Castle Roogna (14 page)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

       "-just a nightmare," Dor said uncertainly.

       This is an illness?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

       "Yes."

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

       "I-yes."

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

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

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

       "Suitable for what?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

       "I could balloon us across," Jumper offered.

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

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

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

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

       "No," she said. "I am a maid."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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