One moment Dor was swinging on spider silk across a minor chasm; the next he was standing on the floor of the Castle Roogna drawing room before the tapestry.
“Is that you, Dor?” a familiar voice inquired.
Dor looked around and spied a tiny, humanoid figure. “Of course it’s me, Grundy,” he told the golem. “Who else would it be?”
“The Brain Coral, of course. That’s who it’s been for the past two weeks.”
Of course. Quickly Dor readjusted. He was no longer a great-thewed Mundane; he was a small, spindly twelve-year-old boy. His own body. Well, it would grow in due course.
He focused on the tapestry, looking for Jumper. The spider should be where they had been when the spell reverted, in the wilderness—ah, there was a speck. Dor leaned forward and spied the tiny creature, so small he could crush it with the tip of his littlest finger. Not that he ever would do a thing like that! It raised a hairlike foreleg in a wave.
“It says you look strange in your real form,” Grundy said. “It says—”
“I need no translation!” Dor snapped. Suddenly his eyes were blinded by tears, whether of joy or grief he was uncertain. “I’ll—I’ll see you again, Jumper. Soon. Within a few days—a few months of your time —I mean—oh, Jumper!”
“Who cares about a dumb bug?” Grundy asked.
Dor clenched his fist, for an instant tempted to smash the golem into the pulp from which he had been derived. But he controlled himself. How could Grundy know what Jumper meant to Dor? Grundy was of the old order, unenlightened.
There was nothing Dor could do. The spider had his own life to lead, and Dor had his. Their friendship was independent of size or time. But oh, he felt a choke in his heart!
Was this another aspect of becoming a man? Was it worth it?
Yet Dor had friends here, too. He must not allow his experience of the tapestry world to alienate him from his own world. He turned away from the tapestry. “Hello, Grundy. How are things in the real world?”
“Don’t ask!” the golem exclaimed. “You know the Brain Coral, who took over your body? Thing was like a child—I mean even childier than you, at times —poking into everything, making faux passes—“
“What?”
“Cultural errors. Like belching into your soup. That thing really kept me hopping!”
“Sounds like fun,” Dor said, smiling. Already he was getting used to this little body. It lacked the strength of the Mundane giant, but it wasn’t a bad body. “Listen, I have to talk to that Coral. I owe it a favor.”
“No you don’t. You owe it a punch in the mouth, if anything. If it has a mouth. All’s even—it got the fun of using your body, while you went into tapestry land for a nice vacation.”
Some vacation! “I owe it from eight hundred years ago.”
“Oh. Well, sure, tell the gnome.”
“Who? Oh, the Good Magician Humfrey. I will. Right now I have to go see Jonathan the zombie.”
“Oh, yeah. You got the stuff?”
“I got it. I think.”
“This will be something! The first restored zombie to go with the first restored ghost! For centuries, she untouchable and he not worth touching. Grisly romance!”
Dor might have snapped something nasty at the golem, but recent experience had lent him discretion. So he changed the subject. “Maybe I’d better check first with King Rooge—King Trent. He’s the one who put me up to this.”
Grundy shrugged. “Just so I don’t have to exchange another word with the Coral.”
“That’s next.” Dor couldn’t help teasing the golem a little.
“Look, you know what that creature was doing with your body and Irene?”
“Who?” Dor was distracted, thinking about his upcoming interview with the Brain Coral. What kind of favor would he have to repay, after eight hundred years?
“Princess Irene, daughter of the King. Remember her?”
“Well, it has been eight centuries, in a manner of—“ Dor did a double take. “What did my body do with Irene?”
“Coral was real curious about the distinction between male and female anatomy. Coral’s asexual, or hisexual, or something, see, and—“
“Enough! Do you realize I’m about to see her father?”
“Why do you think I mentioned the matter? I tried to cover for you, but King Trent’s pretty savvy and Irene’s a snitch. So I’m not sure—“
“When did I—I mean, my body—?”
“Yesterday.”
“Then there may still be time. She doesn’t speak to her father for days at a time.”
“In a case like this she might make an exception.”
“She might indeed!” Dor agreed worriedly.
“Ah, what does it matter? The King knows she’s a brat.”
“It is my own reputation I am thinking of.” Dor had been accorded the respect due a grown man, in the tapestry world, and the feeling was now important to him. But it was more than that. Other people had feelings too. He thought of how Vadne had glowed when the Zombie Master complimented her talent— and how Murphy’s curse had perverted that into her doom and his. And Millie’s. Feelings were important —even those of brats.
Dor addressed the floor. “Where is Irene?”
“Hasn’t been here for days.”
He moved into the hall, questioning as he went. Soon he located her—in her own apartment in the palace. “You go elsewhere,” he told Grundy. “I have to handle this myself.”
“Aw,” the golem complained, “Your fights with Irene are so much fun.” But he obediently departed. Dor inhaled deeply, the act reminding him fleetingly of Heavenly Helen Harpy, squared his shoulders, then knocked politely. Quickly she opened the door.
Irene was only eleven, but with his new perspective Dor saw that she was an extremely pretty child, about to blossom into a fine young woman. The lines of her face were good, and though she had not yet developed the feminine contours, the framework was present for an excellent enhancement. Give her two years, maybe three, and she might rival Millie the maid. With a different talent, of course,
“Well?” she said, with the sharpness of nervousness.
“May I come in?”
“You sure did yesterday. Want to play house again?”
“No.” Dor entered and closed the door quietly behind him as she retreated. How to proceed? Obviously she had strong reactions and was wary of him without actually being frightened. She had potted plants all around the room, and one was a miniature tangler: she had no need to fear anyone! She hadn’t told her father yet; he had, in the course of locating her, determined that she had not been near the library in the past day.
Irene was a palace brat whose talent fell well short of Magician caliber. No one would ever call her Sorceress. She had a sharp tongue and some obnoxious mannerisms. Yet, Dor reminded himself again, she was a person. He had always held her in a certain contempt because her talent was substantially beneath his own—but so was Millie’s. Magic was important, certainly, and in some situations critical— but in other situations it hardly mattered. The Zombie Master had recognized that
Now Dor felt ashamed, not for what his body might have done yesterday, but for what he, Dor, had done a month ago, and a year ago. Stepping on the feelings of another person. It did not matter that he had not done it maliciously; as a full Magician, in line to inherit the crown of Xanth, he should have recognized the natural resentment and frustration of those who lacked his opportunities. Like Irene, daughter of two of the three top talents in the older generation, doomed to the status of a nonentity because she had only ordinary magic. And was female. How would he feel in such a circumstance? How had his father Bink felt, as a child of no apparent magic?
“Irene, I—I guess I’ve come to apologize.” He remembered how freely King Roogna had apologized to the Zombie Master, though the problem had only deviously been the fault of the King. Royalty had no need to be above humility! “I had no right to do what I did, and I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
She looked at him quizzically. “You’re talking about yesterday?”
“I’m talking about my whole life!” he flared. “I—I have strong magic, yes. But I was born with it; it’s an accident of fate, no personal credit to me. You have magic yourself, good magic, better than average. I make dead things talk; you make live things grow. There are situations in which your talent is far more useful than mine. I ... looked down on you, and that was wrong. I can’t blame you for reacting negatively; I would do the same. In fact you fought back with more spunk than I ever did. You’re a person, Irene. A child, as I am, but still a human being who deserves respect. Yesterday—“ He stalled, for he had no clear idea what the Coral had done. He should have gotten the specifics from Grundy. He spread his hands. “I’m sorry, and I apologize, and—“
She raised a finger in a little mannerism she had, silencing him. “You’re taking back yesterday?”
Dor couldn’t help thinking of his own yesterday, piping goblins and harpies after him with the magic flute, swinging on spider silk inside the Gap, detonating the forget spell that still polluted the Gap, hauling corpses from battlefield to laboratory to make zombies —unparalleled adventure, now forever past Yesterday was eight hundred years ago. “I can’t take back yesterday. It’s part of my life, now. But—“
“Listen, you think I’m some naive twit who doesn’t know what’s what?”
“No, Irene. I was the naive one. I—“
“You claim you didn’t know what you were doing?”
Dor sighed. How true that statement was! “I really can’t make excuses. I’ll take my medicine. You have a right to be angry. If you want to tell your father—“
“Father, hell!” she snapped. “I’ll take care of this myself! I’ll give back exactly what you gave me!”
Dor was not reassured. “As you wish. It is your right.”
“Close your eyes and stand still.”
She was going to hit him. Dor knew it. But it seemed he had it coming. He had let the Brain Coral use his body; he was responsible. He closed his eyes and stood still, forcing his hands to hang loose at his sides, undefensively. Maybe this was the best way to settle it.
He heard her step close, almost felt the movement of her body. She was raising her arm. He hoped she wouldn’t hit him low. Better on the chest or face, though it marked him.
It was on the mouth. But strangely soft. In fact—
In fact, she was kissing him!
Totally surprised, Dor found himself putting his arms around her, partly for balance, mostly because that was what one was supposed to do when kissed by a girl. He felt her body yield to him, her hair shifting with the motion. She smelled and tasted and felt pleasant.
Then she drew back a little within his embrace and looked at him. “What do you think of that?” she asked.
“If you intended that to be punishment, it didn’t work,” he said. “You’re sort of nice to kiss.”
“So are you,” she said. “You surprised me yesterday. I thought you were going to hit me or yank off my panties or something, and I was all set to scream, and it was all awkward and bumpy, noses colliding and stuff. So I practiced last night on my big doll. Was it better this time?”
A kiss? That was what they had done yesterday? Dor’s knees felt weak! Trust Grundy the golem to blow it up into something gossipy! “There’s no comparison!”
“Should I take off my clothes now?”
Dor froze, chagrined. “Uh—“
She laughed. “I thought that would faze you! If I wouldn’t do it yesterday, what makes you think I’d do it today?”
“Nothing,” Dor said, relaxing with a shuddering breath. He had seen naked nymphs galore, in the tapestry, but this was real. “Nothing at all. Nothing absolutely at all.”
“You want to know what yesterday was?” she demanded. “It was the first time you really got interested in me, for anything. The first time anybody got interested in me who didn’t want a plant grown fast, instead of calling me a palace brat who should have been a sorceress but could only grow stupid green stuff. Do you have any idea what it’s like having two Magician-caliber parents and being a big disappointment to them because not only are you a girl, you have lousy talent?”
“You have good talent!” Dor protested. “And there’s nothing wrong with being a girl!”
“Oh sure, sure,” she countered. “You never bad no talent. You never were not male. You never had people being polite to your face because of who your father was and what your mother might do to them, while they cut you down behind your back and called you skunk cabbage and garden-variety talent and weed girl and—“
“I never called you that!” Dor cried.
“Not in so many words. But you thought it, didn’t you?”
Dor blushed, unable to deny it. “I ... won’t think it again,” he promised lamely.
“And on top of that,” she continued grimly, “you know your own parents only stand up for you because they have to, but privately they think just the same as all other people do—“
“Not the King,” Dor protested. “He’s not that type—“
“Shut up!” she flared, her eyes filling with angry tears. Dor did, and she composed herself. Girls of any age were good at quick composures. “So then yesterday you were different. You kept asking questions, and you paid real attention, just as if you didn’t have a sexpot like Millie the ghost in your cheesy house to sneak peeks at and get the whole story, and you didn’t say a word about magic, or make anything talk, or anything. It was just you and me. All you wanted to know was what it was like being a girl. It was as if something else were speaking, something awful smart and ignorant, wanting to learn from me. First I thought you were poking fun at me, teasing me—but you never smiled. Then you wanted to kiss me, and I thought, Now he’s going to bite my lip or pinch me and all over laughing, but you didn’t laugh. So I kissed you, and it was awful, I bruised my nose, what the hell, I thought at least you’d know how but you didn’t, and you just said, “Thank you, Princess”, and left, and I lay on my bed a long time trying to figure out where the joke was, what you were telling the boys—“
“I didn’t-“ Dor protested.
“I know. I snooped. Some. You didn’t say anything, and neither did the golem. So it seemed you really were interested in me, and—“ She smiled, and she looked brilliantly sweet when she did that. “And it was the greatest experience of my whole life! You’re a real Magician, and—”
“No, that has nothing to do with—”
“So I practiced kissing, just in case. Then you came in just now apologizing, as if it were something dirty. So I thought you hadn’t meant it, had just been slumming, and—“
“No!” Dor cried in sudden anguish. “That wasn’t it at all!”
“I know that now. Can’t blame me for wondering, though.” She smiled again. “Listen, Dor, I know tomorrow it’ll be just like before, and I’ll be a snotty palace brat to you, but—would you kiss me again?”
Dor felt deeply complimented. “Gladly, Irene.” He bent to kiss her again. He was young yet, and so was she, but it was a foretaste of what they might experience when they both grew up.
“Maybe again, sometime?” she inquired wistfully. “I sort of like being a girl, now.”
“Sometime,” he agreed. “But we’ve got to fight some, too, or the others will tease us. We’re still too young—“ But not very much too young, he thought. He could see the road ahead rather clearly now, after his tapestry experience.
“I know.” They broke, and there seemed to be nothing more to say, so Dor went to the door and opened it. He paused to look back at her, remembering what she had said about her parents being disappointed in her. She was sitting on her bed, bathed in a forlorn joy.
“Not the King,” he repeated quietly. “I believe that.”
Irene smiled. “No, not the King.”
“And not me.”
“Same thing,” she said.
He stepped out and closed the door, knowing he wasn’t through with her. Not today or tomorrow, or for some time to come. Not through at all.
Grundy was waiting for him. “Any black eyes? Broken teeth? Throttle marks? It was awful quiet in there.”
“She’s a nice girl,” Dor said, walking toward the library. “Funny I never noticed that before.”
“Brother!” the golem expostulated. “First he notices Millie the ghost, then Irene the brat. What’s he coming to?”
Maturity, Dor thought. He was growing up, and new horizons were opening, and he was glad.
They arrived at the library. “Come in,” King Trent called before Dor could knock.
Dor entered and took the seat indicated. “Remember how you sent me on a quest, Your Majesty? I have returned.”
The King held up one hand, palm out. Dor thought of Jumper’s mode of greeting. “Let me not deceive you, Dor. Humfrey advised me, and I could not resist watching the tapestry. I have a fair notion what you have been doing.”
“You mean the tapestry showed me—what I was doing while I was doing it?”
“Certainly, once I knew which character to watch. You and that spider—you’re lucky you didn’t kill yourself in the Gap! But there was no way for me to revoke the spell before its natural span expired. I sweated to think of what I would have to say to your father, if—“
Dor laughed convulsively. “And I was worried about Irene’s father!”
King Trent smiled. “Dor, I really don’t like to snoop around the palace, but the Queen does. She quickly noticed the change in you, saw that you never used your talent, and found out about the Brain Coral. Her picture hangs in Irene’s room; the Queen merely substituted her own illusion image for the picture and had what they call in Mundania a ringside seat. She watched everything yesterday—and today. And advised me, just now.”
Dor shrugged. “I stand by what I did. Both days.”
“I know you do, Dor. You’re coming onto manhood nicely. Do not assume the Queen is your enemy. She wants her daughter to follow her, and knows what is required though she may resent it strongly. I am aware how ticklish the situation in the bedroom was. You handled it with the finesse I would expect in a leader.”
“That wasn’t finesse! I meant every word!”
“Finesse and meaning are not mutually incompatible.”
“Irene’s not bad at all, once you get to know her! She—” Dor stopped, embarrassed. “What am I doing, telling you this? You’re her father!”
The King clapped a friendly hand on Dor’s shoulder. “You have pleased me, Magician. Now through your adventure, I know the secret of the flute and the hoop in the Royal arsenal; they could be extremely useful on occasion. I shall not keep you from the completion of your quest. You must wrap it up, for there will be assignments for you in today’s world, as you learn to govern Xanth.” He walked to a low bookshelf and brought out a rolled rug. “We saved this for your convenience.” It was the magic carpet.
“Um, thanks, Your Majesty. I do have some traveling to do.”
Dor mounted the rug. “Brain Coral,” he told it, and it took off.
As the carpet ascended the sky and the landscape of modern Xanth opened out like a tapestry, Dor felt abrupt nostalgia for the tapestry world he had left. It was not that that world was superior to his own; its magic was generally cruder, its politics more violent. It was his experience of manhood and friendship, especially with Jumper. He knew he would never be able to recover the personal magic of that experience. Yet, as his session with Irene had shown, there was unexpected magic in this world too. All he had to do was appreciate it.
Down into the underworld, through the cavern passages. Goblins still reigned here, he knew, though they had almost disappeared on the surface of Xanth. What had happened to them? They had not all been slaughtered at the battle of Castle Roogna, and the forget spell would not have wiped them out. Had there been some later goblin calamity?
Then he was at the subterranean lake. Modern transport was certainly an improvement over ancient; this had hardly taken any time at all.
No Goblin calamity, the Brain Coral thought to him. The harpy curse on the goblin populace was nullified on the surface, but lingered in the depths. Therefore the goblins above became, generation by generation, more intelligent, handsome, and noble, until they were no longer recognizable as monsters. The only true goblins today are those of the caverns.
“Then I wiped out their species!” Dor exclaimed. “In a way I never anticipated!”
Their species, as you knew it, was a horrendous distortion, a burden to themselves as much as to others. They cared so little for themselves they were glad to die in goblin-sea tactics when storming a castle. You did well in releasing them from their curse, and in restoring the male of the species to the harpies.
“About that,” Dor said. “You gave up Prince Harold Harpy as a favor to me, and now I have come to return the favor, as I said I would.”
No need, Magician. When you came two weeks ago, I did not make the connection. After all, you wore a different body when I first met you, eight centuries ago. But in the past two weeks I worked it out. You returned that favor eight hundred years ago.
“No, I came back here to my own time. So—“
You brought victory to King Roogna. Therefore his rival Magician Murphy retired from politics, preferring to wait until some better situation arose. He came to me.
“Murphy was exiled?” Dor asked, startled.
It was voluntary. King Roogna would have liked to have his company, but Murphy was restless. He is in my storage now. Perhaps one century I will release him, when Xanth has need of his talent. Now, in exchange for the harpy Prince, I have Murphy and Vadne, who may one day make a fine pair. You owe me nothing.
“I, uh, guess so, if you see it that way,” Dor said. “Still—“
If ever you choose to travel from your body again, keep me in mind, the Coral thought. I learned a great deal about life, though I do not yet properly comprehend the sexual nature of Man.
“No one does,” Dor said, smiling.
I do not experience emotion. But in your body I did. I liked the little Princess.
“She is likable,” Dor agreed. “Uh, look—I promised to have the access hoop shrunk back to ring size, but—“
Forgiven. Farewell, Magician.
“Farewell, Coral.” The rug took off and zoomed back through the cavernly passages. When it emerged into the sky it hesitated, until Dor remembered that he had not told it where to go next. “Good Magician Humfrey’s castle.”
Dor was reminded again that Humfrey’s castle stood where the Zombie Master’s castle had once been. The two were of different designs; probably the site had been razed more than once, and rebuilt.
Humfrey was as usual poring over a massive tome, paying no attention to what went on around him—supposedly. “What, you again?” he demanded irritably.
“Listen, gnome—“ Grundy began.
The Good Magician smiled—a rare thing for him. “Why listen, when I can read? Observe.” And he gestured them to look at the book, over his shoulder.
“But I’m not a killer!” Dor protested vehemently. “I’m only a twelve-year-old—“ He caught himself, but didn’t know how to correct his slip.
“A twelve-year veteran of warfare!” she exclaimed. “Surely you have killed before!”
It was grossly misplaced, but her sympathy gratified him strongly. His tired body reacted; his left arm reached out to enclose her hips in its embrace, as she stood beside him. He squeezed her against his side. Oh, her posterior was resilient!
“Why, Dor!” she said, surprised and pleased. “You like me!”
Dor forced himself to drop his arm. What business did he have, touching her? Especially in the vicinity of her cushiony posterior. “More than I can say.”
“I like you too, Dor.” She sat down in his lap, her derriere twice as soft and bouncy as before. Again his body reacted, enfolding her in an arm. Dor had never before experienced such sensation. Suddenly he was aware that his body knew what to do, if only he let it. That she was willing. That it could be an experience like none he had imagined in his young life. He was twelve; his body was older. It could do it.
“Oh, Dor,” she murmured, bending her head to kiss him on the mouth. Her lips were so sweet he—
The flea chomped him hard on the left ear. Dor bashed at it—and boxed his ear. The pain was brief but intense.
He stood up, dumping Millie roughly to her feet. “I have to get some rest,” he said.
She made no further sound, but only stood there, eyes downcast He knew he had hurt her terribly. She had committed the cardinal maidenly sin of being forward, and been rebuked. But what could he do? He did not exist in her world. He would soon depart, leaving her alone for eight hundred years, and when they rejoined he would be twelve years old again. He had no right!
But oh, what might have been, were he more of a man.
Dor found himself blushing. “That’s—you mean that book records everything, even my private feelings?” Yet obviously it did.
“We were not about to let a future King of Xanth go unmonitored,” Humfrey remarked. “Especially when our own history was involved. Not that we could do anything about it, once the tapestry spell was cast. Still, as vicarious experience—“
“Was it valid?” Dor asked. “I mean, did I really change history?”
“That is a question that may never be answered to absolute satisfaction. I would say you did, and you did not.”
“A typically gnomish answer,” Grundy said.
“One must consider the framework of Xanth history,” the Good Magician continued. “A series of Waves of Mundane conquest, with the population decimated again and again. If every person lived and reproduced without a break, any interruption in that process would eliminate many of today’s residents. All the descendants of that person. But if a subsequent Wave wiped them out anyway—“ He shrugged. “There could be considerable change, all nullified a generation or two later. In which case there would be no paradox relating to our own time. I would say that the original Castle Roogna engagement was real, and that you changed that reality. You rewrote the script. But you changed only the details of that particular episode, not the overall course of history. Does it matter?”
“I guess not,” Dor said.
“About that page I was reading,” Humfrey said. “It seems you have been concerned about manhood. Did it occur to you that you might be more of a man in the declining of the maid’s offer than in the acceptance of it?”
“No,” Dor admitted.
“There is somewhat more to manhood than sex.”
As if on cue, the gorgon entered the room, in a splendidly sexy dress but still without a face. “That’s male propaganda,” she said from the vacuum. “There is certainly more to womanhood than sex, but a man is a simpler organism.”
“Oooo, what you said!” Grundy exclaimed, rubbing his tiny forefingers together in a condemning gesture.
“I said organism,” she said. “You authenticate my case.”
“Get out of here, both of you,” Humfrey snapped. “The Magician and I are trying to hold a meaningful dialogue.”
“Thought you’d never ask,” Grundy said. He hopped to the gorgon’s shoulder, peering into the nothingness framed by her snake-ringlets. A snakelet hissed at him, “Same to you, slinky,” he snapped at it, and the snake retreated. He peered down into the awesome crevice of her bodice. “Come on, honey; let’s go down to the kitchen for a snack.”
When they were alone, Humfrey flipped a few pages of the history tome idly. “I was surprised to learn that the Zombie Master’s castle was on this very site,” he remarked. “Were he alive today, I would gladly share this castle with him. He was a remarkably fine Magician, and a fine man, too.”
“Yes,” Dor agreed. “He was the real key to King Roogna’s success. He deserved so much better than the tragedy he suffered.” He felt another surge of remorse.
Humfrey sighed, “What has been, has been.”
“Uh, have you given the gorgon your Answer yet?”
“Not yet. Her year is not yet complete.”
“You are the most mercenary creature I know!” Dor said admiringly. “Every time I think I’ve seen the ultimate, you come up with a worse wrinkle. Are you going to marry her?”
“What do you think?”
Dor visualized the gorgon’s body with historical perspective. “She’s a knockout. If she wants you, you’re sunk. She doesn’t need a face to turn a man to stone. In a manner of speaking.”
The Good Magician nodded. “You have learned a new manner of speaking! The key concept is ‘she wants.’ Do you really think she does?”
“Why else did she come here?” Dor demanded, perplexed.
“Her original motive was based largely on ignorance. How do you think she might feel once she knows me well?”
“Uh—“ Dor searched for something diplomatic to say. The Good Magician had his points, but was no easy man to approach, or to get along with.
“Therefore the kindest thing to do is to give her sufficient opportunity to know me—well enough,” the Magician concluded.
“The year!” Dor exclaimed. “That wait for her Answer! Not for you—for her! So she can change her mind, if—“
“Precisely.” Humfrey looked sad. “It has been a most enticing dream, however, even for an old gnome.”
Dor nodded, realizing that the Good Magician had not been proof against the attractions of the gorgon any more than the lonely Zombie Master had been proof against Millie. The two Magicians were similar in their fashion—and a similar tragedy loomed.
“Now we must conclude your case,” Humfrey said briskly, refusing to dwell further on the inevitable. “You owe me no further service, of course; the history book has provided it all, and I consider the investment well worthwhile. I have now fathomed many long-standing riddles, such as the origin of the forget spell on the Gap. So I may send you on your way, your account quit.”
“Thank you,” Dor said. “I have brought back your magic carpet.”
“Oh, yes. But I shall not leave you stranded. I believe I have a conjuration spell stashed away somewhere; have the gorgon locate it for you as you leave. It will take you home in a flash.”
“Thank you.” It was a relief not to have to contemplate another trek through the jungle. “Now I must go give the restorative elixir to Jonathan.”
The Good Magician frowned at him. “You have had an especially difficult decision there, Dor. I believe you have acted correctly. When you become King, the discipline of emotion and action you have learned in the course of this quest will serve you in excellent stead. It may be more of an asset to you than your magic talent. King Trent’s hiatus in Mundania matured him similarly. It seems there are qualities that cannot be inculcated well in a secure, familiar environment. You are already more of a man than most people ever get to be.”
“Uh, thanks,” Dor mumbled. He had yet to master the art of graciously receiving compliments. But the Magician had already returned to reading his tome. Dor moved toward the door. Just as he left the room, Humfrey remarked without looking up: “You rather remind me of your father.” Suddenly Dor felt very good.
Grundy and the gorgon were sharing a scream soda in the kitchen; Dor heard the noise from several rooms away. They were using straws; hers poked into her nothing face, where the soda disappeared. She had a face, all right; it just could not be seen. Dor wondered what it would be like to kiss her. In the dark she would seem entirely normal. Except for those little snakes.
“I need the conjuration spell,” Dor said. “The one that flashes.”
The screams faded as she left the soda. “I know exactly where it is. I have every spell classified and properly filed. First time there’s been order in this castle in a century.” She reached for an upper shelf, her figure elongating enticingly. What a woman she would be, if only she had a visible face! But no, that would be ruinous; her face petrified men, literally.
“There,” she said, bringing down an object that looked like a closed tube. It had a lens on one end, and a switch on the side. “You just push the switch forward, there, when you’re ready.”
“I’m ready now. I want to go to the tapestry room in Castle Roogna. Are you coming, Grundy?”
“One moment.” The golem sucked in the last scream from the soda—no more than a whimper, actually—and crossed the room.
“Do you really want to marry the Good Magician now that you know him?” Dor asked the gorgon curiously.
“What would he do for socks and spells, without me?” she retorted. “This castle needs a woman.”
“Uh, yes. All castles do. But—“
“What kind of a man would give a pretty girl board and room for a year, never touching her, just to think it over, knowing she probably would change her mind in that period?”
“A good man. A patient one. A serious one.” Then Dor nodded, understanding the thrust of her question. “One worth marrying.”
“I thought I wanted him, when I came here. Now I am sure of it. Under all that grouch is a remarkably fine Magician, and a fine man, too.”
Almost exactly the words Humfrey had used to describe the Zombie Master! But it seemed that tragedy was about to bypass the gnome, after all. Parallels went only so far. “I wish you every happiness.”
“Would you believe there are three happiness spells on that shelf?” She winked. “And a potency spell too, but he won’t need that, I suspect.”
Dor eyed her once again with the memory of his erstwhile Mundane barbarian body. “Right,” he agreed.
“Actually, all he needs for happiness is a good cheap historical adventure tome, like that one he’s reading now, about ancient Xanth. I’m going to read it too, as soon as he finishes, I understand it has lots of sex and sorcery and a really stupid barbarian hero—“
Hastily, Dor pushed the switch. The spell flashed— and he stood before the tapestry. “Savior of Xanth,” he said, feeling foolish, and his vial of restorative elixir popped out from whatever invisible place it had lain for eight hundred years. He had to catch it before it could shatter on the floor, but he lacked the muscle and reflexes his Mundane body had had, and missed. The vial plummeted—
And jerked short on an invisible thread, and swung there, undamaged. A silken dragline had been attached to it. “Not this time, Murphy!” Dor cried as he nabbed it. He looked for his friend Jumper, who had surely rescued him again in this fashion, but did not see him.
Now, with the object of his quest in hand, he wondered: how could an object be spelled into a tapestry-within-a-tapestry—how could it emerge from the main tapestry? Or were the two tapestries the same? They had to be, because—yet they couldn’t be, because— He seemed to be skirting paradox here, but couldn’t quite grasp it. Anyway, he had the elixir. Best not to question top deeply; he might not like the answer.
Yet he lingered, watching the tapestry. He saw Castle Roogna, with its returning personnel cleaning out the last of the debris of battle and doing preparatory work for the zombie graveyard beyond the moat—the graveyard those zombies still resided in today. They had protected the Castle well, all these centuries, but now it was in no danger, so they lay quietly out of sight. Except for Jonathan, the strange exception. It seemed there were personality differences among zombies, just as there were in people, “One in every crowd,” he murmured.
His eye focused on the spot he had vacated. He and Jumper had been trying to get as close to the place they had entered the Fourth Wave world as possible. They had cut into the jungle—and the jungle had tried to cut into them, when they encountered that saw grass—navigated the Gap with the use of silk lines for descent and ascent—fortunately the Gap dragon had been elsewhere at the time, perhaps suffering from the forget spell—and forged into northern Xanth. As they drew near the spot, their presence seemed to activate the spell, and it had reverted.
There, near that place, was the Mundane giant. He had no huge spider now as companion. He had wandered to a stockaded hut, begging a place to stay the night. He faced the mistress of the hut, an attractive young woman. As Dor watched, the tiny figures animated.
“What are they saying?” Dor asked Grundy.
“I thought you said you needed no translation!”
“Grundy—“
The golem hastily translated: “I am a barbarian, recently disenchanted. I was transformed, or driven, into the body of a flea, while an alien shade governed my body.”
“The flea!” Dor exclaimed. “The one that hid in my hair and kept biting me! That was the Mundane!”
“Shut up while I’m translating,” Grundy said. “This lip reading is hard.” He resumed: “That creature did its best to destroy me, yanking me across the Gap on a rope, throwing me among zombies, thrusting me single-handed against an army of monsters—“
“Now that’s a distortion!” Dor cried indignantly.
“And that awful giant spider!” the translation continued. “I lived in daily fear it would discover my flea body and—“ The barbarian shuddered. “Now at last I have fought free. But I am tired and hungry. May I stay the night?”
The woman looked him over. “For a story like that you can stay three nights! Know any more?”
“Many more,” the barbarian said humbly.
“Nobody who can lie like that can be all bad.”
“Right,” he agreed abjectly.
She smiled. “I am a widow. My husband was roasted by a dragon. I need a man to run the farm— a strong, patient man, not too bright, willing to settle for . . .” She spread her hands and half-turned, inhaling.
The barbarian noted her inhalation. It was a good one, the kind barbarians normally paid attention to. He smiled. “Well, I’m not too patient.”
“That’s close enough,” the woman said.
Dor turned away, satisfied. His erstwhile Mundane body would be as happy as he deserved to be.
Something about this scenelet reminded Dor of Cedric the centaur. How was he making out with Celeste, the naughty filly? But Dor restrained himself from peeking; it really was not his business, any more.
Something caught his eye. He focused on the corner of the tapestry. There was tiny Jumper, waving. There was another little spider beside him. “You’ve found a friend!” Dor exclaimed.
“That’s no friend, that’s his mate,” Grundy said. “She wants to know where he was, those five years he was gone. So when the popping-out of the elixir vial alerted him to your presence, he brought her out here to meet you.”
“Tell her it’s true, all true,” Dor said. Then: “Five years?”
“Two weeks, your time. It only seemed like two weeks to him, too. But back at his home—“
“Ah, I understand.” Dor exchanged amenities with the skeptical Mrs. Jumper, bade his friend farewell again, promised to return next day-month or so, and strode from the room feeling better.
“You move with a new assurance,” Grundy remarked. He seemed sad. “You won’t be needing me much longer.”
“Penalty of growing up,” Dor said, “One year I’ll get married, and you can bodyguard my son, exactly as you have me.”
“Gee,” the golem said, flattered.
They departed the Castle, going to Dor’s cheese cottage. He felt increasing apprehension and nostalgia as he approached his home. His parents should still be away on their Mundane mission; only Millie would be there. Millie the maid, Millie the ghost, Millie the nurse. What had the Brain Coral animating his body said to her? What should he say to her now? Did she have any notion what he had been doing the past two weeks?
Dor steeled himself and went inside. He didn’t knock; it was his own cottage, after all. He was just the lad Millie took care of; she did not know—must never know—that he had been the Magician who looked like a Mundane warrior, way back when.
“Say,” Grundy inquired as they passed through the familiar-unfamiliar house toward the kitchen. “What name did you use, in the tapestry?”
“My own name, of course. My name and talent—“
Oh, no! The most certain identifiers of any person in the Land of Xanth were name and talent. He had thoughtlessly given himself away!
“Is that you, Dor?” Millie called musically from the kitchen. Too late to escape!
“Uh, yes.” No help for it but to see if she recognized him. Oh, those twelve-year-old-boy mistakes!
“Uh, just talking to a wall.” He snapped his fingers at the nearest wall. “Say something, wall!”
“Something,” the wall said obligingly.
She came to the kitchen doorway, and she was stunningly beautiful, twelve years older than she had been so recently, but almost regal in her abrupt maturity. Now she had poise, elegance, stature. She had aged, as it were overnight, more than a decade, while Dor had lost a similar amount. A gulf had opened between them, a gulf of age and time, huge as the Gap.
He loved her yet
“Why, you haven’t talked to the walls in two weeks,” Millie said. Dor knew this had to be true: the Coral had animated his body, but had lacked his special magical talent.
“Is something wrong?” Millie asked. “Why are you staring at me?”
Dor forced his fixed eyes down. “I—“ What could he say? “I—seem to remember you from somewhere.”
She laughed with the echo of the sweetness and innocence he had known and loved in the tapestry maid. “From this morning, Dor, when I served you breakfast!”
But now he would not be put off. The thing he most feared was recognition; he had to face it now. “Millie —when you were young—before you were a ghost— did you have friends?”
She laughed again, and this time he noticed the fullness and rondure of her body as it laughed with her. “Of course I had friends!”
“Who were they? You never told me.” His heart was beating hard.
She frowned. “You’re serious, aren’t you? But I can’t tell you. There was a forget spell detonated in the vicinity, and as a ghost I was near it a long time. I don’t remember my friends.”
The forget spell! It had made her forget . . . him. Yet he tried, perversely, driven by an urge he refused to define. “How—did you die?”
“Someone enchanted me. Turned me into a book—“
A book! The book he had found in the dumbwaiter leading from the female room. Vadne must have transformed her into it, then hoisted that tome to the upper floor, and no one had caught on. A stupid mistake, courtesy of Murphy’s curse. He himself had placed it on the shelf in the library—where it had remained eight hundred years, unmolested.
“I couldn’t even remember what my body was, or where,” Millie continued. “Or maybe a spell was on that too. So much was vague, especially at first—and then I was a ghost, and it was easier not to think about it. Ghosts don’t have very solid minds.” She paused, studying Dor. “But sometimes there are flashes. Your father reminded me of someone—someone I think I loved—but I can’t quite remember. Anyway, he’s eight hundred years dead, now, and there is Jonathan. I’ve known Jonathan for centuries, and he’s awful nice. When I was alone and lonely and confused, especially after King Roogna died and the Castle fell into oblivion—he had a long and good reign, but it had to end sometime—Jonathan came and helped me to hold on. He didn’t seem to mind that I was only a ghost. If only—“
So she had loved Dor—and forgotten, in the ambience of the forget spell. His name and talent—no giveaway after all. Nothing in his birth and youth in this world had alerted her, since she had never known the origin of that bygone hero, and she could hardly be expected to make the connection.
Only Jonathan had been her comfort across the centuries. She had not forgotten Jonathan, because he had always been there. A ghost and a restless zombie, bolstering each other when the rest of the world had forgotten them. Why torture her by restoring her memory of prior heartache? Dor knew what he had to do.
“Millie, I have obtained the elixir to restore Jonathan to life.” He held up the vial.
She stared at him, unbelieving. “Dor—now I remember something. Your father—he reminded me of you. Not in appearance, but in—“
“I wasn’t born yet!” Dor said harshly, repenting his recent urge to have her remember exactly this. “You’ve got it backward. I remind you of my father —because I am growing up.”
“Yes, yes of course,” she agreed uncertainly. “Only somehow—your talent of—I remember talking to pearls in a big nest, or something—“
“Take the elixir,” he said, presenting it to her. “Call Jonathan.” Oh, Jonathan, he thought in momentary agony. Do you know you fill the shoes of her lover, and of her betrothed? Be good to her, for the sake of what was never allowed to be!
Millie was too distracted to take the vial. “I—still, there is something. A big barbarian named—“
“Jonathan!” Dor bellowed as well as his present body permitted. “Come here!”
The door opened, for Jonathan was always near Millie. The loyalty of centuries! He shuffled into the kitchen, dripping the usual clods of dirt and mold. No matter how much fell, a zombie always had more; it was part of the enchantment. His body was skeletal, his eyes rotten sockets, and the nauseating odor of putrefaction was about him.
“Yet I know now that was only passing fascination,” Millie continued. “The barbarian left me, while Jonathan stayed.”
Dor tore open the corked vial. “Take this!” he cried, hurling the precious drops onto the zombie.
Immediately the body began to heal. Flesh was magically restored, tissues filled out, skin formed and cleared. The figure unhunched, became fuller, taller.
“And so my true love is Jonathan,” Millie concluded. Then she looked up, realizing what transformation was taking place, and her hair flung out as of old. “Jonathan!” she screamed.
Rapidly the last of the zombie attributes disappeared. The figure shaped into a gaunt but healthy living man.
“The Zombie Master!” Dor exclaimed, recognizing him at last. “I never knew your given name!”
Then he stepped back out of the way, letting true love assume its rightful place. Jonathan and Millie came together, she with a little skip-kicking of feet, and Dor knew his quest was done.