As the big bird disappeared, Jumper climbed back over the side of the nest. The girl spied him and screamed. She flung her hair about. She kicked her feet. She was a healthy young thing with a penetrating scream, marvelous blond tresses, and extremely well-formed legs.
“It’s all right!” Dor cried, not certain whether he was thinking more of the situation, which was hardly all right, or of her exposed legs, which were more than all right. This body really noticed such things! “He’s a friend! Don’t bring back the Hoorah!”
The maiden’s head snapped about to face him. She seemed almost as alarmed by Dor as by the huge spider. “Who are you? How do you know?”
“I’m Dor,” he said simply. Maybe one year he would learn how to introduce himself to a lady with flair! “The spider is my companion.”
Distrustfully, she watched Jumper. “Ooo, ugly! I’ve never seen a monster like that before. I think I’d rather be eaten by the bird. At least it’s familiar.”
“Jumper’s not ugly! He doesn’t eat people. They don’t taste good.”
She whirled to face him again, and once more her golden hair flung out in a spiral swirl. She looked suddenly familiar. But he was sure he had not seen her here before; he had encountered no girls here in the past. “How does he know?”
“We were attacked by a band of goblins. He tasted one.”
“Goblins! They aren’t real people! Of course they taste bad!”
“How do you know?” Dor countered, using her own query.
“It just stands to reason that a sweet maid like me tastes better than any old messy goblin!”
Dor found it hard to refute that logic. Certainly he would rather kiss her than a goblin.
Now what had put that thought in his mind?
“I am unable to follow your full dialogue,” Jumper said. “But I gather the female of your species does not trust me.”
“Right on target, monster!” she agreed.
“Uh, you do take some getting used to,” Dor said. “You, un, appear as strange to her as she does to you.”
Jumper was startled. “It could not be that extreme!”
“Well, maybe I exaggerated.” Diplomacy or truth?
“The thing actually talks!” the girl exclaimed. “Only it throws its voice to your shoulder.”
“Well, that’s hard to explain—“
“Nevertheless,” Jumper cut in, “we had better vacate this nest quickly.”
“Why does its voice come from your shoulder?” the girl insisted. Evidently she had a lively curiosity.
“I made a translation web,” Dor explained. “Jumper’s voice is the chitter. You should at least say hello to him,”
“Oh.” She leaned forward, giving Dor his first conscious peek down into a buxom bodice. Stunned, he stood stock-still. “Hello, Jumper-monster,” she said to the web.
“Wow!” said the web. “Get a load of that—“
“You don’t have to speak to the web,” Dor said quickly, though he was sorry to undeceive her. Now she wouldn’t be leaning at him any more. A background region of his mind wondered why a spiderweb would care to remark on the particular view offered, as it was surely not of interest to spiders.
“. . . yellow silk,” the web finished, even as Dor’s guilty thought progressed. Oh—of course. Spiders were interested in silk, and colored silk would be a novelty.
“That’s hair, not silk,” he murmured. Then, more loudly to the girl: “Jumper understands you without the web.”
“About vacating the nest—“ Jumper chittered.
“Yes! Can you make another dragline for her?”
“Immediately.” Jumper moved toward the girl.
“Eeeeek!” she screamed, flinging her silk about “The hairy monster’s going to eat me!”
“Be quiet!” Dor snapped, losing patience despite the impression her attributes had made on him. Either this body had singular appetites, or he had been missing a whole dimension of experience all his prior life! “You’ll bring back the Hoorah.”
She quietened reluctantly. “I won’t let that thing near me.”
She would talk to the spider, but not cooperate with him. She seemed almost as juvenile as Dor himself. “I can’t carry you down,” he told her. “I’m only—“ He broke off. He was no longer a twelve-year-old boy in body, but a powerful man. “Well, maybe I can. Jumper, will the line hold two of us?”
“Indubitably. I have only to make a stronger cable,” the spider chittered, his spinnerets already at work. In moments he had made a new harness for Dor, with a stronger cable.
Meanwhile the girl, with her irrepressible feminine curiosity, was exploring the nest. “Oh, jewels!” she exclaimed, clapping her cute little hands together excitedly,
“What kind?” Dor asked, wondering whether they would be useful for buying food or shelter later on. Jewels were not nearly as valuable in Xanth as in Mundania, but many people liked them.
“We are cultured pearls,” several voices chorused. “Most refined and well mannered, with our lineage dating back to the emperor of all oysters. We are aristocrats among jewels.”
“Oh, I’ll take you!” the girl cried, seeming unsurprised at their speech. She scooped them up and filled her apron pockets.
Now they heard the Hoorah returning. Dor put his left arm around the girl’s slender and supple waist and lifted her easily off her feet; what power this body had! Maybe it wasn’t his muscles so much as her lack of mass; she was featherlike though firmly fleshed. There must be a special magic about girls like this, he thought, to make them full yet light. He leaped over the edge of the nest, trusting Jumper’s dragline to preserve them from a fall. The girl screamed, kicked her feet, and flung her hair in his face. “Quiet,” he said around a mouthful of golden strands, holding her close so she wouldn’t wriggle loose. He was feeling very heroistic at the moment
The line went taut. It was springy, like a big rubber band from a rubber tree. They bounced back up almost to the base of the nest. The girl jiggled against him, all soft and intriguing in a fashion he would have liked to understand better. But he had no chance to explore that matter at the moment
As they steadied, Jumper came down to join them. He did not jerk and bounce; he glided to a controlled halt beside them, for he was paying out his dragline as he went. “I have set up a pulley,” he chittered. “My weight will counterbalance yours—but the two of you weigh more than I do, so I’m depending on friction to keep it slow.”
Dor did not follow all of that. But ft the magic called friction could safely lower them, good. They were all three descending at a fair but not frightening rate, and that was satisfactory. The branches of the huge tree were passing interminably, its layers of leaves concealing them from the nest.
A shadow fell across them. It was the Hoorah bird, circling down to spy out its lost artifacts. In a moment it would spot them, for they were in a slanting sunbeam.
Dor tried to draw his sword with his right hand, but this was difficult while he was supporting the girl with his left arm. Light she was, but she seemed to be getting heavier. Again, he worried about severing his own lifeline as the blade emerged from its scabbard.
“Hang still!” Jumper chittered. “A still target is very hard to locate.”
Dor gave up on the sword. But they couldn’t hang still. Dor and the girl weighed too much; they kept dropping, while the spider rose, hauled by the magic of the pulley. Jumper grabbed on to a branch with several legs, did something, and scurried along the branch toward the trunk of the tree. Dor and the girl did not fall; Dor realized that Jumper had fastened his line to the branch, halting the pulley action.
That left Dor and the terrified girl dangling like bait for the Hoorah. She was squirming, twitching her silk, and kicking her feet uselessly. His left arm, despite its mighty thews, was tiring. Pretty soon he’d be down to one thew, then none. Girls certainly were a nuisance at times.
The Hoorah spied the motion. “Hoo-rah!” it cried, and angled down.
Suddenly a green and gray-brown shape hurtled at them from the side. It seemed to have a mustached face on it. The girl screamed piercingly and flung out her arms, banging Dor’s nose with her cute elbow. He almost dropped her. But the shape was now in contact with them, its momentum shoving them all to the side, swinging on the line until they came up against a leafy branch. The hurtling Hoorah missed, swerving barely in time to avoid smacking its beak into the main tree trunk.
“I will attempt to distract it,” Jumper chittered— for of course he was the one who had rescued them. It was the variegated abdomen face-pattern Dor had noted. “I have tied you to this branch; the bird may not see you if you remain motionless and silent.”
Fat chance! The girl inhaled and opened her pretty mouth to scream again. Dor put his big ugly right hand across it. “Quiet!”
“Mmmph mmmph, you mmmph!” she mmmphed, one eye above his hand filling with anger while the other eye retained its terror. He hoped she wasn’t saying the unmaidlike thing he feared she was saying; it would be detrimental to her image.
“Well, if you’d only accepted a dragline for yourself, we wouldn’t be in this picklement.” Dor whispered back. But he knew that was unfair. The Hoorah had returned too soon, regardless.
“Come and get me, featherbrain,” Jumper chittered from another branch. Of course the translation came from Dor’s shoulder. But the spider also waved his forelegs, and that attracted the bird’s attention. The Hoorah zoomed toward that branch—and the spider sprang twenty feet to another, chittering vehemently. Dor knew the big bird could not understand Jumper’s actual words, but the tone was unmistakable.
Then again, why shouldn’t birds comprehend spider language? The two species interacted often enough. Which illustrated the supreme courage Jumper was displaying, for the thing he most feared was birds. To save his friend and a stranger, the spider was baiting his personal nightmare menace.
“You can do better than that, squawkhead!” Jumper chittered. And jumped again, as the bird wheeled in the air. The Hoorah was remarkably agile for its size.
After several futile passes, the bird realized that Jumper was too quick for it to catch. Just as well, as the translations of the spider’s insults were turning the girl’s ears a delicate shell-pink. The Hoorah looked around, casting about for the other prey. Fortunately all they had to do was remain still and silent.
Dor, trying to make his fatigued left arm more comfortable, shifted his hold slightly. The girl slipped down a bit, her bosom getting squeezed. She screamed, almost without taking a breath, catching him off guard.
Oh, no! Dor, needing his right hand to help hold on to the branch, had uncovered her mouth. Foolish mistake!
The Hoorah oriented immediately on the sound. It zoomed directly toward them. Jumper was behind it, unable to distract it this time. The Hoorah knew easy prey when it found it.
With the inspiration of desperation, Dor grabbed with his right hand at the girl’s clothing, questing for her pockets. Though she wore a showy dress that was cut high at the knees and low at the bodice, her apron covered much of that, and was utilitarian.
She screamed as if attacked—not unreasonably, in this case—but he continued until he found what he was looking for: the cultured pearls she had picked up from the nest. “What is your pet peeve?” he demanded as he flipped the first pearl into the air.
“I don’t make pets of peeves!” the pearl retorted. “But I hate people who drop me off branches!” It dropped out of sight—and the Hoorah, tracing the sound of its voice, followed it down.
Jumper half-bounded, half-swung across to them.
“Marvelous ploy!” he chittered. “Throw the next to the side, and I will lower you quietly to the ground.”
“Right!” Dor agreed. He faced the girl. “And don’t scream,” he warned.
She inhaled to scream.
“Or I’ll tickle you!” he threatened.
That got her. Meekly she let herself deflate. She even handed him a pearl from her apron breast pocket, so he wouldn’t have to dig it out himself. That was almost more cooperative than he liked.
“And what is your peeve?” he inquired of the pearl, and hurled it to the side.
“I hate uncultured people who can’t appreciate cultured pearls!” it cried.
They heard a “Hoo-rah!” in the distance as the bird went after it. The bird certainly appreciated cultured pearls!
By the time they reached the ground, they were out of pearls—but also out of peril. They had lost the bird. Dor picked up a few sticks of wood for emergency use in case the Hoorah came near again, and the three of them hurried away.
“You see!” the ring on Dor’s finger cried. “I granted your wish! You are safe on the ground!”
“I guess I can’t argue with that,” Dor agreed. But he maintained a healthy private reservation.
Dor judged they were now fairly close to Castle Roogna, since the Hoorah bird had carried them in the right direction, but the day was waning and he didn’t want to hurry lest they fall into another trap. So they foraged for supper, locating a few marshmal-low bushes and an apple pine and some iced-tea leaves. Jumper tried a bit of pine apple, but declared he preferred crustaceans. The girl had finally come to accept the big spider as a companion, and even allowed Jumper to string her up for the night. She was, she confessed daintily, afraid of bugs and things on the ground, and at the moment was none too keen on birds in trees either.
Thus the three of them hung comfortably from silken threads, safe from the predators above and below. There were advantages to the arachnid mode, Dor decided.
Jumper fell silent, no doubt already asleep and recuperating from his formidable exertions of the day. But Dor and the girl talked for a while, in low tones so as not to attract unwanted and/or hazardous attention.
“Where do you come from?” she inquired. ‘”Where do you go?”
Dor answered as briefly as he could, omitting the details about his age and the relation of his world to hers. He told her he was from a strange land, like this one but far removed, and he had come here looking for the Zombie Master, who might help him obtain an elixir to help a friend. He made clear that Jumper was from that same land, and was his trusted friend. “After all, without Jumper, we would never have escaped from the Hoorah’s nest.”
Her story was as simple. “I am a maid of just barely maybe seventeen, from the West Stockade by the lovely seashore where the gaze-gourds grow, traveling to the new capital to seek my fortune. But when I crossed a high ridge—to stay away from the tiger lilies, you know, because they have a special taste for sweet young things, those lilies of the valley—the Hoorah bird spotted me, and though I screamed and flung my hair about and kicked my feet exactly as a maid is supposed to—well, you know the rest.”
“We can help you get to Castle Roogna, since we’re going there too,” Dor said. It probably was not much of a coincidence, since the Castle was the social and magical center of Xanth; no doubt everyone who was anyone went to Castle Roogna.
She clapped her hands in that girlishly cute way she had, and jiggled in her harness with that womanly provocation she also had. “Oh, would you? That’s wonderful!”
Dor was pleased too. She was delightful company! “But what will you do at Castle Roogna?” he inquired.
“I hope to find employment as a chambermaid, there to encounter completely by surprise some handsome courtier who will love me madly and take me away from it all, and I shall live happily ever after in his rich house when all I ever expected was a life of chambermaiding.”
Dor, even in his youth, knew this to be a simplistic ambition. Why should a courtier elect to marry a common chambermaid? But he had sense enough not to disparage her ambition. Instead he remembered a question he had overlooked before, perhaps because he had been looking at other aspects of her nature. Those aspects she kicked and bounced and flung about so freely. “What is your name?”
“Oh.” She laughed musically, making a token kick and bounce and fling. “Didn’t I tell you? I am Millie the maid.”
Dor hung there, stunned. Of course! He should have recognized her. Twelve years younger—eight hundred twelve years younger!—herself as she was before he ever had known her, young and inexperienced and hopeful, and above all innocent. Stripped of the grim experience of eight centuries of ghost-hood, a naive cute girl hardly older than himself.
Hardly older? Five years older—and they were monstrous years. She was every resilient inch a woman, while he was but a boy of— “I wish I were a man!” he murmured.
“Done!” the ring on his finger cried. “I now pronounce you man.”
“What?” Millie inquired gently. Of course she didn’t recognize him. Not only was he not in his own body, he wouldn’t even exist for eight hundred years.
“Uh, I was just wishing—“
“Yes?” the ring said eagerly.
Dor bopped his head. “That I could get rid of this infernal flea that keeps biting me, and get some sleep,” he said.
“Now wait,” the ring protested. “I can do anything, but you’re asking for two things at once!”
“I’ll settle for the sleep,” Dor said. Before long, the sleep came to pass. He dreamed of standing near a huge brightly bedecked gumball bush, wanting a gumball awful bad, especially a golden one close by, but restrained by the magic curse that might be protecting the fruits. It was not merely that he wasn’t certain how to pluck a gumball without invoking the curse, it was that the bush was in the yard of another house, so that he really was not sure he had the right to pluck from it. It was a tall bush, with its luscious fruits dangling out of his normal reach. But he was up on magic stilts, very long and strong, so that now he stood tall enough to reach the delightful golden globe easily. If only he dared. If only he should.
More than that, he had never as a child liked gum-balls that well. He had seen others liking them, but he had not understood why. Now he wanted one so badly—and was suspicious of this change in himself.
Dor woke in turmoil. Jumper was hanging near him, several eyes watching him with concern. “Are you well, friend Dor-man?” the spider cluttered.
“—just a nightmare,” Dor said uncertainly.
“This is an illness?”
“There are magic horses, half illusion, who chase people at night, scaring them,” Dor explained. “So when a person experiences something frightening at night, he calls it a night-stallion or a night-mare.”
“Ah, figurative,” Jumper agreed once he understood. “You dreamed of such a horse. A mare—a female.”
“Yes. A—a horse of another color. I—I wanted to ride that mare very much, but wasn’t sure I could stay on that golden mount—oh, I don’t know what I’m trying to say!”
Jumper considered. “Please do not be offended, friend. I do not as yet comprehend your language well, or your nature. Are you by chance a juvenile? A young entity?”
“Yes,” Dor replied tightly. The spider seemed to understand him well enough.
“One beneath the normal breeding age of your species?”
“Yes.”
“And this sleeping female of your kind, her with the golden silk—she is mature?”
“I—yes.”
“I believe your problem is natural. You have merely to wait until you mature, then you will suffer no further confusion.”
“But suppose she—she belongs to another—?”
“There is no ownership in this sort of thing,” Jumper assured him. “She will indicate whether she finds you suitable.”
“Suitable for what?”
Jumper made a chitter-chuckle. “That will become apparent at the appropriate occasion.”
“You sound like King Trent!” Dor said accusingly.
“Who I presume is a mature male of your species— perhaps of middle age.”
On target. Despite his confusion and frustration, Dor was glad to have such a person with him. The outer form hardly mattered.
Millie stirred, and Dor suffered a sudden eagerness to halt this conversation. It was dawn, anyway; time to eat and resume the trek to Castle Roogna.
Dor got bearings from the local sticks and stones, and they set off for the Castle. But this time they encountered a large river. Dor didn’t remember this from his own time—but of course the channel could have shifted in eight hundred years, and with the charmed paths he might not have noticed a river anyway. The water was quite specific in answer to Dor’s question: the Castle lay beyond the far side, and there was no convenient way across the water.
“I wish I had a good way to pass this river,” Dor said.
“I’ll see to it,” the ring on his finger said. “Just give me a little time. I got you to sleep last night, didn’t I? You have to have patience, you know.”
“I know,” Dor said with half a smile.
“Gnome wasn’t built in a day, after all.”
“I could balloon us across,” Jumper offered.
“Last time we ballooned, the Hoorah nabbed us,” Dor pointed out. “And if it hadn’t, we would probably have been blown right out of Xanth anyway. I don’t want to risk that again.”
“Ballooning is somewhat at the mercy of the winds,” the spider agreed. “I had intended to fasten an anchor to the ground, before, so that we could not be blown too far and could always return to our starting point if necessary, but I admit I reckoned without the big bird. I had somehow thought no other creatures had been expanded in size the way I have been—in retrospect, a foolish assumption. I agree: ballooning is best saved for an emergency.”
“In my stockade, we use boats to cross water,” Millie offered. “With spells to ward off water monsters.”
“Do you know how to make a boat?” Jumper chittered. The question was directed at Millie, but the web on Dor’s shoulder translated it anyway. Inanimate objects tended to become more accommodating when they associated with him for prolonged periods.
“No,” she said. “I am a maid.”
And maids did not do anything useful? Maybe she simply meant she was not involved in masculine pursuits. “Do you know the anti-water-monster spells?” Dor asked her.
“No, only our stockade monster-speller can do those. That’s his talent.”
Dor exchanged glances with several of Jumper’s eyes. The girl was nice, but she wasn’t much help.
“I believe your sword would proffer some discouragement to water predators,” Jumper chittered, “I could loop their extremities with silk, and render them vulnerable to your sharp edge.”
Dor did not relish the prospect of battling water monsters, but recognized the feasibility of the spider’s proposal. “Except the boat. We still need that,” he pointed out, almost with relief.
“I think I might fashion a craft from silk,” Jumper chittered. “In fact I can walk on water sometimes, when the surface is calm. I might tow the boat across.”
“Why not just go across and string up one of your lines?” Millie inquired. “Then you could draw us across, as you drew us up into the tree last night.”
“Excellent notion!” the spider agreed. “If I could get across without attracting attention—“
“Maybe we could set up a distraction,” Dor suggested. “So they wouldn’t notice you.”
They discussed details, then proceeded. They gathered a number of sticks and stones for Dor to talk to, which could serve as one type of distraction, and located a few stink bugs, which they hoped would be another type of distraction. Stink bugs smelled mild enough when handled gently, but exploded with stench when abused. Jumper fashioned several stout ropes of silk, attaching one to an overhanging tree and leaving the others for the people to use as lariats.
When all was ready, Jumper set off across the water. His eight feet made dents in the surface but did not break through; actually he was quite fleet, almost skating across.
But all too soon there was a ripple behind him, A great ugly snout broke the surface: a serpentine river monster. All they could see was part of the head, but it was huge. No small boat would have been safe— and neither was Jumper. This was the type of monster much in demand for moat service.
“Hey, snoutnose!” Dor called. He saw an ear twitch on the monster’s head, but its glassy eye remained fixed on the spider. More distraction was needed, and quickly!
Dor took a stick of wood, as large as he thought he could throw that distance. “Stick, I’ll bet you can’t insult that monster enough to make it chase you.” Insults seemed to be a prime tool for making creatures react.
“Oh yeah?” the stick retorted. “Just try me, dirt-face!”
Dor glanced into the surface of the water. Sure enough, he had dirt smeared across his face. But that would have to wait. “Go to it!” he said, and hurled the stick far out toward the monster.
The stick splashed just behind the great head: an almost perfect throw. Dor could never have done that in his own body! The monster whirled around, thinking it was an attack from behind. “Look at that snotty snoot!” the stick cried as it bobbled amidst its ripples. Water monsters, it was said, were quite vain about their ferocious faces. “If I had a mug like that, I’d bury it in green mud!”
The monster lifted its head high. “Honk!” it exclaimed angrily. It could not talk the human language, but evidently understood it well enough. Most monsters who hoped for moat employment made it a point to develop some acquaintance with the employers mode of communication.
“Better blow out that tube before you choke,” the stick said, warming up to its task. “I haven’t heard a noise like that since a bull croak smacked into my tree and brained out its brainless brains.”
The monster made a strike at the stick. The diversion was working! But already Dor saw other ripples following, the pattern of them orienting on Jumper. The spider was moving rapidly, but not fast enough to escape these creatures. Time for the next ploy.
Dor grabbed the rope strung to the tree, hauled himself up, and swung out over the water. “Hoorah!” he cried.
Heads popped out of the water, now orienting on him. Toothy, glared-eyed excrescences on sinuous necks. “You can’t catch me, deadpans!” he cried. Deadpans were creatures who lurked around cooking fires, associating with slinky copperheads and similar ilk, and had the ugliest faces found in nature.
Several of the monsters were quite willing to try. White wakes appeared as the heads coursed forward.
Dor hastily swung back and jumped to shore. “How many monster are there?” he demanded, amazed at the number.
“Always one more than you can handle,” the water replied. “That’s standard operating procedure.”
That made magical sense. Too bad he hadn’t realized it before Jumper exposed himself on the water. But how, then, could he distract them all?
He had to try, lest Jumper be caught. It was not as it he were a garden-variety traveler; he was a Magician.
Dor picked up a stink bug, rolled it into a ball, and threw it as hard as he could toward the skating spider. Jumper was now over halfway across the river, and making good time. The bug, angered by this treatment, bounced on the water behind the spider and burst into stench. Dor could not smell it from this distance, but he heard the monsters in that vicinity choking and retreating. Dor threw three more bugs, just to be sure; then Jumper was out of range.
Millie was doing her part. She was capering beside the water and waving her hands and calling out to the monsters. Her flesh bounced in what had to be, to a monster, the tastiest manner. Even Dor felt like taking a bite. Or something. The trouble was, the monsters were responding too well. “Get back, Millie!” Dor cried. “They have long necks!”
Indeed they did. One monster shot its head forward, jaws gaping. Slaver sprayed out past the projecting tiers of teeth. Glints shot from the cruel eyes.
Millie, abruptly aware of her peril, stood frozen. What, no kicks and screams? Dor asked himself. Maybe it was because she had been kicking and screaming, in a manner, before, so that would have represented no contrast.
Dor’s fingers scrambled over his shoulder for his sword as he leaped to intercept the monster. He jerked at the hilt—and it snagged, wrenching out of his hand as the sword cleared the scabbard. The blade tumbled to the ground. “Oh, no!” the sword moaned. Dor found himself striking a dramatic pose before the monster, sword hand upraised—and empty.
The monster did a double take. Then it started to chuckle. Dor somewhat sheepishly bent to retrieve his weapon—and of course the toothed snout dived down to chomp him.
Dor leaped up, legs spreading to vault the descending head, and boxed the monster on one ear with his left fist. Then he landed, whirled, and brought his sword to bear. He did not strike; he had the gleaming blade poised before one of the monster’s eyeballs. The gleam of the blade bounced the eye’s glints away harmlessly.
“Now I spare you, where you did not spare me,” he said. “Do you take that as a signal of weakness?”
The eye stared into the swordpoint. The monster’s head quivered in negation as it slid back. Dor strode forward, keeping his point near the eye. In a moment the head disappeared beneath the surface of the river.
The other monsters, noting this, did not advance. They assumed Dor had some powerful magic. And he realized this truth, which his body had known: deal with the leader, and you have dealt with the followers.
“Why, that’s the bravest thing I ever saw!” Millie exclaimed, clapping her hands again. She did that often now, and it sent most interesting ripples through her torso—yet Dor had never seen her do it in his own world. What had changed?
Eight hundred years of half-life: That was what had changed her. Most of her maidenly bounce had been pressed out of her by that tragedy.
But more immediately: what had changed in him? He should never have had the nerve to face up to a full-fledged river monster, let alone cow it into retreat Yet he had done so unthinkingly, when Millie was threatened. Maybe it was his body taking over again, reacting in a conditioned way, even to the extent of facing down a monster in such a way as to abate the whole fleet of monsters at once.
What kind of a man had this body been, before Dor arrived? Where had he gone? Would he return when Dor went back to his own world? He had thought this body was stupid, but now there seemed to be considerable compensations. Maybe the body had never needed to worry too much about danger ahead, because of its competence in handling that danger when it faced it. This body, without Dor present to mess it up, could have handled that whole goblin band alone.
The flea bit him just over the right ear. Dor almost sliced his own head off, trying to swat it with his sword hand. Here he could face down a monster, but could not get rid of a single pesky flea! One of these days he was going to find a flea-repellent plant.
“Look—the spider has made it across!” Millie cried.
So he had. Their distractions had been sufficient after all. Maybe there had been one more monster than Dor could handle—but he had not been alone.
Relieved, Dor went to the tree where the crossing cable had been anchored. Already it was tightening, lifting out of the water, as Jumper labored at the other end to draw it taut. The spider could exert a lot of force on a line, achieving special leverage with his eight legs. Soon the cable stretched from tree to tree, sagging only slightly in the middle of the river, as nearly as Dor could see. It was an extremely stout line, compared to Jumper’s usual, but still it tended to disappear in the distance.
“Now we can hand-walk it across,” Dor said. And asked himself: We can?
“Maybe you can,” Millie said. “You’re a big brave strong rugged man. But I am a little diffident weak soft maid. I could never—“
If only she knew Dor’s true state! “Very well; I’ll carry you.” Dor picked her up, set her in the tree at the end of the line, then hauled himself up with a convulsive heave of his thews. He placed his boots on the cable, found his balance, and picked Millie up in his arms.
“What are you doing?” she cried, alarmed. She kicked her feet. Dor noticed again how dainty her feet were, and how cutely they kicked. There was an art to foot-kicking, and she had it; the legs had to flex at the knees, and the feet had to swing just so, not so fast that the legs could not be seen clearly. “You can’t possibly keep your balance.”
“That so?” he inquired. “Then I suppose we will fall into the river and have to swim after all.” He walked forward, balancing.
“Are you crazy?” she demanded, horrified. And he echoed to himself: Am I crazy? He knew such a feat of balancing was impossible without magical assistance —yet here was this body, doing it.
What superb equilibrium this barbarian body had! No wonder Mundane Waves had conquered Xanth over and over, despite all the power of magic brought to bear against them.
Millie stopped kicking, afraid she would make him lose his balance. Dor marveled as he went; had he realized the potentialities of this body before, he would have been much less afraid of heights. He realized now that his concern about certain things, such as taking a fall, was not inherent, but more a product of his frailty of physique. When he had confidence in his abilities, fear faded. So, to that extent, the body of a man did make him more of a man in spirit too.
Then more trouble came. Big, ugly shapes flitted out of the forest to hover above the river. They were too solid for birds; their heads were man-sized.
The grotesque flock milled for a moment, then spied the figures on the cable. “Heee!” one cried, and they all wheeled and bore on Dor.
“Harpies!” Millie cried. “Oh, we are undone!”
Dor wanted to reach for his sword, but couldn’t; both arms were taken with the girl. The river monsters were lurking at a discreet distance; they were cautious about approaching this formidable man while he kept his feet, but might have second thoughts if he were floundering in the water—as he soon would be if he grabbed for his sword, dropped Millie, and lost his balance. He was helpless.
The harpies closed on them, their dirty wings wafting a foul odor down. Dirty birds indeed! They were greasy avians with the heads and breasts of women. Not pretty faces and breasts like Millie’s; their visages were witchlike and their dugs grotesque. Their voices were raucous. Their birdy legs had great ugly chipped talons.
“What a find, sisters!” the leader harpy screeched. “Take them, take them!”
The flock plunged down, screaming with glee. Claws closed as half a dozen foul creatures clutched at Millie, who screamed and kicked and flung her tresses about to no avail, as usual. She was torn from Dor’s grasp and lifted into the sky.
Then about ten more harpies converged on Dor himself. Their talons closed on his forearms, his biceps, his calves, thighs, hair, and belt. The claws were rounded, without cutting edges, so did not hurt him so long as the points were clear; they merely clamped onto his appendages like manacles. The grimy wings beat powerfully, and he was borne upward in their putrid midst
They carried him across the water and into the forest at treetop level, so that his sagging posterior almost brushed the highest fronds. They hoisted him on through the forest until they reached a great cleft in the ground, where they glided down. This was not the Gap; it was far smaller, more tin a par with the crevasse he had entered on the magic carpet. Could it be the same one? No; the location was wrong, and the configuration different. Dug into the clifflike sides of this one were grubby holes: caves made by the harpies for their nests. They bore him down into the largest cave and dumped him unceremoniously on the filthy floor.
Dor got up, brushing dirt off his body. Millie was not here; they must have taken her to another cave. Unless there were connecting passages—which seemed unlikely, since these creatures flew better than they walked—he would be unable to reach her by foot. He retained his sword, but could not hope to slay all the harpies in this degenerate harpy city; they would overwhelm him. Either they knew this and so had contempt for his blade, or they simply hadn’t recognized it in its mundane sheath across his back. The latter seemed more likely. At last he was beginning to appreciate that location! So it would be foolish to betray his possession of the weapon by making a premature move. He would have to wait and see what they wanted from him, just in case it wasn’t a quick meal of his flesh, and fight only as a last resort.
One thing about being a hero: the threats were larger than life, and the glooms gloomier. In his real life he would never have gotten into a situation like this!
The harpies scuttled back, leaving one especially hideous crone before him. “My, aren’t you the husky one!” she cackled, her ropy hair flying about wildly as she pecked her head forward, chickenlike. Maybe those were feathers on her pate; it was hard to tell under the muck. “Good teeth, good muscle tone, hand-some—yes, you’ll do just fine!”
“Just fine for what?” Dor demanded with more belligerence than he felt. He was scared.
“Just fine for my chick,” the old hen clucked. “Heavenly Helen, Harpy Queen. We need a man on alternate generations, a vulture the other times.”
“What have you done with—the girl?” Dor decided not to name her, lest these polluted monsters assume he was closer to her, or she to him, than he/she was and try to coerce him by torturing her. He knew monsters would do this son of thing. That was the nature of monsters, after all.
He was quite right. “She will be cooked upon a fire of dung for supper,” the canny old bird screeched gleefully. “She’s such a delectable morsel! Unless you do as we demand.”
“But you haven’t told me what you demand.”
“Haven’t we now?” The dirty bird cocked her head at him cannily. “Are you trying to feign innocence? That will get you nowhere, my pretty man-type male buck! Into the nest with you!” And she partly spread her awful wings and advanced, her stink smiting him anew. Dor backed off—and stumbled into an offshoot cave.
So there were interconnecting passages. This one was not large enough for him to stand in; it was more suitable for scuttling. So he scuttled around a bend, and the tunnel opened into a fair-sized chamber whose domed ceiling did permit him to climb back to his feet
Another harpy faced him there—but what a difference there was! This was a young bird, with metallic sheen on her feathers, shiny brass claws, the face and breasts of a lovely maiden—and she was clean. Her hair was neatly brushed, each tress luxuriant; if there were any feathers in it, they were silken ones. She was the prettiest harpy Dor had ever seen or imagined.
“So you are the man Momma found for me,” Helen Harpy murmured. Her voice was sultry, no screech.
Dor looked around. The chamber was bare except for the large nest in the center, formed of fluffy down feathers so that it sprang up like a magic bubble bath. The room opened out on the canyon—a sheer drop of a couple hundred feet. Even if he were able to navigate that, how could he rescue Millie? One could hardly climb a sheer rock face while screaming and kicking one’s feet.
“I think I’m going to enjoy this,” Helen murmured, “I had my doubts when Momma said she’d find me a man, but I did not know how fine a man she intended. I’m so glad I wasn’t in the vulture generation, the way Momma was.”
“Vulture?” Dor asked, casting about for some other exit. If he could sneak through a tunnel, find Millie—
“We’re half-human, half-vulture,” she explained. “Since there are no males of our species, we have to alternate.”
Dor had not realized there were no male harpies. Somehow he had supposed there were, in his day. But he had never looked into the matter. All he had ever actually seen were females; any males there were kept pretty much to themselves, making the females do the foraging. At any rate, this was not his present concern.
He had a bright idea. “Nest, what’s the best way out of here?”
“Oblige the harpy,” the nest replied, its down feathers wafting softly as it spoke. They were of pastel hues, pretty. “They hardly ever kill breeders, unless they’re really hungry.”
“I don’t even know what the harpy wants!” Dor protested.
“Come here,” the fair harpy murmured. “I’ll show you what I want, you delightful hunk of man.”
“I wish I were out of here,” Dor muttered.
“I’m still working on the river crossing,” the ring on his finger complained.
“What’s that?” Helen asked, spreading her pretty wings a little. Her down feathers were as white as her breasts, and probably as soft.
“A magic ring. It grants wishes,” Dor said, hoping this was not too great an exaggeration. Actually, he hadn’t caught the ring failing; he just was never sure that its successes were by any agency of its own magic.
“Oh? I’ve always wanted one of those.”
Dor pulled it off his finger. “You might as well have it; I just want to rescue Millie.” Oops—he had said her name.
Helen snatched the proffered ring. Harpies were very good at snatching. “You’re not a goblin spy, are you? We’re at war with the goblins.”
Dor hadn’t known that. “I—we killed a number of goblins. A band of them attacked us.”
“Good. The goblins are our mortal enemies.”
Dor’s curiosity was aroused. “Why? You’re both monsters; I should think you’d get along together.”
“We did, once, long ago. But the goblins did us the foulest of turns, so now we are at war with them.”
Dor sat down on the edge of the nest. It was as soft and fluffy as it looked. “That’s funny. I thought only my own kind waged wars.”
“We’re half your kind, you know,” she said. She seemed fairly nice as he got to know her. She smelled faintly of roses. Apparently it was only the old harpies who were so awful. “A lot of creatures are, like the centaurs, mer-folk, fauns, werewolves, sphinxes, and all—and they all inherited man’s warlike propensities. The worst are the pseudo-men, like the trolls, ogres, elves, giants, and goblins. They all have armies and go on rampages of destruction periodically. How much better it would be if we half-humans had inherited your intelligence, curiosity, and artistry without your barbarity.”
She was making increasing sense. “Maybe if you had inherited our other halves, so you had the heads of vultures and the hindquarters of people—“
She laughed musically. “It would have made breeding easier! But I’d rather have the intelligence, despite its flaws.”
“What did the goblins do to the harpies?”
She sighed, breathing deeply. She had a most impressive human portion, that way, and Dor was glad it was the upper section she had inherited. “That’s a long story, handsome man. Come, rest your head against my wing, and I’ll preen the dirt from your face while I tell you.”
That seemed harmless. He leaned back against her wing, and found it firm and smooth and slightly resilient, with a fresh feather smell.
“Way back when Xanth was new,” she said in a dulcet narrative style, “and the creatures were experiencing the first great radiation of forms, becoming all the magical combinations we know today, we half-people felt an affinity for each other.” She licked his cheek delicately with her tongue; about to protest, Dor realized that this was what she meant by preening. Well, he had agreed to it, and actually the sensation was not bad at all.
“The full-men from Mundania came in savage Waves, killing and destroying,” she continued, giving his ear a little nip. “We half-people had to cooperate merely to survive. The goblins lived adjacent to we harpies—or is that us harpies? I never can remember —sometimes even sharing the same caves. They slept by day and foraged by night, while we foraged by day.
“So our two species were able to use the same sleeping areas. But as our populations grew there was not enough room for us all.” Her preening, fitted between words, had progressed to his mouth; her lips were remarkably soft and sweet as they traversed his own. If be hadn’t known better, he might have thought this was a kiss.
“Some of our hens had to move out and build nests in trees,” she continued, reaching the other side of his face. “They got to like that better, and still do perch in trees. But the goblins became covetous of our space, and reasoned that if there were fewer of us there would be room for more of them. So they conspired against our innocence. Their females, some of whom in those days were very comely, lured away our males, corrupting them with—with—” She paused, and her wing shuddered. This was evidently difficult for her. It was none too easy for Dor, either, because now her breast was against his cheek, as she strained to reach the far side of his neck. Somehow he found it difficult to concentrate on her words.
“With their arms and—and legs,” Helen got out at last. “We had not been so long diverged from human beings that our males did not remember and lust after what they called real girls, though most human and humanoid women would not have anything to do with vulture tails. When the lady goblins became approachable—I would term them other than ladies, but I’m not supposed to know that sort of language—when these creatures beckoned our cocks—oh, males are such foolish things!”
“Right,” Dor agreed, feeling pretty foolish himself, half-smothered between her neck and bosom. He knew better than to argue with the really foolish sex.
“And so we lost our cock-harpies, and our hens became soured. That’s why we have a certain exaggerated reputation for being impolite to people. What’s the use of trying, when there are no cocks to please?”
“But that was only one generation,” Dor protested. “More cocks should have hatched in the next generation.”
“No. There were no more eggs—no fertile ones. There had never been a great number of cocks—our kind hatched about five females for every male—and now there were none. Our hens were becoming old and bitter, unfulfilled. There’s nothing so bitter as an old harpy with an empty nest.”
“Yes, of course.” She seemed finally to have completed the preening; he had no doubt his face was shiningly clean now. “But why didn’t all the harpies die out, then?”
“We hens had to seek males of other species. We abhor the necessity—but our alternative is extinction. Since we derived originally from a cross between human and vulture—I understand that was quite a scene, there at the love spring—we have had to return to these sources to maintain our nature. There are some problems, however. The human and vulture males aren’t inclined generally to mate with harpies, and we can’t always get them to the love spring to make it happen—and when they do, the result is always a female chick. It seems only a harpy cock can generate males of our species. So we have become a flock of old hens.”
That was some history! Dor had heard about the nefarious love springs, where diverse creatures innocently drank, then plunged into love with the next creature of the opposite sex they met. Much of the population of Xanth was the fault of such springs, producing the remarkable crossbreeds that thereafter bred true. Fortunately the love-water had to be fresh, or it lost its potency; otherwise people would be endlessly slipping it into the cups of their friends as practical jokes. But he could see how this would create a problem for the harpies, who could not always carry a potential mate to the spring, or make him drink from it.
Now Helen’s whole body shook with rage, and her voice took on a little of the tone of the older hens. “And this is what the cursed goblins did to us, and why we hate them and war against them. We want to kill off all their males, as they did ours. We shall fight until we have our vengeance for the horrible wrong they did us. Already we are massing our armies and gathering our allies among the winged kinds, and we shall wreak a fittingly horrible vengeance by scratching the goblin nation from the fair face of Xanth!”
By this time Dor had fairly well grasped the purpose for which he had been brought here. “I, uh, I sympathize with your predicament. But I can’t really help you. I’m too young; I’m not a man yet.”
She drew back and twisted her head to look at him, her large eyes larger yet “You certainly look like a man.”
“I got big quite suddenly. I’m really twelve years old. That’s not much for my kind. I just want to help my friend Millie.”
She considered momentarily. “Twelve years old. That just might be statutory seduction. Very well. I’ll accept the ring you offered, in lieu of—of the other. Maybe it can wish me a fertile egg.”
“I can! I can!” the ring exclaimed eagerly.
“I didn’t really want to do this anyhow,” Helen said as she screwed the ring onto her largest claw. She had merely held it, up till now. “Momma insisted, that’s all. You can have the girl, though at your age I really don’t know what you’ll do with her. She’s four caves to the right.”
“Uh, thank you,” Dor said. “Won’t your mother object— I mean, if I just walk out?”
“Not if I don’t squawk. And I won’t squawk if the ring works okay.”
“But that ring takes time to operate, even if—“
“Oh, go ahead. Can’t you see I’m trying to give you a break?”
Dor went ahead. He wasn’t sure how long she would have patience with the ring, or whether she would suddenly change her mind. Of course it was always possible that the ring really could produce. How nice for the harpies if it could give them a male chick! But meanwhile, he didn’t want to waste time.
The old harridan eyed him suspiciously, but did not challenge him. He counted four subcaves to the right and went in. Sure enough, there was Millie, disheveled but intact. “Oh, Dor!” she cried. “I knew you’d rescue me!”
“I haven’t rescued you yet,” he warned her. “I traded my wishing ring to get to you.”
“Then we’d better get out of here in a hurry! That ring couldn’t wish itself out of a dream.”
Why would it want to? he wondered. He checked the cave exit. Like the other, it opened onto a formidable drop. “I don’t think we can just walk out. I don’t think there are any exits that don’t require flying. That’s why the harpies aren’t worried about us escaping.”
“They—they were threatening to cook me for supper. I’d rather jump, than—“
“That was just to get me to cooperate,” Dor said. Yet he had the grisly fear that it had been no bluff. Why should they have told her the threat, when he wasn’t there to hear? The harpies were not nice creatures.
“To cooperate? What did they want from you?”
“A service I couldn’t perform.” Though this body of his had masculine capabilities and probably could— no, that wasn’t the point.
Millie looked at his face. ‘It’s clean!” she exclaimed.
“I, uh, had it washed.”
Her eyes narrowed. “About that service—are you sure—?”
Damn that female intuition! Dor kneeled by the exit hole, feeling around it with his fingers. “Maybe there are handholds or something.”
There weren’t. The face of the cliff was as hard and smooth as glass, and the drop looked horrendous. He saw harpies flitting from other caves, coming and going, always flying. No hope there!
Even if there had been handholds, they would have required both of his hands. He would have been unable to hold on to Millie with one, and she would have screamed and kicked her feet and flung her hair about and fallen to her death the moment she attempted to make such a climb by herself. She was a delectable female, but just not much use at man-business.
Not that he could make any such claim himself, after that session with Heavenly Helen Harpy.
Helen had said that the harpies had once shared quarters with the goblins. The goblins did not fly, and he doubted they could climb well enough to handle this sheer cliff. If they had shared these caves, there had to be footpaths to them, somewhere. Maybe these had been cemented over, after the goblins had been driven out. “Walls, do any of you conceal goblin tunnels?” he asked.
“Not me!” the walls chorused.
“You mean the goblins never used these caves?” Dor demanded, disappointed. Had Helen lied to him —or had she been referring to other caves, before the harpies moved here?
“Untrue,” the walls said. “Goblins originally hollowed out these caves, hollowed and hallowed, before the war started.”
“Then how did the goblins get in and out?”
“Through the ceilings, of course.”
Dor clapped the heel of his hand to his forehead. Of course! One problem with questioning the inanimate was that the inanimate didn’t have much imagination and tended to answer literally. He had really meant to question all the artifacts in and of this chamber, but he had only actually named the walls, so only they had responded. “Ceiling, do you conceal a goblin passage?”
“I do,” the ceiling replied. “You could have saved a lot of trouble if you’d asked me first, instead of talking with those stupid walls.”
“Why isn’t it visible?”
“The harpies sealed it over with mud plaster and droppings. Everyone knows that.”
“That’s why the stink!” Millie cried. “They use their dung for building.”
Dor drew his sword. “Tell me where to strike to free the passage,” he said.
“Right here,” the ceiling said at one side.
Dor dug his swordpoint in and twisted. A chunk of brown plaster dropped to the floor. He dug harder and gouged more out. Soon the passage opened. A draft of foul air washed down from the hole.
“What’s that fresh smell?” a harpy voice screeched from the cavern hall.
“Fresh smell!” Dor exclaimed, almost choking on the stench. He and Millie had become more or less acclimatized to the odor pervading the caves, but now that the air was moving, his nostrils could not so readily filter it out. Yet perhaps this breeze was offensive to the harpies.
The old hen appeared in the entrance. “They’re trying to sneak out the old goblin hole!” she screeched. “Stop them!”
Dor strode across to block her advance, sword held before him. Afoot, unable to spread her wings, the harpy was at a disadvantage, and had to retreat. “Climb up into the hole!” Dor cried to Millie. “Use the goblin passage to escape!”
Millie stared up into the blackness of the hole. I’m afraid!” she cried. “There might be nickelpedes!”
That struck him. Nickelpedes were vicious insects five times as ferocious as centipedes, with pincers made of nickel. They attacked anything that moved in darkness.
Now more harpies were pressing close. They respected Dor’s bared blade, but did not retreat farther than they had to. He could not swing freely in the passage, and didn’t really want to shed their blood; after all, they were half-human, and it wasn’t nice to kill females.
What was he going to do? With the harpies in front, and Millie balking, and an open cliff outside—in this situation he couldn’t fool anyone by making the walls talk. He was stuck. He might hold off the dirty birds indefinitely, but he couldn’t escape. Actually, if they started flying in from the cliffside, he would have trouble, because he couldn’t very well cover both entrances, and Millie would not be much help. And in due course he and Millie would get tired, and hungry and thirsty, and would have to sleep. They would be captive again.
“Millie, you’ve got to get up that goblin passage!” he cried.
“No good, no good!” the harpies outside screeched. “We know where it goes, we’re covering the exit. You can’t escape!”
Then why were they telling him this? Easier to nab him at the goblin-tunnel exit. So they must be bluffing.
Then Millie screamed. Dor looked—and spied a huge hairy shape dropping out of the hole. Green eyes looked back at him. “Jumper!” How glad he was to see the big spider again!
“I could not place my lines,” the spider chittered. “The lady-man-birds would have spied me on the face of the cliff. So I had to come in this way.”
“But the harpies are watching the exit—“
“They are. But they did not follow me inside, because of the nickelpedes.”
“But you—“
“Nickelpedes are pinching bugs. I was hungry anyway. They were delicious.”
Naturally a spider would be able to handle big bugs! But the harpies were more formidable. “If we can’t use the goblin tunnel—“ Dor began.
Jumper fastened a line to Millie, and another to Dor. “I am generating sufficient lines to lower you to the bottom, but you will have to let yourselves down. I suggest you swing and slide so the birds will not be able to catch you readily.”
“I can’t do that!” Millie protested. “I don’t have big arm muscles and things!”
Dor glanced at her. She was half right; she did lack big arm muscles, but she certainly had things. “I’ll carry you again.” He flicked his swordpoint, warning back the encroaching harpies.
“You’ll need both arms to lower yourself,” Jumper pointed out. “I will jump across and string a guideline. That way you can swing from the center of the cleft, not banging the walls. But you will be caught in midair.”
“Can’t be helped. You’ll have to relax the guideline, so we can drop slowly lower. Just be sure that line is tight when we start.”
“Yes, that is possible, though difficult. Your two weights will make a great deal of tension.”
Dor poked at the witchly face of another harpy. “Millie can watch you, and tell me when it’s ready. You wave to her from the far side.”
“Correct.” Jumper ran to the cliff opening and disappeared. There was an outcry from the harpies outside; they had never seen a jumping spider this size before, and were amazed and frightened.
“He’s waving!” Millie cried.
That had been quick! Dor made a last poke at the harpies, whirled, grabbed her with his left arm, and flung himself out over the cliff. Then he remembered: be still had the sword in his right hand. He had forgotten to hang on to the line.
They plummeted toward the bottom of the chasm. Millie screamed and kicked her feet, and her hair smacked Dor’s face.
Then, with a wrench, the line drew taut. He didn’t need to hold on; Jumper had attached the cable to him, and tied the other end to the center of the trans-chasm cable. Once more the spider’s mature foresight had saved him. Now Dor surmised when the attachment had been made; he had been distracted by the encroaching harpies, and had not noticed.
They were swinging down and across the chasm, bouncing slightly. The harpies were milling about, screaming, but not doing anything effective. They saw his waving sword.
Across they swung, grandly, almost colliding with the far wall. Jumper had kept the line short so they would not crash, but it was so close that Dor had to put his feet out and brake against the cliff, momentarily. Then they were swinging back. And forth again, in lessening arcs. As they came to rest, they were suspended about halfway down the depth of the chasm.
The harpies were beginning to organize, trying to catch Dor and Millie in their claws, as they had before.
But Dor had his sword out this time, and that made the difference. He waved it threateningly, and the harpies stayed just clear, screaming imprecations and losing feathers to the flashing tip of his weapon. It was hard for the dirty birds to match velocities with him, because of the swinging and bouncing. They were not, however, about to give up the pursuit.
Jumper, on the far side of the chasm, levered the line in the manner only he could do, and Dor and Millie descended. The rage of the harpies increased as the range increased. “Don’t let them get to the bottom!” one cried. “The enemy is there!”
That hardly reassured Dor. What good would it be, escaping one menace only to fall into the clutches of another? Well, he would have to worry about that in due course. At least the harpies hadn’t thought to cut the trans-chasm cable. Or if they had thought, they had rejected the notion. They didn’t want to kill Dor, for then he would certainly be useless to them. And Millie might not taste as good scraped up from the floor of the—but enough of such thoughts!
Now the base of the chasm was close. It was rocky and narrow and curvy, with holes and ridges. There seemed to be no way out, though this was uncertain since it twined out of sight in either direction.
As they swung lower, their orientation shifted, thanks to Jumper’s maneuvering of the lines, so that now they were traveling along the cleft rather than across it The harpies became more desperate. “Keep them away from ground!” the oldest and ugliest crone screeched. “Grab them! Snatch them! Lift them up. Drop the girl if you have to, we don’t really need her, but save that buck!”
Dor swung his sword in increasingly desperate arcs, keeping them at bay, trying not to sever his own line. A talon lanced into his shoulder from behind, and great foul wings beat about his head. Millie screamed loudly and kicked her feet harder, and her hair formed a golden splay in a passing sunbeam. None of that helped. Dor aimed his sword up and thrust violently over his own head and down behind it. The point jammed into something. There was an ear-shattering scream that momentarily drowned out Millie’s racket, and the talon released his shoulder. When he yanked the sword forward there was blood on the tip. He slashed in another circle, slicing feathers off the harpies in front. This violence sickened him, as it had when he fought the goblin band, but he kept on.
Suddenly the line dropped. Millie emitted a truly classic Eeeeek! as they fell—but the drop was very short. The mighty muscles and sinews of Dor’s legs flexed expertly, breaking his fall, preserving his balance. He still had Millie; now he set her down gently. Her skirt and bodice had separated; Dor stared briefly, not realizing that they were different pieces, and she tucked them together self-consciously. At least she had stopped screaming.
A greenish shape dropped down beside them. “Sorry about that drop,” Jumper chittered. “The harpies attacked me, and I had to move.”
“Quite all right,” Dor said. “You got us out of the harpy caves.”
The harpies were still milling in the chasm, but no longer attacking. Jumper had plunged through them by surprise, using his dragline to brake at the last moment so he hadn’t been hurt. What a marvelous thing that dragline was!
“Why are the harpies staying clear?” Millie asked.
It was a stupid question that like so many of its kind was not so stupid after all. The harpies were raucous, ugly, and evil-smelling—except for Helen—but not notably cowardly. Why were they afraid of this rocky path?
“One of them said something about the enemy down here,” Dor said, remembering.
Millie screamed and pointed. Charging along the crevice-path was a contingent of goblins. No sooner feared than realized!
“I can hold them off,” Dor said, striding forward with his sword leading. He didn’t know whether this was his body’s impulse or his own, but it was a fact that heroism was greatly facilitated by this powerful and well-coordinated physique. He knew it could devastate the little goblins, so he could afford to be bold. In his own twelve-year-old-sized body he would have been justifiably hesitant—and been thought a coward.
“I will lead the way out,” Jumper chittered. “Perhaps there will be a slope I can enable you to climb, anchored by my lines. You can serve as rearguard.”
They moved east, Dor walking backward so as to face the goblins without getting separated from his party. Obviously there would be no escape toward the goblin caves.
“It’s just a small band,” a harpy screeched. “We can handle them! Wipe them out, hens!”
Suddenly the harpies were plummeting toward the goblins. There was an instant melee punctuated by cries, screeches, groans, and rages. A cloud of feathers formed. Dor craned to see what was happening, but the dust stirred up to obscure it. They seemed to be fighting claw-to-nail, and it was not at all gentle.
“Trouble ahead!” Jumper cluttered, and Millie screamed.
Dor glanced there—and saw more goblins charging from the west: a larger band. The spider stood to fight, though he could easily have jumped clear and clung to the cliff wall, saving himself. Except that he would not desert his friends. To no avail; the horde quickly overran him. Millie’s piercing screams did not help her; a dozen goblin hands grasped her flailing arms and kicking feet and swirling tresses.
Dor whirled to help, but was already too late. Goblins grabbed him everywhere and bore him to the ground. He tried to kick his feet, but they were weighted by sheer mass of goblin. Just like that, they had been captured by the enemy.
All three of them were borne rapidly eastward, helpless. Suddenly a cave opened in the chasm wall, and the goblin band charged inside. It was dark here, and cool; Dor had the impression of descent, but couldn’t be sure.
In due course they were brought to a room lit by guttering torches. This amazed Dor, for in his day goblins were desperately afraid of fire. But in his day goblins did not go abroad by day, either; in fact there were very few on the surface of Xanth at all. So this was another thing that had changed in eight centuries.
At one end of the chamber was a throne fashioned from a massive complex of stalagmites. It looked as if stone had run like hot wax, making layers and colored trails over itself until the whole had melded into this single twisted yet beautiful mass. An especially fierce-looking goblin bestrode it, his gnarled black legs almost merging with the stone.
“Well, trespassers!” the goblin chief cried angrily. “What made you suppose you could intrude on these our demesnes with impunity?”
Millie was quietly screaming and still trying to kick her feet; she didn’t like the goblins’ mottled hands on her legs. The goblins, however, seemed more interested than antipathetic. Jumper was chittering, but Dor knew the goblins could not comprehend that. So he stepped forward, breaking free of those who restrained him. “We did not mean to intrude, sir,” he said. “We were only trying to escape the harpies.” He had little hope of mercy from these monsters, but had to try.
The goblin’s dusky brows lifted in astonishment. “You, a Man, call a goblin sir?”
“Well, if you’ll tell me your proper title, I’ll use it,” Dor said nervously, though he tried to keep up a moderately bold front. Somewhere along the way his sword had been wrenched from his hand, and he felt naked without it.
“I am Subchief Craven, of the Chasm Clan of Goblins,” the chief said. “However, sir will do nicely for an address.”
Several goblin guards snickered. It was Craven, not Dor, who reacted to that derisive mirth. “You find the notion of sir humorous?” he demanded of them furiously.
“This is obviously no hero-man, but an impostor who knows naught of honor or combat,” another goblin retorted. “His sir is so worthless as to be an insult.”
“Oh yeah?” Craven cried. “We’ll verify that, Crool. Will you meet him in honor challenge?”
Crool examined Dor, somewhat taken aback. But now the laughter of the clan was turning on him. “A single goblin does not meet a single human, even an impostor. The normal ratio is four or five to one.”
“Then bring on your henchmen!” Craven cried. He turned to the guards at the other side of the hall. “Return to this man-warrior his sword. We shall discover whether his sir is valid.”
What a devious and wonderful thing was pride, Dor thought. Now the subchief was rooting for the captive to prevail against the goblin kind.
Two goblins dashed up, carrying Dor’s sword and lifting the hilt for him to take. He was glad to have it back, but did not like the prospective combat. He had not been at all pleased about the goblin-killing he had done before, and that misgiving grew as he observed how similar to his own kind these creatures were. They looked different, but their pride was similar.
The goblins gave him no choice. They cleared a disk in the center of the cavern, and the five goblins of drool’s clan came at him. They were armed with small clubs and sharp fragments of stone, and looked determined. They obviously intended to do him in if they got the chance.
Dor’s body took over. He strode toward the band, his blade swinging. The goblins threw themselves to the sides. Dor turned to his right, kicking one goblin so hard the creature scooted across the smooth rock to fetch up against a wall, his stone knife fragmenting. Dor whirled on the others, swinging his blade, and they scattered again. One further foray, to clear the goblin sneaking in behind him; Dor caught the moving club on his blade and punched underneath it with his left fist. He scored on the goblin’s head, the thing hard as a rock, driving the creature back, shaken.
Suddenly Dor stood alone in the circle. He had vanquished the band, thanks to the power and expertise of his body—and he hadn’t killed a single goblin. That made him feel better. It could not make up for the four he had killed before, but it eased his guilt somewhat.
Craven smiled grotesquely. “Now is that a suitable sir or is it not?” he demanded rhetorically. “Keep your sword, Man; you have established your status. Come— you and your party are my guests.”
Jumper chittered. “It seems goblins set great store by status,” the web translated. “You were very clever to utter that mark of respect.”
Dor was abashed. “I just thought that was what you said to a chief.”
“It seems you were correct.”
The captivity had, by this miracle of courtesy, become a visit. The goblin chief treated them to a sumptuous meal of candied cavelice, sugared slugs, and censored centipedes. Jumper pronounced it excellent. Dor and Millie weren’t so sure.
“So you were fighting the horrendous harpies,” Craven said, making conversation as he politely ripped several segments from a large centipede with his big yellow teeth and strained out the legs through the gap between teeth. He had seemed a bit wary of Jumper at first, but after appreciating the way the spider’s chelicerae, which were the big nippers where another creature’s jaws would be, crushed the food, Craven seemed quite satisfied. The crunching was even more vicious than that of the goblins, therefore better table manners. Then when the spider secreted digestive liquid that dissolved the delicacies into goo, and sucked that into his stomach, the goblins had to applaud. They had never been able to eat like that!
“Good thing we rescued you,” the goblin chief said during a respite from his own attempt to emulate Jumper’s mode of feasting. No matter how hard he tried, he was unable to dissolve his food with his saliva before swallowing it.
“Yes,” Dor agreed. Actually, the slugs weren’t bad, the flesh being spongy and juicy, and Millie was getting the hang of the lice. She chewed them and spat out the fibrous legs in approved goblin fashion, somehow making it seem dainty. The banquet table was littered with legs.
“Why were they after you?” Craven asked. “We came out because we heard the commotion, and brought you in because any enemy of the harpies may be a friend of ours.”
“They wanted—“ Dor was not sure how to express it. “They wanted me to do something for Heavenly Helen Harpy.”
“Heavenly Helen?” Millie inquired, her brow furrowing suspiciously.
Craven laughed so hard he sprayed centipede legs on the cavern ceiling. The goblin courtiers applauded the marksmanship. “Heavenly Helen! So that’s how they do it! Grabbing human men for studs! No wonder you fought them off! What a horrible fate!”
“Oh, I don’t know—“ Dor began, then caught Millie’s look. He shifted the subject. “They said it was all because of you goblins. That you stole away their men.”
“We were just getting even for what they did to us!” Craven cried. “Once we shared caves, but they were greedy for our space, so they wreaked a foul enchantment on us. They blighted the sight of our females so that they perceived the merits of our men in reverse, The boldest, bravest, handsomest, brightest goblins became anathema to them; they were drawn infallibly to the weakest, ugliest, stupidest cowards and thieves among us, and with those they mated. In this manner our whole species was inevitably degraded. We were once more handsome than the elves and smarter than the gnomes and stronger than the trolls and had more honor than the Men themselves—and now look at us, warped and gnarled and stupid and cowardly and given to treachery, so that five of us cannot threaten one of you. The harpies set that enchantment on us, and only they can lift it, and the vile birds refuse to do that. So we must seek whatever vengeance we can, while we yet retain some power in Xanth.”
This was a side of the story the harpies hadn’t told! Dor realized that peace was impossible, for there was now no way to undo the damage done to the harpies. Unless there could be an original mating between human and vulture to produce a male harpy—but he could hardly imagine any person or bird doing that! So the goblin-harpy war would continue, until—
“But we shall have the final chortle,” Craven said with grim satisfaction. “Already the clans of the goblins are massing, augmented by our brothers of the deep caverns, numberless in number, and by our allies of similar species. We shall extirpate the harpies and their ilk from the face of Xanth!”
Dor remembered how the harpies were also massing their winged forces for the final battle. That would be some engagement!
The honored visitors were given a fine dark cave for the night, with healthy rats to fend off the nickelpedes, and a vent in the ceiling through which the dark air rose. They were guests—yet there was something about the firmness of their hosts that gave Dor disquieting pause. He recalled Craven’s remarks about the nature of goblins, their propensity for treachery. Were they so eager to practice their low arts that, rather than kill prisoners outright, they preferred to pretend they were honored guests—who could then be betrayed? Did the goblins really intend to set them free, or were they merely fattening up fresh meat for their repasts? Craven, by his own statement, could hardly be trusted.
Dor exchanged glances with Jumper’s largest eyes. No words were exchanged, for the goblins could be listening through holes in the walls, but it was evident the spider had similar misgivings.
“Make loud snoring sounds,” Dor murmured to the floor where he lay in the dark. The floor obliged, and soon all other sounds were drowned out by the rasps, groans, and wheezes of supposed sleep. Under that cover, Dor held a whispered conference with his friends.
So at night—it was hard to tell the time of day down here, but Jumper had an excellent sense of time —they set about sneaking out. The goblins had not realized the potential of the giant spider, since Jumper had stood to fight instead of jumping clear. Thus Craven had not set guards in the ceiling aperture. Actually, the goblins really were rather stupid, as the subchief had said.
Jumper jumped to the ceiling, clung there, walked into the ventilator hole and explored where it led. Soon he was back to hoist Dor and Millie up. They wound their way through the darkness as silently as possible, while the raucous snores faded in the distance. At length—the length of a silken guideline— they emerged at the starlit surface.
It had been surprisingly simple. Dor knew it would have been impossibly difficult had Jumper not been with them. Jumper, with his superlative night vision, his silken lines, and his scaling ability. The spider made the impossible possible.