d be fools not to cover all the safety exits.”
He stopped. “Right. Should have thought of that.” He thought a moment. “We could try to shoot our way out.”
She shook her head. “You’d be killed. Let’s explore the next level down. There is one entrance they might not cover.”
“Which is?”
“The tunnel leading out to the plain.”
“The one they use as a loading dock? We don’t know if it really exists.”
“It must. It’s the only way to get anything big into the mine.”
“But why wouldn’t they be guarding that, too?”
“Because it’s a hidden entrance and the inner door is probably huge and impregnable. But we can blast through it from this side.”
“With the nukes? Jeez. Okay, I’m game. But which level?”
“We’ll have to try them all. But my instincts say down.”
“Right.”
They reversed direction, increasing their pace a bit, trying to keep the stairway from vibrating with their footsteps. The walls of the shaft were of striated rock, smoothly bored. Gene wondered what high-tech marvel had sliced through solid rock like so much cheese. Lasers, probably, but maybe something better. Particle beams. Gamma-wave lasers?
Another landing below. Gene descended the last few steps and approached the door cautiously. He put his ear to it.
Sativa stood behind him and waited.
He took his time. At last he straightened up and looked at her.
“I’m going to risk a peek.”
He grasped the handle, pressed the thumb tab, and pulled. He eased the door out of its jamb until a crack of darkness appeared. A draught of cooler air flowed to his face.
He listened. Then he widened the crack a hair and peeked.
The tunnel was empty except for more crates of armaments. He heard nothing. After waiting at least a quarter-minute, he opened the door and stepped out. He raised his weapon.
“Are you sure you can use that thing?” she asked.
“Are you sure you’re a good teacher? I pushed all the right buttons.”
“But the safety’s on.”
He glanced down. “Oh.” He flipped the tiny lever the other way. “Thanks.”
“Think nothing of it. Which way, do you think?”
“My sense of direction is fairly good. I’d say the other side of the mountain is to the left.”
“Check.”
Gene shut the door carefully, and darkness, except for Saliva’s greenish glow, returned.
She touched something on her suit and the light cut out. They stood in complete darkness for a time, listening.
Silence.
Before long the strips along the front of her suit began glowing again.
“There is a proper light on this thing,” she said. “But I’ve been reluctant to use it.”
An intense beam shot from the region of her right shoulder and made a tight circle on the wall. She fiddled with a control until the circle widened.
“Little photon-shooter. I shouldn’t be doing this, though.” She shut it off. “Their sensors can pick up the tiniest bit of trace radiation.”
The intensity had hurt Gene’s eyes, and now the light’s absence blinded him. But his heightened sensitivity returned quickly and soon he was navigating quite well by the weak halo of the strips.
More war materiel. These crates were bigger and there seemed to be more of them.
They walked on, carefully checking all directions at each intersection. Gene imagined himself having a sixth sense, sending out feelers into the darkness. It wasn’t magic — he hadn’t a magic spell for that — but he hoped there were enough remnants of the facilitation spell to give his imaginings some force. Nothing tickled his feelers yet, but he was getting a tingly feeling from them.