Castle Roogna

"I never needed to search for you," the spider chittered, hauling his pretty abdomen over the brim. That variegated fur-face had never looked so good! "As a matter of routine I attached a dragline to you. When the Hoorah took you, I was carried along behind, though at a fair distance. I daresay I was virtually invisible. I did get hung up on the tree, but once I climbed the line to its end I found you."

"That's great! I was afraid I'd never see you again!"

"You forget I need your magic to escape this world." Actually their dialogue was not nearly this concise, because Jumper still did not know many human words, but it seemed like normal conversation in retrospect. "Now shall we depart?"

"Yes."

Jumper attached a new line to Dor and made ready to lower him down through the foliage. But just then they heard the beat of huge wings. The Hoorah was returning!

Jumper sprang out of the nest and disappeared below. Dor, alarmed, remembered almost immediately that no spider ever fell; his dragline protected him. Dor might have jumped similarly, but wasn't sure his own dragline was properly anchored. The Hoorah's approach had become audible just when Jumper was seeing to it, interrupting the process.

Or maybe, Dor reminded himself savagely, he was simply too scared to do what he had to, in time.

The Hoorah's mishmash plumage appeared. It covered the nest. Something dropped. "Hoo-rah!" Then the bird was off again on its insatiable mission of collection.

The thing most recently deposited stirred. It flung limbs about, and a curtain of hair. It righted itself and sat up.

Dor stared.

It was a woman. A young, pretty, girl-type maiden.

Chapter 4

Monsters

As the big bird disappeared, Jumper climbed back over the side of the nest. The girl spied him and screamed. She flung her hair about. She kicked her feet. She was a healthy young thing with a penetrating scream, marvelous blond tresses, and extremely well-formed legs.

"It's all right!" Dor cried, not certain whether he was thinking more of the situation, which was hardly all right, or of her exposed legs, which were more than all right. This body really noticed such things! "He's a friend! Don't bring back the Hoorah!"

The maiden's head snapped about to face him. She seemed almost as alarmed by Dor as by the huge spider. "Who are you? How do you know?"

"I'm Dor," he said simply. Maybe one year he would learn how to introduce himself to a lady with flair! "The spider is my companion."

Distrustfully, she watched Jumper. "Ooo, ugly! I've never seen a monster like that before. I think I'd rather be eaten by the bird. At least it's familiar."

"Jumper's not ugly! He doesn't eat people. They don't taste good."

She whirled to face him again, and once more her golden hair flung out in a spiral swirl. She looked suddenly familiar. But he was sure he had not seen her here before; he had encountered no girls here in the past. "How does he know?"

"We were attacked by a band of goblins. He tasted one."

"Goblins! They aren't real people! Of course they taste bad!"

"How do you know?" Dor countered, using her own query.

"It just stands to reason that a sweet maid like me tastes better than any old messy goblin!"

Dor found it hard to refute that logic. Certainly he would rather kiss her than a goblin.

Now what had put that thought in his mind?

"I am unable to follow your full dialogue," Jumper said. "But I gather the female of your species does not trust me."

"Right on target, monster!" she agreed.

"Uh!, you do take some getting used to," Dor said. "You, un, appear as strange to her as she does to you."

Jumper was startled. "It could not be that extreme!"

"Well, maybe I exaggerated." Diplomacy or truth?

The thing actually talks!" the girl exclaimed. "Only it throws its voice to your shoulder."

"Well, that's hard to explain-"

"Nevertheless," Jumper cut in, "we had better vacate this nest quickly."

"Why does its voice come from your shoulder?" the girl insisted. Evidently she had a lively curiosity.

"I made a translation web," Dor explained. "Jumper's voice is the chitter. You should at least say hello to him,"

"Oh." She leaned forward, giving Dor his first conscious peek down into a buxom bodice. Stunned, he stood stock-still. "Hello, Jumper-monster," she said to the web.

"Wow!" said the web. "Get a load of that-"

"You don't have to speak to the web," Dor said quickly, though he was sorry to undeceive her. Now she wouldn't be leaning on him any more. A background region of his mind wondered why a spiderweb would care to remark on the particular view offered, as it was surely not of interest to spiders.

"…yellow silk," the web finished, even as Dor's guilty thought progressed. Oh-of course. Spiders were interested in silk, and colored silk would be a novelty.

"That's hair, not silk," he murmured. Then, more loudly to the girl: "Jumper understands you without the web."

"About vacating the nest-" Jumper chittered.

"Yes! Can you make another dragline for her?"

"Immediately." Jumper moved toward the girl.

"Eeeeek!" she screamed, flinging her silk about "The hairy monster's going to eat me!"

"Be quiet!" Dor snapped, losing patience despite the impression her attributes had made on him. Either this body had singular appetites, or he had been missing a whole dimension of experience all his prior life! "You'll bring back the Hoorah."

She quietened reluctantly. "I won't let that thing near me."

She would talk to the spider, but not cooperate with him. She seemed almost as juvenile as Dor himself. "I can't carry you down," he told her. "I'm only-" He broke off. He was no longer a twelve-year-old boy in body, but a powerful man. "Well, maybe I can. Jumper, will the line hold two of us?"

"Indubitably. I have only to make a stronger cable," the spider chittered, his spinnerets already at work. In moments he had made a new harness for Dor, with a stronger cable.

Meanwhile the girl, with her irrepressible feminine curiosity, was exploring the nest. "Oh, jewels!" she exclaimed, clapping her cute little hands together excitedly,

"What kind?" Dor asked, wondering whether they would be useful for buying food or shelter later on. Jewels were not nearly as valuable in Xanth as in Mundania, but many people liked them.

"We are cultured pearls," several voices chorused. "Most refined and well mannered, with our lineage dating back to the emperor of all oysters. We are aristocrats among jewels."

"Oh, I'll take you!" the girl cried, seeming unsurprised at their speech. She scooped them up and filled her apron pockets.

Now they heard the Hoorah returning. Dor put his left arm around the girl's slender and supple waist and lifted her easily off her feet; what power this body had! Maybe it wasn't his muscles so much as her lack of mass; she was featherlike though firmly fleshed. There must be a special magic about girls like this, he thought, to make them full yet light. He leaped over the edge of the nest, trusting Jumper's dragline to preserve them from a fall. The girl screamed, kicked her feet, and flung her hair in his face. "Quiet," he said around a mouthful of golden strands, holding her close so she wouldn't wriggle loose. He was feeling very heroistic at the moment

The line went taut. It was springy, like a big rubber band from a rubber tree. They bounced back up almost to the base of the nest. The girl jiggled against him, all soft and intriguing in a fashion he would have liked to understand better. But he had no chance to explore that matter at the moment

As they steadied, Jumper came down to join them. He did not jerk and bounce; he glided to a controlled halt beside them, for he was paying out his dragline as he went. "I have set up a pulley," he chittered. "My weight will counterbalance yours-but the two of you weigh more than I do, so I'm depending on friction to keep it slow."

Dor did not follow all of that. But ft the magic called friction could safely lower them, good. They were all three descending at a fair but not frightening rate, and that was satisfactory. The branches of the huge tree were passing interminably, its layers of leaves concealing them from the nest.

A shadow fell across them. It was the Hoorah bird, circling down to spy out its lost artifacts. In a moment it would spot them, for they were in a slanting sunbeam.

Dor tried to draw his sword with his right hand, but this was difficult while he was supporting the girl with his left arm. Light she was, but she seemed to be getting heavier. Again, he worried about severing his own lifeline as the blade emerged from its scabbard.

"Hang still!" Jumper chittered. "A still target is very hard to locate."

Dor gave up on the sword. But they couldn't hang still. Dor and the girl weighed too much; they kept dropping, while the spider rose, hauled by the magic of the pulley. Jumper grabbed on to a branch with several legs, did something, and scurried along the branch toward the trunk of the tree. Dor and the girl did not fall; Dor realized that Jumper had fastened his line to the branch, halting the pulley action.

That left Dor and the terrified girl dangling like bait for the Hoorah. She was squirming, twitching her silk, and kicking her feet uselessly. His left arm, despite its mighty thews, was tiring. Pretty soon he'd be down to one thew, then none. Girls certainly were a nuisance at times.

The Hoorah spied the motion. "Hoo-rah!" it cried, and angled down.

Suddenly a green and gray-brown shape hurtled at them from the side. It seemed to have a mustached face on it. The girl screamed piercingly and flung out her arms, banging Dor's nose with her cute elbow. He almost dropped her. But the shape was now in contact with them, its momentum shoving them all to the side, swinging on the line until they came up against a leafy branch. The hurtling Hoorah missed, swerving barely in time to avoid smacking its beak into the main tree trunk.

"I will attempt to distract it," Jumper chittered-for of course he was the one who had rescued them. It was the variegated abdomen face-pattern Dor had noted. "I have tied you to this branch; the bird may not see you if you remain motionless and silent."

Fat chance! The girl inhaled and opened her pretty mouth to scream again. Dor put his big ugly right hand across it. "Quiet!"

"Mmmph mmmph, you mmmph!" she mmmphed, one eye above his hand filling with anger while the other eye retained its terror. He hoped she wasn't saying the unmaidenlike thing he feared she was saying; it would be detrimental to her image.

"Well, if you'd only accepted a dragline for yourself, we wouldn't be in this picklement." Dor whispered back. But he knew that was unfair. The Hoorah had returned too soon, regardless.

"Come and get me, featherbrain," Jumper chittered from another branch. Of course the translation came from Dor's shoulder. But the spider also waved his forelegs, and that attracted the bird's attention. The Hoorah zoomed toward that branch-and the spider sprang twenty feet to another, chittering vehemently. Dor knew the big bird could not understand Jumper's actual words, but the tone was unmistakable.

Then again, why shouldn't birds comprehend spider language? The two species interacted often enough. Which illustrated the supreme courage Jumper was displaying, for the thing he most feared was birds. To save his friend and a stranger, the spider was baiting his personal nightmare menace.

"You can do better than that, squawkhead!" Jumper chittered. And jumped again, as the bird wheeled in the air. The Hoorah was remarkably agile for its size.

After several futile passes, the bird realized that Jumper was too quick for it to catch. Just as well, as the translations of the spider's insults were turning the girl's ears a delicate shell-pink. The Hoorah looked around, casting about for the other prey. Fortunately all they had to do was remain still and silent.

Dor, trying to make his fatigued left arm more comfortable, shifted his hold slightly. The girl slipped down a bit, her bosom getting squeezed. She screamed, almost without taking a breath, catching him off guard.

Oh, no! Dor, needing his right hand to help hold on to the branch, had uncovered her mouth. Foolish mistake!

The Hoorah oriented immediately on the sound. It zoomed directly toward them. Jumper was behind it, unable to distract it this time. The Hoorah knew easy prey when it found it.

With the inspiration of desperation, Dor grabbed with his right hand at the girl's clothing, questing for her pockets. Though she wore a showy dress that was cut high at the knees and low at the bodice, her apron covered much of that, and was utilitarian.

She screamed as if attacked-not unreasonably, in this case-but he continued until he found what he was looking for: the cultured pearls she had picked up from the nest. "What is your pet peeve?" he demanded as he flipped the first pearl into the air.

"I don't make pets of peeves!" the pearl retorted. "But I hate people who drop me off branches!" It dropped out of sight-and the Hoorah, tracing the sound of its voice, followed it down.

Jumper half-bounded, half-swung across to them.

"Marvelous ploy!" he chittered. "Throw the next to the side, and I will lower you quietly to the ground."

"Right!" Dor agreed. He faced the girl. "And don't scream," he warned.

She inhaled to scream.

"Or I'll tickle you!" he threatened.

That got her. Meekly she let herself deflate. She even handed him a pearl from her apron breast pocket, so he wouldn't have to dig it out himself. That was almost more cooperative than he liked.

"And what is your peeve?" he inquired of the pearl, and hurled it to the side.

"I hate uncultured people who can't appreciate cultured pearls!" it cried.

They heard a "Hoo-rah!" in the distance as the bird went after it The bird certainly appreciated cultured pearls!

By the time they reached the ground, they were out of pearls-but also out of peril. They had lost the bird. Dor picked up a few sticks of wood for emergency use in case the Hoorah came near again, and the three of them hurried away.

"You see!" the ring on Dor's finger cried. "I granted your wish! You are safe on the ground!"

"I guess I can't argue with that," Dor agreed. But he maintained a healthy private reservation.

Dor judged they were now fairly close to Castle Roogna, since the Hoorah bird had carried them in the right direction, but the day was waning and he didn't want to hurry lest they fall into another trap. So they foraged for supper, locating a few marshmallow bushes and an apple pine and some iced-tea leaves. Jumper tried a bit of pine apple, but declared he preferred crustaceans. The girl had finally come to accept the big spider as a companion, and even allowed Jumper to string her up for the night. She was, she confessed daintily, afraid of bugs and things on the ground, and at the moment was none too keen on birds in trees either.

Thus the three of them hung comfortably from silken threads, safe from the predators above and below. There were advantages to the arachnid mode, Dor decided.

Jumper fell silent, no doubt already asleep and recuperating from his formidable exertions of the day. But Dor and the girl talked for a while, in low tones so as not to attract unwanted and/or hazardous attention.

"Where do you come from?" she inquired. "Where do you go?"

Dor answered as briefly as he could, omitting the details about his age and the relation of his world to hers. He told her he was from a strange land, like this one but far removed, and he had come here looking for the Zombie Master, who might help him obtain an elixir to help a friend. He made clear that Jumper was from that same land, and was his trusted friend. "After all, without Jumper, we would never have escaped from the Hoorah's nest."

Her story was as simple. "I am a maid of just barely maybe seventeen, from the West Stockade by the lovely seashore where the gaze-gourds grow, traveling to the new capital to seek my fortune. But when I crossed a high ridge-to stay away from the tiger lilies, you know, because they have a special taste for sweet young things, those lilies of the valley-the Hoorah bird spotted me, and though I screamed and flung my hair about and kicked my feet exactly as a maid is supposed to-well, you know the rest."

"We can help you get to Castle Roogna, since we're going there too," Dor said. It probably was not much of a coincidence, since the Castle was the social and magical center of Xanth; no doubt everyone who was anyone went to Castle Roogna.

She clapped her hands in that girlishly cute way she had, and jiggled in her harness with that womanly provocation she also had. "Oh, would you? That's wonderful!"

Dor was pleased too. She was delightful company! "But what will you do at Castle Roogna?" he inquired.

"I hope to find employment as a chambermaid, there to encounter completely by surprise some handsome courtier who will love me madly and take me away from it all, and I shall live happily ever after in his rich house when all I ever expected was a life of chamber-maiding."

Dor, even in his youth, knew this to be a simplistic ambition. Why should a courtier elect to marry a common chambermaid? But he had sense enough not to disparage her ambition. Instead he remembered a question he had overlooked before, perhaps because he had been looking at other aspects of her nature. Those aspects she kicked and bounced and flung about so freely. "What is your name?"

"Oh." She laughed musically, making a token kick and bounce and fling. "Didn't I tell you? I am Millie the maid."

Dor hung there, stunned. Of course! He should have recognized her. Twelve years younger-eight hundred twelve years younger!-herself as she was before he ever had known her, young and inexperienced and hopeful, and above all innocent. Stripped of the grim experience of eight centuries of ghost-hood, a naive cute girl hardly older than himself.

Hardly older? Five years older-and they were monstrous years. She was every resilient inch a woman, while he was but a boy of-"I wish I were a man!" he murmured.

"Done!" the ring on his finger cried. "I now pronounce you man."

"What?" Millie inquired gently. Of course she didn't recognize him. Not only was he not in his own body, he wouldn't even exist for eight hundred years. "Uh, I was just wishing-"

"Yes?" the ring said eagerly. Dor bopped his head. "That I could get rid of this infernal flea that keeps biting me, and get some sleep," he said.

"Now wait," the ring protested. "I can do anything, but you're asking for two things at once!"

"I'll settle for the sleep," Dor said. Before long, the sleep came to pass. He dreamed of standing near a huge brightly bedecked gumball bush, wanting a gumball awful bad, especially a golden one close by, but restrained by the magic curse that might be protecting the fruits. It was not merely that he wasn't certain how to pluck a gumball without invoking the curse, it was that the bush was in the yard of another house, so that he really was not sure he had the right to pluck from it. It was a tall bush, with its luscious fruits dangling out of his normal reach. But he was up on magic stilts, very long and strong, so that now he stood tall enough to reach the delightful golden globe easily. If only he dared. If only he should.

More than that, he had never as a child liked gum-balls that well. He had seen others liking them, but he had not understood why. Now he wanted one so badly-and was suspicious of this change in himself.

Dor woke in turmoil. Jumper was hanging near him, several eyes watching him with concern. "Are you well, friend Dor-man?" the spider cluttered.

"-just a nightmare," Dor said uncertainly.

This is an illness?"

"There are magic horses, half illusion, who chase people at night, scaring them," Dor explained. "So when a person experiences something frightening at night, he calls it a night-stallion or a night-mare."

"Ah, figurative," Jumper agreed once he understood. "You dreamed of such a horse. A mare-a female."

"Yes. A-a horse of another color. I-I wanted to ride that mare very much, but wasn't sure I could stay on that golden mount-oh, I don't know what I'm trying to say!"

Jumper considered. "Please do not be offended, friend. I do not as yet comprehend your language well, or your nature. Are you by chance a juvenile? A young entity?"

"Yes," Dor replied tightly. The spider seemed to understand it well enough.

"One beneath the normal breeding age of your species?"

"Yes."

"And this sleeping female of your kind, her with the golden silk-she is mature?"

"I-yes."

"I believe your problem is natural. You have merely to wait until you mature, then you will suffer no further confusion."

"But suppose she-she belongs to another-?"

"There is no ownership in this sort of thing," Jumper assured him. "She will indicate whether she finds you suitable."

"Suitable for what?"

Jumper made a chitter-chuckle. "That will become apparent at the appropriate occasion."

"You sound like King Trent!" Dor said accusingly.

"Who I presume is a mature male of your species-perhaps of middle age."

On target. Despite his confusion and frustration, Dor was glad to have such a person with him. The outer form hardly mattered.

Millie stirred, and Dor suffered a sudden eagerness to halt this conversation. It was dawn, anyway; time to eat and resume the trek to Castle Roogna.

Dor got bearings from the local sticks and stones, and they set off for the Castle. But this time they encountered a large river. Dor didn't remember this from his own time-but of course the channel could have shifted in eight hundred years, and with the charmed paths he might not have noticed a river anyway. The water was quite specific in answer to Dor's question: the Castle lay beyond the far side, and there was no convenient way across the water.

"I wish I had a good way to pass this river," Dor said.

"Ill see to it," the ring on his finger said. "Just give me a little time. I got you to sleep last night, didn't I? You have to have patience, you know."

"I know," Dor said with half a smile.

"Gnome wasn't built in a day, after all."

"I could balloon us across," Jumper offered.

"Last time we ballooned, the Hoorah nabbed us," Dor pointed out. "And if it hadn't, we would probably have been blown right out of Xanth anyway. I don't want to risk that again."

"Ballooning is somewhat at the mercy of the winds," the spider agreed. "I had intended to fasten an anchor to the ground, before, so that we could not be blown too far and could always return to our starting point if necessary, but I admit I reckoned without the big bird. I had somehow thought no other creatures had been expanded in size the way I have been-in retrospect, a foolish assumption. I agree: ballooning is best saved for an emergency."

"In my stockade, we use boats to cross water," Millie offered. "With spells to ward off water monsters."

"Do you know how to make a boat?" Jumper chittered. The question was directed at Millie, but the web on Dor's shoulder translated it anyway. Inanimate objects tended to become more accommodating when they associated with him for prolonged periods.

"No," she said. "I am a maid."

And maids did not do anything useful? Maybe she simply meant she was not involved in masculine pursuits. "Do you know the anti-water-monster spells?" Dor asked her.

"No, only our stockade monster-speller can do those. That's his talent."

Dor exchanged glances with several of Jumper's eyes. The girl was nice, but she wasn't much help.

"I believe your sword would proffer some discouragement to water predators," Jumper chittered, "I could loop their extremities with silk, and render them vulnerable to your sharp edge."

Dor did not relish the prospect of battling water monsters, but recognized the feasibility of the spider's proposal. "Except the boat We still need that," he pointed out, almost with relief.

"I think I might fashion a craft from silk," Jumper chittered. "In fact I can walk on water sometimes, when the surface is calm. I might tow the boat across."

"Why not just go across and string up one of your lines?" Millie inquired. "Then you could draw us across, as you drew us up into the tree last night."

"Excellent notion!" the spider agreed. "If I could get across without attracting attention-"

"Maybe we could set up a distraction," Dor suggested. "So they wouldn't notice you."

They discussed details, then proceeded. They gathered a number of sticks and stones for Dor to talk to, which could serve as one type of distraction, and located a few stink bugs, which they hoped would be another type of distraction. Stink bugs smelled mild enough when handled gently, but exploded with stench when abused. Jumper fashioned several stout ropes of silk, attaching one to an overhanging tree and leaving the others for the people to use as lariats.

When all was ready, Jumper set off across the water. His eight feet made dents in the surface but did not break through; actually he was quite fleet, almost skating across.

But all too soon there was a ripple behind him, A great ugly snout broke the surface: a serpentine river monster. All they could see was part of the head, but it was huge. No small boat would have been safe-and neither was Jumper. This was the type of monster much in demand for moat service.

"Hey, snoutnose!" Dor called. He saw an ear twitch on the monster's head, but its glassy eye remained fixed on the spider. More distraction was needed, and quickly!

Dor took a stick of wood, as large as he thought he could throw that distance. "Stick, I'll bet you can't insult that monster enough to make it chase you." Insults seemed to be a prime tool for making creatures react.

"Oh yeah?" the stick retorted. "Just try me, dirt-face!"

Dor glanced into the surface of the water. Sure enough, he had dirt smeared across his face. But that would have to wait. "Go to it!" he said, and hurled the stick far out toward the monster.

The stick splashed just behind the great head: an almost perfect throw. Dor could never have done that in his own body! The monster whirled around, thinking it was an attack from behind. "Look at that snotty snoot!" the stick cried as it bobbled amidst its ripples. Water monsters, it was said, were quite vain about then: ferocious faces. "If I had a mug like that, I'd bury it in green mud!"

The monster lifted its head high. "Honk!" it exclaimed angrily. It could not talk the human language, but evidently understood it well enough. Most monsters who hoped for moat employment made it a point to develop some acquaintance with the employers mode of communication.

"Better blow out that tube before you choke," the stick said, warming up to its task. "I haven't heard a noise like that since a bull croak smacked into my tree and brained out its brainless brains."

The monster made a strike at the stick. The diversion was working! But already Dor saw other ripples following, the pattern of them orienting on Jumper. The spider was moving rapidly, but not fast enough to escape these creatures. Time for the next ploy.

Dor grabbed the rope strung to the tree, hauled himself up, and swung out over the water. "Hoorah!" he cried.

Heads popped out of the water, now orienting on him. Toothy, glared-eyed excrescences on sinuous necks. "You can't catch me, deadpans!" he cried. Deadpans were creatures who lurked around cooking fires, associating with slinky copperheads and similar ilk, and had the ugliest faces found in nature.

Several of the monsters were quite willing to try. White wakes appeared as the heads coursed forward.

Dor hastily swung back and jumped to shore. "How many monster are there?" he demanded, amazed at the number.

"Always one more than you can handle," the water replied. "That's standard operating procedure."

That made magical sense. Too bad he hadn't realized it before Jumper exposed himself on the water. But how, then, could he distract them all?

He had to try, lest Jumper be caught. It was not as it he were a garden-variety traveler; he was a Magician.

Dor picked up a stink bug, rolled it into a ball, and threw it as hard as he could toward the skating spider. Jumper was now over halfway across the river, and making good time. The bug, angered by this treatment, bounced on the water behind the spider and burst into stench. Dor could not smell it from this distance, but he heard the monsters in that vicinity choking and retreating. Dor threw three more bugs, just to be sure; then Jumper was out of range.

Millie was doing her part. She was capering beside the water and waving her hands and calling out to the monsters. Her flesh bounced in what had to be, to a monster, the tastiest manner. Even Dor felt like taking a bite. Or something. The trouble was, the monsters were responding too well. "Get back, Millie!" Dor cried. "They have long necks!"

Indeed they did. One monster shot its head forward, jaws gaping. Slaver sprayed out past the projecting tiers of teeth. Glints shot from the cruel eyes.

Millie, abruptly aware of her peril, stood frozen. What, no kicks and screams? Dor asked himself. Maybe it was because she had been kicking and screaming, in a manner, before, so that would have represented no contrast.

Dor's fingers scrambled over his shoulder for his sword as he leaped to intercept the monster. He jerked at the hilt-and it snagged, wrenching out of his hand as the sword cleared the scabbard. The blade tumbled to the ground. "Oh, no!" the sword moaned. Dor found himself striking a dramatic pose before the monster, sword hand upraised-and empty.

The monster did a double take. Then it started to chuckle. Dor somewhat sheepishly bent to retrieve his weapon-and of course the toothed snout dived down to chomp him.

Dor leaped up, legs spreading to vault the descending head, and boxed the monster on one ear with his left fist. Then he landed, whirled, and brought his sword to bear. He did not strike; he had the gleaming blade poised before one of the monster's eyeballs. The gleam of the blade bounced the eye's glints away harmlessly.

"Now I spare you, where you did not spare me," he said. "Do you take that as a signal of weakness?"

The eye stared into the swordpoint. The monster's head quivered in negation as it slid back. Dor strode forward, keeping his point near the eye. In a moment the head disappeared beneath the surface of the river.

The other monsters, noting this, did not advance. They assumed Dor had some powerful magic. And he realized this truth, which his body had known: deal with the leader, and you have dealt with the followers.

"Why, that's the bravest thing I ever saw!" Millie exclaimed, clapping her hands again. She did that often now, and it sent most interesting ripples through her torso-yet Dor had never seen her do it in his own world. What had changed?

Eight hundred years of half-life: That was what had changed her. Most of her maidenly bounce had been pressed out of her by that tragedy.

But more immediately: what had changed in him? He should never have had the nerve to face up to a full-fledged river monster, let alone cow it into retreat Yet he had done so unthinkingly, when Millie was threatened. Maybe it was his body taking over again, reacting in a conditioned way, even to the extent of facing down a monster in such a way as to abate the whole fleet of monsters at once.

What kind of a man had this body been, before Dor arrived? Where had he gone? Would he return when Dor went back to his own world? He had thought this body was stupid, but now there seemed to be considerable compensations. Maybe the body had never needed to worry too much about danger ahead, because of its competence in handling that danger when it faced it. This body, without Dor present to mess it up, could have handled that whole goblin band alone.

The flea bit him just over the right ear. Dor almost sliced his own head off, trying to swat it with his sword hand. Here he could face down a monster, but could not get rid of a single pesky flea! One of these days he was going to find a flea-repellent plant.

"Look-the spider has made it across!" Millie cried.

So he had. Their distractions had been sufficient after all. Maybe there had been one more monster than Dor could handle-but he had not been alone.

Relieved, Dor went to the tree where the crossing cable had been anchored. Already it was tightening, lifting out of the water, as Jumper labored at the other end to draw it taut. The spider could exert a lot of force on a line, achieving special leverage with his eight legs. Soon the cable stretched from tree to tree, sagging only slightly in the middle of the river, as nearly as Dor could see. It was an extremely stout line, compared to Jumper's usual, but still it tended to disappear in the distance.

"Now we can hand-walk it across," Dor said. And asked himself: We can?

"Maybe you can," Millie said. "You're a big brave strong rugged man. But I am a little diffident weak soft maid. I could never-"

If only she knew Dor's true state! "Very well; I'll carry you." Dor picked her up, set her in the tree at the end of the line, then hauled himself up with a convulsive heave of his thews. He placed his boots on the cable, found his balance, and picked Millie up in his arms.

"What are you doing?" she cried, alarmed. She kicked her feet. Dor noticed again how dainty her feet were, and how cutely they kicked. There was an art to foot-kicking, and she had it; the legs had to flex at the knees, and the feet had to swing just so, not so fast that the legs could not be seen clearly. "You can't possibly keep your balance."

"That so?" he inquired. "Then I suppose we will fall into the river and have to swim after all." He walked forward, balancing.

"Are you crazy?" she demanded, horrified. And he echoed to himself: Am I crazy? He knew such a feat of balancing was impossible without magical assistance-yet here was this body, doing it.

What superb equilibrium this barbarian body had! No wonder Mundane Waves had conquered Xanth over and over, despite all the power of magic brought to bear against them.

Millie stopped kicking, afraid she would make him lose his balance. Dor marveled as he went; had he realized the potentialities of this body before, he would have been much less afraid of heights. He realized now that his concern about certain things, such as taking a fall, was not inherent, but more a product of his frailty of physique. When he had confidence in his abilities, fear faded. So, to that extent, the body of a man did make him more of a man in spirit too.

Then more trouble came. Big, ugly shapes flitted out of the forest to hover above the river. They were too solid for birds; their heads were man-sized.

The grotesque flock milled for a moment, then spied the figures on the cable. "Heee!" one cried, and they all wheeled and bore on Dor.

"Harpies!" Millie cried. "Oh, we are undone!"

Dor wanted to reach for his sword, but couldn't; both arms were taken with the girl. The river monsters were lurking at a discreet distance; they were cautious about approaching this formidable man while he kept his feet, but might have second thoughts if he were floundering in the water-as he soon would be if he grabbed for his sword, dropped Millie, and lost his balance. He was helpless.

The harpies closed on them, their dirty wings wafting a foul odor down. Dirty birds indeed! They were greasy avians with the heads and breasts of women. Not pretty faces and breasts like Millie's; their visages were witchlike and their dugs grotesque. Their voices were raucous. Their birdy legs had great ugly chipped talons.

"What a find, sisters!" the leader harpy screeched. "Take them, take them!"

The flock plunged down, screaming with glee. Claws closed as half a dozen foul creatures clutched at Millie, who screamed and kicked and flung her tresses about to no avail, as usual. She was torn from Dor's grasp and lifted into the sky.

Then about ten more harpies converged on Dor himself. Their talons closed on his forearms, his biceps, his calves, thighs, hair, and belt. The claws were rounded, without cutting edges, so did not hurt him so long as the points were clear; they merely clamped onto his appendages like iron manacles. The grimy wings beat powerfully, and he was borne upward in their putrid midst

They carried him across the water and into the forest at treetop level, so that his sagging posterior almost brushed the highest fronds. They hoisted him on through the forest until they reached a great cleft in the ground, where they glided down. This was not the Gap; it was far smaller, more tin a par with the crevasse he had entered on the magic carpet. Could it be the same one? No; the location was wrong, and the configuration different. Dug into the clifflike sides of this one were grubby holes: caves made by the harpies for their nests. They bore him down into the largest cave and dumped him unceremoniously on the filthy floor.

Dor got up, brushing dirt off his body. Millie was not here; they must have taken her to another cave. Unless there were connecting passages-which seemed unlikely, since these creatures flew better than they walked-he would be unable to reach her by foot. He retained his sword, but could not hope to slay all the harpies in this degenerate harpy city; they would overwhelm him. Either they knew this and so had contempt for his blade, or they simply hadn't recognized it in its mundane sheath across his back. The latter seemed more likely. At last he was beginning to appreciate that location! So it would be foolish to betray his possession of the weapon by making a premature move. He would have to wait and see what they wanted from him, just in case it wasn't a quick meal of his flesh, and fight only as a last resort.

One thing about being a hero: the threats were larger than life, and the glooms gloomier. In his real life he would never have gotten into a situation like this!

The harpies scuttled back, leaving one especially hideous crone before him. "My, aren't you the husky one!" she cackled, her ropy hair flying about wildly as she pecked her head forward, chickenlike. Maybe those were feathers on her pate; it was hard to tell under the muck. "Good teeth, good muscle tone, handsome-yes, you'll do just fine!"

"Just fine for what?" Dor demanded with more belligerence than he felt. He was scared.

"Just fine for my chick," the old hen clucked. "Heavenly Helen, Harpy Queen. We need a man on alternate generations, a vulture the other times."

"What have you done with the girl?" Dor decided not to name her, lest these polluted monsters assume he was closer to her, or she to him, than he/she was and try to coerce him by torturing her. He knew monsters would do this sort of thing. That was the nature of monsters, after all.

He was quite right. "She will be cooked upon a fire of dung for supper," the canny old bird screeched gleefully. "She's such a delectable morsel! Unless you do as we demand."

"But you haven't told me what you demand."

"Haven't we now?" The dirty bird cocked her head at him cannily. "Are you trying to feign innocence? That will get you nowhere, my pretty man-type male buck! Into the nest with you!" And she partly spread her awful wings and advanced, her stink smiting him anew. Dor backed off-and stumbled into an offshoot cave.

So there were interconnecting passages. This one was not large enough for him to stand in; it was more suitable for scuttling. So he scuttled around a bend, and the tunnel opened into a fair-sized chamber whose domed ceiling did permit him to climb back to his feet

Another harpy faced him there-but what a difference there was! This was a young bird, with metallic sheen on her feathers, shiny brass claws, the face and breasts of a lovely maiden-and she was clean. Her hair was neatly brushed, each tress luxuriant; if there were any feathers in it, they were silken ones. She was the prettiest harpy Dor had ever seen or imagined.

"So you are the man Momma found for me," Helen Harpy murmured. Her voice was sultry, no screech.

Dor looked around. The chamber was bare except for the large nest in the center, formed of fluffy down feathers so that it sprang up like a magic bubble bath. The room opened out on the canyon-a sheer drop of a couple hundred feet. Even if he were able to navigate that, how could he rescue Millie? One could hardly climb a sheer rock face while screaming and kicking one's feet.

"I think I'm going to enjoy this," Helen murmured, "I had my doubts when Momma said she'd find me a man, but I did not know how fine a man she intended. I'm so glad I wasn't in the vulture generation, the way Momma was."

"Vulture?" Dor asked, casting about for some other exit. If he could sneak through a tunnel, find Millie-

"We're half-human, half-vulture," she explained. "Since there are no males of our species, we have to alternate."

Dor had not realized there were no male harpies.

Somehow he had supposed there were, in his day. But he had never looked into the matter. All he had ever actually seen were females; any males there were kept pretty much to themselves, making the females do the foraging. At any rate, this was not his present concern,

He had a bright idea. "Nest, what's the best way out of here?"

"Oblige the harpy," the nest replied, its down feathers wafting softly as it spoke. They were of pastel hues, pretty. "They hardly ever kill breeders, unless they're really hungry."

"I don't even know what the harpy wants!" Dor protested.

"Come here," the fair harpy murmured. "I'll show you what I want, you delightful hunk of man."

"I wish I were out of here," Dor muttered.

"I'm still working on the river crossing," the ring on his finger complained.

"What's that?" Helen asked, spreading her pretty wings a little. Her down feathers were as white as her breasts, and probably as soft.

"A magic ring. It grants wishes," Dor said, hoping this was not too great an exaggeration. Actually, he hadn't caught the ring failing; he just was never sure that its successes were by any agency of its own magic.

"Oh? I've always wanted one of those."

Dor pulled it off his finger. "You might as well have it; I just want to rescue Millie." Oops-he had said her name.

Helen snatched the proffered ring. Harpies were very good at snatching. "You're not a goblin spy, are you? We're at war with the goblins."

Dor hadn't known that. "I-we killed a number of goblins. A band of them attacked us."

"Good. The goblins are our mortal enemies."

Dor's curiosity was aroused. "Why? You're both monsters; I should think you'd get along together."

"We did, once, long ago. But the goblins did us the foulest of turns, so now we are at war with them."

Dor sat down on the edge of the nest. It was as soft and fluffy as it looked. "That's funny. I thought only my own kind waged wars."

"We're half your kind, you know," she said. She seemed fairly nice as he got to know her. She smelled faintly of roses. Apparently it was only the old harpies who were so awful. "A lot of creatures are, like the centaurs, mer-folk, fauns, werewolves, sphinxes, and all-and they all inherited man's warlike propensities. The worst are the pseudo-men, like the trolls, ogres, elves, giants, and goblins. They all have armies and go on rampages of destruction periodically. How much better it would be if we half-humans had inherited your intelligence, curiosity, and artistry without your barbarity."

She was making increasing sense. "Maybe if you had inherited our other halves, so you had the heads of vultures and the hindquarters of people-"

She laughed musically. "It would have made breeding easier! But I'd rather have the intelligence, despite its flaws."

"What did the goblins do to the harpies?" She sighed, breathing deeply. She had a most impressive human portion, that way, and Dor was glad it was the upper section she had inherited. "That's a long story, handsome man. Come, rest your head against my wing, and I'll preen the dirt from your face while I tell you."

That seemed harmless. He leaned back against her wing, and found it firm and smooth and slightly resilient, with a fresh feather smell.

"Way back when Xanth was new," she said in a dulcet narrative style, "and the creatures were experiencing the first great radiation of forms, becoming all the magical combinations we know today, we half-people felt an affinity for each other." She licked his cheek delicately with her tongue; about to protest, Dor realized that this was what she meant by preening. Well, he had agreed to it, and actually the sensation was not bad at all.

"The full-men from Mundania came in savage Waves, killing and destroying," she continued, giving his ear a little nip. "We half-people had to cooperate merely to survive. The goblins lived adjacent to we harpies-or is that us harpies? I never can remember-sometimes even sharing the same caves. They slept by day and foraged by night, while we foraged by day.

So our two species were able to use the same sleeping areas. But as our populations grew there was not enough room for us all." Her preening, fitted between words, had progressed to his mouth; her lips were remarkably soft and sweet as they traversed his own. If be hadn't known better, he might have thought this was a kiss.

"Some of our hens had to move out and build nests in trees," she continued, reaching the other side of his face. "They got to like that better, and still do perch in trees. But the goblins became covetous of our space, and reasoned that if there were fewer of us there would be room for more of them. So they conspired against our innocence. Their females, some of whom in those days were very comely, lured away our males, corrupting them with-with-" She paused, and her wing shuddered. This was evidently difficult for her. It was none too easy for Dor, either, because now her breast was against his cheek, as she strained to reach the far side of his neck. Somehow he found it difficult to concentrate on her words.

"With their arms and-and legs," Helen got out at last. "We had not been so long diverged from human beings that our males did not remember and lust after what they called real girls, though most human and humanoid women would not have anything to do with vulture tails. When the lady goblins became approachable-I would term them other than ladies, but I'm not supposed to know that sort of language-when these creatures beckoned our cocks-oh, males are such foolish things!"

"Right," Dor agreed, feeling pretty foolish himself, half-smothered between her neck and bosom. He knew better than to argue with the really foolish sex.

"And so we lost our cock-harpies, and our hens became soured. That's why we have a certain exaggerated reputation for being impolite to people. What's the use of trying, when there are no cocks to please?"

"But that was only one generation," Dor protested. "More cocks should have hatched in the next generation."

"No. There were no more eggs-no fertile ones. There had never been a great number of cocks-our kind hatched about five females for every male-and now there were none. Our hens were becoming old and bitter, unfulfilled. There's nothing so bitter as an old harpy with an empty nest."

"Yes, of course." She seemed finally to have completed the preening; he had no doubt his face was shiningly clean now. "But why didn't all the harpies die out, then?"

"We hens had to seek males of other species. We abhor the necessity-but our alternative is extinction. Since we derived originally from a cross between human and vulture-I understand that was quite a scene, there at the love spring-we have had to return to these sources to maintain our nature. There are some problems, however. The human and vulture males aren't inclined generally to mate with harpies, and we can't always get them to the love spring to make it happen-and when they do, the result is always a female chick. It seems only a harpy cock can generate males of our species. So we have become a flock of old hens."

That was some history! Dor had heard about the nefarious love springs, where diverse creatures innocently drank, then plunged into love with the next creature of the opposite sex they met. Much of the population of Xanth was the fault of such springs, producing the remarkable crossbreeds that thereafter bred true. Fortunately the love-water had to be fresh, or it lost its potency; otherwise people would be endlessly slipping it into the cups of their friends as practical jokes. But he could see how this would create a problem for the harpies, who could not always carry a potential mate to the spring, or make him drink from it.

Now Helen's whole body shook with rage, and her voice took on a little of the tone of the older hens. "And this is what the cursed goblins did to us, and why we hate them and war against them. We want to kill off all their males, as they did ours. We shall fight until we have our vengeance for the horrible wrong they did us. Already we are massing our armies and gathering our allies among the winged kinds, and we shall wreak a fittingly horrible vengeance by scratching the goblin nation from the fair face of Xanth!"

By this time Dor had fairly well grasped the purpose for which he had been brought here. "I, uh, I sympathize with your predicament. But I can't really help you. I'm too young; I'm not a man yet."

She drew back and twisted her head to look at him, her large eyes larger yet "You certainly look like a man."

"I got big quite suddenly. I'm really twelve years old. That's not much for my kind. I just want to help my friend Millie."

She considered momentarily. "Twelve years old. That just might be statutory seduction. Very well. I'll accept the ring you offered, in lieu of-of the other. Maybe it can wish me a fertile egg."

"I can! I can!" the ring exclaimed eagerly.

"I didn't really want to do this anyhow," Helen said as she screwed the ring onto her largest claw. She had merely held it, up till now. "Momma insisted, that's all. You can have the girl, though at your age I really don't know what you'll do with her. She's four caves to the right."

"Uh, thank you," Dor said. "Won't your mother object-I mean, if I just walk out?"

"Not if I don't squawk. And I won't squawk if the ring works okay."

"But that ring takes time to operate, even if-"

"Oh, go ahead. Can't you see I'm trying to give you a break?"

Dor went ahead. He wasn't sure how long she would have patience with the ring, or whether she would simply change her mind. Of course it was always possible that the ring really could produce. How nice for the harpies if it could give them a male chick! But meanwhile, he didn't want to waste time.

The old harridan eyed him suspiciously, but did not challenge him. He counted four subcaves to the right and went in. Sure enough, there was Millie, disheveled but intact. "Oh, Dor!" she cried. "I knew you'd rescue me!"

"I haven't rescued you yet," he warned her. "I traded my wishing ring to get to you."

"Then we'd better get out of here in a hurry! That ring couldn't wish itself out of a dream."

Why would it want to? he wondered. He checked the cave exit. Like the other, it opened onto a formidable drop. "I don't think we can just walk out. I don't think there are any exits that don't require flying. That's why the harpies aren't worried about us escaping."

"They-they were threatening to cook me for supper. I'd rather jump, than-"

"That was just to get me to cooperate," Dor said. Yet he had the grisly fear that it had been no bluff. Why should they have told her the threat, when he wasn't there to hear? The harpies were not nice creatures.

"To cooperate? What did they want from you?"

"A service I couldn't perform." Though this body of his had masculine capabilities and probably could-no, that wasn't the point.

Millie looked at his face. "It's clean!" she exclaimed.

"I, uh, had it washed."

Her eyes narrowed. "About that service-are you sure-?"

Damn that female intuition! Dor kneeled by the exit hole, feeling around it with his fingers. "Maybe there are handholds or something."

There weren't. The face of the cliff was as hard and smooth as glass, and the drop looked horrendous. He saw harpies flitting from other caves, coming and going, always flying. No hope there!

Even if there had been handholds, they would have required both of his hands. He would have been unable to hold on to Millie with one, and she would have screamed and kicked her feet and flung her hair about and fallen to her death the moment she attempted to make such a climb by herself. She was a delectable female, but just not much use at man-business.

Not that he could make any such claim himself, after that session with Heavenly Helen Harpy.

Helen had said that the harpies had once shared quarters with the goblins. The goblins did not fly, and he doubted they could climb well enough to handle this sheer cliff. If they had shared these caves, there had to be footpaths to them, somewhere. Maybe these had been cemented over, after the goblins had been driven out. "Walls, do any of you conceal goblin tunnels?" he asked.

"Not me!" the walls chorused.

"You mean the goblins never used these caves?" Dor demanded, disappointed. Had Helen lied to him-or had she been referring to other caves, before the harpies moved here?

"Untrue," the walls said. "Goblins originally hollowed out these caves, hollowed and hallowed, before the war started."

"Then how did the goblins get in and out?"

"Through the ceilings, of course."

Dor clapped the heel of his hand to his forehead. Of course! One problem with questioning the inanimate was that the inanimate didn't have much imagination and tended to answer literally. He had really meant to question all the artifacts in and of this chamber, but he had only actually named the walls, so only they had responded. "Ceiling, do you conceal a goblin passage?"

"I do," the ceiling replied. "You could have saved a lot of trouble if you'd asked me first, instead of talking with those stupid walls."

"Why isn't it visible?"

"The harpies sealed it over with mud plaster and droppings. Everyone knows that."

"That's why the stink!" Millie cried. "They use their dung for building."

Dor drew his sword. "Tell me where to strike to free the passage," he said.

"Right here," the ceiling said at one side.

Dor dug his swordpoint in and twisted. A chunk of brown plaster dropped to the floor. He dug harder and gouged more out. Soon the passage opened. A draft of foul air washed down from the hole.

"What's that fresh smell?" a harpy voice screeched from the cavern hall.

"Fresh smell!" Dor exclaimed, almost choking on the stench. He and Millie had become more or less acclimatized to the odor pervading the caves, but now that the air was moving, his nostrils could not so readily filter it out. Yet perhaps this breeze was offensive to the harpies.

The old hen appeared in the entrance. "They're trying to sneak out the old goblin hole!" she screeched. "Stop them!"

Dor strode across to block her advance, sword held before him. Afoot, unable to spread her wings, the harpy was at a disadvantage, and had to retreat. "Climb up into the hole!" Dor cried to Millie. "Use the goblin passage to escape!"

Millie stared up into the blackness of the hole. "I'm afraid!" she cried. "There might be nickelpedes!"

That struck him. Nickelpedes were vicious insects five times as ferocious as centipedes, with pincers made of nickel. They attacked anything that moved in darkness.

Now more harpies were pressing close. They respected Dor's bared blade, but did not retreat farther than they had to. He could not swing freely in the passage, and didn't really want to shed their blood; after all, they were half-human, and it wasn't nice to kill females.

What was he going to do? With the harpies in front, and Millie balking, and an open cliff outside-in this situation he couldn't fool anyone by making the walls talk. He was stuck. He might hold off the dirty birds indefinitely, but he couldn't escape. Actually, if they started flying in from the clifside, he would have trouble, because he couldn't very well cover both entrances, and Millie would not be much help. And in due course he and Millie would get tired, and hungry and thirsty, and would have to sleep. They would be captive again.

"Millie, you've got to get up that goblin passage!" he cried.

"No good, no good!" the harpies outside screeched. "We know where it goes, we're covering the exit. You can't escape!"

Then why were they telling him this? Easier to nab him at the goblin-tunnel exit. So they must be bluffing.

Then Millie screamed. Dor looked-and spied a huge hairy shape dropping out of the hole. Green eyes looked back at him. "Jumper!" How glad he was to see the big spider again!

"I could not place my lines," the spider chittered. "The lady-man-birds would have spied me on the face of the cliff. So I had to come in this way,"

"But the harpies are watching the exit-"

"They are. But they did not follow me inside, because of the nickelpedes."

"But you-"

"Nickelpedes are pinching bugs. I was hungry anyway. They were delicious."

Naturally a spider would be able to handle big bugs! But the harpies were more formidable. "If we can't use the goblin tunnel-" Dor began.

Jumper fastened a line to Millie, and another to Dor. "I am generating sufficient lines to lower you to the bottom, but you will have to let yourselves down. I suggest you swing and slide so the birds will not be able to catch you readily."

"I can't do that!" Millie protested. "I don't have big arm muscles and things!"

Dor glanced at her. She was half right; she did lack big arm muscles, but she certainly had other things. "I'll carry you again." He flicked his swordpoint, warning back the encroaching harpies.

"You'll need both arms to lower yourself," Jumper pointed out. "I will jump across and string a guideline. That way you can swing from the center of the cleft, not banging the walls. But you will be caught in midair."

"Can't be helped. You'll have to relax the guideline, so we can drop slowly lower. Just be sure that line is tight when we start."

"Yes, that is possible, though difficult. Your two weights will make a great deal of tension."

Dor poked at the witchly face of another harpy. "Millie can watch you, and tell me when it's ready. You wave to her from the far side."

"Correct." Jumper ran to the cliff opening and disappeared. There was an outcry from the harpies outside; they had never seen a jumping spider this size before, and were amazed and frightened.

"He's waving!" Millie cried.

That had been quick! Dor made a last poke at the harpies, whirled, grabbed her with his left arm, and flung himself out over the cliff. Then he remembered: be still had the sword in his right hand. He had forgotten to hang on to the line.

They plummeted toward the bottom of the chasm. Millie screamed and kicked her feet, and her hair smacked Dor's face.

Then, with a wrench, the line drew taut. He didn't need to hold on; Jumper had attached the cable to him, and tied the other end to the center of the trans-chasm cable. Once more the spider's mature foresight had saved him. Now Dor surmised when the attachment had been made; he had been distracted by the encroaching harpies, and had not noticed.

They were swinging down and across the chasm, bouncing slightly. The harpies were milling about, screaming, but not doing anything effective. They saw his waving sword.

Across they swung, grandly, almost colliding with the far wall. Jumper had kept the line short so they would not crash, but it was so close that Dor had to put his feet out and brake against the cliff, momentarily. Then they were swinging back. And forth again, in lessening arcs. As they came to rest, they were suspended about halfway down the depth of the chasm.

The harpies were beginning to organize, trying to catch Dor and Millie in their claws, as they had before.

But Dor had his sword out this time, and that made the difference. He waved it threateningly, and the harpies stayed just clear, screaming imprecations and losing feathers to the flashing tip of his weapon. It was hard for the dirty birds to match velocities with him, because of the swinging and bouncing. They were not, however, about to give up the pursuit.

Jumper, on the far side of the chasm, levered the two in the manner only he could do, and Dor and Millie descended. The rage of the harpies increased as the range increased. "Don't let them get to the bottom!" one cried. "The enemy is there!" That hardly reassured Dor. What good would it be, escaping one menace only to fall into the clutches of another? Well, he would have to worry about that in due course. At least the harpies hadn't thought to cut the trans-chasm cable. Or if they had thought, they had rejected the notion. They didn't want to kill Dor, for then he would certainly be useless to them. And Millie might not taste as good scraped up from the floor of the-but enough of such thoughts!

Now the base of the chasm was close. It was rocky and narrow and curvy, with holes and ridges. There seemed to be no way out, though this was uncertain since it twined out of sight in either direction.

As they swung lower, their orientation shifted, thanks to Jumper's maneuvering of the lines, so that now they were traveling along the cleft rather than across it The harpies became more desperate. "Keep them away from ground!" the oldest and ugliest crone screeched. "Grab them! Snatch them! Lift them up. Drop the girl if you have to, we don't really need her, but save that buck!"

Dor swung his sword in increasingly desperate arcs, keeping them at bay, trying not to sever his own line. A talon lanced into his shoulder from behind, and great foul wings beat about his head. Millie screamed loudly and kicked her feet harder, and her hair formed a golden splay in a passing sunbeam. None of that helped. Dor aimed his sword up and thrust violently over his own head and down behind it. The point jammed into something. There was an ear-shattering scream that momentarily drowned out Millie's racket, and the talon released his shoulder. When he yanked the sword forward there was blood on the tip. He slashed in another circle, slicing feathers off the harpies in front This violence sickened him, as it had when he fought the goblin band, but he kept on.

Suddenly the line dropped. Millie emitted a truly classic Eeeeek! as they fell-but the drop was very short. The mighty muscles and sinews of Dor's legs flexed expertly, breaking his fall, preserving his balance. He still had Millie; now he set her down gently. Her skirt and bodice had separated; Dor stared briefly, not realizing that they were different pieces, and she tucked them together self-consciously. At least she had stopped screaming.

A greenish shape dropped down beside them. "Sorry about that drop," Jumper chittered. "The harpies attacked me, and I had to move."

"Quite all right," Dor said. "You got us out of the harpy caves."

The harpies were still milling in the chasm, but no longer attacking. Jumper had plunged through them by surprise, using his dragline to brake at the last moment so he hadn't been hurt. What a marvelous thing that dragline was!

"Why are the harpies staying clear?" Millie asked.

It was a stupid question that like so many of its kind was not so stupid after all. The harpies were raucous, ugly, and evil-smelling-except for Helen-but not notably cowardly. Why were they afraid of this rocky path?

"One of them said something about the enemy down here," Dor said, remembering.

Millie screamed and pointed. Charging along the crevice-path was a contingent of goblins. No sooner feared than realized!

"I can hold them off," Dor said, striding forward with his sword leading. He didn't know whether this was his body's impulse or his own, but it was a fact that heroism was greatly facilitated by this powerful and well-coordinated physique. He knew it could devastate the little goblins, so he could afford to be bold. In his own twelve-year-old-sized body he would have been justifiably hesitant-and been thought a coward.

"I will lead the way out," Jumper chittered. "Perhaps there will be a slope I can enable you to climb, anchored by my lines. You can serve as rearguard."

They moved east, Dor walking backward so as to face the goblins without getting separated from his party. Obviously there would be no escape toward the goblin caves.

"It's just a small band," a harpy screeched. "We can handle them! Wipe them out, hens!"

Suddenly the harpies were plummeting toward the goblins. There was an instant melee punctuated by cries, screeches, groans, and rages. A cloud of feathers formed. Dor craned to see what was happening, but the dust stirred up to obscure it. They seemed to be fighting claw-to-nail, and it was not at all gentle.

"Trouble ahead!" Jumper cluttered, and Millie screamed.

Dor glanced there-and saw more goblins charging from the west: a larger band. The spider stood to fight, though he could easily have jumped clear and clung to the cliff wall, saving himself. Except that he would not desert his friends. To no avail; the horde quickly overran him. Millie's piercing screams did not help her; a dozen goblin hands grasped her flailing arms and kicking feet and swirling tresses.

Dor whirled to help, but was already too late. Goblins grabbed him everywhere and bore him to the ground. He tried to kick his feet, but they were weighted by sheer mass of goblin. Just like that, they had been captured by the enemy.

All three of them were borne rapidly eastward, helpless. Suddenly a cave opened in the chasm wall, and the goblin band charged inside. It was dark here, and cool; Dor had the impression of descent, but couldn't be sure.

In due course they were brought to a room lit by guttering torches. This amazed Dor, for in his day goblins were desperately afraid of fire. But in his day goblins did not go abroad by day, either; in fact there were very few on the surface of Xanth at all. So this was another thing that had changed in eight centuries.

At one end of the chamber was a throne fashioned from a massive complex of stalagmites. It looked as if stone had run like hot wax, making layers and colored trails over itself until the whole had melded into this single twisted yet beautiful mass. An especially fierce-looking goblin bestrode it, his gnarled black legs almost merging with the stone.

"Well, trespassers!" the goblin chief cried angrily. "What made you suppose you could intrude on these our demesnes with impunity?"

Millie was quietly screaming and still trying to kick her feet; she didn't like the goblins' mottled hands on her legs. The goblins, however, seemed more interested than antipathetic. Jumper was chittering, but Dor knew the goblins could not comprehend that. So he stepped forward, breaking free of those who restrained him. "We did not mean to intrude, sir," he said. "We were only trying to escape the harpies." He had little hope of mercy from these monsters, but had to try.

The goblin's dusky brows lifted in astonishment. "You, a Man, call a goblin sir?"

"Well, if you'll tell me your proper title, I'll use it," Dor said nervously, though he tried to keep up a moderately bold front. Somewhere along the way his sword had been wrenched from his hand, and he felt naked without it.

"I am Subchief Craven, of the Chasm Clan of Goblins," the chief said. "However, sir will do nicely for an address."

Several goblin guards snickered. It was Craven, not Dor, who reacted to that derisive mirth. "You find the notion of sir humorous?" he demanded of them furiously.

"This is obviously no hero-man, but an impostor who knows naught of honor or combat," another goblin retorted. "His sir is so worthless as to be an insult."

"Oh yeah?" Craven cried. "We'll verify that, Crool. Will you meet him in honor challenge?"

Crool examined Dor, somewhat taken aback. But now the laughter of the clan was turning on him. "A single goblin does not meet a single human, even an impostor. The normal ratio is four or five to one."

"Then bring on your henchmen!" Craven cried. He turned to the guards at the other side of the hall. "Return to this man-warrior his sword. We shall discover whether his sir is valid."

What a devious and wonderful thing was pride, Dor thought. Now the subchief was rooting for the captive to prevail against the goblin kind.

Two goblins dashed up, carrying Dor's sword and lifting the hilt for him to take. He was glad to have it back, but did not like the prospective combat. He had not been at all pleased about the goblin-killing he had done before, and that misgiving grew as he observed how similar to his own kind these creatures were. They looked different, but their pride was similar.

The goblins gave him no choice. They cleared a disk in the center of the cavern, and the five goblins of drool's clan came at him. They were armed with small clubs and sharp fragments of stone, and looked determined. They obviously intended to do him in if they got the chance.

Dor's body took over. He strode toward the band, his blade swinging. The goblins threw themselves to the sides. Dor turned to his right, kicking one goblin so hard the creature scooted across the smooth rock to fetch up against a wall, his stone knife fragmenting. Dor whirled on the others, swinging his blade, and they scattered again. One further foray, to clear the goblin sneaking in behind him; Dor caught the moving club on his blade and punched underneath it with his left fist. He scored on the goblin's head, the thing hard as a rock, driving the creature back, shaken.

Suddenly Dor stood alone in the circle. He had vanquished the band, thanks to the power and expertise of his body-and he hadn't killed a single goblin. That made him feel better. It could not make up for the four he had killed before, but it eased his guilt somewhat.

Craven smiled grotesquely. "Now is that a suitable sir or is it not?" he demanded rhetorically. "Keep your sword, Man; you have established your status. Come-you and your party are my guests."

Jumper chittered. "It seems goblins set great store by status," the web translated. "You were very clever to utter that mark of respect."

Dor was abashed. "I just thought that was what you said to a chief."

"It seems you were correct."

The captivity had, by this miracle of courtesy, become a visit. The goblin chief treated them to a sumptuous meal of candied cavelice, sugared slugs, and censored centipedes. Jumper pronounced it excellent. Dor and Millie weren't so sure.

"So you were fighting the horrendous harpies," Craven said, making conversation as he politely ripped several segments from a large centipede with his big yellow teeth and strained out the legs through the gap between teeth. He had seemed a bit wary of Jumper at first, but after appreciating the way the spider's chelicerae, which were the big nippers where another creature's jaws would be, crushed the food, Craven seemed quite satisfied. The crunching was even more vicious than that of the goblins, therefore better table manners. Then when the spider secreted digestive liquid that dissolved the delicacies into goo, and sucked that into his stomach, the goblins had to applaud. They had never been able to eat like that!

"Good thing we rescued you," the goblin chief said during a respite from his own attempt to emulate Jumper's mode of feasting. No matter how hard he tried, he was unable to dissolve his food with his saliva before swallowing it.

"Yes," Dor agreed. Actually, the slugs weren't bad, the flesh being spongy and juicy, and Millie was getting the hang of the lice. She chewed them and spat out the fibrous legs in approved goblin fashion, somehow making it seem dainty. The banquet table was littered with legs.

"Why were they after you?" Craven asked. "We came out because we heard the commotion, and brought you in because any enemy of the harpies may be a friend of ours."

"They wanted-" Dor was not sure how to express it. "They wanted me to do something for Heavenly Helen Harpy."

"Heavenly Helen?" Millie inquired, her brow furrowing suspiciously.

Craven laughed so hard he sprayed centipede legs on the cavern ceiling. The goblin courtiers applauded the marksmanship. "Heavenly Helen! So that's how they do it! Grabbing human men for studs! No wonder you fought them off! What a horrible fate!"

"Oh, I don't know-" Dor began, then caught Millie's look. He shifted the subject. "They said it was all because of you goblins. That you stole away their men."

"We were just getting even for what they did to us!" Craven cried. "Once we shared caves, but they were greedy for our space, so they wreaked a foul enchantment on us. They blighted the sight of our females so that they perceived the merits of our men in reverse, The boldest, bravest, handsomest, brightest goblins became anathema to them; they were drawn infallibly to the weakest, ugliest, stupidest cowards and thieves among us, and with those they mated. In this manner our whole species was inevitably degraded. We were once more handsome than the elves and smarter than the gnomes and stronger than the trolls and had more honor than the Men themselves-and now look at us, warped and gnarled and stupid and cowardly and given to treachery, so that five of us cannot threaten one of you. The harpies set that enchantment on us, and only they can lift it, and the vile birds refuse to do that. So we must seek whatever vengeance we can, while we yet retain some power in Xanth."

This was a side of the story the harpies hadn't told! Dor realized that peace was impossible, for there was now no way to undo the damage done to the harpies. Unless there could be an original mating between human and vulture to produce a male harpy-but he could hardly imagine any person or bird doing that! So the goblin-harpy war would continue, until-

"But we shall have the final chortle," Craven said with grim satisfaction. "Already the clans of the goblins are massing, augmented by our brothers of the deep caverns, numberless in number, and by our allies of similar species. We shall extirpate the harpies and their ilk from the face of Xanth!"

Dor remembered how the harpies were also massing their winged forces for the final battle. That would be some engagement!

The honored visitors were given a fine dark cave for the night, with healthy rats to fend off the nickelpedes, and a vent in the ceiling through which the dark air rose. They were guests-yet there was something about the firmness of their hosts that gave Dor disquieting pause. He recalled Craven's remarks about the nature of goblins, their propensity for treachery. Were they so eager to practice their low arts that, rather than kill prisoners outright, they preferred to pretend they were honored guests-who could then be betrayed? Did the goblins really intend to set them free, or were they merely fattening up fresh meat for their repasts? Craven, by his own statement, could hardly be trusted.

Dor exchanged glances with Jumper's largest eyes. No words were exchanged, for the goblins could be listening through holes in the walls, but it was evident the spider had similar misgivings.

"Make loud snoring sounds," Dor murmured to the floor where he lay in the dark. The floor obliged, and soon all other sounds were drowned out by the rasps, groans, and wheezes of supposed sleep. Under that cover, Dor held a whispered conference with his friends.

So at night-it was hard to tell the time of day down here, but Jumper had an excellent sense of time-they set about sneaking out. The goblins had not realized the potential of the giant spider, since Jumper had stood to fight instead of jumping clear. Thus Craven had not set guards in the ceiling aperture. Actually, the goblins really were rather stupid, as the subchief had said.

Jumper jumped to the ceiling, clung there, walked into the ventilator hole and explored where it led. Soon he was back to hoist Dor and Millie up. They wound their way through the darkness as silently as possible, while the raucous snores faded in the distance. At length-the length of a silken guideline-they emerged at the starlit surface.

It had been surprisingly simple. Dor knew it would have been impossibly difficult had Jumper not been with them. Jumper, with his superlative night vision, his silken lines, and his scaling ability. The spider made the impossible possible.

Chapter 5

Castle Roogna

They found a safe tree to hang from for the rest of the night, then resumed their trek in the morning. The local sticks and stones were as helpful as usual, and they located Castle Roogna without difficulty about noon. Dor was able to recognize the general lay of the land, but the vegetation was all different. There was no orchard; instead there were a number of predaceous plants. And-the Castle was only half complete.

Dor had seen Castle Roogna many times, but in this changed situation it stood out like a completely novel structure. It was large-the largest castle in all the Land of Xanth-and its outer ramparts were the tallest and most massive. It was roughly square, about a hundred feet on a side, and the walls rose thirty feet or more above the moat. It was braced by four great towers at the corners, their square outlines projecting halfway out from the main frame, enlarging it, and casting stark shadows against the recessed walls. In the center of each side of the castle was a smaller round tower, also projecting out by half its diameter, casting more subtle shadows. Solid battlements surmounted the top. There were no windows or other apertures. In Dor's day some had been cut, but this was a more adventurous period, and the defenses had to be as strong as possible. Overall, this was as powerful and impressive an edifice as Dor cared to imagine.

But the inner structure was virtually nonexistent; the beautiful palace portion had at this stage to be a mere courtyard. And the north wall lacked its upper courses; the huge stones stair-stepped down in the center, and the round support tower was incomplete.

A herd of centaurs was laboring on this section, using hoists and massive cables and sheer brute force to draw the blocks to the top. They worked with somewhat less efficiency and conviction than Dor would have expected, based on his knowledge of the centaurs of his own day. They looked rougher, too, as if the human and equine sections were imperfectly joined. Dor was reminded that not only had new species risen in eight hundred years, the old ones had suffered refinement.

Dor marched up to the centaur supervisor, who stood outside the moat, near a crude wooden scaffold supporting the next block to be hoisted. He was sweating as he trotted back and forth, calling out instructions to the pulley crew, trying to maneuver the stone up without cracking into the existing wall. Horseflies buzzed annoyingly about his hindquarters-not the big flying-horse variety, but the little horse-biting variety. They buzzed off quickly when Jumper came near, but the centaur didn't notice.

"Uh, where is King Roogna?" Dor inquired as the centaur paused to give him a harried glance.

"Go find him yourself!" the surly creature retorted brusquely. "Can't you see we're busy here?"

The centaurs of Dor's time were generally the soul of courtesy except when aroused. One notable exception was "Uncle Chester," sire of Dor's centaur playmate Chet. This centaur supervisor was reminiscent of Chester, and the other members of this herd resembled him too. Chester must have been a throw-back to this original type: ugly of facial feature, handsome of posterior, powerfully constructed, surly of disposition, yet a creature of sterling qualities once his confidence was won.

Dor and his party retreated. This was obviously not the occasion to bug the centaurs. "Stone, where is King Roogna?" Dor inquired of a section of a block that had not yet been transported across the moat.

"He resides in a temporary hut south of here," the stone responded.

As Dor had suspected. There would have to be a lot more work on the Castle before it was habitable for a King, though in the event of war the inner court should be safe enough for camping. No one would choose to live there while the centaurs were hoisting massive rocks about.

They went south. Dor was tempted to make a detour to the spot where his cottage cheese existed in his own day, but resisted; there would be nothing there.

They came across a hut adapted from a large pumpkin, set in a small but neat yard. A solid, graying man in soiled shorts was contemplating a chocolate cherry tree while chewing on the fruit: evidently a gardener sampling the product. The man hailed them without waiting for an introduction: "Welcome, travelers! Come have a cherry while they are available."

The three stopped. Dor plucked a cherry and found it excellent: a delicious outer coating of sweet brown chocolate, a firm cherry exterior with a liquid center. Millie liked the fruit too. "Better than candied cave-lice," she opined. Jumper was too polite to demur, but evidently had another opinion.

"Pretend it is a swollen tick," Dor suggested in a low voice. The spider waved a foreleg, acquiescing.

"Well, let's try it again," the gardener said. "I'm having some difficulty with this one." He concentrated on the tree.

Nothing happened.

"Are you trying to do a spell?" Dor inquired, plucking another cherry. "To add fertilizer to it, or something?"

"Um, no. The centaurs provide plenty of fertilizer. As a matter of fact-" The man's eyes widened, startled. "Hold that cherry a moment, sir, if you please. Don't bite into it."

Dor paused, cherry near mouth. The first had been so good, he was a bit put out to have the gardener deny him the second so arbitrarily. He looked at the fruit. It lacked the chocolate covering, and its surface was bright red and hard. "I won't," he agreed. "This must be a bad one." He flipped it away."

"Don't-" the man cried, too late. "That's a-"

There was an explosion nearby. Millie screamed. The noise was deafening, and heat blasted at them.

All four of them stumbled to the side, away from the blast.

The concussion subsided. Dor looked around dazedly. There was a wisp of smoke rising from the vicinity of the explosion. "What was that?" Dor asked, shaken. He discovered he had his sword in hand, and put it away self-consciously.

"The cherry bomb you threw," the gardener said. "Lucky you did not bite into it."

"The cherry-that was a chocolate cherry, from this-" Dor looked at the tree. "Why, those are cherry bombs, now! How-?"

"This must be King Roogna," Millie offered. "We didn't recognize him."

Nonplused, Dor worked it out. He had pictured King Roogna as a man somewhat like King Trent, polished, intelligent, commanding of demeanor, a man nobody would care to take lightly. But of course the folklore of eight hundred years would clothe the Magician in larger-than-life grandeur. It was not a person's appearance that counted in Xanth, it was his magic talent. So this pudgy, informal, gardener-type man with the gentle manner and thinning, graying hair and sweaty armpits, unprepossessing-this could indeed be the King. "This tree-he changed it from chocolate cherry to cherry bomb-Magician King Roogna's talent was adapting magic to his purpose-"

"Was?" the King inquired, raising a dust-smeared eyebrow.

Dor had been thinking of the historical figure, who was of course contemporary in the tapestry world. "I, uh, is. Your Majesty. I-" He started to bow, changed his mind in midmotion, started to kneel, changed his mind again, and found himself dissolving in confusion.

The King set a firm, friendly hand on his shoulder. "Be at ease, warrior. Had I desired obeisance, I would nave made it known at the outset. It is my talent that sets me apart, rather than my office. In fact, my office is insecure at the moment. My troops are all on furlough because we have no quarters yet for them, and difficulties plague the construction of my Castle. So pretension would ill befit me, were I inclined toward it."

"Uh, yes, Your Majesty," Dor mumbled.

The King contemplated him. "I gather you are from Mundania, though you seem to have had some garbled account of Xanth." He glanced at Millie. "And the young lady has the aspect of the West Stockade. They do raise some pretty fruits there." He looked at Jumper. "And this person-I don't believe I have encountered a jumping spider of your magnitude before, sir. Is it an enchantment?"

"He called me sir," Jumper cluttered. "Is a King supposed to do that?"

"A King," Roogna said firmly, "can do just about anything he chooses. Preferably he chooses to rule well. I note your voice is translated by a web on the warrior's shoulder." His aspect hardened, and he began to suggest the manner Dor had expected in a King. "This interests me. There appears to be unusual magic here."

"Yes, Your Majesty," Dor said quickly. "There is considerable enchantment here, but it is hard to explain."

"All magic is hard to explain," Roogna said.

"He makes things talk," Millie said helpfully. "The sticks and stones don't break his bones. They talk to him. And walls and water and things. That's how we found our way here."

"A Mundane Magician?" Roogna asked. "This is a virtual contradiction in terms!"

"I, uh, said it was hard to explain, Your Majesty," Dor said awkwardly.

A figure approached: a compact squarish man of the King's generation, with a slightly crooked smile. "Do I smell something interesting, Roogna?" he inquired.

"You do indeed, Murphy," the King replied. "Here, let's introduce ourselves more adequately. I am Magician Roogna, pro-term King. My talent is the adaptation of living magic to my purpose." He looked meaningfully at Dor.

"I, uh, I am Dor. Er, Magician Dor. My talent is communication with the inanimate." Then, in case that wasn't clear, he added: "I talk to things."

The King prompted Millie with another glance. "I am Millie the maid, an innocent girl of the West Stockade village," she said. "My talent is-" She blushed delicately, and her talent manifested strongly. "Sex appeal."

On around the circle: "I am Phidippus Variegatus of the family of Salticidae: Jumper the spider for short," Jumper chittered. "My talent, like that of all my kind, is silk."

At last it came to the newcomer. "And I am Magician Murphy. My talent is making things go wrong. I am the chief obstacle to Roogna's power, and his rival for dominance in Xanth."

Dor's mouth dropped open. "You are the Enemy Magician? Right here with the King?"

King Roogna laughed. "What better place? It is true we oppose each other, but this is a matter of politics. Magicians, as a rule, do not practice their talents directly on each other. We prefer to manifest our powers more politely. Murphy and I are two of the three Magicians extant. The third has no interest in politics, so we two are the rivals for power in Xanth. We are trying our strength in this manner: if I can succeed in completing Castle Roogna before the year is out, Murphy will yield me uncontested title to the throne. If I fail, I will abdicate the throne, and since there is no other Magician suitable for the office, the anarchy that follows will likely foster Murphy as the dominant figure. Meanwhile we share the camaraderie of our status. It is an equitable arrangement."

"But-" Dor was appalled; "You treat the welfare of the whole Land of Xanth as if it were a game!"

The King shook his head gravely. "No game, Magician Dor. We are absolutely serious. But we also indulge ourselves in honor. If one of us can prevail in war, he can surely do it by humane rules of conduct. This is warfare of the civilized kind."

Jumper chittered. "There is warfare of the uncivilized kind approaching," the web translated. "The harpies and the goblins are massing their forces to exterminate each other."

Murphy smiled. "Ah, you betray my secret, spider!"

"If anything can go wrong, it will," Dor said. "You mean the war between monsters is your doing?"

"By no means, Magician," the Enemy demurred. "The war of monsters has roots going well back before our time, and no doubt will continue long after our time. My talent merely encourages the most violent outbreak at the least convenient time for Roogna."

"And we need hardly guess where the two armies will randomly meet," King Roogna exclaimed, his gaze turning northward toward the incomplete Castle.

"I had hoped it would be a surprise," Murphy admitted ruefully. "That would prevent you from calling back your troops in time to defend the Castle. But for the intrusion of these visitors, it might have been unforeshadowed."

"So your talent fouled you up, this time!" Millie said.

"Perhaps an eddy-current," Jumper chittered.

"My talent is not proof against the influence of other Magicians," Murphy said. "The ramifications of the talents of Magician caliber extend well beyond the apparent aspects. If another Magician were to oppose me, my talent would feel the impact, regardless of the specific nature of the opposing talent. And it seems another Magician has indeed entered the picture. It will take time to comprehend the significance of this new element."

That was an apt remark: Dor had entered the picture literally, for this was the tapestry, the picture-world.

Murphy studied Dor with a certain disquieting intensity. "I would like to get to know you better, sir. Would you care to accept my hospitality for the duration of your stay here, or until we all hie into the Castle to avoid the ravages of the monsters? We had thought there were no unknown Magicians in Xanth at this time."

"Sir?" Jumper chittered. He was still having a problem with this word, having seen its power.

"But you are the enemy!" Dor protested.

"Oh, go with him," Roogna said. "I lack proper facilities for three, at the moment, though soon the Castle will be in order. The maid can stay with my wife, and the spider I daresay would be happiest hanging from a tree. I assure you Murphy will not hurt you, Dor. It is his prerogative, by the rules of our contest, to be given opportunity to fathom significant new elements, particularly if they add to the strength of my position. I have a similar privilege to inspect his allies. You may both rejoin me and your companions for the evening repast."

Somewhat bemused, Dor went with Murphy. "I don't understand this business, Magician. You act as if you and King Roogna are friends!"

"We are peers. That's not the same as friends, but it will do. We have no others except the Zombie Master, and he is not one to associate with on this basis. There is of course neo-Sorceress Vadne, who would have assisted me had I agreed to marry her, but I declined and so she joined the King. But she is not a dominant figure. So if we desire the companionship of our level, we must seek it in each other. And now, it seems, in you. I am extremely curious about you, Dor."

This was awkward. "I am from a far land."

"Obviously. I had not been aware that any Magicians resided in Mundania."

"Well, I'm not really from Mundania." But could he afford to tell the whole truth?

"Don't tell me, let me guess! Not from Mundania-so it must be somewhere in Xanth. North of the Gap?"

"You remember the Gap?"

"Shouldn't I?"

"Uh, I guess it's all right. I-my people have trouble remembering the Gap, sometimes."

"Strange. The Gap is most memorable. So you're south of it?"

"Not exactly. You see, I-"

"Let's see your talent. Can you make this jewel talk?" Murphy held up a glittering emerald.

"What is your nature?" Dor asked the stone. "What are you worth? What is your secret?"

"I am glass," the jewel responded. "A fake. I am worth almost nothing. The Magician has dozens like me to give to greedy fools for their support."

Murphy raised an expressive eyebrow. "But you are not fake, Dor! There must be few secrets hidden from you! A remarkable informational talent!"

"Yes."

"So the mystery expands! How could a full Magician have remained concealed so long? Roogna and I once harnessed a magic sniffer and surveyed this whole region. That was how the site for the Castle was selected. There is a high concentration of useful magic here, and overall the effect is very strong. If the source of all magic is not in this vicinity, it can not be far from it. So we found enchantment aplenty, but no Magicians. Yet in our experience, no really strong magic emerges from the hinterland. How could a man of Mundane aspect, with a warrior's reflexes, turn up suddenly with such a talent? It hardly seems possible."

Dor shrugged.

"In fact, I suspect it is impossible-or rather, it must be the result of magic beyond our present comprehension. Some special enchantment-" He broke off, lifting one finger expressively. "An anachronism! That would account for it! You are from the Land of Xanth-in another time!"

"Uh, yes," Dor said. Murphy was no fool!

"Not the past, surely, for there is no record of such a talent historically. Of course many of the ancient records have been lost, owing to Waves and such. Still, talents tend to grow more sophisticated with time, and yours is quite sophisticated. So it must be the future. How far?"

The truth could not be concealed from this clever man! "Eight hundred years," Dor admitted.

They had arrived at Murphy's tent. "Come in, have a drink of cider-a fine sweet-cider press just fruited in my yard-and tell me all about it."

"But I'm not on your side!" Dor blurted. "I want King Roogna to win!"

"Naturally you do. All right-thinking people do. Fortunately for me, there are as many wrong-thinking people as right-thinkers. But surely you must realize that ignorance serves my purpose, not his. Only the orderly categorization of facts can promote a stable kingdom."

"Then why do you want this information? Are you going to try to do something to me?" Dor's hand touched his sword.

"Magicians do not act against Magicians," Murphy reminded him. "Not directly. I mean you no personal mischief. Rather, I am trying to determine the impact and meaning of your presence here. The addition of another full Magician to the equation could change the outcome of our contest. If your force is sufficient to tip the balance in Roogna's favor, and I cannot reverse it, then I would have to concede the throne to him without further ado, and save us all much torment. Therefore it behooves both Roogna and me to ascertain your nature, early and accurately. Why do you think he sent you with me?"

"You two are the strangest enemies I ever saw! I can't follow the convolutions of your game."

"We merely abide by the rules. Without rules, there is no game." Murphy handed him a glass of cider. "Tell me the whole story, Dor, and we shall ascertain how your presence affects our situation. You will be welcome then to explain it to the King."

Dor seemed to have no choice. He wished Jumper were here to advise him, or Grundy the golem; he just didn't have confidence in his own judgment. Yet he always felt most at home with the truth. So he told the Enemy Magician as much of the story as he could organize: his quest to help restore a zombie, the inclusion of Jumper in the spell, the adventure within the tapestry.

"No problem about locating the Zombie Master," Murphy said. "The problem is, he won't help you."

"But only he knows the secret of restoring zombies! That's the whole purpose in my-"

"He may know," Murphy said. "But he won't tell. He does nothing for anyone. That is why he lives alone."

"I still have to ask him," Dor said stubbornly. "Meanwhile, what about you? Now that you know King Roogna did-I mean will-complete the Castle-"

"That is indeed a ponderous matter. Yet there are several considerations. One is that what you say may not be true."

Dor was stung. His body's hand, responsive in its fashion to his mood, reached over his shoulder for the sword.

Murphy held up a hand, unalarmed. "You sound so uncertain, yet your body reacts so aggressively! This corroborates your story, of course. Do not force me to use my magic against you. You would suffer mishap before ever you brought your weapon to bear. I did not call you a liar. I merely conjecture that you could be misinformed. History is notorious for misinformation. That castle you knew could have been built a century later and given the name of Roogna, to lend verisimilitude to the new order. How would you know?"

"Very what?" Dor asked, confused.

"Verisimilitude. Realism. To make it seem likely and true."

Dor was startled. A Castle built much later, called Roogna. He had never thought of that.

"But there are other approaches," Murphy continued. "Assume your version of history is accurate-as indeed it may be. Now you have returned. What can you do-except change your history? In which case your presence can at best be neutral, and at worst reverse the outcome of the present competition between Roogna and Murphy. So your excursion may be an auspicious omen for me. I hardly mean to interfere with you! I think it may be my talent that brought you here, to foul up Roogna."

Dor was startled again. Himself, an agent of the enemy? Yet it was suddenly all too plausible!

"But I rather suspect," Murphy continued, "that you will in fact prove unable to change history m any significant respect. I visualize it as a protean thing. Yielding to specific imperatives yet always reasserting itself when the pressure abates. I doubt anything you can do will have impact after you depart. It will be an interesting phenomenon to watch, however."

Dor was silent. This Magician had neutralized him thoroughly, expertly, without doing a thing except talk. The worst of it was, he was very much afraid that Murphy was correct. The more Dor might try to interfere, here in the tapestry world, the more likely he was to hurt King Roogna's chances. So Dor would have to remain as neutral as possible, lest even his help prove disastrous.

They finished their cider and returned to King Roogna. "This man is indeed a Magician," Murphy announced. "But I deem him no threat to my designs, though he aligns himself with you. He will explain as he chooses."

The King glanced at Dor inquiringly. "It is true," Dor said. "He has shown me that any help I may try to render you…can have the opposite effect. We don't know that for sure, but it is a risk. So I must remain neutral, to my regret." Dor had surprised himself by making a very adult-sounding statement. Maybe it was Murphy's influence.

"Very well," the King said. "Murphy is many things, but his integrity is unimpeachable. Since you may not help me, may I help you?"

"Only by telling me where to find the Zombie Master."

"Oh, you can't get anything from him," the King assured Dor. "He helps no one."

"So Magician Murphy informed me. Yet it is vital that I see him, and after that I shall depart this land."

"Then wait a few days, until I complete the present phase of the Castle. Then I can spare you a guide and guard. I owe you this in deference to your Magician status. The Zombie Master lives east of here, in the heart of the wilderness; it is difficult to pass."

Dor chafed inwardly at the delay, but felt it best to accede. He and his friends had had too many narrow escapes already. A guide and guard would help.

They rejoined Millie and Jumper. "The King has given me a job!" Millie exclaimed immediately, bouncing and clapping her hands and swinging her hair in such a full circle that it lapped around her face, momentarily concealing it. "As soon as the Castle is complete."

"If we have time to wait," Jumper chittered, "I should like to recompense the King's hospitality by offering my service for the duration of our stay here."

"Uh-" Dor started to protest, realizing that what applied to himself should also apply to the spider.

"That is most courteous of you," the King said heartily. "I understand from the young lady that you are adept at hoisting and lowering objects. We have dire need of such ability at the moment. Rest tonight; tomorrow you will join my sturdy centaur crew."

Murphy glanced meaningfully at Dor. The Enemy Magician was satisfied to make this trial of the validity of his conjecture. And Dor had to be satisfied too. Maybe Murphy was wrong, after all. They could not afford to assume he was right, if he were not. So Dor was silent, not wanting to alarm the King or Jumper unnecessarily. Silent, but not at ease.

The King served them royally enough with pies from a pie tree he had adapted for this purpose: pizza, shepherd's, mince, cheese, and pecan pies, washed down with excellent fruit punch from a punchfruit tree.

"In my land," Dor remarked, "the King is a transformer. He changes living things into other living things. He can change a man into a tree, or a dragon into a toad. How does this differ from your own talent, Your Majesty?"

"A transformer," King Roogna murmured. "That's a potent talent! I can not change a man into a tree! I only adapt forms of magic to other purposes-a sleep spell to a truth spell, a chocolate cherry to a cherry bomb. So I would say your King is a more powerful Magician than I am."

Dor was abashed. "I'm sorry, Your Majesty. I didn't mean to imply-"

"You didn't, Dor. I am not competing with your King for status. Nor am I competing with you. We Magicians have a certain camaraderie, as I mentioned; we respect each other's talents. I'd like to meet your King sometime. After I have completed the Castle."

"Which may be never," Murphy said.

"Now with him I am competing," the King said good-naturedly, and bit into another piece of pie. Dor said nothing, still having trouble accepting this friendly-rivalry facade.

In the morning Jumper reported to the Castle construction crew. Dor went along to help translate, since no one else could understand the spider's chittering-and because he was privately concerned about Jumper's possible influence on history. Or lack of it. If anything Dor or Jumper did could affect King Roogna's success-

Dor shook his head uneasily. King Roogna was busy today, adapting new spells to preserve the roof of the Castle-once the construction reached that stage. The magic, it seemed, had to be built right into the Castle; otherwise it would not endure. This business of adapting spells, such as the one a water dragon used to prevent the water from dousing its flame-converting that to make an unleakable roof-well, that was certainly something a transformer couldn't do! So King Roogna had no reason to be modest. It was very difficult to compare the strength of talents. But if Jumper's offer of help were only to hurt-

They approached the same centaur supervisor who had brushed them off before. It seemed he had charge of the north wall, the one still under construction. The creature was pacing and fretting about the arrival of additional blocks of stone; it seemed the quarriers had fouled up a spell or two and were running behind schedule.

"King Roogna would like to have my friend help," Dor said. "He can lift stones into place with his silken lines, or climb sheer walls to-"

"A giant bug?" the centaur demanded, swishing his tail rapidly back and forth. "We don't want his kind among us!"

"But he's here to help!"

Now the other centaur workers were dismounting from the wall and crowding in close. They loomed uncomfortably large. A centaur standing the height of a man actually had about six times the mass of a man, and these stood somewhat taller than Dor-whose present body was a giant among men. "We don't associate with no bugs!" one cried. "Get that weirdo out of here!"

Nonplused, Dor turned to Jumper. "I-they don't-"

"I understand," Jumper chittered. "I am not their kind."

Dor eyed the massed centaurs, who seemed eager for any pretext to take time off from their labors. "I don't understand! You can do so much-"

"We don't care if he can throw droppings at the big green moon!" one yelled. "Get him out of here before we fetch a fly swatter!"

Dor got angry. "You shouldn't talk to him like that! Jumper's not a fly; he eats flies! He can keep all the horseflies away-"

"Bug-lover!" the supervisor snapped. "You're as bad as he is! Now watch I don't pound you both into the ground!"

"Yeah! Yeah!" the other centaurs agreed, stomping their hooves.

Jumper chittered. "These creatures are hostile. We shall depart." He started off.

Dor followed him, but not with docility. With each step he took his anger grew. "They had no right to do that! The King needs help!" Yet at the same time he wondered whether this were not for the best. If Jumper were not allowed to participate, Murphy's curse couldn't operate, could it? They would not change history.

Soon they were back at the royal tent. The King was outdoors beside a pond, where a small water dragon was captive. The thing was snorting smoke angrily and lashing up a froth with its tail, but Roogna seemed not to be concerned. "Now climb up on this roofing material," he was telling the dragon. "Propinquity facilitates adaptation." Then he looked up and spied Dor and Jumper. "Some problem at the construction site?"

Dor tried to be civilized, but it burst out of him. "The centaurs won't let Jumper work! They say he's…different!"

"So I am," Jumper chittered.

King Roogna had seemed like an even-tempered, harmless sort of man. Now that changed. He stood up straight and his jaw hardened. "I will not have this attitude in my kingdom!" He snapped his fingers, and in a moment a flying dragon arrived: a beautiful creature armored in stainless steel, with burnished talons and a long snout suitable for aiming a jet of fire accurately from a distance. "Dragon, it seems my work crew is getting balky. Fetch your contingent and-"

Jumper chittered violently. "No, Your Majesty!" the web translated, almost shredding itself in its effort to transmit the force of the spider's conviction. "Do not chastise your workers. They are no more ignorant than my own kind, and they are doing necessary work. I regret I caused disruption."

"Disruption? By offering to help?" The King's brow remained stormy. "At least I must chastise them with my magic. Centaurs do not have to have such pretty tails, so useful for swishing away flies. I can adapt them to lizards' tails, useful for slinking along between rocks. That will dampen their overweening arrogance!"

"No!" Jumper still protested. "Do not allow the curse to distort your judgment."

Roogna's eyes widened. "Murphy! You're right, of course! This is his doing! If alienophobia could interfere, it does interfere!"

Dor too was startled. That was it, certainly! Magician Murphy had laid a curse on the construction of the Castle, and Jumper's offer had triggered it. The centaurs were not really to blame.

"You are a sensible, generous creature," the King said to Jumper. "Since you plead the cause of those who wrong you, I must abate my action. I regret the necessity, and the wrong done you, but it seems I cannot take advantage of your kind offer of assistance." He dismissed the flying dragon with a kingly offhand gesture. "The centaurs are allies, not servants; they labor on the Castle because they are most proficient at this sort of construction. I have done return favors for them. I regret that I let my temper slip. Please feel free to use my facilities until I can arrange for your escort. Meanwhile, you are welcome to watch me operate here, though I hope you will not interrupt my concentration with foolish questions."

They settled down to watch the King. Dor was quite curious about the actual mechanism for adapting a spell. Did the King just command it, as Dor commanded objects to speak, or was it a silent effort of will? But hardly had Roogna gotten the balky water dragon placed before a messenger-imp ran up. "King, sir-there's been a foul-up at the construction site! The wrong spell was on the building blocks, and they're pushing each other apart instead of pulling themselves together."

"The wrong spell!" Roogna roared indignantly. "I adapted that spell myself only last week!" There followed a brief discussion. It turned out that a full course of blocks had been laid in the wrong place, causing their spells to conflict with those of the next course instead of meshing. Someone had fouled up, and the error had not been caught in time. They were large blocks, each weighing many hundreds of pounds.

Roogna tore out a few hairs from his rapidly graying head. "The curse of Murphy again! This will cost us another week! Do I have to lay every block with my own frail hands? Tell them to rip out that course and replace it with the correct one."

The imp scurried off, and the King returned to his task. But just as he was about to work his magic, another imp arrived. "Hey, King-a goblin army is marching from the south!"

Grimly the King asked: "What is its estimated time of arrival?"

"ETA zero minus ten days."

"That's one shoe," the King muttered, and returned to his work. Naturally the water dragon had wandered out of place, and had to be coaxed laboriously back. Murphy's curse operated in small ways, too.

The King was shortly interrupted by yet another imp. "Roog, old boy-a harpy flight is massing in the north!"

"ETA?"

"Ten days."

"The other shoe," Roogna said resignedly. "The two forces will converge on this spot, courtesy of Murphy, and by the time they have destroyed each other, the landscape will be in ruins and Castle Roogna in rubble. If we had only been able to complete the breastworks in time-but now that is hopeless. My enemy has done some remarkably apt scheming. I am forced to admire it."

"He's a smart man," Dor said. "There must be some way to divert those armies, if they're not really after the Castle. I mean, if the goblins and harpies don't care about the Castle at all, but only happen to be fighting here." He was disturbed. It didn't seem that his presence had caused this problem, but he wasn't quite sure. If his encounters with the harpies and goblins had set them both off-

"Any direct attempt at diversion would cause them both to attack us," Roogna said. "They are extremely intractable creatures. We lack the inclination and means to fend off either of those brute hordes. In your world, Man may be the dominant creature, but here that has not yet been established."

"If you recruited some more creatures to help you-"

"I would have to dissipate my magic repaying them for that service-instead of working on the Castle."

"Your human army-can't you call it back from furlough?"

"Murphy's curse is especially apt at interfering with organizational messages. I doubt we could summon the full complement back before the monsters arrived. And I'm sure those men need to protect their own homesteads from the advancing monsters. I think it better to defend the Castle with what we have on hand. That's a small chance, but as good as the alternative. I fear Murphy has really checked me, this time."

Maybe another Magician could help-" Dor interrupted himself with another thought. "The Zombie Master! Would his help make the difference?"

The King considered. "Yes, it probably would. Because he represents a primary focus of magic, with all its ramifications, and because he is relatively close, with no Gap to navigate in getting here, and because his zombies could man the battlements without number or upkeep: the ideal army in this kind of situation. Just feeding my own army during siege would be a terrific problem; we have supplies only for the crews working here now. But this is useless conjecture; the Zombie Master does not participate in politics."

"I have to go see him anyway," Dor exclaimed, excited. "I could talk to him, explain what is at stake-" To hell with caution! If the King was about to lose without Dor's help, why not take the risk? He really could do no harm. "Jumper could come along; he's better than I am at lots of things. The worst I could do is fail."

The King stroked his beard. "There is that. I regard it as a long shot, but since you are willing-tell the Zombie Master I would be willing to make some reasonable exchange for his assistance." He cocked a finger, and another imp appeared. Dor wondered where those imps hid when not in use; the King was evidently well attended, though he made little show of it. Like King Trent, he masked his power except when show was necessary. "Prepare an escort and guide for an excursion to the castle of the Zombie Master. Magician Dor will depart in the morning on a mission for me."

But in the morning there was one more: Millie the maid. "With the Castle delayed, and the household staff shipping out during the emergency, I have no job yet," she explained. "Maybe I can help."

In future centuries she would be a sad ghost, and come to know the zombie Jonathan, and seek to restore him. She knew nothing of this now, but Dor did. How could he deny her, her chance to assist him in this mission-since it was ultimately for her? Maybe in some way she could help.

Why did he feel so glad for her company? He knew he could never-she was not-his body appreciated aspects of her that he himself had hardly glimpsed, but she could never be his in that way. So why should he fool himself with impossible notions?

Yet how glad he was to be with her, even this brief time!

Chapter 6

Zombie Master

The escort was a dragon horse, with the front part of a horse and the rear of a dragon. The guide was another imp. "Well, sport, let's get on with it," the imp exclaimed impatiently. He was a good deal larger than Grundy the golem, but smaller than a goblin, and reminded Dor somewhat of each.

There were three saddles spaced along the creature's back. Dor took one, Millie another, and Jumper clinging to the third, unable to sit in it. The imp perched on the equine head, whispering into the expressive ears.

Abruptly they were moving. The horse forelegs struck the ground powerfully, while the reptilian hind legs dug their claws in and shoved back. The monster half-galloped, half-slithered forward in great lurches. Millie screamed, and Dor was almost catapulted out of the saddle. The imp chuckled impishly. He had known this would happen.

Jumper bounded over Dor's head, landing just behind the girl. With deft motions the spider trussed her to the saddle with silken threads so that she could not be dislodged. Then Jumper did the same for Dor. Suddenly there was no question of being shaken loose; they did not even have to hold on. "Ah, you take all the fun out of it!" the imp complained.

The dragon moved rapidly. The lurching smoothed as the creature got up speed, and became a more or less even rising and falling. Dor closed his eyes and imagined he was on a boat, sailing the waves. Up, down, sway; up, down, sway. He began to feel seasick, and had to open his eyes again.

The foliage was rushing past. This creature was really moving! It threaded neatly through seemingly impassable tangles, avoiding tangle trees and monster warrens, hardly abating its pace even for fair-sized rifts. The imp was an obnoxious little man-thing, typical of his kind, spreading insults imp-partially-but he really knew his route and controlled the dragon expertly. Dor appreciated expertise wherever he found it.

Which was not to say the whole trip was smooth. There were hills and dales and curves. Once the dragon splashed through a boggy lake, swimming strongly but soaking their feet and lower legs in the process. Another time it ascended a steep bank, going almost vertically before crushing it. Once a griffin rose up challengingly before it, squawking; the dragon horse neighed warningly and feinted with its hooves, and the griffin decided to give way.

Soon they neared the demesnes of the Zombie Master-and Dor realized with a start that this was the same site as that of Good Magician Humfrey's castle, eight hundred years later. But maybe that was not strange; that place which seemed fit for one Magician might also appeal to another. If Dor were to build a castle someday for himself, he would look for an ideal site, and might be governed by considerations similar to those of some former Magician.

However, the Zombie Master had his own defenses, and these turned out to be as formidable in their fashion as those of Magician Humfrey. A pair of zombies rose up before the dragon horse-and the fearless creature sheered off, unwilling to suffer contact with this rotting flesh. Millie, seeing the zombies, screamed, and even the imp looked disgusted.

"This is as far as we go," the imp announced. "Nothing will bother you here-except zombies. How you get in to talk with their master I don't even care to know. Dismount and let us go home."

Dor shrugged. Zombies posed no special horror for him, since he had more or less associated with Jonathan all his life. He didn't like zombies, but he wasn't afraid of them. "Very well. Tell the King we are in conference with the Zombie Master, and will send news soon."

"Fat chance," the imp muttered. Dor pretended not to hear that.

The three dismounted. Immediately Dor felt cramps in his legs; that ride had really battered them! Millie stood bowlegged, unable even to kick her feet properly. Only Jumper was unkinked; he had perched atop his saddle throughout, being unable to sit at all.

The dragon horse neighed, wheeled on hoof and claw and tail, and shoved off. The three were showered with dirt and twigs thrown up by its feet. It was certainly glad to get away from here!

Dor worked the knots out of his legs as well as he could, and limped up to the guard-zombies. "We come on a mission from King Roogna. Take us to your Master."

The zombie opened its ponderous and marbled jaws. "Nooo nnn ffasssess!" it declared with fetid breath.

Dor concentrated, trying to make out the words. Was his talent operating here? These things were dead, yet fashioned from organic material. Wood was organic, and he could speak to it when it was dead. Did the spell that gave these monsters animation also give them sufficient pseudo-life to nullify his communication with inanimate things? Or was it partially operative? Probably the latter; he could converse, but with difficulty.

Jumper chittered. "I believe it said "No one passes," the web on Dor's shoulder said.

Dor glanced at the spider, surprised. Had it come to the point where Jumper could understand Dor's language better than Dor himself could?

Jumper chittered again. "Do not be dismayed; all of your words are strange to me; this is merely another aspect of strangeness."

Dor smiled. "That makes sense! Very well; you can help me converse with the zombies." He returned his attention to the guards, who had remained as silent as the grave, as patient as time. They had no living urges to impel them. "Tell your Master he has visitors. He must see us."

"Nooo," the zombie insisted. "Nooo nnnn!"

"Then we shall just have to introduce ourselves." Dor made to pass.

The zombie raised a grisly arm to block his way. Shreds of rotten flesh festooned it, and the white bone showed through in places. Millie screamed. She certainly had no affection for any zombie at this stage of her life! But centuries of ghosthood could change a person's perspective, Dor concluded.

Dor reached for his sword, but Jumper was there before him, trussing up the zombie in silk. In a moment the other zombie was similarly incapacitated. Dor had to admit this was the better way; zombies were messy to slay, he understood, because they could not be killed. They had to be dismembered, and even the pieces fought on. Which was one reason they would make such a good army for King Roogna, if that could only be arranged. This way, they were efficiently neutralized, and in a manner that should not offend the Zombie Master.

But they had not gone far toward the castle that stood on a mound in the forest-in Dor's day both mound and forest were gone-before a zombie serpent challenged them. It hissed and rattled in a fashion only deviously reminiscent of a live serpent, but there was no doubt it sought to bar their progress. Jumper neutralized it as he had the others. Whatever would they have done without the big spider!

Then a zombie tangle tree menaced them. This was too much even for the spider; the tree stood four times the height of a man and had perhaps a hundred moldering tentacles. Even ft it were feasible to truss it up, the thing would have the strength to snap the strands. Therefore Dor menaced it with his gleaming sword while the others sidled past; even a zombie tree had some care for its extremities.

In this manner they achieved the castle. It, too, was an animated ruin. Stones had fallen from its walls to reveal fossilized inner supporting timbers, and shreds of cloth hung in the window apertures. There had once been a moat, but it had long since filled in with debris; a stench rose from what thick liquid remained. There was-yes, a zombie bog-monster languishing in the mire. Its slime-coated orbs focused on the intruders with as much glare as their sunken condition permitted them to mount.

The party crossed the broken-down drawbridge and pounded on the sagging door. Splinters and fragments were dislodged, but of course there was no answer. So Dor completed the demolition of the door with a few strokes of his sword, and the three marched in. Not without a qualm or two.

"Hallooo!" Dor called, and his voice reverberated through the tomblike halls. "Zombie Master! We are on a mission for the King!"

A zombie ogre appeared. Millie screamed and did a little skip back, her hair swinging almost straight up; she must have kicked her feet, forgetting that she was standing on them. Jumper braced her with one leg to prevent her falling backward into the moat, where the moat-monster was trying vainly to slaver. "Noo. Goo," the ogre boomed hollowly, for its chest had been eviscerated by decay. Dor remembered Crunch the ogre, and retreated; a zombie ogre was still an ogre.

"We must see the Zombie Master," Millie said, though pale with fear. In her cute way, she too, had courage.

"Soo? Ooh." The ogre shuffled down a hall, and the party followed.

They entered a chamber like a crypt. Another zombie glanced up, resting its cadaverous hands on the table before it. "On what pretext do you intrude here?" it demanded coldly.

"We want to see the Zombie Master!" Dor exclaimed. "Now get out of the way, you bundle of bones, if you're not going to help."

The zombie stared somberly at him. It was an unusually well-preserved specimen, gaunt but not yet rotten. "You have no business with me. You are not yet dead."

"Of course we're not yet-" Dor paused. That "yet" distracted him.

Jumper chittered. "This man is alive. He must be-"

"The Zombie Master himself!" Millie finished, horrified.

Dor sighed. He had done it again. When would he grow up and learn to check things out before making assumptions? First King Roogna, whom he had thought to be a gardener; now the Zombie Master. He fumbled for an apology. "Uh-"

"Why do the living seek me?" the Zombie Master demanded.

"Uh, King Roogna needs your help," Dor blurted. "And I need the elixir to restore a zombie to life."

"I do not indulge in politics," the Zombie Master said. "And I have no interest in restoring zombies to life; that would undermine my own talent." He made a chill gesture of dismissal and returned to his business-which was the corpse of an ant lion that he was evidently about to animate.

"Now see here-" Dor began angrily. But the zombie ogre stepped forward menacingly, and Dor was cowed. His present body was big and strong and swift, but in no way could it match the least of ogres. One swing of that huge fist-

Jumper chittered. "I think our mission has failed."

Dor took another look at the ogre, remembering how Crunch had snapped an ironwood tree off at the base with one careless blow. This creature was not in good condition, being dead, but could probably snap an aluminumwood tree off. Mere human flesh would be no problem at all. So his second thought was much the same as his first: he could not prevail here,

Dor turned about. He knew that they could not coerce a Magician to help; it had to be voluntary. The Zombie Master, as the others had warned, was simply not approachable.

A hero would have found some way. But Dor was just a lad of twelve, accompanied by a giant spider and a girl who screamed constantly and who would become a ghost at an early age. No heroes here! And so he accepted the gall of defeat, for both his quests. The gall of growing up, of becoming disillusioned.

Dor half-expected one of the others to protest, as Grundy the golem always did. But Millie was only a helpless maid, possessing little initiative, and Jumper was not Dor's kind; the spider comprehended human imperatives only imperfectly.

They walked out, and the zombies did not bother them. They trekked down the hill. The dragon horse was gone, of course. They might have had it wait, but they had not expected to need it this soon. Dor's lack of foresight had penalized him again. Not that delay made much difference, at this stage. So they would simply have to march back themselves.

They untied the two zombie guards Jumper had trussed in silk. "Nothing personal," Dor explained to them. "Our business with your Master is finished." They marched. Millie made a very pretty marcher, when she wasn't screaming or kicking her feet; her hair still flung about naturally. He was getting used to her as she was now, and found her rather intriguing. In fact, he wouldn't mind-but that wouldn't be right. He had to guard against the thoughts his Mundane body put into his head; Mundanes weren't very subtle.

Abruptly they happened on a campfire. This was strange, because fire was hardly used in the Land of Xanth. Few things needed cooking, and heat was more efficiently obtained by pouring a little firewater on whatever needed warming. But this was obviously an organized fire, with sticks formed into a circular pile. The flames licked merrily up through the center. Someone had been here recently; in fact the person must have departed moments before Dor and his party arrived.

"Stand where you are, stranger," a voice called from the shadow. "I've got you covered with a bow."

Millie screamed. Dor reached for his sword, then stopped; he couldn't draw before an arrow struck him. No sense in compounding this yet-again lack of foresight by getting himself unnecessarily killed. Jumper jumped straight up and disappeared into the foliage of a tree overhanging them.

The challenger stepped forth. He was a brutish man, Mundane by the look of him, and he had not been bluffing about the bow. The string was taut, and the arrow nocked and centered on Dor's midsection. Knowing the capabilities of his own Mundane body, Dor had little reason to doubt the competence of this challenger. It seemed as if all Mundanes were born warriors. Perhaps this was in compensation for their abysmal lack of magic. Or maybe the soft, gentle, peaceful Mundanes didn't go out invading other lands.

"Who the hell are you, poking around my campfire?" the brute demanded. "What happened to that creep with you, the hairy thing with the legs?"

"I am Dor, on mission for the King," Dor said. He spoke more boldly than was his wont, fresh from the pain of failure of his missions. "The others are my companions. Who are you, to challenge me thusly?"

"So you're a Xanthie!" the man exclaimed sneeringly. "You sure could've fooled me; you look just like a man. You try a spell on me and I'll drill you!"

So this really was a Mundane. Dor had never seen one in the flesh before. "You don't have a talent?"

"Don't get smart with me, creep!" Then the man looked at him more closely. "Say, you're even dressed like one of us! You sure you're not a deserter?"

"Would you like to see my talent?" Dor asked evenly.

The man considered. "'Yeah, in a moment. But no tricks." He turned his head and yelled. "Hey, Joe! Come and set guard on a pair here!"

Joe arrived. He was another brutish man, unclean and malodorous. "What's all this noise about-"

He broke off. His lips pursed in a crude whistle. "Get a load of that babe!"

Oops, Dor thought Millie's talent was operating.

Millie made a token scream and stepped back. Joe stepped forward aggressively. "Boy, I could really use a number like this!" His hand shot out, catching her slender arm. This time Millie's scream was in earnest.

Dor's body took over. His left hand grabbed at the first Mundane's bow while his right snapped over his shoulder to whip out the sword. Suddenly the two Mundanes were standing at bay. "Leave her be!" Dor cried.

Millie turned on him, surprised and gratified. "Why Dor-I didn't know you cared!"

"I didn't know either," he muttered. And knew it was a lie. He had resolved to stop lying, but it seemed to come naturally at times like these. Was that part of growing up too: learning to lie socially? He had always cared for Millie, but had never known how to express it. Only the immediate threat to her had prompted his action.

"You won't get away with this!" Joe said angrily. "We've got troops all around here, looking for plunder."

Dor spoke to the club that dangled from the man's waist. "Is that true, club?"

"It's true," the club said. "This is the advance unit of the Mundane Fifth Wave, They marched down the coast past the Gap, then cut inland. They are completely immune to reason. All they want is wealth and women and easy living, in that order. Flee whilst you can."

The first Mundane's mouth dropped open. "Magic! He's really got magic!"

Dor backed away, Millie beside him. This was a tactical error, for the moment the two Mundanes were beyond sword-slash range they drew their own weapons. And set up a shout: "Enemy escaping! Cut him off!"

A shape dropped from above: Jumper. He landed almost on top of the two Mundanes and trussed them up before they knew what was happening. But the alarm had already been given, and there were sounds all around of men closing in.

"We had better use the upper reaches," Jumper cluttered. "The Mundanes will not pursue us there."

"But they can shoot their arrows at us!" Dor protested.

"They may not see us." Jumper fastened safety lines to Dor and Millie, and they scrambled up the trunk of a tree.

The Mundanes were arriving. These alien men were worse than goblins! Dor was climbing rapidly, thanks to his body's huge muscles, but Millie was slow. She would surely be caught. "I will distract them!" Jumper cluttered, and dropped low on his dragline.

Dor waited for Millie to catch up with him, then continued on up into the foliage. Just as they got to some reasonable cover, the Mundanes converged on the tree. Jumper chittered at them, swinging across to another tree.

"Get that bug!" a Mundane cried. He lunged for Jumper, but missed as the spider zipped a few feet up his line. Jumper could have escaped then, by going on up into the heights, or simply jumping over the Mundanes and running-but Dor was still struggling to haul Millie to safety. So the heroic spider dangled low, chittering in a manner that sounded challenging and insulting even without translation.

Another Mundane lunged-and missed. Mundanes just didn't think of an enemy rising suddenly up. But there were too many; now the spider had nowhere to go. One Mundane had the wit to chop at the dragline with a sword, severing the invisible silk. Jumper dropped to the ground. Instantly the men pounced on him, grabbing him one man to a leg, much as the goblins had, so that he was helpless.

Men and goblins: was there really much difference between them? The Mundanes were bigger, but

Dor was about to turn back, to aid his friend, but one of Jumper's eight eyes spied him. "Don't waste my effort!" he chittered, knowing that no one besides Dor could understand him. "Return to the Zombie Master; it is the only place you can keep the girl safe."

Dor hadn't thought of that. The Zombie Master might not be friendly, but at least he was not too hostile. It was the best place to be until the Mundane horde passed.

He climbed up into the protective splay of leaves, urging Millie on. His last sight of Jumper was of the men bearing him to the ground, striking his soft body brutally with their fists. They weren't trying to kill, they were trying to hurt, to make their enemy suffer as long as possible before the end. Because Jumper had balked them from capturing the girl-and because Jumper was different. Dor winced, feeling the pain of the blows in his own gut. What would they do to his friend?

Jumper had left a network of silken lines strung through the upper foliage, guiding Dor and Millie and providing rapid transit from one great tree to another. It was amazing how much he had accomplished in the brief time he had been aloft, and with what foresight. Dor had never thought his friend was deserting him-but neither had he anticipated the sacrifice Jumper would make. He felt the unmanly tears stinging his eyes, was afraid Millie would notice them, then decided he didn't care. Jumper-to have Jumper trapped like this, perhaps badly hurt, because of Dor's own carelessness-

Suddenly there was a piercing terrible, great chittering from below. It translated into a sheer scream of agony, chilling in its implication.

"They are pulling off his legs!" Millie whispered in horror. "That's what Mundanes do to spiders. The wings off butterflies-"

Dor saw that her beautiful face was streaked with helpless tears. She was not ashamed to cry!

Then something congealed in Dor. "Come on!" he snapped, and swung forward at a faster pace.

"Don't you care, that-?" she demanded plaintively.

"Hurry!"

Reproachfully, she hurried. Dor felt like a heel from a No. 1 shoe-tree, knowing she thought concern for his own safety motivated him, but he wasted no effort trying to explain. Jumper had eight legs; it would take the Mundanes time to get them all, and he had to use that time well.

In moments they ran out of Jumper's lines and dropped to the ground. They were now at the base of the hill on which the Zombie Master's castle sat. A zombie rose up to challenge them, but Dor shoved it aside so roughly that it collapsed in a jumble of shredded meat and chipped bone. He dragged Millie on.

They never paused at the chopped-open castle door. Dor charged right in. The zombie ogre rose up; Dor parried it with his blade, ducked under its arm, and plunged on through the gloomy hall. At last he burst into the Zombie Master's chamber, where the zombie ant lion was now taking its first steps.

"Magician!" Dor cried. "You must save my friend the spider! The Mundanes are pulling out his legs!"

The Zombie Master shook his cadaverous head and waved with an emaciated hand. "I have no interest in-"

Dor menaced him with his sword. "If you do not help this instant, I will surely slay you!" Such was his hurt and desperation, he was not bluffing, though he feared the Magician could turn him into a zombie.

Now the Zombie Master showed some spirit. "So you, a mortal, dare to threaten a Magician?"

"I am a Magician too!" Dor cried. "But even if I weren't, I would do anything to save my friend, who sacrificed himself for me and Millie!"

Millie put a restraining hand on Dor's arm. "Please," she said. "You can not threaten a Magician. Let me handle it, Dor. I am not a Magician like you, but I do have my talent."

Dor paused, and Millie stepped close to the Zombie Master, smiling with difficulty. "Sir, I am not a forward maid, and no Sorceress, but I too would do anything to help the bold friend who preserved us. If you but knew Jumper the spider-please, now, if you have any compassion at all-"

The Magician looked at her closely for the first time. Dor remembered what her talent was, and knew how it softened men. He was just beginning to appreciate its impact on himself. The Zombie Master was after all a man, and he too had to feel the impact.

"You…will tarry with me?" he asked incredulously.

Dor did not like the sound of that word, tarry.

Millie spread her arms toward the Zombie Master. "Save my friend. What becomes of me is not important."

A kind of shudder ran through the Magician. "This becomes you not, maid," he said. "Yet-" He turned to his ogre. "Gather my forces, Egor; go with this man and do as he desires. Save the spider."

Dor took off, running through the gloomy halls and from the castle. The true horror was what lay ahead of him. The zombie ogre followed, crying out to the things of the castle: "Ccome ccome!"

Zombies erupted from the adjacent rooms, in their haste dripping stray clods, bones, and teeth. They closed in behind the ogre: men, wolves, bats, and other creatures too far gone to identify. In grisly procession they followed Dor down the hill.

His concern for his friend lent him swiftness, and somehow the zombies kept up. Yet even as he ran, Dor wondered whether he had not left Millie to as bad a fate as the one he strove to rescue Jumper from. The spider had sacrificed himself to save the two of them; Millie had sacrificed herself to save the spider. The full nature of Millie's talent had never been apparent to him, though it was coming clearer; it included holding and kissing and-

His mind balked. Kissing the Zombie Master? He ran faster yet.

They burst upon the Mundanes. The first thing Dor saw was Jumper: the brutal men had hung him up by four legs, and yanked off the other four. The spider was alive, but in terrible pain after this torture.

Dor went mad. "Kill!" he screamed, and his sword was in his hand. Almost of its own volition, the blade chopped into the neck of the Mundane nearest Jumper-the one holding the spider leg that had been torn off most recently. Dor was reminded of the centipede legs spat out at the goblin banquet. But this was his friend! The keen edge sliced through the flesh with surprising ease. It passed right through the neck, and the man's head popped off. Dor stared, momentarily numb to the implication; then he looked again at the severed leg, and whirled on the next Mundane.

Meanwhile the zombies were attacking with a will. The Mundanes panicked, becoming aware of the horror that had fallen on them. Dor had heard that Mundanes were a superstitious lot; zombies should play on that propensity. The men scattered, and in a moment there was nothing in the glade except the victors, three bodies, and Jumper.

Dor couldn't let himself relax. "Carry the spider to the castle," he ordered the ogre. "Carefully!" He turned to the other zombies. "Collect the severed legs and bring them along." Would it be possible to convert them into usable zombie legs and put them back on the spider?

The ogre picked up the mutilated body. Other zombies found the missing legs, and dragged along the dead Mundanes. The strength of the zombies was surprising-or maybe it was just willpower. They brought their prizes grimly to the castle.

Millie met them at the entrance. She looked all right. Her clothes were still on, and her hair was unmussed. Dor had trouble phrasing his question. "He-did he-?"

"The Zombie Master was a perfect gentleman," she said brightly. "We just talked. He's an educated man. I think he's lonely; no one ever visited with him before."

And no wonder! Dor's attention returned to Jumper. "He's alive, but in terrible pain. They-they pulled off four legs!"

"The brutes!" she exclaimed with feeling. She had seemed a rather innocent, helpless maid before, but now she was reacting to stress and horror with increasing personality. "How can we help him?"

Jumper revived enough to chitter weakly. "Only time will help me. Time to regrow my lost limbs. A month or so."

"But I must return to the King in mere days!" Dor cried. "And to my own land-"

"Return without me. Perhaps I can render some service to the Zombie Master in return for his hospitality."

"But I must take the Zombie Master with me, to help the King!" Yet that, too, was an impasse; the Magician had already refused to get involved in politics.

The Zombie Master was there; in his distraction Dor had not been aware of his arrival. "Why did the men torment the spider?"

"I am alien to this world," Jumper chittered. "I am a natural creature, but in my enchantment in this realm of men I become a thing of horror. Only these friends, who know me-" His cluttering ceased abruptly; he was unconscious.

"A thing of horror, yet with sentience and courage," the Zombie Master murmured thoughtfully. He looked up. "I will care for this creature as long as he requires it. Egor, carry him to the guest chamber."

The ogre picked Jumper up again and tromped away.

"I wish there were some way to cure him faster," Dor said. "Some medicinal spell, like the healing elixir-" He snapped his fingers. "That's it! I know where there's a Healing Spring, within a day's journey of here!"

Now he had the Magician's attention. "I could use such elixir in my art," the Zombie Master exclaimed. "I will help you fetch it, if you will share the precious fluid with me."

"There's plenty," Dor agreed. "Only there's one catch. You can't act against the interest of the Healing Spring, or you forfeit its benefit."

"A fair stipulation." The Zombie Master showed the way to an inner courtyard. A monstrous zombie bird roosted there.

Dor stared. This was a roc! The largest of all birds, restored to pseudo-life by the talent of this Magician. The entire world of the dead was under the power of this man!

"Carry this man where he will," the Zombie Master directed the roc. "Return him safely with his burden to this spot."

"Uh, I'll need a jug or something-" Dor said.

The Magician produced two jugs: one for each of them. Dor climbed onto the stinking back of the roc, anchored himself by grasping the rotting stubs of two great feathers, and tied the jugs with a length of Jumper's silk left over from his last dragline.

The roc flapped its monstrous wings. The spread was so great, the tips touched the castle walls on either side of the courtyard. Grimy feathers flew wide, bits of meat sprayed off, and the bony substructure crackled alarmingly. But there was tremendous power remaining in this creature. A roc in its prime could carry an elephant-that was an imaginary creature the size of a small sphinx-and Dor weighed far less than that. So even this animated corpse could perform creditably enough.

They lumbered into the air, barely clearing the castle roof. There were so many holes in the great wings that Dor marveled that they did not fall apart, let alone have sufficient leverage to make flight possible. But the spell of the Zombie Master was a wondrous thing; no zombie ever quite disintegrated, though all of them seemed perpetually on the verge of doing so.

They looped above the castle. "Go east!" Dor cried.

He hoped he knew the terrain well enough by air to locate the spot. He tried to visualize the tapestry to orient himself-was he actually flying above it now?-but this world was too real for that.

Dor had only been to the Healing Spring once with his father Bink, who had needed elixir for some obscure adult purpose. On that trip Bink had reminisced about his adventures there: how he had met Dor's mother Chameleon, she being then in the guise of Dee, her normal phase, at such and such a spot, and how he had found the soldier Crombie at this other spot, wounded, and used the elixir to restore him to health. Dor and Bink had visited briefly with a dryad, a wood nymph associated with a particular tree, resembling a pretty girl of about Millie's present age. She had tousled Dor's hair and wished him well. Ah, yes, it had been a fine trip! But now, high in the air, Dor could not ask the objects of the ground where the Spring was, and there were no clouds close enough to hail-hail-call, that is, not hail-stone-and his memory seemed fallible.

Then he spied a channel of especially healthy jungle, obviously benefiting from the flowing water from the Spring. "Down there," he cried. "At the head of that stream."

The zombie roc dropped like a stone, righted itself, glided in for a landing, tilted a little, and clipped a tree with one far-reaching wing tip. Immediately the wing crumpled, and the roc's whole body swerved out of control. It was a crash landing that sent Dor tumbling from his perch.

He picked himself up, bruised but intact. The roc was a wreck. Both wings had been broken; there was no way the creature could fly now. How was he to get back in time to do Jumper much good? If he walked, it would take him a day in the best of conditions; carrying two heavy jugs it would be longer. Assuming he didn't get snapped up by a tangle tree, dragon, or other monster along the way.

He reconnoitered. They had missed the Spring, but there was a handsome tree nearby on the hillside. And-he recognized it. "Dryad!" he cried, running toward it. "Remember me, Dor?"

There was no response. Suddenly he realized: this was eight hundred years earlier! The dryad would not remember him-in fact there probably was no dryad here yet, and this was probably not the same tree. Even if the time had been correct, the nymph still would hardly have recognized him in his present body. He had been boyishly foolish. Yet again.

Disconsolately he trekked down the slope. Of course this was not the same tree! The real one had been some distance from the Spring, not right beside it. And an average tree of today would be an extraordinary tree by Dor's own time; even plants aged considerably in eight centuries. His hopes had really fouled up his thinking! He would have to find his own way out of this mess, without help from any dryad.

Well, not entirely without help. "What is the best route out of here?" he asked the nearest stone.

"Ride that roc bird out," the rock replied.

"But the roc's wings are broken!"

"So sprinkle it with some elixir, idiot!"

Dor stopped dead in his tracks. So obvious! "I am an idiot!" he exclaimed.

"That's what I said," the stone agreed smugly.

Dor ran up to the roc, got his jugs, and ran to the Spring. "Mind if I take some of your elixir?" he inquired rhetorically.

"Yes, I mind!" the Spring replied. "All you creatures come and steal my substance, that I labor so hard to enchant, and what recompense do I get for it?"

"What recompense!" Dor retorted. "You demand the stiffest price of all!"

"What are you talking about? I never made any demands!"

Something was wrong. Then Dor caught on. Again, that eight-hundred-year factor. The Spring had not yet developed its compensatory enchantment. Well, maybe Dor could do it a favor. "Look, Spring, I intend to pay you for your substance. Give me these two jugs full of elixir, and I will tell you how to get fair recompense from all other takers."

"Done!" the Spring cried.

Dor dipped the jugs full, noting how the bruises vanished from his body as he touched the water. This was the Spring, all right! "All you need is a supplementary enchantment, requiring that anyone who benefits from your elixir cannot thereafter act against your interests. The more your water is used, the more your power will grow."

"But suppose someone calls my bluff?"

"It will be no bluff. You will take back your magic. It will be as if he never was healed by you."

"Say, yes-I could do that!" the Spring said excitedly. "It would take a while, maybe a few centuries, to build that extra spell, but since it's just a refinement of the original magic, a termination clause as it were-yes, it will work. Oh, thank you, thank you, stranger!"

"I told you I would repay you," Dor said, gratified. Then he thought of something else. "Uh-I'm only a visitor to this land, and what I do may fade out after I leave. So you'd better get right on that spell, so you don't lose it once I'm gone."

"How long do I have?"

Dor did a quick calculation. "Maybe ten days."

"I'll fix it in my mind," the Spring said. "I'll memorize it so hard that nothing can shake it loose."

"That's good," Dor said. "Farewell!"

"I'm not a well, I'm a spring!" But it was a good-natured correction.

"Maybe you're a wellspring," Dor suggested. "Because you make creatures well again."

"Bye," the Spring said, dismissing him.

Dor returned to the roc and sprinkled elixir from his jar on its wings. Immediately they healed; in fact, they were better than they had been. But they remained zombie wings, dead flesh. There were, after all, limits; the elixir could not restore the dead to life.

Which was why he was on this quest. Only the Zombie Master could do what needed to be done. Meanwhile, he had to get back to Jumper soon, lest the spider also require restoration from the dead.

Dor boarded, tied the jugs, and hung on. "Home, roc!" he cried.

The roc taxied about to face the channel forged by its crash landing, worked its legs to accelerate, flapped its wings, and launched violently into the air. This takeoff was far more precipitous than the first one had been; it was all Dor could do to hang on. The elixir had given the wings new power. Fortunately there were a few droplets remaining on his hands, and these healed the feathers to which he clung. Now they were great long fluffy colorful puffs of plumage suitable for ladies' hats, easy to grasp.

The roc wheeled in the sky, then stroked powerfully for the Zombie Master's castle. The landscape fairly whizzed by below. They reached their destination in half the time it had taken to make the outbound trip. No wonder the Magician wanted the elixir; his zombies would be twice as good now!

But a new problem manifested. From above, Dor could see that the Mundanes had rallied, and now were laying siege to the castle. There were many of them; their whole advance army must have gathered for this effort. They evidently were not cowards; they had been panicked by the ferocity of the zombies' attack, but now they were angry at the three deaths and sought revenge. Also, they probably thought that any castle so well guarded must conceal enormous riches, so their greed had been invoked. In helping his friend Jumper, Dor had brought serious mischief to the Zombie Master. Dor was sure his father would have had more sense than that; it was yet another reminder of his own youth and inexperience and thoughtlessness. When, oh when, would he ever grow up and be adult?

The roc dived, hawklike, banked, and plopped into place in the courtyard. The landing was heavy, for the bird's feet had not been healed; the sound carried throughout the castle.

The Zombie Master and Millie rushed up. "You got it!" Millie cried, clapping her hands.

"I got it," Dor agreed. He handed one jug to the Magician, keeping the other for himself. "Take me to Jumper."

Millie guided him to the guest room. The big spider lay there, ichor leaking from his stumps. The variegated fur face on the back of his abdomen seemed to be making a grimace of distress. His eyes, always open, were filmed with pain. He was conscious again, but so weak he could chitter only faintly. "Good to see you again, friend! I fear the injuries have been too extensive. Legs can be regrown, but internal organs have been crushed too. I cannot-"

"Yes you can, friend!" Dor cried. "Take that!" And he poured a liberal dose of elixir over Jumper's shuddering body.

Like magic-unsurprisingly-the spider was whole again. As the liquid coursed over the fur-face, the green and white and black brightened until they shone. As it touched each stump, the legs sprouted out, long and hairy and strong. As it was absorbed, the internal organs were restored, and the body firmed out. In a moment there was no sign that Jumper had ever been injured.

"It is amazing!" he chittered. "I did not even need to have my original legs returned! I have not felt so good since I was hatched! What is this medicine?"

"Healing elixir," Dor explained. "I knew where there was a Spring of it-" He broke off, overcome by emotion. "Oh, Jumper! If you had died-" And he embraced the spider as well as he could, the tears once more overflowing his eyes. To hell with being adult!

"I think it was worth the torture," Jumper chittered, one mandible moving against Dor's ear. "Watch I don't nip your antenna off."

"Go ahead! I have plenty more healing elixir to use to grow a new ear!"

"Besides which," Millie added, "human flesh tastes awful. Maybe even worse than goblin meat."

The Zombie Master had followed them. "You are human, yet you hold this alien creature in such esteem you cry for him," he remarked.

"And what's wrong with that?" Millie demanded.

"Nothing," the Magician said wanly. "Absolutely nothing. No one ever cried for me."

Even in the height of his relief, Dor perceived the meaning of the Zombie Master's words. The man had been alienated from his own kind by the nature of his magic, rendered a pariah. He identified with Jumper, another alien. That was why he had agreed to take care of Jumper. More than anything else, the Magician must want people to care for him the way Dor and Millie cared for Jumper.

"Will you help King Roogna?" Dor asked, disengaging from his friend.

"I do not indulge in politics," the Zombie Master said, the coldness returning.

Because the King was no pariah. This Magician might assist those who showed him some human compassion, but King Roogna had not done that. "Would you at least come to meet the King, to talk with him? If you helped him, he would see that you received due honor-"

"Honor by fiat? Never!"

Dor found he could not argue with that. He would not have wanted that sort of honor either. If there were such a thing as dishonorable honor, that would be it. He had made another stupid error of approach, and squelched his chances-again. Some emissary he was proving to be!

But there was another problem. "You know the Mundanes of the Fifth Wave are getting ready to attack this castle?"

"I do know," the Zombie Master agreed. "My zombie eye-flies report there are hundreds of them. Too many to overcome with my present force. I have sent the roc out to round up more bodies, to shore up my defenses. To facilitate this, the roc will not even land here at the castle; it will drop the bodies in the courtyard and proceed immediately for more."

"The Mundanes are mad at us," Dor said, "because we killed three of them. Maybe if we leave-"

"My zombies helped you," the Zombie Master pointed out. "You can gain nothing other than your own demises by departing now. The Mundanes have this castle surrounded. To them, it is a repository of unguessable riches; no reasonable demurral will change their fixed minds."

"Maybe if they saw us leave," Dor said. "The roc could carry us out. Oh-the roc's away for the duration."

"It seems we must remain, at least for a time,"

Jumper cluttered. "Perhaps we can assist in the defense of the castle."

"Uh, yes, we'd better," Dor agreed. "Since we seem to have brought this siege down upon it." Then, for no good reason, he found himself making another appeal: "Uh, Magician-will you reconsider the matter of the zombie restorative elixir? This is not a political matter, and-"

The Zombie Master glanced at him coldly. Before the Magician could speak, Millie put her sweet little hand on his lean arm. "Please," she breathed. She was excruciatingly attractive when she breathed that way. Yet she could not know that it was as a favor to herself, of eight hundred years later, that Dor was obtaining this precious substance.

The Zombie Master's coldness faded. "Since she asks, and you are a good and loyal man, I do reconsider. I will develop the agent you require." But it was evident that most of the responsibility for his change of heart was Millie's. And her breathing.

Dor knew victory of a sort-yet it was incomplete. He was succeeding in his private personal mission, while failing in his mission for the King. Was that right? He didn't know, but had to take what he could. "Thank you, Magician," he said humbly.

Chapter 7

Siege

The siege was serious. The Mundanes were reasonably apt at this sort of thing, since they were an army. Motivated by vengeance and greed and the knowledge that at least one measurelessly pretty girl was inside the castle, they knew no decent limits. They closed in about the castle and readied their assault.

At first the Mundanes simply marched across the rickety drawbridge and up to the blasted main gate. But the zombie ogre came charging out, much of his strength restored by the healing elixir, and tossed them into the moat, where the restored bog-monster chomped them. It did not actually eat them, because zombies had no appetite, but its chomping was effective. After that the Mundanes were more cautious.

"We have to clear the junk out of that moat," Dor said. "They can just about wade across, as it is now, and the monster can't get them all. If we do it now, while they're recovering from the shock of meeting Egor Ogre-"

"You have the makings of an excellent tactician," the Zombie Master said. "By all means handle it. I am working out your zombie restorative formula, which is devious in detail."

So Dor took a squad of zombies out. "I am mortal, so should not expose myself," he told them as he eyed the bog-monster. It had been trained not to attack other zombies, but that did not help him. "Arrows cannot kill you. So I will stand watch from the ramparts and call down directions. You will go down into the moat and start hauling armfuls of garbage out." He felt less than heroic in this role, but knew it was the expedient course. The Mundanes were surely excellent archers. He was here to get the job done, after all, not to make himself look good.

The zombies marched down. They milled about uncertainly. They did not have very good minds, their brains being mostly rotten. The healing elixir worked wonders with their bodies, but could not restore the life and intellect that had once made them men and animals. Dor found his original revulsion for their condition giving way to sadness. What zombie ever knew joy?

"You with the skullhead," Dor called. "Scoop up those water weeds and dump them on the shore." The zombies started in, laboriously. "You with the scarred legs-haul that log out and bring it to the front gate. We can use it to rebuild the door." It was almost pointless to explain such things to zombies, but he couldn't help himself. It was part of his process of self-justification.

If what he did had no permanence in this tapestry world, what of this present situation? But for him, the Mundanes would not have laid siege to the castle of the Zombie Master. If the Magician were killed, would he be restored after Dor departed the scene? Or was the siege inevitable, since the Fifth Wave had already been headed this way? It was a matter of history, but Dor could not recall the details, assuming he had ever learned them. There were aspects of history the centaur pedagogues did not teach their human pupils, and Dor had not been a terrifically attentive pupil anyway. He would remedy that when he got home again.

If he got home again

A few arrows came from the forest to plunk into the zombie workers, but with no effect. That evidently gave the Mundanes pause for thought. Then a party of warriors advanced with swords drawn, intending to cut the zombies into pieces too small to operate. Dor used a bow he had picked up from the castle armory, ancient and worn but serviceable. He was no expert at this, but his body had evidently been trained to this weapon too; it was very much the complete warrior. He fired an arrow at a Mundane but struck the one beside his intended target. "Good shot!" Millie exclaimed, and Dor was ashamed to admit the truth. No doubt if he had let the body do the whole thing itself, it would have scored properly, but he had tried to select his own target. He had better stick to swords in future.

But it sufficed to discourage the attack, since this was just an offhand Mundane gesture, not a real assault on the castle. Also, they didn't know that there was only a single archer on the wall. The Mundanes retreated, and the moat-clearing continued. Dor was pleased: he was accomplishing something useful. It would be ten times as hard to storm the castle with that moat deep and clear. Well, maybe eight times as hard.

Meanwhile, Jumper was climbing about the rafters and inner walls of the castle, routing out vermin-which he gobbled with glee-and shoring up weak spots. He lashed subsiding members with silk cords, and he patched small holes, using wood and chinks of stone fastened in place by sticky masses of silk. Then he strung alarm lines across the embrasures to alert him to any intrusions there. This was a small castle, somewhat haphazardly constructed, with a single peaked roof, so in a short time the spider was able to accomplish much.

Millie went over the living and cooking facilities. The Zombie Master, a bachelor, had a good store of provisions but evidently survived mainly on those that required least effort to prepare: cheese balls, fried eggs from the friers that nested on the rafters, hot dogs from the dogwood that grew just inside the moat, and shrimp from the shrimp plants in the courtyard. The courtyard was south of the roofed region, so that the sunlight could slant in over the south wall to reach the ground inside; a number of plants and animals existed there, since the zombies did not bother them.

Millie set about making more substantial meals. She found dried fruits in the cellar, and dehydrated vegetables, all neatly spelled to keep them from spoiling, and cooked up a genuine handmade mashed peach and potato cobblestone stew. It was amazing.

And the Zombie Master, after due experimentation in his laboratory, produced for Dor a tiny vial of life-restorative elixir, brewed from the healing water by the art of his talent. "Do not mislay this, or use it incautiously," he cautioned. "The dosage suffices only for one."

"Thank you," Dor said, feeling inadequate. "This is the whole reason I came to this-this land. I can't tell you how important this vial is to me."

"Perhaps you could offer me a hint, however," the Magician said. "Since we are about to sustain a determined siege, from which we may not emerge-I admit a certain curiosity."

Delicately put! "I'm sorry about that," Dor said. "I know you prefer living alone, and if I'd known we'd cause all this trouble-"

"I did not say I objected to either the company or the trouble," the Zombie Master said. "I find I rather enjoy both. You three are comparatively simple people, not given to duplicity, and the mere presence of a challenge to survival evokes an appreciation for life that had been lacking."

"Uh, yes," Dor said, surprised. The Magician was becoming quite sociable! "You deserve to know." Dor was feeling generous now that he had this much of his mission accomplished, and the Zombie Master's candor was nice to receive. "I am from eight hundred years in your future. There is a zombie in my time I wish to restore to full life as a favor to-to a friend." Even in this moment of confidence, he could not quite confess his real interest in Millie. This vial would make her happy, and himself desolate, but the thing had to be done. "You are the only one who knows the formula for such restoration. So, by means of enchantment, I came to you."

"A most interesting origin; I am not certain I believe it. For whom are you doing this favor?"

"A-a lady." The thought of letting Millie learn of her eight-hundred-year fate appalled him, and he resolved not to utter her name. He had not had much luck in keeping such resolutions before, but he was learning how. What horror would this knowledge wreak on so innocent a maid, who screamed and flung her hair about and kicked her feet so fetchingly at the slightest alarm? Far better that she not know!

"And who is the zombie?" the Magician prodded gently. "I do not mean to pry into what does not concern me-but zombies do concern me, for surely every zombie existing in your day is a product of my magic. I have a certain consideration for their welfare."

Dor wanted to balk, but found that, ethically, he could not deny the Zombie Master this knowledge. "She-the lady calls him Jonathan. That's all I know."

The man stiffened. "Ah, the penalty of idle curiosity!" he breathed.

"You know this zombie?"

"I-may. It becomes a lesson in philanthropy. I never suspected I would be doing such a favor for this particular individual."

"Is he one of your zombies here at the castle?" Already Dor felt a tinge of jealousy.

"Not presently. I have no doubt you will encounter him anon."

"I don't want to-" No, he could not say that. What was to be, was to be. "I don't know whether it would be wise to tell him-I mean, eight hundred years is a long time to wait for restoration. He might want to take the medicine now, and then he wouldn't be there for the lady-" Which was itself a fiendishly tempting notion he had to suppress. The elimination of Jonathan from his own time would not only rid him of competition for Millie's favor-it would eliminate his whole reason for coming here. How could he restore a zombie who had already been restored eight centuries ago? But if he didn't do it-paradox, which could be fatal magic.

"A very long time," the Zombie Master agreed. "Have no concern; I will not betray your secret to any party." He dismissed the subject with a brusque nod. "Now we must see to the castle defenses. My observer-bugs inform me that the Mundanes are massing for a major effort."