Not necessarily, but you might want to do that just to get yourself together.
Yeah, Im so behind. I haven't done a thing all term. I might flunk out.
Ever thought about getting away for a while, away from everything, just to clear your head?
I'd love to be somewhere else, anywhere else. The Virgin Islands maybe. Hah! Great place for a woman in my condition. Sun, sand. Blue water. I'd love it.
Well, I can't give you the Virgin Islands exactly. But you're welcome to come stay with us at the castle.
What's the castle?
It's just what it sounds like. I live with a lot of people in a huge castle. It's fun. We'd love to have you.
Where is it?
Very near to you. In fact, you wouldn't believe how close it is. Want to hop over for a visit?
Sounds inviting. Maybe I'll take you up on it someday.
Why not now? We can come pick you up.
Melanie thought it over. What the heck. What else was she doing that was so important?
Tonite? Well… OK. Yeah, if it's not too much trouble. Want me to wait outside the dorm? Im in Haberman Hall. Are you going to send a car? Hey. You guys aren't terrorists or anything, are you?
Yeah, we hijack castles. We have a fix on you right now. You don't have to do anything. Just a sec.
The cursor blinked at her silently. She sat and waited for half a minute, then keyed:
Linda, are you still there?
Yep. Melanie, go to your closet and open the door.
Melanie frowned.
Huh?
Just go look in your closet. You'll be surprised.
Well, if you say so. This is really
Melanie didn't know what to say. She got up and went to the closet of the small dorm room and put her hand on the doorknob. Was this some practical joke, some jape designed to make her feel foolish? If so, it wasn't very funny, and it didn't seem like a thing Linda would do. But what else could it be?
She turned the knob and opened the door.
The closet was full of her roommate's junk, just as before. No change.
So it was a joke after all. Melanie didn't understand.
Then she saw light coming from the rear of the closet and suddenly noticed that it looked as if the back wall had been torn out. Light was coming through from what she presumed was the room next door.
'Melanie?'
It was a woman's voice, and one she didn't recognize.
'Who is it?'
'It's me, Linda. Can we clear some of this junk out of the way?'
Melanie shoved aside her roommate's four winter coats ? one of which was fox fur and very expensive ? and revealed a smiling face.
'Hi! Melanie? I'm Linda.'
Linda was pretty and blond and had large blue eyes. Her teeth were very white and even.
'Hi,' Melanie said. 'You were right next door all the time?'
'Not exactly. Is all this stuff yours?'
'No. My roommate ran off to Peru with a guy, an archeologist. She left all her stuff.'
'So you have the place to yourself, eh? Great. Want to come through?'
'Uh… okay.'
Melanie shoved the tangle of clothes to one side and made an opening for herself, which she slipped through, ducking under the low shelf. She stumbled on a guitar case, and Linda helped her out the other side.
What was on the other side was not another dorm room. It was an immense chamber with a vaulted ceiling, filled with strange and wondrous things. The place looked like something out of a Frankenstein movie. Melanie's gaze was torn between the huge machines resembling electrical transformers along the far wall and an arrangement of even stranger components in the middle of the floor.
'That's the computer I've been working with,' Linda said, pointing to the latter grouping. 'It's a mainframe.'
'A mainframe?'
'Yeah, but it's different from your average computer. Works by magic.'
'Magic?'
'Yeah. Come over and meet Jeremy. He's our computer whiz.'
Linda led Melanie across the floor and around a U-shaped wall of instruments. Seated at a terminal in the middle was a thin young man in blue tights and a red tunic ? he looked no more than sixteen years old.
Jeremy looked over his shoulder. 'You want to hold the portal, or can we let it float?'
Linda turned to Melanie. 'Are you going to stay with us for a while? We can call the portal back any time.'
'Uh, sure. Yeah, I'll stay.'
'Break the spell, Jeremy.'
'Sure thing.'
Jeremy jabbed at the keypad, looked at the screen, then sat back and swiveled around. 'It's broken.'
Melanie looked back at the wall. The opening was gone, replaced by dark stone. She turned back to Linda, who, she now noticed, was dressed in black tights, pointed shoes, and an orange and white striped doublet. She looked like she was dressed to play Hamlet.
'Linda, where are we?'
Linda smiled brightly. 'Welcome to Castle Perilous.'
Two
Castle ? Queen's Dining Hall
The discussion had somehow gotten sidetracked onto music, having started out on the question of whether new inductees would benefit by a proposed formal orientation session. The upshot was 'No,' and that had been the end of the matter.
'Myself, I like classical,' said the man everyone called Monsieur DuQuesne as he picked at a plate of clams in Mornay sauce. He was small and round-faced and wore old-fashioned round glasses. He was always dressed for the opera: white tie and tails. He was sociable, but no one knew much about him because he rarely spoke of himself.
'So do I,' Deena Williams said.
DuQuesne was mildly surprised. 'You do?'
'Yeah. What's the matter? Don't you think my kind can like that stuff?'
'It's not that. You've never said anything before.'
'Well, I do. Oh, I like the kind you can dance to, all right, but I think classical's good too.'
'Who's your favorite composer?'
'I listen to it, but I don't know much about it. I kind of liked that thing you were playin' when I came to get you for lunch.'
'That was the Peer Gynt Suite, by Edvard Grieg.'
