Castle Roogna

Dor visualized the battlements. The goblins would have to scale some thirty feet of wall buttressed by the square corner towers and round midwall towers, after fording the deep moat. He couldn't see how they could be a serious immediate threat. The harpies normally struck by picking people up and carrying them away. The centaurs were too heavy to be handled that way. Why, then, was the King so grave? Even unfinished, Castle Roogna should be proof against these threats. A long siege seemed unlikely, because the besiegers would be killing each other off, and running out of food.

"What happens if the zombies don't arrive before the battle starts?" Dor asked.

"It would be a shame to have damage done to this fine edifice, perhaps loss of human life," Murphy explained. "It is only sensible to abate the curse before the situation gets untoward."

"You mean you can call off the whole goblin-harpy battle, this whole siege, just like that?"

"Not just like that. But I can abate it, yes."

"I find that hard to believe," Dor said. "Those armies are already well on their way. They aren't just going to turn around and go home just because you-"

"The King's talent is shaping magic to his own ends. Mine is shaping circumstance to interfere with others' designs. Alternate faces of similar coins. All we have to determine is whose talent shall prevail. Destruction and bloodshed are no necessary part of it. In fact I deplore and abhor-"

"There has already been bloodshed!" Dor exclaimed angrily. "What kind of macabre game is this?"

"A game of power politics," Murphy responded, unperturbed.

"A game where my friend was tortured by Mundanes, and my life threatened, and the two of us were pitted against each other," Dor said, his anger bursting loose. "And Millie must marry the Zombie Master to-" He cut himself off, chagrined.

"So you have an interest in the maid," Vadne murmured. "And had to give her up."

"That's not the point!" But Dor knew his face was red.

"Shall we be fair?" Murphy inquired meaningfully. "Your problem with the maid is not of my making."

"No, it isn't," Dor admitted grudgingly. "I-I apologize, Magician." Adults were able to apologize with grace. "But the rest-"

"I regret these things as much as you do," Murphy said smoothly. "This contest with the Castle was intended to be a relatively harmless mode of establishing our rights. I would be happy to remove the curse and let the monsters drift as they may. All this requires is the King's acquiescence."

King Roogna was silent.

"If I may inquire," Jumper chittered, Dor's web translating for all to hear. "What would be the long-range consequence of victory by Magician Murphy?"

"A return to chaos," Vadne replied. "Monsters preying on men with impunity, men knowing no law but sword and sorcery, breakdown of communications, loss of knowledge, vulnerability to Mundane invasions, decrease of the importance of the role of the human species in Xanth."

"Is this desirable?" Jumper persisted.

"It is the natural state," Murphy said. "The fittest will survive."

"The monsters will survive!" Dor cried. "There will be seven or eight more Mundane Waves of conquest, each with awful bloodshed. The wilderness will become so dense and horrible that only spelled paths are safe for people to travel. Wiggles will ravage the land. There will be fewer true men in my day than there are in yours-" Oops. He had done it again.

"Magician, exactly where are you from?" Vadne demanded.

"Oh, you might as well know! Murphy knows."

"And did not tell," Murphy said.

"Murphy has honor, once you understand his ways," Vadne said, glancing at the Magician obliquely. "I once sued for his hand, but he preferred chaos to an organized household. So I am without a Magician to marry."

"You sought to marry above your station," Murphy told her.

Vadne showed her teeth in a strange crossbreed of snarl and smile. "By your definition, Magician!" Then she returned to Dor. "But I let my passion override me. Where did you say you were from, Magician?"

Dor suddenly understood her interest in him-and was glad he could prove himself ineligible. It would be as easy to deal with Helen Harpy as with this woman, and for similar reason. Vadne was no soft and sweet maid like Millie; she was a driven woman on the prowl for a marriage that would complete the status she craved. "I am from eight hundred years hence. So is Jumper."

"From the future!" King Roogna exclaimed. He had stayed out of the dialogue as much as possible, giving free rein to the expression of the others, but this forced his participation. "Exiled by a rival Magician?"

"No, there is no other Magician in my generation. I am on a quest. I-I think I'm going to be King, eventually, as you surmised before. The present King wants me to have experience." Obviously King Roogna had not discussed Dor's situation with anyone else, letting Dor present himself in his own way. More and more, Dor was coming to appreciate the nuances of adult discretion. It was as significant as much in what it did not do as in what it did do. "I'm only twelve years old, and-"

"Ah-you are in a borrowed body."

"Yes. It was the best way for me to visit here, using this Mundane body. Another creature animates my own body, back home, taking care of it during my absence. But I'm not sure that what I do here has any permanence, so I don't want to interfere too much."

"So you know the outcome of the Roogna-Murphy wager," the King said.

"No. I thought I did, but now I see I don't. Castle Roogna is complete in my day-but it stood deserted and forgotten for centuries. Some other King could have completed it. And there have been all those Waves I mentioned, and all the bad things, and the decline of the influence of Man in Xanth. So Murphy could have won."

"Or I could have won, and held off the onset of chaos for a few more decades," Roogna said.

"Yes. From my vantage, eight hundred years away, I just can't tell whether the chaos started in this year or fifty years from now. And there are other things that don't match, like the absence of goblins on the surface in my day, and the relative scarcity of harpies-I just don't know how they all fit in."

"Well, what will be, will be," Roogna said. "I suppose from that vantage of history, what we do here has little significance. I had hoped to set up a dynasty of order, to keep Xanth wholesome for centuries, but that does not seem fated to be. It is a foolish vanity, to believe that a man's influence can extend much beyond his own time, and I shall be well rid of it. Still, I hope to do what good I can within this century, and to leave Castle Roogna as a monument to my hope for a better Xanth." He looked around at the others, "We should make our decision according to our principles."

"Then we should fight to preserve order-for as long as it can be preserved!" Dor said. "For a decade, for a year, or for a month-whatever we can do is good."

Murphy spread his hands. "We shall in due course discover whether even a month is feasible."

"I believe the consensus is clear," King Roogna said. "We shall defend the Castle. And hope the Zombie Master gets here in time,"

They returned to their stations. Almost Immediately the trouble arrived. From the south the dusky banners of the great goblin army came, marching in a gathering tread that shook the Castle foundations. Dor stood atop the northeast corner tower and looked over the ramparts to spy it in the distance. Drums beat, horns tooted, keeping the cadence. Like a monstrous black carpet the army spread across the field beyond the Castle. Light sparkled from the points of the goblins' small weapons, and a low half-melody carried under the clamor, like muted thunder: the goblins were chanting, "One two three four, Kill two three four, One two three four, Kill two three four," on and on endlessly. There was not much imagination to it, but plenty of feeling, and the effect expanded cumulatively, hammering into the mind.

They had allies, too. Dor spied contingents of gnomes, trolls, elves, dwarves, ghouls, and gremlins, each with its own standard and chant. Slowly a gnarly tapestry formed, a patchwork of contingents, the elves in green, dwarves in brown, gnomes red, trolls black, marching, marching. There seemed to be so many creatures they could bury the Castle under the sheer mass of their bodies, stretching the grisly fabric of their formation across the ramparts. Yet of course they could not; mere numbers could not scale a vertical wall.

Then from the north flew the harpies and their winged minions, casting a deep shadow across land and Castle, blotting out the sun. There were contingents of ravens and vampires and winged lizards and other creatures Dor didn't recognize, in their mass resembling gross storm clouds darkening the sky in segments, the light permitted to penetrate at the perimeters only to delineate the boundaries. Thus the shadows traversed the ground in large squares, an ominous parallel advance.

The point of convergence, of course, was Castle Roogna. The two armies might indeed obliterate each other-but they would wreak havoc on the Castle in the process-if they ever got inside it. Suppose the battle took a long time? The inhabitants of the Castle could starve, waiting for it to end, even if the walls were never breached. And if the goblins had siege machinery or used the larger, trolls to batter the walls, while the harpies and vampires ravaged the upper reaches-

Now Dor was coming to appreciate how unpleasant this siege could get. The Mundanes had made only sporadic assaults against the castle of the Zombie Master, but the goblins and harpies were here in such great numbers that their attack would be unremitting. There would be inevitable attrition of the Castle defenders, until no further defense was possible, and the Castle was overrun. They had to have renewable defenders. That was the key role the Zombie Master played: as long as the battle continued, there would be raw material for new zombies, who would protect the ramparts from intrusion by living creatures.

As yet there was no sign of the zombies. Even if they appeared at this moment, there would not be time for them to shuffle to the Castle before the goblins closed in about it. The Zombie Master was too late. Had Dor's ploy with the talking catapult stones failed? Or been insufficient? He should have had the King check on that with his ground-fish.

Magician Murphy walked by. He seemed to have complete freedom of the premises. "Tut. It really is too bad. Sensible people would spare themselves the awkwardness of the curse."

Cedric Centaur glowered. "Were you not a Magician, I might call you an illegitimate snot-winged dung-fly."

Dor kept quiet. The centaur had put it aptly enough. Dor spied a boomerang in the arms rack on the wall of the center brace-tower. "Are you magic?" he asked it.

"Naturally. I always return to the sender's hand."

Magician Murphy shook his head, shrugged, and departed. His curse seemed to operate independently of his presence; he had just been poking around.

"Well," Dor said to the boomerang, "take a look and see if you can spy the zombie army." He hurled the boomerang out over the landscape to the northeast. He was conscious of the anomaly of calling two hundred fifty creatures an army, when the harpies evidently had thousands and the goblins tens of thousands. But the zombies were renewable; they could become an army of thousands, in due course.

The boomerang spun far out, flashing in the dwindling patch of sun remaining before the harpy force, describing a tilting circle. Soon it smacked back into Dor's hand.

"Many goblins," it reported. "No zombies."

Dor sighed. "We'll just have to hold out until they come." But he was pessimistic. Nothing in his experience had prepared him for the magnitude of this confrontation. There were so many monsters! Once the goblins closed about the Castle, how could the zombies ever get through?

First things first. There were harpy forces to deal with. They were looming much faster, like an ugly storm, already about to break over the north wall. "Cease construction. Ready bows," Dor ordered the feverishly laboring centaurs. They obeyed with alacrity. But immediately he saw that there were more flying monsters than there were arrows in all the centaurs' quivers; this would be no good.

"Do not shoot," he told them. "Let me speak first to any arrow that you fire."

A squadron of vampires bore down on them, their huge leathery wings repulsive, their glistening fangs horrifying. "Repeat after me," Dor told the first arrow Cedric had ready. "Neighbor, you couldn't puncture a rotten tomato!"

The arrow repeated it. Objects really enjoyed simple insults. "Keep saying it," Dor said, and nodded to the centaur to fire. "Over their heads," he told Cedric.

Cedric looked surprised, but didn't argue. He raised his elevation and let the shaft go.

They watched as the arrow flew high. It missed the forward rank of vampires and sailed over their heads. Dor knew the other centaurs thought this was a wasted effort. Why fire an arrow intended to miss?

Suddenly there was a disturbance in the forward ranks. "Oh yeah?" a vampire cried-at least his shriek sounded very much like that-and spun in air to sink his long fangs into his neighbor's wing tip. The victim reacted angrily, sinking his own fangs into the nearest other wing tip available, thus involving a third vampire. The formation was so tight that in a moment the whole configuration was messed up, with vampires fighting each other in an aerial free-for-all, milling about and paying little further attention to the castle or the goblins beyond it.

"That was a neat ploy, Magician," Cedric said. Dor was glad he had taken the trouble to convert the surly creature, instead of fighting him. Jumper had shown him that. If there were any way to make friends with the goblins and harpies-

Could it be done, at this late date? Suppose the goblin females could be convinced to appreciate the best of the males, instead of the worst? And the harpies-if they had males of their own species again? All it would take was some sort of mass enchantment for the goblins, and the generation of at least one original harpy male from the union of a human with a vulture. There was a love spring north of the Gap-

And no way to get to it, now. Anyway, the thought was plausible, but it revolted him. What human and what vulture would volunteer to-? In any event, it would be too late to save the Castle for it took time for any creature to be conceived and birthed and grown. Years to produce a single male harpy, even if everything were in order. They needed something to abate this battle right now-and Dor knew that no matter what he tried, Murphy's curse would foul it up, as it had the effort to parlay with the two sides. Castle Roogna would just have to weather the storm.

Now a horde of goblins charged from the east, surrounding the castle. The goblin army had advanced from the south, but spread out so far to east and west that they had been able to view the wings plainly from the corners of the north wall. At this stage it was closing in like water flowing around a rock in a stream. There was no longer any disciplined marching or measured tread or beat of drums; the army had reverted to its natural horde state. The goblin allies must be attacking the other walls; here in the north there were only pure goblins, and Dor feared they would be the most determined opponents.

The disorganized cloud of vampires was now impinging on the ramparts. Quickly Dor walked the battlement, addressing the projecting stones of the completed portions. "Repeat after me: Take that, fang-face! My arrows are trained on you! Here comes a fire arrow!" Soon he had a medley of such comments from the wall, calculated to faze the vampires as they came close. Dor hoped the vampires were too stupid to realize there were no archers there. This allowed him to concentrate his centaurs on the incomplete section of the wall, which still lacked its battlements.

The centaurs on the east wall threw cherry bombs to disrupt the onslaught. Bang! and a goblin flipped over and collapsed. Bang! and another went. But there were more goblins than cherry bombs available. Then Boom! as a pineapple blasted a crater, hurling bodies outward like straw dolls.

But the goblins did not even pause; they charged through the smoking hole, over the fresh corpses of their comrades, right up to the moat. The moat-monsters rose up to meet them, snatching goblins from the back and gulping them down whole. But still the goblins came, forging into the water.

"I didn't know goblins could swim," Dor remarked, surprised.

"They can't," Vadne said.

The goblins surrounded the moat-monsters, clawing, punching, and biting them. The monsters snapped quickly, gorging themselves. And while each could consume a dozen or so goblins, there were thousands crowding in. The monsters retreated to deeper water, but the goblins splashed after them, clinging like black ants, pinching like nickelpedes. Many were shaken loose as the moat-monsters thrashed, and these sank in the murky depths, while others came on over them.

"What point in that?" Dor asked incredulously. "Aren't they going to try to build bridges or something? They're dying pointlessly!"

"This whole war is pointless," Vadne said. "Goblins aren't builders, so they don't have bridges."

"They don't seem to have ladders, either," Dor remarked. "So they can't scale the wall. This is completely crazy!"

On and on the goblins came, sinking and drowning in droves, until at last the moat itself filled with their bodies. The water overflowed the plain. Now there was a solid mass of flesh across which the horde poured. The moat-monsters had been stifled in that mass; there was no remaining sign of them. The goblins advanced to the base of the wall.

There was no great strategy in their approach; they simply continued scrambling over each other in their effort to mount the vertical rampart. Dor watched with morbid fascination. The goblin-sea tactic had filled in the moat and gotten the survivors across-but that could not carry them straight up the stone wall!

The goblins did not stop. The hordes behind kept shoving forward, refusing to recognize the nature of the barrier. As the first ones got trampled down, the next ones got higher against the wall. Then the third layer formed, and the forth. The wall here was not complete, yet there were some thirty feet from moat to top even at this lowest point; did the foolish creatures think they could surmount that by trampling the bodies of their comrades? It would take thirty layers of crushed goblins!

Amazingly, those layers formed. Each layer required a greater number of bodies, because it sloped farther back across the moat. But the creatures kept coming. Five layers, six, seven, eight, nine, ten,-already they were a third of the way up, building an earthwork of their own dead and dying.

Cedric stood beside Dor, looking down at this horror. "I never thought I'd feel sorry for goblins," he said. "We're not killing them, they're killing themselves-just to get up over a wall of a castle they don't need!"

"Maybe that's the difference between men and goblins," Dor said. "And centaurs." But he wondered. The Mundanes, who were after all true men, had stormed the castle of the Zombie Master with as much determination and little reason as this, and the centaur crew had not shown any particular enlightenment prior to Dor's private session with Cedric. When the fever of war got into a society

Still the goblin tide rose. Now it was halfway up, and still progressing. It was no longer possible to tell where the moat had been; there was only a monstrous ramp of bodies slanting far out from the wall. The goblins charged in and up from their seemingly limitless supply, throwing their little lives away. There did not even seem to be any conscious self-sacrifice in this; it was plain lack of foresight, as they encountered the barrier and were ground down by those still shoving from behind. Those below chomped savagely on the feet of those above, before the increasing press of weight killed them. Maybe the goblin chiefs behind the lines knew what they were doing, but the ordinary troops were just obeying orders. Maybe there was a "charge forward" spell on them, overriding the selfish self-preservation goblins normally evinced.

With horror that mounted as the mass of goblins mounted, Dor watched. Against such a tide, what defense did they have! Arrows and cherry bombs were pointless; they would only facilitate the manufacture of bodies to use as support for the next layer. Now at last Dor understood why the King had been so concerned about this threat. Goblins were worse than Mundanes.

Meanwhile the harpy forces were regaining some semblance of order. Dor had prepared a number of arrows, and these had fooled the dull vampires for some time. The speaking battlements had helped considerably. But now the harpies themselves were massing for a charge. They had nearly human intelligence, and would hardly be fooled long by inanimate devices. They seemed to be progressing toward an assault timed for just about the moment the goblins would finally overflow the wall. Probably this was neither coincidence nor Murphy's curse; the dirty birds merely wished to make certain that the goblins did not capture the Castle.

Dor and the centaurs would be jammed to death the same way the moat-monsters had been. The worst of it was, there did not seem to be anything they could do about it. The enemy forces were too numerous, too mindless.

"This is where I come in," Vadne said, though she was tight about the mouth. "I can stop the goblins-I think."

Dor hoped so. He glanced nervously around at what he could see of the other walls. They were higher, and had more explosive armament, so seemed to be in less difficulty. He wondered how Jumper was doing; he could not see the spider from here. Even the arachnid's great facility with silk could hardly stop these myriad goblins.

The first goblin hand hooked over the rim of the battlement, or rather the place where the battlement had not yet been constructed. Vadne was ready. She touched the hand-and the goblin became a bail that rolled down the slope of piled bodies.

Another hand appeared. She balled the second goblin. Then a host of hands came, keeping her moving. The layers were piling up to either side of the low spot, now, so that she had to jump to one side and then to the other to catch them. Soon she would be overwhelmed. She could not hold the wall alone; no one could.

"Let the harpies come in," Dor cried to the archers, who had been selectively shooting the leaders of any potential charge, delaying that aspect somewhat.

As the arrows stopped, the harpies and vampires swarmed in. The vampires were not bright, but they had caught on that they were being manipulated, and now were bloodthirsty. But the most obvious enemy was the goblin horde. The flying creatures fell upon the goblins, literally, and plunged fangs and claws into them. The goblins fought back viciously, jabbing fists into snouts and stubby fingers into eyes, and wringing necks. They seemed to have lost what weapons they had, in the course of the scramble upward, or maybe they just preferred to meet their enemies on the most basic level of animosity.

It was a respite of sorts for the Castle defenders-but now the bodies piled up even faster, higher and higher, mounding as tall as the rampart. Soon the goblins would be able to roll down into the castle, and Vadne's magic would be largely ineffective. No sense getting buried in balls!

"Can you make them smaller-like grains of sand?" Dor yelled over the noise of battle.

"No. Their mass is the same, whatever shape I give them. I can't stop the mounding."

Too bad. King Trent could have stopped it, by changing them into gnats, so small they would never mound up over the wall. Or he would have changed a centaur into a salamander, and used it to set the bodies on fire, reducing them quickly to ashes. Vadne really was less than a Magician. Not that Dor was doing any better; he had helped hold them off for a while, but could not stop them now.

Then he had an inspiration. "Make them into blocks!" he cried.

She nodded. She got near the gap in the battlement, while Dor protected her flank with his sword. Suddenly the goblin blocks began appearing. These were much smaller than the big stone blocks used in the construction of the Castle, but larger than ordinary bricks. The centaurs shoved them into position on the wall, shaping it crudely higher. The goblin blocks were now holding back the tide of goblins!

"Now there's what I call a good goblin," Cedric exclaimed. "A blockhead!"

But even good blockheads weren't enough. They tended to wiggle and sag, though Vadne made some with interlocking edges. They were not as dense as stone, or as hard, and squished down somewhat as the weight of other blocks went on top. As Vadne had suggested: a goblin in the shape of a block was still a goblin, not much good for anything.

Again Dor scavenged his brain for an answer. How could Castle Roogna be defended against this horrible mass of attackers? Even the corpses were enough to bury it!

A ground dove poked its head out of the floor. Dor took the message from its beak, while continuing to slash about with his sword, protecting Vadne's back. HOW GOES IT? the paper inquired.

"Repeat after me, continuously until the King hears," Dor told the paper. He could not afford to take his attention off the goblins and harpies long enough to write a note. "We can hold out only five minutes more. Situation desperate." He put the repeating paper back in the dove's beak and watched it swim, or rather fly, down out of sight through the stone. He didn't like making such a bleak report, but had to be realistic. He and Vadne and the centaurs had done everything they could, but it was not enough. If this wall fell, the castle would fall. The attack was more than ever like a savage storm, with the tide of goblins on the surface and the clouds of harpies in the air, and now there was no way they could halt the sheer avalanche of creatures. Could even the zombies have abated this menace?

Yes, they could have, Dor decided. Because the Zombie Master would change the piled-up bodies to zombies, who would then hurl the live goblins and many of the dead ones back away from the ramparts. If only the Zombie Master were here!

In moments the King himself was at the wall. "Oh my goodness!" Roogna exclaimed. "I had no idea it was this bad! The two wings of the goblin horde must have converged here on the far side of their thrust, and doubled the pileup. On the other walls it is only halfway up. You should have summoned me before."

"We were too busy fighting goblins," Dor said. Then he shoved the King, moving him out of the way as a harpy divebombed him. She missed, cursing.

"Yes, this is definitely the region of greatest crisis," the King said, as several goblin balls rolled across the wall and dropped off inside the Castle courtyard. He bent to peer at a goblin block, and it peered back, balefully cubic, "The highest tide, the lowest wall. You have done well."

"Not well enough," Dor said, skewering another diving harpy. "We are about to go down under their charge." As if that was not obvious!

"I have some emergency enchantments in the arsenal," Roogna said. "They are hazardous to health, so I have not wished to employ them, but I fear the occasion has arisen." He ducked a vampire.

"Get them!" Dor cried, growing desperate at this delay. Why hadn't the King told him there was more magic available? "Your Majesty!"

"Oh, I brought them with me, just in case." The King brought out a vial of clear fluid. "This is concentrated digestive juice of stomach of dragon. It must be dispensed upwind of the target, downwind of the user. If any drifts-" He shook his head dolefully. "Murphy's curse could cost us one King. Seek cover, please."

"Your Majesty!" Vadne protested. "You can't risk yourself!"

"Of course I can," the King reproved her. "This is my battle, for which all the rest of you are risking yourselves. If we lose it, I am lost anyway." He wet a finger and held it to the wind. "Good; it is blowing west. I can clear the wall. But don't get near until it clears." He went to the northeast corner.

"But the curse will make the wind change!" Dor protested.

"The curse is stretched to its limit," the King said. "This magic will not take long, and I don't think the wind can shift in time."

The goblins were now scrambling over the wall, being met by screaming harpies. Dor and Vadne and the centaurs drew back to the inner surface of the wall, and crowded toward the eastern end, upwind of the proposed release.

The King opened his vial. Yellowish smoke puffed out, was caught by the wind, and strewn across the rim of the wall. It sank down upon swarming goblins-and they melted into black goo. They did not even scream; they just sank into the nether mass. They dissolved off the wall, flowed across the stone, coursed in rivulets through the crannies, and dripped out of sight. Harpies snatched at dissolving goblins, got caught by the juice, and melted into juice themselves. A putrid stench rose from the fluid: the odor of hot vomit.

The wind gusted sidewise, carrying a wisp of magic smoke back across the wall. "The curse!" Dor cried in horror. The closest centaurs danced back, trying desperately to avoid it, but with the evil humor of the curse it eddied after them. One got his handsome tail melted away. "Fan it from you!" Dor cried. "We need fans!"

Vadne touched the nearest goblin. It became a huge fan. Dor grabbed it from her hands and used it to set up a counterdraft. Vadne made another, and another, and the centaurs took these. Together they set up a forced draft. The yellow smoke reared up as if trying to get around, horrible in its mindless determination.

"Where are you going?" Dor cried at it.

"I'm drifting east another six feet, then north over the wall," it replied. "The best pickings are there."

They scrambled out of its projected path. The smoke followed its course, then was gone.

"Ah, Murphy," Vadne said. "It took Magician's magic to foil you, but we foiled you."

Dor agreed weakly. King Roogna, narrowly missed by the smoke, stepped away from the parapet. "It tried to go wrong, but could not. Quite."

Dor peered over the wall. There, below, was a bubbling, frothing ocean of glop, subsiding as the effect penetrated to the bodies underneath. A sinking tide, it ebbed along the rampart and sucked down into the moat, liquefying everything organic. Before long, there was nothing on the north side except the black sea.

"More of that on the other walls will abate the whole goblin army!" Dor remarked to the King, his knees feeling weak and his stomach weaker.

"Several problems," King Roogna said. "First, the wind is wrong for the other sides; it would do as much damage to us as to the enemy. Second, it is not effective against the airborne harpy forces, since it tends to sink and they are flying above it. Third, this vial is all I had. I deemed it too dangerous to store in greater quantity."

"Those are pretty serious problems," Dor admitted. "What other magic is in your arsenal?"

"Nothing readily adaptable, I regret. There is a pied-piper flute I fashioned experimentally from a flute tree: it plays itself when blown, and creatures will follow it indefinitely. But we don't need to lead the goblins or harpies here; we want to drive them away. There is also a magic ring: anything passing through it disappears forever. But it is only two inches in diameter, so only small objects can be passed. And there is a major forget spell."

Dor considered. "Could you reverse the flute, so that it drives creatures away?"

"I might, if the curse didn't foul it up. But it would drive us away, too."

"Urn. There is that. Could Vadne stretch out the ring to make it larger?"

The King searched in a pocket. "One way to find out." He brought out a golden ring and passed it to Vadne.

"I really am not skilled with inanimate things," she said. But she took it and concentrated. For a moment nothing happened; then the ring expanded. It stretched out larger and larger, but at the same time the gold that composed it was thinning. At last it was a hoop some two feet in diameter, fashioned of fine gold wire. "That's the best I can do," she said. "If I try to stretch it any farther, it will break." She looked washed out; this had evidently been a real effort.

"That should help," Dor said. He picked up the body of a goblin and shoved it through the hoop. It failed to emerge from the other side. "Yes, I think we have something useful, here." He returned it to the King, whose fingers disappeared as he took it. But they reappeared when the King changed grips, so it seemed the hoop was not dangerous to handle.

"And the forget spell," Dor continued. "Could it make the goblins and harpies forget what they are fighting about?"

"Oh, yes. It is extremely powerful. But if we detonated it here at the Castle, we would all forget why we are here, even who we are. Thus Magician Murphy would have his victory, for there would be no completion of the Castle. And the goblins and harpies might continue to fight anyway; creatures of that ilk hardly need reason to quarrel. They do it instinctively."

"But Magician Murphy himself would forget too!"

"No doubt. But the victory would still be his. He is not vying for power for himself; he is trying to prevent it from accruing to me."

Dor looked out at the barren north view, and at the battle still raging elsewhere around the Castle. A pied-piper flute, a magic ring-hoop, and a forget spell. A lot of excellent and potent magic-that by the anomaly of the situation could not seem to be used to reverse the course of this predicament.

"Murphy, I'm going to find a way," he swore under his breath. "This battle is not over yet." Or so he hoped.

Chapter 11

Disaster

"Zombies ahoy!" a centaur cried, pointing east.

There they were, at last: the zombies standing at the edge of the forest, beyond the milling goblins. The dragon-stomach smoke had obliterated the monstrous mound of goblins at the north wall, but that effect was abating now, and they were surging back from the east and west wings. Either the newly encroaching goblins would be dissolved also, in which case the region wasn't safe for zombies either, or they wouldn't, in which case the zombies couldn't pass there. So how could the Zombie Master get through?

"The Zombie Master must get to the Castle, where he can set up his magical laboratory and work undistracted," Dor said. "Now that we have him in sight, there just has to be a way."

"Yes, I believe at this stage it would tip the balance," King Roogna agreed. "But the problem of transport still seems insuperable. It is difficult enough keeping the monsters outside the Castle; anything beyond the ramparts becomes prohibitive."

"If we believe that, so must they," Dor said. "Maybe we could surprise them. Cedric-would you join me in a dangerous mission?"

"Yes," the centaur said-immediately.

The King glanced at him, mildly surprised at the change in attitude. Evidently Dor had done better with the centaurs than Roogna had expected.

"I want to take the King's flute and lure away the creatures from the vicinity of the zombies, to someplace where we can safely detonate the forget spell. That will stop the goblins from coming back here in time to interfere with the Zombie Master. Could you hold the magic hoop in such a way as to make any airborne attackers pass through it, while outrunning groundborne attacks?"

"I am a centaur!" Cedric said. Answer enough.

"Now really," the King said. "This is a highly risky venture!"

"So is doing nothing," Dor said. "The goblins are still mounding up at the other walls; before the day is out they will be coming over the top, and you have no more dragon juice to melt them down. We've got to have the zombies!"

Magician Murphy had come up again. "You are courting disaster," he said. "I respect your courage, Dor-but I must urge you not to go out so foolishly into the goblin horde."

"Listen, snotwing-" Cedric started.

Dor cut him off. "If you really cared, Magician, you would abate the curse. Is your real objection that you fear this ploy can succeed?"

The enemy Magician was silent.

"You'll need someone to lead the zombies in," Vadne said.

"Well, I thought maybe Jumper-"

"The big spider? You'd better have him with you, protecting your flank," she said. "I will guide the zombies in."

"That is very generous of you," Dor said, gratified. "You can transform any creature that gets through the zombie lines. The Zombie Master himself is the one who must be protected; get as close to him as you can and-"

"I shall. Let's get this mission going before it is too late."

The King and Magician Murphy both shook their heads with resignation, seeming strangely similar. But Roogna fetched the flute and the forget spell. They organized at the main gate. Dor mounted Cedric, Jumper joined him and bound him securely in place with silk, and Vadne mounted another centaur. The remaining centaurs of the north wall disposed themselves along the east wall, bows ready. Then the small party charged out into the melee of goblins and harpies.

There was a withering fire from the wall, as the centaurs shot fire arrows and the goblins, trolls, gnomes, and ghouls withered. It cleared a temporary path through the thickest throng. Cherry bombs and pineapples were still bombarding the allied army. This didn't seem to faze the goblins or their cohorts, but it made Dor extremely nervous. Suppose a pineapple were to land in his vicinity? He would be smithereened! And, considering Murphy's curse-

"Change course!" he screamed.

Startled, Cedric jounced to the side, through a contingent of elves. There was an explosion ahead of them. Shrapnel whizzed by Dor's nose, and the concussion hurt his ears. Eleven bodies sailed outward Cedric veered to avoid the heavily smoking crater.

"Hey!" a centaur bellowed from the wall. "Stay on course! I almost catapulted a pineapple on you!"

Cedric got back on course with alacrity. "Centaurs have sharp eyes and quick reflexes," he remarked. "Otherwise something could have gone wrong."

Murphy's curse had tried, though, almost causing Dor to interfere with the centaur's careful marksmanship. Dor realized that he would do best to stick to his own department.

He put the flute to his lips, thankful that Jumper was there to help him, so that he had his hands and attention free. He blew experimentally into the mouthpiece. The flute played an eerie, lilting, enticing melody, which floated out through the clamor of battle and brought a sudden hush. Then dwarves and gremlins, vampires and harpies, and numberless goblins swarmed after the centaurs, compelled alike by that magic music.

The winged monsters closed in faster, diving in toward Dor. Cedric twisted his human torso in that supple way centaurs had, facing back while still galloping forward. He swung the hoop through the air in an arc, intercepting the dirty birds as they came-and as each passed through the hoop, she vanished. Dor wondered where they went, but he was too busy playing the flute-if his labored blowing could be called playing-and keeping his body low so as not to get snagged by the hoop himself. He could not keep his attention on all the details!

With two of his legs, Jumper held a spear with which he prodded any goblins or similar ilk that got too close. No ilk could match the galloping pace of the centaur, but since they were forging through the whole goblin allied army, many closed in from the sides. Dor saw Vadne converting those goblins that she touched to pancake disks, and her centaur was fending off the aerial creatures with his fists.

Quickly they reached the zombie contingent. "Follow the woman in!" Dor cried. "I'll lead the monsters away! Block off your ears until I'm beyond your hearing!" Yes, that would be a fine Murphy foul-up, to lure the goblins away only to lure the Zombie Master and Millie into the same forget-spell trap! But a problem anticipated was a problem largely prevented.

Then he was off, playing the magic flute again. No matter how grossly he puffed into it, the music emerged clear and sweet and haunting. And the creatures followed.

"Where to?" Cedric inquired as they galloped. Dor had an inspiration. "To the Gap!" he cried. "North!"

The centaur put on some speed. The air whistled by them. Experimentally Dor held the flute into the wind, and sure enough: it played. That saved him some breath. The goblins fell behind, and the elves and dwarves, but the trolls were keeping up. Cedric accelerated again, and now even the vampires lost headway. But Dor kept playing, and the creatures kept following. As they had to.

At centaur speed, the Gap was not long in drawing nigh. They had to wait for the land and air hordes to catch up.

"Now I want to get them close to the brink, then detonate the forget spell," Dor said, dropping the flute to his side for the moment. "With luck, the harpies will fly on across the Gap and get lost, and the goblins will be unable to follow them, so won't be able to fight any more."

"Commendable compassion," Jumper chittered. "But in order to gather a large number here, to obtain maximum effect from the spell, you must remain to play the flute for some time. How will we escape?"

"Oops! I hadn't thought of that! We're trapped by the Gap!" Dor looked down into the awesome reaches of the chasm, and felt heightsick. When would he stop being a careless child? Or was Murphy's curse catching them after all? Dor would have to sacrifice himself, to make the goblins and harpies forget?

"I can solve it." Jumper chittered. "Ballooning over the-"

"No!" Dor cried. "There is a whole hideous host of things that can and will go wrong with that Last time we tried it-"

"Then I can drop us down over the edge, into the chasm, where the goblins cannot follow," Jumper suggested. "We can use the magic ring to protect us from descending harpies."

Dor didn't like the notion of descending into the Gap either, but the harpies and goblins and ilk were arriving in vast numbers, casting about for the missing flute music, and he had to make a quick decision. "All right. Cedric, you gallop out of here; you're too heavy to lower on spider silk."

"That's for sure!" Cedric said. "But where should I go? I don't think I can make it back to the Castle. There are one or two zillion minor monsters charging from there to here, and I'd have to buck the whole tide."

"Go to Celeste," Dor suggested. "Your job is honorably finished, here, and she'll be glad to see you."

"First to the warlock!" Cedric exclaimed, grinning. He made a kind of salute, then galloped off west.

Jumper reattached the dragline to Dor, then scrambled over the cliff edge. This easy walking on a near-vertical face still amazed Dor. However, it was decidedly handy at the moment

Dor resumed playing the flute, for the goblins were beginning to lose interest That brought them forward with a rush. They closed on him so rapidly that they wedged against each other, blocking themselves off from him. But they were struggling so hard that Dor knew the jam would break at any moment. Yet he kept playing, waiting for Jumper's signal of readiness.

Finally his nerve broke. "Are you ready?" he called. And the goblins, loosed momentarily from their relentless press forward, eased up-and the jam did break. Dor fumbled for his sword, knowing he could never fight off the inimical mass, yet-

But what was he thinking of? It was the magic ring he should use. Cedric had left it with him. He picked it up and held it before him. The first goblin dived right at him. Dor almost dropped the hoop, fearing the creature would smash into him-but as it passed through the ring, it vanished. Right before his face, as if it had struck an invisible wall and been shunted aside. Potent magic!

"Ready!" Jumper chittered from below. Just in time, for three more goblins were charging, and Dor wasn't certain he could get them all neatly through the hoop. More likely they would snag on the rim, and their weight would have carried him back over the cliff. "Jump!"

Dor trusted his friend. He jumped. Backward off the cliff. He sailed out into the abyss, escaping the grasp of the surging goblins, swinging down and side-wise, for Jumper had providently rigged the lines so that Dor would not whomp directly into the wall. The spider always thought of these things before Dor did, anticipating what could go wrong and abating it first. Thus Murphy's curse had little power over him. That was why Jumper had taken so much time just now, despite knowing that Dor was in a desperate strait at the brink of the canyon; he had been making sure that no mistake of his would betray Dor.

And there it was, of course: the answer to the curse. Maturity. Only a careless or thoughtless person could be trapped by the curse, giving it the openings to snare Mm.

Now the vampires and harpies swarmed down, though the majority of them were fighting with the goblins above. "Snatch! snatch!" they screamed. A perfect characterization.

Dor found himself swinging back. He held the hoop before him, sweeping through the ugly flock-and where the ring passed, no harpies remained. But they clutched at him from the sides-

Then Jumper hauled him in against the wall, so that he could set his back to its protective solidity and hold the hoop before him. Dor saw now that the brink of the chasm was not even; the spider had skillfully utilized projections to anchor the framework of lines, so that Dor had room to swing clear of the wall. A remarkable feat of engineering that no other type of creature could have accomplished in so brief a time.

"Give me the ring!" Jumper chittered. "You play the flute!"

Right. They had to call as many creatures to this spot as possible. Dor yielded the hoop and put the flute to his lips. Jumper maneuvered deftly, using the hoop to protect them both.

Now the harpies dived in with single-minded intent, compelled by the music. They swooped through the hoop; they splatted into the wall around it, knocking themselves out and falling twistily down into the chasm, dirty feathers flying free. The vampires were no better off.

Then the goblins and trolls started dropping down from the ledge above, also summoned by the flute.

Dor broke off. "We're slaughtering them! That wasn't my intent! It's time to set off the forget spell!"

"We would be trapped by it too," Jumper reminded him. "Speak to it."

"Speak to it? Oh." Dor held out the glassy ball. "Spell, how are you detonated?"

"I detonate when a voice commands me to," the ball replied.

"Any voice?"

"That's what I said."

Dor had his answer. He set the sphere in a niche in the cliff. "Count to one thousand, then order yourself to detonate," he told it.

"Say, that's clever!" the spell said. "One, two, three-four-five-"

"Slowly!" Dor said sharply. "One number per second."

"Awww-" But the spell resumed more slowly. "Seven, eight-what a spoilsport you are!-nine, ten, a big fat hen!"

"What?" a nearby harpy screeched, taking it personally. She dived in, but Jumper snagged her with the hoop. Another potential foul-up defused.

"And don't say anything to insult the harpies," Dor told the spell.

"Ah, shucks. Eleven, twelve-"

Jumper scurried away to the side, fastened the other end of a new line he had attached to Dor, and hauled him across. This was not as fast as running on level land, but it was expedient.

They moved steadily westward, away from the spell sphere. Dor continued playing the flute intermittently, to keep the goblins massing at the brink without allowing too many to fall over. He heard the spell's counting fading in the distance, and that lent urgency to his escape. The problem was now one of management; he and Jumper had to get far enough away to be out of the forget range, without luring the goblins and harpies beyond range too. Inevitably a good many monsters would escape, but maybe the ones fazed by the forget detonation would lend sufficient confusion to the array to inhibit the others from returning to the Castle. There seemed to be no clear-cut strategy; he just had to fudge through as best he could, hoping he could profit enough to give Castle Roogna the edge. It had worked well with the Mundane siege of the Zombie Master's castle, after all.

How much nicer if there were simple answers to all life's problems! But the closer Dor approached adulthood, the less satisfying such answers became. Life itself was complex, therefore life's answers were complex. But it took a mature mind to appreciate the convolutions of that complexity.

"One hundred five, one hundred six, pick up a hundred sticks!" the spell was chanting. "One hundred seven, one hundred eight, lay all hundred straight!" Now there was a simple mind!

Dor wondered again how wide a radius the detonation would have. Would the chasm channel it? Then the brunt would come along here, instead of out where the goblins were. Maybe he and Jumper should climb over the rim before the spell went off, and lie low there, hoping to be shielded from the direct effect. But they couldn't come up too close to the goblins, who were milling about near the brink. The harpies were still dive-bombing him, forcing Jumper to jump back with the hoop. Fortunately, the bulk of their attention was taken by the goblins, their primary enemy; Dor and Jumper were merely incidental targets, attacked because they were there. Except when Dor played the flute, as he continued to do intermittently.

"Three hundred forty-seven, three hundred forty-eight, now don't be late," the spell was saying in the fading distance. As long as he could hear it, he had to assume he was within its forget radius.

"Can we go faster?" Dor asked nervously. He had thought they were traveling well, but the numbers had jumped with seeming suddenness from the neighborhood of one hundred to the neighborhood of three hundred. Unless the spell was cheating, skipping numbers-no, the inanimate did not have the wit to cheat Dor had just been preoccupied with his own efforts and gloomy thoughts.

"Not safely, friend," Jumper chittered.

"Let me take back the hoop," Dor suggested to the spider. "Then you can string your lines faster."

Jumper agreed, and passed back the hoop.

Another harpy made a screaming dive. Dor scooped her into the hoop, and she was gone without recall or recoil. What happened to the creatures who passed through it? Harpies could fly, goblins could climb; why couldn't either get out? Was it an inferno on the other side, killing them instantly? He didn't like that.

Jumper was ahead, setting the anchor for the next swing. Dor had a private moment. He poked a finger into the center of the hoop, from the far side, watching it disappear from his side. He saw his finger in cross section, as if severed with a sharp sword: the skin, the little blood vessels, the tendons, the bone. But there was no pain; his finger felt cool, not cold; no inferno there, and no freezing weather either. He withdrew it, and found it whole, to his relief. He poked it from the near side, and got the same effect, except that this time he could not see the cross section. It seemed that either side of the ring led to wherever it led. A different world?

Jumper tugged, and Dor swung across, feeling guilty for his surreptitious experimentation. He could have lost a finger that way. Well, maybe not; he had seen the King's fingers disappear and reappear unharmed. "Let's check and see if the goblins are clear," Dor said. He had not played the flute for a while.

The spider scurried up the wall to peek over with two or three eyes, keeping the rest of his body low. "They are there in masses," he chittered. "I believe they are pacing the harpies-who are pacing us."

"Oh, no! Murphy strikes again! We can't get clear of the Gap, if they follow us!"

"We should be clear of the forget radius now," Jumper chittered consolingly.

"Then so are the goblins and harpies! That's no good!" Dor heard himself getting hysterical.

"Our effort should have distracted a great number of the warring creatures," Jumper pointed out reasonably. "Our purpose was to distract them so that the Zombie Master could penetrate to Castle Roogna. If he succeeded, we have succeeded."

"I suppose so," Dor agreed, calming. "So it doesn't really matter if the harpies and goblins don't get forget-spelled. Still, how are we ever going to get out of here? It is too late to turn off the spell."

"Perseverance should pay. If we continue until night-" Jumper cocked his body, lifting his two front legs so as to hear better. "What is that?"

Dor tried to fathom what direction the spider was orienting, and could not. Damn those ubiquitous eyes! "What's what?"

Then he heard it. "Nine hundred eighty-three, nine hundred eighty-four, close to the hundredth door; nine hundred eighty-five-"

A harpy was carrying the spell toward them-and it was about to detonate! "Oh, Murphy!" Dor wailed. "You really nabbed us now!"

"What's the big secret about this talking ball?" the harpy screeched.

"Nine hundred ninety-two, buckle the bag's shoe," the spell said.

"Stop counting!" Dor yelled at the spell.

"Countdown can't be stopped once initiated," the spell replied smugly.

"Quick," Jumper chittered. "I will fasten the draglines so we can return. We must escape through the magic hoop."

"Oh, no!" Dor cried.

"It should be safe; I saw you testing it."

"Nine hundred ninety-seven, nine hundred ninety-eight," the spell continued inexorably. "Now don't be late!"

Jumper scrambled through the hoop. Dor hesitated, appalled. Could they return? But if he remained here-

"One thousand!" the spell cried gleefully. "Now at last I can say it!"

Dor dived through the hoop. The last thing he heard was "Deto-"

He arrived in darkness. It was pleasant, neutral. His body seemed to be suspended without feeling. There was a timelessness about him, a perpetual security. All he had to do was sleep.

You are not like the others, a thought said at him.

"Of course not," Dor thought back. Whatever he was suspended in did not permit physical talking, because there was no motion. "I am from another time. So is my friend Jumper the spider. Who are you?"

"I am the Brain Coral, keeper of the source of magic.

"The Brain Coral! I know you! You're supposed to be animating my body!"

"When?"

"Eight hundred years from now. Don't you remember?"

"I am not in a position to know about that, being as yet a creature of my own time.

"Well, in my time you-uh, it gets complicated. But I think Jumper and I had better get out of here as soon as the forget spell dissipates."

You detonated a forget spell?

"Yes, a major one, inside the Gap. To make the goblins and harpies and cohorts and ilk stop fighting. They-"

Forget spells are permanent, until counterspelled.

"I suppose so, for the ones affected. But-"

You have just rendered the Gap itself forgotten.

"The Gap? But it's not alive! The spell only affects living things, things that remember."

Therefore all living things will forget the Gap. Stunned, Dor realized it was true. He had caused the Gap to be forgotten by all but those people whose forgetting would be paradoxical. Such as those living adjacent to it, who would otherwise fall in and die. Their deaths would be inexplicable to their friends and relatives, leading to endless complications that would quickly neutralize the spell. Paradox was a powerful natural counterspell! But any people who had no immediate need-to-know would simply not remember the Gap. This was true in his own day-and now he knew how it had come about. He had done it, with his bumbling.

Yet if what he did here had no permanence, how could…? He couldn't take time to ponder that now. "We have to get back to Castle Roogna. Or at least, we can't stay here. There would be paradox when we caught up to our own time."

So it would seem. I shall release you from my preservative fluid. The primary radiation of the spell should not affect you; the secondary may. You will not forget your personal identities and mission, but you may forget the Gap once you leave its vicinity.

"I'm pretty much immune to that anyway," Dor said. "I'm one of the near-Gap residents. Just so long as I don't forget the rest."

One question, before I release you. Through what aperture have you and all these other creatures entered my realm? I had thought the last large ring was destroyed fifty years ago.

"Oh, we have a two-inch ring that we expanded to two-foot diameter. We can change it back when we're done with it."

That will be appreciated. Perhaps we shall meet again-in eight hundred years, the Coral thought at him.

Then Dor popped out of the hoop and dangled by his dragline. Jumper followed.

"I had not anticipated immobility," the spider chittered ruefully.

"That's all right. We can't all think of everything, all the time."

Jumper was not affronted. "True."

The harpies were visible in the distance, but they paid no further attention to Dor and Jumper. They were milling about in air, trying to remember what they were doing there. Which was exactly what Dor had wanted to happen. The goblins, however, were in sadder state. They too seemed to be milling about-but they had forgotten that sharp dropoffs were hazardous to health, and were falling into the chasm at a great rate. Dor's action had decimated the goblin horde.

"It can not be helped," Jumper chittered, recognizing his disgust. "We can not anticipate or control all ramifications of any given course."

"Yeah, I guess," Dor agreed, still bothered by the slaughter he had wrought. Would he get hardened to this sort of carnage as he matured? He hoped not.

They climbed to the brim and stood on land again. The goblins ignored them, not remembering them. The forget detonation had evidently been devastating near its origin, wiping out all memories of everything.

Dor spied a glassy fragment lying on the ground. He went to pick it up. It was a shatter from the forget-spell globe. "You really did it, didn't you!" he said to it.

"That was some blast!" the fragment agreed happily. "Or was it? I forget!"

Dor dropped it and went on. "I hope Cedric got clear in time. That spell was more powerful than I expected."

"He surely did."

They hurried back toward the Castle, ignoring the wandering hordes.

The battle was not over at Castle Roogna, but it was evident that the tide had turned. As the distance from the forget-spell ground zero lengthened, the effects diminished, until here at the Castle there was little confusion-except that there were only about a third as many goblins and harpies as before, and the ramparts were manned by zombies. The Zombie Master had gotten through!

The defenders spied them, and laid down a barrage of cherry bombs to clear a path to the Castle. Even so, it was necessary to employ sword and hoop to get through, for the goblins and harpies resented strangers getting into their battle. So Dor was forced to slay again. War was hell, he thought.

King Roogna himself welcomed them at the gate. "Marvelous!" he cried. "You piped half the monsters off the field and made them forget. Vadne led the Zombie Master in while the goblins were distracted by the flute, and he has been generating new zombies from the battlefield casualties ever since. The only problem is fetching them in."

"Then there's work for me to do," Dor said shortly. He found he didn't really want to accept congratulations for doing a job of mass murder.

The King, the soul of graciousness, made no objection, "Your dedication does you credit."

Jumper helped, of course. Covered by centaur archers on the ramparts, they went out, located the best bodies, looped them with silk, and dashed back under cover. Then they hauled the corpses in on the lines. They were really old hands at this. When they had a dozen or so, they ferried them in to the Zombie Master's laboratory.

Millie was there, wan and disheveled, but she looked up with a smile when Dor entered. "Oh, you're safe, Dor! I was so worried!"

"Worry for your fiance," he said shortly. "He's doing the work."

"He certainly is," Vadne said. She was moving the bodies into position for him by converting them to great balls that were easily rolled, then returning them to their regular shapes. As a result, he was evidently manufacturing zombies at triple the rate he had at his own castle. Time was consumed mainly in the processing, not the actual conversion. "He's making an army to defend this Castle!"

"Dor's doing a lot too!" Millie said stoutly. Flattered despite himself, Dor realized that Millie still had feeling for him, and still might-But he had to suppress that. It was not only that his time in this world was limited, and that if he interfered with this particular aspect of history and it stayed put, he would paradoxically negate his whole original mission. It was that Millie was now betrothed to another man, and Dor had no right to-to do what he wished he could.

"We're all doing what we can, for the good of the Land of Xanth," he said, somewhat insecurely, considering his thought. How much better it would be for him, if he could find some girl more nearly his own age and status, and-

"I wish I had full Magician-caliber talent like yours," Vadne said to the Zombie Master as she shape-changed another corpse. Dor saw that she was able to handle living things, and once-living things, and inanimate things like the magic ring: a fair breadth of talent, really.

"You do have it," the Zombie Master said, surprised.

"No, I am only a neo-Sorceress."

"I would term your topological talent as Magician-caliber magic," he said, rendering the corpse into a zombie.

She almost glowed at the compliment, which carried even more impact because it was evident that he had made it matter-of-factly, unconscious of its effect. She looked at the Zombie Master with a new appraisal, What potency in a compliment, Dor thought, and filed the information in the back of his mind for future reference.

Dor went out to fetch more bodies. Jumper helped, as always. They kept working until daylight waned, and slowly the goblin and harpy forces dwindled while the zombie forces increased. Harpy zombies were now waging the defense in the air-greatly easing that situation.

Yet this left Dor unsatisfied. He had entered the tapestry for one mission, the acquisition of the elixir to restore a zombie to full life. But by the time he had that, he had been enmeshed in another mission, the conversion of the Zombie Master to King Roogna's cause. Now he had accomplished that also-and was casting about for yet another quest. What was it?

Ah, he had it now. This foolish war between the goblins and harpies-was it possible to do something about it, instead of preserving Castle Roogna by wiping out both sides? Why not simply abate the problems that had caused the war?

He had gone over this before, in his mind, and had no answer. But then time Had been too much of a factor. Now the Castle was prevailing, now there was time, and he knew more about the magic available. The magic hoop, for example, leading into the Brain Coral's somber storage lake-

'That's it!" he exclaimed.

Jumper cocked four or five eyes at him. "There is something I missed?"

"Anchor me, so I can't fall in. I have to go through the hoop to talk with the Brain Coral."

The spider did not argue or question. He fastened a stout dragline to Dor. Dor propped the magic hoop against a wall and poked his head through.

"Brain Coral!" he thought, again rending it impossible to breathe or speak in the preservative fluid. This stuff was not mere water; it had stasis magic. "This is Dor of eight hundred years from now, again."

What is your concern? the Coral inquired patiently.

"Have you a male harpy in storage?"

Yes. An immature one, exiled three hundred years ago by a rival for the harpy throne.

"A royal male?" Dor thought, startled.

By harpy law a royal person cannot be executed like a commoner. So he was put safely away, and the access ring destroyed thereafter.

"Will you release him now? It would make a big difference to our present situation."

"I will release him. Bear in mind you owe me a favor.

"Yes. I will talk to you again in eight hundred years." Dor removed his head from the Coral's realm. His head had been in stasis, but the rest of his body was responsive.

In a moment a bird-shape popped out of the hoop. "Greetings, Prince," Dor said formally.

The figure spread his wings, orienting on him. "And what ilk be ye, man-thing?"

"I am Magician Dor. I have freed you from storage."

The harpy glanced an imperial glance at him. "Show your power."

Dor picked up a fallen harpy feather. "What is the age of the Prince?" he inquired. "Exclusive of storage time."

"The Prince is twelve years old," the feather answered.

"Why, that's my age!" Dor exclaimed.

"You'll sure be a giant when you get your full growth!" the feather said.

The Prince cut in. "Very well. I accept your status, and will deal with ye. I am Prince Harold. What is it ye crave of me?"

"You are the only male harpy alive today," Dor said. "You must go forth and claim your crown, to preserve your species. I charge you with two things only: do not cohabit with any but your own kind, and give to me the counterspell to the curse your people put on the goblins."

The Prince drew himself up with hauteur. "One favor ye did me, yet ye presume to impose on me for two favors! I need no stricture of cohabitation for when I come of age-not when I have the entire world of harpies to build my harem from. As to this spell, I know naught of it."

"It happened after your exile. You can discover its nature from your subjects."

"I shall do so," the harpy said. "An I discover it, I shall provide the counter as your recompense."

Dor conducted the Prince to King Roogna, who did a polite double take as he observed the harpy's gender. "Rare magic indeed!" he murmured.

"We must release Prince Harold Harpy to his kind without mishap," Dor told the King. The harpies will have no need to fight, once they have him."

"I see," the King said. He glanced obliquely at Magician Murphy, standing beside him. "We shall declare an absolute cease-fire until he is free, I shall walk the ramparts myself, to be sure that nothing goes wrong."

"You may manage to free the harpy," Murphy said grimly. "But my curse will have its impact elsewhere. You have not prevailed." But he looked tired; his talent was evidently under severe strain. No single Magician, however gifted, could stand forever against the power of three. Dor was almost sorry for him.

"But we're getting there," Roogna said. He escorted the Prince to the wall, cautioning the centaurs not to fire at the harpy. Prince Harold spread his pinions and launched into the sky.

There was a screech of sheerest amazement from the nearest female. Then the harpies swarmed to the Prince. For an awful moment Dor feared they had mistaken him, and would tear him to pieces; but they had instantly recognized his nature. They lost all interest in the goblin war. In moments the entire swarm had flapped away, leaving the goblins nothing to fight except a few tired vampires.

Then a lone female harpy winged back from the flock. A centaur whistled. "Helen!" Dor cried, recognizing her.

"By order of Prince Harold," Helen said. "The counterspell." She deposited a pebble in his hand. She winked. "Too bad you didn't take your opportunity when you had it, handsome man; you will never have another. I used the ring you gave me to wish for the finest possible match, and now I am to be first concubine to the Prince." She tapped her ringed claw.

Things evidently happened fast among the harpies; it had been only a few minutes since the Prince mounted the sky. "Good for you," Dor said.

"I knew I could do it," the ring replied, thinking Dor had addressed it. "I can do anything!"

She glanced down at it "Oh, so you're talking again!"

"It will be silent hereafter," Dor said. "Thank you for the counterspell."

"It's the least I could do for you," she said, inhaling. The centaurs goggled.

Then Heavenly Helen spread her pretty wings and was away, with all males on the parapet staring after her, and even a few of the healthier zombies were admiring her form. There were covert glances at Dor, as people wondered what he had done to attract the attention of so remarkable a creature.

Dor was satisfied. Helen had, in true harpy fashion, snatched her opportunity. And who could tell: maybe the wish ring really had had something to do with it.

Dor turned his attention to the pebble spell. "How are you invoked?" he asked it.

"I am not invoked; I am revoked," it replied. "I am not a counterspell, I am the original spell. When I am revoked, the enchantment abates."

"How are you revoked, then?"

"You just heat me to fire temperature, and my magic pours out invisibly until it is all gone."

Dor handed the pebble to the King. "That should abate the goblin complaint. With no further reason to fight, the goblins should go home. Then Murphy's curse can't make the battle continue here."

"You are phenomenal, Magician!" King Roogna said. "You have used your mind instead of your body, in a truly regal manner." He hurried away with the pebble spell.

The King cooked the goblin spell according to the directive, but no change in the goblin horde was apparent. Yet he was not dismayed. "The original spell was subtle," he explained. "It caused the goblin females to be negatively selective. The damage has been done to the goblins over the course of many generations. It will take many more generations to reverse. The females are not here on the battlefield, so the males do not even know of the change yet. So we do not see its effect immediately, or benefit from it ourselves, but still the job is worth doing. We are not trying merely to preserve Castle Roogna; we are building a better Land of Xanth." He waved a hand cheerfully. "Evening is upon us; we must go to our repast and sleep, while the zombies keep watch. I believe victory is at last coming into sight."

It did look that way. Magician Murphy looked glum indeed. Dor, suddenly tired, ate perfunctorily, fell on the bed provided in the completed section of the Castle, and slept soundly. In the morning he woke to discover the Zombie Master on an adjacent bed, and Magician Murphy on another. Everyone was tired, and there was as yet very little space within the Castle.

The goblins had largely dispersed in the night, leaving their copious dead in the field. The zombies remained on guard. The centaurs had resumed their building labors, no longer needed for the defense of the Castle. Now it did seem likely that Castle Roogna would be completed on schedule.

A buffet breakfast was being served in the dining hall, amid the clods of earth, stray pieces of zombies, and discarded weapons. King Roogna was there, and Magician Murphy, and Vadne and Jumper and Dor. Murphy had little appetite; he seemed almost as gaunt as the Zombie Master.

"Frankly I think we have it in hand," the King said. "Will you not relinquish with grace, Murphy?"

"There remains yet one aspect of the curse," Murphy said. "Should it fail, then I am done, and will retire. But I must hold on until it manifests."

"Fair enough," Roogna said. "I hung on when it seemed your curse had prevailed. Indeed, had not young Dor arrived with his friend-"

"Surely nothing I did really affected the outcome," Dor said uneasily. For there, ultimately, could be Murphy's victory.

"You still feel that what you do is invalid?" the King inquired. "We can readily have the verification of that. I have a magic mirror somewhere-"

"No, I-" But the King in his gratitude was already on his way to locate the mirror.

"Perhaps it is time we verified this," Murphy said. "Your involvement, Dor, has become so pervasive and intricate that it becomes difficult to see how it can be undone. I may have been mistaken in my conjecture. Was my curse opposing you also?"

"I believe it was," Dor said. "Things kept going wrong-"

"Then you must have validity, for otherwise my curse would not care. In fact, if your efforts lacked validity, my curse might even have promoted them, so that they played a larger part in the false success. If the King depended on you instead of on his own-"

"But how can I change my own-" Dor glanced at Vadne, then shrugged. He could not remember whether she knew about him now or did not. What did it matter, so long as Millie remained innocent? "My own past?"

"I do not know," Murphy said. "I had thought that would be a paradox, therefore invalid. Yet there are aspects of magic no man can fathom. I may have made a grievous error, and thereby cost myself the victory. Is the Gap forgotten in your day?"

"Yes."

They mulled that over for a while, chewing on waffles from the royal waffle tree. Then Murphy said: "It could be that spots of history can be rechanneled, so long as the end result is the same. If King Roogna is fated to win, it may not matter how he does it, or what agencies assist. So your own involvement may be valid, yet changes nothing. You are merely filling a role that some other party filled in your absence."

"Could be," Dor agreed. He glanced about. The others seemed interested in the discussion, except for Vadne, who was withdrawn. Something about that bothered him, but he couldn't place it.

"At any rate, we shall soon know. My power has been stretched to its limit," Murphy continued. "If I do not achieve the victory this day, I shall be helpless. I do not know exactly what form my curse will take, but it is in operation now, and I think will prove devastating. The issue remains in doubt."

The King returned with his mirror. "Let me see-how shall I phrase this?" he said to himself. "Mirror queries have to rhyme. That was built into them by the Magician who made this type of glass. Ah." He set it on the floor. "Mirror, mirror, on the floor-can we trust ourselves to Dor?"

"Corny," Murphy muttered.

The forepart of a handsome centaur appeared in the mirror. "That signifies affirmative," Roogna said. "The hind part is the negative."

"But many centaurs are far handsomer in the hind part," Dor pointed out.

"Why not simply ask it which side will prevail?" Murphy suggested wryly.

"I doubt that will work," the King said. "Because if its answer affects our actions, that would be paradox. And since we have been dealing with very strong magic, it could be beyond the mirror's limited power of resolution."

"Oh, let's discover the answer for ourselves," Murphy said. "We have fought it through this far, we might as well finish it properly."

"Agreed," Roogna said.

They ate more waffles, pouring on maple syrup from a rare maple tree. Unlike other magic beverage trees, the maple issued its syrup only a drop at a time, and it was dilute, so that a lot of the water had to be boiled off to make it thick enough for use. This made the syrup a special delicacy. In fact, maple trees no longer existed in Xanth in Dor's day. Maybe they had been overlapped, and thus this most magical species had ironically gone the way of most mundane trees.

The Zombie Master came in. Vadne perked up. "Come sit by me," she invited.

But he was not being sociable. "Where is Millie the maid, my fiancée?"

The others exchanged perplexed glances. "I assumed she was with you," Dor said.

"No. I worked late last night, and it would not be meet for such as she to keep my company unchaperoned. I sent her to bed."

"You didn't do that at your own castle," Dor pointed out.

"We were not then engaged. After the betrothal, we kept company only in company."

Dor thought of asking about the journey from the zombie castle to Castle Roogna, which had had at least one night on the road. But he refrained; it seemed the Zombie Master had conservative notions about propriety, and honored them rigidly.

"She has not been to breakfast," the King said. "She must be sleeping late."

"I called at her door, but she did not answer," the Zombie Master said.

"Maybe she's sick," Dor suggested, and immediately regretted his directness, for the Zombie Master jumped as if stung.

The King interceded smoothly. "Vadne, check Millie's room."

The neo-Sorceress departed. Soon she was back. "Her room is empty."

Now the Zombie Master was really upset. "What has happened to her?"

"Do not be concerned," Vadne said consolingly. "Perhaps she became weary of Castle life and returned to her stockade. I will be happy to assist you during her absence."

But he would not be consoled. "She is my fiancée's I must find her!"

"Here, let me query the mirror," the King said. "What's a rhyme for Maid?"

"Shade," Murphy said.

"Thank you, Magician," the King said. He propped the mirror in a niche in the wall where it was in shadow. "Mirror, mirror, in the shade, tell us what happened to-"

Dor's chair thunked on the floor as he craned forward to see the picture about to form. The mirror slipped from its perch and fell. It cracked in two, and was useless.

The Zombie Master stared at it. "Murphy's curse!" he exclaimed. "Why should it prevent us from locating the maid?" He turned angrily on Murphy.

Magician Murphy spread his hands. "I do not know, sir. I assure you I have no onus against your fiancée. She strikes me as a most appealing young woman."

"She strikes everyone that way," Vadne said. "Her talent is-"

"Do not denigrate her to me!" the Zombie Master shouted. "It was only in gratitude to her that I agreed to soil my hands with politics! If anything happens to her-"

He broke off, and there was a pregnant silence. Suddenly the nature of the final curse was coming clear to them all. Without Millie, the Zombie Master had no reason to support the King, and Castle Roogna would then lose its major defensive force. Anything could happen to further interrupt its construction-and would. Murphy would win.

Yet the harpies and goblins were gone, Dor thought Did anything remain that could really threaten the Castle? And he realized with horror that one thing did: the zombies themselves. They now controlled Castle Roogna. If they turned against the King-

"It seems your curse has struck with extreme precision," King Roogna said, evidently recognizing the implication. The issue was indeed in doubt! "We must find Millie quickly, and I fear that will not be easy."

"It was my chair that jolted the mirror," Dor said, stricken. "It's my fault!"

"Do not blame yourself," Murphy said. "The curse strikes in the readiest manner, much as water seeks the lowest channel. You have simply been used."

"Well, then, I'll find her!" Dor cried. "I'm a Magician, same as you are." He looked about. "Wall, where is she?"

"Don't ask me," the wall said. "She hasn't been here in the dining hall since last night."

Dor marched out into the hall, the others trailing after him. "Floor, when was she last here?"

"Last night after supper," the floor said. Neither wall nor floor elected to be difficult about details; they knew whom Dor meant, and recognized his mood, and gave him no trouble.

Dor traced Millie's whereabouts randomly, pacing the halls. A problem became apparent: Millie, like the others, had moved about considerably during the evening, and the walls, floors and limited furnishings were not able to distinguish all the comings and goings. It was a trail that crossed and recrossed itself, so that the point of exit could not be determined. Millie had been here at the time the Zombie Master sent her to bed-and not thereafter. She had not arrived at her own room. Where had she gone?

"The front gate-see whether she left the Castle," the King suggested.

Dor doubted Millie would depart like that-not voluntarily. But he queried the front gate. She had not exited there. He checked the ramparts. She had not gone there. In fact she had gone nowhere. It was as if she had vanished from the middle of the hall.

"Could somebody have conjured her out?" Dor wondered aloud.

"Conjuring is not a common talent," King Roogna said. "I know of no conjurers today who could accomplish this."

"The magic hoop!" Jumper chittered.

Oh, no! They fetched the hoop, still at its two-foot diameter. "Did Millie the maid pass through you last night?" Dor demanded of it.

"She did not," the hhoop said acerbically. "No on has been through me since you stuck your fool head through and brought out the harpy Prince. When are you going to have me changed back to my normal size? I'm uncomfortable, stretched out like this."

"Later," Dor told it, experiencing relief. Then his relief reversed. If Millie had gone through there, at least she would be alive and safe and possibly recoverable. As it was, the mystery remained, growing more critical every moment

"Query the flute," Jumper suggested. "If someone played it and lured her somewhere-"

Dor queried the pied-piper flute. It, too, denied any involvement. "Could it be lying?" Vadne asked.

"No," Dor answered shortly.

They crossed the Castle again, but gained nothing on their original information: Millie had left the Zombie Master in the evening, going toward her room-and never gotten there. Nothing untoward had been seen by anyone or anything.

Then Jumper had another notion. "If she is the victim of malodorous entertainment-"

"What?" Dor asked.

"Foul play," the web said, rechecking its translation, "Can't expect me to get the idiom right every time."

Dor smiled momentarily. "Continue."

Jumper chittered again. "…victim of smelly games, then some other person is most likely responsible. We must ascertain the whereabouts of each other living person at the time of her disappearance."

"You have an uncommonly apt perception," King Roogna told the spider. "You approach things from new directions."

"It comes from having eyes in the back of one's head," Jumper said matter-of-factly.

They checked for the others. The centaurs had remained on the ramparts, backing up the zombies. Dor and Jumper and King Roogna had slept. The Zombie Master had worked till the wee hours, then gone to the male room and thence to his sleeping cot. Magician Murphy had taken an innocent tour of the premises, also stopped at the male room, and slept. Neo-Sorceress Vadne had assisted the Zombie Master, but gone to the female room shortly before Millie was dismissed. She had returned to work late with the Zombie Master, then gone to her own room to sleep. Nothing there.

"What occurs in the female room?" Jumper inquired.

"Uh, females have functions too," Dor said.

"Excretion. I comprehend. Did Millie go there?"

"Often. Young females have great affinity for such places."

"Did she emerge on the final occasion?"

The men stared. "We never checked there!" Dor cried.

"Now don't you men go snooping into a place like that!" Vadne protested. "It's indecent!"

"We will merely ask straightforward questions," the King assured her. "No voyeurism."

Vadne looked unsatisfied, but did not protest further. They repaired to the female room, where Dor inquired somewhat diffidently of the door: "Did Millie the maid enter here late last night?"

"She did. But I won't tell you what her business was," the door replied primly.

"Did she depart thereafter?"

"Come to think of it, she never did," the door said, surprised. "That must have been some business!"

Dor looked up to find one of Jumper's green eyes bearing on him. They had located Millie! Almost.

They entered. The female room was clean, with several basins and potties and a big drainage sump for disposal of wastes. In one corner was a dumbwaiter for shipment of laundry and sundry items upstairs. Nothing else.

"She's not here," Dor said, disappointed.

"Then this is her point of departure," the King said. "Question every artifact here, if you have to, until we discover the exact mode of her demise. I mean, departure," he amended quickly, conscious of the presence of the somber Zombie Master.

Dor questioned. Millie had come in, approached a basin, looked at her pretty but tired face in a mundane mirror-and Vadne had entered the room. Vadne had doused the Magic Lantern. In the darkness Millie had screamed with surprise and dismay, and there had been a swish as of hair flinging about, and a tattoo on the floor as of feet kicking. That was all.

Vadne had departed the room alone. The light had remained doused until morning-when there was no sign of Millie.

Vadne was edging toward the door. Jumper threw a noose and snared her, preventing her escape. "So you were the one!" the Zombie Master cried. His gaunt face was twisted with incredulous rage, his eyes gleaming whitely from their sockets.

"I only did it for you," she said, bluffing it out. "She didn't love you anyway; she loved Dor. And she's just a garden-variety maid, not a Magician-caliber talent. You need a-"

"She is my betrothed!" the Zombie Master cried, his aspect wild. Dor echoed the man's passion within himself. The Zombie Master did love her-as Dor did. "What did you do with her, wretch?"

"I put her where you will never find her!" Vadne flared.

"This is murder," King Roogna said grimly.

"No it isn't!" Vadne cried. "I didn't kill her. I just-changed her."

Dor saw the strategy in that. The Zombie Master could have reanimated her dead body as a zombie; as it was, he could do nothing.

Jumper peered down the drainage sump with his largest eye. "Is it possible?" he inquired.

"We'll rip out the whole sump to find her!" the King cried.

"And if you do," Vadne said, "what will you do then? Without me you can't change her back to her stupid sex-appeal form."

"Neo-Sorceress," King Roogna said grimly. "We are mindful of your considerable assistance in the recent campaign. We do not relish showing you disfavor."

"Oh, pooh!" she said. "I only helped you because Murphy wouldn't have me, and I wanted to marry a Magician."

"You have chosen unwisely. If you do not change the maid back, we shall have to execute you."

She was taken aback, but remained defiant. "Then you'll never get her changed, because talents never repeat."

"But they do overlap," Roogna said.

"In the course of decades or centuries! The only way you can save her is to deal on my terms."

"What are your terms?" the King asked, his eyes narrow.

"Let Dor marry Millie. She likes him better anyway, the stupid slut. I'll take the Zombie Master."

"Never!" the Zombie Master cried, his hands clenching.

Vadne faced him. "Why force on her a marriage with a man she doesn't love?" she demanded.

That shook him. "In time she would-"

"How much time? Twenty years, when she's no longer so sweet and young? Two hundred? I love you now?'

The Zombie Master looked at Dor. His face was tight with emotional pain, but his voice was steady. "Sir, there is some truth in what she says. I was always aware that Millie-if you had-" He choked off, then forced himself to continue. "I would prefer to see Millie married to you, than locked in some hideous transformation. If you-"

Dor realized that Millie was being offered to him again. All he had to do was take her, and she would be restored and Castle Roogna would be safe. He could by his simple acquiescence nullify the last desperate aspect of Murphy's curse.

He was tempted. But he realized that this transformation was the fate that had awaited her throughout. If he took Millie now, he could offer her…nothing. He was soon to return to his own time. Vadne evidently didn't believe that, but it was true. If he eschewed Millie, she would remain enchanted, a ghost for eight hundred years. A dread but fated destiny.

If he interfered now, he really would change history. There was no question of that, for this was personal, his immediate knowledge. He would fashion a paradox, the forbidden type of magic-and by the devious logic of the situation, Murphy would win. The curse had at last forced Dor to nullify himself by changing too much.

Yet if he turned down Vadne's terms, King Roogna would lose anyway, as the Zombie Master turned against him. Either way, Magician Murphy prevailed.

What was he, Dor, to do? Since either choice meant disaster, he might as well do what he believed to be right, however much it hurt.

"No," Dor said, knowing he was forcing Millie to undergo the full throes of ghosthood. Eight centuries long-and what reward awaited her there? Nursemaid to a little boy! Association with a zombie! "She goes to her betrothed-or to no one."

"But I am her betrothed!" the Zombie Master cried. "I love her-and because I love her, I yield her to you! I would do anything rather than permit her to suffer!"

"True love," King Roogna said. "It becomes you, sir."

"I'm sorry," Dor said. He understood now that his love for Millie was less, because he chose to let her suffer. He was knowingly inflicting terrible grief upon them all. Yet the alternative was the sacrifice of what they had all fought to save, deviously but certainly. He had no choice. "What's right is right, and what's wrong is wrong. I-" He spread his hands, unable to formulate his thought.

The Zombie Master gazed somberly at him. "I believe I understand." Then, surprisingly, he offered his hand.

Dor accepted it. Suddenly he felt like a man.

"If you will not restore her," the King said angrily to Vadne, "you shall be passed through the hoop."

"You're bluffing," Vadne said. "You won't throw away your Kingdom just to get at me."

But the King was not bluffing. He gave her one more chance, then had the hoop brought.

"I'll change it back to its original size," she threatened. "Then you won't be able to use it."

"You are very likely to go through it anyway," the King said, and there was something in his expression that cowed her. She stepped through the hoop and was gone.

The King turned to the Zombie Master. "It is a matter of principle," he explained. "I cannot allow any subject to commit such a crime with impunity. We shall ransack this Castle to locate Millie in whatever form she may be, and shall search out every avenue of magic that might restore her. Perhaps periodically we can recall Vadne from storage to see if she is ready to restore the maid. In time-"

"Time…" the Zombie Master repeated brokenly. They all knew the project could take a lifetime.

"Meanwhile, I apologize to you most abjectly for what has occurred, and will facilitate your return to your castle in whatever manner I can. I hope some year we will meet again in better circumstances."

"No, we shall not meet again."

Dor did not like the sound of that, but kept quiet

"I understand," King Roogna said, "Again, I apologize. I would not have asked you to bring your zombies here, had I known what form the curse would take. I am sorry to see them go."

"They are not going," the Zombie Master said.

Dor felt gathering dread. What was the Zombie Master about to do, in his betrayal and grief? He could destroy everything, and there was no way to stop him except by killing him. Dor held his arms rigid, refusing to touch his sword.

"But nothing holds you here now," King Roogna said.

"I did not buy Millie with my aid, I did not bargain for her hand!" the Zombie Master cried. "I came here because I realized it would please her, and I would not wish to displease her even in death by changing that. My zombies will remain here as long as they are needed, to see Castle Roogna through this crisis and any others that arise. They are yours for eternity, if you want them."

Dor's mouth dropped open.

"Oh, I want them!" the King agreed. "I will set aside a fine graveyard for them, to rest in comfort between crises. I will name them the honored guardians of Castle Roogna. Yet-"

"Enough," the Zombie Master said, and turned to Dor. But he did not speak. He gave Dor one enigmatic glance, then walked slowly out of the room.

"Then I have lost," Murphy said. "My curse worked, but has been overwhelmed by the Zombie Master's loyalty. I cannot overcome the zombies." He, too, walked away.

That left Dor, Jumper, and the King. "This is a sad victory," Roogna said.

Dor could only agree. "We'll stay to help you clean up the premises, Your Majesty. Then Jumper and I must return to our own land,"

They made their desolate way to the dining room, but no one cared to finish breakfast. They went to work on the cleanup chore, burying unzombied bodies outside, removing refuse from inside, putting away fallen books in the library. The main palace had not yet been built, but the library stood as it would be eight hundred years hence, apart from details of decor. One large tome had somehow strayed to the dumbwaiter; Dor held the volume for a moment, struck by a nagging emotion, then filed it on the shelf in the library.

In the afternoon they found the Zombie Master hanging from a rafter. He had committed suicide. Somehow Dor had known-or should have known-that it could come to this. The man's love had been too sudden, his loss too unfair. The Zombie Master had known Millie would die, known what he would do. This was what he had meant when he told the King they would not meet again.

Yet when they cut him down, the most amazing and macabre aspect of this disaster manifested: the Zombie Master was not precisely dead. He had somehow converted himself into a zombie.

The zombie shuffled aimlessly out of the Castle, and was seen no more. Yet Dor was sure it was suffering-and would suffer eternally, for zombies never died. What awful punishment the Zombie Master had wreaked upon himself in his bereavement!

"In a way, it is fitting," King Roogna murmured. "He has become one of his own."

The lesser personnel of the Castle, whom the King had sent away for the crisis, were now returning. The maids and the cooks, the steeds and dragons. Activity resumed, yet to Dor the halls seemed empty. What a victory they had won! A victory of grief and regret and hopelessness.

Finally Dor and Jumper prepared to depart, knowing the spell that placed them here in the tapestry world would soon bring them home. They wanted to be away from Castle Roogna when it happened. "Rule well, King Roogna," Dor said as he shook the monarch's hand for the last time.

"I shall do my best, Magician Dor," Roogna replied. "I wish you every success and happiness in your own land, and I know that when your time comes to rule-"

Dor made a deprecating gesture. He had learned a lot, here-more than he cared to. He didn't want to think about being King.

"I have a present for you," Jumper said, presenting the King with a box. "It is the puzzle-tapestry the Zombie Master gave to me. I am not able to take it with me. I ask you to assemble it at your leisure and hang it from the wall of whatever room you deem fit. It should provide you with many hours of pleasure."

"It shall have a place of honor, always," the King said, accepting it.

Then Dor thought of something. "I, too, have an important object I can't take with me. But I can recover it, after eight hundred years, if you will be so kind as to spell it into the tapestry."

"No problem at all," King Roogna said. Dor gave him the vial of zombie-restorative elixir. "I shall cause it to respond to the words "Savior of Xanth.'"

"Uh, thanks," Dor said, embarrassed.

He went up to the ramparts to bid farewell to the remaining centaurs. Cedric was not there, of course, having returned home. But Egor Ogre was present, and Dor shook his huge bony hand, cautiously.

That was it. Dor was no more adept at partings than at greetings. They walked away from the Castle, across the deserted, blasted battlefield-and into a vicious patch of saw grass at the edge. Jumper, more alert than Dor, drew him back from the swipe of the nearest saw just barely in time.

They were back in the jungle. The visible, tangible wilderness, where there was little subtlety about evil. Somehow it seemed like home.

Yet as they sloughed methodically through the forest, avoiding traps, skirting perils, and nullifying hazards in dull routine fashion, Dor found himself disturbed by more than human-related grief. He mulled it over, and finally had it.

"It is you, Jumper," he said. "We are about to return home. But there I am a boy, and you are a tiny spider. We'll never see each other again! And-" He felt the boyish tears emerging. "Oh, Jumper, you're my best friend, you've been by my side through the greatest and awfulest adventure of my life, and-and-"

"I thank you for your concern," the spider chittered. "But we need not separate completely. My home is by the tapestry. There are many fat lazy bugs trying to eat into the fabric, and now I have special reason to keep them from it. Look for me there, and you will surely find me."

"But-but in three months I'll only be an older boy-and you'll be dead!"

"It is my natural span," Jumper assured him. "I will live as much in that time as you do in the next thirty years. I will tell my offspring about you. I am thankful that chance has given me this opportunity to learn about your frame of reference. I would never otherwise have realized that the giant species have intelligence and feelings too. It has been a great and satisfying education for me."

"And for me!" Dor exclaimed. Then, spontaneously, he offered his hand.

The spider solemnly lifted a forefoot and shook Dor's hand.

Chapter 12

Return

"One moment Dor was swinging on spider silk across a minor chasm; the next he was standing on the floor of the Castle Roogna drawing room before the tapestry.

"Is that you, Dor?" a familiar voice inquired.

Dor looked around and spied a tiny, humanoid figure. "Of course it's me, Grundy," he told the golem. "Who else would it be?"

"The Brain Coral, of course. That's who it's been for the past two weeks."

Of course. Quickly Dor readjusted. He was no longer a great-thewed Mundane; he was a small, spindly twelve-year-old boy. His own body. Well, it would grow in due course.

He focused on the tapestry, looking for Jumper. The spider should be where they had been when the spell reverted, in the wilderness-ah, there was a speck. Dor leaned forward and spied the tiny creature, so small he could crush it with the tip of his littlest finger. Not that he ever would do a thing like that! It raised a hairlike foreleg in a wave.

"It says you look strange in your real form," Grundy said. "It says-"

"I need no translation!" Dor snapped. Suddenly his eyes were blinded by tears, whether of joy or grief he was uncertain. "I'll-I'll see you again, Jumper. Soon. Within a few days-a few months of your time-I mean-oh, Jumper!"

"Who cares about a dumb bug?" Grundy asked.

Dor clenched his fist, for an instant tempted to smash the golem into the pulp from which he had been derived. But he controlled himself. How could Grundy know what Jumper meant to Dor? Grundy was of the old order, unenlightened.

There was nothing Dor could do. The spider had his own life to lead, and Dor had his. Their friendship was independent of size or time. But oh, he felt a choke in his heart!

Was this another aspect of becoming a man? Was it worth it?

Yet Dor had friends here, too. He must not allow his experience of the tapestry world to alienate him from his own world. He turned away from the tapestry. "Hello, Grundy. How are things in the real world?"

"Don't ask!" the golem exclaimed. "You know the Brain Coral, who took over your body? Thing was like a child-I mean even childier than you, at times-poking into everything, making faux passes-"

"What?"

"Cultural errors. Like belching Into your soup. That thing really kept me hopping!"

"Sounds like fun," Dor said, smiling. Already he was getting used to this little body. It lacked the strength of the Mundane giant, but it wasn't a bad body. "Listen, I have to talk to that Coral. I owe it a favor."

"No you don't. You owe it a punch in the mouth, if anything. If it has a mouth. All's even-it got the fun of using your body, while you went into tapestry land for a nice vacation."

Some vacation! "I owe it from eight hundred years ago."

"Oh. Well, sure, tell the gnome."

"Who? Oh, the Good Magician Humfrey. I will. Right now I have to go see Jonathan the zombie."

"Oh, yeah. You got the stuff?"

"I got it. I think."

"This will be something! The first restored zombie to go with the first restored ghost! For centuries, she untouchable and he not worth touching. Grisly romance!"

Dor might have snapped something nasty at the golem, but recent experience had lent him discretion. So he changed the subject. "Maybe I'd better check first with King Roog-King Trent. He's the one who put me up to this."

Grundy shrugged. "Just so I don't have to exchange another word with the Coral."

"That's next." Dor couldn't help teasing the golem a little,

"Look, you know what that creature was doing with your body and Irene?"

"Who?" Dor was distracted, thinking about his upcoming interview with the Brain Coral. What kind of favor would he have to repay, after eight hundred years?

"Princess Irene, daughter of the King. Remember her?"

"Well, it has been eight centuries, in a manner of-" Dor did a double take. "What did my body do with Irene?"

'Coral was real curious about the distinction between male and female anatomy. Coral's asexual, or bisexual, or something, see, and-"

"Enough! Do you realize I'm about to see her father?"

"Why do you think I mentioned the matter? I tried to cover for you, but King Trent's pretty savvy and Irene's a snitch. So I'm not sure-"

"When did I-I mean, my body-?"

"Yesterday."

"Then there may still be time. She doesn't speak to her father for days at a time."

"In a case like this she might make an exception."

"She might indeed!" Dor agreed worriedly.

"Ah, what does it matter? The King knows she's a brat."

"It is my own reputation I am thinking of." Dor had been accorded the respect due a grown man, in the tapestry world, and the feeling was now important to him. But it was more than that. Other people had feelings too. He thought of how Vadne had glowed when the Zombie Master complimented her talent-and how Murphy's curse had perverted that into her doom and his. And Millie's. Feelings were important-even those of brats.

Dor addressed the floor. "Where is Irene?"

"Hasn't been here for days."

He moved into the hall, questioning as he went. Soon he located her-in her own apartment in the palace. "You go elsewhere," he told Grundy. "I have to handle this myself."

"Aw," the golem complained, "Your fights with Irene are so much fun." But he obediently departed. Dor inhaled deeply, the act reminding him fleetingly of Heavenly Helen Harpy, squared his shoulders, then knocked politely. Quickly she opened the door.

Irene was only eleven, but with his new perspective Dor saw that she was an extremely pretty child, about to blossom into a fair young woman. The lines of her face were good, and though she had not yet developed the feminine contours, the framework was present for an excellent enhancement. Give her two years, maybe three, and she might rival Millie the maid. With a different talent, of course,

"Well?" she said, with the sharpness of nervousness.

"May I come in?"

"You sure did yesterday. Want to play house again?"

"No." Dor entered and closed the door quietly behind him as she retreated. How to proceed? Obviously she had strong reactions and was wary of him without actually being frightened. She had potted plants all around the room, and one was a miniature tangler: she had no need to fear anyone! She hadn't told her father yet; he had, in the course of locating her, determined that she had not been near the library in the past day.

Irene was a palace brat whose talent fell well short of Magician caliber. No one would ever call her Sorceress. She had a sharp tongue and some obnoxious mannerisms. Yet, Dor reminded himself again, she was a person. He had always held her in a certain contempt because her talent was substantially beneath his own-but so was Millie's. Magic was important, certainly, and in some situations critical-but in other situations it hardly mattered. The Zombie Master had recognized that

Now Dor felt ashamed, not for what his body might have done yesterday, but for what he, Dor, had done a month ago, and a year ago. Stepping on the feelings of another person. It did not matter that he had not done it maliciously; as a full Magician, in line to inherit the crown of Xanth, he should have recognized the natural resentment and frustration of those who lacked his opportunities. Like Irene, daughter of two of the three top talents in the older generation, doomed to the status of a nonentity because she had only ordinary magic. And was female. How would he feel in such a circumstance? How had his father Bink felt, as a child of no apparent magic?

"Irene, I-I guess I've come to apologize." He remembered how freely King Roogna had apologized to the Zombie Master, though the problem had only deviously been the fault of the King. Royalty had no need to be above humility! "I had no right to do what I did, and I'm sorry. It won't happen again."

She looked at him quizzically. "You're talking about yesterday?"

"I'm talking about my whole life!" he flared. "I-I have strong magic, yes. But I was born with it; it's an accident of fate, no personal credit to me. You have magic yourself, good magic, better than average. I make dead things talk; you make live things grow. There are situations in which your talent is far more useful than mine. I…looked down on you, and that was wrong. I can't blame you for reacting negatively; I would do the same. In fact you fought back with more spunk than I ever did. You're a person, Irene. A child, as I am, but still a human being who deserves respect. Yesterday-" He stalled, for he had no clear idea what the Coral had done. He should have gotten the specifics from Grundy. He spread his hands. "I'm sorry, and I apologize, and-"

She raised a finger in a little mannerism she had, silencing him. "You're taking back yesterday?"

Dor couldn't help thinking of his own yesterday, piping goblins and harpies after him with the magic flute, swinging on spider silk inside the Gap, detonating the forget spell that still polluted the Gap, hauling corpses from battlefield to laboratory to make zombies-unparalleled adventure, now forever past Yesterday was eight hundred years ago. "I can't take back yesterday. It's part of my life, now. But-"

"Listen, you think I'm some naive twit who doesn't know what's what?"

"No, Irene. I was the naive one. I-"

"You claim you didn't know what you were doing?"

Dor sighed. How true that statement was! "I really can't make excuses. I'll take my medicine. You have a right to be angry. If you want to tell your father-"

"Father, hell!" she snapped. "I'll take care of this myself! Ill give back exactly what you gave me!"

Dor was not reassured. "As you wish. It is your right."

"Close your eyes and stand still."

She was going to hit him. Dor knew it. But it seemed he had it coming. He had let the Brain Coral use his body; he was responsible. He closed his eyes and stood still, forcing his hands to hang loose at his sides, undefensively. Maybe this was the best way to settle it.

He heard her step close, almost felt the movement of her body. She was raising her arm. He hoped she wouldn't hit him low. Better on the chest or face, though it marked him.

It was on the mouth. But strangely soft. In fact-

In fact, she was kissing him!

Totally surprised, Dor found himself putting his arms around her, partly for balance, mostly because that was what one was supposed to do when kissed by a girl. He felt her body yield to him, her hair shifting with the motion. She smelled and tasted and felt pleasant.

Then she drew back a little within his embrace and looked at him. "What do you think of that?" she asked.

"If you intended that to be punishment, it didn't work," he said. "You're sort of nice to kiss."

"So are you," she said. "You surprised me yesterday. I thought you were going to hit me or yank off my panties or something, and I was all set to scream, and it was all awkward and bumpy, noses colliding and stuff. So I practiced last night on my big doll. Was it better this time?"

A kiss? That was what they had done yesterday? Dor's knees felt weak! Trust Grundy the golem to blow it up into something gossipy! "There's no comparison!"

"Should I take off my clothes now?"

Dor froze, chagrined. "Uh-"

She laughed. "I thought that would faze you! If I wouldn't do it yesterday, what makes you think I'd do it today?"

"Nothing," Dor said, relaxing with a shuddering breath. He had seen naked nymphs galore, in the tapestry, but this was real. "Nothing at all. Nothing absolutely at all."

"You want to know what yesterday was?" she demanded. "It was the first time you really got interested in me, for anything. The first time anybody got interested in me who didn't want a plant grown fast, instead of calling me a palace brat who should have been a sorceress but could only grow stupid green stuff. Do you have any idea what it's like having two Magician-caliber parents and being a big disappointment to them because not only are you a girl, you have lousy talent?"

"You have good talent!" Dor protested. "And there's nothing wrong with being a girl!"

"Oh sure, sure," she countered. "You never had no talent. You never were not male. You never had people being polite to your face because of who your father was and what your mother might do to them, while they cut you down behind your back and called you skunk cabbage and garden-variety talent and weed girl and-"

"I never called you that!" Dor cried.

"Not in so many words. But you thought it, didn't you?"

Dor blushed, unable to deny it. "I…won't think it again," he promised lamely.

"And on top of that," she continued grimly, "you know your own parents only stand up for you because they have to, but privately they think just the same as all other people do-"

"Not the King," Dor protested. "He's not that type-"

"Shut up!" she flared, her eyes filling with angry tears. Dor did, and she composed herself. Girls of any age were good at quick composures. "So then yesterday you were different. You kept asking questions, and you paid real attention, just as if you didn't have a sexpot like Millie the ghost in your cheesy house to sneak peeks at and get the whole story, and you didn't say a word about magic, or make anything talk, or anything. It was just you and me. All you wanted to know was what it was like being a girl. It was as if something else were speaking, something awful smart and ignorant, wanting to learn from me. First I thought you were poking fun at me, teasing me-but you never smiled. Then you wanted to kiss me, and I thought, Now he's going to bite my lip or pinch me and fall over laughing, but you didn't laugh. So I kissed you, and it was awful, I bruised my nose, what the hell, I thought at least you'd know how but you didn't, and you just said, "Thank you, Princess" and left, and I lay on my bed a long time trying to figure out where the joke was, what you were telling the boys-"

"I didn't-" Dor protested.

"I know. I snooped. Some. You didn't say anything, and neither did the golem. So it seemed you really were interested in me, and-" She smiled, and she looked brilliantly sweet when she did that. "And it was the greatest experience of my whole life! You're a real Magician, and-"

"No, that has nothing to do with-"

"So I practiced kissing, just in case. Then you came in just now apologizing, as if it were something dirty. So I thought you hadn't meant it, had just been slumming, and-"

"No!" Dor cried in sudden anguish. "That wasn't it at all!"

"I know that now. Can't blame me for wondering, though." She smiled again. "Listen, Dor, I know tomorrow it'll be just like before, and I'll be a snotty palace brat to you, but-would you kiss me again?"

Dor felt deeply complimented. "Gladly, Irene." He bent to kiss her again. He was young yet, and so was she, but it was a foretaste of what they might experience when they both grew up.

"Maybe again, sometime?" she inquired wistfully. "I sort of like being a girl, now."

"Sometime," he agreed. "But we've got to fight some, too, or the others will tease us. We're still too young-" But not very much too young, he thought. He could see the road ahead rather clearly now, after his tapestry experience.

"I know." They broke, and there seemed to be nothing more to say, so Dor went to the door and opened it. He paused to look back at her, remembering what she had said about her parents being disappointed in her. She-was sitting on her bed, bathed in a forlorn joy-

"Not the King!" he repeated quietly. "I believe that."

Irene smiled. "No, not the King."

"And not me."

"Same thing," she said.

He stepped out and closed the door, knowing he wasn't through with her. Not today or tomorrow, or for some time to come. Not through at all.

Grundy was waiting for him. "Any black eyes? Broken teeth? Throttle marks? It was awful quiet in there."

"She's a nice girl," Dor said, walking toward the library. "Funny I never noticed that before."

"Brother!" the golem expostulated. "First he notices Millie the ghost, then Irene the brat. What's he coming to?"

Maturity, Dor thought. He was growing up, and new horizons were opening, and he was glad.

They arrived at the library. "Come in," King Trent called before Dor could knock.

Dor entered and took the seat indicated. "Remember how you sent me on a quest, Your Majesty? I have returned."

The King held up one hand, palm out. Dor thought of Jumper's mode of greeting. "Let me not deceive you, Dor. Humfrey advised me, and I could not resist watching the tapestry. I have a fair notion what you have been doing."

"You mean the tapestry showed me-what I was doing while I was doing it?"

"Certainly, once I knew which character to watch. You and that spider-you're lucky you didn't kill yourself in the Gap! But there was no way for me to revoke the spell before its natural span expired. I sweated to think of what I would have to say to your father, if-"

Dor laughed convulsively. "And I was worried about Irene's father!"

King Trent smiled. "Dor, I really don't like to snoop around the palace, but the Queen does. She quickly noticed the change in you, saw that you never used your talent, and found out about the Brain Coral. Her picture hangs in Irene's room; the Queen merely substituted her own illusion image for the picture and had what they call in Mundania a ringside seat. She watched everything yesterday-and today. And advised me, just now."

Dor shrugged. "I stand by what I did. Both days."

"I know you do, Dor. You're coming onto manhood nicely. Do not assume the Queen is your enemy. She wants her daughter to follow her, and knows what is required though she may resent it strongly. I am aware how ticklish the situation in the bedroom was. You handled it with the finesse I would expect in a leader."

That wasn't finesse! I meant every word!"

"Finesse and meaning are not mutually incompatible."

"Irene's not bad at all, once you get to know her! She-" Dor stopped, embarrassed. "What am I doing, telling you this? You're her father!"

The King clapped a friendly hand on Dor's shoulder. "You have pleased me, Magician. Now through your adventure, I know the secret of the flute and the hoop in the Royal arsenal; they could be extremely useful on occasion. I shall not keep you from the completion of your quest. You must wrap it up, for there will be assignments for you in today's world, as you learn to govern Xanth." He walked to a low bookshelf and brought out a rolled rug. "We saved this for your convenience." It was the magic carpet

"Uh, a, thanks, Your Majesty. I do have some traveling to do."

Dor mounted the rug. "Brain Coral," he told it, and it took off.

As the carpet ascended the sky and the landscape of modern Xanth opened out like a tapestry, Dor felt abrupt nostalgia for the tapestry world he had left. It was not that that world was superior to his own; its magic was generally cruder, its politics more violent. It was his experience of manhood and friendship, especially with Jumper. He knew he would never be able to recover the personal magic of that experience. Yet, as his session with Irene had shown, there was unexpected magic in this world too. All he had to do was appreciate it.

Down into the underworld, through the cavern passages. Goblins still reigned here, he knew, though they had almost disappeared on the surface of Xanth. What had happened to them? They had not all been slaughtered at the battle of Castle Roogna, and the forget spell would not have wiped them out Had there been some later goblin calamity?

Then he was at the subterranean lake. Modern transport was certainly an improvement over ancient; this had hardly taken any time at all.

No Goblin calamity, the Brain Coral thought to him. The harpy curse on the goblin populace was nullified on the surface, but lingered in the depths. Therefore the goblins above became, generation by generation, more intelligent, handsome, and noble, until they were no longer recognizable as monsters. The only true goblins today are those of the caverns.

"Then I wiped out their species!" Dor exclaimed. "In a way I never anticipated!"

Their species, as you knew it, was a horrendous distortion, a burden to themselves as much as to others. They cared so little for themselves they were glad to die in goblin-sea tactics when storming a castle. You did well in releasing them from their curse, and in restoring the male of the species to the harpies.

"About that," Dor said. "You gave up Prince Harold Harpy as a favor to me, and now I have come to return the favor, as I said I would."

No need, Magician. When you came two weeks ago, I did not make the connection. After all, you wore a different body when I first met you, eight centuries ago. But in the past two weeks I worked it out. You returned that favor eight hundred years ago.

"No, I came back here to my own time. So-"

You brought victory to King Roogna. Therefore his rival Magician Murphy retired from politics, preferring to wait until some better situation arose. He came to me.

"Murphy was exiled?" Dor asked, startled.

It was voluntary. King Roogna would have liked to have his company, but Murphy was restless. He is in my storage now. Perhaps one century I will release him, when Xanth has need of his talent. Now, in exchange for the harpy Prince, I have Murphy and Vadne, who may one day make a fine pair. You owe me nothing.

"I, uh, guess so, if you see it that way," Dor said.

"Still-"

"If ever you choose to travel from your body again, keep me in mind, the Coral thought. I learned a great deal about life, though I do not yet properly comprehend the sexual nature of Man.

"No one does," Dor said, smiling.

"I do not experience emotion. But in your body I did. I liked the little Princess.

"She is likable," Dor agreed. "Uh, look-I promised to have the access hoop shrunk back to ring size, but-"

Forgiven. Farewell, Magician.

"Farewell, Coral." The rug took off and zoomed back through the cavernly passages. When it emerged into the sky it hesitated, until Dor remembered that he had not told it where to go next. "Good Magician Humfrey's castle."

Dor was reminded again that Humfrey's castle stood where the Zombie Master's castle had once been. The two were of different designs; probably the site had been razed more than once, and rebuilt.

Humfrey was as usual poring over a massive tome, paying no attention to what went on around him-supposedly. "What, you again?" he demanded irritably.

"Listen, gnome-" Grundy began.

The Good Magician smiled-a rare thing for him. "Why listen, when I can read? Observe." And he gestured them to look at the book, over his shoulder.

"But I'm not a killer!" Dor protested vehemently. I'm only a twelve-year-old-" He caught himself, but didn't know how to correct his slip.

"A twelve-year veteran of warfare!" she exclaimed. "Surely you have killed before!"

It was grossly misplaced, but her sympathy gratified him strongly. His tired body reacted; his left arm reached out to enclose her hips in its embrace, as she stood beside him. He squeezed her against his side. Oh, her posterior was resilient!

"Why, Dor!" she said, surprised and pleased. "You like me!"

Dor forced himself to drop his arm. What business did he have, touching her? Especially in the vicinity of her cushiony posteriori "More than I can say."

"I like you too, Dor." She sat down in his lap, her derriere twice as soft and bouncy as before. Again his body reacted, enfolding her in an arm. Dor had never before experienced such sensation. Suddenly he was aware that his body knew what to do, if only he let it. That she was willing. That it could be an experience like none he had imagined in his young life. He was twelve; his body was older. It could do it.

"Oh, Dor," she murmured, bending her head to kiss him on the mouth. Her lips were so sweet he-

The flea chomped him hard on the left ear. Dor bashed at it-and boxed his ear. The pain was brief but intense.

He stood up, dumping Millie roughly to her feet. "I have to get some rest," he said.

She made no further sound, but only stood there, eyes downcast He knew he had hurt her terribly. She had committed the cardinal maidenly sin of being forward, and been rebuked. But what could he do? He did not exist in her world. He would soon depart, leaving her alone for eight hundred years, and when they rejoined he would be twelve years old again. He had no right!

But oh, what might have been, were he more of a man.

Dor found himself blushing. "That's-you mean that book records everything, even my private feelings?" Yet obviously it did.

"We were not about to let a future King of Xanth go unmonitored," Humfrey remarked. "Especially when our own history was involved. Not that we could do anything about it, once the tapestry spell was cast. Still, as vicarious experience-"

"Was it valid?" Dor asked. "I mean, did I really change history?"

"That is a question that may never be answered to absolute satisfaction. I would say you did, and you did not."

"A typically gnomish answer," Grundy said.

"One must consider the framework of Xanth history," the Good Magician continued. "A series of Waves of Mundane conquest, with the population decimated again and again. If every person lived and reproduced without a break, any interruption in that process would eliminate many of today's residents. All the descendants of that person. But if a subsequent Wave wiped them out anyway-" He shrugged. "There could be considerable change, all nullified a generation or two later. In which case there would be no paradox relating to our own time. I would say that the original Castle Roogna engagement was real, and that you changed that reality. You rewrote the script. But you changed only the details of that particular episode, not the overall course of history. Does it matter?"

"I guess not," Dor said.

"About that page I was reading," Humfrey said. "It seems you have been concerned about manhood. Did it occur to you that you might be more of a man in the declining of the maid's offer than in the acceptance of it?"

"No," Dor admitted.

"There is somewhat more to manhood than sex."

As if on cue, the gorgon entered the room, in a splendidly sexy dress but still without a face. "That's male propaganda," she said from the vacuum. "There is certainly more to womanhood than sex, but a man is a simpler organism."

"Oooo, what you said!" Grundy exclaimed, rubbing his tiny forefingers together in a condemning gesture.

"I said organism," she said. "You authenticate my case."

"Get out of here, both of you," Humfrey snapped. "The Magician and I are trying to hold a meaningful dialogue."

"Thought you'd never ask," Grundy said. He hopped to the gorgon's shoulder, peering into the nothingness framed by her snake-ringlets. A snakelet hissed at him, "Same to you, slinky," he snapped at it, and the snake retreated. He peered down into the awesome crevice of her bodice. "Come on, honey; let's go down to the kitchen for a snack."

When they were alone, Humfrey flipped a few pages of the history tome idly. "I was surprised to learn that the Zombie Master's castle was on this very site," he remarked. "Were he alive today, I would gladly share this castle with him. He was a remarkably fine Magician, and a fine man, too."

"Yes," Dor agreed. "He was the real key to King Roogna's success. He deserved so much better than the tragedy he suffered." He felt another surge of remorse.

Humfrey sighed, "What has been, has been."

"Uh, have you given the gorgon your Answer yet?"

"Not yet. Her year is not yet complete."

"You are the most mercenary creature I know!" Dor said admiringly. "Every time I think I've seen the ultimate, you come up with a worse wrinkle. Are you going to marry her?"

"What do you think?"

Dor visualized the gorgon's body with historical perspective. "She's a knockout. If she wants you, you're sunk. She doesn't need a face to turn a man to stone. In a manner of speaking."

The Good Magician nodded. "You have learned a new manner of speaking! The key concept is 'she wants.' Do you really think she does?"

"Why else did she come here?" Dor demanded, perplexed.

"Her original motive was based largely on ignorance. How do you think she might feel once she knows me well?"

"Uh-" Dor searched for something diplomatic to say. The Good Magician had his points, but was no easy man to approach, or to get along with.

"Therefore the kindest thing to do is to give her sufficient opportunity to know me-well enough," the Magician concluded.

"The year!" Dor exclaimed. "That wait for her Answer! Not for you-for her! So she can change her mind, if-"

"Precisely." Humfrey looked sad. "It has been a most enticing dream, however, even for an old gnome."

Dor nodded, realizing that the Good Magician had not been proof against the attractions of the gorgon any more than the lonely Zombie Master had been proof against Millie. The two Magicians were similar in their fashion-and a similar tragedy loomed.

"Now we must conclude your case," Humfrey said briskly, refusing to dwell further on the inevitable. "You owe me no further service, of course; the history book has provided it all, and I consider the investment well worthwhile. I have now fathomed many long-standing riddles, such as the origin of the forget spell on the Gap. So I may send you on your way, your account quit."

"Thank you," Dor said. "I have brought back your magic carpet."

"Oh, yes. But I shall not leave you stranded. I believe I have a conjuration spell stashed away somewhere; have the gorgon locate it for you as you leave. It will take you home in a flash."

"Thank you." It was a relief not to have to contemplate another trek through the jungle. "Now I must go give the restorative elixir to Jonathan."

The Good Magician frowned at him. "You have had an especially difficult decision there, Dor. I believe you have acted correctly. When you become King, the discipline of emotion and action you have learned in the course of this quest will serve you in excellent stead. It may be more of an asset to you than your magic talent. King Trent's hiatus in Mundania matured him similarly. It seems there are qualities that cannot be inculcated well in a secure, familiar environment. You are already more of a man than most people ever get to be."

"Uh, thanks," Dor mumbled. He had yet to master the art of graciously receiving compliments. But the Magician had already returned to reading his tome. Dor moved toward the door. Just as he left the room, Humfrey remarked without looking up: "You rather remind me of your father." Suddenly Dor felt very good.

Grundy and the gorgon were sharing a scream soda in the kitchen; Dor heard the noise from several rooms away. They were using straws; hers poked into her nothing face, where the soda disappeared. She had a face, all right; it just could not be seen. Dor wondered what it would be like to kiss her. In the dark she would seem entirely normal. Except for those little snakes.

"I need the conjuration spell," Dor said. "The one that flashes."

The screams faded as she left the soda. "I know exactly where it is. I have every spell classified and properly filed. First time there's been order in this castle in a century." She reached for an upper shelf, her figure elongating enticingly. What a woman she would be, if only she had a visible face! But no, that would be ruinous; her face petrified men, literally.

"There," she said, bringing down an object that looked like a closed tube. It had a lens on one end, and a switch on the side. "You just push the switch forward, there, when you're ready."

"I'm ready now. I want to go to the tapestry room in Castle Roogna. Are you coming, Grundy?"

"One moment." The golem sucked in the last scream from the soda-no more than a whimper, actually-and crossed the room.

"Do you really want to marry the Good Magician-now that you know him?" Dor asked the gorgon curiously.

"What would he do for socks and spells, without me?" she retorted. "This castle needs a woman."

"Uh, yes. All castles do. But-"

"What kind of a man would give a pretty girl board and room for a year, never touching her, just to think it over, knowing she probably would change her mind in that period?"

"A good man. A patient one. A serious one." Then Dor nodded, understanding the thrust of her question. "One worth marrying."

"I thought I wanted him, when I came here. Now I am sure of it. Under all that grouch is a remarkably fine Magician, and a fine man, too."

Almost exactly the words Humfrey had used to describe the Zombie Master! But it seemed that tragedy was about to bypass the gnome, after all. Parallels went only so far. "I wish you every happiness."

"Would you believe there are three happiness spells on that shelf?" She winked. "And a potency spell too-but he won't need that, I suspect"

Dor eyed her once again with the memory of his erstwhile Mundane barbarian body. "Right," he agreed.

"Actually, all he needs for happiness is a good cheap historical adventure tome, like that one he's reading now, about ancient Xanth. I'm going to read it too, as soon as he finishes, I understand it has lots of sex and sorcery and a really stupid barbarian hero-"

Hastily, Dor pushed the switch. The spell flashed-and he stood before the tapestry. "Savior of Xanth," he said, feeling foolish, and his vial of restorative elixir popped out from whatever invisible place it had lain for eight hundred years. He had to catch it before it could shatter on the floor, but he lacked the muscle and reflexes his Mundane body had had, and missed. The vial plummeted-And jerked short on an invisible thread, and swung there, undamaged. A silken dragline had been attached to it. "Not this time, Murphy!" Dor cried as he nabbed it. He looked for his friend Jumper, who had surely rescued him again in this fashion, but did not see him.

Now, with the object of his quest in hand, he wondered: how could an object be spelled into a tapestry-within-a-tapestry-how could it emerge from the main tapestry? Or were the two tapestries the same? They had to be, because-yet they couldn't be, because-He seemed to be skirting paradox here, but couldn't quite grasp it. Anyway, he had the elixir. Best not to question to deeply; he might not like the answer.

Yet he lingered, watching the tapestry. He saw Castle Roogna, with its returning personnel cleaning out the last of the debris of battle and doing preparatory work for the zombie graveyard beyond the moat-the graveyard those zombies still resided in today. They had protected the Castle well, all these centuries, but now it was in no danger, so they lay quietly out of sight. Except for Jonathan, the strange exception. It seemed there were personality differences among zombies, just as there were in people, "One in every crowd," he murmured.

His eye focused on the spot he had vacated. He and Jumper had been trying to get as close to the place they had entered the Fourth Wave world as possible. They had cut into the jungle-and the jungle had tried to cut into them, when they encountered that saw grass-navigated the Gap with the use of silk lines for descent and ascent-fortunately the Gap dragon had been elsewhere at the time, perhaps suffering from the forget spell-and forged into northern Xanth. As they drew near the spot, their presence seemed to activate the spell, and it had reverted.

There, near that place, was the Mundane giant. He had no huge spider now as companion. He had wandered to a stockaded hut, begging a place to stay the night. He faced the mistress of the hut, an attractive young woman. As Dor watched, the tiny figures animated.

"What are they saying?" Dor asked Grundy.

"I thought you said you needed no translation!"

"Grundy-"

The golem hastily translated: "I am a barbarian, recently disenchanted. I was transformed, or driven, into the body of a flea, while an alien shade governed my body."

"The flea!" Dor exclaimed. "The one that hid in my hair and kept biting me! That was the Mundane!"

"Shut up while I'm translating," Grundy said. "This lip reading is hard." He resumed: "That creature did its best to destroy me, yanking me across the Gap on a rope, throwing me among zombies, thrusting me single-handed against an army of monsters-"

"Now that's a distortion!" Dor cried indignantly.

"And that awful giant spider!" the translation continued. "I lived in daily fear it would discover my flea body and-" The barbarian shuddered. "Now at last I have fought free. But I am tired and hungry. May I stay the night?"

The woman looked him over. "For a story like that you can stay three nights! Know any more?"

"Many more," the barbarian said humbly.

"Nobody who can lie like that can be all bad."

"Right," he agreed abjectly.

She smiled. "I am a widow. My husband was roasted by a dragon. I need a man to run the farm-a strong, patient man, not too bright, willing to settle for…" She spread her hands and half-turned, inhaling.

The barbarian noted her inhalation. It was a good one, the kind barbarians normally paid attention to. He smiled. "Well, I'm not too patient."

"That's close enough," the woman said.

Dor turned away, satisfied. His erstwhile Mundane body would be as happy as he deserved to be.

Something about this scenelet reminded Dor of Cedric the centaur. How was he making out with Celeste, the naughty filly? But Dor restrained himself from peeking; it really was not his business, any more.

Something caught his eye. He focused on the corner of the tapestry. There was tiny Jumper, waving. There was another little spider beside him. "You've found a friend!" Dor exclaimed.

"That's no friend, that's his mate," Grundy said. "She wants to know where he was, those five years he was gone. So when the popping-out of the elixir vial alerted him to your presence, he brought her out here to meet you."

"Tell her it's true, all true," Dor said. Then: "Five years?"

"Two weeks, your time. It only seemed like two weeks to him, too. But back at his home-"

"Ah, I understand." Dor exchanged amenities with the skeptical Mrs. Jumper, bade his friend farewell again, promised to return next day-month or so, and strode from the room feeling better.

"You move with a new assurance," Grundy remarked. He seemed sad. "You won't be needing me much longer."

"Penalty of growing up," Dor said, "One year I'll get married, and you can bodyguard my son, exactly as you have me."

"Gee," the golem said, flattered.

They departed the Castle, going to Dor's cheese cottage. He felt increasing apprehension and nostalgia as he approached his home. His parents should still be away on their Mundane mission; only Millie would be there. Millie the maid, Millie the ghost, Millie the nurse. What had the Brain Coral animating his body said to her? What should he say to her now? Did she have any notion what he had been doing the past two weeks?

Dor steeled himself and went inside. He didn't knock; it was his own cottage, after all. He was just the lad Millie took care of; she did not know-must never know-that he had been the Magician who looked like a Mundane warrior, way back when.

"Say," Grundy inquired as they passed through the familiar-unfamiliar house toward the kitchen. "What name did you use, in the tapestry?"

"My own name, of course. My name and talent-"

Oh, no! The most certain identifiers of any person in the Land of Xanth were name and talent. He had thoughtlessly given himself away!

"Is that you, Dor?" Millie called musically from the kitchen. Too late to escape!

"Uh, yes." No help for it but to see if she recognized him. Oh, those twelve-year-old-boy mistakes!

"Uh, just talking to a wall." He snapped his fingers at the nearest wall. "Say something, wall!"

"Something," the wall said obligingly.

She came to the kitchen doorway, and she was stunningly beautiful, twelve years older than she had been so recently, but almost regal in her abrupt maturity. Now she had poise, elegance, stature. She had aged, as it were overnight, more than a decade, while Dor had lost a similar amount. A gulf had opened between them, a gulf of age and time, huge as the Gap.

He loved her yet

"Why, you haven't talked to the walls in two weeks," Millie said. Dor knew this had to be true: the Coral had animated his body, but had lacked his special magical talent.

"Is something wrong?" Millie asked. "Why are you staring at me?"

Dor forced his fixed eyes down. "I-" What could he say? "I-seem to remember you from somewhere."

She laughed with the echo of the sweetness and innocence he had known and loved in the tapestry maid. "From this morning, Dor, when I served you breakfast!"

But now he would not be put off. The thing he most feared was recognition; he had to face it now. "Millie-when you were young-before you were a ghost-did you have friends?"

She laughed again, and this time he noticed the fullness and rondure of her body as it laughed with her. "Of course I had friends!"

"Who were they? You never told me." His heart was beating hard.

She frowned. "You're serious, aren't you? But I can't tell you. There was a forget spell detonated in the vicinity, and as a ghost I was near it a long time. I don't remember my friends."

The forget spell! It had made her forget…him. Yet he tried, perversely, driven by an urge he refused to define. "How-did you die?"

"Someone enchanted me. Turned me into a book-"

A book! The book he had found in the dumbwaiter leading from the female room. Vadne must have transformed her into it, then hoisted that tome to the upper floor, and no one had caught on. A stupid mistake, courtesy of Murphy's curse. He himself had placed it on the shelf in the library-where it had remained eight hundred years, unmolested.

"I couldn't even remember what my body was, or where," Millie continued. "Or maybe a spell was on that too. So much was vague, especially at first-and then I was a ghost, and it was easier not to think about it. Ghosts don't have very solid minds." She paused, studying Dor. "But sometimes there are flashes. Your father reminded me of someone-someone I think I loved-but I can't quite remember. Anyway, he's eight hundred years dead, now, and there is Jonathan. I've known Jonathan for centuries, and he's awful nice. When I was alone and lonely and confused, especially after King Roogna died and the Castle fell into oblivion-he had a long and good reign, but it had to end sometime-Jonathan came and helped me to hold on. He didn't seem to mind that I was only a ghost. If only-"

So she had loved Dor-and forgotten, in the ambience of the forget spell. His name and talent-no giveaway after all. Nothing in his birth and youth in this world had alerted her, since she had never known the origin of that bygone hero, and she could hardly be expected to make the connection.

Only Jonathan had been her comfort across the centuries. She had not forgotten Jonathan, because he had always been there. A ghost and a restless zombie, bolstering each other when the rest of the world had forgotten them. Why torture her by restoring her memory of prior heartache? Dor knew what he had to do.

"Millie, I have obtained the elixir to restore Jonathan to life." He held up the vial.

She stared at him, unbelieving. "Dor-now I remember something. Your father-he reminded me of you. Not in appearance, but in-"

"I wasn't born yet!" Dor said harshly, repenting his recent urge to have her remember exactly this. "You've got it backward. I remind you of my father-because I am growing up."

"Yes, yes of course," she agreed uncertainly. "Only somehow-your talent of-I remember talking to pearls in a big nest, or something-"

"Take the elixir," he said, presenting it to her. "Call Jonathan." Oh, Jonathan, he thought in momentary agony. Do you know you fill the shoes of her lover, and of her betrothed? Be good to her, for the sake of what was never allowed to be!

Millie was too distracted to take the vial. "I-still, there is something. A big barbarian named-"

"Jonathan!" Dor bellowed as well as his present body permitted. "Come here!"

The door opened, for Jonathan was always near Millie. The loyalty of centuries! He shuffled into the kitchen, dripping the usual clods of dirt and mold. No matter how much fell, a zombie always had more; it was part of the enchantment. His body was skeletal, his eyes rotten sockets, and the nauseating odor of putrefaction was about him.

"Yet I know now that was only passing fascination," Millie continued. "The barbarian left me, while Jonathan stayed."

Dor tore open the corked vial. "Take this!" he cried, hurling the precious drops onto the zombie.

Immediately the body began to heal. Flesh was magically restored, tissues filled out, skin formed and cleared. The figure unhunched, became fuller, taller.

"And so my true love is Jonathan," Millie concluded. Then she looked up, realizing what transformation was taking place, and her hair flung out as of old. "Jonathan!" she screamed.

Rapidly the last of the zombie attributes disappeared. The figure shaped into a gaunt but healthy living man.

"The Zombie Master!" Dor exclaimed, recognizing him at last. "I never knew your given name!"

Then he stepped back out of the way, letting true love assume its rightful place. Jonathan and Millie came together, she with a little skip-kicking of feet, and Dor knew his quest was done.

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