Castle Roogna

by Piers Anthony

  "Hoo-rah!" the bird cried exultantly, flapping its wings so that papers, leaves, and feathers flew about in a miniature windstorm within the nest. Then it took off.

  It seemed this bird liked to collect things. Dor had become part of the collection. Was he the first man so collected, since he saw no other here? Or had the others been eaten? No, he saw no human bones. Not that that proved anything; the bird could digest the bones along with the flesh. Probably he had become collect-worthy because he had seemed to be a flying man: an unusual species.

  Dor made his way past the bric-a-brac to the nearest rim of the nest so that he could peer over. But all he could see were layers of leaves. He was sure he was far up in the tree, however; it would be suicidal to jump. Could he climb down? The limb of the tree on which the nest perched was round, smooth-barked, and moist; only the fact that it branched at the base of the nest made it possible for anything to remain on top of it. Dor was almost certain he would fall off. He simply was not a good climber.

  He knew he should make a decision soon, and take action before the Hoorah bird returned, but he found himself paralyzed with objections to any positive course. To jump was to fall and die; to climb was to fall and die; to remain here was--to be eaten? "I don't know what to do!" he cried, near tears.

  "That's easy," the unicorn statue said. "Make a rope from fragments of the Hoorah's nest, and let yourself down to the ground."

  "Not from my substance!" the nest protested.

  Dor took hold of a piece of cord and yanked it out of the nest. It snapped readily. He drew on some long straw with similar result. He tried for some cloth; it, too, lacked cohesion. He took hold of the silver wire, but it was so fine it cut into his hands. "You're right, nest," he said, "Not from your substance." He looked about, however, taking some faint heart. "Any other notion, things?"

  "I am a magic ring," a golden circlet said. "Put me on and make a wish, any wish, any wish at all. I am all-powerful."

  Then how had it ended up here? But he couldn't afford to be too choosy. Dor put it on his little finger. "I wish I were safe on the ground."

  Nothing happened. "The ring is a liar," the werewolf dropping growled.

  "I am not!" the ring cried. "It just takes a little time. A little patience. Have faith in me. I'm out of practice, that's all."

  Its statement was greeted by a rumble of derisive laughter from many other artifacts of the Hoorah's nest. Dor cleared junk from one area and lay down, trying to think of something. But his mind would not perform.

  Then a hairy leg came up over the rim of the nest, followed by another, and a pair of huge green eyes plus a collection of smaller black eyes. "Jumper!" Dor cried, delighted. "How did you find me?"

  "I never needed to search for you," the spider chittered, hauling his pretty abdomen over the brim. That variegated fur-face had never looked so good! "As a matter of routine I attached a dragline to you. When the Hoorah took you, I was carried along behind, though at a fair distance. I daresay I was virtually invisible. I did get hung up on the tree, but once I climbed the line to its end I found you."

  "That's great! I was afraid I'd never see you again!"

  "You forget I need your magic to escape this world." Actually their dialogue was not nearly this concise, because Jumper still did not know many human words, but it seemed like normal conversation in retrospect. "Now shall we depart?"

  "Yes."

  Jumper attached a new line to Dor and made ready to lower him down through the foliage. But just then they heard the beat of huge wings. The Hoorah was returning!

  Jumper sprang out of the nest and disappeared below. Dor, alarmed, remembered almost immediately that no spider ever fell; his dragline protected him. Dor might have jumped similarly, but wasn't sure his own dragline was properly anchored. The Hoorah's approach had become audible just when Jumper was seeing to it, interrupting the process.

  Or maybe, Dor reminded himself savagely, he was simply too scared to do what he had to, in time.

  The Hoorah's mishmash plumage appeared. It covered the nest. Something dropped. "Hoo-rah!" Then the bird was off again on its insatiable mission of collection.

  The thing most recently deposited stirred. It flung limbs about, and a curtain of hair. It righted itself and sat up.

  Dor stared.

  It was a woman. A young, pretty, girl-type maiden.

  Chapter 4

  Monsters

  As the big bird disappeared, Jumper climbed back over the side of the nest. The girl spied him and screamed. She flung her hair about. She kicked her feet. She was a healthy young thing with a penetrating scream, marvelous blond tresses, and extremely well-formed legs.

  "It's all right!" Dor cried, not certain whether he was thinking more of the situation, which was hardly all right, or of her exposed legs, which were more than all right. This body really noticed such things! "He's a friend! Don't bring back the Hoorah!"

  The maiden's head snapped about to face him. She seemed almost as alarmed by Dor as by the huge spider. "Who are you? How do you know?"

  "I'm Dor," he said simply. Maybe one year he would learn how to introduce himself to a lady with flair! "The spider is my companion."

  Distrustfully, she watched Jumper. "Ooo, ugly! I've never seen a monster like that before. I think I'd rather be eaten by the bird. At least it's familiar."

  "Jumper's not ugly! He doesn't eat people. They don't taste good."

  She whirled to face him again, and once more her golden hair flung out in a spiral swirl. She looked suddenly familiar. But he was sure he had not seen her here before; he had encountered no girls here in the past. "How does he know?"

  "We were attacked by a band of goblins. He tasted one."

  "Goblins! They aren't real people! Of course they taste bad!"

  "How do you know?" Dor countered, using her own query.

  "It just stands to reason that a sweet maid like me tastes better than any old messy goblin!"

  Dor found it hard to refute that logic. Certainly he would rather kiss her than a goblin.

  Now what had put that thought in his mind?

  "I am unable to follow your full dialogue," Jumper said. "But I gather the female of your species does not trust me."

  "Right on target, monster!" she agreed.

  "Uh!, you do take some getting used to," Dor said. "You, un, appear as strange to her as she does to you."

  Jumper was startled. "It could not be that extreme!"

  "Well, maybe I exaggerated." Diplomacy or truth?

  The thing actually talks!" the girl exclaimed. "Only it throws its voice to your shoulder."

  "Well, that's hard to explain--"

  "Nevertheless," Jumper cut in, "we had better vacate this nest quickly."

  "Why does its voice come from your shoulder?" the girl insisted. Evidently she had a lively curiosity.

  "I made a translation web," Dor explained. "Jumper's voice is the chitter. You should at least say hello to him,"

  "Oh." She leaned forward, giving Dor his first conscious peek down into a buxom bodice. Stunned, he stood stock-still. "Hello, Jumper-monster," she said to the web.

  "Wow!" said the web. "Get a load of that--"

  "You don't have to speak to the web," Dor said quickly, though he was sorry to undeceive her. Now she wouldn't be leaning on him any more. A background region of his mind wondered why a spiderweb would care to remark on the particular view offered, as it was surely not of interest to spiders.

  "...yellow silk," the web finished, even as Dor's guilty thought progressed. Oh--of course. Spiders were interested in silk, and colored silk would be a novelty.

  "That's hair, not silk," he murmured. Then, more loudly to the girl: "Jumper understands you without the web."

  "About vacating the nest--" Jumper chittered.

  "Yes! Can you make another dragline for her?"

  "Immediately." Jumper moved toward the girl.

  "Eeeeek!" she screamed, flinging her silk about "The hairy monster's going to
eat me!"

  "Be quiet!" Dor snapped, losing patience despite the impression her attributes had made on him. Either this body had singular appetites, or he had been missing a whole dimension of experience all his prior life! "You'll bring back the Hoorah."

  She quietened reluctantly. "I won't let that thing near me."

  She would talk to the spider, but not cooperate with him. She seemed almost as juvenile as Dor himself. "I can't carry you down," he told her. "I'm only--" He broke off. He was no longer a twelve-year-old boy in body, but a powerful man. "Well, maybe I can. Jumper, will the line hold two of us?"

  "Indubitably. I have only to make a stronger cable," the spider chittered, his spinnerets already at work. In moments he had made a new harness for Dor, with a stronger cable.

  Meanwhile the girl, with her irrepressible feminine curiosity, was exploring the nest. "Oh, jewels!" she exclaimed, clapping her cute little hands together excitedly,

  "What kind?" Dor asked, wondering whether they would be useful for buying food or shelter later on. Jewels were not nearly as valuable in Xanth as in Mundania, but many people liked them.

  "We are cultured pearls," several voices chorused. "Most refined and well mannered, with our lineage dating back to the emperor of all oysters. We are aristocrats among jewels."

  "Oh, I'll take you!" the girl cried, seeming unsurprised at their speech. She scooped them up and filled her apron pockets.

  Now they heard the Hoorah returning. Dor put his left arm around the girl's slender and supple waist and lifted her easily off her feet; what power this body had! Maybe it wasn't his muscles so much as her lack of mass; she was featherlike though firmly fleshed. There must be a special magic about girls like this, he thought, to make them full yet light. He leaped over the edge of the nest, trusting Jumper's dragline to preserve them from a fall. The girl screamed, kicked her feet, and flung her hair in his face. "Quiet," he said around a mouthful of golden strands, holding her close so she wouldn't wriggle loose. He was feeling very heroistic at the moment

  The line went taut. It was springy, like a big rubber band from a rubber tree. They bounced back up almost to the base of the nest. The girl jiggled against him, all soft and intriguing in a fashion he would have liked to understand better. But he had no chance to explore that matter at the moment

  As they steadied, Jumper came down to join them. He did not jerk and bounce; he glided to a controlled halt beside them, for he was paying out his dragline as he went. "I have set up a pulley," he chittered. "My weight will counterbalance yours--but the two of you weigh more than I do, so I'm depending on friction to keep it slow."

  Dor did not follow all of that. But ft the magic called friction could safely lower them, good. They were all three descending at a fair but not frightening rate, and that was satisfactory. The branches of the huge tree were passing interminably, its layers of leaves concealing them from the nest.

  A shadow fell across them. It was the Hoorah bird, circling down to spy out its lost artifacts. In a moment it would spot them, for they were in a slanting sunbeam.

  Dor tried to draw his sword with his right hand, but this was difficult while he was supporting the girl with his left arm. Light she was, but she seemed to be getting heavier. Again, he worried about severing his own lifeline as the blade emerged from its scabbard.

  "Hang still!" Jumper chittered. "A still target is very hard to locate."

  Dor gave up on the sword. But they couldn't hang still. Dor and the girl weighed too much; they kept dropping, while the spider rose, hauled by the magic of the pulley. Jumper grabbed on to a branch with several legs, did something, and scurried along the branch toward the trunk of the tree. Dor and the girl did not fall; Dor realized that Jumper had fastened his line to the branch, halting the pulley action.

  That left Dor and the terrified girl dangling like bait for the Hoorah. She was squirming, twitching her silk, and kicking her feet uselessly. His left arm, despite its mighty thews, was tiring. Pretty soon he'd be down to one thew, then none. Girls certainly were a nuisance at times.

  The Hoorah spied the motion. "Hoo-rah!" it cried, and angled down.

  Suddenly a green and gray-brown shape hurtled at them from the side. It seemed to have a mustached face on it. The girl screamed piercingly and flung out her arms, banging Dor's nose with her cute elbow. He almost dropped her. But the shape was now in contact with them, its momentum shoving them all to the side, swinging on the line until they came up against a leafy branch. The hurtling Hoorah missed, swerving barely in time to avoid smacking its beak into the main tree trunk.

  "I will attempt to distract it," Jumper chittered--for of course he was the one who had rescued them. It was the variegated abdomen face-pattern Dor had noted. "I have tied you to this branch; the bird may not see you if you remain motionless and silent."

  Fat chance! The girl inhaled and opened her pretty mouth to scream again. Dor put his big ugly right hand across it. "Quiet!"

  "Mmmph mmmph, you mmmph!" she mmmphed, one eye above his hand filling with anger while the other eye retained its terror. He hoped she wasn't saying the unmaidenlike thing he feared she was saying; it would be detrimental to her image.

  "Well, if you'd only accepted a dragline for yourself, we wouldn't be in this picklement." Dor whispered back. But he knew that was unfair. The Hoorah had returned too soon, regardless.

  "Come and get me, featherbrain," Jumper chittered from another branch. Of course the translation came from Dor's shoulder. But the spider also waved his forelegs, and that attracted the bird's attention. The Hoorah zoomed toward that branch--and the spider sprang twenty feet to another, chittering vehemently. Dor knew the big bird could not understand Jumper's actual words, but the tone was unmistakable.

  Then again, why shouldn't birds comprehend spider language? The two species interacted often enough. Which illustrated the supreme courage Jumper was displaying, for the thing he most feared was birds. To save his friend and a stranger, the spider was baiting his personal nightmare menace.

  "You can do better than that, squawkhead!" Jumper chittered. And jumped again, as the bird wheeled in the air. The Hoorah was remarkably agile for its size.

  After several futile passes, the bird realized that Jumper was too quick for it to catch. Just as well, as the translations of the spider's insults were turning the girl's ears a delicate shell-pink. The Hoorah looked around, casting about for the other prey. Fortunately all they had to do was remain still and silent.

  Dor, trying to make his fatigued left arm more comfortable, shifted his hold slightly. The girl slipped down a bit, her bosom getting squeezed. She screamed, almost without taking a breath, catching him off guard.

  Oh, no! Dor, needing his right hand to help hold on to the branch, had uncovered her mouth. Foolish mistake!

  The Hoorah oriented immediately on the sound. It zoomed directly toward them. Jumper was behind it, unable to distract it this time. The Hoorah knew easy prey when it found it.

  With the inspiration of desperation, Dor grabbed with his right hand at the girl's clothing, questing for her pockets. Though she wore a showy dress that was cut high at the knees and low at the bodice, her apron covered much of that, and was utilitarian.

  She screamed as if attacked--not unreasonably, in this case--but he continued until he found what he was looking for: the cultured pearls she had picked up from the nest. "What is your pet peeve?" he demanded as he flipped the first pearl into the air.

  "I don't make pets of peeves!" the pearl retorted. "But I hate people who drop me off branches!" It dropped out of sight--and the Hoorah, tracing the sound of its voice, followed it down.

  Jumper half-bounded, half-swung across to them.

  "Marvelous ploy!" he chittered. "Throw the next to the side, and I will lower you quietly to the ground."

  "Right!" Dor agreed. He faced the girl. "And don't scream," he warned.

  She inhaled to scream.

  "Or I'll tickle you!" he threatened.

  T
hat got her. Meekly she let herself deflate. She even handed him a pearl from her apron breast pocket, so he wouldn't have to dig it out himself. That was almost more cooperative than he liked.

  "And what is your peeve?" he inquired of the pearl, and hurled it to the side.

  "I hate uncultured people who can't appreciate cultured pearls!" it cried.

  They heard a "Hoo-rah!" in the distance as the bird went after it The bird certainly appreciated cultured pearls!

  By the time they reached the ground, they were out of pearls--but also out of peril. They had lost the bird. Dor picked up a few sticks of wood for emergency use in case the Hoorah came near again, and the three of them hurried away.

  "You see!" the ring on Dor's finger cried. "I granted your wish! You are safe on the ground!"

  "I guess I can't argue with that," Dor agreed. But he maintained a healthy private reservation.

  Dor judged they were now fairly close to Castle Roogna, since the Hoorah bird had carried them in the right direction, but the day was waning and he didn't want to hurry lest they fall into another trap. So they foraged for supper, locating a few marshmallow bushes and an apple pine and some iced-tea leaves. Jumper tried a bit of pine apple, but declared he preferred crustaceans. The girl had finally come to accept the big spider as a companion, and even allowed Jumper to string her up for the night. She was, she confessed daintily, afraid of bugs and things on the ground, and at the moment was none too keen on birds in trees either.

  Thus the three of them hung comfortably from silken threads, safe from the predators above and below. There were advantages to the arachnid mode, Dor decided.

  Jumper fell silent, no doubt already asleep and recuperating from his formidable exertions of the day. But Dor and the girl talked for a while, in low tones so as not to attract unwanted and/or hazardous attention.