"What's it for? It's pretty."
"People play stupid games with it. I understand the main game is very tedious--a bunch of players spread themselves out around the diamond and simply wait, and someone else throws the ball, and another stands with a stick resting on his shoulder and watches the ball go by him three or four times, and then either he gets mad and quits trying, or he runs around the diamond. Then they start over."
Ivy's smooth little brow furrowed in a fair emulation of her mother's expression at times like this. "That's no fun! Who does that?"
"Mundanes, mostly. They are strange creatures and, I suspect, not too bright. Otherwise they would take more of an interest in magic, instead of pretending it doesn't exist. What can you say about a person who refuses to believe in magic?"
"That he deserves his own dullness."
"That's a most astute remark!" The yak glanced ahead, hearing something. "Hark! I think I hear a game now!"
They walked on toward the sound. Two centaurs were doing something. "No, that's not a baseball diamond they're throwing. It must be some other game."
Indeed it was. Two wooden stakes had been pounded into the ground, and the centaurs were taking turns hurling shoes from a nearby shoe tree at them. They were the type of shoes human folk used, with shoelaces and all. One shoe would land leaning up against a stake, but the next one would knock it away. Finally one centaur managed to hang a shoe up on the stake, whereupon he clapped his hands and the other grimaced.
"Oh, that makes you look so sick you'll need a new croggle-test!" the winner teased the loser.
"Equines need regular croggle-tests," the yak explained privately to Ivy. "To make sure they haven't been infected by magic. It is very bad to be croggled."
Ivy felt a little croggled herself, though she was not an equine. Some of her best friends were magic-infected centaurs, but she knew that most centaurs rejected magic as determinedly as the Mundanes did. "What are you playing?" she called to the centaurs.
"People-shoes, of course," one of them responded absently, then trotted off to pick up his collection.
The yak shrugged. "There's no accounting for tastes," he remarked. "Some folk like to talk, some like to throw shoes."
Ivy agreed it was a strange world. She walked on.
The marvels of the Land of Xanth continued, and the little girl spent all afternoon exploring them, with the yak's helpful commentary continuing incessantly. A passing milksnake gave her a bottle of milk to slake her thirst, and she plucked a lollypop from a pop-sickle plant. Her only bad moment came when a big B buzzed her and she stumbled off the footpath. The yak also stumbled, for it was a bumble B, causing creatures to become clumsy.
Ivy wound up at the base of a large tree, feeling terrible. "Oooh, ugh!" she exclaimed. "What hit me?"
The yak looked none too sanguine himself, but he peered about, seeking the answer. He found it. "The tree!" he exclaimed painfully. "It's a torment pine! We must get away from it!"
Ivy hobbled away, and the farther from the tree she got, the less worse she felt. Finally she got back to the footpath she had bumbled from and felt well again. She would be alert for any more B's, so she would not stumble into any more trees.
But night was nigh, and she was tired. Usually her mother Irene curbed her long before her explorative instincts were sated, so she got frustrated but not tired. This time it was the other way around. "I want to go to bed," she said and paused in momentary shock, realizing she had spoken heresy. No child ever wanted to go to bed! So she qualified it. "I don't want the monster under the bed to be lonely."
"Then you should go home," the yak pointed out.
"Home?" she asked, baffled. "What's that?"
The yak looked at her in perplexity. "That would be the place where your mother lives. And your father, the--" Here the yak paused to smirk. "--the King of Xanth. Where you stay when you don't have anything better to do. Where your bed is."
Still her little brow furrowed. "Where?"
The yak was puzzled. "You mean to say you don't know? How can you remember your mother and your bed without remembering your home?"
Ivy shook her head, confused.
"Where did you come from before you met me?"
She pondered. "Don't remember."
"How could you forget your own home?" the yak persisted.
"I don't know." She began to cry.
The yak was disconcerted. "Here, I'll find a bed bug. They make very nice beds." He began to cast about, looking for a bed bug.
There was the faintest of swirls in the air, not so much a breeze as the mere suggestion of motion. Ivy almost remembered being near something like this before, but not quite. The yak, intent on his mission, walked right through that swirl. He stopped, looking perplexed. "What am I doing here?" he asked, switching his tail.
"You're my friend," Ivy said, her sniffles abating for the moment. "You're looking for a--"
"I don't remember you!" the yak exclaimed. "I don't remember anything! I'm lost!" Alarmed, he galloped off,
Ivy stared after him. It seemed she had found the way to shut him up--but she was not pleased. She had lost her only immediate friend.
She walked along the path, trying to catch up to the yak, but he had forgotten her and was already out of sight. Once she thought she saw him, but it was only the chocolate moose, who was going in the opposite direction and didn't wait for her.
It was darkening now, and the pleasant trees were turning ugly. She ran and tripped over a root that lifted to snag her toe. She skinned her knees in the fall and got dirt in her face. This was too much. Ivy sat in the path and wailed. She was, after all, only three years old.
Something heard the noise and came toward her, half slithering, half whomping through the underbrush. It had six legs and green, metallic scales, and it steamed, and it was hungry. Ivy heard it and looked up in time to stare into the horrendous little countenance of the rejuvenated Gap Dragon.
Chapter 4
Zora Zombie
Irene was fuming. She had, as it turned out, wasted precious time traveling to the Good Magician's castle, and now she was losing more. Of course, she had helped the Gorgon, and that was worthwhile--but what was happening to Ivy meanwhile? The Xanth jungle was no place for a three-year-old child alone!
She glanced at the little plant perched in an upper pocket. It was a miniature variety of ivy, enchanted to relate to the child Ivy. As long as the plant was healthy, so was Ivy. If the plant wilted, that meant trouble or illness. If the plant died--
Irene shook her head. The plant was healthy; no point in worrying about what might be. She knew her daughter was all right and had known it all along. It was the future that worried her. All she had to do was find her daughter--soon.
The roc deposited her at Castle Zombie. "Wait here," she told it. "There'll be a return delivery." She hurried inside.
Millie the Ghost came to meet her. "Listen carefully," Irene said without preamble. "Good Magician Humfrey has been turned into a baby, and his son Hugo is lost. The Gorgon will look for Hugo, but needs a baby-sitter for Humfrey. A roc is waiting outside to take Lacuna there. Is that all right with you? Good. Go tell Lacuna. Where's Dor?"
"Out looking for Ivy," Millie said, taken aback by the rush of information. "They all are--but there's so much jungle to search--"
"I'll find him myself," Irene said impatiently. "You see to Lacuna." She hurried back outside, leaving the older woman to her confusion. Actually, she was sure Lacuna would be thrilled to get roc-transport; that was a most unusual mode of travel for ordinary people.
"Where's Dor?" Irene demanded of the nearest zombie.
The mottled face worked, trying to assemble an answer. A hand came up to scratch the nose, and the nose fell off. "Wwhhooo?" the creature whistled.
"My husband!" Irene snapped. "Dor. The King, you imbecile! Where's the King?"
Decayed comprehension came. "Kkemmm," the thing said, and pointed a skeletal extremity to the north.
&nb
sp; "Thaankss," Irene said, mimicking it, though what scant humor the action might have had was wasted on a thing whose brain was glop. She rushed north.
Soon she encountered a centaur. It was Chem. "Hello, Irene!" the filly called.
Chem was a few years younger than Irene, but centaurs aged more slowly than human beings did, so she was now in the flush of nubility. In human terms, Chem would have been about the age of the twins. Hiatus and Lacuna, or a little older. She was certainly an attractive specimen of her kind now, with fair hair falling from her head to touch the equine shoulder, and a full and bare bosom of the centaur kind. Of course, Chem's appearance was nothing new to Irene; she had ridden the centaur from Castle Roogna to Castle Zombie, a journey of several hours by hoof and longer by foot. But she gained a clearer picture of Chem, seeing her standing alone in the forest. This filly was currently well worth the attention of a male of her species, but as far as Irene knew, there was no immediate prospect. There were not many of the magic-performing centaurs, and the other kind would not have anything to do with them. This meant, unfortunately, that Chem had a quite reasonable chance for spinsterhood, attractive though she was.
"Oh, ouch, no!" Irene exclaimed, making a connection. "That zombie said, 'Chem,' instead of 'King.'"
The centaur frowned. "What's the matter?"
"I was looking for my husband!"
"Aren't we all," Chem murmured, frowning again. But in an instant she smiled. "He's searching southside, with Chet. I can take you to them. Grundy says Ivy's not in this region anyway."
"Grundy?" Irene asked blankly.
"Me--Grundy the Golem," the little creature said from the foot of a tree, insolently pretending she did not remember him. Grundy seldom did anything politely that he could do impolitely, and prided himself on being obnoxious. But he did care, and was a reliable aid in emergencies. "I came to help search. Chem's taking me from glade to glade, and I'm asking all the local flora." He ran to rejoin Chem, who reached down to pick him up. Grundy was so small he could sit comfortably in her hand.
"Well, take me to Dor," Irene said, mounting the centaur behind the golem. She had never really liked Grundy, but had to concede that he could be useful at a time like this, and it was nice of him to volunteer.
Chem galloped south, dodging around trees and boulders and hurdling ruts. Centaurs liked to run, and they were good at it. Soon the threesome located King Dor.
Irene rattled out her story about the fate of the Good Magician. "So I've got to find my daughter myself," she concluded. She didn't even need to ask whether Dor had found Ivy; she knew he had not. She had known at the outset of this crisis, in her heart, that only she could handle it properly. Why else had she suffered the horrible vision?
"That doesn't necessarily follow," Dor said with his annoying masculine reasonableness. "Our search pattern should in due course succeed--"
"I'm her mother!" Irene cried, refuting all further argument.
The familiar look of male bafflement and resignation passed across his face. "Well, if you ride Chem, with Grundy along--"
It hadn't occurred to Irene to join forces more permanently with the centaur, and certainly not with the golem; but actually, that was not a bad idea, especially if it allayed Dor's hesitancy.
Irene glanced at Chem to see if she were amenable. She was. "Of course," Irene agreed, as if that had been the intent from the start.
"And take a zombie--"
"A zombie!"
"They know the area," he pointed out. "And you can send it back to the castle if you get in trouble. That is, if you should need to send a message back." He was correcting his slip; naturally, she would not be the one to get in trouble. "Then the Zombie Master will know where to send assistance."
"You're not objecting to my going?" Irene asked, just to make quite sure he knew he did not.
"Dear, I know you work best in your own way. I'll return to Castle Roogna and consult with Crombie and check the arsenal. There should be something that will help, in case you don't find Ivy soon. Meanwhile, with Humfrey out of business, I had better be available at home so you'll know where to get in touch with me. There is also the matter of the forget-whorls to handle."
This did make some sense, she had to concede. She had anticipated more argument from him, but evidently he was learning the uselessness of that. He really would not be able to help locate Ivy from Castle Roogna, because, though Crombie the soldier's talent lay in pointing out the direction of anything, Crombie was now so old and frail that his talent was unreliable. But with Dor safely back at Castle Roogna, she would not have to worry about anything happening to him and could concentrate completely on the immediate mission. "I'll keep going until I find Ivy," she promised. "It shouldn't be long. She can't have wandered far."
"True," Dor agreed wanly. Suddenly Irene realized what his real motive was--he was half afraid Ivy was in deeper trouble than mere separation from her family and he wanted to locate some magic means to confirm or deny this without alarming Irene herself. He had an ivy plant of his own, so knew the child was healthy--but this disappearance was already more serious than it had first seemed. With the forget-whorls moving through the area, taking out people randomly...
Dor was letting her keep her hope as long as possible. She would let him keep his. Irene kissed him in silent thanks for what he hadn't said, then remounted Chem. "You," she said, pointing to the nearest zombie. "Come with us." Anything to satisfy her husband, who was trying so hard to do what he thought was right. The zombie would be a nuisance, but maybe she would find Ivy soon, so it wouldn't matter.
The centaur started walking. Irene waved good-bye, then turned her face forward, knowing Dor would be watching her as long as she remained in sight. The designated zombie shuffled along behind.
"Hey, you plants!" Grundy called. "Any of you see a little girl pass by this afternoon?" This was for the others' notice; actual plant language was largely inaudible and wholly incomprehensible to the human ear. The golem would repeat the message in the dialects of any plants and animals he saw.
After a pause, Grundy shook his head. "None here," he reported. "But I guess we already knew that. We'd better circle around the castle until we pick up Ivy's trail. It's got to be here somewhere."
"Let's see a map of the area," Irene told Chem. "We can pick the best route for circling the castle."
Chem projected her map. It formed in the air before her, a three-dimensional representation of Castle Zombie and the region around it. But portions were fuzzy. "What's wrong with your picture, horserump?" Grundy asked, his normal lack of diplomacy evident.
"I'm not familiar with this region," the centaur explained, unruffled. Centaur stallions, like human males, could have bad tempers, but the fillies were femininely stable. "I didn't have time to explore much of it before the Dragon came. I have to see it before I can map it."
"Then what good is your talent, marebrain?" Grundy demanded.
Irene felt a tinge of ire at his insolence but kept her mouth shut; Chem could take care of herself.
"I never get lost, ragbrain," Chem said evenly. Actually, the golem's original head had been wood, not rag, but it was a fair insult. Now, of course, Grundy was alive, with a living brain. "Once I've been to a place, I've got it on my map. So I can always find my way back."
The golem, realizing that insult would be met with insult, shut up and concentrated on his business. They circled Castle Zombie clockwise; three-quarters of the way around, Grundy picked up the trail. They had actually spiraled out somewhat and were now a fair distance from the castle.
"This armor-dillo plant saw her pass!" Grundy exclaimed.
He pointed east. "That way."
Irene controlled her thrill of joy. They hadn't completed the rescue yet.
"Odd direction to go," Chem remarked, "Didn't you say you saw the zombie carry her west, not east?"
"That's right!" Irene agreed, her gratification at finding the trail tempered by this surprise. "She couldn't have wandered
all the way around the castle!"
"Ask the 'dillo how Ivy arrived," Chem told Grundy. The golem queried the plant, using a series of rustlings and creakings and pickle-crunching sounds. "She just toddled up from the direction of the castle," he reported. "She didn't look as if she'd walked far."
Irene hesitated, athwart a dilemma. She wanted to recover her lost child as soon as possible, but knew that in the Xanth wilderness it was best to take no mystery on faith. If she found out how Ivy had traveled this far, she might have an important clue to where she was going.
"We'd better check this," she decided, hoping she wasn't wasting critical time on something irrelevant. "Go back and trace how Ivy got here."
"You know it's late," Grundy reminded her. "If she's caught out here at night--"
"I know," Irene agreed. "I dread that. But this may be important. There's a mystery here that may have bearing. However she got from west of the castle to east of the castle, she may do it again to get somewhere else, while we are looking in the wrong place."
The golem shrugged his tiny shoulders. "It's her funeral."
Irene suppressed the urge to hurl the miniature man into the nearest tangle tree. "Just ask the plants," she said between her teeth.
Chem moved toward the castle. Grundy queried the vegetation along the way. "They haven't seen her here," he reported.
The group backtracked, checking more closely. The zombie, who had been dutifully trailing the centaur, did its best to help, peering into the bushes on either side.
Ivy's trail commenced near the armor-dillo. The plants there said she had walked from the west, but the plants to the west did not remember her.
"Something extremely peculiar here," Chem said. "She can't be traveling intermittently."
Irene spotted something in a nearby field. It was a large animal. For an instant her chest tightened; then she saw it was a grazing creature, not a carnivore. "Maybe that--whatever it is--saw Ivy," she said.
Dragon on a Pedestal Page 6
