Again that oblique smile. "I am sure."
An amazing notion pushed at Irene's consciousness as she glanced at the powerful bird-horse standing a short distance away. Xap was as fine a specimen of creature as she had seen in a long time, all muscle and feather and gleam. Could Chem want some private time with the hippogryph? Impossible! And yet centaurs were crossbreeds, and so were hippogryphs, with a common heritage through their equine ancestry. Chem had found no suitable male centaur, and Xap had found no female of his kind. Could Chem want a foal who could fly?
Irene shifted her thoughts. It was none of her business. "I'm sure we can get along here until you return. We do need to find a good route to Parnassus." Among other things, she added silently.
"Excellent." Chem turned about and trotted back to Xap.
She did indeed seem to have lost her fatigue. Then the two shifted into a gallop and were quickly out of sight.
Irene shook her head. "And I thought I understood centaurs!" she exclaimed to herself. It seemed the witch's notion of breeding had fallen on fertile soil, after all.
Xavier stared after the two. "Well, I'll be jiggered! She's grounded him! I thought he didn't go for landbound fillies!"
"Never underestimate the power of a filly," Irene murmured. She remained astonished at this development, but cautioned herself that it was mostly conjecture. She could be misreading it all.
She wished Chem well, in whatever the centaur had in mind, but was now doubly nervous about her own situation. She was virtually alone with a man who could zap holes in creatures. Of course she could grow plants to protect herself--but she didn't want to do that unless she was quite certain of the need. The manner in which Xavier had zapped the cobra plant unnerved her, now that she thought about it. She would not be able to handle him with mere pussy-willows!
Of course Grundy was here, and Zora Zombie, but she really would have preferred Chem. However, the centaur had her own affairs, if that was not putting it too bluntly.
The tree house was almost complete. It would have been done before now if Ivy had been here, Irene knew. Her power was diminishing in the absence of her daughter. The loss would not be critical, but it was noticeable. She had allowed enough time, for the daylight had not yet faded. She would plant some sword ferns around the base of the tree to prevent intrusion by nocturnal predators; the fern would not grow any more by night, but wouldn't need to; any foot stepping on it would get slashed.
Now there was the problem of sleeping. She hadn't thought of it before, being concerned with her mission and the unusual social interactions this party was experiencing. She had once supposed that the trip to Parnassus could be completed in a few hours, perhaps a day. A foolish notion, obviously. So they had to camp along the way, which was routine. There was room for four in the tree house. But when the four were a woman, a golem, a zombie, and a strange man...
She could take precautions, however. She climbed into the tree house and planted a monkey-puzzle tree. She knew what its grown configuration would be, so she would be able to crawl in and out of its cage-like puzzle readily, while others would not. She sprouted a few saw ferns at the entrance; they would not saw at her, but would at others, and she would have a fairly secure, fairly private chamber within the tree house, without having to make an issue of it. A lot could be done with plants when a person had the talent, as well as a little foresight.
But oh, she wished she were back with Dor and Ivy at Castle Roogna! She worried how Dor was getting along without her. He really didn't have much of a head for governing; few men did, aside from her father. That was why women were essential.
Well, that was hardly the only reason women were necessary! Nonetheless, men had their uses, too.
Irene jumped down from the tree house, then lifted her head, hearing a noise. It sounded like the screeching of a wounded hydra.
Xavier was listening, too. "Hey, I don't like that," he said.
"Could be a covy of harpies. If it comes too close, I'll have to zap it."
Now Irene was glad about his talent, for the sounds were raising hairs on her neck. So far, they had been fortunate and had not encountered anything bad; that luck was evidently about to change.
"It's coming close," Grundy said. "Irene, you'd better grow a plant quickly."
But darkness was closing rapidly, inhibiting her power.
Also, until she knew the precise nature of the threat, she could not select an appropriate seed--and she feared by then it would be too late. "I think we'll have to depend on Xavier," she said reluctantly. It wasn't that she doubted the young man's competence or courage; she just didn't like the notion of having to depend on any man other than her husband for anything.
The screeching came closer. Not harpies, she decided, but perhaps something related. Then, in the gloom, three shapes appeared--hooded, cloaked old women, crying to one another in raucous, whining, ill-tempered tones.
"If I didn't know better," Xavier murmured grimly, "I'd swear that was my mother Xanthippe. But she's yellow, and there's only one of her."
The last of the light showed their faces. "They're real dogs," Grundy said.
He was speaking literally. The faces of the three creatures were strongly canine, with projecting snouts, furry ears, and bloodshot eyes on the sides of their heads. Long, red tongues licked canine teeth between screeches, as if moistening them for the next effort.
But that was not the oddest thing about these women. Their hair twisted in coils like the bodies of snakes, their exposed arms and legs were so dark that they reflected almost no light at all, and their cloaks turned out to be not cloth but huge, batlike wings. Each female carried a kind of stick with several thongs dangling from it.
"There you are, you ungrateful urchins!" one of the creatures cried, spying them. "We shall scourge your sins from you! Prepare to die in torment!"
"Now, wait!" Irene said, alarmed. If only it were full day, when her power was strongest! She felt so defenseless. "Who are you, and why do you come bothering innocent travelers?"
"Innocent travelers!" the canine crone screeched, sounding worse than a harpy. "You, girl who was such a trial to your lonely mother the Sorceress for nigh thirty years and now neglects her entirely! What illusion can she spin to shield her own awareness from the serpent's tooth of your ungratefulness? With what solace shall she die, away and alone, while her daughter murders her with uncaring?"
Irene rocked back, scourged indeed. This was the last kind of attack she had expected, and it was cruelly accurate. She had been neglecting her aging mother! How could this vile dog woman know?
"Don't talk to the lady like that, you miserable spook!" Xavier said angrily. "She asked you a question! Who the hades are you?" He lifted his finger, ready to zap the crone.
"And you, you sniveling excuse for a son!" the second crone screeched, advancing on him with her scourge raised. "When did you ever obey your mother the witch without forcing her to threaten to compel you with her eye, a thing you knew she did not want to do? All these one-score years she labored to raise you right--what thanks did you ever give, you careless and callous lout? When she sacrificed her very pride to put another woman in your worthless life, to cause you to marry and settle down and become a useful person, what did you do? How deep is her sorrow, while you neglect all obligations of responsible life to go flying7"
Xavier stepped back in the way Irene had, his face frozen in shock and guilt, his zap-finger stifled. The hag had scored on him as readily as her sister crone had scored on Irene. How did they know so much?
But now Grundy spoke up. "You talk pretty big, you bundles of bags!" the golem cried. "But I know you! You are the Furies, trying to blame everyone you meet for parricide--for killing his parents! But you can't get me! I know your names--Tisiphone, Alecto, and Megaera! You are the daughters of Mother Earth, as old as the world. You call yourselves the kindly ones, but it's a lie! You're the vicious ones! You're creatures of vengeance and ill-conceived retribution. But you can't blame m
e for neglecting my mother, because I never had a mother! I was made from sticks and cloth, animated by magic, and rendered to life by greater magic. What do you say to that, dogface?"
So that was the story on these wretched harridans! They were the fabled Furies! Irene had thought Xavier would be the one to defend the party, but it turned out to be Grundy, with his knowledge of the nature of these women.
The third Fury stepped forward, threatening with her scourge. "Golem, do you think that because you were made, not born, you owe nothing to your creator? What were your sticks and rags and string before the Good Magician animated you? What thanks did you ever give him for that inestimable service of awareness? Did you not flee the moment you woke, refusing to serve the purpose for which you were made? Did your neglect not cause him to lose several valuable days devising alternate means to converse with animals and plants so he could complete his project? Did you not return only after you discovered there were no others like you, so you wanted to become real? Only then did you return to serve, in exchange for the Magician's Answer, which he never owed you in the first place but gave out of the generosity of his heart! And did you care? Did you care for anyone or anything except yourself? How many times did you abuse the Magician, calling him gnome? How many other innocent people has your foul rag mouth wronged? How many times has your perjury of translation caused mischief to those who trusted you? Where were you when the Good Magician needed you to warn the Gap Dragon away, to avoid the disaster of the Youth elixir? He helped you in your infancy of awareness; what favor did you return in his own infancy? Should he not have reason to curse the day he made you and gave you consciousness and self-determination? 0, cower, wretch, for surely the scourge must fall most heavily on your deserving hide!"
Indeed, Grundy did cower, for the Fury had bested him with the terrible justice of her accusation. These were three awful creatures of retribution, their words as devastating as their weapons. They bore down on the three chastened people, their deadly scourges ready to draw more than physical blood. Irene knew now that none of her plants could have stopped these terrible old women, whose voices echoed the complaints of all neglected parents, and that Xavier's zapping would not have touched them. Even Grundy's sarcastic tongue was powerless here! She had never heard the golem so accurately set back! Yet Xavier had been cowed, too, and she herself humbled.
All three of them were retreating now--Irene, Xavier, and Grundy. In moments the scourges would cut into them, and somehow Irene knew those whips were poisonous. Their mere touch would draw copious blood and inflict extraordinary agony; the wounds would fester and refuse to heal, until the victims wished ardently for a clean and honest death. Now Irene remembered stories about the Furies punishing errant children; it was bad luck even to mention their names. Tisi, Alec, and Meg--the three horrors of guilt, sorrow, and suffering! And the worst of it was, Irene could not claim with any certainty that this savage retribution was wrong. She had always thought other people would and should suffer for their callousness, but had never realized that she was as guilty as they and deserved similar treatment.
She tripped over a root and fell on her back, unable to retreat any more. Tisi loomed over her, the canine snout drooling spittle, the animal breath rasping out in what seemed like a fiery fog. The black wings were half spread, and the scourge was lifted high for its devastating strike, each thong glistening hungrily for its share of blood.
Yet even worse than this physical threat was the emotional one. Irene realized that she would never get to tell her mother how important she, the Sorceress Iris, was and had always been to her daughter! Irene would never have the chance to make up for the years of neglect. This was the crudest portion of her punishment--the denial of absolution.
Oh, Iris, dear mother, forgive me! she cried in her heart as the scourge came down at her face, knowing that plea would never be heard. She no longer had even the will to turn her face aside; she was doomed.
But the scourge did not land. Startled by the reprieve, Irene looked up--and saw a shape interposed.
It was the zombie! Zora had taken the blow intended for Irene. Strips of Zora's decayed flesh were dangling, ripped off by the lash of the thongs, but it seemed the zombie hardly felt them. Zombies were always losing flesh.
Tisi looked into the rotten face of the zombie and retreated. "You are undead!" she shrieked. "I can't punish you! The poison can't hurt you, the whip can't draw your blood, the truth can't sear your mind!"
Zora went on to intercept the next Fury, Alec, catching the blow intended for Xavier. The second crone recoiled similarly, not knowing how to handle an undead person. "Even if you lived, I could not flay you!" the Fury protested. "You never neglected your parents!"
Then Zora rescued Grundy, pulling him out of the way while she absorbed Meg's blow and sacrificed more shreds of flesh. "It is wrong, it is wrong!" Meg screamed in frustration. "You have suffered more, for less reason, than any living creature!
I can add nothing to it!"
But now the crones rallied, reorienting on their original targets. The zombie had caught them by surprise but could not stop them if they acted in concert.
"Ffiiee! Ffiiee!" Zora cried, losing some lip and showing extraordinary animation for her kind. Generally the emotions of zombies were as atrophied as their bodies. "Theesh nocht yyoors!" The three formidable Furies hesitated, daunted by the scolding of the undead and spiritually unsoiled woman. They had neither physical nor moral power over her.
The three drew together in a huddle, conferring in unintelligible shrieks and woofs. Then, deciding on a new strategy, the Furies turned, faced the victims, and lifted their left arms in unison, as if to hurl something. But those three left hands were empty.
"Look out!" Grundy yelled. "It's a curse! The hideous hags are going to throw a--"
The three arms descended, each making a throwing arc. Irene and Xavier hunched down, their shoulders colliding. Zora flung herself back, again interposing her body between the Furies and their victims.
Something like a wind stirred in the grass around them. Irene found herself on the ground, half embracing Xavier, with the body of the zombie against them both.
The vicious Furies had been partially foiled again. Their curse had struck Zora instead of its intended objects. But evidently one curse was all each hag could throw. In moments the three turned and departed, huddling within their wing-cloaks. This horrible siege was over.
Irene got up and dusted herself off. That had been a remarkable escape! She saw Xavier staring up at Zora as if he had never seen her before. "It--the zom--she took the strike meant for me!" he exclaimed incredulously.
"Twice," Irene agreed. "For me too. Zombies are immune to physical pain and very hard to hurt. They are undead--the revived corpses of once-living people. They're not bad folk at all, if you can bring yourself to get to know them." She was speaking for herself as much as for him. This was the second time Zora had saved her, perhaps the second and third times, if she counted the scourge and the curse as separate items.
Zora seemed not to hear them as she unhunched herself and stood more or less erect. The impact of the curse was not visible, but it had to be considerable.
"She must have been some woman when she lived!" Xavier said. "A better person than any of us!"
"Probably so. I never knew her alive. But I gather from what the Furies said that she led a blameless life and was cruelly wronged by one not worthy of her."
"A man," Xavier said grimly. "A worm of a man!"
"Yes." Zora wobbled on her feet, and Irene moved over to take the zombie's flaccid arm to steady her. "Are you all right, Zora?" she asked solicitously.
"Ccurrsh..." the zombie said.
"You took our curse," Irene agreed. "What was it? What is supposed to happen to us--to you?"
"I can tell you that," Grundy said, climbing to his own feet.
"I got caught by it."
Irene realized that was true. The zombie had blocked off the punishment from tw
o of them, but Grundy had been behind her. He had had no protection this time. Yet he seemed functional, so the curse couldn't be something like instant, total collapse. "Is it--maybe we can nullify it--?"
"It's a curse of misfortune," the golem said. "One bad thing is going to happen which will make the victim wish he were dead. I interpreted their screeching; that's how I knew what they were up to."
"We'll protect you from it!" Irene said.
Grundy shook his little head. "I doubt that's possible, now that the curse has tagged me. The best I can hope for is that you'll find a way to abate it, once it strikes. And it will be twice for the zombie, because she took your two curses."
Irene hadn't thought of that aspect. Of course a curse was not a thing to be sloughed off like a tatter of flesh! "What would make a zombie wish she were dead?" she asked.
"I don't know," Grundy said. "But I guess we'll find out when the misfortunes strike."
All too likely true. Irene looked at Zora with mixed regret and puzzlement. The zombie had been--was still a truly nice person, completely self-sacrificing. But what possible penalty could she pay for her kindness?
Irene put the matter out of her mind for now, as there was nothing she could do about it. She checked the tree house. "Let's sleep; Xap and Chem may be late returning."
Xavier agreed wordlessly. Evidently he was not certain how he felt about what his steed might be doing. Possibly he wasn't entirely pleased to see someone else tame the hippogryph.
"There's room for you in the house, Zora," Irene said. "Can you climb the ladder?"
The zombie hesitated. She was in bad condition, even for her kind, because of the savagery of the Furies. Decayed bone showed where her flesh had been scourged away, and her dress was so tattered it would have been indecent on any other female. "Nnosh nneedth--" she began.
"Not need shelter?" Irene asked. "Do you stay outside because you want to--or because your kind usually isn't welcome inside?"
Zora stood there, not attempting an answer. "You have helped me and my friends twice," Irene said firmly. "Maybe you saved my life--from the bonnacon and the Furies. It would be wrong for me to treat you like--" She broke off, unwilling to say like a zombie.