Free Castle Spellbound by John Dechancie Page A

shouldn't we?"
    “Better to have a go at finding Incarnadine, maybe?” Thaxton suggested.
    Deena agreed. “Now there's an idea. And Trent, too. We're gonna need all the help we can get."
    “And Sheila,” Linda said. “Speaking of super magicians. We might have to improvise until the king gets back, if he went anywhere."
    Dalton started to say, “Nevertheless, some of us—"
    Everybody cocked an ear.
    “What is it?” Deena asked.
    They all listened.
    Deena seemed annoyed. “Music?"
    The sound of a far-off drum grew closer. Accompanying it, a flute or pipe. The rhythm was exotic and infectious.
    “I hear music,” Dalton confirmed.
    “ Now what the hell is goin’ on?” Deena despaired.
    “Whatever it is,” Gene said, “it's coming this way. Pass the sugar, will you, Lord Peter?"
    Thaxton handed him the pewter sugar bowl.
    “Thank you."
    In a few moments the source was revealed. A belly dancer—an extremely shapely one—came shivering and shaking into the dining hall. Accompanying her were two musicians, a drummer and a piper, in vaguely Arabic dress.
    They proceeded to put on a show. Everybody watched.
    The woman whirled and clanged her finger cymbals, slinking up to the men and undulating suggestively. She danced twice around the table and then began to writhe and twirl out of the room, followed by the musicians.
    Linda watched with interest. “She's really good,” was her comment to Gene.
    “Uh, yeah."
    “Beautiful woman!” Dalton enthused.
    “Uh, yeah,” Gene said.
    “Very charming,” Thaxton observed.
    “However do they do that—?” Dalton made motions in front of his stomach.
    “Diaphragm exercises,” Thaxton said.
    Before the first dancer-musician troupe got to the door, another entered and began to repeat the whole routine, threading their way through the ever-growing clot of broom-wielding homunculi. The group at the table sat and watched this performance as well, though a little less appreciatively.
    “Charming, absolutely charming,” Thaxton remarked. “But you know, I'm beginning to get worried."
    “Housecleaning homunculi,” Dalton pondered, drumming the table with his long fingers. “And belly dancers.” He thought about it a while.” Then he gave sigh. “Frankly, I don't see the connection.
    Gene said, “Well, it's all so obvious, isn't it?"
    Gene calmly drank his coffee as yet another distant drum drew nearer.
    Deena said, “Uh-oh."
     

 

 
     
    Gaming Hall
     
    Jeremy Hochsteader was dressed in a parti-colored cote-hardie (a longish tunic belted at the waist) in black and orange with matching tights: one leg per color. His orange Reebok cross-training shoes somehow looked appropriate.
    He was sitting at a table playing a home video game and enjoying it. He had been invited to the party at Club Sheila of course, but he didn't like parties, so he'd put off going until it was too late.
    No less than three homunculi had swept out the room already, but Jeremy hadn't paid them any mind, his attention fixed on wheels of fire and vicious turtles. But now he heard music; and though he didn't stop playing, he was beginning to grow aware that something might be going on. Maybe Sheila's party had spilled over into the castle.
    Maybe it had. So what.
    He kept playing, thumbing the buttons on the control device, jumping over pitfalls and leapfrogging monsters. The music grew louder but he still didn't care. He wished whoever was making it would go away.
    The commotion entered the gaming hall but he still didn't turn around. There came quite a racket and Jeremy was beginning to get annoyed.
    He stopped the game's action and looked toward the entrance.
    “What the heck is this?"
    Belly dancers? There were three of them, and with them a bunch of little guys playing weird instruments. The beauty of the women stunned him a bit before he began wondering if the castle was going nuts again. It did that periodically.
    They danced around the hall and then circled him, clanging things in