A figure appeared across the moat, at the castle gate. It was Magician Yin. “So you have come to me at last, Princess Threnody,” he said. “The barbarian has done good service.”
She stood frozen for a moment, staring at him. “The mission is not yet complete,” she said.
“But you can step right across and make it complete,” Yin pointed out.
“And Castle Roogna will fall,” she said disdainfully.
“But your father wishes this union to be,” Yin reminded her. “We can build another castle.”
“Not like this one!”
“Come, lovely woman,” Yin pleaded. “The ignorant barbarian has given his life to bring you this far. Would you cause that sacrifice to be in vain?”
“Pah!” Threnody exclaimed. “I am demon-spawned; I have no conscience. All I want is to spare the castle where I grew up, the one place where I was happy. Now I shall live my own life. You would not let me do that, once you have power, Magician Yin.”
“Ah—so the maiden plans to run away with the barbarian when he revives.”
Had I been alive then, I would have been startled by that; I had thought Yin did not know about my talent. But of course Magicians tend to know more than they let on; it’s part of their power.
“Hardly, Magician! This oaf lives only to complete his mission—to bring me to you, Yin. I tried to seduce him away from that, but the fool would not be swayed. Only by being rid of him can I be rid of you.”
“But you will never be rid of him, Princess, since he can not be killed. That was my little ace in the hole against Yang’s machinations. So you might as well cross the moat and marry me.”
“I shall be rid of him—and you!” she exclaimed. “I know how to keep the barbarian dead!” And she took my sword and struck at my body. The magic shield tried to lift itself to block the attack, but its spell was no longer new, and I was dead, so it couldn’t do much. In a moment she hacked off my shield arm, and the shield was finished.
Then she hacked off my other limbs, and my head, and cut my torso into two chunks. I looked like a dismembered zombie, except that there was a good deal more blood spread about. “This moron will never bother me again!” she gasped, spearing my staring head on the point and carrying it into the orchard.
Yin stood, watching her go. “Then you are determined not to let the barbarian’s mission be complete?” he called after her.
“Absolutely!” she called back as she disappeared among the fruit trees.
Time passed. Then she returned to spear another chunk of my body. “And you refuse to cross over and marry me?” Yin asked, as if this were a routine matter.
“You got it, Magician,” she agreed, hauling the second chunk away in a different direction.
When she returned again, Yin asked: “Despite the wishes of your dying father?”
“If my father knew the truth, he would repent those wishes.” She marched away in a new direction with the third chunk.
Next time she appeared, Yin asked: “Don’t you know that if I am not King, my evil brother will be King instead?”
“Of course I know it!” she exclaimed. “What care I for your politics?” She took the fourth part of me away in a new direction.
When she returned yet again, Yin said: “Don’t you realize that if you do not marry me, you must marry Magician Yang?”
“Maybe Yang won’t want me. But if he does, he won’t make me live at Castle Roogna,” she said, spearing a fifth chunk and toting it away.
Soon she was back again, for the next-to-the-last chunk “What do you care for Magician Yang?” Yin demanded.
Threnody paused in her labor. “Well, if you want it straight, I am demon-spawn. I prefer evil to good—and Yang is evil.” She hauled the chunk away.
“That isn’t what you told the barbarian,” Yin said when she returned for the final chunk.
“I told the barbarian I was a liar. That much was true.” She carried away the seventh piece of me.
When she returned, Yin tried yet once more. “The barbarian is finished, but you could still cross over to me. I ask you, daughter of the King, one last time—”
“Oh, stop this charade!” she exclaimed, picking up my magic shield and dumping it into the moat. Then she tossed my sword in after it. “Do you think I don’t know your secret?”
“Secret, Princess?”
“That Yin is merely the white-magic side, and Yang the black-magic side, of the same person. You are not contesting to see which Magician shall be King; you are deciding which facet of your personality will dominate. Since that decision turns out to be mine to make, I am choosing—and I choose Yang. Come to me, you evil creature, for I shall not come to you! The price of me is to turn your back forever on Castle Roogna.”
“Then so I shall!” Yin said. He turned about, his cloak flaring—and as he turned, his color changed, and he became the black-robed Yang. He strode across the drawbridge and took Threnody’s hand. “You have done well, evil creature!” he told her. “Even to seducing the barbarian, for you know I could not touch a pristine woman.”
“Only Yin could do that,” she agreed, kissing him. “The placement of that last spell was beautiful. The oaf never suspected the drawbridge itself!”
“Thank you. You realize, of course, that I was testing you? I feared you might actually have some feeling for that barbarian, though I know what a consummate actress you are. So I arranged to—”
“I do have some feeling for him,” she said. “Contempt! He was a fool even before your idiocy spell hit him. And there was another stroke of genius—mixing up Yin’s spells! Even so, it was uncomfortably close, for the barbarian was the most oinkheadedly determined fool I’ve ever seen.”
“A close contest is more tantalizing,” Yang said. “I knew I would win; but for the sake of appearances, I preferred the outcome to seem in doubt.”
“Well, Evil Magician, you will be King now. So take me away from here and do what you will with me.”
“I am King now. Your father died yesterday.”
Threnody stiffened, if she had cared for anything at all, it was for her father. “Then I could have killed the barbarian last night, and my father would not have known! Why did you torture me like that?”
“It is my nature,” Yang said. “As it is yours. Together, we have betrayed all that is decent in Xanth.”
She smiled. “Why, so we have!”
“And now we shall neglect the interests of Xanth completely, letting Castle Roogna go to ruin in its own fashion. I shall devote myself to crafting spells of every type, and who knows what mischief they may do in the course of future centuries as they are discovered, while you—”
“While I will assume whatever strange forms you wish, for your sinister pleasure,” Threnody finished.
Together, they walked away from the castle, their cruel lie complete at last.
Of course, I was dead, so I was no longer much concerned with this. But my ghost was present at the spot where I had died, and my ghost was appalled at this evidence of the betrayal of myself and Xanth that Threnody had wrought. All the time she had been collaborating with the Evil Magician, plotting to—
But the Evil Magician and the Good Magician were one and the same! And Threnody had known this! And chosen the Evil aspect to go with! All the while playing up to me, the ignorant barbarian fool! When I had not failed to bring her back to Castle Roogna, she had had to come into the open about it. Why had I been so blind?
Why, indeed! They had chosen me for this very quality! If my course for the mission had been predestined, so had my course before it, bringing me to Castle Roogna at precisely the time they needed such a fool. How could a mere barbarian comprehend the intricacies of civilized treachery? Perhaps King Gromden, a good man, had suspected and tried to tell me, but his illness had prevented him. That very illness might have been sent by a spell from one of the aspirants to the throne, since Yin-Yang had free access to Castle Roogna. It would have been better had I never en
tered the picture, for I had been the unwitting tool of their treachery. I, as much as Threnody, was responsible for the demise of Castle Roogna as the center of the human government of Xanth, and for the centuries of the decline that followed. How great was my guilt!
But it was done, and I was helpless to undo it. All I could do was watch.
A few hours after my death, Pook and Peek arrived on the scene. Pook came and sniffed the mostly empty bag of spells Threnody had dropped on the bank of the moat and forgotten. He knew I had been there and that I had been betrayed by the cruelest of lies. He had tried to warn me, to discourage me; he had refused to aid me in my folly. But I had pursued it anyway, bewitched by foolish love, and met my ordained fate. Now Pook could do nothing; he didn’t know where evil Threnody had buried my pieces, and lacked the means to dig them up besides. Nobody knew but her, and she would never tell. Truly, she had sealed my fate!
Disconsolately, Pook picked up the limp bag of spells with his teeth, craned his head around to tuck it in amidst his chains so that he could carry it as a memento, then departed. Peek went with him, sharing his melancholy with her beautiful, moist brown eyes. She was an animal; she did not deceive or betray her companion the way a human woman could.
And so I was dead and dead I remained. Evil Threnody had seen to that! My ghost moved into Castle Roogna, as that was the only building within range, and ghosts do prefer a structure to haunt. I met the other ghosts there and learned their sad stories. One was Millie the Maid, who had been killed by a jealous rival for the Magician she loved. The others each had his or her life history, as tragic or ironic as mine. Oh, we shared common heritage of folly and grief, we ghosts of the castle! And so we remained over the centuries, while the castle stood idle.
For Magician Yang, the evil aspect of the man, indeed cared nothing for Castle Roogna or the welfare of Xanth. He moved back to his home village and made his nefarious spells, for that was his chief entertainment. In truth, most of his spells were neutral, for there is no real good or evil in a given spell. Only in its actual use does it become good or evil. All the spells and enchanted objects in Xanth date from his reign, including the magic weapons of the Castle Roogna arsenal, made before he left. Some of those spells, like the forget-spell on the Gap Chasm, date from before his time, yet he made them, too; I don’t know how that was arranged. He was a great Magician, but an evil man. Those spells proliferated, and Xanth declined, because the spells were not used in any organized service of man. They were just scattered about the kingdom, whimsically, to do what mischief they might in ignorant hands. We ghosts had news of outside events only occasionally, when some traveling spook or wraith passed through; we ourselves were unable to leave the castle premises. So this is sketchy. But in the course of centuries, we did catch up on the major items.
Eventually Magician Yang died—but the next King of Xanth did not return to Castle Roogna to reign. It seemed it had become fashionable for Kings to remain in their home villages. There was no longer a centralized government in Xanth. The Mundane Waves washed freely over Xanth. It was the dark age—all because of Threnody’s cruel lie. She had sought to preserve Castle Roogna from falling, whatever the cost, but it had fallen anyway, figuratively—and who is to say that was not the real nature of the curse?
Yet perhaps she was not directly to blame for the evil times that came to all Xanth, for the tides of men are slow and subtle, and answer to no isolated influences. Maybe Xanth was doomed, anyway, and would have suffered some other calamity if not this one. Threnody had not chosen to be cursed, or even to be delivered by the stork. Maybe it had really started with the demoness who had humiliated King Gromden and succeeded in her mischief beyond her most infernal expectations.
Still, this does not excuse me. I, utter fool, had helped Threnody to do it—by trusting her when I knew she was untrustworthy and loving her when I should have known that the spawn of a demon could not truly love in return, whatever she might say. She had done to me what her mother had done to her father, and together, they had ruined more lives than anyone can know. My pain was all the greater because I had loved her, however foolishly. Now it was hate—but still my emotion for her, whether positive or negative, dominated my tenuous existence as a ghost. I had been a fool in life; I remained a fool in death. But what was to be expected of a barbarian lout?
One thing came to bother me increasingly in my spirit existence—Elsie, the girl I had left behind in Fen Village. I had promised to return to her when my adventure was done—and after I had learned the folly of loving demon-spawn, I would have been glad to settle down with a decent girl. But I could not; I was dead. If I had known more of the true situation with Magician Yin-Yang and Threnody, I would have set her on the drawbridge, said, “Here you are; cross or not, as you see fit,” and departed for home, to be with Elsie, a genuinely decent young woman who would never have betrayed me. But I hadn’t known, so I had died, and now could not know how Elsie fared. Was she waiting for me throughout her life, for a promise never to be fulfilled? How cruel a lie had I told her? In this I perceived a certain justice to my own fate. I had been served as I had served another person. I had perhaps ruined a fine girl and now I was ruined myself. The two griefs merged and fused in my being; as time passed, I tended to forget the more recent horror in favor of the earlier one, perhaps because the guilt of all Xanth was not associated there.
Yet it was not all bad for me, and perhaps not for Xanth. With the decline of human power, the several creature kingdoms strengthened, and mankind had to learn to deal with animals as equals. Centaurs in particular had been treated mainly as beasts of burden and laborers; now they formed an island kingdom of their own and became quite civilized. I like to think that the elven tribes prospered and that Bluebell’s descendants exist today, because of the diminished interference of human folk.
The other ghosts of the castle were decent sorts, very supportive; they had been through their fatal experiences and understood exactly how that felt. They regarded themselves as keepers of the castle, preserving it for that day when a King would return to rule Xanth properly and usher in a new golden age of man. Castle Roogna itself had a spirit; it kept itself whole, and its ambience extended out through the surrounding orchards and trees. Now I understood why the trees had fought me; they had known that my presence meant doom to the castle, whichever way my mission turned out.
As a ghost, I ranged the whole region, apologizing to every tree and zombie I had injured with my sword, and to the old moat monster, too. “I’m very sorry, and I won’t do it again,” I promised. But that was empty; I couldn’t do it again. Still, they accepted my penitence, knowing the ignorance and frailties of the mortal condition, and I became one with the castle. An empty promise is still a promise; I have tried in whatever way I can to help Castle Roogna, and perhaps I succeeded when the King Mare needed help to save it from occupation by the evil Horseman. That can hardly make up for the evil I did originally, but it’s a beginning.
In a couple of years a new ghost appeared. She was Renee, whom you have met. She was bewildered by her abrupt death, though it had been suicide. People who die by their own hands often don’t realize quite what they are getting into. She had come to the deserted castle to end her misery and had not expected to retain awareness in this form. She had suffered an unhappy marriage, not being able to marry her true love, and had finally taken this way out. She reminded me poignantly of Elsie, though I ardently hoped I had not driven Elsie into such a situation by my defection.
I had been the youngest ghost, in terms of the period of my spirit’s existence; now Renee was. I was glad to help her and show her the ghostly ropes, and she was very appreciative. This helped me forget my own distress, and I trust it helped her, too. It is a truth of death as well as of life that the surest amelioration of one’s own misery is to be obtained by helping another person.
In time—much time, for the emotions of ghosts are as diffuse as their physical essences—this relationship evolved into lo
ve. Now Threnody was but a distant memory; Renee was the one I existed for. In death I had found my life’s partner, and I knew she felt the same—though it was too late for us even before we met.
Eventually King Trent came to Castle Roogna and brought the monarchy back to its rightful seat. Once again Xanth flourished, and the dark age was behind. We are now some thirty years into the new age, and man prospers, but we ghosts remain. For our stories are not yet finished, and perhaps will never be.
Chapter 16. Caustic Truth
“And that,” Jordan the Ghost concluded, “is my story, sad as it may be. I was an ignorant barbarian fool and I paid the price. Yet today I have happiness of a sort, for I have seen the dark age of Xanth end at last and I love Renee. And now I have the memory of my living history, thanks to the crewel lye you used to clarify the tapestry. I thank you, little Princess, though not all of my memories are pleasant.”
Ivy considered. She had found the ghost’s tale to be more of a narrative than anticipated, with some aspects that were a trifle awkward for a girl of five to comprehend. It had granted her the wish she had made on a starfish: to know the origin of the forget-spell on the Gap. A certain mystery remained about that, since that spell had been applied to the Gap long before Magician Yin-Yang lived, but still, it was an answer. Now she wondered what the big deal was about summoning the stork; wasn’t it just a matter of kissing? Her parents tended to get evasive when her questions about such points became too pointed, and she had the suspicion that Jordan would be no more candid. Still, it was worth a try. “Some things have changed,” she said.
“Oh?”
“We live in modern times. Storks no longer deliver babies directly to the mothers.”
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