Harpy Thyme (26 page)

“That's a brief and dull story,” he said. “Now why don't you come down here and marry me, so we can get on with the consummation.”

“I'm not going to marry you, let alone consum-” But her nervous little nature would not allow her to say such a suggestive word. “Anyway, what makes you think you can just grab a girl and marry her?”

“That's what I've been doing. Each day I net a new nymph, and marry her, and consummate it, and next morning she doesn't remember. Then I have to start all over with another nymph. It's very frustrating.”

“Well, let's hear your brief dull story,” she said. If he was willing to be distracted from his disastrous ambition, she was willing to encourage him in that. “And-be sure to include how you got this castle and why you call it a republic and why you're marrying anyone. Meanwhile I'll just stay well out of your reach, if you don't mind.”

“I don't mind,” he said. “It's nice to have some halfway intelligent dialogue for a change.”

If all he had had to converse with was nymphs, whose minds were pretty much mindless, on the theory that no creature with a nymphly body needed a mind, then he might indeed miss the dialogue of a real person. Gloha settled down to the floor behind a chair, ready to fly instantly away if he tried to get near enough to grab her again. Meanwhile she listened to his history.

Once upon a thyme in the mists of antiquity-maybe thirty years ago-there lived an old crone. She was a weaver, and worked hard at her trade from morning till night to earn a living for herself and her innocent young daughter. She scarcely gave herself and her child a chance to rest. However, as busy and industrious as this crone was, she loved her daughter, and took time one day to give her good advice.

“Heather, my dear daughter, when the time of Rut comes over a young man, there is a failure on his part to act in a Timely and Responsive manner. Do you understand?”

“No, Mother dear,” innocent Heather replied, exactly as a good girl should.

“No? Look, such a young man is so Hot to Trot that even the village sheep aren't safe. Do you understand now?”

“No, Mother dear,” Heather said, embarrassed because she didn't like perplexing her mother.

“No? Well, do you have any notion of how to summon the stork?”

“No, Mother Dear,” Heather said. “That's in the Adult Conspiracy, so naturally I never heard of the stork. Why are you telling me this?”

“Because once I was as ignorant as you, and that's how I came to summon the stork that brought you, Daughter dear. I don't want you to make the same mistakes.”

“But how could you summon the stork, if you didn't know how, Mother dear?” Heather asked, doubly perplexed. “I can't do anything I don't know how to do.”

“By the ogres and night mares of Xanth, Heather-just say No!!”

Heather was really impressed, because she had never heard a double exclamation point before. She took the lesson to heart, and saved up her very most positive No for the occasion when she should encounter a young man being Untimely and Unresponsive, or mistreating sheep.

However, as she became a teenager she became aware of certain social proprieties. She saw that her mother wore work clothes all the time, and labored with her hands, which were callused and gnarled, and she became ashamed of the old crone. So she did what any teen in such an insufferable situation did. She screamed at her mother, called her vile names like “Hag,” “Witch,” and “Harridan,” in fact everything except the accurate term of “Crone,” and to really make her point she ran away with Shadows, the village idiot. This man did not know the meaning of Timely or Responsive, and he was unconscionably mean to sheep, shearing them every spring, so this really broke the old crone's heart.

Naturally the idiot knew nothing of stork summoning either. So the two of them just had a good time. But by some curious coincidence a stork got the notion that this couple deserved a baby. This was obviously a confusion, because Heather, who had once had a figure reminiscent of a minute glass, seemed to be adding sand. She got fatter daily, and hardly seemed to be in shape to handle a baby. In any event she didn't know about the stork's notion. For a long while she pretended that she had no appetite, and she ate no food other than a few black and blue berries stolen from neighboring gardens, and some cookies. She said that these were nicer and tasted better than her mother's good soups and stews and homemade peasant bread. Shadows made her several gunky yellow banana slug stews, but they just caused her to toss her cookies. He resented this, because he didn't like seeing the cookies get wasted. That showed what an idiot he was, she reminded him frequently.

Finally there came a day when Heather was as displeased with Shadows as she had been with her cronish mother. As she lay in the dark one night, cold and hungry, her impatience with her situation boiled over in a chilly way. “Well, I've done more than enough suffering for humanity in the last nine months. I want my mother, even if she is a crone. If that idiot Shadows doesn't like it, he can go jump in the Kiss-Mee Lake with some other damsel.” Because she realized now that her health had started its reversal soon after the two of them had swum in Lake Kiss-Mee and in consequence done a whole lot of kissing. Maybe the water was also fattening.

So one fine morning a not-so-fine Heather left the idiot's sandy driftwood hut and walked home, leaving her accumulation of self-pity behind. She found her mother, the village midwife, and the stork standing at the front door, wringing their hands or whatever. They wept when they saw her.

“Why are you so sad to see me?” Heather asked as she pushed impatiently over to her dear little clean lavender-smelling bed. “Didn't you say I'd be back?”

It turned out that they weren't sad, they were glad, though their emotions seemed to be stuck in reverse. The stork was especially relieved, having feared it had come to the wrong address. It dumped a baby boy in the cradle and took off. In its haste it dropped a thyme seed that had been intended for another delivery. The seed landed in the garden, and from it grew a first plant which didn't do well, and a second plant, which in the course of sixty seconds became a minute plant, and in sixty minutes became an hour plant, and in a year it was an annual, and it continued to age with the obvious intention of finally maturing into a century plant. Since that would take some time, it had a brilliant crystal on top to mark its place in space-time. The crone ignored it, being too busy, thinking it didn't matter. She probably shouldn't have done that.

After seven days the village elders came to participate in the baby's naming ceremony. Heather named him Veleno, which she understood meant Poisoned Gift. The elders sprinkled Heather with rainbow rose water and declared that, in the light of recent events, she was no longer a child but an adult.

Immediately the weight of adult responsibility descended on her. She realized how she had summoned the stork during that time when she had done just a smidgen more than kissing. She was properly appalled, and resolved never to do that again. Heather joined her mother at the loom, never to leave it for the rest of her life, and concentrated on becoming a crone herself. From then on the little stone dwelling was known as 'The House of Two Weavers.’"

Seven or eight years crawled by, and the baby boy managed to become a boy child. He was quiet, a loner, and he displayed his magic talent early. He changed plain white popcorn into rainbow-colored popcorn. This followed naturally from his mother's talent of changing plain white roses into rainbow-colored roses. She didn't use her talent much, because she seldom encountered a white rose, but at least she had the magic. No one ever found out what talent Veleno's father had, other than idiocy; Veleno never met the man.

Veleno's small world embraced his mother, grandmother, and the nearer region of his village. One day he woke from his midday summer nap under his favorite fringed umbrella tree, took a dip in the conservative gold-water pool to the right of the village, dressed himself in his cool white well-worn cotton clothes, and headed for home. But he found everybody in great disarray standing around the village fountain. They were screaming, tearing their hair, wringing their hands, and weeping bitterly.

“What's the matter?” he asked in a faltering whisper, fearing that something was amiss. After all, it wasn't comfortable to have one's hair torn, and was painful to put one's hands through the wringer, which tended to flatten them.

“A dreadful fiery dragon is approaching the village,” a man with golden orange hair replied. His name was Menthol, but that had no significance and probably shouldn't have been mentioned. “It seems that nothing can stop it from massacring everyone here.”

“But why are they so upset?” the boy asked, perplexed.

The man studied the boy for a moment. Then he nodded, as if coming to a private decision. “What is your name, little boy?”

“Veleno.”

“What a nice name. What does it mean?”

“Poisoned Gift.”

Menthol nodded again, as if he had just confirmed a suspicion. “Ah. Does an eight-year-young century plant grow in your yard, by any chance, helping your family keep thyme?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Veleno, your mother doesn't want you right now. In fact she wants you to take a walk with me. Do everything I tell you to do, and I will give you a whole bowl full of boiled sweets.”

“Great!” Veleno agreed.

So Menthol took Veleno by the hand and led him away. As it just coincidentally happened, Menthol was a child stealer. He recognized Veleno as a child marked by the demons for their eventual entertainment, so he brought him to the demons for a reward.

“And so the demons put me in this isolated castle,” Veleno concluded. “And told me that I would have my every desire in life supplied except one: love. I can achieve that only by marrying a woman who will marry me and share her love with me. What they didn't tell me was that the only human-seeming females in reach would be nymphs. They are incapable of love, and can't remember anything from one day to the next. But the demons did mention that hidden among them might be one who could remember and love. So from the time I grew old enough to join the Adult Conspiracy I have used my colored popcorn to lure one nymph at a time away from the mountain. I have married her and tried to summon the stork with her, hoping that she will remember in the morning. But so far every nymph has forgotten, though she has been enthusiastically cooperative in making the effort to signal the stork. Thus our marriage has been dissolved, and I have had to try again.”

“But why do you keep them prisoner in the castle?*' Gloha asked. ”They are naturally careless creatures, but they can not be happy in confinement."

“Because I can't tell one nymph from another. If I let them go after marrying them, I might catch the same one again, wasting my time. The only way I can be sure each one is new is by holding the old ones out from the group.”

It was starting to make sense. But Gloha still didn't like it. “Well, I'm not going to marry you, and I shall be neither enthusiastic nor cooperative about-about whatever. And I will never love you. No, not in the time it takes that century plant to mature. So you might as well let me go.”

“Oh, no, I have to marry you, because you can remember. You are the one who can love me, and with whom I can at last experience love. Then I will be free of the demons' enchantment, and can live like a normal man.”

Veleno did not seem to be paying very close attention to her declaration. Was there some other way to discourage him? Gloha remembered something about demons. “Are they watching this?”

“Oh, yes, of course. It's how they entertain themselves. But if I find love, they'll know it immediately, and their amusement will be over. They'll dissolve this castle into smoke, and I will return with my bride to my village, where we can live ever after as peasants scrounging a mean living from the reluctant soil.”

“That's certainly a modest ambition,“ Gloha said. ”And I wish you well with it. But it isn't going to be with me. I am not going to marry you, and that's that."

“Then I shall have to lock you in a chamber until you change your mind,” Veleno said. “Because you may be my only chance for love, and I would be a fool to let you escape.”

Gloha realized that the man was not going to be reasonable about this. So she flew away, seeking some other exit from the castle. She found a stairway that wasn't closed off and flew upstairs, but all the windows were barred, and most of the chambers were locked, with whimpering nude nymphs inside. Escape seemed to be hopeless.

Then she spied one dark passage she had missed in her prior haste. It was low and narrow, so she had to come to the floor and walk along it. It led to a winding stairway leading up. A secret exit to the roof?

She came to a small door. She tugged at its handle, and because it was small she was able to move it. Beyond was a closed little chamber with several barred windows. This must be the castle's highest turret, from which there was no exterior way down. The kind used to imprison reluctant damsels. But if she could get one of those windows open, or pry out a bar, she could leap from the window. She wouldn't fall to her death; she would merely fly away. The builders of this castle hadn't reckoned with a winged goblin girl.

She entered the chamber, crossed to the far window, and peered out. She was right: this was way high up in the sky, with glorious naked air all around. She took hold of a bar. It rattled-and there was a curious little click behind her. She turned nervously, and saw that the door had swung itself closed.

Alarmed, she ran back to the door, to make sure it hadn't locked-and found that it had. It absolutely would not budge. She was trapped.

And she heard Veleno's footsteps climbing the stair. The nymphomaniac was coming for her, and he thought her to be a satisfactory substitute nymph.

What could she do? She did it. She put her frantic little face to the window and let out Xanth's most strident little scream.

Graeboe's giant ears perked. That was a faint distant scream! Could it be Gloha? He peered in that direction, but all he saw was forested mountains. If Gloha was there, she would have to scream repeatedly before he would be able to find her.

He squatted, carefully, so that in his weakness he wouldn't lose his balance, fall over, and crush a fair section of forest and maybe a friend or two. He put his face near the tent. “I heard a scream.”

The Demoness Metria popped into smoky solidity just under his nose. “You did? Where?”

“North of Nymph Mountain. All I saw was mountains and trees.”

She faded out. In a moment she was back. “I have told Trent and Marrow. They'll hurry here. Can you carry them to that region?”

“Yes, I still have strength enough for that, I think.”

“Meanwhile, stand up and show me exactly where it came from. Maybe I can investigate first.”

Graeboe stood, unsteadily, breathing deeply to ease the dizziness he felt as his body straightened. He was a poor shadow of a giant! Then he pointed toward the mountains. “But it was faint, and I can't be sure it was Gloha,” he cautioned her. “All maidenly screams sound alike to me.”

“That's why I'm checking,” she said, and with a Zzzrrpp! she was gone.

He slowly squatted again. Soon the Magician and the skeleton arrived. He repeated his news to them. “Take us there,” Trent said.

Graeboe opened his left hand and laid it palm-up on the ground. Trent and Marrow climbed on. Graeboe lifted them up to head height, then tramped delicately toward the mountains.

They had been at first perplexed, then alarmed at Gloha's disappearance. She had been right there, walking on the path to the Retreat, and then she hadn't returned. Trent had been the first one to be concerned, because it was his job to see that no harm came to the cute little creature. She might have taken a side path to address a call of nature, so they did not rush to seek her, but when time passed they realized that something was wrong. She was definitely gone.

She hadn't been caught by a tangle tree, because they had zeroed in all such threats in the vicinity, and Gloha knew better than to go near any. The same was true for dragons and other land monsters. Gloha didn't have to worry about winged monsters, being one herself. Graeboe had to smile at that; the girl was completely unconcerned about the term, not considering it to be anything other than a description. Trent was a human man, Graeboe was a human giant, Marrow Bones was a walking skeleton, Metria was a demoness, and Gloha was a winged monster. Such lack of affectation was one of her many endearing qualities. She was also pretty, nice, sensible, and caring. The man she finally found would be extremely fortunate.

He remembered how she had kissed him, in the play they had put on for the Curse Fiends. The notion of a tiny princess marrying a giant was ludicrous, but the play had been for entertainment rather than realism. For the finale she had walked up to his face and planted a delicious little kiss somewhere on his upper lip. There had been a laugh from the audience, but he had really liked that kiss.

In fact he really liked Gloha, and would be devastated if anything untoward happened to her.. He would do everything he could to rescue her if she were in some dire strait. But first they had to find her. He tried to suppress the thought that it might be too late to help her. He had to hope that that scant little scream was hers, so that they could save her from whatever pit she had fallen into.

Metria reappeared, floating in front of him. “I assumed smoke form and drifted through the woods,” she reported. “I found a few straight goblins, but no winged ones. I don't think she's there.”

“We'll just have to hope she screams again,” Trent said.

“If that really was her scream,” the demoness said with demonly logic. “If the giant wasn't just imagining it.”

“It is our best lead at the moment,” Trent replied, seeming unconcerned. But Graeboe had come to realize that when the Magician seemed least affected, he was controlling his reactions. If someone assumed that this mild-mannered man was to be ignored or shoved aside, that person was likely to find himself transformed into a stink horn. The Magician was actually a very old man, youthened for this quest, and he had the experience and control of age. Graeboe respected him.

Graeboe came to stand beside the mountains. They were only a bit taller than he was, but they were more massive. He looked down at the carpet of forest covering them. It was quiet. Had he been mistaken about the direction of the scream? Had he imagined it? Could he have led Gloha's friends to the wrong place, while she was in some awful trouble elsewhere? He would never forgive himself, if-

The scream came again. This time they all heard it. It was from beyond the mountains, in the same direction they had been going.

“Score one for giantly imagination,” Marrow remarked. The skeleton, too, was a good person, and Graeboe hoped he was successful in his quest for half a soul. Graeboe had a notion about that, because he knew of a soul that would before long become available. But right now was not the time to discuss that. Gloha was the immediate concern.

He looked for bare sections on the mountains, so he could climb over them. Slowly he stepped up, his head rising above the peaks so that he could see beyond them.

And there, in the valley beyond, was a castle. And from a window in its highest turret flew a colorful little pennant. It looked like Gloha's blouse.

Metria vanished so suddenly there was a pop. She was going to investigate. Meanwhile Graeboe told the man and skeleton what he had seen, and lifted them up high enough to see it themselves. His judgment about the scream had been vindicated. He was relieved, because now they could see about rescuing Gloha from her evident captivity.

Step by step he navigated the mountain range, treading over the peaks, and starting down the other side. The castle loomed larger and clearer. It was about as tall as Graeboe's shin, sitting on an islet in a muddy pond. A path led from it through a pass toward the Faun/Nymph Retreat. Graeboe began to get a glimmer of a suspicion.

Metria reappeared. “Gloha's captive, all right,” she reported. “Along with a fraction of a squintillion sad nymphs. Seems this oafish man's a nymphomaniac; he's obsessed with nymphs, and keeps nymphnapping them for his one-night stands. Then he locks them into cells and goes for more. He thought Gloha was a nymph when he netted her.” Trent's expression became mildly grim. “Gloha is not a nymph, and he shall not hold her prisoner. I am not at all sure that he should be holding any nymphs captive either.” There was that dangerous mildness again. That nymphomaniac was surely in trouble. Graeboe wished he could speak with such deadly understatement. But he knew himself to be no more than an ordinary giant, even after allowing for his illness. If he were Trent's size, he would be of no consequence whatever.

“Perhaps we should rescue Gloha, then reason with the man about the nymphs,” Marrow suggested.

“Yes. I want to take no chances with Gloha.” Trent turned to Graeboe, which wasn't hard to do while standing on Graeboe's hand. “Are you able to lift off the roof of that turret, so she can fly out?”

“I will try,” Graeboe agreed. He stepped toward the castle, kneeled beside it, reached forth, and put his thumb and forefinger on the conical tower roof. He lifted, but the roof was firmly secured. “I fear I lack the strength,” he said with regret. “There was once a time when this would have been no problem. I might bash it back and forth to loosen it, but that might harm Gloha inside.”

“Don't risk it,” Trent said quickly. He turned to Metria, who was hovering nearby. “Can you form yourself into a key to unlock the door, so that Gloha can escape confinement and perhaps exit the castle by another route?”

“I thought you'd never ask!” She puffed out of sight.

But in a moment she was back, looking somewhat shamefaced for a demoness. “That's an enchanted castle! I can't touch any part of it.”

“Can't touch it?” Trent asked, surprised.

“It's as if it's smoke to me,” she said. “When I try to touch it, my hand and body pass right through it, as if I'm not real, though I am in solid form. I recognize it now as being demon-constructed. I can enter it and see what's happening, and talk with folk, but I can't actually touch the castle or any of its artifacts. It's frustrating.”

Trent considered. “I could transform some creature into a monster that would attack the castle, but I have some cautions. The monster might harm the nymphs and Gloha too. And I would not have control over it. I deem this to be too risky, since the monster would be out of my reach when it entered the castle. I need to transform a friendly person or creature, to be assured that no inadvertent harm would be done.”

“Perhaps I could enter the castle,” Marrow said. “The barred windows would not stop me, if I could get my skull through, and I could climb the wall to reach such a window.”

“The bars are set too close for your skull,” Metria said. “I checked. And you may find the walls to slippery to climb. Enchanted castles aren't easy to handle, by no coincidence.”

The skeleton nodded. “True. I fear that I too am defeated. If I could get inside it, someone might use one of my long bones to wedge the bars apart. But if Gloha can not get out, I can not get in.”

“Then it must be up to me,” Trent said. “I'm not surprised. Until this point Gloha has done as much to help me as I have to help her, but Crombie's pointings are always accurate. Now I shall do what I am here to do. She's a fine girl and certainly worth the effort. Graeboe, if you would be so kind as to set me on the roof of the main castle, I shall see about rescuing the princess.”

Graeboe smiled. This endeavor did seem to be coming to resemble aspects of their Beanstalk play. He lifted Trent and Marrow to the castle roof and laid his hand flat so that Trent could dismount.

Marrow Bones also slid off. “But you don't need to risk yourself this way,” Trent protested to the skeleton.

“Yes I do,” Marrow replied.

Trent didn't argue. Graeboe withdrew his hand and watched from a reasonable distance. He would never say so, of course, but he was tired from carrying the two, small as they were, and needed to rest. What mischief this downward-spiraling ailment was!

Trent cast about on the roof, and found a tiny beetle-bug. He transformed this into a saw-fish. Marrow picked up the fish, for its serrated edges weren't as hard on his hands as they were on flesh. He carried it to the locked roof door. He put the fish's saw-toothed nose to the edge of the door frame, held it firmly, and let it saw through the frame and into the door itself. The fish sawed right around the locking mechanism, and when that fell out, the door could be opened. Then Trent transformed the fish back to a bug and returned it to the place he had found it. Graeboe found that interesting; the Magician was taking pains to do no unnecessary mischief, even to incidental bugs.

The two went into the castle. Graeboe traced their progress as they passed by the upper windows. They were in an unused wing, and there was another locked door between it and the main castle. So Marrow had to go back to fetch the beetle-bug, for transformation again, because it seemed that there were no bugs Inside the castle. It appeared to be a sterile place.

“Hey, get a load of Veleno,” Metria said in his ear, startling him. “He's headed up to the high turret with a costume.”

Graeboe shifted position, trying to orient on the man. Night was looming, and lights were illuminating the castle. No one turned them on; they just did it, glowing in every room. In fact there seemed to be no servants or defenders in the castle. It was empty, except for Veleno and the captive nymphs. It seemed to run itself automatically. Since the demons had made it, according to Metria, they didn't bother with human servitors. There seemed to be a few pie trees growing in the central courtyard, which probably provided Veleno with his daily nourishment, and that was about it. It was a self-sufficient castle.

At least the lights made it easier to see what was going on inside, while Veleno couldn't see Graeboe outside, if he cared. The castle wasn't made of glass, but might as well have been in some sections, because of the view through the upper windows. Only the bottom story was completely opaque.

Veleno went on up to the turret chamber while Trent and Marrow were making their way past the second locked door. The man didn't seem to be aware of the intrusion. Maybe he had lived so long in this secure castle that it didn't occur to him that any invasion was possible. He came at last to the chamber. Graeboe put his ear down close so that he could overhear what was said.

“I have brought you a wedding dress in your size, so you can marry me in proper style,” Veleno informed her.

“I told you before, I'm not marrying you,” Gloha retorted. “My friends are about to rescue me from your fell clutches.”

“No one can rescue you here. This castle is invincible to mortals. Now take this dress, put it on, and come down to the main chamber so that we can be married.”

“What is it with you?” she demanded incredulously. “I just told you that I won't marry you. Aren't you listening?”

Veleno frowned. “You are a real girl, not a nymph,” he said. “Therefore you can remember from day to day. That means that our marriage will not automatically dissolve tomorrow. At last I shall have fulfilled the requirement, and I shall know love, and be able to go home.”

“You said all that before,” she reminded him. “And I said before that I wouldn't do it. I am no nymph, and I'll never marry you. Now take back your stupid dress and let me go, and I'll just forget about this and go my way.”

Graeboe shook his head. What a lovely little spirited creature she was! She wasn't taking any guff from her captor.

“If you don't come down and marry me,” Veleno said evenly, “I shall bring you no food. Since you are real, you must eat. I think that when you get hungry enough, you will agree that it is better to be married and eat.”

“You're trying to starve me into marrying you?” she demanded, aghast.

“Yes. Now are you ready?”