“Do you think it would like to become a winged mermaid?” Ida asked.
“Maybe I can ask it,” Dor said. He assumed the form of a blob. Now he didn’t have a mouth, so wasn’t sure how to speak. He rolled across and touched the other blob with his surface. “?” he inquired.
“!” the blob replied.
He returned to his normal form, unhandsome as that was. “I think it says yes.”
“But still, we are in a dream, while the blob is in Castle Zombie,” Dor said. “I don’t see how—”
“If you will return to your bodies when you wake,” Ida said reasonably, “wouldn’t the blob do the same when it wakes? And if Aurora is with it, wouldn’t she be carried there too? Then she could give it live definition in her nature.”
The three men exchanged another wondering glance. They shrugged.
Aurora approached the blob. She reached out one hand, tentatively. She touched it. “Oh, I like it,” she said. “It’s just miserable because when the storkfish—I mean the stork—delivered it, it had not been shaped into a creature. It was left as it started, raw material. So its mother dumped it in the forest, throwing it away, where the zombies found it.”
“You can tell all that, just from touching it?” Dolph asked.
“Yes. Because our spirits are merging. It will be glad to have my template. And I will be glad to go to its world. I think I can manage to form lungs as well as gills, in that context.” As she spoke, her hand was sinking into the blob.
“Then when you get there, tell Millie the Ghost what happened,” Dolph said. “She’s not really a ghost, she’s the Zombie Master’s wife. She’s nice. She’ll help you find suitable water.”
“Thank you.” Aurora’s arm had disappeared to the elbow. Now she stepped the rest of the way in, and disappeared into the blob.
Ida walked over and clapped her hands over the blob. “Wake!” she said sharply.
The blob quivered as if surprised. Then it faded. But as it did, it assumed the form of the winged mermaid.
Ida looked at them. “Thank you so much. I’m sure Aurora will be much happier in your world. Now please do go on to Dumbbell.”
They linked hands and focused on that little world. Soon it expanded, until it was a massive planet with two centers, connected by a bar. Dolph became a full-sized roc bird and sailed down, looking for the glowing footprints.
“I presume the inhabitants of this world are not very smart,” Dor remarked.
“Zombies aren’t smart either,” Bink said. “Maybe this is the one.”
Dolph flew down to one of the swollen ends of the world and circled it, descending ever closer, peering down. As with the other moons, there were varied features of the terrain, and signs of habitation. As before, he soon got used to the notion that this was a full-sized world with its own identity. It was mind-bogglingly tiny in one sense, but full-sized in another.
He spied a glow. He circled down, and sure enough, there were the prints. They started at the middle of the bulge, and went toward the connecting rod. He followed.
It was weird flying low overland as the rod came into view over the horizon. Now it looked like an impossibly massive and tall tower rising from the plain, with a ball balanced on its end. But as he followed the prints to its base, his orientation changed, and he was able to turn the corner in flight and follow them along the rod, which now seemed level rather than vertical. Only on Planet Pyramid, it seemed, was personal orientation fixed by its plane of origin; on the others the change was automatic. This was easier.
The tracks led to a neat house in the center of the bar. Dolph glided to a landing in a nearby field, and changed back to human form. “Good job, son,” Dor said. “We are making better progress.
They approached the house. There was Ida, exercising in her garden. She was human rather than crossbreed, but was remarkable in another way: she was massively muscular. In fact she was lifting solid hand weights that were shaped exactly like the planet itself.
“Hello,” Dor called.
She turned. “Oh, you would be the next group,” she said.
“Yes. We are looking for the Zombie Master.”
“You missed him by an hour. He went on to Pincushion.” She angled her head, bringing her moon into view. Sure enough, it looked just like a pincushion.
“Why are you exercising?” Dolph asked.
“Oh that’s right, you are from another world. I don’t know how magic works there, but here it is directly related to physical strength. So we all are concerned about our development.” She heaved the weights over her head, showing massive arm muscles.
The men exchanged yet another glance. They had thought the inhabitants would be stupid. Instead they were fitness freaks. Ida looked as if she could pick any of them up with one hand.
“If it’s all right with you,” Dor said cautiously, “could we—?”
“Oh, by all means, go ahead,” Ida agreed.
They focused on the pincushion. It expanded, or they shrank, and soon they were flying toward it. This world was perhaps the oddest one yet, because it seemed to be a soft central blob from which hundreds of enormously long, thin pins projected.
Somewhere in here was the Zombie Master’s trail. But where? The pins were like a forest, with many of them hidden by the ones in front, from any perspective.
“Maybe he landed on the cushion, and we can pick up his trail there,” Bink suggested.
So Dolph found a halfway clear place and flew down to the base. The pins crowded in so thickly there that he had to fold his wings and drop the last part of it. But the surface was a soft cushion, so they weren’t hurt.
They made their way through the forest. From here each pin was much larger in diameter than it had seemed from afar, as thick as a thin mountain. When they brushed too close to any, its orientation took over, causing them to rotate so as to stand on its surface. There were no people here; either they lived under the cushion, or up along the pins.
Then they found the prints, and followed them to a pin. They boarded that pin, and walked along its endless length. Now the pin seemed level, and the others near it seemed level too, pacing it like disconnected horizons to the sides and above.
“We need to find a faster way to travel,” Dor said.
“I can’t fly, because my roc wings would bang into the neighboring pins,” Dolph said. Actually that was a slight exaggeration; the other pins weren’t that close. But the area seemed so constricted it made him nervous; he preferred plenty of room as a roc.
“We didn’t bring any travel spells along,” Bink said.
“I’ll ask around,” Dor said. He faced down. “Hey, pin: what’s the best and fastest way to travel along you?”
“Password?” the pin asked.
“What do you mean, password?”
“I am a protected PIN. I give access only via the right password.”
Dor paused. Then he said, “Very well. PASSWORD.”
“Thank you. The best and fastest way to travel along me is to get the flew.”
Dolph realized again that the inanimate wasn’t very smart. When it heard the word “password” it assumed that this must be the correct one.
“Tell me about the flew,” Dor said.
“When you catch it, it makes you sneeze and fly for two minutes.”
“Where can we find it?”
“Just stand in the breeze and suck in whatever’s there, and soon a flew bug will fly by. Make sure you are facing backward.”
So the three of them faced back toward the base of the pin, and breathed deeply. Soon Dolph saw a little bug flying along, so he sucked it in. Immediately he sneezed so violently that he shot backward along the pin. Before he slowed, he sneezed again, and again. By the time the paroxysm abated, he was far along, out of sight of the others. He gasped for breath and wiped his tearing eyes; that had been fast travel, but not the most comfortable.
He heard a distant explosion. It repeated several times. Then Dor came sailing back
ward along the pin, coming to rest just beyond Dolph. He too was gasping and tearing, but otherwise all right.
Finally Bink came along, propelled by similar jets of air.
None of them really liked this mode of travel, but it was effective. So after they had recovered their breaths, they intercepted more flew bugs and did another hitch of sneeze travel. Several bouts of this brought them to the end of the pin.
This was expanded and rounded, and on its knob was a nice little house. There was a tall, thin Ida. “Yes, I know,” she said. “He passed this way half an hour ago. Just go on to Spiral.”
They linked hands and oriented on the spiral-shaped moon spiraling around her head. It expanded until it became a scintillating pattern of sparkling lights. These spiraled inward toward a bulging center that glowed more brightly. There were also streamers of dust that obscured parts of the whole, but it was nevertheless lovely. They centered on one of the outer ends of a band, and searched for the glowing prints. When they weren’t evident, Dolph flew to the next spiral, and there he spied them.
He flew on along the band, not caring to cut straight into the center lest he lose the trail; it was not obvious, because of the competing brightness of the spirals. Soon he came to the bulging center, and there was Ida’s house. She seemed to be a central figure of whatever world she existed in. That seemed to make sense, as each world depended on her, in its fashion.
He landed by her house. She emerged immediately. “Why yes, your friend passed by here just fifteen minutes ago. Go on and find him on Tangle.”
They oriented on her moon, which did indeed look like a tangled blob of string or spaghetti. It did not clarify as they swooped down on it; it seemed impossible to figure out all the intricacies of its convolutions. The prints could be hidden anywhere in this mass.
Dolph flew around and around the thing, but couldn’t locate the prints. They could be in the inside of it, following a string that passed through the center.
“Let’s try the center first,” Dor suggested. “That’s where Ida is likely to be, so is where he’ll be going, as this obviously isn’t a zombie world.”
Dolph flew in to the center, where the worst tangle was. Sure enough, there was a nice little house, and the footprints led up to it.
He landed, and they approached. This Ida looked heavyset, as if she had eaten too much pasta. “You missed your friend by five minutes,” she said. “Go on after him on Motes.”
Her moon was a small cloud of dust. They oriented on it, and soon were approaching what turned out to be a cluster of little stones. Of medium stones. Of larger stones. Of great rocks. Of planetoids. In fact, the swarm was made of hundreds of rocky bits, each large enough to support a village.
How could they find footprints, when there was no land between rocks?
“Go to the center,” Dor recommended. “Maybe we can catch him before he reaches Ida.”
Dolph flew toward the center of the swarm. But before he reached it, he saw a glowing footprint. He veered toward it, but soon found that the trail abruptly ended.
“He must have jumped,” Dor said.
Dolph saw that the last prints were opposite another planetoid, so he flew across to that one. Sure enough, the prints resumed. He followed them around the rock—and there, suddenly, was the Zombie Master. He was about to jump toward another rock.
“Wait!” Dor cried. “We need to talk to you!”
Surprised, the Zombie Master waited. Dolph landed nearby, discovering that his weight was very small here, and changed form. Then the three of them approached Jonathan. He looked extremely old, but that was because he was. Dolph suspected that the Good Magician gave him doses of youth elixir to prevent him from becoming too old. He was almost nine hundred years old chronologically, and somewhere around one hundred physically, because he had spent eight hundred years as a zombie.
“Hello Dor and Dolph,” he said. “And—?”
“Bink,” Bink filled in. “Chameleon and I were just youthened.”
“How have you come to enter my dream?”
“We needed to talk with you, so Millie let us sniff the sleep potion,” Dor said. “The zombies are all stirred up in Xanth, and we need to know why, so we can get them settled before the big wedding. Wedding guests don’t much like zombies.”
“Wedding? Who is getting married?”
“We don’t know, but Jenny Elf is writing a huge pile of invitations, and many of us have important roles in it.”
“That’s interesting. Unfortunately I don’t know why the zombies are stirred up. It is not by any design of mine. I had noticed the effect, and made inquiries, but had not received news by the time I started this excursion to locate a zombie world. When I do find the world, there should be no further problem.”
“But how can the zombies reach it?” Dolph asked. “They can’t go physically, can they?”
“They won’t have to. They can dream their way to it, once I find the way.”
“Zombies dream?”
“Of course. And they sleep quietly in their graves while dreaming. Unlike living folk, they can remain asleep indefinitely without deteriorating more than usual.”
“That does seem like a good solution to the problem,” Bink said. “Do you think you will find a zombie world soon?”
“I certainly hope to. There seems to be an endless chain of worlds, and since they embrace all the realms of maybe, one is bound to be suitable. I mean to locate it, mark it, and establish a direct route to it. Then most of the zombies can get to it within a couple of days.”
Dor nodded. “That’s not the information we were seeking, but it seems just as good. So we can go home and report that probably the problem will abate before the wedding.”
“That seems likely,” the Zombie Master agreed.
“Then we had better let you be on your way, and we will return to Xanth and make our report.”
“Tell Millie I am making progress,” the Zombie Master said.
Dor nodded. Then the three of them linked hands, and focused on waking up.
7
ROAD TO THE ISLES
They came to a slightly larger chamber where a woman worked. She was tall, shapely, and veiled. She spied Breanna and Wira, and spun about to face them. “So you dare enter my lair, my foul feathered fiend!” she declaimed. “This time you shall not escape my love!” Her hair rose up on its own, and turned out to be composed of little snakes that hissed in time to the speech.
Breanna halted, taken aback. What had she done this time?
But Wira was unperturbed. “Mother Gorgon, this is Breanna of the Black Wave, and Justin Tree.” She turned to face Breanna. “And this is the Gorgon, the Good Magician’s Designated Wife for this month. She’s an actress in the dream realm.”
“Rehearsing a role,” the Gorgon agreed. “In a really bad dream.”
Oh. “But what’s bad about love?” Breanna asked.
“The sight of the Gorgon’s face turns living folk to stone,” Justin murmured.
“Love is wonderful,” the Gorgon said. “But in this case, I shall bare my face and kiss the miscreant. So will my snakes. He will wake screaming.”
“I hope he deserves it,” Breanna said, slightly shaken.
“Oh, he does, he does,” the Gorgon said with satisfaction.
“Mother Gorgon, Breanna needs protection,” Wira said.
“Don’t be silly, child; no one will hurt her here.”
Wira was clearly no child, but it was also clear that the Gorgon liked her. “She must travel with Ralph.”
“Ralph!” the Gorgon exclaimed indignantly. “He’s the one this dream is for! He is nasty, rude, scheming, selfish, stubborn, cruel, hateful, dirty, and generally reprehensible. Why would anyone travel with him?”
“Because he knows the way to the Isle of Women.”
“Oh, that.” The Gorgon sighed. “Then she had better have the protection racket.” She reached into her ample bosom and pulled out a tiny toy tennis racket. “Keep
this on you at all times, child, especially when you sleep,” she said, offering it to Breanna. “It will protect you from all physical harm.”
“Thank you,” Breanna said, accepting it. She looked for a pocket, but her slip had none. She also realized, belatedly, that when she lost her clothing she had also lost her knife. That made her feel naked in another way.
“If you are going to travel, you had better dress the part,” the Gorgon said. She studied Breanna from under her veil. “You are full fleshed, but I think one of Wira’s dresses would fit you well enough.”
“I will fetch one,” Wira said immediately. She hurried out.
“Meanwhile you are surely hungry,” the Gorgon continued. “I have some Gorgon-zola cheese.” She lifted a plate from the table.
“Thank you,” Breanna said, taking a chunk. She bit into it, and found it very good.
“I am serious about wearing that racket,” the Gorgon said. “Ralph is the kind of jerk who doesn’t pay much attention to the Adult Conspiracy.”
“Don’t protest,” Justin advised. “Ask her what she means.”
It seemed apt. “What do you mean, Gorgon?”
“You look to be about fifteen, so I can’t be too specific. But some ilk aren’t much concerned if a girl is underage. He might try to summon the stork with you.”
That was specific enough. “I wouldn’t like that,” Breanna agreed. “But you say this little racket will protect me?”
“It will, dear. But only if it is on your body. Make sure not to lose it.”
Good advice! “I will make sure,” Breanna agreed.
Wira returned with a nice blue dress. Breanna put it on over her head, and it did fit well enough, though it bound here and there. It had zipper pockets, so she put the little racket into one.
“You may be in doubt about the protection,” the Gorgon said. “Perhaps you should test it.”
She was indeed in doubt. “Test it?”
“Try to hurt yourself.”
So Breanna tried to bend one of her own fingers backward. It wouldn’t bend. She tried punching the wall, not hard. It didn’t hurt. She punched harder. Still no effect. So she put all her force into it. Her fist made a hole in the wall, but she felt no pain, and her hand was uninjured. “This is neat,” she said appreciatively.
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