Castle Roogna (42 page)

       "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-"