"The Hero of Varay" - читать интересную книгу автора (Shelley Rick)

1 – Hangover

Parthet, Lesh, and I walked down to the town of Basil after supper in the castle. Down. The main gate of the castle is nearly a hundred feet above the town's streets. Castle Basil sits on a big hunk of naked rock, and the road curves back and forth down the southern face of Basil Rock through five hairpin switchbacks. That road-eight feet wide on the straightaway, twelve on the turns-was hand-hewn, carved out of the rock without the benefit of any explosives or power tools like jackhammers. A lot of that stone was hoisted to the top and used in the construction of the castle. Most of the rest, according to Parthet, became part of various fireplaces and chimneys in and around town.

Parthet groused about walking, but my uncle the wizard would have complained just as much about riding. "We could have taken the doorway down," he said when we were just a single turn below the castle gate.

"It's a beautiful summer evening," I replied, gesturing expansively, "and we can all use the exercise." After being cramped up on a boat for three weeks, returning from a goodwill tour of the kingdoms west of Varay in the buffer zone, I wanted to get out where I could do more than pace back and forth a dozen yards at a time.

"At my age, cranking my eyes open in the morning is exercise enough," Parthet said.

"How many centuries have you been sliding by on that excuse?" I asked.

"Trade secret. Speaking of secrets, you pick up any on your travels?"

"One dandy rumor is all. In Telemon they're saying that the blind wizard of the late Etevar of Dorthin is the bastard son of the Elfking and Xayber's wife… or maybe it's the other way around. I heard both versions." The man the Dorthinis had simply called "The Wizard" was still roaming around Fairy or the buffer zone-somewhere. Blind, he was no threat to anyone, so I had seen no reason to punish him any further when we captured him after the Battle of Thyme. Sure, he had made it possible for the Etevar's soldiers to kill my father, and he had done his best to give me the same treatment, but my first few weeks as Hero had made me… well, if not more tolerant, certainly less eager for "a life for a life" revenge, and after three years I had seen no reason to regret my clemency.

Parthet snorted. "Where'd they pick up that kind of trash?"

"Seems they do a little trading across the Mist now and then," I said. "The story apparently came from the sailors. They did know about the Battle of Thyme and the fall of the Etevar."

"Not from their sailors," Lesh said. "They won't sail out of sight of land for fear that they won't be able to find their way back. But the Elflord of Something-or-other sends a trading ship across the Sea of Fairy every year or so, so they say."

"The voice of doubt?" Parthet asked in a laughing voice.

"When did Fairy folk ever take to being merchants?" Lesh asked. He was a veteran soldier, and his view of Varay's habitual foes was rather narrow.

"Whenever it suited their purpose," Parthet said with a chuckle. "It isn't always war over in Fairy. Those folks have to eat just like us, and slaves can't grow it all. And anyway, traders can be spies at the same time."

"Even the Vikings back in my world turned to honest trading when that looked more profitable than raiding," I said. I had mentioned Vikings to Lesh during our "cruise." The trading ship we sailed on had a vague resemblance to a Viking dragon ship.

The pub we were aiming for was the Bald Rock, the larger of the two inns in town, the one with the best beer (by almost unanimous agreement among everyone but the proprietor of the other inn, the Castrated Dragon, and his regulars). Still, the differences weren't great, and I tried to divide my patronage as equally as I could.

We were given the big table in the front corner as usual, and the landlord's lads brought out the best mugs in the house, then plopped a ten-gallon keg in the center of the table and tapped it so we could serve ourselves and not have to waste a second waiting for refills. Bowls of nuts and pretzels were set up for us also, so we would have something to nosh on and so the salt would keep us thirsty and drinking-as if we were likely to need help. At least Old Baldy didn't salt his beer. It was a nice, homey arrangement.

The lighting was a dirty yellow glow that came from a series of oil lamps set high enough to keep them out of the way of the occasional brawl. The room was always a little smoky. By the end of a long evening's debauch, a person's eyes could be stinging madly and watering continuously.

Make no mistake. The three of us set out to get blind, stinking drunk that night. Lesh and I were unwinding from our long travels-the goodwill tour had gone on for a total of three months altogether-and Parthet doesn't need an excuse to match anyone in the kingdom drink for drink. But it isn't all that easy to get blind, stinking drunk in Varay. The same force that causes everyone to eat so much also hurries up the conversion of alcohol to sugar and burns those calories as fast as all the rest to fuel the basic magic of the land. There was never any real doubt that we would empty the first keg of beer. Quite likely, we would make a good start on a second. And before you strain something trying to figure it out, let me save you the math. A ten-gallon keg split three ways works out to about thirty-six twelve-ounce bottles or cans apiece… or about fourteen trips to the latrine, out back. To be honest, though, it was never just the three of us who emptied a keg. Every time the landlord came over to see how we were doing, we would invite him to share a mug with us. And other people would stop by our table now and then to pay their respects, say hello, or whatever, and they always got the same hospitality. When we drank down in town, it was almost drinks on the crown for everyone. But I wasn't causing a scandal by showing the "common" touch. That is, I wasn't doing anything unheard-of. Parthet was willing to drink with anyone to anything, and he had often said that my father was the same way. That's how we sometimes got deep into the second keg in an evening's drinking.

People liked to see us come into the pub.

"Dieth having any special trouble in Dorthin?" I asked Parthet after we were settled at our table and into our first round.

"About like always," Parthet said through a foam mustache. He shrugged. "Some of the warlords are still unhappy about the situation. There's a half-dozen of them thought they should have stepped into the Etevar's shoes, and they still won't acknowledge Dieth or you. They cause trouble for Dieth. They cause trouble for Mauroc." Mauroc-by-the-Sea, east of Dorthin, was the seventh of the seven kingdoms.

"Anything serious?" I asked. There was really nothing new in what Parthet had to say. Dorthin had been plagued by occasional fighting, mostly raids among neighbors, since the death of the Etevar. On two different occasions I had been forced to travel to Dorthin to help Duke Dieth put down bloody feuds and hold the kingdom for me. I still hadn't found a way to dump Dorthin permanently on Dieth or anybody else, and I really didn't have the motivation to spend the time it would take to fully "pacify" the country. I didn't care to go looking for unnecessary trouble.

"He hasn't asked for help," Parthet said. "He knows how you feel about Dorthin." I just grunted and took another drink.

"At least we don't have to worry about the Elflord of Xayber yet," Parthet said an hour or so later, returning to the thread of threats as if there hadn't been sixty minutes of irrelevant conversation in between. "Far as we can tell, the civil war in Fairy is still raging." He laughed loud enough to draw stares and ignored them. "Xayber has had his hands full since we sent your message to the Elfking three years back."

"And if Xayber finally wins up there, he's going to be at our throats in a hurry," I reminded Parthet. I hadn't forgotten Xayber's vow of vengeance against me for a minute, and I didn't care to do any intermediate gloating over the elflord's problems.

"You connected with your young lady since you got back?" Parthet asked near the bottom of the first keg.

I growled. I knew damn well that he was using connected as a euphemism for screwed… which is the euphemism I normally use for… well, you get the idea. Some nights, Parthet would carry on at length about his thousand-plus years of connections. "Just because a wizard can't sire children doesn't mean that he can't play the game," he liked to say. It was the only time he was likely to refer to the sterility that his vocation caused.

"Joy's in St. Louis, at her folks'," I said. "I talked to her on the telephone this afternoon. She's flying back to Chicago tomorrow."

Parthet nodded. "Oh, by the way, Annick made a visit to Arrowroot a few weeks back." There was no by the way about it. Parthet had led up to that bit of news intentionally. I had never told Parthet-or anyone else-that Annick and I had made love that night while we were waiting to bring the army through to Thyme from Arrowroot and Coriander, but he always seemed to know. And every time a new sighting or rumor about Annick came to his ears, he made sure to tell me about it.

"Oh? What's she been up to?" I asked, casually enough to disappoint my uncle. Annick. I was no closer to understanding her than I had been three years before when she made it clear that she wasn't going to stop hunting for her elf-warrior father… so she could kill him.

"No idea," Parthet said. "There are the usual stories that she's been off on another foray in Xayber, killing any Fairy folk she could get to." Parthet shrugged. "Unless she starts the tales herself, it would be hard to put much faith in them."

"I wouldn't find it hard," I said. I had seen'her in action up on the isthmus. "But what about this visit?"

"She visited her mother, then disappeared again."

"Probably off in Fairy slitting sleeping throats again," I said.

"Hear, hear," Lesh said, one of his few contributions to the table talk that night. He prefers to concentrate on the beer. That night, he was doing a wonderful job. Every few minutes his head started to sag toward the table, but he always got a mug in place before he could pass out.

"By the way," I said, throwing the phrase back at Uncle Parthet, "isn't it about time for you to start training an apprentice? You're not getting any younger, you know. That's what you keep telling everyone, anyway."

Parthet's instant pique was almost strong enough to sober him up.

"Don't start that again," he said, slamming his mug down on the table. "Believe me, I'll know when it's time to train an apprentice."

I like an occasional night out like that, but not too often-because I always suffer from hangovers of truly heroic proportions. I need time between binges to forget how bad the hangovers are. A good drunk can put me out of action for half the following day, and out of sorts even longer. But while the glow is warming me, it's great. I don't even get upset when the talk turns to Annick… as long as it doesn't turn before I've got at least two sheets to the wind.

People came and went from the Bald Rock. As the evening got later, it was more people going and fewer coming in. Most of Old Baldy's customers had to get up early to work the next day-farmers, shopkeepers, craftsmen. By most folks' standards, Varay isn't very civilized. Life is still dominated by nature, by the sun and the seasons. No electricity. Parthet, Lesh, and I were the only ones down from the castle. Most of the people who live and work up on the rock also do most of their eating and drinking up there, because it doesn't cost them anything. Trips down to the town's public houses are for special occasions. Of course, most of the beer consumed in the castle is purchased from Basil's two publican/brewers.

We were well into our second keg of the evening when trouble walked in, though my danger sense didn't warn me as quickly as it might have. It wasn't just that I was drunk, though that contributed to it. The stranger was disguised by a powerful magic. I glanced at the man when he came through the door and didn't get any kind of warning at all. He stood just inside the door for a moment and looked around. There were only a couple of people left in the Bald Rock besides Parthet, Lesh, me, and the innkeeper and his lads. The stranger looked rather fuzzy. I was willing to lay that entirely on the beer. I squinted to get a better look, but the stranger didn't come into focus.

"Ever see him before?" I asked my companions. I think I was speaking softly, but I can't be sure. Lesh and Parthet both shook their heads. They had turned to look at the stranger too, though it had been quite an effort for Lesh. He had been going at the beer as if Prohibition were going to take effect in the morning.

The innkeeper came out from behind his bar to greet the stranger, who just waved him off. Old Baldy shrugged and went back to his place.

The stranger looked my way and started toward our table, moving very casually-at first. But then things happened very quickly.

I sobered up instantly. That was the work of my danger sense, once the danger got so close that my peril was immediate.

The fuzziness around the stranger disappeared, leaving him strongly defined in the dirty yellow light of the Bald Rock. He was an elf warrior, as tall and fair as all of them are, and his sword was making a blurred arc as he drew it from a shoulder rig-a rig just like mine. He couldn't pull it straight over his head because of the low ceiling. The motion was more like a baseball pitcher with a three-quarter delivery. It was still a quick draw.

I leaped to my feet and over to my left, away from the table, and pulled my own sword on the move. The elf's first blow bit into one of the beams in the wall. By the time he got it free, I was ready to meet him.

Fighting with six-foot swords under the eight-foot ceiling of the Bald Rock called for a particular concentration. Some techniques are worse than useless without full swinging room. But perhaps I had done more practicing at that sort of fighting than the elf had. It was a slight advantage, perhaps the only one I had. The elf was bigger than me, stronger, and likely a lot older and more experienced, though he didn't look especially old. Elves don't particularly show their age. The fact that he was an elf warrior meant that the intrinsic danger sense and the other magics of the Hero of Varay were matched or exceeded going in.

We were both humming sword chants. That was still an involuntary reflex on my part. Whenever I used the elf sword I had won on that beach in Xayber, the melody came out of my throat. The tune wasn't always exactly the same. When I was just practicing, it sounded quite different from when I was fighting for real, and the dragon-fighting version was distinct from this one. But they were all variations on a common theme.

I was also vaguely aware of Parthet going into a magic chant. He was drunker than I had been, and I wasn't sure that his conjuring would have any effect on an elf warrior in any case. It couldn't hurt, though. And Lesh was too far gone to be any help. I hoped he was too drunk to try to get involved. He certainly couldn't defend himself in his condition.

The elf warrior fought with the fierce abandon of someone who was absolutely convinced of his own immortality and invincibility. I had no such assurance. Heroes of Varay died regularly. I had come close enough myself in the Battle of Thyme, and before that, when I faced the Elflord of Xayber in a long-distance duel. Even after three years, I spent a lot of time in the burial crypt below Castle Basil meditating along the line of dead kings and Heroes. Even Vara, founder of the kingdom, had died. His bones were there in the crypt with all of the others. At least there was a niche with his name on the capstone.

But I had also seen one "immortal" elf warrior die, so I knew that the immortality this elf warrior seemed to rely on so heavily wasn't absolute. That's how I got my elf sword. Maybe I was no dragon, but knowing that my opponent wasn't as immortal as he thought he was gave me another very slight advantage. Maybe.

Time means very little in an engagement like that. Neither of us was likely to tire soon enough to make a difference. The endurance of elf warriors goes even beyond legend, but the magic of the Hero of Varay is more than sleight of hand as well. And I had a lot of available calories to burn. Sure, sobering up quickly had included breaking out in about three gallons of sweat, but my body had converted all that alcohol to sugar, so I was on a sugar high, with more energy than sense.

The end came quickly. The elf's sword bit into our keg, and while he was freeing his sword and wiping beer from his eyes, I swung Dragon's Death in a flat arc that took his head completely off his shoulders. But while I was doing that, his sword came free and the tip ripped into my abdomen.

I felt a tugging, and then a fire, I spun away and through a complete circle, but it was too late to avoid damage. The elf's head bounced off the splintered keg and came to rest on our table, right side up, eyes open and facing me, a fierce scowl frozen to the face. I lowered my blade and leaned on the hilt like a crutch, fighting against the waves of pain that were flowing up from my gut.

The elf's eyes were moving, looking around. The mouth opened.

"Before you die, I give you the greetings of my father, the Elflord of Xayber," the elf warrior said. Then his jaw dropped, his eyes closed, and he died.

I pressed my hand against the tear in my gut, futilely trying to hold in my blood. It wasn't the sort of home-coming I had planned at all…

I had returned from my goodwill tour of the buffer zone that afternoon. I had learned something new about myself. My stock of goodwill wasn't enough to hold me through a three-month goodwill tour. A long diplomatic gig wasn't the kind of job that would normally be given to a Hero, but I was also heir apparent to King Pregel, so I was stuck with the job. I did my best to weasel out of it, but when Pregel insisted, there wasn't much I could do but smile and accept the inevitable. My greatgrandfather might be 128 years old and in questionable health, but he was still in charge, and when he said go, I went. He told me that the tour would be part of my continuing education about life in the seven kingdoms.

He was right, though perhaps not entirely in the way he meant it. I learned that nobody in the seven kingdoms had running water, decent plumbing, or a common magic to fend off lice, bedbugs, and assorted other pests. The buffer zone has a lot of little creepers never seen back in the real world, and the bites or stings of a few of them can produce downright peculiar effects. The only other thing I learned was that appetites and meal sizes seemed to decrease in proportion to the distance from Fairy. I wasn't sure what the hell that meant, and my survey was hardly scientific, but it was obvious. At Basil and in the northern border fortresses of Varay, people pigged out as often as they could and nobody got fat. In my tour through the four kingdoms west of Varay-Belorz, Caderack, Montray, and Telemon, in that order-I found that the farther west and south I went, the less food people had to eat in order to get by. And in the far southwest (the Titan Mountains took a big bend to the south, so much of Montray and Telemon was farther south than anywhere in Varay), obesity was an occasional problem.

During the last two months of my tour, I had plenty of time to consider that phenomenon. After all, the actual diplomatic nonsense rarely took more than a few hours every now and then, since we were on the road most of the time, and I couldn't spend every waking moment swearing that I would never let myself be suckered into such an extended stay in the buffer zone again. I was too far from the magic doors to zip back to my own world for an occasional shower and the other amenities. The primitive life is a great place to visit… as long as you can get back to civilization now and then.

When I got back from my tour, I had been the official Hero of Varay for three years and a couple of months. On the whole, they had been peaceful years, and I had managed to divide my time between the buffer zone and my own world, with the emphasis on the latter. After facing the Etevar of Dorthin, we had quite a stock of fresh sea-silver left, so I put it to good use, setting up quite a few new magic doorways to let me gad about a little more freely. Now I had an apartment, a condo overlooking Lake Michigan, in Chicago; a small castle in southern Varay, a simple tower with no bailey or curtain wall or anything, like the castle in that movie The War Lord; and magic doorways connected all of my places to Basil and to my mother's house in Louisville. Yes, she still lived there, most of the time. Twenty-odd years of electricity and modern plumbing had spoiled her for the full-time primitive splendor of Varay too.

Heading west on my tour, I had been on horseback. Lesh, Harkane, and Timon had accompanied me. Letters had been sent ahead months in advance, setting up what arrangements could be made in the seven kingdoms. There is virtually no postal service in the buffer zone, particularly not between kingdoms. The occasional wandering merchant or minstrel would be hired to take letters along and find a way to direct them closer to their goal. Sometimes a letter might pass through five or six different messengers before it reached its destination. Remarkably, none of the letters setting up my tour got misplaced. The tour took us to each of the capitals and some of the other major towns and castles in the kingdoms west of Varay. In between stops, we often spent several nights in a row camped out or bedded down in village inns that were infested with a variety of unpleasant bugs and rodents.

At least getting back to Varay once we reached the far west was faster than the trip out. We hired the largest coastal trading ship available and sailed the Mist home. We started out on the west coast of Telemon, sailed north around a peninsula shaped something like Iberia, then east, all of the way to Arrowroot. The sailors of the buffer zone were cautious men, though. They sailed by day and tied up on shore every night, afraid of being blown too far out into the waters of Fairy. Even though I was in a hurry to get home by then, I kept my impatience at bay. I wasn't entirely comfortable about the voyage. Other than a couple of short day cruises, I had never been on a boat before. At least we didn't run into any storms or rough seas. The Hero of Varay did not disgrace himself by getting seasick.

We docked at Arrowroot after twenty-three days at sea, got our horses and luggage unloaded, made arrangements to pay the ship's master the remainder of his fee, and went to the castle to transfer back to Basil. I grabbed a flagon of beer as we passed through the great hall, something to drink on my way up to King Pregel's private quarters. As usual, Baron Kardeen was aware that I had returned almost before I was. He always seemed to know just who was in the castle and where. The chamberlain met me before I got to my great-grandfather's rooms.

"How is he?" I asked, a normal question.

"Not bad, considering," Kardeen said. Considering- Pregel was 128 or thereabouts, so the standards for "not bad" weren't extremely high. The king's health fluctuated quite dramatically at times. He could go from chest-thumping health to critical condition and back again almost overnight.

Kardeen and I went in together. Pregel was sitting up in bed reading-a book, not a scroll. Mother had been bringing him large-print books for years, something to keep him occupied. Occasionally, I brought him a few books I thought he might enjoy, things Mother would probably never think to get for him.

"Ah, you're back," he said when he saw me. He marked his place carefully with a Garfield bookmark and set the book aside. "Is it just three months?"

"I wouldn't say 'just,' " I said. "The way I itch and all, it feels more like a couple of years."

Pregel chuckled. "Any difficulties along the way?" Even though he was in bed in the middle of the day, Pregel seemed to be at the top of one of his health swings.

"Nothing special, I guess. Nobody tried to tar and feather me or anything like that." I gave him the stack of letters that the various kings and lords of our western neighbors had sent for him. Pregel tossed them aside without a glance.

"That's good. It's been far too long since we've done a tour of our western neighbors. I haven't felt up to that kind of trip for years."

"I can see why. Is it okay if we hold off on the full report for a day or two?" I asked. "I'd like to spend some time soaking in a hot tub and start feeling human again."

"Yes, I imagine you would." Pregel chuckled again. "What was her name again?"

"Joy." I shook my head to keep from grinning. Pregel might be old, but he wasn't completely out of touch.

"Ah, yes, a wonderful name for a young lady. Yes, we can wait a few days before we ask all the questions. That will give me time to read all these letters. As long as there's nothing urgent."

"There isn't. Nobody's declaring war or anything."

"Must have been dull for you. You'll have to bring your young lady by to say hello one of these days."

I just nodded. That was easier than admitting that I hadn't told Joy word one about the buffer zone or my job. I wasn't sure about telling her yet. It isn't that I wasn't sure of Joy, I just hadn't come up with a way to tell her about Varay without either convincing her that I was crazy or scaring her out of her gourd. Joy was special enough that I didn't want to take any stupid chance of spoiling our relationship.

Most times, I enjoyed sitting around and chatting with Pregel. His mind was clear, his sense of humor surprising. But that afternoon, I was itching so badly that I couldn't wait to get home and soak myself until I looked like a prune, maybe baste myself liberally with baby oil or whatever it was going to take to get rid of my itching and discomfort. While I was soaking, I would call Joy and set up something for the next day. It wasn't just that I wanted to let the anticipation build, I had a prior commitment for my first night back.

I got out of the king's room as quickly as I could and went around to see if Parthet had popped in while Kardeen and I were with the king. The chamberlain had told me that Parthet hadn't been at Basil since breakfast, which was quite in keeping with the wizard's habits. He rarely took all three meals in the castle. At lunchtime he could more often be found in one of the various pubs that met his approval. He had used some of that excess sea-silver too.

"He knows you're due, so he'll be along early for dinner," Kardeen said as we headed toward his office. "He's been looking for you for the last week or more."

"I should be back by supper," I said. I was developing a feel for time in the buffer zone, even without a watch. "Maybe I won't be here at the start of the meal, but I'll be along in time to eat." I had a solid two hours, closer to three, before supper would begin in the great hall, and it wasn't as if I would lose time in transit. Kardeen and I nodded each other off, then I headed for my bedroom in Castle Basil to go home. I left Lesh at Basil to get an early start on the evening's drinking, dropped Timon off at my Castle Cayenne in the southernmost part of Varay, then popped through to my Michigan Avenue condo in Chicago.

My place in Chicago is thirty-eight stories up, on the east side of the building, looking right out over Lake Michigan-a classy home in a classy neighborhood. I took frequent guilt trips over it, but the Hero of Varay has more money than he can possibly spend sanely, and gold from the buffer zone spends very well in the "real" world. So much for turning away the Elflord of Xayber, so much for defeating the Etevar of Dorthin, plus never-before-claimed bounties for killing two dragons, and a monthly salary to boot. Baron Kardeen's chancery clerk kept very strict accounts even if the entries would send a CPA into fibrillation. I didn't even have to draw on my status as heir for money. On top of everything else, I also drew a small income from Dorthin. Duke Dieth did his best there, but not all of the feudal lords of Dorthin had accepted the new hierarchy yet.

The master bath in my apartment is appropriately decadent for such an upscale Gold Coast address. The tub will do everything but scratch your back, and it comes close to doing that with directed jets of water circulating just the way you want it. I showered, rinsed the tub out, then filled it for that long soak. While the water was running, I phoned Joy.

Joy Bennett and I had been going together for a year before my goodwill tour. Being away from her for those three months was the main reason why my goodwill ran out before the tour did. Joy had been near the end of her last semester for a B.S. in computer science when I left on my tour-about the same point in her studies that I had been at when I stumbled into my new job and kissed college goodbye. Joy told me that she was going to be exceptionally busy for the last few weeks of school, so she didn't object too strenuously when I told her I was going to be gone for ages on a mysterious mission that I couldn't tell her about. She joked about it now and then during the ten days between the time I told her that I was going and the time I left, but I'm pretty certain that she halfway thought that I was working for the CIA, just the way I used to think that my father was a spy because of his periodic disappearances.

I had offered Joy the use of my condo while I was gone, but the dorm at school was more convenient through the end of the semester, and she decided that she would rather use the time after the end of school to go home for a visit with her parents. I promised to call her as soon as I got home, and she promised to get on a plane to come back to Chicago the next morning. We were in that deep about each other. Marriage hadn't quite been discussed, but we had talked around the fringes of the subject now and then, and it seemed to be a likely prospect… if I managed to get the subject of Varay across without scaring her off, at least. I knew I couldn't put that conversation off much longer.

The phone in St. Louis rang four times, then a fifth. I had a sinking feeling that no one was home, but then Joy answered. After a round of long-distance greetings that I wouldn't dare confide to paper, I said, "I'm home."

"It's about time."

"Way past time," I told her. "I've missed you so much."

"Not even a postcard in three months."

"I wasn't anywhere I could count on mail service," I said.

"Oh? I didn't see you on campus." A private joke.

"Still coming back to see me?" I asked.

"I'll be at O'Hare fifteen minutes after noon tomorrow."

"You have the schedule handy?"

"Don't need it. I memorized it weeks ago."

"Twelve-fifteen. I'll be there. I love you, Joy."

"After three months, you're going to have to prove that all over again, you know."

"Ummm. I can hardly wait."

No, the bathtub wasn't overflowing when I got back to the bathroom. It can't overflow. It says so right on the guarantee. An electronic eye shuts the water off when it gets to the fill level. Other sensors adjust the hot and cold water to whatever temperature I set the thermostat for. And there is a panel just out of reach of the faucets that gives me a telephone, intercom to the front door, five-inch television, and speakers to bring the comfort of my stereo into the comfort of my tub.

I listened to the elevator music of WLAK while I soaked-relaxing music to help me unwind. It put me to sleep, as usual. But I didn't doze for long. My danger sense won't let me be when I fall asleep in the tub. The instant I start to slide down a little, it wakes me with an annoying little jerk. And then my stomach started growling, so I knew it was time to head for supper.

My entryway to Castle Basil is in the hall closet of the apartment in Chicago. Leaving my bedroom there takes me to my bedroom on the fifth floor of Castle Cayenne. Going from dining room to kitchen takes me to my mother's home in Louisville. And the kitchen-dining room direction takes me to a small office I keep on West Washington in Chicago's Loop. I only keep the office as a place for the doorway, a shortcut to get downtown. We had a lot of sea-silver left after my foray into Xayber, and the stuff is useless if it isn't used within three months after it's harvested, so we used it.

I went through Cayenne on my way to Basil to pick up Timon again. The Hero of Varay must be properly accompanied. Timon was still my page. And I had to appear fully armed as always. Most times I didn't worry about wearing both of my swords. The elf blade, Dragon's Death, had stood me in good stead when I needed it, and during the intervening years I had practiced extensively with the claymore until it was almost second nature for me to use it. Besides that, it was a much more impressive weapon. A big part of the secret to avoiding trouble is making people think that you can return more than they can serve up.

There were already people eating when I reached the great hall of Basil. I took my customary seat at the head table, and Timon started dishing up the food for me. I didn't accept that kind of service in my own castle, but in "public" I had to put up with it. Varay can be very tradition-bound about some things.

Naturally, Uncle Parthet was one of the people who had started eating as soon as the first platters and pitchers were hauled in. He waved a spoon my way when he saw me coming in, but our dinner talk was severely limited. Our mouths were always full. Someday, I'd like to do a real study of just how much food people eat in Basil. As the roughest estimate, I'd say that people eat their weight every two to three weeks-and that might be overly conservative.

Weight Watchers would find no business in Varay, though. I asked Uncle Parthet about all of the eating once, back while I was recovering from my injuries after the battle around Castle Thyme. "It's all the magic, lad," he told me. "The energy has to come from somewhere, and mostly it comes directly from the people who live here."

At just about any dinner at Castle Basil, you'll find beef and pork roasts; ham; sausage; chicken and/or turkey and/or duck and/or goose; potatoes fixed three or four different ways; a selection of vegetables, salad items, and fruits-fresh in season, canned, dried, or otherwise preserved the rest of the year; bread, rolls, and desserts-usually fried or baked desserts, as fattening as possible; beer, wine, and coffee; and on and on, including "side dishes" of stew and soup. The buffer zone is a glutton's paradise. Just sampling everything at a meal puts your calorie count well into four digits, and nobody "just" samples it all. It's like having Thanksgiving dinner three times a day, every day, and the cooks of Varay have never heard of things like low-fat, cholesterol-free, salt-free, "light" foods, sugar substitutes, margarine, and the like.

People don't drop dead young from heart attacks or strokes either. Go figure.

Dinner takes time when it's that full of treats. Ninety minutes, even two hours, isn't rare for a meal in Basil. It was dusk before Parthet, Lesh, and I broke away from supper and headed for the main gate. The "welcome home" bash was on me.

And then that damn elf warrior walked in and spoiled the party.