In the morning, early but not bright, they set off for Castle Roogna. It would have been easiest to have the roc carry them singly to the Castle, but two things argued against this. First, there was an army of about two hundred and fifty zombies to transport, and for this number marching seemed to be the only way. Second, the skies were now being patrolled by aerial sentinels, harbingers of the harpies. The roc, huge as it was, would be torn apart in midair by the vicious creatures, if they decided it was an enemy. As perhaps it was.
The Zombie Master had lived as a recluse so long that he was only vaguely familiar with the terrain, and Dor had not viewed the scenery with an eye to zombie travel when he rode in. The zombies tended to shuffle, and their feet snagged on roots and vines, tripping them or even ripping off their feet. The majority were Mundane zombies, sounder of body than the older ones; but these were as yet inexperienced and prone to accidents. So it was necessary to scout ahead for a suitable route: one more or less level, avoiding dangerous magic, and reasonably direct.
Dor and Jumper did the scouting, with the man checking the lay of the ground and the spider reviewing the threats lurking in the trees. They worked together to flush out anything uncertain, to determine whether it should be ignored, eliminated, or avoided.
When they had determined a suitable portion of the route, they set magic markers along it for the zombie army to follow. All they had to do was stay well ahead, so that they had time to backtrack and change the route if necessary.
The wilderness of Xanth was not as sophisticated now as it would be in Dor’s own time; the magic had not had as much time to achieve the devastating little refinements and variations that made unprotected paths so hazardous. But there was plenty of raw magic here, and no enchanted paths to follow. Overall, Dor judged the jungle to be as dangerous for him as anything he had known—if he allowed himself to get careless.
One of the first things they ran afoul of was dog fennel. The plants had evidently been taking a canine nap, noses tucked under tails, but woke ugly when Dor blundered into them. First they barked; then, gathering courage, they started nipping. Angered, Dor laid about him with his sword, clearing a circle. Then he suffered regret as the creatures yiped and whined, for they really were no threat to him. Each dog grew on a stem, rooted in the turf, and could not move beyond its tether. Its teeth were too small to do much harm.
Jumper had jumped right out of the pooch-patch, unnipped. The dogs were whimpering now, cowed by the sight of their dead packmates. It was a sad sight. Dor strode out of the patch, bared blade held warningly before him, feeling low. Why did he always react first and think last?
“Yet an animal plant who bites strangers must suffer the consequence,” Jumper cluttered consolingly. “I fell among aphids once, and their ant-guardians attacked me and I was forced to kill a number of them before the rest gave over. Had they any wit, they would have realized that my presence was accidental. I had been fleeing a deadly wasp. Spiders prefer consuming flies, not aphids. Aphids are too sickly sweet.”
“I guess ants aren’t very bright,” Dor said, comforted by the analogy.
“Correct. They have excellent inherent responses, and can function in societies far better than spiders can, but as individuals they tend to be rigid thinkers. What was good enough for their grand-ants remains sufficient for them.”
Dor felt much better now. Somehow Jumper always came through, rescuing him from physical or intellectual mishap. “You know, Jumper, when this quest is over, and we return to our own worlds—“
“It will be a sad parting,” Jumper chittered. “Yet you have your life to pursue, and I have mine.”
“Yes, of course. But if we could somehow stay in touch—“
Dor broke off, for they had suddenly come upon the biggest fennel of them all. It was as massive as Dor himself, with a stem like a tree trunk, reaching its horned head down to graze in the nearby grass.
“That more closely resembles a herbivorous animal,” Jumper chittered. “See, its teeth are grazers, not flesh renders.”
“Oh, a vegetable lamb,” Dor said. “A historical creature, extinct in our day. It grows wool to make blankets from. In my time we cultivate blanket trees directly.”
“But what happens when it grazes everything within its tether range?” Jumper inquired.
“I don’t know.” Dor saw that the grass had been mowed quite low in the disk the lamb could reach; little was left. “Maybe that’s why they became extinct.”
They went on. The terrain was fairly even here; the zombies would have no problems. Dor set his markers as they went, certain this route would be all right. They approached a wooded section, the trees bearing large multicolored blooms whose fragrance was pleasant but not overwhelming. “Be on guard against intoxicating fumes,” Dor warned.
“I doubt the same chemicals would intoxicate me,” the spider chittered.
But the scents were innocent. Bees buzzed around the flowers, harvesting their pollen. Dor passed under the trees without molestation, and Jumper scrambled through them. Beyond the trees was an attractive glade.
There was a shapely young woman, brushing her hair, “Oh, pardon me,” Dor said. She smiled. “You are a man!”
“Well—“
“Are you lonely?” She stepped forward. Jumper dropped down from the trees, a little to one side.
What Dor had first taken as clothing turned out on closer inspection to be overlapping green leaves, like the scales of a dragon. She was a soft, sweet-smelling creature, with a pretty face.
“I—uh—we’re just on our way to—”
“I live for lonely men,” she said, opening her arms to embrace him. Dor, uncertain what to do in this case, did nothing; therefore she succeeded in enfolding him. Her body was cool and firm, her lips sweet; they resembled the petals of roses. His body began to react, as it had with Millie; it wanted to—
“Friend,” Jumper chittered, standing behind the green-leafed woman. “Is this customary?”
“I—don’t know,” Dor admitted, as her lips reached hungrily for his.
“I refer to the shape of the female,” the spider chittered. “It is very strange.”
Maybe it was, to a spider! “It—seems to be—“ Dor paused, for her lips had caught up to his. Oh, she was intriguing! “To be a good shape,” he concluded after a moment. Those breasts, that slim waist, those fleshy thighs—
“I hesitate to interrupt your ritual of greeting. But if you would examine her backside—“
“Uh, sure.” Her frontside was fully interesting enough, but he did not object to seeing the rest. His body well knew that an attractive woman was interesting from any side. Dor drew back a bit and gently turned the woman around.
From behind, she was hollow. Like a plaster cast made of some object, or a pottery bowl shaped on a rock. She was a mere solidified shell. She had no functioning internal organs at all, no guts. Cracks of light showed through the apertures where her eyes, nostrils, and mouth were in the front.
“What are you?” Dor demanded, turning her about again. From the front she remained extremely womanly.
“I am a woodwife,” she replied. “I thought you knew. I comfort lonely men.”
A facade covering absolute vacuity! A man who made love to such a creature—
“I—uh, guess I don’t need that kind of comfort,” Dor said.
“Oh.” She looked disappointed. Then she dissolved into vapor, and drifted away.
“Did I do that?” Dor asked, chagrined. “Did I make her into nothing? I didn’t mean to!”
“I think she existed only for whatever man she might encounter,” Jumper opined. “She will no doubt re-form for the next traveler.”
“That will likely be a zombie.” Saying that, Dor felt humor bubbling up inside him, until it burst out his mouth in a laugh. “A zombie lover!” Then he remembered Millie’s lover of his own time, Jonathan, and sobered. It wasn’t funny at all!
They went on. The glade opened into a rocky valley. The rocks were irregular, some of fair mass, with cuttingly sharp edges: a disaster for zombies. But down the center was a clear path, with only a little coronet supported on four hornlike twigs in the way. All they had to do was remove that object and its supports, and the path would be clear.
Dor moved toward it—then paused. This was suspicious. “Something wants us to touch that coronet,” he said.
“Allow me.” Jumper fastened a small stone to a line of silk, and tossed it at the coronet.
The ground erupted violently. A snake emerged, whose head bore the four horns; it had lain buried in the ground except for those points. The reptile struck at the stone as Jumper jerked it along on the string, making it seem alive. “Lucky we checked,” Dor said, shaken. “Better you than us, stone.”
The stone shuddered. “Oh, the poison!” it wailed, and fragmented into gravel.
“That must have been some poison!” Dor exclaimed.
“It was,” the gravel agreed, and fractured into a mound of sand.
“What would poison do to a zombie?” Jumper inquired.
“Nothing, I think. How can you kill a thing that is already dead?”
“Then we can ignore the hornworm.” Startled, Dor had to agree. “Except we must post a warning for Millie and the Zombie Master, so they know to send a zombie ahead.” He walked back and emplaced a magic marker of the WARNING type. When they saw that, they would send Egor Ogre ahead to spring the trap. If the hornworm was smart, it would scoot right out of there!
The valley spread into a field of grassy growth dotted with Mundanish trees. It was pretty scenery— but all of this country was lovely, and improving as they went. If only he had watched more carefully when he rode the dragon horse! One missed a lot by riding swiftly.
Then he recognized the vegetation. “Roats!” he exclaimed happily. “If there are any mature ones—”
“What are roats?” Jumper cluttered.
“A cereal. Soak old roats in water or milkweed, and they transform into excellent porridge.” He shook some stems, obtaining the flat kernels. “And those are primitive mixed-nut trees.”
“Nuts grow on trees?” the spider inquired dubiously.
“With magic, all things are possible.” Dor went to a tree and took hold of a cluster of nuts, drawing it down. They clung to the branch. “These are tough nuts!” he said. Then the cluster let go, and he staggered back. The branch snapped up, and a small hail of nuts fell about him. One shot by his nose, and he coughed. Others came, and he coughed again. “Oh, no—some of them are cough drops!” he said, retreating.
But he had his old roats and mixed nuts. “Now all I need is water.”
The field dropped down to a river, its liquid crystalline but not, fortunately, crystal. Catfish swam in it, meowing hopefully as they spied Dor, then stalking away as well as their flukes permitted when they saw there was no red meat. A pack of sea dogs sniffed up, but soon spied the cats and went baying after them. Obviously this water was wholesome.
Dor dipped his double handful of substance into a pothole, and abruptly had a doughy mass of food. He offered some to Juniper, but the spider declined, preferring to fish the river for crabs. So Dor ate his pot-roats himself, enjoying it immensely.
However, this seemingly excellent route was cut off by the same river they had looked for. The stream was small but deep; no trouble for Jumper and Dor to cross, but disaster for the marching zombies, who would never emerge from it intact. Wading in the quiet moat had been one thing; swimming across the current was another.
It would be possible to fell some trees to form a crude bridge across the water, but this would take time and possibly alert hostile magic. So they followed the river down a way, looking for a better fording place. It was never possible to anticipate what lay ahead; there could be some natural bridge just out of sight.
There was not. There was a hill. The river flowed merrily up over it and down the other side. Dor and Jumper contemplated this, wondering what to do. A river that flowed up as well as down was unlikely to be tractable. “I could make a silk sling to swing them across one by one,” Jumper chittered.
“That would wear you out and take forever,” Dor objected. “And we would have to wait here until the zombies arrive, instead of scouting out the dangers ahead. We need a bridge or a ford.”
They followed the river over the hill. “I wonder whether we could divert it temporarily,” Jumper chittered.
“We’d still have to get the zombies across it somewhere,” Dor pointed out. “Unless we could turn it back on itself—and that hardly seems reasonable.”
At the top of the hill, a cockfish crowed. “Oh, shut up,” Dor told it. But it was alive, so did not obey him.
At the foot of the other side of the hill was an ore: a huge fat water monster with teeth overflowing its mouth. The water flowed over and around it; no point in trying to cross the stream here!
They returned to the top of the hill. “I’d hate to backtrack all the way and try to scout a new route,” Dor said. “This is an excellent route for the zombies —up until this point. We’ve got to figure out a way across!”
“What makes it flow uphill?” the spider inquired.
“Magic, of course. Something in the ground here that makes it seem to fall, when actually it is rising.”
“I note a different texture of stone, here. Would that be it?”
“Could be. Enchanted stone. The magic can’t be in the water itself, or it would be floating right up into the sky. I think.” Now Dor wondered how water did get into the sky, to make it rain. Maybe there were streams that fell upward. So much of the magic of Xanth was unexplained! “But if we moved the stone, the river would merely change channels, and then that ore would get dry and come looking for us. The only thing madder than a wet hen is a dry ore. We need to cross the river, not move it.”
“Still, we might experiment.” Jumper poked a leg into the water, shifting stones. The water responded by rising higher, forming a little arc in air, then dropping back into its channel.
“Say—if we could make it jump high enough, we could pass right under it!” Dor exclaimed. He plunged in, helping Jumper to move the enchanted stones.
The river rose higher and higher. At last an arch formed, leaving the riverbed clear for several feet. “If we can lift it just a little higher, so they can walk under it without ducking—“ Dor said eagerly. He moved another handful of stones.
“Perhaps we should refrain from—“ Jumper warned.
“Nonsense! It’s working beautifully. We don’t want the zombies to touch the water at all, because they would get washed out, and they’re too stupid to duck properly.” Dor scooped some more.
And, abruptly, the river overturned. Instead of arcing forward, it arced backward, forming a loop in the air. It splashed to the ground at the base of the hill, then continued on up and over.
“Oh, no!” Dor cried ruefully. For of course now there was no arch. The river landed beside its original channel, then flowed back into it at the top of the hill and on as before. Instead of fashioning a bridge of water, they had doubled the course of the stream. “We’ll have to move it again.”
“No,” Jumper chittered. “We might create further difficulties. We can cross it this way.” And he showed Dor how there was a narrow channel between the parallel slopes of the river as it spiraled through the air. The water was rising in the west and falling in the east, crossing overhead. It was in fact a variant of the original arch; now the passage across went north-south instead of east-west.
Dor had to agree. He placed a magic marker at the loop, and they went on. What a remarkable feature of the landscape they were leaving for the zombies to find!
Just as they departed, there was a surprised “Oink!” as a seahog was carried through the loop. Dor chuckled.
The landscape beyond the river remained pleasant. It was the nicest region he had seen. He was really enjoying this trek, a complete change of pace from the violence just past, and hoped Jumper was enjoying it too. All too soon they would arrive at the Castle, completing their mission, and after that it would be time to go home. Dor really wasn’t eager to return so soon. The best path curled down into the deeper valley, where the river meandered across to form a handsome lake. Dor marveled at this; in his own day this entire section between the Good Magician’s castle and Castle Roogna was deep jungle. How could it have changed so extensively? But he reminded himself yet again that there was no accounting for magic.
Beside the lake was a small mountain, its base the same size as the lake. Perhaps a thousand paces in diameter, were it possible to pace either mountain or lake. Yet the lake looked deep, and the mountain tall; though the water was clear, the depths were shrouded in gloom, while snow capped the peak. So both these features of the landscape were probably magically augmented, being much larger than they seemed.
This was another type of magic Dor didn’t understand. What spell kept snow from melting from the tops of the highest mountains? Since the heights were closest to the hot sun, the heat there had to be fierce, yet they acted as if it were cold. What was the purpose in such a spell? Was it the work of some long-gone Magician whose talent was turning hot to cold, permanently? No way to know, alas. Well, he might climb up there and inquire of the features of the landscape—but that would be a lot of work, and he had other things to do. Maybe after he returned to his own time...
People were there, in the water and on the mountain and prancing between. Lovely nude women and delicately shaggy men. “I think we have happened on a colony of nymphs and fauns,” Dor remarked. “They should be harmless but unreliable. Best to leave them alone. The problem is our best route passes right between mountain and lake—where the colony is thickest.”
“Is it not feasible to march that route?” Jumper chittered.
“Well, nymphs—you know.” But of course the spider didn’t know, having had no experience with humanity prior to this adventure. “Nymphs, they—“ Dor found himself unable to explain, since he was not certain himself. “I guess we’ll find out. Maybe it will be all right.”
The nymphs spied Dor and cried gleeful welcome. “Gleeful welcome!” They spied Jumper and screamed horror. “Horror!” They did little kick-foot dances and flung their hair about. The goat-footed fauns charged up aggressively.
“Settle down,” Dor cried. “I am a man, and this is my friend. We mean you no harm.”
“Oh—then it’s all right,” a nymph exclaimed. “Any friend of a man is a friend of ours.” There was a shower of hand-clapping, and impromptu dances of joy that did marvelous things to the nymphly anatomy.
Good enough. “My name is Dor. My friend is Jumper. Would you like to see him jump?”
“Oh, yes!” they cried. So Jumper made a fifteen-foot jump, amazing them. It was not nearly as far as he could go when he tried. Obviously he was being cautious, so they would not know his limitations—just in case. Dor was slowly catching on to adult thinking; it was more devious than juvenile thinking. But he was glad he had thought of the jump exhibit; that made the spider a thing of harmless pleasure, for these people.
“I’m a naiad,” one nymph called from the lake. She was lovely, with hair like clean seaweed and breasts that floated enticingly. “Come swim with me!”
“I, uh—“ Dor demurred. Nymphs might not be hollow in quite the way woodwives were, but they were not quite the same as real women either.
“I meant Jumper!” she cried, laughing.
“I prefer to skate,” Jumper chittered. He stepped carefully onto the water and slid gracefully across it.
The nymphs applauded madly, then dived into the lake and swam after the spider. Once their confidence had been won, it was complete!
“I’m a dryad,” another nymph called from a tree. Her hair was leaf-green, her nails bark-brown, but her torso was as exposed and lush as that of the water nymph. “Come swing with me!”
Dor still had not learned how to handle this sort of offer, but again he remembered the hollow woodwife. “I, uh—“
“I meant Jumper!” But the spider was already on the way. If there was one thing he could do better than skating water, it was climbing trees. In a moment the other dyrads were swarming after him. Soon they were squealing with glee, dangling from silken draglines attached to branches, kicking their feet.
Dor walked on toward the mountain, vaguely disgruntled. He was glad his friend was popular; still—
“I’m an oread,” a nymph called from the steep side of the mountain. “Come climb with me!”
“Jumper is busy,” Dor said.
“Oh,” she said, disappointed.
Now a faun approached him. “I see you aren’t much for the girls. Will you join us boys?”
“I’m just trying to scout a route through here for an army,” Dor replied shortly.
“An army! We have no business with armies!”
“What is your business?”
“We dance and play our pipes, chase the nymphs, eat and sleep and laugh. I’m an orefaun, associated with the mountain, but you could join the dryfauns of the trees if you prefer, or the naifauns of the pool. There really isn’t much difference between us.”
So it seemed. “I don’t want to join you,” Dor said. “I’m just passing through.”
“Come for our party, anyway,” the faun urged. “Maybe you’ll reconsider after you see how happy we are.”
Dor started to demur, then realized that the day was getting late. This would be a better place to spend the night than the wilderness—and he was curious about the life and rationale of these nymphs and fauns. In his own day such creatures were widely scattered across Xanth, and highly specialized: a nymph for every purpose. The fauns had largely disappeared. Why? Perhaps the key was here.
“Very well. Just let me scout the terrain a little farther, then I shall return for your party.” Dor had always liked parties, though he hadn’t gone to many. People had objected to his talking to the walls and furniture, learning about all the private things that went on under the cover of the formal entertainment. Too bad—because the informal entertainment was generally far more intriguing. There seemed to be something about adult people; their natures changed when they got into small groups, especially when such groups consisted of one male and one female. If what they had to do was good and wholesome, why didn’t they do it in full public view? He had always been curious about that.
The fauns danced about him merrily, playing their little flutes, as he walked beyond the lake and mountain. They had horn-like tufts of hair on their heads, and their toenails had grown so heavy as to resemble hooves, but they remained human. In the following centuries the horns and hooves would become real, as the fauns took on their distinct magical identities. He had thought they were real when he first spied the fauns here, but his mind’s eye had filled in more detail than was justified.
Dor realized that if he or any other man so chose, he could join them, now, and his own hair and toenails would develop similarly. It made sense; the hooves were much better for running about rocky terrain than ordinary feet were, and the horns were a natural defense, albeit as yet token, that could not be carelessly lost the way other weapons could. And as for dancing—those neat, small, hard feet were much better than Dor’s own huge soft flat things. Suddenly he reminded himself of a goblin.
The subspecies of fauns were already distinguishable, as were the species of nymphs. The dryfauns of the forest had greenish hair and bark-brown fur on their legs and lower torsos, and their horns were hooked to enable them to draw down fruit. Their hoof-toes were sharp, almost spiked, so that they could climb sheer trunks, though as yet they had little difficulty walking on land. Perhaps that was the key to their eventual demise as a species, when they became so specialized they could not leave the trees, and something happened to those trees—yes.
The orefauns of the mountains had more powerful legs, their hooves merging like those of goats or deer. Even their hands were assuming a certain hooflike quality, to enable them to scamper up on all fours, and their horns curled back to enable them to butt.
The naifauns of the lake had flattened flipper-hooves and horns pointing straight up like speartips; they speared foolish fish on them when hungry. They had delicate scales on their nether portions instead of fur.
A naifaun saw Dor looking at him. “You should see my cousin the nerefaun,” he called, splashing cheerily. “He lives in the sea at the foot of the river, and he has scales like those of a sea serpent, and full flipper feet. He can really swim—but he can hardly walk on land.”
Scales and flippers for the sea-faun. Could this specialization eventually lead to the merfolk, the tritons and their counterparts the mermaids, who had lost their legs entirely in favor of a tail? Yet he had already encountered a triton here—no, that was at Good Magician Humfrey’s castle, eight hundred years hence. There were no naifauns or nerefauns in Dor’s own time because they had become sea and lake tritons, and the naiads and nereads had become mermaids. He was witnessing the first great radiation of the species of nymph and faun, experiencing firsthand the evolution of a major branch of the creatures of Xanth. It was absolutely fascinating!
And subtly horrifying, too—for this was the ongoing dehumanization of Man. There had been much killing in the land of Xanth, but even so, the population had declined over the centuries more than the bloodshed could account for. Because human beings had deserted their kind, becoming such subspecies as these: tritons and mermaids. Eventually, if this continued, there would be no true humans remaining in the Land of Xanth. That was what King Trent was trying to reverse, by establishing contact with Mundania. He wanted to infuse Xanth with new, pure human stock— without suffering another disastrous Wave of conquest. Now Dor appreciated far more clearly the importance of this project. His own parents, Bink and Chameleon, were deeply involved in this effort. “Go to it, parents!” he murmured fervently to himself. “What you are doing is more important than what I am doing.”
Meanwhile, he was neglecting what he was doing: the survey of the zombie route. Dor looked about, discovering himself in a realm of increasing brush. The plants seemed harmless, but they grew larger and taller toward the west Possibly in the heart of their range they would achieve the status of trees. Some had branches sticking up from the top, bare of leaves, with cross branches projecting at right angles. These looked vaguely familiar to Dor, but he could not quite place them. If they represented a threat, what form did it take? They weren’t tangle trees, or poison brambles, or needle-cacti. What was there about them that bothered him?
He thought of questioning stray rocks, but didn’t want to reveal the nature of his magic in the presence of the fauns. If he became worried enough, he would use his talent; for now he was just looking.
“What are these bushes?” he asked the orefaun, who seemed uncomfortable here on level ground, but had braved it out for the sake of companionship. “Are they dangerous?”
“We never go this far,” the orefaun admitted. “We know there are dangers beyond our territory, so we never stray. What is there elsewhere to interest us anyway?”
“Why, the whole world is interesting!” Dor said, surprised.
“Not to us. We like it where we are. We have the best place in Xanth, where monsters don’t come and the weather is always nice and there is plenty of food. You should taste our mountain dew!”
“But—but it is so broadening to travel,” Dor protested, remembering guiltily how little he had traveled before he entered the tapestry. Yet he knew this adventure had already matured him considerably.
“Who wants to be broadened?” Dor was taken aback. If these creatures really weren’t interested—
“Suppose something happened to this place, so that you had to move? You should at least explore more widely, so you are prepared.”
“Why be prepared?” the orefaun asked, perplexed.
Dor realized that the difference between him and these creatures was more than physical. Their whole mutual attitude differed. To question the need for preparedness—why, that was childlike.
Well, he was gaining increasing understanding of the roots of the faunish disappearance in Xanth. Of course the nymphs had similar shortsightedness, but there would always be a market for lovely nude girls, so their survival was more secure. Anything that looked like a pretty girl had its market—even hollow mockups like the woodwives. Perhaps, like the harpies, the nymphs would evolve eventually into a single-sex species, mating only with males of outside species. Dor saw that the orefaun was in distress, so relented and turned about.
“I think this is a good route; I’ll explore the rest of it tomorrow, with Jumper.”
The orefaun was greatly relieved. He danced back toward the mountain, and was soon joined by the less adventurous fauns. “Tune for the party!” he cried, doing a caprine skip. The others picked it up as a chant: “Party! Party!”
They made a bonfire between mountain and lake, piling on dry bon-brush and igniting it with a small irritable salamander. The salamanders of Dor’s day started fires that burned all substances except the ground itself, but this was a primitive ancestor who made a merely ordinary fire, fortunately. This fire would burn only wood, and could be extinguished.
They put marshmallows—from a mallow bush in the marsh at one end of the lake—on sticks and toasted them in the flames. The lake nymphs and fauns brought out fresh sea cucumbers and genuine crabs for Jumper. Hot chocolate bubbled up from one side of the lake, making an excellent beverage. The tree creatures brought fruits and nuts, and the mountain creatures rolled a huge snowball down to make cold drinks. Dor did sample the mountain dew, and it was effervescent and tasty and heady.
The nymphs and fauns sat in a great circle around the fire, feasting on the assorted delicacies. Dor and Jumper joined them, relaxing and enjoying it. After they had stuffed, the fauns brought out their flutes and piped charmingly intricate melodies while the nymphs danced. The female bodies rippled and bounced phenomenally; Dor had never before seen anything like this!
Soon the fauns responded to the anatomical signals, discarded their flutes, and joined the dance in a most unsubtle manner. Before long it was not a dance at all, but the realization of the ritual the dance had only suggested. These creatures did indeed do openly what the adults of Dor’s day did in privacy!
“Is this normal procedure?” Jumper inquired. “Forgive my query; I am largely ignorant of the ways of your species.”
“Yes, this is a regular festival celebrating the rites of spring,” the orefaun said.
“No festivals for the other seasons?” Dor inquired.
“What other seasons? It is always spring here. Of course, the rites don’t result in babies; it has something to do with our immortality. But it’s fun to celebrate them anyway. You are welcome to join in.”
“Thank you; I regret this is not my species,” Jumper demurred.
“I, uh—I’ll just wait,” Dor said. His body certainly felt the temptation, but he didn’t want to commit himself prematurely to this life. The mental picture of the woodwife returned.
“As you wish. No one is forced to do anything, here, ever. We all do only what we want to do.” He watched the proceedings another moment. “Speaking of which —pardon me.” The orefaun leaped forward to nab a passing oread. The nymph screamed fetchingly, flung her hair about, and kicked up her cute cloven feet, giving Dor a feeling of deja vu and a glimpse of what clothing normally concealed. Then the faun brought her down and did what evidently delighted them both. Dor made mental notes; if he ever had occasion, he wanted to know how to proceed. He was already certain that never again would he see a nymphly girl kick her feet without thinking of this scene. A new dimension of meaning had been added to the action.
“If they are immortal, and bear no hatchlings,” Jumper chittered, “how then do they evolve?”
Dor hadn’t thought of that. “Maybe they themselves just keep changing. With magic—“
“Come, join me!” a cute naiad cried, wiggling her delicately scaled hips dexterously.
“I regret—“ Jumper began.
“I meant Dor!” she cried, laughing. Dor noted what these laughs and screams did to the nymphs’ chest area; was that why they did such exhalations so often? “Take off those silly clothes, and—“ She gave a little foot-kick.
“Uh, I—“ Dor said, finding himself strongly tempted despite all his private reservations. After all, if the nymph were willing—
But it would be the first step in joining this colony, and he just wasn’t sure that was smart. An easy life, filled with fun—yet what was the future in it? Was fun the ultimate destiny of Man? Until he was sure, he had better wait.
“At least you should try it once,” she said, as if reading his mind. Probably such mind reading was not difficult; there was only one channel a man’s mind would be in, at this stage.
There was an ear-rending roar. A torrent of dark bodies burst upon the party. It was a goblin horde!
“Press gang! Press gang!” the goblin leader cried, making a gap-toothed grin of joyous malice. “Anybody we catch is hereby impressed into the goblin army!” And he grabbed a dryfaun by the arm. The faun was substantially larger than the goblin, but, paralyzed by fear, seemed unable to defend himself.
The nymphs screamed and dived for water, trees, and mountain. So did the fauns. None thought to stand up, close ranks, and oppose the raiders. Dor saw that there were only about eight goblins, compared to a hundred or more fauns and nymphs. What was the problem? Was it that goblins inspired terror by their very appearance?
Dor’s hand went for his sword. Goblins did not inspire terror in him!
“Wait, friend,” Jumper chittered. “This is not our affair.”
“We can’t just sit here and let them take our friends!”
“There is much we do not know about this situation,” the spider chittered.
Ill at ease but respecting Jumper’s judgment, Dor suffered himself to be restrained. The goblins quickly ran down five of the healthiest fauns, threw them to the ground, and bound them with vine-ropes. The goblins were capturing, not slaying; they wanted men fit for their army. So Jumper had been correct in his caution, as usual; Dor would have gained nothing by laying about him with his blade. Not anything worth gaining, anyway.
Yet still his mind was nagged: what sort of creatures were these fauns who welcomed strangers yet refused to assist each other in an emergency? If they did not fight for their own—
“That’s five,” the goblin sergeant said. “One more good one, we need.” His darkly roving eye fell on Dor, who stood unmoving. “Kill the bug; take the man.”
The goblins closed on the pair. “I think it has just become our affair.” Dor said grimly.
“It seems you are correct. Perhaps you should attempt to parlay.”
“Parlay!” Dor exclaimed indignantly. “They mean to kill you and impress me into their army!”
“We are more civilized than they, are we not?”
Dor sighed. He faced the goblin sergeant. “Please desist. We are not involved in your war. We do not wish to—”
“Grab him!” the goblin ordered. Evidently these goblins did not realize that Dor was not merely a larger faun: a creature who could be expected to match five goblins in combat. The seven others dived for Dor.
Jumper bounded over their heads while Dor’s sword flashed in its vicious arc. That was one thing this sword was very good at. Two goblins fell, blood oozing and turning black. Then Jumper’s silk caught the sergeant, and the spider trussed him up with the efficiency of eight trained legs.
“Look to your leader!” Dor cried, smashing another goblin down.
The remaining four looked. The sergeant was virtually cocooned in silk and helpless. “Get me out of this!” he bawled.
The others rushed to him. They had not been eager to fight Dor anyway, once the ratio dropped from seven to one down to four to one. Now they knew they had a fight on their dirty little hands.
Then, from the sky, shapes dived: harpies. “Fresh meat!” the harpy sergeant screamed. Dor knew that was her rank, because the filthy grease on her wings was striped. “Haul it away!”
The dirty birds clutched the bodies available: five fauns, three wounded goblins, and the cocooned goblin sergeant. Great ugly wings beat fiercely, stirring up dust. “Not the fauns!” Dor bellowed—for one of them was the orefaun who had befriended him. He grabbed for the orefaun’s dangling hooves, yanking him down to the ground. Startled at this vigorous resistance, the harpies let go.
Jumper threw up a noose, catching a dryfaun and hauling him down similarly. But the remaining three, together with the four goblins, disappeared into the sky. The other goblins ran away.
Had Jumper been right to chitter restraint? Dor wasn’t sure. He didn’t care about the goblins, but he was very sorry about the three lost fauns. Could he have saved them if he had attacked before? Or would he merely have gotten himself trussed up and abducted? There was no way to be sure. Certainly Jumper, once he acted, had done so most effectively; he had nullified the leader, instead of mindlessly battling the troops, as Dor had done. Jumper had taken the most sensible course, the one with the least risk. Following this course, they had taken losses, but had not lost the battle.
The nymphs and fauns returned, now that the action was over. They were chastened by the double horror of goblin and harpy raids. Three of their comrades were gone. Obviously their illusion of security had been shattered.
The party was, of course, over. They doused the bonfire and retreated to their various habitats. Dor and Jumper hung from a branch of a large tree; it belonged to no one, since these creatures were not yet at the one-creature-one-tree stage. Night sank gloomily upon them.
In the morning Dor and Jumper were sober—but they had a surprise. The first nymph to spy Jumper screamed and dived into the lake—where she almost drowned, for she was an oread, not a naiad. The fauns clustered around aggressively. Dor had to introduce himself and Jumper, for no one remembered them.
They went through the bit about the jumping again, and quickly befriended the whole community—again. They did not mention the goblin press-gang raid; those lost fauns had been forgotten, literally, and the orefaun Dor had rescued obviously was not aware of his narrow escape. The whole community knew that monsters never came here.
For this was part of the secret of eternal youth: the fauns and nymphs could not afford to be burdened by the harsh realities of prior experience. They were forever young, and necessarily innocent. Experience aged people. As it was aging Dor.
“At least the goblins won’t do much successful recruiting here,” Dor murmured as they left the colony behind and continued west. “You can’t depend on troops who have to be taught again each day.”
“The harpies won’t have that problem,” Jumper chittered.
The harpies had been foraging for fresh meat. They had found it.
“Nevertheless, the effect may wear off after a few days, when individuals are removed from the locale,” Jumper continued. “Had we remained several days, we would have felt the spell’s effect, and remained forever; those who are forcibly removed probably revert slowly to their original states.”
“Makes sense,” Dor agreed. “Stay a short time, trying it out, having a good time—“ He thought of the naiad who had tempted him, and of the other naiads in the water with their floating breasts. “Then get caught by the spell, and not remember what else you have to do.” He shuddered, partly from the horror of it, and partly from the appeal of it.
They continued on into the larger bushes, leaving their trail of markers. The fauns and nymphs would not tamper with the markers; they would not remember what they were for. Within a day or so the zombie army should pass this region. Dor judged that they had now marked over half the distance from the Zombie Master’s castle to Castle Roogna. The worst was surely over, and by nightfall he and Jumper would be with the King with the good news.
“These plants disturb me,” Jumper chittered.
“Me too. But they seem harmless, just strange.”
Jumper looked about, as he could do without moving his head or eyes. The direction of his vision was merely a matter of awareness, and Dor had become sensitive to the spider’s mannerisms that signaled it. “There seems to be no better channel than this. The ground is level and clear, and there are no hostile creatures. Yet I distrust it.”
“The most promising paths are often the most dangerous. We should distrust this one because there are no hostile creatures,” Dor pointed out.
“Let me survey from another vantage, while you continue as if innocent,” Jumper chittered. He jumped over a bush and disappeared.
Dor walked on. He hardly had to pretend innocence! It was a good system they had. The spider was more agile and could not be caught by sudden drops, thanks to his dragline, while Dor had the solidity of his big Mundane body and the power of his sword. He would distract potential enemies while Jumper observed them from concealment. Any who attacked Dor might find themselves looped and hoisted on a line of silk.
The bushes now rose taller than his head and seemed to crowd about, though they did not move. The true walking plants seemed not to have evolved in Xanth yet. Dor checked that carefully, however, since there were other ways to move than walking. Tangle trees, for example, snatching prey that passed; predaceous vines that wrapped around anyone foolish enough to touch them, or plants that simply uprooted themselves periodically to find better locations. But these particular plants were definitely stationary; it was his forward progress into their thickening midst that made them seem to swell and crowd closer. They were all so similar that it would be easy to get lost among them—but since he was leaving magic markers, he would not mislay his way, and could always retreat. And of course Juniper was watching.
What would his venture have been like without Jumper? Dor shuddered to think of it. He was sure the big spider’s presence was accidental, not planned or anticipated by Good Magician Humfrey when he arranged this quest. But without that coincidence, could Dor have survived even his first encounter with the goblins? Had he died here in the tapestry, what would have happened to his body back home? Maybe Humfrey had some way to rend the tapestry and reweave it, so that Dor’s death would be eliminated and he could return safely—but even so, that would have been a humiliating failure. Far better to survive on his own —and Jumper had enabled him to do that. So far.
Even more important was the maturity of perspective brought by the big arachnid. Dor was learning constantly from that. The juveniles of any species tended to be happy but careless, like the fauns and nymphs; it was easy to contemplate being locked into such innocence indefinitely. But the longer prospects showed this to be a nightmare. Dor was, as it were, emerging from faun stage to Jumper stage.
He laughed, finding the mixed image funny. He imagined himself starting with little horns and hooves, then growing four more limbs and six more eyes to resemble the spider. Before this adventure he would not have understood such imagery at all!
In the midst of his laugh, something chilling happened, causing him to choke it off. He looked around, but saw nothing. Only the plants, which were now half again as tall as he. What had happened to disturb him so? He hadn’t quite caught it.
He shrugged and walked on. After a moment, to demonstrate better his unconcern, and incidentally to make sure his exact location was known to Jumper— just in case!—he began to whistle. He was not a good whistler, but he could carry a fan- tune.
And the subtle thing happened again. Dor stopped in his footprints and looked again. Had he seen Jumper from the corner of his eye? No, he would have recognized his friend without even trying. How he wished for several extra eyes now! But to hell with caution; he had seen something, and he wanted to know what.
There was nothing. The tall bushes merely sat there, basically mundane, then leaves rippling periodically in the breeze. At the base they were full, their foliage so dense that their trunks could hardly be seen. At the top they thinned, their leaves sparser and smaller, until at the apex they were bare. Some had the central stem projecting straight up for several feet, with several bare cross branches. A strange design, for a plant, but not a threatening one. Maybe they were sensors for the sun or wind, conveying information to the plant’s main body. Many plants liked to know what was going on, for small changes in the weather could spell great changes in vegetable welfare.
Dor gave it up. There was simply nothing here he could detect. He could ask one of the sticks that lay on the ground, of course. But again he balked at that. Something about the naiveté of the fauns and nymphs made him resist that device. The fauns and nymphs depended foolishly on their ignorance, their mountain, trees, and lake—instead of on their own intelligence, alertness, and initiative. If he depended on his magic instead of his powers of observation and reasoning, he would never become the man he should be. He recalled how little King Trent used his transforming power; now that made some sense to him. Magic was always there as a last resort; it was the other qualities of existence that needed to be strengthened. So he held off, avoiding the easy way, determined to solve this one himself.
Maybe what he sought was invisible. In his own day there were said to be invisible giants, though no one had ever seen one. How could they? He chuckled.
Again it happened, as if triggered by his noise. And this time he caught it. The top of one of the plants had moved! Not swaying in the wind; it had moved. It had turned deliberately, rotating on its trunk-axle to orient on him.
Dor considered this. He took several steps forward, whistling, watching—and the antenna swiveled to follow his progress. No doubt about it now. The thing was focusing on him.
Well, plants were also wise to keep track of mobile creatures, for the approach of monster or man could signal instant destruction—especially if it were a salamander in a bad mood, or a man looking for wood to build a house. What better way to keep informed than a rotary antenna! So this was probably harmless. Dor had been concerned because he had seen the movement without an object. He had been thinking in terms of animals or tangle trees, not simple wooden rotation.
He walked on with renewed confidence, still whistling. More of the antenna-plants were evident now; this seemed to be the mature stage of the bush. The little ones at the fringe had no antennae; the medium ones had antennae but couldn’t rotate them; the grown ones were fully operative.
Just so long as they did nothing but watch . . . Assuming they could watch without eyes. Probably they could; Dor knew there were other senses than man’s, some just as effective. Maybe the plants resonated to sounds, hence reacted to his laughter, which must seem strange indeed to them. Or to the heat of his body. Or the smell of his sweat. How would they react to the zombies? He smiled privately; the zombies might make quite a stir wherever they passed!
The forest—for such it had become—opened into a grassy glade. In the center there was a depression, and there was a mound in it. The mound appeared to be made of wood, yet had no branches or leaves. What was it?
The antenna-trees merely looked; they did not act. That would not protect this forest from threats unless there was something else. Something that could act, once the trees had pinpointed the threat. Could this be an action device?
Dor would ordinarily have left it alone, for it could be folly to mess with things not understood. But he was scouting a path for the zombie army, and he did not want to lead it into some devious trap. Probably this growth was harmless, as it seemed to be immobile. But he had to be sure.
He was not so foolish as to step on it, of course. He cast about for deadwood, found an old dry branch, and used it to poke the object. He could just reach it, this way, standing on the rim of the depression. He would not have been surprised if water poured forth in a fountain, filling the bowl, or if the knob had sunk into an awesome hole. This whole woods could be carnivorous, luring animals to the center, dumping them into its maw—
But nothing happened. His speculations had been foolish. Why should trees go to so much trouble, when it was so much easier simply to grab passing prey, as tanglers did, or to repel intrusions by brambles or forget spells or bad odors? There had been no lure, either; he had come here only because he needed a good route through.
Well, whatever it was did seem to be inert, therefore probably harmless. The zombies could pass safely. Dor turned about and saw Jumper.
“There seems to be no threat,” Jumper chittered. “Have you determined the nature of this formation?”
Dor froze. The spider had come up quietly behind him, sneaking up, intent on mischief. Only by chance had Dor turned in time. Now the sinister creature was pretending to be innocuous, until he could get close enough to bite off Dor’s head with his gruesome chelicerae.
“Is there something the matter?” Jumper chittered, his ugly huge green front orbs glinting evilly. “You look unwell. May I render assistance?” And the monster took a step toward Dor with his hairy long legs. Dor whipped out his sword. “Back, traitor!” he cried. “Come not near me!”
The spider stepped artfully back, as if confused, only far enough to remain beyond slash range. “Friend, what is the meaning of this? I seek only to help.”
Goaded beyond endurance by the thing’s duplicity, Dor lunged. The sword sped forward with a precision that would have been unattainable by his own body. But the hairy arachnid jumped right over his head, out of the way.
Dor whirled. Jumper had landed on the wooden knob. Even in his righteous rage, Dor had some caution; he did not wish to step into that mysterious depression. So he stood at the rim, on guard, watching the enemy spider.
Jumper’s attitude had changed. He balanced neatly on six legs, his long front two legs stroking the air softly. Dor recognized this as a fighting stance. “So you attack me without provocation?” the creature demanded, and there was a harsh edge to his chitter. “I should have known better than to trust an alien thing.”
The stick Dor had used to poke the knob lay at his feet. He picked it up awkwardly with his left hand, keeping his sword ready with his right. “You were the one who betrayed trust!” he cried, poking at the spider.
It was a tactical mistake. Jumper threw a line around the end of the pole and jerked it to him. Dor was almost hauled into the depression before he let go. He staggered back.
The spider seized his opening. He jumped across the depression, landing beside Dor. He threw another loop, catching Dor’s sword arm, drawing him off balance. But Dor reacted with the fighting reflexes of his powerful body. He jerked the arm back. Such was the strength and weight of his body that it was the gross arachnid who was now hauled off balance. No single leg of the spider’s could match Dor’s arm; the muscle tissue simply wasn’t there. Jumper came forward, not falling because it was just about impossible for a thing with eight legs to fall, but lurching toward Dor. Dor reversed his motion and slashed viciously with his sword.
The spider shot straight up, barely avoiding the cut. There was no overhanging branch here, so what went up had to come down. Dor stood below with his point straight up, waiting for the spider to skewer himself on it.
But he had reckoned without the creature’s monstrous agility. Jumper landed on the sword—feet first, all eight of them closing about the tip of the blade, supporting him. His weight carried blade and arm down, and Dor collapsed under it. Immediately the spider’s sickening strands of web were all about him, entangling him.
Dor closed his left fist and rammed it into the spider’s soft abdomen. The flesh gave way disgustingly, and strands of silk stretched and snapped. Then Dor put both hands on the sword and hauled it up, half-carrying the spider with it. He kicked with one foot to dislodge his antagonist—but this was another error. The spider looped that leg, drew his line in tight, and Dor had two hands and the leg tied together. Those spindly spider legs were savagely swift!
Dor fell on his back, fighting to free his limbs. But now the spider was all over him, throwing strand after strand around him, drawing them in tight. Dor heaved mightily, snapping more strands, but his strength was giving out. Soon he was hopelessly bound.
The monster brought his head close to Dor’s head. The horrible hairy green chelicerae parted, ready to crush Dor’s helpless face into a pulp. The sharp fangs were extended. The two largest green front eyes glared.
Dor screamed and kicked his bound feet and flung his head about as uselessly as Millie ever had. How had he come to this? Yet even in this moment of annihilation he retained some human perspective. “Why did you ever pretend to be my friend?” he demanded.
Jumper folded his jaws closed. “That is an excellent question,” he chittered. Then he backed off, adjusted his lines, and dragged Dor over the ground toward a large tree. The antenna at the tree’s top rotated to cover him, but could do nothing. The spider jumped to a stout branch, fastened a line, then hauled Dor laboriously into the air to dangle helplessly. Then he descended his own dragline to land beside Dor.
“The answer is, I did not pretend to be your friend,” Jumper chittered. “I made a truce with you and treated you fairly, believing that you would honor that truce in the same fashion I did. Then, suddenly, without warning, you attacked me with your sword, and I had to defend myself. You were the one who pretended.”
“I did not!” Dor cried, struggling vainly against his bonds. “You sneaked up on me!”
“I suppose it could be interpreted that way. But you attacked me, not I you.”
“You jumped right at me, snagging my sword. That was an attack!”
“That was after you took your blade to me, and prodded me with the stick. Then I recognized your hostile nature, and took appropriate action.” But the spider paused, considering. “I felt no hostility to you until that moment. Why should a stick provoke me when a sword did not?”
“Don’t you understand your own alien nature?” Dor demanded.
“Something incomplete here. When did you become antagonistic toward me?”
“When you tried to sneak up on me and kill me, of course!”
“And when did that happen?”
“What fool game are you trying to play?” Dor demanded. “You know I was looking at the wooden knob.”
“The wooden knob,” the spider repeated thoughtfully. “My own realization of antipathy came when I landed on that knob. Can that be coincidence?”
“Who cares!” Dor cried. “You sneaked up on me first!”
“Consider: you poked that knob; you touched it, indirectly, and became hostile to me. Then I touched it and became hostile to you. That knob must have something to do with it.”
The logic began to penetrate Dor’s emotion. He had poked the knob, just before . . . what happened. He knew the spider was his enemy, yet—
“Magic can do many things,” Jumper continued. “Can it change friendship to enmity?”
“It can make strangers love each other,” Dor said unwillingly. “I suppose it could do the opposite.”
“The antenna-plants were tracking our approach. Had we been hostile to this forest, how would it have defended itself?”
“It would have thrown some spell, of course, since the trees aren’t active the way tanglers are. Make us fall asleep, or get itchy, or something.”
“Or get angry with each other?”
“Yes, that too. Anything is possible—“ Dor paused. “Our fight—a spell?”
“The antennae observed us. Had we passed through without stopping, perhaps nothing would have happened. But we remained too long, poking into things —so the forest struck back. Setting us against each other. Reversing our feeling for each other. Would that not be an excellent defense?”
“Reversing emotion! That would mean the stronger the friendship, the worse the—“
“I am extremely angry with you,” Jumper chittered.
“I am absolutely furious with you.”
“Are we both as angry as it is possible to be? That would indicate a very strong friendship.”
“Yes!” Dor cried, and it was as if a band about his heart had burst. “This spell—it could set whole armies against each other!” he exclaimed, seeing it. “The moment anyone jogs the knob, he activates it.” The logic had now penetrated to his core; he had no further doubt they were the victims of a malignant spell. His hate for his friend was dissipating. It simply was not reasonable in the circumstance. Jumper’s approach had not really been sneaky; the spider normally moved silently, and Dor’s attention had been taken by the knob. Dor had assumed Jumper was his enemy for no good reason—except enchantment.
“May I release you now?” Jumper chittered.
“Yes. I realize what happened. It was a temporary spell, losing power with time.”
“Reason abates much magic,” Jumper agreed. He swung across, and with a few deft motions freed Dor. “I regret this happened,” he chittered.
“So do I! Oh, I’m sorry, Jumper! I should have realized—“
“I was caught too. Emotion overcame reason—almost.”
“But tell me—why didn’t you bite my head off? I thought you were about to.”
“The temptation was great. But one does not ordinarily kill a defenseless enemy unless one is hungry. One stores the meat alive until needed. And I do not like the taste of your type of flesh. So it was counter to logic to slay you, and that bothered me. I prefer to be governed by logic. I try to understand the complete situation, to achieve perspective at all times. To get all eight eyes on it, as we arachnids chitter.”
“I didn’t try to think things out,” Dor admitted ruefully. “I just fought!”
“You are younger than I.”
Therefore immature, and thoughtless, prone to errors of ignorance and emotion. How well he knew it! The spider’s maturity had saved them again, providing the time and thought they needed to fight free of the spell. “Just how old are you, Jumper?”
“I hatched half a year ago, in the spring.”
“Half a year!” Dor exclaimed. “I hatched—I mean was born—twelve years ago. I’m way older than you!”
“I suspect our cycles differ,” Jumper said diplomatically. “In another quarter year I shall be dead of old age.”
Dor was shocked. “But I’ve hardly had time to know you!”
“It is not how long one lives, but how well one lives that is important,” Jumper chittered. “This quest with you has been generally excellent living.”
“Except for the goblins and the Mundanes,” Dor said, remembering.
“You ventured in quest of the healing elixir at great peril to yourself to enable me to survive the Mundanes’ torture,” Jumper reminded him. “Perhaps the episode was worthwhile, showing me the extent of your loyalty. Come, let us finish our mission without regret.”
Would he have been so nice about having one of his own legs pulled off, to verify the friendship of the spider? Dor doubted it. It seemed he still had some maturing to do.
They dropped to the ground and set their markers to skirt widely around the enchanting wooden knob. This forest defense seemed unnecessarily devious, but of course an obvious trap could more readily be circumvented.
Dor found himself sobered, and not merely by the hostile magic. Jumper—dead in three months!