Faun & Games

by Anthony, Piers

  “He’s a century old,” Bink reminded them. “And not known for manners. Maybe he figured that doing the invitations was enough of a privilege for her.”

  Dolph snorted.

  Dor remembered something. “Didn’t Jenny get a gene-tic to fix her eyes so she wouldn’t need those spectacles?”

  Dolph smiled. “Yes. But she has worn those spectacles so long that she forgets to take them off.”

  They walked on out of the front gate. There in the moat was Soufflé Serpent. Dor glanced at him in surprise. “I thought you were on duty at the Good Magician’s castle,” he remarked.

  The moat monster hissed. The surface of the water translated: “Who do you think brought the old gnome’s package to Jenny Elf?”

  “Well, when you return,” Dolph said hotly, “tell him we don’t like the way he snubbed Jenny Elf, after—”

  “Don’t do that,” Dor said quickly. “I’m sure it was just an oversight.”

  Soufflé hissed again. “His Designated Wife made the guest list and assignments. MareAnn. Except for Jenny to do the invitations. That was Clio, the Muse of History, who decided that.”

  “MareAnn was Humfrey’s first love, who couldn’t marry him until last, let she lose the ability to summon unicorns,” Bink said. “She knows how it feels to be left out. She shouldn’t have left Jenny out.”

  “Omissions happen,” Dor said. “We will do what we can for Jenny. Now let’s focus on our mission: the zombies.”

  “We need a name for our group,” Dolph said.

  Dor hadn’t seen the necessity, but humored him. “We three kings.”

  “But I’m not a king,” Bink protested.

  “You’re the father of a king, and Dolph is the son of a king,” Dor said. “That’s close enough.”

  Bink shrugged. “It will be nice to be a king for a few hours, even if in name only.”

  “I’ll change into a roc bird and carry you up high so we can spy the zombies,” Dolph said.

  “Don’t drop us,” Dor said, smiling. He knew his son would be careful.

  Dolph walked out beyond the moat, so as to have room, and suddenly he was a monstrous bird. “Squawk!” he called.

  “He says to get your sorry donkeys over there,” a nearby rock translated helpfully. “And don’t soil his feet.”

  “We suspected it was something like that,” Bink murmured. The inanimate sometimes overstated the case, not having much judgment.

  Each of them took hold of one of Dolph’s huge legs and sat on his feet. Dolph took two steps, pumped his enormous wings, and launched into the air. Soon they were spiraling into the sky, making Castle Roogna look small.

  Dor had seldom flown, so was intrigued by the patchwork of Xanth that spread out below them. He recognized the good Magician’s Castle to the east, and the Gap Chasm to the north, and the Isle of View to the west. Much of the rest was forest and mountain and lake, as it should be.

  “There’s one,” Bink called, pointing slightly south. Dor realized that he was doing what he was supposed to, watching for zombies, instead of getting distracted by the scenery.

  The roc headed down, and soon landed in a glade near the slogging creature. The two of them dismounted from the feet, and then Dolph reappeared.

  But by the time they landed, the zombie had disappeared. However, there was a female centaur practicing her archery, so they approached her.

  “Hello,” Dor said. “We three kings are looking for a zombie.”

  She glanced at them. “Hello. I am Cindy Centaur. A zombie passed this way two moments and an instant ago, bearing north.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You are welcome.” She loosed her arrow, and it neatly severed the stem of high root beer mug. The roots cushioned its fall so that it did not break or spill, and she was able to pick it up and drink from it.

  “No one can shoot an arrow as well as a centaur,” Bink remarked as they walked north.

  The zombie was typical of its breed, which was to say loathsome. It had evidently once been a human man, but it must have rested in a grave with some ambitious worms for some time, because now half its face had rotted away and its clothing was in a similar mess. It shambled along, leaving decaying chunks of itself behind. Most zombies did that; it wasn’t clear why they didn’t soon degenerate into nothing. Probably their substance was magically regenerated at the same rate it sloughed off, so they were in a steady state.

  Dor tackled the ugly business. “Excuse me, zombie,” he said, stepping as close to the thing as he cared to.

  “Zzure,” the zombie agreed.

  “Why are you and your kind walking around Xanth?”

  The thing considered. It took zombies time to think, because their brains were rotten. “Xxeth,” it said after a decomposing pause.

  “Can you elaborate?” Bink asked.

  “Nnooo.” It shambled on, as if searching for something.

  Dor shrugged. “I think we need to find a fresher one.”

  Dolph changed form, and they got aboard his feet. They flew across Xanth until they spied another likely figure. Three figures, in fact, suitable tattered. They came down for a landing on the beach on the southern shore of Xanth. They walked toward the place where the figures stood.

  But what they had taken to be tatters of clothing and odd bits of flesh turned out to be three women with veils and ruffles. The first woman spied them. “Ah, you are the men who have come to marry us!” she exclaimed.

  “We are?” Dolph asked, perplexed.

  “Aren’t you?” she asked, coming up to embrace him. “I am Miss Conception. Do you wish to kiss me before or after the wedding?”

  “But I’m already married!” Dolph protested.

  The second woman approached Bink. “Yes, he is eager to be married,” she said. “And I hope you are too, even if you do seem a bit young for me. I am Miss Interpret.”

  “I’m eighty one,” Bink said.

  “Now I know I misheard that! You can’t be over twenty one.”

  “Something is not right about this,” the third woman said, approaching Dor. “Is there something wrong with you too? I am Miss Givings.”

  “I’m afraid there is,” Dor said. “We are looking for zombies.”

  “Your taste in women is weird!”

  “I mean that we wish to question zombies. We thought you were—that is, that you looked like—” He realized that they might not take kindly to the comparison.

  “Like girls ready to marry,” Miss Conception said. “Of course. And you are right. Let’s do it right now, and summon lots of storks.”

  “Wow!” her veil said. “That should be fun.”

  “We are all married!” Dolph said desperately.

  “Yes, you all want to get married,” Miss Interpret agreed, staring blissfully into Bink’s young eyes. “It’s so nice that we are in agreement. I’m sure you will mature in due course.”

  “In a pork’s eye,” a tassel said.

  “But you do look a bit old,” Miss Givings said to Dor.

  “He certainly does,” the ground said. “Any day now he’ll start to totter and dodder.”

  “This is all a misunderstanding,” Dor said firmly. “We three kings are merely trying to find out why the zombies are stirred up.”

  “You are kings?” Miss Interpret asked, delighted. “What a great marriage this will be!”

  “We can visit Castle Zombie on our honeymoon,” Miss Conception said. “The Zombie Master should know.”

  “The Zombie Master!” Bink exclaimed. “Why didn’t we think of that?”

  “Because your hearts were set on marriage,” Miss Interpret said reasonably. “But as soon as the ceremony is done, we can set out for there. We want you to be happy.”

  “I don’t think so,” Miss Givings said regretfully. “I fear we are confusing things. These men mistook us for zombies.”

  “Mistook us for zombies!” Miss Conception exclaimed. “Does a zombie have this?” She lifted her tasseled blouse a
nd showed her bare but healthy upper torso.

  “Wow!” a nearby stone said. “She must have nymphly ancestry. I haven’t seen boobies like that since that flock of dodos waddled by.”

  “That’s boobs, you boob!” another stone said. “You got rocks in your head?”

  “Whatever,” the first said stonily.

  Meanwhile, Dolph stared. He was still young enough to really appreciate such a sight. “Maybe not as full or firm, for a zombie,” he said. His eyeballs were beginning to glaze.

  “I should hope not. How about this?” She tugged at her skirt.

  Dor knew he should do something, but his own eyeballs were locked, and he knew that Bink’s were too. It wasn’t possible for a man to look away from such a sight voluntarily. The effect was similar to that of the hypnogourd. And if she showed her panties—

  “This is really getting interesting,” a piece of deadwood said. “What does she have under there?”

  Then a bug happened to fly by just at eyeball height, interrupting Dor’s view. He clamped his eyes closed and turned his head away, so as not to get caught again.

  “That’s fine,” Dor said quickly, before she could freak anyone out and have her will of him. He stepped between Bink and the sight, freeing him. Then he did the same for Dolph, and took the young man by the shoulders, turning him around. “No zombie can match any of you, I’m sure,” he said over his own shoulder. “We are sorry we can’t marry you, but we must be on our way. We have pressing business elsewhere.”

  “I knew there was a catch,” Miss Givings said. “There always is.”

  “Yes, they are surely a great catch,” Miss Interpret agreed.

  “But you haven’t seen what else,” Miss Conception cried. “You can’t conceive what—”

  “We’re looking, we’re looking!” several stones said.

  Dor bustled Dolph away. “Don’t look back,” he warned. “You have no business being amazed by anything not offered by your wife.”

  “Oh, yes,” Dolph agreed, remembering.

  “Now take us to Castle Zombie.”

  Dolph changed to roc form, and in a moment they were up, up, and away, winging toward the Zombie Master’s edifice.

  “Squawk,” Dolph remarked sadly, glancing down at the three forlorn figures below.

  “Yes, I know,” Dor agreed. “But we were really not eligible. I’m sure they will find three other men, in due course, and make them very comfortable, after their glazed eyeballs heal.”

  “I wonder if their dialogue is entirely innocent?” Bink asked. “It is almost as if Miss Conception acted only when their words were not enough.”

  “She may indeed have had a concept,” Dor agreed. “As it was, only an unlikely coincidence enabled us to escape.” As he spoke, he realized that it had been exactly the kind of coincidence that happened around his father. Could there be a connection? He wasn’t sure. In fact the frustrating thing about his father was that he had never been able to be sure.

  Now Castle Zombie hove into view. It was rather battered and worn looking, as if chunks of corroded blocks were falling off. The moat was a puddle of slime. This could not be from inattention, because a zombie gardener was working there. He was carefully raking more dirt into the water, to be sure it was properly foul.

  They landed just beyond the decrepit drawbridge. Dor hesitated to cross it, lest the worm-eaten planks give way and dump him into the muck below.

  Bink considered. “I suspect that magic makes this look worse than it is,” he remarked.

  “No doubt,” Dor agreed. “Maybe some illusion, or some debilitating spells. Either way, I wouldn’t care to chance it without testing it.”

  “I’ll test it.” Bink, with the carelessness of his new youth, went right ahead and crossed without trouble. So Dor and Dolph followed, now assured that the planks would hold. But Dor made a mental note: he would have to watch to make sure his father didn’t do something more foolish than risking a mere dunking in slime. Youth had its liabilities.

  They came to the inner portcullis, which was badly rusted. A zombie guard challenged them with a corroded spear. “Halsh!”

  “Hey, who you talking to, wormface?” a paving stone demanded.

  “We three kings have come to speak with the Zombie Master,” Dor said.

  “Heesh nough inn.”

  Dor was getting the hang of zombie speech. “He’s not in? Then may we talk with Millie the Ghost?” Actually she hadn’t been a ghost for fifty five years—the same as Dor’s age, coincidentally—but for about 807 years she had been a ghost, so her friends still thought of her that way.

  “Ghoo onn inn.”

  “Thank you.” They walked on into the castle proper.

  The interior was a good deal nicer than the exterior, because this was Millie’s domain, and she was no zombie. The floors were clean, and there were curtains on the portals. Even the air was fresher. Castle Zombie showed the fallacy of judging a thing by its exterior; it was actually a nice residence.

  “Get a load of this,” a stone lintel remarked appreciatively. A woman was approaching them.

  “Oh, hello!” Millie exclaimed. “How nice to see you again, King Dor and Prince Dolph and—” She paused.

  “Bink,” Bink said.

  “Oh, you’ve been youthened!” she exclaimed, delighted. “Chameleon too?”

  “Chameleon too,” Bink agreed. “She will be lovely, in about two weeks.”

  “Come in and have some tee and crumples,” Millie said, ever the gracious hostess. She was now in her early seventies, in terms of active living time, and in her eight hundreds chronologically. Like Electra, she had taken a number of centuries out, remaining her then-age of seventeen. She was still a lovely woman. Her talent was sex appeal, and age had masked but not abolished it. Dor remembered how she had been his baby-sitter when he was twelve, and how her beauty and talent had affected him then. He was still a little bit in love with her, but he had it well under control. Her present physical age helped.

  Her tee and crumples were delicious, of course. The tee was in cups shaped like the letter T, and the crumples were twisted and crunched bits of pastry that looked like failed efforts but weren’t. They were appropriate for a place in which zombies thronged. “And to what do I owe the honor of this visit?” she inquired.

  “Actually, we came to see your husband,” Dor said. “But perhaps you can help us.”

  “Jonathan is away right now. What is your need?”

  “We wish to know why the zombies are stirred up and walking all over Xanth.”

  “Oh, are they? I didn’t realize. I haven’t been out recently, because we don’t like to leave the castle unattended. What are they doing?”

  “Just walking everywhere. They don’t seem to be doing any harm, but ordinary folk are bothered, you understand.”

  She smiled, and Dor felt the lure of her again. What a creature she had been, in her physical twenties, when he was in his impressionable childhood! “I understand. I do love Jonathan, but somehow I never quite became accustomed to his business of making zombies. Of course it’s not the zombies’ fault that they are rotten; some of my best friend are zombies. But they do lack social grace.”

  That was a substantial understatement. “Yes. We would like to ascertain what is rousing them, so as perhaps to put it to rest.”

  “Quickly,” Dolph said.

  “Of course,” Millie agreed. “But I really can’t think what the matter might be. The zombies have been doing well recently. They even elected a king from their own number, so as to form their own kingdom. He is Xeth—Zora and Xavier’s son.”

  “Xeth!” Dolph exclaimed. “That’s what that zombie was trying to say.”

  “He is a fine figure of a man now; you would hardly know he is part zombie. But he’s a responsible person; he would not try to stir things up in the living world. Not without considerable reason.”

  “A zombie king,” Dor said thoughtfully. “He could stir them up, if he did have reason
. Perhaps we should talk with him.”

  “I don’t know where he is. Jonathan knows where all the zombies are; that’s part of his talent. But he is away, in a manner of speaking, and I don’t know how soon he will be back.”

  “We have an important wedding to attend to in a week,” Dor said. “We really need to get this straightened out soon.”

  “Oh, I see.” Women related well to weddings. “But it would be very difficult to find Jonathan right now.”

  “Exactly where is he?” Bink asked.

  “That’s complicated to explain.”

  “We will try our best to understand,” Dor said firmly.

  “I will try, then. Of course you know about Princess Ida’s moon.”

  “Ptero,” Dor said.

  “Last year we learned that it is more sophisticated than we supposed. It is actually the manifestation of her talent of the Idea. All the folk who ever lived on Xanth, or ever will live, or ever might exist, are there, in their soul forms.”

  Dor was startled. “All the folk? But what about those of us who are here, now?”

  “You are there too, only with the current year of your lives absent there. And time is different there; time is geography. But that’s only part of it. There is an aspect of Ida herself there, and she has her own moon. And on that moon is another Ida, with—”

  “Please,” Dor said. “My comprehension is being strained. What has this to do with your husband?”

  “Each little moon is different,” she explained. “With different magic. Jonathan thought there might even be a zombie world. If so—”

  “I see. That would be the perfect place for the zombies to be. Especially if they had a kingdom. Their own world!”

  “Exactly. So Jonathan is exploring to see if he can find such a world. He does what he can for his flock.”

  “Maybe the zombies are looking for it too, in regular Xanth,” Bink suggested.

  “No, I don’t think so. They were supposed to wait.”

  “How long will it be before the Zombie Master returns?” Dor asked.

  “I don’t know. He said to wake him up if he is gone more than three days, and it’s only been one day.”

  All three of them did a quick reassessment. “He is sleepwalking?” Bink asked.