"You mean you ain't seen the Bluefaces yet?" the young woman asked him.

"Neither scale nor scutcheon of them. What manner of creature be they?"

She blinked her dark eyes. "They ain't gotno manners to speak of."

"What I meant -"

"I know what you mean. They're scary, ugly blue guys with big feet and lots of teeth."

The young man who called himself Barnaby said, "That's about the size of it. No one knows what portal they came from. They began their attack about ... " He scratched his head. "Jeez, Deena, how long has it been?"

She shook her head. "I dunno. It seems like days, but I know it hasn't been that long. Say ten hours."

"Has to be longer than that."

"Okay, say maybe twelve. Fifteen?"

"So, it's really just begun," Kwip ventured.

"Yeah, but how come you missed it?" Deena wanted to know.

"I was off in a far part of the castle. Outside the keep, along the outer walls. I had a fancy to explore some tall towers which stand thereabouts."

"Wow. You went wandering around alone? How'd you find your way there?"

"One gets used to the place. A servant showed me a tunnel betwixt the keep and the outer fortifications.

I saw nothing of any disturbance."

Barnaby said, "Well, at least that means they haven't overrun the whole castle yet."

"'Twould be wondrous an they could. The castle's a vasty barn. Sometimes I think there's no end to it."

"I know what you mean. Still, the Bluefaces seem to be everywhere in the keep. At least that's the way it's appeared to us."

Kwip stroked his beard pensively. "Very likely you saw what you saw. They seem of a military bent, say you?"

"Very well organized, tactically pretty good, although they're not the best swordsmen in the world. It's just that they're very efficient soldiers."

"Such are dangerous, there's no doubt. Well, there seems to be nothing for it but to hie ourselves through a suitable aspect."

Barnaby nodded. "We tried to, but as you saw, our luck wasn't very good."

"No," Kwip agreed, "but I suspect inexperience were more the culprit than luck. There are any number of aspects. 'Tis but a matter of knowing which to choose."

"Well, we'd appreciate any help."

"Aye." Kwip was not keen on taking two fledglings under his wing. Such obligations tend to slow a man down. Still, he could not very well leave them to fend for themselves. He had no wish to trip across their corpses in a day or two. "I know a place," he said. "I sometimes take my mid-day meal there. It's well away from the Guests' quarters."

"Fine," Barnaby said. "We'd love to go along with you, if you'll have us."

"'Twould be my pleasure, sir."

See that you don't get underfoot, Kwip thought sourly. Damn me for a softhearted fool.

They exited the room and made their way down a narrow corridor which led to a short staircase. The stairs descended into a great hall furnished in chairs and tables and hung with colorful pennants. They moved through the room to a far door, which opened onto a hallway. Turning right, they walked a stretch, then swung left at an intersection.

"You seem to know where you're going," Barnaby observed.

"Be quiet!" Kwip whispered.

"Sorry," Barnaby mumbled.

Kwip held out an arm and Deena bumped into it, Barnaby bumping into her. Kwip tilted his head, listening a moment to far-off noises. Then he crooked two fingers and beckoned his companions forward again. They advanced down the hallway slowly.

A tremulous wail sounded in the distance. It was like nothing Kwip had ever heard. A chill went through him.

They stopped, Deena and Barnaby instinctively linking hands. Kwip turned to them.

"The invaders?" he asked quietly.

"I don't know," Barnaby said in an awed tone. "I can't imagine whatthat was. Sounded like some horrible ...thing ."

Kwip lifted his eyebrows, nodding emphatically. "Aye, it gave me a start. But many a strange beast walks this place." He drew his saber and motioned with his head. "Come on, then. And keep a sharp eye out."

They moved off. A few paces down they encountered a spiral stairwell. Kwip led them into it.

"I know a shortcut," he said.

They hurried down the well, their footsteps making hollow, muddled echoes against the curving stone walls.

They came out into one end of a long hallway, the T of a crossing passage a few paces to the left.

Barnaby edged to the right, peering into a dark alcove across the way. Kwip decided to check out the intersection and peeked around the left corner.

Kwip had never seen a demon, but he knew the creature for what it was the moment he saw it. He could barely comprehend what he saw. It was big, about seven feet tall, and its head and face were a horror that he would half remember for nightmares without end. The eyes were not human, but seemed to radiate an intelligent malevolence like heat from the glowing tip of a torturer's pincer. The face was generally triangular, and the mouth gaped, heavy with numerous black, ragged teeth - charred stumps in a burnt forest. Its coloring was generally red, mottled with blotches of bilious green and diseased black.

The torso and legs were powerfully muscled, and the three-toed feet ended in great curving talons. The area between its legs gave no hint of its gender, if it had one.

What Kwip found eye-defying was that the creature glowed with a strange interior light. The thing did not seem to be composed of ordinary matter. It was as if the figure were a three-dimensional painting, an artist's embodied rendering of a nightmare. A diffuse greenish glow surrounded the thing, and banners of shifting auroral color played about it here and there.

The sight hit Kwip as one telling blow. His pulse stopped, his blood froze, and his mind emptied of everything but a numbing fear.

The thing apparently had heard them coming out of the stairwell and had tried to creep up along the wall.

It stopped when it saw Kwip, its mouth widening into a horrible travesty of a smile. Then it spoke one word.

"Death," it intoned. Part of the vibrations of which the voice was composed rumbled at the bottom end of the range of human hearing. The remaining, more audible component sounded like clustered notes pounded out on the lower octaves of a spinet's keyboard, combined with shrieking overtones that rasped against the ear.

Shocked into immobility, Kwip watched the thing raise a huge bladed weapon that was a cross between an ax and a scimitar. Faint multicolored flames played about the curious, evil-looking blade. The creature's glowing eyes nailed him with a look that pierced his heart, their hot, withering gaze searing the very nub of his being.

Hands yanked him back, and the demon's blade struck the wall at a point directly across from where his head had been. With a cascade of violet sparks, the stone fractured, pieces of it sailing off. Smoke rose from the impact point.

The next thing Kwip knew he was running faster than he had ever run in his life, and the thing was chasing him. He was dimly aware of the young man and woman running beside him.

They ran for a short eternity, the corridor an endless treadmill. Finally they reached the branches of a cross-tunnel.

"Split up!" Kwip shouted over his shoulder.

"Barnaby, this way!" Deena yelled, grabbing her fat friend's shirt sleeve and swinging him round. The two raced off down the left branch of the crossing.

The demon let them go and chased after Kwip.

Twenty-four.

Library OSMIRIK WAS TIRED. He had lost track of time. It seemed that he had been locked in the vault for days on end. He had not slept yet, and his eyelids felt like lead weights. He forced himself to read on.

There was no choice. Indeed, the fate of the castle might hang on what information he gleaned from the stacks of curious volumes that lay about the table.

So far, he had had no luck. Ervoldt's journal had proved a difficult read. The difficulty lay not so much in what the ancient King wrote as in what he omitted as irrelevant or of limited interest to the reader. What was sound editorial judgment on Ervoldt's part was vexatious obscurantism to the scholar. True, judicious paring had made for a lean and powerful narrative. Osmirik had marveled at the King's account of how he trapped the demon Ramthonodox and transmogrified it into a great castle. But exactly what supernatural means had he used to accomplish this feat? Ervoldt had written simply: "The Enchantment hath such Convolutions as to make the Brain fairly reel. I shall not bemuse the Reader by setting it down herewith."

Such bemusement was devoutly to be wished! But this was not the spell that Osmirik sought. There was another mentioned in the sections in which Ervoldt described his magical construct, Castle Perilous. The first of these chapters began with a typical understatement: "I found the Castle possessed of numerous Peculiarities."

Indeed. Ervoldt went on to describe the inherent dangers of the castle's unusual fenestration; Perilous had, in effect, 144,000 open windows, through which any manner of invader might trespass. There followed a catalogue of the aspects which the King explored, listing what was found therein and assessing its potential as a threat. The catalogue was short; apparently Ervoldt meant only to include a sample of what he had found. "It took me a Year and three-quarters, trudging through and through the Place. Much did I see." Obviously the King had covered a good deal of ground.

Ervoldt went on to describe some particularly troublesome aspects, outlining what measures he took to ensure that they would be no danger to the castle. There was one aspect which he had found especially alarming: I did then discover a Cosmos like no other I had seen. Vast and drear and fearful it was, a place of blackness and despair, yet Beings dwelled there, having such horrific Lineaments and foul Mien that I bethought them Demons, to be numbered among the very Hosts of Hell. I did but escape with my Life out of that Place, and laid a Spell of Entombment on the Way that led therein, and the Gods forfend its unbinding, at peril of the world - nay, of Creation itself! I say, beware this Place, in which is contained a surfeit of malign Cunning.

This was the only reference Ervoldt made to the Hosts of Hell, and to the nature of the spells used to seal off especially dangerous aspects. Osmirik had searched through volume after volume of arcane magic, chasing down spells similarly named. He had found restraining spells, binding spells, immobility spells, and confinement spells, but nothing that carried the connotation of the Haplan verbtymbut , which Osmirik had translated as meaning "to place within a tomb or burial place." Ervoldt's offhand mention suggested that the spell was common, one that could be found in the standard spell manuals of the day.

Indeed, the King had mentioned other sorts of spells, and those Osmirik had located. But he could find no trace of a spell specifically designed for the purpose of sealing something or someone in a tomb or burial place.

It was a puzzle. Why would Ervoldt use a spell of this kind? What, indeed, could be the common use of such a curious enchantment? Why would anyone be interested in sealing the dead inside their tombs? It was a common practice to equip burial places with magical defenses to ward off ghouls and grave robbers, but these certainly were not meant to inhibit the dead from getting up and walking out....

Osmirik rubbed his eyes and looked about the tiny, candlelit chamber. He had stacked almost two hundred books inside it, and he had just about riffled through them all. He sighed, leaned back, and stretched his arms, his cramped muscles throbbing. Then he gave a protracted yawn. It would be so good to lay his head down on the table, just for a moment, just to rest....

No. Lord Incarnadine had charged him with this vital mission, and he could not fail his sovereign liege.

He groped in the satchel for something to eat, coming up with a loaf of bread and a wedge of cheese.

He used his dagger to slice the cheese, hands to tear off a chunk of bread. There was a bottle of wine under the table, but he was wary of opening it. A few good swallows, and he'd be out like a candle.

He ate voraciously at first, then slowed down as his mind returned to the problem at hand. Had live entombment been a common capital punishment in ancient times? If so, it was not widely known, but would explain Ervoldt's not bothering to be specific about the method used. Of course, he may have wanted to keep the spell a secret to guard against someone's tampering with it.

Of course. That had to be the reason. Still, it could be a simple and fairly common enchantment....

Something clicked inside his mind. The only motivation for laying such a spell on a tomb would be an inordinate fear of the dead. Necrophobia was widespread in ancient times, and was no rarity even today.

The ancient Hunrans, who were in Ervoldt's day called Tryphosites, had a cult of the dead - rather the opposite of a cult, for the Tryphosites believed that those who died became evil spirits in the afterlife, occasionally returning to Earth to work their devilment on the living.

Yes!

He tossed the bread and cheese aside. If Ervoldt had used an existing spell, he might have borrowed it from the Tryphosites, whose magic he must have studied.

Osmirik slammed his bony fist against the table. There was a book on Tryphosite magic in the library.

But he would have to leave the vault to fetch it! That would be the bravest of deeds. The blue-skinned Hosts of Hell were certainly out there. Yet he had to do it. He had to run the risk of losing his immortal spirit to demons from the fiery bowels of Perdition.

Something nagged at him - a triviality, really. The blue creatures had not struck him as proper-looking demons. They were brutish, monstrous, and ugly as sin - but not quite what one would expect of genuine evil spirits.

No matter. They were dreadful enough. So be it.

He rose and went to the outside wall, feeling along the stone ribbing for the switch that would send the stone slab rolling back into its slot in the wall. He found it and rested two tremulous fingers on it.

A cold sweat broke out along his forehead. Keeping his fingers lightly on the switch, he bent and blew out the candle.

It was worse in the dark. He did not know if he could bring himself to do it. Could he face Evil itself?

Could any mortal? He stood awhile in agonized indecision. Then he lowered his hand.

He groped along the table for the flint wheel, found it, and struck a spark. The oil-soaked cotton flamed, and he lit the candle.

He would have his last meal, then venture out of the vault to meet his fate. Surely no one could expect him to face an eternity of torment on an empty stomach. Besides, he needed time to cogitate. There must be an alternative, one he was simply not thinking of. Now where the devil was that bottle of wine ... ?

Twenty-five.

Pennsylvania THE TEMPERATURE ROSE a bit as they drove farther west and crossed a weather front, but it was still chilly. The sky was cloudless, spangled with cold winter stars. The road wound through dale and over hill, farmlets sleeping to either side. An occasional dimly lighted window alleviated the darkness, the loneliness.

"Do you know exactly where Ferne's estate is?"

"I'll be able to pinpoint the gateway," Trent said, "which amounts to the same thing."

Incarnadine looked out into the darkness. "Bleak," he said.

"What do you expect for the wilds of Pennsylvania on a winter night?"

"A roaring fire, a bottle of good wine, some good music...."