Castle Roogna (18 page)

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

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

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

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

       "It seems you were correct."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

       Nothing happened.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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