Castle Roogna (21 page)

       The King stroked his beard. "There is that. I regard it as a long shot, but since you are willing-tell the Zombie Master I would be willing to make some reasonable exchange for his assistance." He cocked a finger, and another imp appeared. Dor wondered where those imps hid when not in use; the King was evidently well attended, though he made little show of it. Like King Trent, he masked his power except when show was necessary. "Prepare an escort and guide for an excursion to the castle of the Zombie Master. Magician Dor will depart in the morning on a mission for me."

       But in the morning there was one more: Millie the maid. "With the Castle delayed, and the household staff shipping out during the emergency, I have no job yet," she explained. "Maybe I can help."

       In future centuries she would be a sad ghost, and come to know the zombie Jonathan, and seek to restore him. She knew nothing of this now, but Dor did. How could he deny her, her chance to assist him in this mission-since it was ultimately for her? Maybe in some way she could help.

       Why did he feel so glad for her company? He knew he could never-she was not-his body appreciated aspects of her that he himself had hardly glimpsed, but she could never be his in that way. So why should he fool himself with impossible notions?

       Yet how glad he was to be with her, even this brief time!

       The escort was a dragon horse, with the front part of a horse and the rear of a dragon. The guide was another imp. "Well, sport, let's get on with it," the imp exclaimed impatiently. He was a good deal larger than Grundy the golem, but smaller than a goblin, and reminded Dor somewhat of each.

       There were three saddles spaced along the creature's back. Dor took one, Millie another, and Jumper clinging to the third, unable to sit in it. The imp perched on the equine head, whispering into the expressive ears.

       Abruptly they were moving. The horse forelegs struck the ground powerfully, while the reptilian hind legs dug their claws in and shoved back. The monster half-galloped, half-slithered forward in great lurches. Millie screamed, and Dor was almost catapulted out of the saddle. The imp chuckled impishly. He had known this would happen.

       Jumper bounded over Dor's head, landing just behind the girl. With deft motions the spider trussed her to the saddle with silken threads so that she could not be dislodged. Then Jumper did the same for Dor. Suddenly there was no question of being shaken loose; they did not even have to hold on. "Ah, you take all the fun out of it!" the imp complained.

       The dragon moved rapidly. The lurching smoothed as the creature got up speed, and became a more or less even rising and falling. Dor closed his eyes and imagined he was on a boat, sailing the waves. Up, down, sway; up, down, sway. He began to feel seasick, and had to open his eyes again.

       The foliage was rushing past. This creature was really moving! It threaded neatly through seemingly impassable tangles, avoiding tangle trees and monster warrens, hardly abating its pace even for fair-sized rifts. The imp was an obnoxious little man-thing, typical of his kind, spreading insults imp-partially-but he really knew his route and controlled the dragon expertly. Dor appreciated expertise wherever he found it.

       Which was not to say the whole trip was smooth. There were hills and dales and curves. Once the dragon splashed through a boggy lake, swimming strongly but soaking their feet and lower legs in the process. Another time it ascended a steep bank, going almost vertically before crushing it. Once a griffin rose up challengingly before it, squawking; the dragon horse neighed warningly and feinted with its hooves, and the griffin decided to give way.

       Soon they neared the demesnes of the Zombie Master-and Dor realized with a start that this was the same site as that of Good Magician Humfrey's castle, eight hundred years later. But maybe that was not strange; that place which seemed fit for one Magician might also appeal to another. If Dor were to build a castle someday for himself, he would look for an ideal site, and might be governed by considerations similar to those of some former Magician.

       However, the Zombie Master had his own defenses, and these turned out to be as formidable in their fashion as those of Magician Humfrey. A pair of zombies rose up before the dragon horse-and the fearless creature sheered off, unwilling to suffer contact with this rotting flesh. Millie, seeing the zombies, screamed, and even the imp looked disgusted.

       "This is as far as we go," the imp announced. "Nothing will bother you here-except zombies. How you get in to talk with their master I don't even care to know. Dismount and let us go home."

       Dor shrugged. Zombies posed no special horror for him, since he had more or less associated with Jonathan all his life. He didn't like zombies, but he wasn't afraid of them. "Very well. Tell the King we are in conference with the Zombie Master, and will send news soon."

       "Fat chance," the imp muttered. Dor pretended not to hear that.

       The three dismounted. Immediately Dor felt cramps in his legs; that ride had really battered them! Millie stood bowlegged, unable even to kick her feet properly. Only Jumper was unkinked; he had perched atop his saddle throughout, being unable to sit at all.

       The dragon horse neighed, wheeled on hoof and claw and tail, and shoved off. The three were showered with dirt and twigs thrown up by its feet. It was certainly glad to get away from here!

       Dor worked the knots out of his legs as well as he could, and limped up to the guard-zombies. "We come on a mission from King Roogna. Take us to your Master."

       The zombie opened its ponderous and marbled jaws. "Nooo nnn ffasssess!" it declared with fetid breath.

       Dor concentrated, trying to make out the words. Was his talent operating here? These things were dead, yet fashioned from organic material. Wood was organic, and he could speak to it when it was dead. Did the spell that gave these monsters animation also give them sufficient pseudo-life to nullify his communication with inanimate things? Or was it partially operative? Probably the latter; he could converse, but with difficulty.

       Jumper chittered. "I believe it said "No one passes," the web on Dor's shoulder said.

       Dor glanced at the spider, surprised. Had it come to the point where Jumper could understand Dor's language better than Dor himself could?

       Jumper chittered again. "Do not be dismayed; all of your words are strange to me; this is merely another aspect of strangeness."

       Dor smiled. "That makes sense! Very well; you can help me converse with the zombies." He returned his attention to the guards, who had remained as silent as the grave, as patient as time. They had no living urges to impel them. "Tell your Master he has visitors. He must see us."

       "Nooo," the zombie insisted. "Nooo nnnn!"

       "Then we shall just have to introduce ourselves." Dor made to pass.

       The zombie raised a grisly arm to block his way. Shreds of rotten flesh festooned it, and the white bone showed through in places. Millie screamed. She certainly had no affection for any zombie at this stage of her life! But centuries of ghosthood could change a person's perspective, Dor concluded.

       Dor reached for his sword, but Jumper was there before him, trussing up the zombie in silk. In a moment the other zombie was similarly incapacitated. Dor had to admit this was the better way; zombies were messy to slay, he understood, because they could not be killed. They had to be dismembered, and even the pieces fought on. Which was one reason they would make such a good army for King Roogna, if that could only be arranged. This way, they were efficiently neutralized, and in a manner that should not offend the Zombie Master.

       But they had not gone far toward the castle that stood on a mound in the forest-in Dor's day both mound and forest were gone-before a zombie serpent challenged them. It hissed and rattled in a fashion only deviously reminiscent of a live serpent, but there was no doubt it sought to bar their progress. Jumper neutralized it as he had the others. Whatever would they have done without the big spider!

       Then a zombie tangle tree menaced them. This was too much even for the spider; the tree stood four times the height of a man and had perhaps a hundred moldering tentacles. Even ft it were feasible to truss it up, the thing would have the strength to snap the strands. Therefore Dor menaced it with his gleaming sword while the others sidled past; even a zombie tree had some care for its extremities.

       In this manner they achieved the castle. It, too, was an animated ruin. Stones had fallen from its walls to reveal fossilized inner supporting timbers, and shreds of cloth hung in the window apertures. There had once been a moat, but it had long since filled in with debris; a stench rose from what thick liquid remained. There was-yes, a zombie bog-monster languishing in the mire. Its slime-coated orbs focused on the intruders with as much glare as their sunken condition permitted them to mount.

       The party crossed the broken-down drawbridge and pounded on the sagging door. Splinters and fragments were dislodged, but of course there was no answer. So Dor completed the demolition of the door with a few strokes of his sword, and the three marched in. Not without a qualm or two.

       "Hallooo!" Dor called, and his voice reverberated through the tomblike halls. "Zombie Master! We are on a mission for the King!"

       A zombie ogre appeared. Millie screamed and did a little skip back, her hair swinging almost straight up; she must have kicked her feet, forgetting that she was standing on them. Jumper braced her with one leg to prevent her falling backward into the moat, where the moat-monster was trying vainly to slaver. "Noo. Goo," the ogre boomed hollowly, for its chest had been eviscerated by decay. Dor remembered Crunch the ogre, and retreated; a zombie ogre was still an ogre.

       "We must see the Zombie Master," Millie said, though pale with fear. In her cute way, she too, had courage.

       "Soo? Ooh." The ogre shuffled down a hall, and the party followed.

       They entered a chamber like a crypt. Another zombie glanced up, resting its cadaverous hands on the table before it. "On what pretext do you intrude here?" it demanded coldly.

       "We want to see the Zombie Master!" Dor exclaimed. "Now get out of the way, you bundle of bones, if you're not going to help."

       The zombie stared somberly at him. It was an unusually well-preserved specimen, gaunt but not yet rotten. "You have no business with me. You are not yet dead."

       "Of course we're not yet-" Dor paused. That "yet" distracted him.

       Jumper chittered. "This man is alive. He must be-"

       "The Zombie Master himself!" Millie finished, horrified.

       Dor sighed. He had done it again. When would he grow up and learn to check things out before making assumptions? First King Roogna, whom he had thought to be a gardener; now the Zombie Master. He fumbled for an apology. "Uh-"

       "Why do the living seek me?" the Zombie Master demanded.

       "Uh, King Roogna needs your help," Dor blurted. "And I need the elixir to restore a zombie to life."

       "I do not indulge in politics," the Zombie Master said. "And I have no interest in restoring zombies to life; that would undermine my own talent." He made a chill gesture of dismissal and returned to his business-which was the corpse of an ant lion that he was evidently about to animate.

       "Now see here-" Dor began angrily. But the zombie ogre stepped forward menacingly, and Dor was cowed. His present body was big and strong and swift, but in no way could it match the least of ogres. One swing of that huge fist-

       Jumper chittered. "I think our mission has failed."

       Dor took another look at the ogre, remembering how Crunch had snapped an ironwood tree off at the base with one careless blow. This creature was not in good condition, being dead, but could probably snap an aluminumwood tree off. Mere human flesh would be no problem at all. So his second thought was much the same as his first: he could not prevail here,

       Dor turned about. He knew that they could not coerce a Magician to help; it had to be voluntary. The Zombie Master, as the others had warned, was simply not approachable.

       A hero would have found some way. But Dor was just a lad of twelve, accompanied by a giant spider and a girl who screamed constantly and who would become a ghost at an early age. No heroes here! And so he accepted the gall of defeat, for both his quests. The gall of growing up, of becoming disillusioned.

       Dor half-expected one of the others to protest, as Grundy the golem always did. But Millie was only a helpless maid, possessing little initiative, and Jumper was not Dor's kind; the spider comprehended human imperatives only imperfectly.

       They walked out, and the zombies did not bother them. They trekked down the hill. The dragon horse was gone, of course. They might have had it wait, but they had not expected to need it this soon. Dor's lack of foresight had penalized him again. Not that delay made much difference, at this stage. So they would simply have to march back themselves.

       They untied the two zombie guards Jumper had trussed in silk. "Nothing personal," Dor explained to them. "Our business with your Master is finished." They marched. Millie made a very pretty marcher, when she wasn't screaming or kicking her feet; her hair still flung about naturally. He was getting used to her as she was now, and found her rather intriguing. In fact, he wouldn't mind-but that wouldn't be right. He had to guard against the thoughts his Mundane body put into his head; Mundanes weren't very subtle.

       Abruptly they happened on a campfire. This was strange, because fire was hardly used in the Land of Xanth. Few things needed cooking, and heat was more efficiently obtained by pouring a little firewater on whatever needed warming. But this was obviously an organized fire, with sticks formed into a circular pile. The flames licked merrily up through the center. Someone had been here recently; in fact the person must have departed moments before Dor and his party arrived.