Really irritated now, the Gap Dragon lunged and snapped up a zombie. But the rotten creature didn't taste much better than the stink bomb. The Gap Dragon spat it out with another utterance of its initials.
At last, with poor grace, the dragon gave it up as a bad job and humped back across the moat and galumphed away into the jungle. The raid was over.
"You would have done better chomping me!" Irene called after the dragon snidely. "I don't taste like a stink bomb!"
She breathed a sigh of relief nonetheless--then remembered Ivy. She was the object of the danger in the vision! Where had the zombie taken her?
Irene hurried across the drawbridge and around the outside of the moat, following the route she had seen the zombie take. She tuned out most of everything else, intent on this one thing. Along the way she saw the devastation left by the Gap Dragon, with broken trees and pieces of zombie, but not the thing she most sought: her darling daughter. Where was Ivy?
In moments others joined her, searching the entire area. "Which zombie took her?" the Zombie Master asked. "I can question that one."
"I don't know one zombie from another!" Irene replied, the ugly clutch of apprehension tightening about her rib cage. That vision was becoming more real!
"Then I will question them all," the Zombie Master decided. He brought out a battered horn and blew a blast that sounded like the final wail of a dying buzzard.
Immediately the zombies converged from the entire area, shuffling up so hurriedly that they left pieces of themselves all over the premises. It was amazing the number that appeared; soon there was a dense and grotesque crowd of the things. Irene knew that each one was a person who had died and been reanimated; a lot of people had died in the past few years!
And would one more die in the next day? No! she cried mentally. She could not even think of that!
"Which one of you carried Ivy?" the Zombie Master demanded of the motley throng.
There was no answer.
"Which one of you knows who carried Ivy?" he asked next.
Three fetid hands hoisted.
"Tell me who carried Ivy," the Zombie Master said, pointing to one of them. Irene realized that it took a special technique to question zombies; they reacted literally, like inanimate things.
"Zzussch," the indicated zombie replied, losing part of its lip in the effort of speech.
"Zush, where are you?" the Zombie Master called.
Another zombie shuffled forward.
"Where did you take Ivy?"
The zombie shrugged, dropping a piece of bone from its shoulder.
"I fear it does not remember," Arnolde said. "Perhaps a forget-whorl..."
"But then Ivy--" Irene began, horrified. The horror of the vision--had it been forgetfulness? That would explain its undefined nature.
"May be lost in the jungle--without her memory," the centaur concluded for her.
Now everyone understood. There was an appalled silence. Into what league of incapacity and peril had Ivy been thrown?
Chapter 2
Humfreys Horror
I'll have to go to the Good Magician for advice," Irene decided. "He must be home by now; I can reach him in half an hour. That will be faster and better than casting aimlessly about the wilderness. The rest of you can do that."
Her husband looked at her with a certain familiar resignation. He knew she would do things her own way, regardless of his preference, so he didn't set himself up for embarrassment by opposing her openly. It did not seem to occur to him that her way was best; men were not very practical in some respects. "I will organize a search party here, to range farther into the local jungle," Dor said. "Ivy can't be far away." He did not seem unduly concerned, but that was just his way; Irene knew he would leave hardly any local stone unturned.
"You'll probably find her before I get back," she said, though she had a sick premonition that this would not be the case. That vision had been no passing fancy; it had hinted at a terrible ordeal and danger as yet unglimpsed. She gave Dor a quick, distracted kiss, then turned to the more important business.
She brought out one of the seeds she had planned to use to entertain the twins. Now she had a better use for it. This was a bird-of-paradise plant seed. "Grow," she commanded as she flipped it into the air.
The seed obeyed with alacrity. Irene had always been able to make plants grow, so that in minutes one of them would complete a life cycle that would normally have taken months or years. When Irene had been a child, the Elders of Xanth had judged her magic talent to be excellent but beneath Magician level, to her frustration. Her mother Iris had been privately furious, suspecting sexual discrimination; but the fact was that her talent was not as versatile as those of her parents. During the crisis of the NextWave invasion of Mundanes, five years ago, when Kings of Xanth had been falling like Mundane dominoes, Arnolde Centaur had assumed the throne and decreed Irene's talent to be Magician level. Her mother had not been partial to centaurs before then; her attitude had suffered a remarkable change. Since that time, as if in response to that promotion, Irene's talent had intensified, so that now she could grow in seconds what had required minutes before. She had become, indeed, a full Magician. Perhaps it was the result of the birth of her unusually talented child. Ivy caused the qualities of those near her to intensify, and this applied to both physical and magical aspects. Irene had always been nearest her child, and yes, the enhancement of her talent had manifested during her pregnancy. Funny she should realize this just now, when her daughter was lost.
Her comprehensive chain of thought was compressed into a very brief span because the seed was sprouting in the air at the same time, sending out tendrils that radiated large, smooth, flat, oval leaves that became wings that flapped and supported the swelling mass of the body before it fell to the ground. Another shoot became the ornate tail of the bird, and another the head, which was actually a phenomenal flower with lovely petals spreading delicately.
"More," she said, and the plant renewed its effort and increased its growth, becoming much larger than it would ever naturally have been. In moments it had a wingleaf span of twice Irene's height and a massive if convoluted twisted-stem body. Brown roots became legs and feet and claws. The downdraft of its beating wings flattened the grass beneath and stirred up a cloud of dust. The bird-of-paradise plant was ready to fly.
The zombies were watching with dull interest, never before having seen this type of magic. Perhaps they wondered why only one seed grew, instead of all the plants in range of the sound of her voice. The answer was that it was more than her voice that did it; it was her concentration. She could have made any of the surrounding plants put on sudden new growth, had she wished to; but she had addressed only the one seed. However, there was no point in trying to explain such matters to zombies; they could hardly understand ordinary things, let alone magic.
"I'll be back in an hour, dear," Irene promised Dor as she mounted the bird. She always took care to remind him in little ways how much she cared for him, because she knew men were in constant need of such reassurance. If they didn't receive it, their attention could wander, and that was not necessarily wholesome for a marriage.
There were many footholds and handholds amidst the vines of the plant, so she had no concern about falling. She settled herself in the saddle area and blew Dor a kiss.
King Dor nodded. Her magic with plants was old stuff to him; his own magic was more than equivalent, and he was as concerned as she by the peril to their child. He would turn new leaves and old ones in the search for Ivy, rough as that might be on the trees of this region.
She nudged the bird-plant with her knee and it took off. For a moment it faltered, for this was its first experience carrying a load; then its beat strengthened and it forged aloft. It circled, gaining altitude, while the zombies watched with another surge of dull curiosity. Irene tucked her green skirt in close about her knees, aware that the view from below differed from that above. In her younger days she would have reacted more stringentl
y, as she had been very sensitive about people trying to see under her skirt in their chronic effort to discover what color her panties were. Now she knew that they didn't really care about that sort of thing, and certainly zombies didn't, but old reflexes died hard.
The bird-plant rose above the highest decaying spire of Castle Zombie, above the tattered and slimy zombie flag, and above most of the trees of the region. From this vantage, the zombies below looked like squashed slugs. It was an improvement.
The Good Magician's castle was northeast of here. By foot the journey would have been next to impossible, for most of the jungle here remained unexplored. No telling what horrors lurked in uncharted wilderness! But by air it was easy enough to--oops.
Clouds were headed this way, mean little gray ones with tentacle-tendrils of dark vapor. They were obviously up to no good. The inanimate could be perverse in the wilder regions of Xanth, and clouds often liked to soak down passersby just for the electric thrill of it. Thunderclouds could get a real charge from such mischief; they huffed and puffed their delight and crackled their merriment. Irene decided to get above these nuisances.
She nudged the bird-plant, and made it another upward loop. But these annoying clouds were not so readily avoided. They reared up new layers and projected longer contrails, trying to enclose her in fog. They blew out gusts of wind, and the chill drafts made her shiver; water coalesced on the slick wingleaf surfaces and caused the bird to gain weight and lose tractions. Oh, fudge! she thought angrily.
Irene had little patience with this. She had never put up with much guff from the inanimate, having been exposed to the smart remarks of rocks and furniture and even water when Dor was present. His talent was making inanimate things talk; that was fine, it was an excellent talent, and because of it he was now King and she was Queen--but why did those things have to have such mouthy attitudes?
She brought out six more seeds from the bag she always carried with her. "Grow," she ordered them, and flung them out.
The seeds sprouted, sending out roots and vines. In midair they flowered and fruited, forming swelling, gourdlike masses. They were watermelons, and required immense amounts of water to complete their cycles. They normally drew this water from the air--and the air was filled with clouds, which were, of course, composed of water droplets. This was sheer delight to the melons. Because they were growing magically rapidly, they drew their water fast. The first cloud touched by a sprouting seed was sucked dry in an instant; it shrank and shriveled and disappeared with a breezy sigh. The others suffered similarly.
One larger cloud, with a silvery crown above, made a fight of it. This was evidently the leader of the pack. The king cloud reached out and enclosed the watermelon plant in vapor, so that it disappeared. But the watermelon only took in more water greedily, its tendrils threading through the cloud, and soon the embrace was reversed. The cloud disappeared, and a monstrous melon formed and plummeted to the distant ground.
One fragment of cloud tore free at the last moment and scudded away, its contrail between its legs. "I'll get even!" it seemed to mouth before it floated over the horizon. "You haven't seen the last of me, solid creature!"
Irene smiled. It would be a long time before that survivor harassed travelers again. "Dry up. King Cloud.!" she called mockingly as it disappeared behind a hill. She had gotten into the habit of talking back to the inanimate, because of the way it talked back to her when she was with Dor. Rocks and other things on the ground could be especially obnoxious when she stepped over them.
There was a splat from below, and a bellow. The melon had struck a firedog basking below and very nearly put out the poor creature's fire.
The scattered remaining clouds had learned their lesson; they no longer intruded on Irene's flying space. That was just as well; her long association with Dor had taught her how to deal with the inanimate, but she was now out of watermelon seeds and wasn't sure what she would have done for a follow-up. After all, this had been a business and pleasure excursion when they had set off for the Zombie Master's castle; she had left most of her weapons-grade seeds behind.
She flew directly to the Good Magician's castle without further interruption. Trees and lakes and hills passed by below; it was pretty enough scenery, but she knew there were a number of unpretty monsters lurking in it. That made her nervous again for the welfare of her daughter. The jungles of unexplored Xanth were no place for a three-year-old child!
Her steed descended, becoming uncertain. Irene's brow furrowed; what was the problem? The turret of Humfrey's castle showed clearly in the vale. She nudged the plant onward, going for a landing on a convenient parapet.
The castle looked different from its configuration of the past--but that was normal. It always changed. How Humfrey managed this she had never discovered; it was just part of his magic. As the Magician of Information, he obviously had information on how to revise castles periodically. The talent of a Magician was always impressive, once the full extent of it was known. Too bad there were so few of that caliber! Her daughter's talent had not yet been classified by the Elders, but Irene had the depressing feeling that it was not Magician level. Ivy's presence tended to enhance the qualities of others; that was nice for the others, but what did it do for Ivy herself? Now if Ivy could enhance her own abilities, what a creature she might become! But that was a foolish daydream.
Daydream? "Hello, Imbri!" Irene said and fancied she saw the flick of the day mare's tail as a return greeting. Irene had come to know Mare Imbrium as a night mare, but now Imbri had become the bearer of the dreams of the day, which were much more pleasant. The mare was invisible; most people never knew when she was present. It didn't occur to them that dreams of any kind had to be formulated somewhere and be brought by someone. Dream duty was an often thankless task.
"Thank you for the dream, Imbri!" Irene called belatedly. But the mare had already gone. A creature had to be constantly on the move to keep up with the delivery schedule for daydreams, since so many people had them. A human carrier would have been unable to keep the pace, but horses were designed for running.
They glided to the turret, the bird-plant still trying to balk. Annoyed, Irene kneed it harder; plants were not usually very smart, so often they were not able to obey well, but this was a simple landing procedure. There was no excuse for holding back.
The leg--and foot-roots touched--and made no contact. The bird-plant continued on down into the stone. "What?" Irene asked, startled to see her own legs disappearing into the castle rampart.
Then they were all the way in it. The Good Magician's castle was nothing but fog! She nudged the bird, and it ascended rapidly, drawing out of the darkness, glad to get away from this. Now she knew why the steed had balked; it had realized something was wrong.
Irene looked down. There was the castle, exactly as before. "Illusion!" she exclaimed. "The castle doesn't exist!"
Then she had a second thought. "It has to exist! I need Humfrey's advice, in case Dor fouls up the search!"
She nudged the bird down again, cautiously. Again the two of them intersected the castle--and found nothing of substance. The Good Magician's castle simply wasn't there.
Irene shook her head. "Some joker is playing games, and I'm sure it isn't my mother." Her mother Queen Emeritus Iris was mistress of illusion, but she seldom used her talent now, and never for mischief. It was a said fact that age was softening the senior Magicians of Xanth, all except Humfrey, the oldest of all. Irene wondered again what the Good Magician's secret was. He had been old before Irene herself was born and he remained old--but no older than before in appearance. Maybe he had achieved the ultimate age, the plateau beyond which the years became meaningless. But she couldn't ponder that at the moment; she needed to find him and quickly, so as to learn how to save her child. Dor might or might not find and rescue Ivy, though he would certainly try; Humfrey's advice would make that rescue certain.
"If the castle isn't here, it must be elsewhere," she decided. "I know I'm in the right ge
neral region." For she had flown here before and was familiar with the lay of the land. She nudged the bird and it flew on northeast.
Now an unrelated thought struck her. She should have asked Mare Imbri about the vision! After all, Imbri's statue had been in the vision; maybe--but no, Imbri no longer brought bad dreams, so she should not have done this. Still, the next time the mare showed up, Irene would inquire. Imbri might know, or be able to find out, who had brought the vision, and why, and what it signified.
Soon another castle hove in view. They glided down, touched--and passed through. "Another illusion!" Irene exclaimed in disgust. She slapped at the fog that formed it, without effect, wishing she had another watermelon seed to dry it up. Then she nudged her mount to zoom onward.
Very soon she came to a third castle. Again she approached cautiously, and again it was illusion.
Irene uttered an unladylike word. The bird-of-paradise plant, startled by the expletive, shed several tendril feathers. It derived from a line of creatures which associated with a far loftier realm than that described by such a word, and so the shock was formidable.
Irene was getting downright annoyed, but sealed her erring lips. The bird was getting tired; no sense hurting it this way. She had to find the correct castle soon, before the bird wilted, for she had no other flying seed with her. Oh, the hazards of unpreparedness! Had she but known what was to happen--
Maybe that dreadful vision had arrived late. Had it come to her before she left Castle Roogna, she would have packed some devastating seeds! A foul-up in scheduling for visions--
But such bemoanment was useless, and Irene was a practical woman. She directed the bird back the way they had come, a new suspicion teasing her mind. Sure enough, there was no castle visible where the last one had been. It had faded out after she had left it. The illusion was moving from site to site--or from sight to sight--so as always to appear before her, leading her in the wrong direction. She had caught it by surprise by backtracking suddenly, but all that accomplished was the proof of its nature. She had to get rid of it before she could spot the real castle.