Land of Unreason Read Online Free PDF Page B

He
found himself in a kind of sitting room with tapestry-covered benches along the
walls wherever they were not cut by archways. Each of the latter led to another
room on a different level, some up, some down. He raced from door to door,
seeing nothing promising till he reached one that gave on a room in which an
elaborate gold-and-damask four-poster bed was visible, with another door
beyond. That ought to be it. Barber leaped down a step, past the bed, and tried
the door. No soap.
     
     

     
                The key? But this door was
as innocent of keyholes as that on the stairway. Perhaps it was bolted on the
other side. He knocked. The wood emitted a dull sound, indicative of solidity,
but there was no answer. Using the metal key to make the noise louder, he knocked
again. Instantly the door swung open and he found himself looking across a wide
apartment at an extremely pretty girl in a thin dress, seated before a mirror
and winding something starry into her hair. She had wings.
     
                At the sound of Barber's
entry she turned a startled face in his direction. "The Queen!" he
said. "Oberon says for you to clear out."
     
                The girl's mouth fell open,
and as it did so there was the sound of another door somewhere among the
labyrinth of rooms, accompanied by Titania's penetrating voice.
     
                The girl leaped from her
stool and dashed to a closet. In a matter of seconds she was out with an armful
of silky garments and a wad of fancy shoes in one hand, scooting past Barber as
he held the door for her. He pulled it to behind them.
     
                "Lock, quickly!"
she said. "You have the key?"
     
                Barber gazed
uncomprehendingly from the lockless door to the instrument he still held
clutched in his hand.
     
                "Ah, stupid!" she
cried, and snatching it from his hand, passed it through the loop-shaped
handle, muttering something meanwhile, and turned to examine him from top to
toe. "A changeling babe, I'll warrant," she said finally, "else
you had not been so ignorant of means. Even shapings alter not these."
     
                Barber felt a surge of
irritation over these continual references to his babyhood. "I suppose you
could call me a changeling," he replied, a trifle coldly, "but I'm
not a baby—by any means. Permit me to present myself. I am Fred Barber,
of—" He took a step backward to bow as he made the formal introduction. As
he did so the pit of his knee touched the edge of a chair and he went down into
it, with no damage but complete loss of dignity.
     
                An expression of surprise
flashed over her face and she gave a tittering laugh. "Oh, la, Sir
Changeling," she said, "to take advantage of a poor girl so! No babe
indeed, but a very Don Cupid. Well—" she put her head on one side and
surveyed him brightly, like a bird—"I've played pat-lips with less lovely
lords, so let's on."
     
                "Huh?"
     
                The girl dropped her armful of
clothes, took two quick steps, and was on Barber's lap, with both arms round
his neck. " 'Ware my wings," she said. Her hair had a faint perfume.
     
                "Hey!" said
Barber, though not at all displeased by the sensations he was experiencing.
"What have I done to deserve this?"
     
                Her eyes widened. "Is't
possible you are so ignorant, sweet simpleton? Yet I forget—you are a stranger.
Why, then, you took a single chair, not a bench nor the floor, nor offered me a
place to sit, and we're alone. In the exact custom of our realm, that is to say
you wish to play loblolly—oh, shame! And I thought you meant id" Her face
flushed.
     
                There was a knock at the
inner door.
     
                "That's Oberon,"
said Barber. "I really mean it, but—"
     
                "Ho, Barber!" came
the King's voice muffled by