"You better get back, Sheila," Gene said.

She watched, transfixed, as a swell rose up, rode in, and broke very near the opening. Sheila squealed and backstepped as the surf foamed through the portal and across the floor, slopping over her shoes.

She squished down the corridor to where the others had sought dry floor. They were smiling at her.

"I see what you mean," Sheila said.

"Is that your first wild aspect?" Gene asked. "Strange, isn't it? The aspects you see through the windows aren't so startling. You look out and see weird things, but somehow, the window comfortably frames it.

But when you see an aspect pop out of nowhere like that -"

"It kind of blows your mind," Sheila said, nodding gravely. "Why are they called aspects?"

"Just a term that's used around here. They're called aspects, portals, gateways ... other things."

Suddenly the sunlight faded, and the sound of breakers stopped abruptly. They all turned to find that the portal had vanished.

"There it goes," Gene said, "just as mysteriously as it appeared."

Sheila shook her head slowly. "Wherewas that place? That ocean?"

"It could have been the beach at Malibu," Gene told her. "Or somewhere on the Gold Coast of Africa.

But I looked, and I didn't see anything out there that would lead me to believe it was a way back to Earth. It could have been any one of tens of thousands of worlds. Probably a deserted planet, somewhere, in an uninhabited star system a billion light-years from -" He shrugged. "Wherever."

"Was the one I fell through like that?" Sheila asked.

"Probably. Just like the ones we blundered through."

Sheila stared off into the darkness. "Maybe it actually was a way back. Back home."

"We'll never know, Sheila. Best not to think about it. We're stranded here, in this world, this castle.

You'd better start getting used to the notion of being here for a while."

Sheila grunted ironically. "A while? You mean for the rest of my life." Brow knitted, she massaged her bottom lip between her teeth. Then, murmuring to herself: "But I really didn't have much of a life, did I?"

Gene said, "I'm sorry. What did you say?"

Sheila took a deep breath and turned around. "Nothing. Nothing at all."

Gene smiled at her. "Don't worry. In time, you'll actually get to like it here. I look at it as sort of an extended vacation. Two weeks in August that never seem to end. But at some point it will, it must. A gateway will pop up in front of us, leading right into Times Square, and the vacation will be over. It'll be September, time to go back to school. Or to a new job."

Sheila studied him clinically. He wasn't a bad-looking fellow, rather tall, with curly dark brown hair and gray-green eyes. Not bad over all, except that she would never have given him a second look on the street, or in a bar. He had a boyish, immature way about him, even though he talked very well and sounded educated. She liked him. "You really believe we'll get back someday, don't you?"

Something deep in his eyes flashed when he smiled. "You bet. This is a dream - a shared dream. And someday we'll all wake up."

She managed to smile back at him, and it made her feel good.

"Anyone for lunch?"

Gene and Sheila looked. Linda had conjured an impressive buffet table laden with an endless assortment of cold cuts and salads.

"Come and get it before it goes up in a puff of smoke," Linda said.

Snowclaw swiped at a plate and came away with about three pounds of sliced roast beef. He shoved the mass into his mouth, chewed four times - no more - and swallowed. He shook his head wearily.

"You know, I keep trying this stuff you guys like. It's good, don't get me wrong. But a little while later and I'm hungry again."

"Try a little mustard with it," Linda suggested, tossing him a jar of Dijon. Unbelieving, she watched Snowclaw pop it into his mouth. "Snowy, don't!"

The glass crunched horribly. "Hey, now you're talking!" Snowclaw said with a satisfied grin.

Fourteen.

Keep - Lower Levels.

BARNABY WALSH WAS exhausted. He was by nature a sedentary person, tending to avoid movement unless dire necessity demanded it, and this frantic chasing about, keeping one step ahead of the Bluefaces, was more than his ill-proportioned, overweight body could stand. In fact, he simply couldn't take another step....

"We can't stop!" Deena Williams yelled at him.

"I gotta," Barnaby told her, slumping against the wall.

Deena ran back and yanked at a handful of his shirt. "Come on, man! They're right behind us!"

"I can't ... run ... anymore," Barnaby wheezed at her. "I'm completely ... I can't -"

"You gotta! The Bluefaces are comin'!"

"But ... " Barnaby tried to swallow the acrid dryness at the back of his throat. He choked and coughed, bending over double.

"Shhhh!" Deena looked worriedly back down the passageway. "Keep it quiet, or they gonna get us."

Barnaby recovered enough to say, "I can't go on. I'm done."

"No, you're not. Just keep puttin' one foot in front of the other. Come on, man, you can do it."

"No, honest."

He looked at her. She wasn't even breathing hard! But she'd been a trade athlete in high school, she'd said, before getting pregnant and dropping out. She had always dreamed of going to the Olympics. She was even dressed for the part, in a purple sweatshirt, red shorts, and white running shoes.

"Go ahead," he told her. "Take off. I'll just hold you up."

Scowling, she shook him hard. "Don't start that hero stuff with me, you hear? I'll slap you silly. Now, let's go, unless you wanna mess with them blue dudes."

"Okay, okay," Barnaby groaned. Grunting noises from behind gave him the added impetus to start moving again. He staggered forward, steadied himself with one hand on the wall, then boosted his pace to a painful, galumphing jog, his oversize wing-tip oxfords slapping against the flagstone.

They ran. The place was nothing but endless corridors shunting every which way, leading to nothing but more passageways and corridors and the occasional crypt or alcove, all of it giving the impression of having been laid out without design, purpose, or plan.

I'm no hero, Barnaby thought to himself. In fact, he was just the opposite. He was more afraid now than he had ever been at any time in his life. He had told her to go on without him as a sort of test. He didn't know what he would have done had she left. Alone, he might have simply gone insane.

They made their way down the stone-walled corridor, Deena at a sprint, Barnaby loping along. She reached a cross-tunnel and stopped until he caught up.

"Stairs," she said, pointing to the left.

Barnaby could barely see in the gloom. "Let's go," he said.

The stairwell was spiral. Deena started down the well, taking two steps at a time, her crisp white athletic shoes glowing in the darkness.

Barnaby said, "I can barely -" then stumbled and almost fell.

Deena halted a few turns down. "Watch yourself," she warned. "It's dark down here."

"Yeah," he said dully.

They continued down, and found to their dismay that the stairwell was endless. After five minutes of steady descent they stopped, not knowing what to do.

"Go back up?" Deena suggested.

Barnaby gave her an incredulous look.

"Guess not." She shrugged. "They gotta end sometime."

They kept on following the downward spiral for another ten minutes. The stairwell continued with no sign of a bottom.

"Shit?"

"It's ridiculous," Barnaby said.

"Silliest damn thing," Deena complained, hands on her hips and a look of offended dignity on her dark brown face. She sneered up, then down. "Damn. Well, if we didn't go back up before, we sure ain't gonna do it now. Let's go."

They stumped down the stairs for another five or ten minutes. The stairwell was bare and featureless, except for an occasional glowing jewel-torch and the odd niche here and there.

"I'm really starting to get pissed off," Deena said.

Barnaby couldn't help laughing. Deena caught it and began to giggle. She continued doing so, intermittently, for the next few minutes, but as time wore on, she fell silent save for occasional grumbling and cursing.

They marched down the spiral for a quarter hour before the stairs eventually ended in a low-ceilinged tunnel.

"Finally," Barnaby murmured, barely able to keep his legs moving. He was beyond fatigue now; he wondered how long his heart would last, how long it would keep feebly pushing blood through his bloated carcass, which now felt like something dead that had to be dragged along.

The tunnel went straight for a stretch, then made a forty-five-degree turn, followed by a right-angled corner. The passage continued for about sixty feet, ultimately feeding into another stairwell whose spiraling steps led nowhere but up.

"Oh, no!" Barnaby staggered backward.

"Damn," she said. "Theyscrewin' with us!"

"Oh my God." Barnaby collapsed against the cold stone wall of the tunnel. He sank to his haunches and closed his eyes.

Deena sat on the steps and began tenderly massaging her firm, almost muscular brown legs. "They jerkin' us around."

Barnaby didn't speak; he couldn't. They sat in silence for a long spell.

"Damn," she said again, quietly. And then, after a long pause: "Well ... "

"Don't even think of it," Barnaby said.

"Okay," she said. "Take your time. We ain't exactly got anywhere to go."

"Thanks."

"But up."

"Exactly."

She craned her neck, peering up the spiral. "Maybe it don't go up as far as the other one went down."

"Why can't I believe that?" Barnaby said.

"'Cause theyscrewin' with us, that's why," Deena said. Then she began giggling again.

Barnaby answered with a hideous laugh, which made Deena giggle all the more. Barnaby closed his eyes again and laughed till it hurt.

He choked it off when Deena suddenly yelped and jumped up from the steps as if from a hot stove.

"What the hell - ?" She stared in disbelief at the steps, which, inexplicably, had begun moving upward of their own accord, like some impossible stone escalator.

Getting to his feet, Barnaby acted as though he wasn't at all surprised. He caught the bottom step, mounted, and rose up the stairwell.

"Going up - lingerie, notions, merchandise return on the mezzanine."

"I'm comin'," Deena told him, stepping aboard. "I just wish thiswas Bloomingdale's," she added in a mutter.

They rose in silence, the paradoxical escalator making a barely audible humming noise. Gradually its speed increased, and the stairwell showed no sign of ending. Eyes wide with wonder, Barnaby and Deena continued their magical ascent. Air whistled past them down the spiraling shaft. The rate of climb kept steadily increasing. In a few minutes it began to take on alarming proportions.

"What was that you said about the mezzanine?" she asked nervously. "I want to get off."

"Yeah," he said, licking dry lips. "This seemed a peachy idea down at the bottom."

The noise increased to a thunderous roar, and the escalator's speed soon necessitated their getting down on all fours to fight a centrifugal force that threatened to push them into the stationary outside wall, which was rushing by at a rate guaranteed to impart a severe brush burn at the very least. But there was nothing to hold on to but bare stone.

It was like being inside a tumble-dryer. Soon, the walls became a blur and vertigo overtook both of them. Barnaby felt consciousness slipping away as his hands inexorably slid across the smooth stone of the steps....