“Dorcas is traditional-minded as hell, and you know it. She’d be on your side, for Christ’s sake. Let’s forget hypotheticals. It’s Ferne who thinks she has a civil rights case.”
“Ferne may have a case, but the way she’s going about redressing her grievance is guaranteed to put more than Castle Perilous in jeopardy.”
“Not if you gave in a little and let her share power.”
“Can’t be done, Trent. I mean, we’re not talking about political power in the traditional sense here, are we?”
“Well, not exactly,” Trent said. “As far as Perilous’ local situation is concerned, the Pale is a Wasteland, and has been for centuries. Is there anyone at all living out there on the plains these days?”
“There are about two hundred tenant farmers and their families left, scraping by as always. They won’t live in the castle for religious reasons.”
“Only two hundred? Gods! Then the Pale is virtually deserted outside the castle. No, we’re not speaking of governing a few hundred square zeln of marginal farmland. It’s a matter of controlling whole worlds — at least potentially.”
“Trent, you know Perilous can’t control worlds. Not very well, at any rate. For instance, take this one. Could we rule Earth from Perilous?”
“Maybe not a complex, heavily populated world where magic is problematical. But other, simpler aspects where the ground rules are a trifle more liberal? Yes indeedy. We could run worlds like those.”
“Why? To what purpose?”
Trent swerved to avoid a cab that had cut in front to pick up a fare. He chuckled. “Why? Something to do. Something different. A new kick. A little excitement to leaven the boredom that’s inevitable in the lives of long-lived sorts such as we.”
“You might take up batiking. Or beer can collecting. How about aerobics? Maybe holistic medicine?”
“Okay, okay. I was simply dying to see it from Ferne’s point of view.”
“I think I know what her point of view is,” Incarnadine said. “She’s nuts. Gone round the bend. Crackers.”
“What makes you think that?”
“I’m pretty sure she intends to make a deal with the Hosts of Hell.”
Trent honked angrily at a brave pedestrian, a man in a trench coat and wool cap, who had stepped out in front of the car. The man jumped back to the curb in the nick of time as Trent roared by. Incarnadine heard shouted obscenities dwindling in the car’s wake.
“How do you know?” Trent said.
“I don’t, for sure,” Incarnadine answered, “but I’m fairly sure she tried to have me killed, and that means she’s not dealing squarely with Deems. I don’t think Deems would go along with assassinating me.”
“Unless he is as desperate as Ferne said he was.”
“Possibly. But I don’t think Ferne wants to share power with anyone, let alone Deems, let alone me. She needs allies to take and hold the castle, and I think she thinks that only supernatural allies will do. She’s probably right. Alone, she’d have to face her subjects, to say nothing of the Guard. And there’s always the Guests as a wild card. And all of them are magicians, to varying degrees. That’s what makes Perilous a fun place and makes plotters toss and turn all night. I do myself, sometimes.”
“This all sounds complicated,” Trent said uneasily. “Why is she stringing Deems along? Why does she need him?”
“If she had simply summoned the Hosts of Hell to take over the castle, Deems would have thrown in with me to fight them off. So would Dorcas, and, I think, even you.”
Trent seemed to be grinning in spite of himself. “But I was stranded here, remember? Still am, as a matter of fact.”
“Bullshit, Trent. I never believed it for one minute.”
Trent laughed. “Okay, I never was good at keeping secrets.”
“You shouldn’t have shown off at dinner, when you let me see how you do your aging act. Obviously you’ve learned to adapt to this universe. How long did it take you to learn how to summon the gateway?”
“Oh, about five years, as I said. But once I could do if, I had no interest in going back to Perilous, or in living in any other universe but this one. I simply had settled down here and wasn’t about to move. I have friends here, you know. I’ve put down roots.”
Incarnadine nodded, looking out the window. Traffic thickened up even more as they reached the West Side.
“I still don’t quite understand it,” Trent said. “Okay, she wouldn’t have won any popularity contests by teaming up with a bunch of demons. But can any of us prevail against the Hosts of Hell, singly or combined?”
“I don’t know. The Hosts of Hell are a troublesome bunch.”
“That’s putting it mildly. If Dad feared anything at all, it was those guys. He warned us about them more than once.”
“Dad knew their power. It’s not for nothing that the strongest containment spell in the castle is the one blocking their aspect.” Incarnadine rubbed his dark beard. He was glad not to have to go about in makeup all the time. Only his C. Wainwright Smithton persona required his looking elderly. “As I said, I don’t know exactly what Ferne’s up to. But I’m sure I’ll find out sooner or later. As I take my dying breath, maybe.” He opened his coat and loosened the collar of his shin. “Tell me this. Why are you helping me? Or are you?”
Trent took a long breath. “I guess it’s occurred to you that I could be behind all this.”
“Yes, it has. Forget it. That’s a possibility I’ll have to live with. I’m betting you aren’t. Granted that you’re not conspiring with Ferne or running her, why help me find the portal and get back to Perilous?”
“Because I don’t want Perilous taken over by militaristic blue monsters,” Trent said, “let alone demonic entities from some fever-dream universe who would rule Creation if they could get their claws on it.”
“Makes sense. Another question. How sure are you about Ferne’s having an estate in western Pennsylvania?”
“I thought you’d found out. You were the one who asked me about it.”
“It was just a wild hunch. We’ve been getting a lot of Guests from that area lately.”
“Well, it was a pretty good hunch. I’ve known about it for some time.”
“How did you find out?”
“About ten years ago I woke up in the middle of the night with the strongest feeling that someone was doing major magic in this universe. I didn’t have the vaguest notion of how to locate the source, so I worked on that problem awhile. Eventually I came up with a direction-finding technique, and the next time I got that same feeling, I went out in the car and got a triangulation fix on it. Over the years, I’ve managed to get a wider baseline and pinpointed it pretty accurately.”
“What’s the name of the town it’s near, again?”
“Ligonier, Pennsylvania.”
“That’s where the portal ought to be nailed down.”
“You would think. But the booby traps and fortifications around it are going to be a living nightmare.”
Incarnadine nodded, smiling thinly. “Let’s deal with the horrors as they come. First we have to survive the Lincoln Tunnel and the New Jersey Turnpike.”
They ate at a Burger King on the Pennsylvania Turnpike near Reading. It was about eight o’clock, and the night was cold and dark.
“What’s with the gadget?” Trent asked as he munched his Whopper.
“Checking some parameters,” Incarnadine said as he tapped with one finger on the keys of a pocket computer. “Stresses, field strengths, other variables. I can’t keep track of them by feel here.”
“That’s the first thing you’ve got to learn. You can’t use technology as a crutch here. Otherwise your magic becomes a sort of pseudoscience.”
Incarnadine smiled ruefully. “I know what you mean. But getting an intuitive grip on things is going to take a little more time. For me, at least.”