Castle Roogna

  Jumper had jumped right out of the pooch-patch, unnipped. The dogs were whimpering now, cowed by the sight of their dead packmates. It was a sad sight. Dor strode out of the patch, bared blade held warningly before him, feeling low. Why did he always react first and think last?

  "Yet an animal plant who bites strangers must suffer the consequence," Jumper cluttered consolingly. "I fell among aphids once, and their ant-guardians attacked me and I was forced to kill a number of them before the rest gave over. Had they any wit, they would have realized that my presence was accidental. I had been fleeing a deadly wasp. Spiders prefer consuming flies, not aphids. Aphids are too sickly sweet."

  "I guess ants aren't very bright," Dor said, comforted by the analogy.

  "Correct. They have excellent inherent responses, and can function in societies far better than spiders can, but as individuals they tend to be rigid thinkers. What was good enough for their grand-ants remains sufficient for them."

  Dor felt much better now. Somehow Jumper always came through, rescuing him from physical or intellectual mishap. "You know, Jumper, when this quest is over, and we return to our own worlds--"

  "It will be a sad parting," Jumper chittered. "Yet you have your life to pursue, and I have mine."

  "Yes, of course. But if we could somehow stay in touch--"

  Dor broke off, for they had suddenly come upon the biggest fennel of them all. It was as massive as Dor himself, with a stem like a tree trunk, reaching its horned head down to graze in the nearby grass.

  "That more closely resembles a herbivorous animal," Jumper chittered. "See, its teeth are grazers, not flesh renders."

  "Oh, a vegetable lamb," Dor said. "A historical creature, extinct in our day. It grows wool to make blankets from. In my time we cultivate blanket trees directly."

  "But what happens when it grazes everything within its tether range?" Jumper inquired.

  "I don't know." Dor saw that the grass had been mowed quite low in the disk the lamb could reach; little was left. "Maybe that's why they became extinct."

  They went on. The terrain was fairly even here; the zombies would have no problems. Dor set his markers as they went, certain this route would be all right. They approached a wooded section, the trees bearing large multicolored blooms whose fragrance was pleasant but not overwhelming. "Be on guard against intoxicating fumes," Dor warned.

  "I doubt the same chemicals would intoxicate me," the spider chittered.

  But the scents were innocent. Bees buzzed around the flowers, harvesting their pollen. Dor passed under the trees without molestation, and Jumper scrambled through them. Beyond the trees was an attractive glade.

  There was a shapely young woman, brushing her hair, "Oh, pardon me," Dor said. She smiled. "You are a man!"

  "Well--"

  "Are you lonely?" She stepped forward. Jumper dropped down from the trees, a little to one side.

  What Dor had first taken as clothing turned out on closer inspection to be overlapping green leaves, like the scales of a dragon. She was a soft, sweet-smelling creature, with a pretty face.

  "I--uh--we're just on our way to--"

  "I live for lonely men," she said, opening her arms to embrace him. Dor, uncertain what to do in this case, did nothing; therefore she succeeded in enfolding him. Her body was cool and firm, her lips sweet; they resembled the petals of roses. His body began to react, as it had with Millie; it wanted to--

  "Friend," Jumper chittered, standing behind the green-leafed woman. "Is this customary?"

  "I--don't know," Dor admitted, as her lips reached hungrily for his.

  "I refer to the shape of the female," the spider chittered. "It is very strange."

  Maybe it was, to a spider! "It--seems to be--" Dor paused, for her lips had caught up to his. Oh, she was intriguing! "To be a good shape," he concluded after a moment. Those breasts, that slim waist, those fleshy thighs--

  "I hesitate to interrupt your ritual of greeting. But if you would examine her backside--"

  "Uh, sure." Her frontside was fully interesting enough, but he did not object to seeing the rest. His body well knew that an attractive woman was interesting from any side. Dor drew back a bit and gently turned the woman around.

  From behind, she was hollow. Like a plaster cast made of some object, or a pottery bowl shaped on a rock. She was a mere solidified shell. She had no functioning internal organs at all, no guts. Cracks of light showed through the apertures where her eyes, nostrils, and mouth were in the front.

  "What are you?" Dor demanded, turning her about again. From the front she remained extremely womanly.

  "I am a woodwife," she replied. "I thought you knew. I comfort lonely men."

  A facade covering absolute vacuity! A man who made love to such a creature--

  "I--uh, guess I don't need that kind of comfort," Dor said.

  "Oh." She looked disappointed. Then she dissolved into vapor, and drifted away.

  "Did I do that?" Dor asked, chagrined. "Did I make her into nothing? I didn't mean to!"

  "I think she existed only for whatever man she might encounter," Jumper opined. "She will no doubt re-form for the next traveler."

  "That will likely be a zombie." Saying that, Dor felt humor bubbling up inside him, until it burst out his mouth in a laugh. "A zombie lover!" Then he remembered Millie's lover of his own time, Jonathan, and sobered. It wasn't funny at all!

  They went on. The glade opened into a rocky valley. The rocks were irregular, some of fair mass, with cuttingly sharp edges: a disaster for zombies. But down the center was a clear path, with only a little coronet supported on four hornlike twigs in the way. All they had to do was remove that object and its supports, and the path would be clear.

  Dor moved toward it--then paused. This was suspicious. "Something wants us to touch that coronet," he said.

  "Allow me." Jumper fastened a small stone to a line of silk, and tossed it at the coronet.

  The ground erupted violently. A snake emerged, whose head bore the four horns; it had lain buried in the ground except for those points. The reptile struck at the stone as Jumper jerked it along on the string, making it seem alive. "Lucky we checked," Dor said, shaken. "Better you than us, stone."

  The stone shuddered. "Oh, the poison!" it wailed, and fragmented into gravel.

  "That must have been some poison!" Dor exclaimed.

  "It was," the gravel agreed, and fractured into a mound of sand.

  "What would poison do to a zombie?" Jumper inquired.

  "Nothing, I think. How can you kill a thing that is already dead?"

  "Then we can ignore the hornworm." Startled, Dor had to agree. "Except we must post a warning for Millie and the Zombie Master, so they know to send a zombie ahead." He walked back and emplaced a magic marker of the WARNING type. When they saw that, they would send Egor Ogre ahead to spring the trap. If the hornworm was smart, it would scoot right out of there!

  The valley spread into a field of grassy growth dotted with Mundanish trees. It was pretty scenery--but all of this country was lovely, and improving as they went. If only he had watched more carefully when he rode the dragon horse! One missed a lot by riding swiftly.

  Then he recognized the vegetation. "Roats!" he exclaimed happily. "If there are any mature ones--"

  "What are roats?" Jumper cluttered. "A cereal. Soak old roats in water or milkweed, and they transform into excellent porridge." He shook some stems, obtaining the flat kernels. "And those are primitive mixed-nut trees."

  "Nuts grow on trees?" the spider inquired dubiously. "With magic, all things are possible." Dor went to a tree and took hold of a cluster of nuts, drawing it down. They clung to the branch. "These are tough nuts!" he said. Then the cluster let go, and he staggered back. The branch snapped up, and a small hail of nuts fell about him. One shot by his nose, and he coughed. Others came, and he coughed again. "Oh, no--some of them are cough drops!" he said, retreating.

  But he had his old roats and mixed nuts. "Now all I need is water." br />
  The field dropped down to a river, its liquid crystalline but not, fortunately, crystal. Catfish swam in it, meowing hopefully as they spied Dor, then stalking away as well as their flukes permitted when they saw there was no red meat. A pack of sea dogs sniffed up, but soon spied the cats and went baying after them. Obviously this water was wholesome.

  Dor dipped his double handful of substance into a pothole, and abruptly had a doughy mass of food. He offered some to Jumper, but the spider declined, preferring to fish the river for crabs. So Dor ate his pot-roats himself, enjoying it immensely.

  However, this seemingly excellent route was cut off by the same river they had looked for. The stream was small but deep; no trouble for Jumper and Dor to cross, but disaster for the marching zombies, who would never emerge from it intact. Wading in the quiet moat had been one thing; swimming across the current was another.

  It would be possible to fell some trees to form a crude bridge across the water, but this would take time and possibly alert hostile magic. So they followed the river down a way, looking for a better fording place. It was never possible to anticipate what lay ahead; there could be some natural bridge just out of sight.

  There was not. There was a hill. The river flowed merrily up over it and down the other side. Dor and Jumper contemplated this, wondering what to do. A river that flowed up as well as down was unlikely to be tractable. "I could make a silk sling to swing them across one by one," Jumper chittered.

  "That would wear you out and take forever," Dor objected. "And we would have to wait here until the zombies arrive, instead of scouting out the dangers ahead. We need a bridge or a ford."

  They followed the river over the hill. "I wonder whether we could divert it temporarily," Jumper chittered.

  "We'd still have to get the zombies across it some-where," Dor pointed out. "Unless we could turn it back on itself--and that hardly seems reasonable."

  At the top of the hill, a cockfish crowed. "Oh, shut up," Dor told it. But it was alive, so did not obey him.

  At the foot of the other side of the hill was an ore: a huge fat water monster with teeth overflowing its mouth. The water flowed over and around it; no point in trying to cross the stream here!

  They returned to the top of the hill. "I'd hate to backtrack all the way and try to scout a new route," Dor said. "This is an excellent route for the zombies--up until this point. We've got to figure out a way across!"

  "What makes it flow uphill?" the spider inquired.

  "Magic, of course. Something in the ground here that makes it seem to fall, when actually it is rising."

  "I note a different texture of stone, here. Would that be it?"

  "Could be. Enchanted stone. The magic can't be in the water itself, or it would be floating right up into the sky. I think." Now Dor wondered how water did get into the sky, to make it rain. Maybe there were streams that fell upward. So much of the magic of Xanth was unexplained! "But if we moved the stone, the river would merely change channels, and then that ore would get dry and come looking for us. The only thing madder than a wet hen is a dry ore. We need to cross the river, not move it."

  "Still, we might experiment." Jumper poked a leg into the water, shifting stones. The water responded by rising higher, forming a little arc in air, then dropping back into its channel.

  "Say--if we could make it jump high enough, we could pass right under it!" Dor exclaimed. He plunged in, helping Jumper to move the enchanted stones.

  The river rose higher and higher. At last an arch formed, leaving the riverbed clear for several feet. "If we can lift it just a little higher, so they can walk under it without ducking--" Dor said eagerly. He moved another handful of stones.

  "Perhaps we should refrain from--" Jumper warned.

  "Nonsense! It's working beautifully. We don't want the zombies to touch the water at all, because they would get washed out, and they're too stupid to duck properly." Dor scooped some more.

  And, abruptly, the river overturned. Instead of arcing forward, it arced backward, forming a loop in the air. It splashed to the ground at the base of the hill, then continued on up and over.

  "Oh, no!" Dor cried ruefully. For of course now there was no arch. The river landed beside its original channel, then flowed back into it at the top of the hill and on as before. Instead of fashioning a bridge of water, they had doubled the course of the stream. "We'll have to move it again."

  "No," Jumper chittered. "We might create further difficulties. We can cross it this way." And he showed Dor how there was a narrow channel between the parallel slopes of the river as it spiraled through the air. The water was rising in the west and falling in the east, crossing overhead. It was in fact a variant of the original arch; now the passage across went north-south instead of east-west.

  Dor had to agree. He placed a magic marker at the loop, and they went on. What a remarkable feature of the landscape they were leaving for the zombies to find!

  Just as they departed, there was a surprised "Oink!" as a seahog was carried through the loop. Dor chuckled.

  The landscape beyond the river remained pleasant. It was the nicest region he had seen. He was really enjoying this trek, a complete change of pace from the violence just past, and hoped Jumper was enjoying it too. All too soon they would arrive at the Castle, completing their mission, and after that it would be time to go home. Dor really wasn't eager to return so soon. The best path curled down into the deeper valley, where the river meandered across to form a handsome lake. Dor marveled at this; in his own day this entire section between the Good Magician's castle and Castle Roogna was deep jungle. How could it have changed so extensively? But he reminded himself yet again that there was no accounting for magic.

  Beside the lake was a small mountain, its base the same size as the lake. Perhaps a thousand paces in diameter, were it possible to pace either mountain or lake. Yet the lake looked deep, and the mountain tall; though the water was clear, the depths were shrouded in gloom, while snow capped the peak. So both these features of the landscape were probably magically augmented, being much larger than they seemed.

  This was another type of magic Dor didn't understand. What spell kept snow from melting from the tops of the highest mountains? Since the heights were closest to the hot sun, the heat there had to be fierce, yet they acted as if it were cold. What was the purpose in such a spell? Was it the work of some long-gone Magician whose talent was turning hot to cold, permanently? No way to know, alas. Well, he might climb up there and inquire of the features of the landscape--but that would be a lot of work, and he had other things to do. Maybe after he returned to his own time...

  People were there, in the water and on the mountain and prancing between. Lovely nude women and delicately shaggy men. "I think we have happened on a colony of nymphs and fauns," Dor remarked. "They should be harmless but unreliable. Best to leave them alone. The problem is our best route passes right between mountain and lake--where the colony is thickest."

  "Is it not feasible to march that route?" Jumper chittered.

  "Well, nymphs--you know." But of course the spider didn't know, having had no experience with humanity prior to this adventure. "Nymphs, they--" Dor found himself unable to explain, since he was not certain himself. "I guess we'll find out. Maybe it will be all right."

  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 h
e 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.