Centaur Aisle (7 page)

"Yes, of course, and we do appreciate it," Dor said diplomatically. "Uh, while you're here—would you point out the direction of any special thing I should be taking care of while I'm King?"

"Why not?" Crombie whirled again—and pointed south again.

"Ha!" Dor exclaimed. "I hoped that would be the case. I'm supposed to go find whatever it is that will help us locate King Trent."

Irene's eyes lighted. "Sometimes you border on genius!" she breathed, gratified at this chance to search for her parents.

"Of course I do," Crombie agreed, though the remark had not been directed at him. He marched off on his rounds, guarding the castle.

Dor promptly visited Elder Roland again, this time having Irene conjured along with him. She had never before been to the North Village, and found it quaint. "What's that funny-looking tree in the center court?" she inquired.

"That's Justin Tree," Dor replied, surprised she didn't know about it. "Your father transformed him to that form from a man, about forty years ago, before he went to Mundania the first time."

She was taken aback. "Why didn't he transform him back, once he was King?"

"Justin likes being a tree," Dor explained. "He has become a sort of symbol to the North Village. People bring him fresh water and dirt and fertilizer when he wants them, and couples embrace in his shade."

"Oh, let's try that!" she said.

Was she serious? Dor decided not to risk it. "We're here on business, rescuing your father. We don't want to delay."

"Of course," she agreed instantly. They hurried on to Roland's house, where Dor's grandmother Bianca let them in, surprised at Dor's return.

"Grandfather," Dor said when Roland appeared. "I have to make a trip south, according to Crombie. He points out a duty I have there, way down beyond Lake Ogre-Chobee. So the Elders can't say no to that, can they?"

Roland frowned. "We can try, Your Majesty." He glanced at Irene. "Would this relate to the absence of Magician Trent?"

"King
Trent!" Irene snapped.

Roland smiled indulgently. "We Elders are just as concerned about this matter as you are," he said. He spoke firmly and softly; no one would know from his demeanor that he had the magic power to freeze any person in his tracks. "We are eager to ascertain Trent's present state. But we can not allow our present King—that's you, Dor—to risk himself foolishly. I'm afraid a long trip, particularly to the vicinity of Ogre-Chobee, is out of the question at this time."

"But it's a matter I'm supposed to attend to!" Dor protested. "And it's not exactly the lake; it's south of it. So I don't have to go near the fiends. If a King doesn't do what he's supposed to do, he's not fit to be King!"

"One could wish King Trent had kept that more firmly in mind," Roland said, and Irene flushed. "Yet at times there are conflicts of duty. Part of the art of governing is the choosing of the best route through seeming conflicts. You have done well so far, Dor; I think you'll be a good King. You must not act irresponsibly now."

"King Trent said much the same," Dor said, remembering. "Just before he left, he told me that when I was in doubt, to concentrate on honesty."

"That is certainly true. How strange that he did not do the honest thing himself, and consult with the Elders before he departed."

That was bothering Dor increasingly, and he could see that Irene was fit to explode. She hated denigration of her father—yet Roland's pique seemed justified. Had King Trent had some deeper motive than mere trade with Mundania? Had he, incredibly, actually planned not to return? "I'd like just to go to bed and hide my head under the blanket," Dor said.

"That is no longer a luxury you can afford. I think the nightmares would seek you out."

"They already have," Dor agreed ruefully. "The castle maids are complaining about the hoofprints in the rugs."

"I would like to verify your findings, if I may," Roland said.

There was a break while Dor arranged to have Crombie conjured to the North Village. Grandmother Bianca served pinwheel cookies she had harvested from her pinwheel bush. Irene begged a pinwheel seed from her; Irene had a collection of seeds she could grow into useful plants.

"My, how you've grown!" Bianca said, observing Irene.

Irene dropped her cookie—but then had it back unbroken. Bianca's magic talent was the replay; she could make time drop back a few seconds, so that some recent error could be harmlessly corrected. "Thank you," Irene murmured, recovering.

Crombie arrived. "I would like to verify your findings, if I may," Roland repeated to the soldier. Dor noted how the old man was polite to everyone; somehow that made Roland seem magnified in the eyes of others. "Will you point out to me, please, the greatest present threat to the Kingdom of Xanth?"

Crombie obligingly went through his act again—and pointed south again. "That is what I suspected," Roland said. "It seems something is developing in that region that you do indeed have to attend to, Dor. But this is a serious matter, no pleasure excursion."

"What can I do?" Dor asked plaintively. The horror of King Trent's unexplained absence was closing in on him, threatening to overwhelm his tenuous equilibrium.

"You can get some good advice."

Dor considered. "You mean Good Magician Humfrey?"

"I do. He can tell you which course is best, and if you must make this trip, he can serve in your stead as King."

"I don't think he'll agree to that," Dor said.

"I'm sure he won't," Irene agreed.

"There must be a Magician on the throne of Xanth. Ask Humfrey to arrange it, should he approve your excursion."

That was putting the Good Magician on the spot! "I will." Dor looked around, trying to organize himself. "I'd better get started. It's a long walk."

"You're the King, Dor. You don't have to walk there any more than you had to walk here. Have yourself conjured there."

"Oh. Yes. I forgot." Dor felt quite foolish.

"But first get the rest of us safely back to Castle Roogna," Irene told him, nibbling on another cookie. "I don't want to have to cross over the Gap Chasm on the invisible bridge and have the Gap Dragon looking up my skirt." She held the cookie up by the pin while she chewed around the wheel, delicately.

Chapter 3. Wedding Spell

D
or did not arrive inside Magician Humfrey's castle. He found himself standing just outside the moat. Something had gone wrong!

No, he realized. He had been conjured correctly—but the Good Magician, who didn't like intrusions, had placed a barrier-spell in the way, to divert anyone to this place outside. Humfrey didn't like to talk to anyone who didn't get into the castle the hard way. Of course he wasn't supposed to make the King run the gauntlet—but obviously the old wizard was not paying attention at the moment. Dor should have called him on a magic mirror; he hadn't thought of it, in his eagerness to get going. Which meant he deserved what he had gotten—the consequence of his own lack of planning.

Of course, he could probably yell loud enough to attract the attention of someone inside the castle so he could get admitted without trouble. But Dor had a slightly ornery streak. He had made a mistake; he wanted to work his way out of it himself. Rather, into it. He had forced his way into this castle once, four years ago; he should be able to do it now. That would prove he could recover his own fumbles—the way a King should.

He took a good look at the castle environs. The moat was not clear and sparkling as it had been the last time he was here; it was dull and noisome. The shape of the castle wall was now curved and slanted back, like a steep conical mountain. It was supremely unimpressive—and therefore suspect.

Dor squatted and dipped a finger in the water. It came up festooned with slime. He sniffed it. Ugh! Yet there was a certain familiarity about it he could not quite place. Where had he smelled that smell before?

One thing was certain: he was not about to wade or swim through that water without first ascertaining exactly what lurked in it. Magician Humfrey's castle defenses were intended to balk and discourage, rather than to destroy—but they were always formidable enough. Generally it took courage and ingenuity to navigate the several hazards. There would be something in the moat a good deal more unpleasant than slime.

Nothing showed. The dingy green gook covered the whole surface, unbroken by any other horror. Dor was not encouraged.

"Water, are there any living creatures lurking in your depths?" he inquired.

"None at all," the water replied, its voice slurred by the goop. Yet there was a tittery overtone; it seemed to find something funny in the question.

"Any inanimate traps?"

"None." Now little ripples of mirth tripped across the glutinous surface.

"What's so funny?" Dor demanded.

The water made little elongated splashes, like dribbles of spoiled mucus. "You'll find out."

The trouble with the inanimate was that it had very shallow notions of humor and responsibility. But it could usually be coaxed or cowed. Dor picked up a rock and hefted it menacingly. "Tell me what you know," he said to the water, "or I'll strike you with this stone."

"Don't do that!" the water cried, cowed. "I'll squeal! I'll spill everything I know, which isn't much."

"Ugh!" the rock said at the same time. "Don't throw me in that feculent sludge!"

Dor remembered how he had played the Magician's own defenses against each other, last time. There had been a warning sign, TRESPASSERS WILL BE PERSECUTED—and sure enough, when he trespassed he had been presented with a button with the word TRESPASSER on one side, and PERSECUTED on the other. The living-history tome that had recorded the episode had suffered a typo, rendering PERSECUTED into PROSECUTED for the sign, but not for the button, spoiling the effect of these quite different words. These things happened; few people seemed to know the distinction, and Dor's spelling had not been good enough to correct it. But this time there was no sign. He had to generate his own persecution. "Get on with it," he told the water, still holding the rock.

"It's a zombie," the water said. "A zombie sea serpent."

Now Dor understood. Zombies were dead, so it was true there were no living creatures in the moat. But zombies were animate, so there were no inanimate traps either. It made sudden sense—for Dor remembered belatedly that the Zombie Master was still here. When the Zombie Master appeared in the present Xanth, there had been a problem, since Good Magician Humfrey now occupied the castle the Zombie Master had used eight hundred years ago. The one had the claim of prior tenancy, the other the claim of present possession. Neither wanted trouble. So the two Magicians had agreed to share the premises until something better was offered. Evidently the Zombie Master had found nothing better. Naturally he helped out with the castle defenses; he was not any more sociable than Humfrey was.

As it happened, Dor had had experience with zombies. Some of his best friends had been zombies. He still was not too keen on the way they smelled, or on the way they dropped clods of dank glop and maggots wherever they went, but they were not bad creatures in their place. More important, they were hardly smarter than the inanimate objects Dor's magic animated, because their brains were literally rotten. He was confident he could fool a zombie.

"There should be a boat around here," he said to the rock. "Where is it?"

"Over there, chump," the rock said. "Now will you let me go?"

Dor saw the boat. Satisfied, he let the rock go. It dropped with a satisfied thunk to the ground and remained there in blissful repose. Rocks were basically lazy; they hardly ever did anything on their own.

He went to the boat. It was a dingy canoe with a battered double paddle—exactly what he needed. Dor walked away.

"Hey, aren't you going to use me?" the canoe demanded. Objects weren't supposed to talk unless Dor willed it, but they tended to get sloppy about the rules.

"No. I'm going to fetch my friend the zombie."

"Oh, sure. We see lots of that kind here. They make good fertilizer."

When Dor was out of sight of the castle, he stopped and stooped to grub in the dirt. He smeared dirt on his face and arms and over his royal robes. Naturally he should have changed to more suitable clothing for this trip, but of course that was part of his overall carelessness. He had not planned ahead at all.

Next, he found a sharp stone and used it to rip into the cloth of the robe. "Ooooh, ouch!" the robe groaned. "What did I ever do to
you
that you should slay me thus?" But the sharp stone only chuckled. It liked ripping off clothing.

Before long, Dor was a tattered figure of a man. He scooped several double handfuls of dirt into a fold of his robe and walked back to the castle. As he approached the moat, he shuffled in the manner of a zombie and dropped small clods to the ground.

He got into the canoe. "Oooooh," he groaned soulfully. "I hope I can make it home before I go all to pieces." And he used the paddle to push off into the scum of the moat. He was deliberately clumsy, though in truth he was not well experienced with canoes and would have been awkward anyway. The water slurped and sucked as the paddle dipped into the ooze.

Now there was a stirring as the zombie sea monster moved. The slime parted and the huge, mottled, decaying head lifted clear of the viscous surface. Globules of slush dangled and dripped, plopping sickly into the water. The huge, sloppy mouth peeled open, revealing scores of loose brownish teeth set in a jaw almost stripped of flesh.

"Hi, friend!" Dor called windily. "Can you direct me to my Master?" As he spoke he slipped forth a moist clod of dirt, so that it looked as if his lip were falling off.

The monster hesitated. Its grotesque head swung close to inspect Dor. Its left eyeball came loose, dangling by a gleaming string. "Sooo?" the zombie inquired, its breath redolent of spoiled Limberger.

Dor waved his arms, losing some more earth. One choice clod struck the monster on the nose with a dank squish. He was sorry he hadn't been able to find anything really putrid, like a maggoty rat corpse, but that was the luck of the game. "Whe-eere?" he demanded, every bit as stupid as a zombie. The big advantage to playing stupid was that it didn't take much intelligence. He knocked at his right ear and let fall another clod, as if a piece of his brain had been dislodged.