Castle Roogna

by Piers Anthony

  "Say something to me," Dor said to the spider. "I'll signal yes or no, some way you can understand."

  The spider cluttered, "I wish I knew what you wanted, alien thing," the web translated. This was almost like having Grundy the golem with him! But Grundy could translate both ways. Well, on with it; he was a human being, albeit a young and inexperienced one, and he should be able to work this out. Dor raised his fist in the spider's greeting-among-equals mode. Maybe he could let this indicate agreement, and the wide-open-arms gesture the opposite. "You desire to renew the truce?" the spider inquired. "It doesn't really need renewal--but of course you are an alien creature, so you wouldn't know--" Dor spread his arms. The spider drew back, alarmed. "You wish to terminate the truce? This isn't--"

  Confused, Dor dropped his arms. This wasn't working! How could he hold a dialogue if the spider interpreted everything strictly on its own terms?

  "I wonder if something is wrong with you," the spider chittered. "You fought well, but now you seem to be at a loss. You don't seem to be wounded. I saw you regurgitate the refuse from your last meal; are you hungry again? How long has it been since you've eaten a really juicy fly?"

  Dor spread his arms in negation, causing the spider to react again. "It is almost as if you are in some fashion responding to what I am saying--" Gladly, Dor raised his fist.

  Startled, the spider surveyed him with its biggest, greenest eyes. "You do understand?" Dor raised his fist again.

  "Let's verify this," the spider chittered, excited. "It hadn't occurred to me that you might be sapient. Too much to expect, really, especially in a non-arachnid monster. Yet you did honor the covenant. Very well: if you comprehend what I am saying, raise your forelegs."

  Dor's hands shot up over his head. "Fascinating!" the spider chittered. "I just may have discovered non-arachnid intelligence! Now lower one appendage."

  Dor dropped his left arm. It was working; the spider was establishing communication with a non-arachnid sapience!

  They proceeded from there. In the course of the next hour, Dor taught the spider--or the spider evoked from his subject, depending on viewpoint--the human words for yes-good, no-bad, danger, food, and rest. And Dor learned--or the spider taught this: He was an adult middle-aged male of his kind. His name was Phidippus Variegatus, "Jumper" for short. He was a jumping spider of the family Salticidae, the most handsome and sophisticated of the spider clans, though not the largest or most populous. Other clans no doubt had other opinions about appearance and sophistication, it had to be conceded. His kind neither lazed in webs, waiting for prey to fly in, nor lay in ambush hoping to trap prey. His kind went out boldly by day--though he could see excellently by night too, be it understood--stalking insects and capturing them with bold jumps. That was, after all, the most ethical mode.

  Jumper had been stalking a particularly luscious-looking fly perched on the tapestry wall, when something strange had happened and he had found himself here. He had been too disoriented to jump, what with the presence of this--pardon the description, but candor becomes necessary--grotesque creature of four limbs, and the onslaught of the goblin-bugs. But now Jumper was back in possession of his faculties--and seemed to have nowhere to go. This land was strange to him; the trees had shrunk, the creatures were horribly strange, and there seemed to be no others of his kind. How could he return home?

  Dor was able, now, to fathom what had happened, but lacked the means to convey it. The little spider had been walking on the tapestry when Good Magician Humfrey's yellow spell took hold, and the spell had carried him into the tapestry world along with Dor. Since the spider was peripheral, his transformation had been only partial; instead of becoming small in scale with the figures of the tapestry, and occupying the body of a tapestry spider, he had kept his original body, becoming only somewhat smaller than before. Thus, here in the tapestry, Jumper seemed like a man-sized giant. Dor, had he entered similarly, would have been the size of several mountains.

  The only way Jumper could return to his own world was by being with Dor when he returned. At least, so Dor conjectured. It might be that the spell would revert everything it had put into the tapestry, when the time came. But that would be a gamble. So it was safest to stay together, returning more or less as a unit: Dor to his body and size, Jumper to the contemporary world. Dor could not make the details clear, since he hardly had them clear in his own mind, but the spider was no fool. Jumper agreed: they would stay together.

  Now both of them were hungry. The black flesh of the goblins was inedible, and Dor saw none of the familiar plants of his own time. No jellybarrel trees, flying fruits, water chestnuts, or pie fungi, and certainly no giant insects for Jumper to feed on. What were they to do?

  Then Dor had an idea. "Are there any buglike forms around here?" he asked the web. "You know--the big six-legged creatures, segmented, with feelers and pincers and things?"

  "There are crabapple trees an hour's birdflight from here," the web said. "I have heard the birds squawking about getting pinched there,"

  An hour's birdflight would mean perhaps six hours travel by land; it depended on the bird and on the terrain. "Anything closer?"

  "I've seen some tree-dwelling lobsters right around here. But they have mean tempers."

  "That should be just the thing; I'd feel guilty about fingering sweet-tempered ones." Dor faced Jumper. "Food," he said, pointing to the nearest tree.

  Jumper brightened. It was not that his eyes glowed, but merely a heightening of posture. "I shall verify." He moved with surprising rapidity to the nearest trunk.

  "Uh, is it safe?" Dor asked the web.

  "Of course not. There are all manner of bug-eating birds up there, and maybe some bird-eating bugs."

  Oh. Birds were deadly to spider-sized spiders. Jumper was something else. Still, best not to take chances. "Danger," Dor said.

  Jumper clicked his tusks together. "All life is a danger. Hunger is a danger too. I am at home at the heights." And he continued climbing the tree with his marvelous facility, straight up the trunk. His eight legs really helped. Dor had assumed that two or four legs were best, but already he was having second or fourth thoughts. He could not mount a tree like that!

  In a moment Jumper's worried chitter percolated down through the foliage. "Unless there are praying mantises up here?"

  "What's a preying whatsit?" Dor asked the web quietly.

  "That's p-r-a-y, not p-r-e-y. The mantis prays for prey."

  "All right. What is it?"

  "A bug-eating bug. Big. Bigger than almost any spider."

  Just so. "None your size," Dor called up, hoping Jumper understood. Then he waited at the base, nervously. No mantises, surely--but wouldn't a steam dragon be as bad? His acquaintance with the big spider was recent, but he felt a certain responsibility for Jumper. It was Dor's fault Jumper was in this predicament, after all. And yet, if Jumper hadn't been brought along in the eddy-current of the spell, what would have happened to Dor himself, thrown innocent into the pack of goblins? The two of them together had overcome the menace, while Dor alone would have--He shudderd to think of it. He owed Jumper a considerable debt already, and his adventure in the tapestry had just begun!

  Something loomed at his face. Dor ducked, alarmed, fingers scrambling at his hip for his sword--and of course not finding it there. Then he saw that the looming thing was a tree-lobster, descending on a thread. Except that lobsters didn't use threads! No, this, one was tightly bound, helpless, its leaf-green claws tied close to its bark-brown body, swinging head down. A captive of the big spider!

  Almost, Dor felt sympathy for the lobster, for it was still alive and struggling vainly against its web-bands. But he remembered the time he had climbed a butternut tree to fetch some butter, and a lobster had nipped him. He had been nervous about them ever since; they were ornery creatures. This one's red antennae radiated malevolence at him.

  Another bound lobster was lowered to hang a few feet above the ground, and then a third. Then Jumper himself floate
d down. "I ate the rest," he cluttered. "Less juicy than flies, but nonetheless excellent. These ones I shall save for future repasts. My gratitude to you for your timely information, Dor-man."

  "Yes," Dor said, using the best word he had to indicate a positive response directly. He was glad that he had been able to help, but it was not enough. His responsibility would not be through until he had returned Jumper to his own world.

  Now it was Dor's turn to look for food. He asked the web, but it had seen mainly things that moved, while Dor preferred sedentary food. So he inquired of stones he saw, and sticks of wood, and soon located a hominy tree with a few ripe grits on it. This wasn't much, but it would hold him for a while. The magic vegetation did exist; it was merely sparser, more secretive than in his own day, forcing him to search it out more carefully.

  By this time it was late afternoon. It would not be safe to spend the night on the ground; more goblins could come, or other threats could manifest. If this were Dor's own world, there would have been half a dozen bad threats already, as well as several nuisances and a couple of annoyances. But maybe the goblin band had cleaned out the local monsters, not liking the competition. "Rest," Dor said, pointing to the declining sun.

  Jumper understood. "I can see very well in the dark, but it may be unsafe for Dor-man. The trees are not safe either; there are other things than birds up there, that I perceived a moment ago. One resembled a bird, but had a man-face and a bad odor--"

  "A harpy!" Dor cried. "Face and bosom of a woman, body of a bird. They're awful!" Of course he knew Jumper couldn't follow all that, but he would pick up the tone of agreement.

  "Therefore we should sleep in the air," Jumper concluded. "I will string you from a branch and you will swing safe for the night."

  Dor was not sanguine about this notion either, but could neither express his objection adequately nor offer a better alternative. To be trussed up like one of those living lobsters--

  With misgivings that he trusted were not evident to the spider. Dor suffered himself to be looped by several strands of line. Jumper drew the material from his spinnerets, which were organs in his posterior. He cheerfully explained it in more detail than Dor cared to know, as he proceeded: "My silk is a liquid that hardens into a strong thread as it is drawn out. With my six spinnerets I shape it into strands of whatever texture, strength, and quality I happen to require. In this case I'm using single threads for the hammock and a multi-strand cable for the main line. Now you wait here a moment while I make the connection."

  There wasn't much else Dor could do at this stage except wait as requested. That silk was strong stuff!

  Jumper climbed up through the air. Noting Dor's startled reaction, he chittered down the explanation: "My dragline. I left it in place when I finished catching the lobsters. We spiders could not survive without our draglines. They keep us from falling, ever. Sometimes my hatchmates and I would have drag races, when I was young, jumping from high places to see who could bounce closest to the ground without touching..." He climbed on out of sight.

  "Hatchmates?" Dor inquired, mainly to keep the spider cluttering so he would know where he was.

  "My siblings who hatched from the egg sac," Jumper responded from above. "Several hundred of us, shedding our first skins and emerging into the great outer world to disperse and fend for ourselves. Is this not the case with your kind too?"

  "No," Dor admitted. "I am the only one in my family."

  "My consolations! Did some monster consume all the rest before they could escape?"

  "Uh, not exactly. My parents take good care of me, when they are home."

  "Your sire and siress remain together? I fear I misunderstand your expression."

  "Uh, well--"

  "Intriguing notion, maintaining a relationship with one's mate and offspring after procreation. Perhaps I should check with my mate, when I return, just to see how she's managing with the egg sac. Wouldn't want my spiderlings to hatch prematurely." Then, abruptly, Dor was hoisted off the ground. Jumper was hauling him into the air like a lobester!

  Yet it was oddly comfortable. Jumper had not bound him, but had placed his strands competently so that Dor was well supported without being confined. Most of the lines were invisible, unless he knew exactly where to look. The spider was really expert at this sort of thing!

  It was easy to relax in this hammock, to rest--and he did feel safe. In a moment Jumper glided down to hang beside him. They dangled together as the serenity of the night closed in above them, secure from the threats of ground and tree.

  Dor jumped. He scratched his head. Something scuttled away through his hair. It was that flea again, probably the same one who had bitten him when he first arrived. He thought of mentioning it to the spider, who should certainly know how to catch a flea, but then worried that he might lose an ear in the process.

  Those tusks of Jumper's were fierce! This was one problem he preferred to handle himself. Next time the critter bit him...

  Dor woke as the light filtered in through the branches. He felt some discomfort, for he was not used to sleeping in a vertical position, but he knew he was better off than he might have been. His leg was sore where the goblin had bitten it, and his right arm was stiff from swinging the heavy sword, and his stomach rumbled with borderline dissatisfaction. But this was a well-conditioned body; the sensations were mere annoyances.

  Jumper stirred. He dropped to the ground to make sure it was safe, then climbed back up to lower Dor. As Dor's foot touched the forest floor, the big spider moved his legs dexterously around him, and the net of web fell away. Dor was free.

  Now, suddenly, he felt an urgent call of nature. He retreated to a bush to take care of it. Floating in air was nice, but was limiting in certain ways! He wondered whether real heroes were ever embarrassed by such problems; certainly the subject never came up in the heroic tales of this period.

  Jumper chittered as Dor returned. Dor listened, but could make no sense of it. What had happened to his translator?

  After a moment he found out: the big spider had removed it when he cut away the net-web. It was a natural error. Dor found a strand of Jumper's own left over silk and put that on his shoulder. "Translate," he ordered it.

  "...mission, while mine is merely to return to my normal world," Jumper was saying. "So it behooves me to help you complete your mission, so that we can both return."

  "Yes," Dor agreed.

  "Obviously magic is involved. Some spell has carried me to your world--except that you do not seem overly familiar with it yourself. So it must be a strange aspect of your world. You are here to accomplish something, after which you will be released from your enchantment. So if we stay together--"

  "Yes!" Dor agreed. Jumper was one smart arachnid. He must have thought things out during the night, recognizing the seeming change in his size and Dor's ignorance of these surroundings as linked things.

  "So the best thing to do is get your job done as fast as possible," Jumper concluded. "If you will indicate where you need to travel--"

  "To the Zombie Master," Dor said. But of course that wasn't clear. Also, he had no idea where to find the Zombie Master. This led to a somewhat confused discussion. Finally Dor asked some of the local artifacts; they knew nothing of the Zombie Master, but had heard of King Roogna. It seemed a detachment of the King's army had passed this way.

  "King Roogna! Of course!" Dor exclaimed. "He would know! He would know everything! I should talk with him first, and he will tell me how to find the Zombie Master."

  Thus it was decided. Dor got general directions from the landscape, and they began their trek toward Castle Roogna. In one part of his mind Dor remained bemused by the fact that this was the tapestry world, and the entire tapestry was inside Castle Roogna. Yet they evidently faced a journey of many days to reach the Castle. It did make sense, somehow, he was sure. As much sense as magic ever did.

  He was getting used to this new jungle. Rather, this old jungle. Many of the trees were giant, with voluminous
ly proliferating foliage, but had very little magic. It was as if it took longer for magic to infuse the vegetation than the animals. Sweat gnats were present, and bluebottle flies, their bottle bodies refracting the beams of sunlight they buzzed through. But even these minor insects did not approach Jumper too closely. This was one advantage of traveling with a spider.

  "No!" Dor cried suddenly. "Danger!" He pointed. "You're walking into a tangle tree!"

  Jumper paused. "I gather there is some threat? All see is the collection of vines."

  In the spider's normal, small world there would be no tangle trees, Dor realized. Tanglers were there, to be sure, but they would hardly bother anything as small as a spider. Also, Jumper might have lived all his life in the tapestry room of Castle Roogna, so never encountered any of the jungle threats, regardless of relative sizes. Yet he seemed familiar with trees in general, so he must have spent some time outside.

  "I'll show you," Dor said. He picked up a large stick and heaved it at the tree. The tangler's tentacles snatched it out of the air and tore it to splinters.

  "I see what you mean," Jumper said appreciatively. "I believe I walked on the foliage of such a tree once in my youth, but it paid me no attention. Now that I am on its scale, it is another condition. I am glad I am keeping your company, weird though your form is."

  Which was a decent compliment. Dor inspected the tangler from a safe distance. He had identified it almost too late, because it was of a different subspecies from the ones he had known. It was cruder, more like a mundane tree, with light bark on the tentacles, and it lacked the pleasant greensward and sweet perfume beneath. Tanglers had grown more sophisticated over the centuries as their prey became more wary. For a person attuned to the end product, the cruder ancestral version was hard to identify. He would have to be more careful; there was less magic in the jungle, but what there was just as dangerous to him and Jumper.