“Shore is pretty, anyway.”
“Hold on to your chitterlings, brothers and sisters,” the Toshiba said gaily. “It’s going to be a rough ride.”
Thirty-one
Temple
“Uncle Mordecai!”
The man in the electric-blue leisure suit squinted through thick-lensed glasses. “What are you telling me, I’m related to you?”
“Not by blood. You married my aunt Jacinda.”
“Jackie! Good woman, rest her soul. You’re —?”
“Incarnadine.”
“I thought you looked familiar. You were young when I saw you last. You still look young. How old are you now?”
“Three hundred fifty-six.”
“A baby. Still at the castle?”
“It’s home.”
“I enjoyed it when I lived there.”
Incarnadine looked around at the opulence of the temple. “You have a nice place here.”
“It used to be a good business back in the old days. Now nothing. Bad location.”
“To say nothing of those protection spells.”
“Hey, I got quite an investment here. You should see the insurance premiums I gotta pay for vandalism. It’s murder today to run a business.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet. Uncle Mordy, you don’t live here, do you?”
“Here, in this barn? No. I got a place in Palm Beach. I’m retired now.”
Incarnadine was astonished. “You have a portal between here and Earth?”
“For years. Why?”
Incarnadine turned to Jonath, who was still prostrate on the stone floor of the sanctuary. “You think I’m a powerful magician? Here’s one who can do something I can’t.” He turned back to Mordecai. “You’re the only magician I know who can punch a portal between universes without castle power.”
Mordecai shrugged. “It’s a simple trick.”
“I’ll bet. Where is it?”
“Right in the back. Let’s go back to the house where we can talk, I can offer you a drink, whatever. Come on. Oh, your helper, here. You’re invited, too, pal.”
Incarnadine helped Jonath up, then introduced him.
“A pleasure,” Mordecai said. “Come on back.”
Mordecai led them behind the base of the statue, through a doorway, and into a less voluminous chamber. Set into the base of the far wall was a small square opening.
“I just found out I got problems with this thing. When I heard the alarm go off in the temple I came running and found that it shrank on me. Look at that. Like a cat door. I had to crawl through the damn thing. You know what’s going on?”
“Yeah,” Incarnadine said. “The reason I’m here. The interuniversal medium is undergoing stress, and anomalies like this are happening all over.”
“Well, let’s get in here before it chops someone in half.” Mordecai got down on his hands and knees and crawled through the opening.
The room on the other side was a large paneled game room with a bar, couches and chairs, and a pool table. Mordecai led his guests through it and up the stairs to the first floor of a very large house. A hallway came out into a spacious living room with a view of a manicured lawn and garden. The property ended at a canal and slip, where a large cabin cruiser was moored.
Decorator Swedish modern furniture graced the room, and modern paintings, among them what looked like an original Paul Klee, hung on the walls.
“Great place,” Incarnadine said.
“My late wife, Leah. She had taste. And a lot of money, God rest her soul. Sit down, sit down. You want a drink?”
“No thanks.” Incarnadine sat on the sofa. Jonath remained standing.
Mordecai seated himself in the matching white leather chair. “So, what’s the story?”
“I was doing some military advising in Merydion —”
“
“The same. Anyway, I detected some cosmic disturbance and checked the portal. It had constricted to a pinhole, and I was stranded.”
“What were you going to do at the temple?”
“Cast a teleportation spell to get me home.”
“Whoa, you were taking quite a chance. The magic there is a little tricky.”
“So I found out. I had some trouble with your protection devices. Good thing they were on automatic. If I’d had to deal with you —”
“Forget about the teleportation thing. Those spells are monsters. You could arrive DOA back at the castle.”
“There was the risk, but I had no choice. The portal was blocked.”
“So, you’re here now. What’s the problem?”
“Reports are that the Earth portal went strange. It could mean that the connection between here and the castle is completely gone. It was anchored in Pennsylvania, and I guess I should go up there and check things out, but I’m pretty sure it’s disappeared.”
“I haven’t been back to the castle in years,” Mordecai said. “Wasn’t the portal in New York for a while?”
“For a number of years, but Ferne moved it to Pennsylvania.”
“Ferne. I remember Ferne. Beautiful girl. Gorgeous!”
“Yes. She died last year, I’m afraid.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. I really am.”
“Anyway,” Incarnadine said, “now that I’m here I’ll try to summon the portal, if you don’t mind.”
“Be my guest. You need any help?”
“Let me try alone first.”
Incarnadine went to a blank section of wall and stood about five feet away. He stretched out his arms and began moving them in patterns, tracing a curvilinear figure.
He did this for about a minute before stopping. He sighed. “Thank the gods.”
“What for?”
“The portal’s still here. They reported at the castle that some strange world had popped up at the locus of the Earth aspect, and that made me worry that there was no wormhole at all between Earth and the castle. But from the indications I got just now, the wormhole still exists. Problem is, it’s writhing around like crazy and there’s no controlling it. It’s wild, totally wild, as it used to be before I fiddled with it very recently.”
“Then all you have to do is find it,” Mordecai said.
“That’s going to be tough.” Incarnadine sat down. “Earth magic’s always been my bugaboo. Had a devil of a job wrestling with it last time I was here. Ferne did the anchoring in Pennsylvania. My brother Trent’s good at this sort of thing, too, but he’s on vacation and can’t be reached. And I have to get back soon. I must deal with the cosmic instability before it gets much worse.”
“Well, you got a problem,” Mordecai said.
“Yup.”
“Good thing you came to me.”
