“Risky. If I break down, or get a flat —”
“A flat what?”
“Never mind. Let’s just say that I need to assess the risk factors here.”
“That can be done.”
Gene said, “Well, let’s do it.”
Seven
Queen’s Dining Hall
“How was your flight?” Sheila asked.
“Fine,” Linda Barclay said. A pretty blonde with pale blue eyes, she was tall and perhaps a bit too thin.
Sheila had always wanted to be a blonde, had always hated her own red hair. Although Sheila wasn’t aware of it and would probably disagree, she was just as good-looking as Linda.
“You say you tried calling Gene’s parents over and over?”
Linda set down her coffee cup and reached for another roll, thought better of it. “I was even thinking of stopping in there, maybe asking some neighbors whether they’d seen Gene, or whether the family had gone on vacation. But that would have looked awfully strange.”
Sheila nodded. “Probably.”
“Why don’t we just up and look for Gene?” Snowclaw asked.
“Where do we start?” Sheila said. “On Earth?”
“Why not?” the white-furred beast said as he munched his usual breakfast — beeswax candles dipped in Thousand Island dressing. “That’s where he was last seen. You just take me there. I’ll find him.”
“Talk about looking strange,” Linda said, laughing.
Snowclaw chuckled. “Yeah, I guess it would look pretty weird for me to go stomping around your world.”
“Everyone would think you were Bigfoot,” Sheila said. “You’d wind up on TV. Or in a zoo, or something.”
“I don’t know what either of those things is, but I probably wouldn’t like ’em.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
“I think Snowy’s right, though,” Linda said. “Earth would be the logical place to start.”
M. DuQuesne had been listening. “Linda, you’ve been in the castle too long. Imagine thinking in terms of a whole world being a likely place to start looking for someone.”
“Sounds silly, doesn’t it?” Linda said. “But we have to start somewhere.”
“I just can’t believe that something happened to him back home,” Sheila said. “It doesn’t make sense. No one there knows about the castle.”
“Except Incarnadine’s brother Trent,” Linda said.
“Maybe he knows something about Gene,” Snowclaw said.
Sheila shook her head skeptically. “I doubt it.”
“We could ask him.”
“Boy, I’d hate to be putting snoopy questions to a prince. He might think we suspected him.”
Linda said, “Prince Trent seems like a nice guy, but I sensed some kind of tension between him and Lord Incarnadine.”
Sheila nodded. “They were rivals for the throne once.”
“Maybe they still are.”
“But why would Trent want to do away with Gene?”
“Maybe he wants to do away with all of us, all the powerful Guest magicians. We’re Incarnadine’s servants now.”
“Vassals,” Sheila corrected.
“Vassals. Any pretender to the throne would want to neutralize his rival’s powerful allies.”
“Wait a minute. Aren’t you overestimating our strength and importance just a little bit?”
“No, I don’t think so. Didn’t Incarnadine himself say that we two were the most powerful castle magicians he’d ever seen, besides members of the royal family?”
“Yeah,” Sheila said, “I guess he did say that. I just can’t see myself in the role of mover and shaker.”
“Well, we did our part to save the castle a year ago. Help stop a whole invasion.”
“Incarnadine stopped it. And his brother Deems died fighting the invaders off.”
Linda nodded. “Okay, maybe I’m getting egotistical. I was just trying to imagine what the heck might be going on.”
“Maybe nothing’s going on,” Sheila said. “Gene will walk in here in a few days and we’ll all feel pretty stupid.” She looked away for a moment, then said, “I’ve been wondering. Why would we be the most powerful magicians? Some of the servants are hundreds of years old — at least some of them say they are. Why aren’t they all super sorcerers? I mean, it’s the castle that gives you magic powers, and they’ve lived their whole lives here.”
“There are powerful magicians among the servants,” DuQuesne said. “For instance, Jamin is very adept. He supervises the maintenance of various spells around the castle, like the language-translation spell that keeps this place from turning into Babel.”
“Then why does Incarnadine need us?” Sheila asked.
DuQuesne shrugged. “I’m sure I don’t know, but he must have his reasons.”
“Well, all that’s neither here nor there,” Linda said. “Gene is three days late now, and I say we try to find him.”
Sheila signed. “Obviously we’ll need some magic. I can’t begin to imagine how we’d go about it.”
“Osmirik is the logical one to ask for help in that area,” Linda said. “There has to be something like a spell to locate someone or something.”
“Hmm.” Sheila knitted her brow. “Maybe. Anybody seen Osmirik lately?”
“Has anyone ever seen him outside the library?” DuQuesne said. “Fellow always has his nose in a book.”
“Want to go up with me?” Sheila asked Linda.
“Sure,” Linda said. “Right now.”
“Finish your coffee. There’s really no —” Sheila broke off as a group of people entered the dining hall, among them Osmirik, the castle scribe and librarian. The other three were Thaxton, Dalton, and a young man no one had ever seen before.
“Hey, is that the new fall-in?” Linda asked.
“Looks like,” Sheila said.
“Greetings,” Dalton said. “Meet our new caddy.”
Jeremy waved, then caught sight of Snowclaw.
“Hi, I’m Sheila Jankowski.”
“Uh … hi. Jeremy Hochstader.”
“Nice to meet you, Jeremy.”
After Sheila had made introductions all around, Jeremy took a seat, still mesmerized by the sight of Snowclaw.
Linda said, “Coffee?”
“Huh? Oh, sure. Thanks.”
“Snowy is one of our dearest friends,” Sheila said. “New people always get a little shaken up the first time they see him.”
Jeremy looked away quickly. “Doesn’t bother me,” he said. “I’ve seen all kinds of things since I got here.”
“When was that?” Sheila asked pointedly.
“I dunno, it’s hard to keep track of time in here. Two days, maybe three.”
“Three days. That’s when the portal wandered, all right. Where are you from?”
“New York. Queens.”
