Castle Roogna

by Piers Anthony

  "So when he gets close to his sexy dapplegray filly, he--"

  "I'm going to burn this harness!" Cedric cried. But he did not seem wholly displeased. He must have believed his condition was a fault of his own, and the discovery that an external spell caused it was good news.

  "How may that spell be abolished?" Dor asked. "I wouldn't know that," the harness said. "After all, I'm only an item of apparel. I only know what I have observed."

  "Then how do you know about this spell?"

  "This oaf was asleep when the spell was cast, but I wasn't. I never sleep."

  "How can you sleep when you're not alive?" Cedric demanded, some of his natural belligerence returning.

  "Who cast that spell?" But the harness did not answer him. "Was it my rival Fancyface? I'll boot his tail through his snout!"

  "Who cast it?" Dor asked.

  "Celeste did it," the harness replied smugly.

  "That's my filly!" Cedric cried. "Why would she--" He paused, his unhandsome face working. "Why that little bitch of an equine! No wonder she was so understanding! No wonder she always made such a point of being true to me! She knew why I couldn't--"

  "I'm sorry I can't discover the cure," Dor said.

  "Don't bother about that, Magician!" Cedric said. "Centaurs don't work magic; she had to have gotten the spell from some human witch. All I need to do is go to a shyster warlock and buy a counterspell. But I won't tell Celeste--" He smiled with grim lust. "Oh, no, I won't tell her! I'll just let her lead me on as usual, teasing me, and I'll fake it until--oh, is she going to get a surprise!"

  They returned to the crew. "How's the bug lover doing?" one of the other centaurs called, neighing.

  Cedric turned to fix the other with a steely stare. "I'm doing just great," he said. "So is the Magician. We're going to help him all we can, and do just exactly what he says, aren't we." It was not a question.

  Dor affected not to notice the chagrin of the other centaurs. They had been brought in line, without doubt! "Where is there a harpy flight, within catapult range?" he asked.

  A centaur at the parapet cocked his head. "That way," he said, pointing north.

  "That way, sir!" Cedric corrected him, delivering a swift cuff on the flank. "You address the Magician with proper respect."

  "Uh, just call me Dor," Dor said. He had made an issue of respect, but now was disinclined.

  "They're coming in from the Gap, Sir Dor," the parapet centaur said.

  "Can you drop a shot to the southwest of them?"

  "I can drop a shot down the leader's beakface, Dor!" Cedric said. "Right in her craw."

  "Well, I really want it to their southwest."

  Cedric shrugged "Colt's play." The centaurs gathered about the catapult, cranking it back and fastening its boom and lifting a hefty rock into its sling. They oriented the device toward the northeast and adjusted the elevation.

  "Now repeat after me, until you strike ground," Dor said to the stone. "Harpies are birdbraincd stinkers!"

  "Harpies are birdbrained stinkers!" the rock repeated gleefully.

  "Fire," Dor said.

  Cedric fired. The arm of the catapult sprang up. The missile arced over the forest, and the rock cried out: "Harpies are birrr--" and was lost to Dor's hearing.

  "Now we want to lob the next one southeast of that," Dor said. "Until we have a chain of them leading the harpies to our due east, near the antenna forest."

  "I understand, Magician," Cedric said. "Then what?"

  "Then they'll encounter the goblin band in that region."

  The centaur smiled. "I hope they wipe each other out!"

  Dor hoped so too. If there were too few harpies, the goblins would still block the zombies' route; but if there were too many harpies, they would block the zombies' route. And the ploy might be too late. Already reports were coming in of tremendous goblin armies advancing from the south, and the harpy flights from the north were swelling voluminously. Castle Roogna was still the focus of the war, thanks to the continuing and dire power of Murphy's curse.

  "Magician," a dulcet voice said behind Dor. He turned to find a mature woman standing on the ramparts. "I am neo-Sorceress Vadne, come to assist the defense of this wall. How may I be of service?"

  "Neo-Sorceress?" Dor asked with undiplomatic blankness. He remembered Murphy saying something about a Sorceress who was helping the King, but the details had fogged out.

  "My talent is judged to be shy of Sorceress level," she said, her mouth quirking.

  "What is your talent?" Dor realized he was being too direct, but he simply had not yet mastered the social graces of adults.

  "Topology."

  "What?"

  "Topology. Shape-changing."

  "You can change your shape? Like a werewolf?"

  "Not my own shape," she said. "Other shapes."

  "Like making rocks into pancakes?"

  "No, my talent is limited to animate shapes. And I can't change their natures."

  "I don't understand. If you changed a man into a wolf--"

  "He would look like a wolf in outline, but would still be a man. No heavy fur, no keen wolf nose. Topology is not true transformation."

  Dor thought of King Trent, who could change a man into a wolf--a wolf who could do everything a real wolf could, and who would produce wolf offspring. That was a superior talent, much greater than this mere shape-changing. "I guess you're right. You're not a Sorceress." For some reason he didn't know, there were no female Magicians, only Sorceresses. "Still, it sounds like good magic."

  "Thank you," she said distantly.

  "We won't know how you can help here until we see what side attacks, if either side does. The goblins will have to scale the wall, so we can push off their ladders as they hook them over, but the harpies will fly in. Can you top--topol--can you perform at a distance?"

  "No. Only by touch," she said.

  "That's not much help." He pondered, oblivious to her grimace. "Maybe you better stand at the rim and change goblins into the shape of rocks as they come over the top."

  "We can use them for catapult shot!" Cedric exclaimed.

  "Good idea!" Dor agreed. "Now I make the stone of the ramparts talk, to distract enemies, so don't any of you be fooled. The object is to make the enemy creatures attack the wrong things, breaking their weapons or their heads and giving you time to handle them. Of course we hope they won't try to storm this castle, since they really have no reason to, but you know Murphy's curse. If the goblins and harpies leave us alone, we'll leave them alone. Meanwhile, you centaurs get as many blocks placed on the wall as possible; a single one could make the difference."

  The centaurs went to work with a will. Stones were emplaced and mortared rapidly. This was a good work crew, when it wanted to be.

  In due course, the King summoned Dor and Vadne to a staff meeting. Jumper was there too; he had been given charge of the east-wall defense. Magician Murphy was also present, to Dor's surprise.

  "The goblins have sent an envoy," King Roogna said. "I thought all of you should be present for this meeting." As he spoke, a typically gnarled goblin entered. He wore short black pants, a small black shirt, and enormous shoes. He had the usual goblin scowl.

  "We require your castle for a camping base," the goblin said, showing his discolored and jagged teeth. "We give you one measly hour to clear out."

  "I appreciate your courtesy," King Roogna said. "But this Castle is as yet incomplete. I doubt it would be of much use to you."

  "You deaf, or just stupid?" the goblin inquired. "I said clear out."

  "I regret we are not disposed to do that. However, there is some nice level ground to the east that you might use--"

  "Useless against flying monsters. We need elevation, battlements, shelter--and great supplies of food. We come in one hour. If you are not gone, we shall eat you." The goblin spun awkwardly about on his ponderous feet and departed.

  "Now we have the envoy from the harpy forces," the King said, half-concealing a quirky smil
e. The oldest and croniest of harpy hens 0apped in.

  "I saw that goblin!" she screeched. "You are consorting with the enemy. Your gizzards will bleed for this!"

  "We declined to let the goblins use our premises," King Roogna said.

  "I should think so! We will use your premises!" she screeched. "We need roosting space, cells for captives, kitchens for raw meat!"

  "I regret we can not make our facilities available to you. We are not choosing sides."

  That was for sure, Dor thought. Both sides were repulsive.

  "We'll claw you into quivering chunks!" she screeched. "Making deals with goblins! Treason! Treason! Treason!" She flapped out.

  "So much for the amenities," King Roogna said. "Are the ramparts ready?"

  "As ready as possible," Jumper chittered. "The situation is not ideal."

  "Agreed." The King frowned. "The rest of you may not appreciate the full gravity of the situation. Goblins and harpies are very difficult creatures to deal with. They are more numerous than humans, and have massed themselves, while our kind is dispersed all across the Land of Xanth. We can not reasonably expect to withstand siege by their forces without the aid of the zombies, and even then it will be difficult. The Zombie Master has been delayed--" He glanced at Magician Murphy. "But is on the move again." He glanced at Dor. "The question is, will he arrive in time?"

  "An excellent question," Murphy said. "Shall we agree that if the Zombie Master fails to arrive before the battle commences--?"

  The King glanced at the others questioningly.

  Dor visualized the battlements. The goblins would have to scale some thirty feet of wall buttressed by the square corner towers and round midwall towers, after fording the deep moat. He couldn't see how they could be a serious immediate threat. The harpies normally struck by picking people up and carrying them away. The centaurs were too heavy to be handled that way. Why, then, was the King so grave? Even unfinished, Castle Roogna should be proof against these threats. A long siege seemed unlikely, because the besiegers would be killing each other off, and running out of food.

  "What happens if the zombies don't arrive before the battle starts?" Dor asked.

  "It would be a shame to have damage done to this fine edifice, perhaps loss of human life," Murphy explained. "It is only sensible to abate the curse before the situation gets untoward."

  "You mean you can call off the whole goblin-harpy battle, this whole siege, just like that?"

  "Not just like that. But I can abate it, yes."

  "I find that hard to believe," Dor said. "Those armies are already well on their way. They aren't just going to turn around and go home just because you--"

  "The King's talent is shaping magic to his own ends. Mine is shaping circumstance to interfere with others' designs. Alternate faces of similar coins. All we have to determine is whose talent shall prevail. Destruction and bloodshed are no necessary part of it. In fact I deplore and abhor--"

  "There has already been bloodshed!" Dor exclaimed angrily. "What kind of macabre game is this?"

  "A game of power politics," Murphy responded, unperturbed.

  "A game where my friend was tortured by Mundanes, and my life threatened, and the two of us were pitted against each other," Dor said, his anger bursting loose. "And Millie must marry the Zombie Master to--" He cut himself off, chagrined.

  "So you have an interest in the maid," Vadne murmured. "And had to give her up."

  "That's not the point!" But Dor knew his face was red.

  "Shall we be fair?" Murphy inquired meaningfully. "Your problem with the maid is not of my making."

  "No, it isn't," Dor admitted grudgingly. "I--I apologize, Magician." Adults were able to apologize with grace. "But the rest--"

  "I regret these things as much as you do," Murphy said smoothly. "This contest with the Castle was intended to be a relatively harmless mode of establishing our rights. I would be happy to remove the curse and let the monsters drift as they may. All this requires is the King's acquiescence."

  King Roogna was silent.

  "If I may inquire," Jumper chittered, Dor's web translating for all to hear. "What would be the long-range consequence of victory by Magician Murphy?"

  "A return to chaos," Vadne replied. "Monsters preying on men with impunity, men knowing no law but sword and sorcery, breakdown of communications, loss of knowledge, vulnerability to Mundane invasions, decrease of the importance of the role of the human species in Xanth."

  "Is this desirable?" Jumper persisted.

  "It is the natural state," Murphy said. "The fittest will survive."

  "The monsters will survive!" Dor cried. "There will be seven or eight more Mundane Waves of conquest, each with awful bloodshed. The wilderness will become so dense and horrible that only spelled paths are safe for people to travel. Wiggles will ravage the land. There will be fewer true men in my day than there are in yours--" Oops. He had done it again.

  "Magician, exactly where are you from?" Vadne demanded.

  "Oh, you might as well know! Murphy knows."

  "And did not tell," Murphy said.

  "Murphy has honor, once you understand his ways," Vadne said, glancing at the Magician obliquely. "I once sued for his hand, but he preferred chaos to an organized household. So I am without a Magician to marry."

  "You sought to marry above your station," Murphy told her.

  Vadne showed her teeth in a strange crossbreed of snarl and smile. "By your definition, Magician!" Then she returned to Dor. "But I let my passion override me. Where did you say you were from, Magician?"

  Dor suddenly understood her interest in him--and was glad he could prove himself ineligible. It would be as easy to deal with Helen Harpy as with this woman, and for similar reason. Vadne was no soft and sweet maid like Millie; she was a driven woman on the prowl for a marriage that would complete the status she craved. "I am from eight hundred years hence. So is Jumper."

  "From the future!" King Roogna exclaimed. He had stayed out of the dialogue as much as possible, giving free rein to the expression of the others, but this forced his participation. "Exiled by a rival Magician?"

  "No, there is no other Magician in my generation. I am on a quest. I--I think I'm going to be King, eventually, as you surmised before. The present King wants me to have experience." Obviously King Roogna had not discussed Dor's situation with anyone else, letting Dor present himself in his own way. More and more, Dor was coming to appreciate the nuances of adult discretion. It was as significant as much in what it did not do as in what it did do. "I'm only twelve years old, and--"

  "Ah--you are in a borrowed body."

  "Yes. It was the best way for me to visit here, using this Mundane body. Another creature animates my own body, back home, taking care of it during my absence. But I'm not sure that what I do here has any permanence, so I don't want to interfere too much."

  "So you know the outcome of the Roogna-Murphy wager," the King said.

  "No. I thought I did, but now I see I don't. Castle Roogna is complete in my day--but it stood deserted and forgotten for centuries. Some other King could have completed it. And there have been all those Waves I mentioned, and all the bad things, and the decline of the influence of Man in Xanth. So Murphy could have won."

  "Or I could have won, and held off the onset of chaos for a few more decades," Roogna said.

  "Yes. From my vantage, eight hundred years away, I just can't tell whether the chaos started in this year or fifty years from now. And there are other things that don't match, like the absence of goblins on the surface in my day, and the relative scarcity of harpies--I just don't know how they all fit in."

  "Well, what will be, will be," Roogna said. "I suppose from that vantage of history, what we do here has little significance. I had hoped to set up a dynasty of order, to keep Xanth wholesome for centuries, but that does not seem fated to be. It is a foolish vanity, to believe that a man's influence can extend much beyond his own time, and I shall be well rid of it. Still, I hope to do
what good I can within this century, and to leave Castle Roogna as a monument to my hope for a better Xanth." He looked around at the others, "We should make our decision according to our principles."

  "Then we should fight to preserve order--for as long as it can be preserved!" Dor said. "For a decade, for a year, or for a month--whatever we can do is good."

  Murphy spread his hands. "We shall in due course discover whether even a month is feasible."

  "I believe the consensus is clear," King Roogna said. "We shall defend the Castle. And hope the Zombie Master gets here in time,"

  They returned to their stations. Almost Immediately the trouble arrived. From the south the dusky banners of the great goblin army came, marching in a gathering tread that shook the Castle foundations. Dor stood atop the northeast corner tower and looked over the ramparts to spy it in the distance. Drums beat, horns tooted, keeping the cadence. Like a monstrous black carpet the army spread across the field beyond the Castle. Light sparkled from the points of the goblins' small weapons, and a low half-melody carried under the clamor, like muted thunder: the goblins were chanting, "One two three four, Kill two three four, One two three four, Kill two three four," on and on endlessly. There was not much imagination to it, but plenty of feeling, and the effect expanded cumulatively, hammering into the mind.

  They had allies, too. Dor spied contingents of gnomes, trolls, elves, dwarves, ghouls, and gremlins, each with its own standard and chant. Slowly a gnarly tapestry formed, a patchwork of contingents, the elves in green, dwarves in brown, gnomes red, trolls black, marching, marching. There seemed to be so many creatures they could bury the Castle under the sheer mass of their bodies, stretching the grisly fabric of their formation across the ramparts. Yet of course they could not; mere numbers could not scale a vertical wall.

  Then from the north flew the harpies and their winged minions, casting a deep shadow across land and Castle, blotting out the sun. There were contingents of ravens and vampires and winged lizards and other creatures Dor didn't recognize, in their mass resembling gross storm clouds darkening the sky in segments, the light permitted to penetrate at the perimeters only to delineate the boundaries. Thus the shadows traversed the ground in large squares, an ominous parallel advance.