Castle Roogna (43 page)

       "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

       "Uh, a, 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 posteriori "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?"