The Good Magician Humfrey walked in. He was, indeed, gnomelike, old and gnarled and small. His feet were big and bare and, yes, dirty. "There's not a clean pair of socks in the whole castle!" he grumped. "Girl, haven't you done that laundry yet? I asked for it an hour ago!"
"Uh, Good Magician--" Dor said, moving toward him,
"It isn't as if socks are that complicated to wash," Humfrey continued irritably. "I've shown her the cleaning spell." He looked around. "Where is that girl? Does she think the whole Land of Xanth is made of stone, merely waiting on her convenience?"
"Uh, Good Magician Humfrey," Dor said, trying again. "I have come to ask--"
"I can't stand another minute without my socks!" Humfrey said, sitting down on the step. "I'm no barefoot boy any more, and even when I was, I always wore shoes. I spilled an itching-powder formula here once, and it gets between my toes. If that fool girl doesn't--"
"Hey, old gnome!" Grundy bawled deafeningly. Humfrey glanced at him in an offhand way. "Oh, hello, Grundy. What are you doing here? Didn't I tell you how to become real?"
"I am real, gnome," Grundy said. "I'm just speaking your language, as is my talent. I'm here with my friend Dor, showing him how to get a Magician's attention."
"Dor doesn't need a Magician's attention. He's a Magician himself. He needs a quest. He ought to go find the secret of making zombies human, so he can please Millie the ghost. Besides, I'm not dressed for company. My socks--"
"To hell with your socks!" Grundy exclaimed. "The boy's come all the way here to ask you how to get that secret, and you have to give him an Answer."
"To hell with my socks? Not before they're clean! I wouldn't be caught dead in dirty socks."
"All right, gnome, I'll fetch your socks," Grundy said. "You stay right here on this step and talk to Dor, okay?" He jumped down and scurried from the room.
"Uh, I'm sorry--" Dor began hesitantly.
"It did take Grundy some time to get the message, but the cranial capacity of golems is very small. Now that he has left us alone, I can convey private reflections."
"Oh, I don't mind Grundy--"
"The fact is, Dor, you are slated to be the next King of Xanth. Now I suppose I could charge you the usual fee for my Answer, but that might be impolitic if you were to become King before I died. My references suggest that will be the case. One can never be absolutely sure about the future, of course; the future-history texts misrepresent it almost as much as the past history texts do the past. But why gamble foolishly? You are a full Magician in your own right, with power as great as mine, and of a similar genre. Given time, you will know as much as I. It becomes expedient to deal with fellow Magicians on an equal basis. Besides which, a year out of your life at this stage might in some devious way pose a threat to the welfare of your father, Bink, who cares greatly for you, and that would be an unconscionable mischief. I remember when I was attempting to fathom his talent, and the invisible giant came marching by with a tread worse than an ogre's and almost shook down the castle. But that's another matter. In this case I can not provide your full Answer anyway, because there is an ambiguity in the record. It seems it is a trade secret kept by another Magician. Are you willing to make a deal?"
"I, uh--" Dor said, not overwhelmed, but verging on it. Future history? Kingship in the foreseeable future? His father's mysterious talent? Another Magician?
"Very good. What you want is the Elixir of Restoration. What I want is historical information about a critically vague but important Wave of Xanth. The elixir is similar to the Healing Elixir that is common enough today, but is of a distinct variant formula adapted to zombies. Only the Zombie Master of the Fourth Wave knows the formula. If I enable you to interview him, will you render me a complete accounting of your adventures in that realm?"
"The--the Fourth Wave? But--"
"Then it's agreed!" Humfrey said. "Sign your name to this release form, here, so I can tie my history text into the spell." He shoved a quill into Dor's flaccid hand and a printed parchment under it, and Dor almost automatically signed. "So good to do business with a reasonable Magician. Ah, here are my socks at last. High time!" For the golem had reappeared, staggering under the huge burden.
Humfrey leaned forward and began squeezing his big feet into the socks. It was no wonder, Dor thought, that they got dirty so rapidly! The Magician wasn't bothering to wash his feet before donning the socks.
"The problem with the Fourth Wave of human colonization of Xanth is that it occurred circa eight centuries ago. I trust you are familiar with Xanth history? The centaur pedagogue gave you the scoop? Good. So I don't need to remind you how the people came in brutal Waves of conquest, killing and stealing and ravaging until they wasted it all, then had nothing better to do than settle down and watch their children turn magic, whereupon some new Wave of no-magic barbarians would invade and victimize them. So a Wave could be several generations in duration. The boldest of these, for reasons we won't go into now, was the Fourth Wave. The greatest of the ancient Magicians lived then: King Roogna, who built Castle Roogna; his archenemy and dinner companion, Magician Murphy; and the Zombie Master, whom you will interview. Plus lesser talents like the neo-Sorceress Vadne. How you will elicit the formula from the Zombie Master I don't know; he was something of a recluse, not sociable the way I am."
Grundy snorted derisively.
"Thank you," Humfrey said. He seemed to thrive on insult. "Sit down, Dor--right there will do." Dor, too disoriented to protest, sat down on the decorated carpet he had been standing on, Grundy beside him. The texture of it was luxuriant; he was comfortable.
"But the main problem is the time frame. The Zombie Master can not come to you, so you must go to him. The only presently feasible way to do that is via the tapestry."
"The tapestry?" Dor asked, surprised by this familiar item. "The Castle Roogna tapestry?"
"The same. I shall give you a spell to enable you to enter it. You will not do so physically, of course; your body is much too big to be in scale. The spell will accommodate a reasonably close match, but you are hundreds of times too massive. So you will animate the body of one of the players already depicted there. We shall have to make an arrangement for your present body--ah, I know! The Brain Coral! I owe it a favor, or it owes me one--no difference. The Coral has always wanted to taste mortality. It can animate your body during your absence, so no one will know. The golem will have to help cover for you, of course."
"I've been doing that all along," Grundy said complacently.
"Now the carpet will take you to the Coral, then to the tapestry. Don't worry; I have preprogrammed it. Here, better take something to eat along the way. Gorgon!"
The gorgon hurried in with three vials. "You didn't wash your feet!" she cried to the Magician, appalled.
Humfrey took a white vial from her hand, "I had her fix this earlier, so if it turns your stomach to stone, blame her, not me." He almost chuckled as he handed the stoppered container to Dor. "Grundy, you better hang on to the spell. Remember, it's in two parts: the yellow puts him into the tapestry, the green puts the Coral into his body. Don't confuse them!" He gave the golem two tiny colored packets. "Or is it the other way around? Well, on with you. I don't have all day," He clapped his hands together with a sharp report--and the carpet on which Dor sat took off.
Too surprised to protest, Dor grabbed for the edges and hung on. "You don't have clean feet either," he heard the gorgon saying indignantly to Humfrey as the carpet looped the room, getting its bearings. "But I brought two dry-cleaning spells, one for each foot, so--"
Dor missed the rest. The carpet sailed out of the room, through several other chambers, banked around a corner, angled up an interminably coiling stair, and shot out of a high turret window whose sides almost scraped skin off Dor's tight knuckles. Suddenly the ground was far below, and getting farther; already the Magician's castle seemed small.
"Hey--I think I'm scared of heights!" Dor cried, his vision recoiling.
"Nonsense," Grundy
retorted. "You made it up here okay, didn't you? What are you going to do, jump?"
"Noooo!" Dor cried, horrified. "But I might quietly fall."
"What you need is a good meal to settle your stomach during the boring flight," Grundy said. "Let's just get this white bottle open--"
"I'm not hungry! I think I'm heightsick!"
The golem hauled at the cork, and it popped out. Fine smoke issued, swirled, and coalesced into two fine sandwiches, a brimming glass of milk, and a sprig of parsley. Dor had to grab at everything before the wind whipped it away.
"We're really traveling in style!" Grundy said, crunching his little teeth on the parsley. "Drink your milk, Dor."
"You sound just like Millie." But Dor gulped his milk. It was very good, obviously fresh from the pod, and the milkweed must have been grown in chocolate soil.
"I hear that in Mundania they squeeze milk out of animals," Grundy observed. That made Dor's stomach do another roil. They really were barbarians in Mundania.
Then he started in on a sandwich, as he had either to eat it or continue holding it, and he wanted his hands free to clutch the carpet again. It was a door-jam and turnip sandwich, his favorite; obviously the Good Magician had researched his tastes and prepared for this occasion before Dor ever arrived at the castle. The second one was a red potato soup sandwich, somewhat squishy but with excellent taste. The gorgon had a very nice touch.
Dor thought about the anomaly of so formidable a creature as the gorgon reduced to being a common maid at the Magician's castle while she waited to learn whether Humfrey would marry her. Yet wasn't this the lot of the average woman? Maybe the Magician was merely showing her what she could expect If she married. That could be more important than his actual Answer. Or was that part of the Answer? The Good Magician had his peculiarities, but also a devious comprehension of the real situation. He had obviously known all about Dor himself, yet allowed him to struggle through the rigors of entry into the castle. Odd competence!
The carpet angled forward, causing Dor to suffer another spasm of vertigo. Yet his seat seemed secure. The material of the carpet seemed to hold him firmly yet comfortably, so that he did not slide off even when it tilted. Wonderful magic!
Now the carpet banked, circling for a landing--but it didn't land. It plunged at frightening speed directly toward a deep crevasse in the ground. "Where are we going?" Dor cried, alarmed.
"Into the teeth of a tangler!" Grundy replied. "A big one!" He pointed ahead, and for once he seemed less than cocksure.
"Right!" the rug agreed, still accelerating.
It was indeed a big tangle tree--one not even an ogre could cow. Its massive trunk grew from the base of the chasm, while its upper tentacles overlapped the rim. What a menace that must be to travelers seeking to cross the cleft!
The carpet banked again, accelerated again, and buzzed the crest of the tree. The tentacles reached up hungrily. "Has this rug gone crazy?" Dor demanded. "Nobody tangles with a full-sized tangler!"
"Oh, a big sphinx might get away with it," Grundy suggested. "Or the old invisible giant. Or a cockatrice."
The carpet banked yet again, sending Dor's hair flying to the side, and looped around for another nervy pass at the top of the tree. This time the tentacles were ready; they rose up in a green mass to intercept it. "Doom!" Grundy cried, covering his eyes. "Why did I ever turn real?"
But the carpet plunged directly below the tentacles, zooming right past the bared and scowling trunk of the tangler and into the ground at its base. Except that the ground opened into a small crevice transfixed by a root--and the carpet dropped into this hole.
Down, down--the horror of the heights had been abruptly replaced by the horror of the depths! Dor cowered, expecting to smash momentarily into a wall. But the carpet seemed to know its harrowing route; it never touched a wall.
There began to be a little light--a sustained glow from the walls. But this only showed how convoluted this region was. Chamber after chamber opened and closed, and passages branched at all angles. Yet the carpet sped unerringly along its programmed route, down into the very bowels of Xanth.
Bowels. Dor wished his thought hadn't phrased it that way. He still felt nervously sick. This harebrained ride--
The carpet halted abruptly beside a somber subterranean lake. In this faint illumination the water itself assumed a glow, revealing murky depths suggestive of mind-boggling secrets. The carpet settled to the cavern floor and became limp. "This must be our station," Grundy observed.
"But there's nothing here!" Nothing living, he meant.
I am here, something thought in his mind. I am the Brain Coral--here beyond your sight beneath the lake. You bear the stigma of the Good Magician and are accompanied by his golem. Have you come to abate his debt to me?
"I am my own golem!" Grundy protested. "And I'm not a golem any more. I'm real!"
"He said it was your debt to him," Dor answered the Brain Coral nervously. This was an uncomfortable place, and there was disquieting power in the mental voice, and an alien quality. This was a creature of Magician-class magic, but not at all human. I think."
Same thing, the voice thought. Perhaps it was the thought voicing. What is the offer?
"You--if you would care to animate my body while my spirit is away--I know it's not much of a body, just a juvenile--"
Done! the Coral replied. Go work your spells; I will be there.
"Uh, thank you. I--"
Thank you. I have existed a thousand years, storing mortals in my preservative lake, without ever enjoying the sensations of mortality myself. Now at last I shall experience them, however fleetingly.
"Uh, yes, I guess. You do understand that I will want my body back, when--"
Naturally. Such spells are always self-limiting; there will be no more than a fortnight before it reverts. Time enough.
Self-limiting? Dor hadn't known that. What a good thing the Good Magician had set it up. Had Dor tried to work such a spell by himself, he could have been stuck forever in the tapestry. The best spells were fail-safe.
The carpet took off without warning. "Farewell, Coral!" Dor cried, but there was no answer. Either the Brain Coral's communications range was short, or it had ceased to pay attention. Or it objected to inane courtesies.
The return trip was similar to the descent, with its interminable convolutions, but now Dor felt more secure, and his stomach stayed pretty much in place. He had new confidence in the Good Magician's planning and in the carpet's competence. He hardly winced as they shot up out of the crack into the bosom of the tangle tree, though he did have a qualm as the tentacles convulsed. The carpet merely dodged the embrace, allowing the Tangier to catch nothing but the qualm, and zoomed along the base of the crevasse. When well clear of the tree, it rose smoothly out of the chasm and powered into the sky. The afternoon was blindingly bright, after the gloom of the caverns.
Now they flew north. Dor looked down, trying to spot the Magic Dust village, but all he saw was jungle, One area was dark, as if burned out, but no village. Then, all too soon, Castle Roogna hove in view. The carpet circled it once, getting its bearings as was its wont, then slanted down and into a window, through a hall, and into the tapestry room.
"Here's the first spell," Grundy said, lifting the yellow package.
"No, wait!" Dor cried, abruptly afraid of the magnitude of what he contemplated. He had supposed he would only have to search out some hidden spring in the contemporary world, and now faced a far more significant undertaking. To actually enter a picture--"I need time to uncramp my legs, to--" To decide whether he was really up to this challenge. Maybe--
But Grundy had already torn open the wrapping. Yellow mist spread out, diffusing into the air, forming a little cloud.
"I don't even know what body in the tapestry to--"
Then the expanding mist encompassed him. Dor felt himself swaying, falling without falling. For a moment he saw his body standing there stupidly, tousle-haired and slack-jawed. Then the great tapestry
was coming at him, expanding hugely. There was a bug on it, then this too fuzzed out. He glimpsed a section of woven jungle, with a muscular young man standing with a huge sword, at bay against--
Chapter 3
Jumper
Dor stood at bay, his trusty blade unmasked. The goblins in front of him faded back, afraid, before he could get a close look at them. He hadn't seen goblins in the flesh before. They were small, twisted, ugly creatures with disproportionately large heads and hands and feet.
Goblins? Of course he hadn't seen them before! There had been few goblins on the surface of Xanth in daylight for centuries! They hid in the caverns beneath the surface, afraid of light.
Oh--this was no longer the present! This was the tapestry, depicting the world of eight hundred years ago. So there could be goblins here--bold ones, un-cowed by light.
But he, himself--what of him? What body--oh, yes, the huge-thewed, giant young man. Dor had never before experienced such ready power; the massive sword felt light in his hands, though he knew that in his real body he would barely have been able to swing it two-handed. This was the kind of body he had daydreamed about!
Something stung him on the head. Dor clapped his hand there, knocking himself momentarily dizzy, but whatever it was, was gone. It had felt, however, like a louse or flea. He had no antifleas spell with him. Already the penalties of the primitive life were manifesting.
The jungle was close. Great-leaved branches formed a seemingly solid wall of green. There were fewer magic plants than he was used to; these more closely resembled Mundane trees. Which, again, made sense; the Land of Xanth was closer to Mundania in nature than it would be in Dor's day. Evolution--the pedagogue centaur had taught him about that, how magic things evolved into more magical things, to compete and survive better.
Something entered the periphery of his vision as he looked around. Dor whirled--and discovered that it had not been his sword that made the goblins retreat. Behind him stood a spider--the height of a man. Dor forgot all about the lurking goblins. He lifted the great sword, feeling the facility with which his body handled it. This was a trained warrior whose muscles had been augmented by experience and skill--which was fortunate, because Dor himself was no swordsman. He could have sliced himself up, if this body hadn't possessed good reflexes.