'What're those?'
'Ones that pop up out of nowhere. But we're not in a wild area of the castle.'
'Do people live in these worlds?'
'Sure, some of them. There are a few that are deserted. Ruins and stuff. But some of them have people.'
'And you say Earth is one of these worlds.'
'Yup.'
'How come more people don't know about the castle?'
Osmirik said, 'You have hit on an interesting point, Melanie. The fact is that not all may pass through these portals.'
'Really?'
'That's what we've come to understand,' Linda said. 'The portal may be there, but not just anybody can come through to the castle. It may be that not everybody can sense the portal.'
'You may consider yourself among the Elect,' Osmirik said with a smile.
'I guess I should,' Melanie said. 'Sometimes I think I've died and gone to a weird kind of heaven.'
'Nah, you're still alive. Come on, let's whip up a bathing suit for you. Or would you rather skinny-dip?'
'That sounds like fun.'
Osmirik reddened slightly. 'It was very nice of you to visit, ladies.'
'Thanks, Ozzie. See you.'
Osmirik watched them leave, then set back down. He picked up another gaudily covered paperback.
'I Remember Rama,' he said, shaking his head. 'Postmodernist, perhaps?'
The water in the pool was warm. Melanie floated on her back and looked up at the immense skylight, a ceiling of glass held up by ribbed columns of stone. Sunlight streamed through it, and the bright blue sky beyond it was clear and pure.
The irregularly shaped swimming pool, fed at its farther end by a waterfall, was surrounded by a lush botanical garden. The tops of tropical trees brushed the skylight. The water wasn't chlorinated, and lily pads floated at one end of the pool. No Olympic facility was ever like this.
Melanie swam to the edge of the pool and waded up a stone stairway. She and Linda were alone in using the natatorium, but Melanie had a feeling that no one would have given their nudity a second glance. Linda lay on her back on a chaise lounge, eyes closed. Melanie dragged another chaise close and stretched out on it. Lacing her hands behind her head, she watched the waterfall and let the sunlight warm and dry her.
'I feel so good,' Melanie said.
'I like it here, too. One of the few places in the castle where you can get some real sun. Besides the solarium. And one or two of the sitting rooms. Or six or seven.'
'I never heard of a castle with a glass roof.'
Linda opened her eyes. 'You know, now that I think about it, that can't be the roof. We're in the castle keep, which is Lord knows how many stories high. But the natatorium is only six stories above the…' Linda frowned. 'It doesn't make sense. There should be about forty stories above us.'
They looked up.
'Doesn't look like it, huh?' Linda said.
'That's the sky.'
'Yeah. Well, it only goes to show you. Forget about anything making spatial sense inside the castle. It isn't laid out in normal space ? whatever that means. But Gene says so, and he's real smart.'
'I'm not going to try to figure it out,' Melanie said. 'It's all too wonderful. It might disappear if I analyze it too much.'
'It might. I mean it all could just disappear. In the past it almost has.'
'Tell me about it.'
'You'll hear the stories in the dining hall. Jeremy still brags about how he saved the castle from the Hosts of Hell.'
'The Hosts of Hell,' Melanie said with a shiver. 'Whoever they are, they sound scary.'
'They were. And the Blue Meanies. And the strange stuff that was going on when Gene and I first got here. I never did figure out what that was all about. A lot of it is fuzzy in my mind.'
'Fuzzy?'
'Yeah,' Linda said, rising to one elbow. 'It all seems like a dream now. In fact, Incarnadine sometimes kids me that it was a dream. That it never really happened.'
'What never really happened?'
'Oh, it's hard to explain.'
'Can you try?'
Linda chewed her lip.
Melanie said, 'If you don't want to, you know, it's okay.'
Linda drew a breath and let it out. 'No, I guess you should know just how crazy things can get around here. When I first got here, I was lost. Then I met Gene and Snowclaw, and we wandered for days. Then… something happened. But maybe it didn't happen at all.'
'But what didn't happen?'
'The castle ? disappearing. And this huge dragon…' Linda seemed to look far away. 'More than a dragon. Some horribly evil thing, huge, monstrous. It killed. Men died, screaming. It was horrible. And the dragon took off into the sky. Me, I'm back home, back on Earth, and it's starting all over again, as if it never happened, and then the dragon comes back ?' Linda's stare turned inward, pensive.
Melanie was watching her, puzzled and concerned.
Linda grew aware of Melanie's gaze. She smiled bleakly, then lay back down and sighed, shaking her head. 'I'm not going to think about it. I've tried before and never got anywhere.'
'Does it really bother you?'
'No, not really. The castle is a dream. Anything can happen, and does. You just have to live with that.'
'I can live with it,' Melanie said. 'I can live with anything but facing the real world.'
'Sometimes this world is all too real. Like I said, there's a dark side. A dangerous side. It ain't called Castle Perilous for nothing, honey.'
'You don't seem scared by it.'
'Well, I'm not, now. At first I was. Very scared. Then I got my magic powers, and that scared the stuffing out of me. But after that I learned to use the powers and got good at it. They've saved my life on more than one occasion.'
Melanie looked up at the sky again. How could there be any doubt that this world was real?
But what about the 'worlds' through the portals? During Linda's guided tour Melanie had been reminded of going through a museum of natural history, passing by one diorama after another. Linda hadn't conducted her through any aspects, and Melanie wasn't quite ready to accept one more strange reality, let alone 144,000 of them.
They lay soaking up the sunlight. The long afternoon wore on. Everything was quiet except for the splashing of the waterfall. Scents of tropical flowers hung in the humid air.
Melanie had almost dozed off when Linda shook her and dumped a towel in her lap.
'We have time to see the armory, the gaming room, and a few other places before dinner,' Linda announced. 'Or are you tired yet?'
'No, just nodding,' Melanie told her. 'There's more to see?'
'Much more, but I'm going to skip the rest of the tour bit. You'll have plenty of time to explore on your own when you get your sea legs. Besides, I've got duties. There are a few more Earthies I might want to recruit. You could help with that.'
'Sure, anything I can do,' Melanie said as she dried her long reddish-brown hair.
'Good, but at this point you can't do much but be there and reassure people that they're not going bonkers.'
'You know, I never thought that, not for one minute.'
'Well, just in case.'
