Universe Twister - Keith Laumer [87]
But now Lod and the dragon were dead—the bad dragon, that is. Lafayette's own pet iguanodon was still happily stabled in an abandoned powder house nearby, eating his usual twelve bales of fresh hay daily. Alain was married to Adoranne, and quite affable, now that there was nothing to be jealous about. And the Red Bull had published his memoirs and settled down to tavern-keeping in a quaint little inn called the One-Eyed Man at the edge of the capital. As for Goruble, there was no telling where he had ended up, since he had been so abruptly transported out of the dimension by his own Traveler. Daphne was still as cute and charming as ever, of course—what he saw of her. Her promotion from upstairs maid to countess hadn't gone to her head, precisely—but somehow these days it seemed that most of her time was taken up with the gay social whirl. It wasn't as if he actually wished he were a hunted fugitive again, and Daphne a palace servant with an unselfish passion for him, but . . .
Well, it did seem that nothing much ever happened these days—nothing except the usual schedule of gaiety, such as the formal dinner this evening. Lafayette sighed again. How nice it would be to just dine tête-à-tête with Daphne in some cozy hamburger joint, with a jukebox blaring comfortably in the background, shutting out the world . . .
He shook off the daydream. There were no hamburger joints in Artesia, no neon, no jukeboxes. But there were cozy little taverns with sooty beams and copper-bound ale kegs and roast haunches of venison, where a fellow could dine with his girl by the smoky light of tallow candles. And there was no reason they couldn't eat at one. They didn't have to participate in another glittering affair.
Suddenly excited, Lafayette started for the door, then turned into the next room, opened the closet door on a dazzling array of finery, grabbed a plum-colored coat with silver buttons. Not that he needed a coat in this weather, but protocol required it. If he appeared in public in shirtsleeves, people would stare, Daphne would be upset, Adoranne would raise her perfectly arched eyebrow . . .
That was what it had settled down to, Lafayette thought as he pulled on the coat and hurried down the hall: conventional routine. Dull conformity. Ye Gods, wasn't that what he had wanted to get away from when he had been a penniless draftsman back in the States? Not that he wasn't in the States now, geographically, at least, he reminded himself. Artesia was situated in the same spot on the map as Colby Corners. It was just that it was another dimension, where things were supposed to happen!
But what had been happening lately? The Royal Ball, the Royal Hunt, the Royal Regatta. An endless succession of brilliant events, attended by brilliant society, making brilliant conversation.
So . . . what was wrong? Wasn't that what he'd dreamed of, back in the boardinghouse, opening sardines for the evening repast?
It was, he confessed sadly. And yet . . . and yet he was bored.
Bored. In Artesia, land of his dreams. Bored.
"But . . . there's no sense in it!" he exclaimed aloud, descending the wide spiral staircase to the gilt-and-mirrored Grand Hall. "I've got everything I ever wanted—and what I haven't got, I can order sent up by Room Service! Daphne's