Castle Roogna (26 page)

       The Zombie Master did not answer, but Millie looked up, startled. She caught Dor's eye, and he nodded. She had caught on!

       But she frowned. Dor knew the problem: she was interested in him, Dor, and did not want to practice her charms on the Magician. She was in no position to understand why Dor eschewed her, or why he did not continue to plead the cause of Castle Roogna himself. So she was sullen, concentrating on the puzzle. The afternoon wore on.

       The puzzle was fascinating, an excellent device for whiling away the tense time. They all seemed to share its compulsion, vying together against its challenge as if it were the Mundane army.

       "I have always enjoyed puzzles," the Zombie Master remarked, and indeed he was the best of the human participants. His skeletal hands became quick and sure as they fetched pieces and jerked them across to likely slots, comparing, rejecting, comparing again and matching. Thin, gaunt, but basically healthy and alert, the Magician seemed more human with each hour that he passed in Millie's company. "The excitement of discovery, without threat. When I was a child, before my talent was known, I would smash blocks of stone with a hammer, then reassemble them into the original. Of course it lacked the cohesion-"

       "Was that not an aspect of your talent?" Jumper chittered. "Now you reassemble creatures, but they lack the cohesion of life."

       The Magician laughed, the first time they had heard him do that. He flung back his shaggy brown hair so that his eyebrow ridges and cheekbones stood out more prominently. "A significant insight! Yes, I suppose creating zombies is not so very different from restoring stones. Yet it becomes a lonely pursuit, because others-"

       "I understand," Jumper chittered. "You are a normal creature, as I am, but this world does not see it that way. I have my own world to return to, but you have only this one."

       "Would that I could go to your world," the Magician said, lightly but with a certain longing beneath. "To begin fresh, unprejudged. Even among spiders, I would feel more at home."

       Millie did not speak, but her demeanor softened. They worked on the puzzle. It occurred to Dor that human relations were similar to such a puzzle, meshed by the conventions of language. If only he knew where the piece that was his whole life should be fitted!

       "When I was young," the Zombie Master remarked after a bit, "I dreamed idly of marrying and settling down in the normal fashion, raising a family. I had no thought of being-as you see me now. I had better appetite, was more fully fleshed, was hardly distinguishable from normal boys. Then one day I found a dead flying frog, and was sorry for it, and tried to will it back to life, and-"

       "The first zombie!" Millie exclaimed. "True. I watched that frog fly away with amazement, thinking I had wakened the dead. But it was less than that; I could only half-waken the dead. Except, perhaps, in special cases." He glanced at Dor, obviously thinking of the restorative elixir. But that was more than the Zombie Master's magic; that incorporated the magic of the healing elixir too, so was a collaboration. "From that point, my career was set. Against my preference, I achieved far greater status and isolation than any other of my time. It seemed that many others desired what I could do for them-making zombie animals to guard their homes, or fight their battles, or do their work-but none cared to associate with me on a personal level. I became disgusted; I do not like being used without respect."

       Millie's softening became something more. "You poor man!" she exclaimed.

       "You three are the first who have associated with me without revulsion," the Zombie Master continued. "True, you came begging favors-"

       "We didn't understand!" Millie cried. "These two are from another land, far away, and I am only an innocent maid-"

       "Yes," the Magician agreed, looking at her with muted intensity. "Innocent, but with a talent that causes others to react."

       "Except for the three of you," she said. "Every other man has wanted to grab me. Dor dumped me on the floor." She cast a dark look at him.

       "Your friend restrains himself because he is not of your world and must soon depart, and cannot take you with him," the Zombie Master said. Dor was amazed and gratified at the man's comprehension. "He can thus make you no commitments, and is too much the gentleman to take advantage on a temporary basis."

       "But I would go with him!" she cried naively.

       Jumper interjected a chitter: "It is impossible, maid. There is magic involved."

       Her chin thrust forward in cute rebellion.

       "Yet if you cared to remain here at my castle, Millie, you could have a life of status-" the Magician began, then reined himself. "But also of isolation. That must be confessed."

       "You really have a lot of company," Millie said. "The zombies aren't so bad when you get to know them. They have different personalities. They…can't help it if they're not quite alive."

       "They are often better company than the living creatures," the Zombie Master agreed. "They do possess muted emotions and dim memories of their prior lives. It is ignorance that makes them suspect-the ignorance of the majority of normal people. All the zombies need are set jobs to do, and a comfortable grave-site to sleep in between tasks-and acceptance."

       Dor listened, noting how Millie and the Magician were coming together, forcing himself to stay out of it. His direct involvement could invalidate anything that happened-if Murphy was right. Yet it bothered him increasingly, this attempt to use the Zombie Master, who was after all a decent man.

       "I don't think I'd mind living among zombies," Millie said. "I met a girl zombie in the garden; I think in life she must have been almost as pretty as I am."

       "Almost," the Zombie Master agreed with a smile. "She was slain by a pneumonia spell intended for another. But when I restored her, her family would not take her back, so she remains here. I regret that I cannot undo my magic, once it has been applied; she is doomed like the others to live half-alive forever."

       "I screamed when I met the first zombie. But now-"

       "I realize your primary interest is elsewhere," the Magician said, glancing obliquely at Dor. "But if, accepting the fact that you cannot be with him, you would consider remaining here with me-"

       "I have to help the King," she said. "We promised to-"

       The Zombie bowed to the inevitable. "For you, I would even indulge in politics. Ad hoc. Employ my zombies to-"

       "No!" Dor cried, surprising himself. "This is wrong!"

       The Zombie Master glanced at him expressionlessly. "You are after all asserting your interest in the lady?"

       "No! I can't have her. I know that. But we stay here only because we are under siege, and the moment the siege lifts we'll go back to King Roogna. It is dishonorable to let her play upon your loneliness only to gain your help for the King. The end does not justify the mean." He had heard King Trent say that, in his own time, but had not appreciated its full meaning until now. End and mean-or was it ends and means? "You have been generous to me and Jumper, because you understood our needs and respected them. How could you respect Millie if-"

       For the first time, they saw Millie angry. "I wasn't trying to use him! He's a nice man! It's just that I made a promise to the King, and I can't just go off and do something else and let the whole Kingdom fall!"

       Dor was chagrined. He had not really understood her innocence. "I'm sorry, Millie. I thought-"

       "You think too much!" she flared.

       "Yet your thought does you credit," the Zombie Master said to Dor. "And your naivete" does you credit, too," he said to Millie. "I was aware of the ramifications. I am accustomed to trading for favors. This is not an evil, when the conditions of exchange are openly negotiated. I am simply prepared to compromise, in this circumstance. If it is necessary to save the Kingdom to make the lady happy, then I am prepared to save the Kingdom. Quid pro quo. I am pleased that the damsel keeps her word to the King so stringently; I can reasonably suppose that she would similarly keep her word to you, Dor. Or to me, were she to give it."

       "I haven't given it!" Millie protested. "Not to anyone! Not that way." But she seemed subtly nattered.

       "The matter may be academic," Jumper chittered. "We are under siege here, and lack the means to do more than defend ourselves within this castle, with the aid of the loyal zombies. We cannot help the King anyway."

       "And even if there were no siege," the Magician said, "I have suffered attrition of zombies. They are immortal, but when physically destroyed, with the pieces lost, they become useless. I could only bring a token force to the aid of the King. Not enough to overwhelm the curse on Castle Roogna."

       "You could make more zombies," Dor said. "If you had more dead bodies."

       "Oh, yes, without limit. But I need intact bodies, and fresh ones are best."

       "Could we but overcome the Mundanes," Jumper chittered, "we could use their bodies to fashion a mighty army."

       "If we had a mighty army, we could use it to vanquish the Mundanes," Dor pointed out. "Closed circle."

       "I do not wish to interfere with human concerns," Jumper chittered. "But I believe I see a course through the impasse. There is some risk entailed-"

       "There is risk entailed in remaining under siege," the Zombie Master said. "Present your notion; we can consider its merit jointly." He placed another piece of puzzle, uttering the mergeance spell under his breath. "It is an arrangement, a series of agreements utilizing all our efforts," Jumper chittered. "The Zombie Master and Millie must defend this castle for a time alone, while I convey Dor outside by night. I can swing him along a line to a near tree so that no one will notice. The Mundanes can not see as well as I can in darkness. Then Dor must use his talent to locate some of the real monsters of the wilderness-the dragons and such-and enlist their aid."

       "Dragons will not help men!" Dor protested. "They would not be helping men," Jumper chittered. "They would be fighting men."

       "But-" Then Dor caught on. "Mundanes!"

       "But we are people too," Millie said. Jumper angled his head to cock eyes of three different sizes at her. He was obviously not human. "Well, still-" she faltered.

       "I will be with Dor," Jumper chittered. "They will know me for a monster, and him for a Magician. Inside the castle will be another Magician and a woman, and many zombie animals. No normal human men. We will convey this promise: any monsters who die in the battle to lift the siege will be restored as zombies. But mainly, they will have the thrill of killing men with impunity. The King will not condemn them for what they do, since it is to assist him."

       "It just might work!" Dor exclaimed. "Let's go!"

       "Not until dark," Jumper chittered.

       "And not until you've eaten," Millie added. She bounced off to the kitchen.

       Jumper placed a final puzzle-piece and retired to an upstairs rafter to rest. That left Dor and the Zombie Master with the puzzle, which was coming along nicely. They had largely completed the center, with the scene of Castle Roogna, and were working toward the Zombie Master's castle. Dor was increasingly curious to know how it would turn out. Would they be able to see themselves in it, under Mundane siege? How much of reality did these magic pictures reflect?

       "Are you really going to help the King?" Dor asked. "I mean, if we break the siege here?"

       "Yes. To please the lady. And to please you."

       Still Dor was troubled. "There is something else I must tell you."

       "You are about to risk your life in the defense of my castle. Speak without inhibition."

       "The lady…is doomed to die young. I know this from history."

       The Zombie Master's hand froze, with a translucent piece of puzzle held between gaunt ringers. The piece changed from warm red light to cold blue ice. "I know that you would not deliberately deceive me."

       Maybe he had spoken too uninhibitedly "I would be deceiving you if I failed to warn you. She-maybe death is not the right word. But she will be a ghost for centuries. So you will not be able to-" Dor found himself overcome by remorse at what he could not prevent. "I think someone will murder her, or try to. At age seventeen."

       "What age is she now?"

       "Seventeen."

       The Magician rested his head against his band. The puzzle-piece turned white. "I suppose I could make a zombie of her, and keep her with me. But it wouldn't be the same."

       "She-if you're helping the King to please her-or to please any of us-we'll all be gone within the year. So it may not be worth it, to-"

       "Your honesty becomes painful," the Zombie Master said. "Yet it seems that if I am to please any of you, I must do it promptly. There may not again in my lifetime be opportunity to please anyone worth pleasing."

       Dor did not know what to say to this, so he simply put out his hand. The Magician set down the puzzle-piece, which had turned black, and shook Dor's hand gravely. They returned to the puzzle, speaking no more.

       The puzzle, Dor wondered-for his mind had to get away from the grim prior subject. How could this puzzle be the tapestry, when they were all within the tapestry? Was it possible to enter this forming picture, by means of a suitable spell, and find another world within it? Or had the tapestry been merely a gateway, the entry point, not the world itself? Was it coincidence that he should be assembling this particular picture at this juncture? The Zombie Master was the key to this whole quest, the vital element-and he had the tapestry, the key to the entry to this world. Yet he had given it to Jumper. How did this relate?

       Dor shook his head. Such mysteries were beyond his fathoming. All he could do was…what he could do.

       That night Dor and Jumper departed the castle on the spider's line. It would have been possible to convey Millie out in the same manner, but they cared neither to subject her to the risk nor to desert the Zombie Master, even had circumstances been otherwise. There were Mundane sentries posted; Millie would have screamed, and that would have been disastrous. As it was, Dor trusted Jumper's night vision to thread them through the dark foliage, and they managed to pass without being detected. Soon they were deep in the jungle, beyond the Mundane ring of troops.