“A what?”
“They eat nickelpedes. There are supposed to be some along the Gold Coast but I don’t know exactly where.”
“I’ll go out and find one!” he said.
“But what if another nickelpede comes before you get back?” she wailed.
“Stomp it!” he snapped, and scrambled down the leg of the bed and across the floor of the cave.
She didn’t answer. He didn’t like being gruff with her, but knew that if he didn’t solve the problem of the nickelpedes soon, they would both suffer a lot more grief than hurt feelings. The other nickelpedes of the region would soon smell the blood of the first and converge, and when they did, no amount of stomping would stop them.
Above the grotto, he approached the first plant he spied. “Hey, leaftop—have you seen any nickelodeons hereabouts?”
To his surprise, the plant responded: “Certainly. One prowls this region all the time.”
“Point in its direction!” he cried.
Soon he was on his way, tracing down the nickelodeon. He could hardly believe his fortune. Before long he reached its lair. The thing turned out to be a somewhat dumpy box with a slot in the side. It didn’t look like much, but he had to trust Rapunzel’s information. He hoped it was alive, so that he could talk to it.
“Are you alive?” he inquired cautiously in human tongue.
The box shook itself. “What a note!” it rumbled.
That enabled him to identify its language. “Are you hungry?” he asked the nickelodeon.
“I’m always hungry!” it responded. “But it’s getting harder to catch my meals.”
“If you come with me, I’ve got a place where nickelpedes are coming in on their own. If you wait quietly—”
“On my way!” the odd creature agreed, rising on a number of little legs and traveling along.
When they reached the grotto, they found Rapunzel distraught. She had trodden on three more nickelpedes, but remained terrified of them and appalled at herself. “Oh, I wish I had never left the Ivory Tower!” she cried, blowing her nose into a dainty hanky.
Already she was missing her captivity! How bad would it be if the Sea Hag got her alone and started in with the “Mother Sweetness” business?
“You crawl under the bed next to the Bed Monster and wait,” Grundy told the nickelodeon. “Take only the ones that actually come under the bed, so as not to alert the others. Can you do that?”
“Trust me to know my business,” the creature replied. It wedged under the bed.
Grundy clambered back to the top of the bed. “Come on up here,” he called to Rapunzel. “Small-size.”
In a moment she was with him, still sniffly. “It was horrible!” she said. “I don’t know which I hate worse: those nickelpedes, or having to squish them!”
“We should be all right now,” he said reassuringly. “I found a nickelodeon.”
“Oh, wonderful!” she exclaimed, brightening immediately. If she reacted strongly to negatives, she reacted just as strongly to positives. Grundy was not used to associating with a person whose moods were this mercurial, but he found he rather liked it. Rapunzel had no affectation; she was honest in her responses, as a child was.
They waited and watched and soon spied another nickelpede slinking in from a shadow. These creatures, like Bed Monsters, could not stand much light, but of course Grundy could not afford to move Snortimer into the day, even if he had had the size and strength to do it.
The nickelpede moved under the bed. There was a kind of click and slurp. Then there was a strange sound.
Grundy and Rapunzel exchanged a glance. “That’s a song!” she whispered.
Grundy peered over the edge of the bed. “Who’s singing?” he asked in nickelodeon language.
“I am,” the box replied. “I always sing when I eat.”
Grundy shrugged, but didn’t object. It took all kinds to make Xanth.
“Actually, it’s rather pretty music,” Rapunzel said.
“Just so long as it keeps every nickelpede away from Snortimer,” Grundy muttered.
They waited, and the music continued as more nickelpedes arrived. What was going on below was horrific, but the music made it seem almost nice.
“Back on the boat,” Rapunzel said after a while, “you did something. May I ask you why?”
“I was only trying to get us safely to land,” he said.
“Oh, certainly, and an excellent job you did, too. But this was something else.”
Grundy shrugged. “Tell me what I did, and I’ll tell you why.”
“You—you squeezed me.”
“I did?” he asked, surprised.
“When I suggested you use a fish as a messenger. Why did you do that?”
Now he remembered. “I—in the distraction of the moment, I acted without thinking. I apologize for—”
“But I liked it,” she said.
Grundy reconsidered. “It was such a good suggestion, I just—well, it was just my quick way of saying thank you.”
“Why didn’t you just say ‘Thank you?’ ”
Grundy shrugged, embarrassed. “I should have, I guess. It just—it just seemed to be a better way, at the time.”
“Mother Sweetness never squeezed me,” she said.
“Of course not. She didn’t really like you.”
“Oh.” She considered for a bit. Then: “Do you really like me, Grundy?”
“I think you’re beautiful,” he said.
“I don’t think you answered my question.”
“I don’t know how to answer it,” he admitted.
“Why?”
“Well, you’re a beautiful woman, and I’m a golem.”
“Does that mean you don’t like me?”
“It means,” he said with difficulty, “that I can’t afford to.”
“I don’t understand.”
He knew she was not being difficult. She had had no experience with the folk of the real world beyond the Ivory Tower. She knew of them and about them, but not how they interacted. She didn’t realize how demeaning it was to be a Golem.
This would require some delicacy, and that was a thing he wasn’t used to. He had always simply told off people, insulting them, making them react. He knew he couldn’t do that with Rapunzel; it would be like treading a delicate flower underfoot.
“Suppose Snortimer met a female Bed Monster he really—could like,” he said. “Then he realized that there are no females of his species, and that she was something else. That she only looked like his type of monster. Could he afford to—to like her?”
“Why not?” she asked, still perplexed.
“They would be of different species,” he repeated.
“But isn’t all right for creatures of different species to like each other? Don’t you like Snortimer?”
“Yes, of course I do! But—”
She began to cloud up. “But you don’t like me?”
“That’s not the same! Snortimer and I are not—”
“Not what?”
“Not male and female.” Was there no gentle way out of this?
“I’m female,” she said. “Does that mean I can’t like Snortimer?”
“No,” he said, pained. “That’s not it. Of course you can like him.”
“Then is it all right if I like you?”
“Oh, certainly! But—”
“But you can’t like me?”
He just wasn’t getting through! He would have to be blunt, though it would shock her and perhaps alienate her. “You—right now you look just like a beautiful female golem, and if you were that, you would be the girl of my dreams, and I would want to—to have a relationship with you that—that might lead to—” He stalled out; it was impossible to be blunt with her.
But at last she caught on. “To mating with me!” she exclaimed.
Ouch! “I didn’t mean—”
She looked disappointed. “You didn’t?”
“Not—precisely,” he said unhappily.
“But it’s academic, because you’re not a golem girl, and—”
“But anybody can mate with anybody, in Xanth!” she said excitedly. “That’s how all the crossbreeds came about. My ancestors were human and elven.”
“Which means you have a future with either human or elven kind,” he said. “Not with golem kind.”
“Why not?”
He laughed bitterly. “Why would anyone who had the glorious worlds of human and elven kinds available ever settle for a golem?”
“Why wouldn’t anyone?” she countered.
“Because a golem is nothing!” he exclaimed. “Nothing but wood and rag!”
“But you’re not wood and rag anymore. You’re flesh, just as I am.”
“The principle remains. My body may have changed, but I’m still a golem.”
She pondered. “So it’s not really a failing in me, but a failing in you.”
“Now you’ve got it,” he agreed grimly.
“Thank you for explaining it to me. I really didn’t understand.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, halfway wishing he were wood and rag again. Then perhaps it wouldn’t hurt so much.
“But would you do one thing for me, please?”
“Of course. I said I’d get to you to Castle Roogna, and—”
“Squeeze me again?”
“What?”
“As you did before. Instead of saying ‘Thank you.’ ”
He was somewhat baffled, and somewhat dismayed. “Why?”
“I like it,” she said simply.
Oh. He stood up on the bed, and she stood, and he put his arms around her and squeezed, diffidently.
“No, that doesn’t seem the same,” she said.
“Because it’s not spontaneous.”
“That makes a difference?”
“Of course it does! Things that are acted out are never as good as things that are natural. It’s the difference between make-believe and reality.”
“All my life has been make-believe,” she said. Her face clouded up, and one big tear formed in her right eye.
“Don’t feel that way!” Grundy exclaimed, squeezing her more tightly. “You have all reality ahead of you!”
“But I don’t understand reality!” she protested.
“Give it time, girl! Once you get to Castle Roogna—”
“Now it feels the same,” she murmured.
“What?”
“The squeeze.”
“Oh.” Hastily he turned her loose.
“Wasn’t it supposed to?”
How could he explain? He went to the edge of the bed and peered over. He saw a nickelpede scuttling under. The nickelodeon put down its slot and sucked the creature in. More music played.
The nickelodeon spied him. “This is an excellent location,” it said. “There should be even more nickels when night comes.”
Probably true, Grundy realized. They would have to get out of here, because when the nickelodeon became sated, the nickelpedes would swarm, and that would be doom for any normally fleshed creatures.
Rapunzel joined him. “Is he all right?” she asked.
She meant Snortimer. “I don’t know. I’d better go down and check.”
“I’m sorry if I offended you,” she said contritely. “I really don’t know how to interact with real people.”
“No fault in you!” he said, embarrassed again. He went to the leg of the bed and climbed down it.
“May I come too?” the damsel asked.
“There are nickelpedes down here,” he reminded her.
She decided to remain above. He reached the floor, circled the nickelodeon, and went to Snortimer. The hands remained limp on the floor—but was there a hint of animation? Snortimer didn’t breathe or eat the same way other creatures did, but the big hairy hands did have normal flesh. Grundy touched a hand, and it was warm. That confirmed that he was alive. “Snort?” he asked, but there was no response.
He walked to the entrance of the grotto. The shadows were lengthening outside, causing the golden hue of the landscape to deepen. Dusk was coming—which meant more nickelpedes. If Snortimer didn’t revive soon—
He turned back. Rapunzel was sitting on the edge of the bed, her pretty legs dangling down. “What are we going to do?” she asked.
Legs dangling down. Grundy thought of something. “Change to human size,” he told her.
She started to stand up on the bed.
“No, stay sitting there,” he said. “Just change—as you are.”
Perplexed, she resumed her position, then changed to human size. Now her legs reached the floor.
One of Snortimer’s big hairy hands quivered. Bed Monsters existed for no other purpose than to grab the ankles of children sitting on beds. Rapunzel was at times childlike in her innocence, and she had ankles that any creature would like to grab. Would they be enough to rouse the monster?
“Make a little scream,” Grundy told her.
“What?”
“As if you’re afraid something might grab your ankle.”
She glanced down. “Eeek!” she said, starting to draw her legs out of the way.
That did it. Suddenly one of Snortimer’s hands moved out and grabbed her ankle.
“EEEK!” Rapunzel screamed, wrenching her legs away.
Snortimer chuckled.
“He’s back!” Grundy cried.
She clapped her hands. “Oh, how clever of you to figure that out!”
“You just had the right ankles to revive him,” Grundy said. “Any creature who could resist them would be dead.”
“But you never grabbed them,” she pointed out.
“I’m not a Bed Monster.” Grundy didn’t care to admit that he would have dearly liked to grab one of her ankles, had there been any respectable pretext to do so.
He turned and went back to the grotto entrance. His gaze went out to the Ivory Tower, now a dark spike against the dim horizon.
Then he heard something. It was a faint scream from the region of the Tower, followed by a splash.
Seagulls had been patrolling the region. Now they veered, to circle around the Tower.
Then the lighthouse beam went out.
“Something strange,” Grundy said, returning to the bed.
“I—felt it,” Rapunzel said, putting one delicate hand to her heart. “Something awful.”
“There was a scream and a splash from the Ivory Tower, then the beam went out.”
“Oh, no!” she cried, horrified.
“What does it mean?”
“Mother Sweetness has died!”
“She—how can you know that?”
“I felt it, just now, but I didn’t know what it was. But I know that there has to be a living person in the Tower, or the light goes out.”
“She must have jumped!” Grundy exclaimed, his horror joining hers. “She didn’t climb down the hair!”
“No point in that, once we took the boat,” she said. “She can’t swim.”
“But the tide—when it recedes, it is possible to walk across to land. Didn’t she know that?”
“Of course she knew that!”
“Then why didn’t she wait for the tide?”
“She must—she must have wanted to die,” Rapunzel said brokenly. “Oh, it is all my fault!”
“But she doesn’t die,” Grundy reminded her. “She just changes bodies.”
“Yes.” Then the damsel’s lovely face twisted with new horror. “She’s ready to take a new body now!”
And the body the Sea Hag wanted was Rapunzel’s. Now, abruptly, her course made sense. Why wait for the tide, while Grundy and the damsel went off into the jungle where the Hag might never find them, when she could act more rapidly and effectively as a temporary ghost?
11
Siege
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Grundy said.
“No use. As a ghost, she can move much faster than we can. She’s not limited to the region of her demise.”
Grund
y considered. “How long does she have to take over a new body—do you know?”
“She never told me anything about that,” the damsel said tearfully.
Of course she wouldn’t have! But Grundy remembered the Monster of the Sea saying something about twelve hours. Probably if the Hag did not succeed in taking over Rapunzel’s body during this night, the threat would be over.
“Well, when we see her ghost coming, you be sure to tell her your body is your own.”
“Her ghost may not be visible,” she pointed out. “Most ghosts can’t be seen unless they want to be.”
“Still, we’d better move,” he decided. “We have to get clear of the nickelpede region.”
“Whatever you say, Grundy,” she said, frightened.
He went to the bed. “Snortimer, are you all right now?”
“All right,” the Bed Monster agreed. “I thought it would be easier to dissolve into dust, but then I saw those ankles—”
“We’ll have to move out the moment the darkness is complete.” Then Grundy saw another problem. “The bed! How will we move the bed?”
“I can carry one end,” the damsel volunteered.
“That’s no work for a girl like you!” Grundy protested. “It’s a long trek.”
She shrugged. “Maybe you can ask a monster.”
“I’ll go out and see what I can find.”
“I’ll go with you!” she said anxiously.
“But suppose too many nickelpedes come? We may need you to step on them.”
“But I don’t want to be alone!”
“Alone?”
“I mean, with no human company. You see—”
“I’m not human company. I’m a golem.”
“I mean—if she’s coming to take my body—”
There was that. Snortimer might not know the difference, but probably he, Grundy, would. “She can’t take your body unless you let her. Do you plan to let her?”
“No!”
“Then you should be safe from that, regardless of the company you’re with.”
“I don’t think so. If she talks to me—”
And the Hag had run the damsel’s life for two decades. Rapunzel wasn’t very good at saying no to things. “You’re right. We’d better stay together.”
It was dark now, and Snortimer was fully operational. “Can you carry one end of the bed?” Grundy asked the monster.