Zombie Lover

by Anthony, Piers

  Bink and Chameleon were in a guest room, having evidently come to Castle Roogna for the youth potions. Maybe they knew why they had been selected. Dor knocked on the door.

  “It’s King Dor,” the door called to the folk inside.

  “Come in, Dor,” Bink’s voice called.

  Dor opened the door and stepped in. And stood amazed.

  Before him stood a lad of twenty one, and a girl of sixteen. The lad was handsome and muscular. The girl was ugly. Both were in ill-fitting clothing; indeed, the girl was in the process of pinning the boy’s trousers so they would fit better.

  “I think this is the wrong room,” Dor said, embarrassed.

  “No it isn’t, son,” the woman said in Chameleon’s voice. “Don’t stand there with your mouth agape; close the door behind you.”

  It really was true. These were his parents, youthened by—

  “Sixty years,” Chameleon said. “We each took the same dosage. We have no idea why the Good Magician sent the elixir, but concluded that he must have good reason. He has not made any requirement of us, as yet.”

  “But he surely will, in due course,” Bink added. “I must say that apart from the awkwardness of ill-fitting clothing, it feels rather good to be young again. There’s a certain vigor I had forgotten.”

  “Why did you come, Dor?” Chameleon asked. She tended to be abrupt in her smart/ugly phase, having little patience with the slower intellects of others. She was more popular when in her lovely/stupid phase.

  “I came to ask Bink if he would like to go out with me and Dolph to question the zombies, who are stirred up. I thought a three generation excursion might be fun.”

  “Good idea,” Chameleon said. “Go ahead, Bink; you’re not much help around here. I’ll fix your other clothes and mine in the interim.” She paused. “Including a showy dress for my other phase.”

  Bink nodded appreciatively. Chameleon had been generally acknowledged to be the loveliest woman in Xanth, when young and in phase, and even in age she was elegant. Now she was young again. Dor found it awkward thinking of his parents having romantic interests, but realized it was possible. His mother’s combination of traits at the far end—extreme beauty and extreme stupidity—made her a very fine romantic prospect. The extremes would be much sharper, now that she was a teenager. Well, soon they would return to the North Village, and he could put that awkward aspect out of his mind.

  Chameleon worked swiftly with needle and thread, and Bink’s trousers assumed a better fit. “Let’s go,” he said, with the seeming abandon of his youth. He tended to grow more interested in traveling away from the home, when Chameleon was in her smart phase, but of course it would not be kind to speculate why.

  “First we must check with Jenny Elf,” Dor said as they walked down the hall. “Maybe she has the answers to several questions.”

  “Good idea,” the youth agreed. It was just about impossible to think of him as an aging father.

  Dolph appeared, in newer and cleaner clothing. “I’m ready, Dad,” he said. “Who’s your friend?”

  “Your granddad,” Bink said.

  “My what?”

  “This is Bink,” Dor explained, understanding his son’s confusion. “He has been youthened to twenty one.”

  “But that’s younger than I am!” Dolph protested.

  “Physically,” Bink said, smiling.

  “You do sound like him. But why?”

  “We hope that Jenny will know,” Bink said. “She was the one who got the package with the potions. Maybe the other papers in it will say.”

  Jenny Elf was in an office chamber on the main floor, laboring at a desk. On her left was a huge pile of envelopes, and on her right a small pile of addressed envelopes. Before her, on the desk, was her cat, Sammy. She looked up wearily as they approached. She was a small girl, with pointed ears, freckles, big spectacles, and four-fingered hands. She had come to Xanth by accident, at the age of twelve, when some kind of hole had appeared in the fabric of whatever, and been stuck here since. It had been nine years, because it happened just before Dolph and Electra married.

  “That’s a big pile of papers,” Dolph said sympathetically. “Can I help you with any of them?”

  That was one thing about his son, Dor realized: his sympathetic nature. If anyone had a problem, Dolph always wanted to help out. He and Jenny had been friends since they met.

  “I wish you could, Dolph,” Jenny said. “But the instructions say that all of the invitations must be written in the same hand, and that’s mine. They all have to be done in two days too, so I must keep at it.” She shook her right hand, and little sprigs of tiredness flew out from it.

  “Invitations?” Bink asked.

  Jenny glanced at him, startled. “Why, you’re Bink!” she said. “I didn’t recognize you.”

  “Chameleon and I took the potions as soon as we got to our room,” Bink said. “They worked.”

  “So I see.” She concentrated, and recovered the question. “Yes, these are wedding invitations.”

  “Wedding?” Dor asked, surprised again. “Who is the groom?”

  “The note says he is no one we know. But he is a prince or king, who will marry a common girl and make her a princess or queen. It is scheduled to happen here at Castle Roogna in just one week, so everything must be ready by then, and the invitations have to go out in time to bring all the participants.”

  “Who is invited?” Bink asked.

  “Everyone, I think. Of course I haven’t looked at all the names on the list yet.” She indicated a long scroll. “Some of them have assignments too.”

  “Assignments?” Dor asked.

  “Matron of Honor—things like that. That’s Electra.”

  “Are any of us on that list?” Dolph asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  Then Sammy Cat moved his paw. It landed on one section of the list. “Oh, thank you Sammy,” Jenny said. Her cat’s talent was to find anything—except home. That was part of the reason Jenny was stuck here in Xanth. Sammy had led her here, but couldn’t lead her back.

  Jenny checked the list where the paw was. “Yes, here it is: King Dor is to be in loco Father of the Bride.”

  “But my daughter Ivy’s already married!” he protested.

  “In loco,” Bink reminded him. “That means instead of. Maybe her real father can’t do it, so you will fill in.”

  “Oh.” It was obvious in retrospect.

  Jenny read farther. “Bink is to be Best Man.”

  “But I don’t even know the groom!” Bink said.

  “And Dolph is an Usher. Head Usher.”

  “Okay,” Dolph agreed. “I guess I can handle that.”

  “What about you, Jenny?” Dor asked. “Since you’re doing all this work.”

  The girl’s eyes widened in surprise. “I didn’t think to look. Sammy?”

  The cat lifted a paw—and set it down again, off the list.

  “But you can find anything,” Jenny reminded him.

  Dor caught on, unpleasantly. “Not if it’s not there. I fear you aren’t invited, Jenny.”

  “Not invited!” Dolph said angrily. “She has to do this mountain of work, wearing out her poor little hand—and she’s not even invited?”

  “It’s all right,” Jenny said quickly. “My birthday is on the same day. Sammy and I will have a chance to celebrate by ourselves.”

  A glance bounced back and forth between the three men. “It’s not fair,” Dolph said. “She’s not a slave. She should at least be invited.”

  “Maybe there’s a mistake,” Dor said. “We can ask the Good Magician.”

  “No, please don’t bother him,” Jenny said. “Really, I don’t mind helping. I’m sure it will be a very nice wedding.”

  Another glance bounced around between them. Then the desk spoke. “It had better be.”

  Dolph still wasn’t satisfied. “Jenny, I don’t need to be an usher for somebody I don’t even know. I’ll join you for your birthday instead. W
e’ve been friends for a long time.” He stroked Sammy, which was proof of what he said, because the cat did not accept the touch of just anybody.

  The girl was plainly touched. She blinked back a tear. “That’s very nice of you, Dolph. It’s true that you and Electra have been very kind to me. But it’s not right to go against something the Good Magician has set up. There is surely excellent reason for you to be Head Usher. Sammy and I will be just fine.”

  “She’s right, son,” Dor said. “And you don’t have to choose one or the other. The wedding won’t take all day.”

  “It’s at three in the afternoon,” Jenny said.

  “Then let’s have your birthday in the morning,” Dolph said. “I know Electra will want to be there too. And Che Centaur, of course, and Gwenny Goblin.” They were Jenny’s closest friends, though Gwendolyn was now Queen of Goblin Mountain, making the goblins behave. Che was tutor for Sim, the Simurgh’s chick, who would some millennium inherit the position of Wisest Bird in the Universe. If Che came, so might Sim, and that would go far toward making the occasion significant. Every winged monster in Xanth was pledged to protect Che, and every living thing was pledged to help Sim and his guardian nanny Roxanne Roc. Che Centaur was destined to change the history of Xanth, by influencing Sim, and no one could be sure what events they attended might thus become truly significant.

  “So will Irene and I,” Dor said, sharing his son’s disquiet about the way the girl was being snubbed. He didn’t care who else attended; he would be there regardless.

  “And Chameleon and I,” Bink said.

  Jenny had to blink back several more tears. She removed her glasses and dabbed at her eyes with a hankie. “Thank you. That would be nice. But I had better get back to work on these invitations, so as to finish them in time.”

  They needed to leave before Jenny’s tears overflowed and fell on the invitations. “Next week,” Dor said firmly, guiding his son and young father to the door.

  “It still bothers me,” Dolph muttered as they walked down the hall. “How complicated would it have been to add her name to the list? The Good Magician couldn’t have forgotten her, because he’s making her do the handwriting chore.”

  “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 hop
e 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 and showed her bare but healthy upper torso.