Castle Roogna (31 page)

       The nymphs spied Dor and cried gleeful welcome. "Gleeful welcome!" They spied Jumper and screamed horror. "Horror!" They did little kick-foot dances and flung their hair about. The goat-footed fauns charged up aggressively.

       "Settle down," Dor cried. "I am a man, and this is my friend. We mean you no harm."

       "Oh-then it's all right," a nymph exclaimed. "Any friend of a man is a friend of ours." There was a shower of hand-clapping, and impromptu dances of joy that did marvelous things to the nymphly anatomy.

       Good enough. "My name is Dor. My friend is Jumper. Would you like to see him jump?"

       "Oh, yes!" they cried. So Jumper made a fifteen-foot jump, amazing them. It was not nearly as far as he could go when he tried. Obviously he was being cautious, so they would not know his limitations-just in case. Dor was slowly catching on to adult thinking; it was more devious than juvenile thinking. But he was glad he had thought of the jump exhibit; that made the spider a thing of harmless pleasure, for these people.

       "I'm a naiad," one nymph called from the lake. She was lovely, with hair like clean seaweed and breasts that floated enticingly. "Come swim with me!"

       "I, uh-" Dor demurred. Nymphs might not be hollow in quite the way woodwives were, but they were not quite the same as real women either.

       "I meant Jumper!" she cried, laughing.

       "I prefer to skate," Jumper chittered. He stepped carefully onto the water and slid gracefully across it.

       The nymphs applauded madly, then dived into the lake and swam after the spider. Once their confidence had been won, it was complete!

       "I'm a dryad," another nymph called from a tree. Her hair was leaf-green, her nails bark-brown, but her torso was as exposed and lush as that of the water nymph. "Come swing with me!"

       Dor still had not learned how to handle this sort of offer, but again he remembered the hollow woodwife. "I, uh-"

       "I meant Jumper!" But the spider was already on the way. If there was one thing he could do better than skating water, it was climbing trees. In a moment the other dyrads were swarming after him. Soon they were squealing with glee, dangling from silken draglines attached to branches, kicking their feet.

       Dor walked on toward the mountain, vaguely disgruntled. He was glad his friend was popular; still-

       "I'm an oread," a nymph called from the steep side of the mountain. "Come climb with me!"

       "Jumper is busy," Dor said.

       "Oh," she said, disappointed.

       Now a faun approached him. "I see you aren't much for the girls. Will you join us boys?"

       "I'm just trying to scout a route through here for an army," Dor replied shortly.

       "An army! We have no business with armies!"

       "What is your business?"

       "We dance and play our pipes, chase the nymphs, eat and sleep and laugh. I'm an orefaun, associated with the mountain, but you could join the dryfauns of the trees if you prefer, or the naifauns of the pool. There really isn't much difference between us."

       So it seemed. "I don't want to join you," Dor said. "I'm just passing through."

       "Come for our party, anyway," the faun urged. "Maybe you'll reconsider after you see how happy we are."

       Dor started to demur, then realized that the day was getting late. This would be a better place to spend the night than the wilderness-and he was curious about the life and rationale of these nymphs and fauns. In his own day such creatures were widely scattered across Xanth, and highly specialized: a nymph for every purpose. The fauns had largely disappeared. Why? Perhaps the key was here.

       "Very well. Just let me scout the terrain a little farther, then I shall return for your party." Dor had always liked parties, though he hadn't gone to many. People had objected to his talking to the walls and furniture, learning about all the private things that went on under the cover of the formal entertainment. Too bad-because the informal entertainment was generally far more intriguing. There seemed to be something about adult people; their natures changed when they got into small groups, especially when such groups consisted of one male and one female. If what they had to do was good and wholesome, why didn't they do it in full public view? He had always been curious about that.

       The fauns danced about him merrily, playing their little flutes, as he walked beyond the lake and mountain. They had horn-like tufts of hair on their heads, and their toenails had grown so heavy as to resemble hooves, but they remained human. In the following centuries the horns and hooves would become real, as the fauns took on their distinct magical identities. He had thought they were real when he first spied the fauns here, but his mind's eye had filled in more detail than was justified.

       Dor realized that if he or any other man so chose, he could join them, now, and his own hair and toenails would develop similarly. It made sense; the hooves were much better for running about rocky terrain than ordinary feet were, and the horns were a natural defense, albeit as yet token, that could not be carelessly lost the way other weapons could. And as for dancing-those neat, small, hard feet were much better than Dor's own huge soft flat things. Suddenly he reminded himself of a goblin.

       The subspecies of fauns were already distinguishable, as were the species of nymphs. The dryfauns of the forest had greenish hair and bark-brown fur on their legs and lower torsos, and their horns were hooked to enable them to draw down fruit. Their hoof-toes were sharp, almost spiked, so that they could climb sheer trunks, though as yet they had little difficulty walking on land. Perhaps that was the key to their eventual demise as a species, when they became so specialized they could not leave the trees, and something happened to those trees-yes.

       The orefauns of the mountains had more powerful legs, their hooves merging like those of goats or deer. Even their hands were assuming a certain hooflike quality, to enable them to scamper up on all fours, and their horns curled back to enable them to butt.

       The naifauns of the lake had flattened flipper-hooves and horns pointing straight up like speartips; they speared foolish fish on them when hungry. They had delicate scales on their nether portions instead of fur.

       A naifaun saw Dor looking at him. "You should see my cousin the nerefaun," he called, splashing cheerily. "He lives in the sea at the foot of the river, and he has scales like those of a sea serpent, and full flipper feet. He can really swim-but he can hardly walk on land."

       Scales and flippers for the sea-faun. Could this specialization eventually lead to the merfolk, the tritons and their counterparts the mermaids, who had lost their legs entirely in favor of a tail? Yet he had already encountered a triton here-no, that was at Good Magician Humfrey's castle, eight hundred years hence. There were no naifauns or nerefauns in Dor's own time because they had become sea and lake tritons, and the naiads and nereads had become mermaids. He was witnessing the first great radiation of the species of nymph and faun, experiencing firsthand the evolution of a major branch of the creatures of Xanth. It was absolutely fascinating!

       And subtly horrifying, too-for this was the ongoing dehumanization of Man. There had been much killing in the land of Xanth, but even so, the population had declined over the centuries more than the bloodshed could account for. Because human beings had deserted their kind, becoming such subspecies as these: tritons and mermaids. Eventually, if this continued, there would be no true humans remaining in the Land of Xanth. That was what King Trent was trying to reverse, by establishing contact with Mundania. He wanted to infuse Xanth with new, pure human stock-without suffering another disastrous Wave of conquest. Now Dor appreciated far more clearly the importance of this project. His own parents, Bink and Chameleon, were deeply involved in this effort. "Go to it, parents!" he murmured fervently to himself. "What you are doing is more important than what I am doing."

       Meanwhile, he was neglecting what he was doing: the survey of the zombie route. Dor looked about, discovering himself in a realm of increasing brush. The plants seemed harmless, but they grew larger and taller toward the west Possibly in the heart of their range they would achieve the status of trees. Some had branches sticking up from the top, bare of leaves, with cross branches projecting at right angles. These looked vaguely familiar to Dor, but he could not quite place them. If they represented a threat, what form did it take? They weren't tangle trees, or poison brambles, or needle-cacti. What was there about them that bothered him?

       He thought of questioning stray rocks, but didn't want to reveal the nature of his magic in the presence of the fauns. If he became worried enough, he would use his talent; for now he was just looking.

       "What are these bushes?" he asked the orefaun, who seemed uncomfortable here on level ground, but had braved it out for the sake of companionship. "Are they dangerous?"

       "We never go this far," the orefaun admitted. "We know there are dangers beyond our territory, so we never stray. What is there elsewhere to interest us anyway?"

       "Why, the whole world is interesting!" Dor said, surprised.

       "Not to us. We like it where we are. We have the best place in Xanth, where monsters don't come and the weather is always nice and there is plenty of food. You should taste our mountain dew!"

       "But-but it is so broadening to travel," Dor protested, remembering guiltily how little he had traveled before he entered the tapestry. Yet he knew this adventure had already matured him considerably.

       "Who wants to be broadened?"

       Dor was taken aback. If these creatures really weren't interested-

       "Suppose something happened to this place, so that you had to move? You should at least explore more widely, so you are prepared."

       "Why be prepared?" the orefaun asked, perplexed.

       Dor realized that the difference between him and these creatures was more than physical. Then-whole mutual attitude differed. To question the need for preparedness-why, that was childlike.

       Well, he was gaining increasing understanding of the roots of the faunish disappearance in Xanth. Of course the nymphs had similar shortsightedness, but there would always be a market for lovely nude girls, so their survival was more secure. Anything that looked like a pretty girl had its market-even hollow mockups tike the woodwives. Perhaps, like the harpies, the nymphs would evolve eventually into a single-sex species, mating only with males of outside species. Dor saw that the orefaun was in distress, so relented and turned about. "I think this is a good route; I'll explore the rest of it tomorrow, with Jumper." The orefaun was greatly relieved. He danced back toward the mountain, and was soon joined by the less adventurous fauns. "Time for the party!" he cried, doing a caprine skip. The others picked it up as a chant: "Party! Party!"

       They made a bonfire between mountain and lake, piling on dry bon-brush and igniting it with a small irritable salamander. The salamanders of Dor's day started fires that burned all substances except the ground itself, but this was a primitive ancestor who made a merely ordinary fire, fortunately. This fire would burn only wood, and could be extinguished.

       They put marshmallows-from a mallow bush in the marsh at one end of the lake-on sticks and toasted them in the flames. The lake nymphs and fauns brought out fresh sea cucumbers and genuine crabs for Jumper. Hot chocolate bubbled up from one side of the lake, making an excellent beverage. The tree creatures brought fruits and nuts, and the mountain creatures rolled a huge snowball down to make cold drinks. Dor did sample the mountain dew, and it was effervescent and tasty and heady.

       The nymphs and fauns sat In a great circle around the fire, feasting on the assorted delicacies. Dor and Jumper joined them, relaxing and enjoying it. After they had stuffed, the fauns brought out their flutes and piped charmingly intricate melodies while the nymphs danced. The female bodies rippled and bounced phenomenally; Dor had never before seen anything like this!

       Soon the fauns responded to the anatomical signals, discarded their flutes, and joined the dance in a most unsubtle manner. Before long it was not a dance at all, but the realization of the ritual the dance had only suggested. These creatures did indeed do openly what the adults of Dor's day did in privacy!

       "Is this normal procedure?" Jumper inquired. "Forgive my query; I am largely ignorant of the ways of your species."

       "Yes, this is a regular festival celebrating the rites of spring," the orefaun said.

       "No festivals for the other seasons?" Dor inquired.

       "What other seasons? It is always spring here. Of course, the rites don't result in babies; it has something to do with our immortality. But it's fun to celebrate them anyway. You are welcome to join in."

       "Thank you; I regret this is not my species," Jumper demurred.

       "I, uh-I'll just wait," Dor said. His body certainly felt the temptation, but he didn't want to commit himself prematurely to this life. The mental picture of the woodwife returned.

       "As you wish. No one is forced to do anything, here, ever. We all do only what we want to do." He watched the proceedings another moment. "Speaking of which-pardon me." The orefaun leaped forward to nab a passing oread. The nymph screamed fetchingly, flung her hair about, and kicked up her cute cloven feet, giving Dor a feeling of deja vu and a glimpse of what clothing normally concealed. Then the faun brought her down and did what evidently delighted them both. Dor made mental notes; if he ever had occasion, he wanted to know how to proceed. He was already certain that never again would he see a nymphly girl kick her feet without thinking of this scene. A new dimension of meaning had been added to the action.

       "If they are immortal, and bear no hatchlings," Jumper chittered, "how then do they evolve?"