Piers Anthony - Castle Roogna

The goblin leader gave a gap-toothed grin of joyous malice. Anybody we catch is hereby impressed into the goblin army! He grabbed a faun by the arm. The faun was substantially larger than the goblin, but seemed unable to defend himself, paralyzed by fear.

The nymphs screamed and dived for water, trees, and mountains. So did the fauns. Dor saw that there were only eight goblins, and a hundred or more fauns and nymphs. Why didnt they fight?

Dors hand went for his sword. Wait, friend, Jumper chittered, waving several of his legs agitatedly. This is not our affair.

Thats five, the goblin sergeant said. One more good one we need. His eyes fell on Dor and Jumper. Kill the bug; take the man.

Dor reached once more for his sword and said grimly, I think it has just become our affair.

A Del Rey Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright 1979 by Piers Anthony Jacob

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Del Rey Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Del Rey is a registered trademark and the Del Rey colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

www.delreybooks.com

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 79-50375

eISBN: 978-0-345-45432-4

v3.1

M illie the ghost was beautiful. Of course, she wasnt a ghost any more, so she was Millie the nurse. She was not especially bright, and she was hardly young. She was twenty-nine years old as she reckoned it, and about eight hundred and twenty-nine as others reckoned it: the oldest creature currently associated with Castle Roogna. She had been ensorceled as a maid of seventeen, eight centuries ago, when Castle Roogna was young, and restored to life at the time of Dors birth. In the interim she had been a ghost, and the label had never quite worn off. And why should it? By all accounts she had been a most attractive ghost.

Indeed, she had the loveliest glowing hair, flowing like poppycorn silk to the dimpled backs of her knees. The terrain those tresses covered in passing waswashow was it that Dor had never noticed it before? Millie had been his nurse all these years, taking care of him while his parents were busy, and they tended to be busy a great deal of the time.

Oh, he understood that well enough. He told others that the King trusted his parents Bink and Chameleon, and anyone the King trusted was bound to be very busy, because the Kings missions were too important to leave to nobodies. All that was true enough. But Dor knew his folks didnt have to accept all those important missions that took them all over the Land of Xanth and beyond. They simply liked to travel, to be away from home. Right now they were far away, in Mundania, and nobody went to Mundania for pleasure. It was because of him, because of his talent.

Dor remembered years ago when he had talked to the double bed Bink and Chameleon used, and asked it what had happened overnight, just from idle curiosity, and it had saidwell, it had been quite interesting, especially since Chameleon had been in her beauty stage, prettier and stupider than Millie the ghost, which was going some. But his mother had overheard some of that dialogue, and told his father, and after that Dor wasnt allowed in the bedroom any more. It wasnt that his parents didnt love him, Bink had carefully explained; it was that they felt nervous about what they called invasion of privacy. So they tended to do their most interesting things away from the house, and Dor had learned not to pry. Not when and where anyone in authority could overhear, at any rate.

Millie took care of him; she had no privacy secrets. True, she didnt like him talking to the toilet, though it was just a pot that got emptied every day into the back garden where dung beetles magicked the stuff into sweet-smelling roses. Dor couldnt talk to roses, because they were alive. He could talk to a dead rosebut then it remembered only what had happened since it was cut, and that wasnt very much. And Millie didnt like him making fun of Jonathan. Apart from that she was quite reasonable, and he liked her. But he had never really noticed her shape before.

Millie was very like a nymph, with all sorts of feminine projections and softnesses and things, and her skin was as clear as the surface of a milkweed pod just before it got milked. She usually wore a light gauzy dress that lent her an ethereal quality strongly reminiscent of her ghosthood, yet failed to conceal excitingly gentle contours beneath. Her voice was as soft as the call of a wraith. Yet she had more wit than a nymph, and more substance than a wraith. She had

Oh, what the fudge am I trying to figure out? Dor demanded aloud.

How should I know? the kitchen table responded irritably. It had been fashioned from gnarled acorn wood, and it had a crooked temper.

Millie turned, smiling automatically. She had been washing plates at the sink; she claimed it was easier to do them by hand than to locate the proper cleaning spell, and probably for her it was. The spell was in powder form, and it came in a box the spell-caster made up at the palace, and the powder was forever running out. Few things were more annoying than chasing all over the yard after running powder. So Millie didnt take a powder; she scrubbed the dishes herself. Are you still hungry, Dor?

No, he said, embarrassed. He was hungry, but not for food. If hunger was the proper term.

There was a hesitant, somewhat sodden knock on the door. Millie glanced across at it, her hair rippling down its luxuriant length. That will be Jonathan, she said brightly.

Jonathan the zombie. Dor scowled. It wasnt that he had anything special against zombies, but he didnt like them around the house. They tended to drop putrid chunks of themselves as they walked, and they were not pretty to look at. Oh, what do you see in that bag of bones? Dor demanded, hunching his body and pulling his lips in around his teeth to mimic the zombie mode.

Why, Dor, that isnt nice! Jonathan is an old friend. Ive known him for centuries. No exaggeration! The zombies had haunted the environs of Castle Roogna as long as the ghosts had. Naturally the two types of freaks had gotten to know each other.

But Millie was a woman now, alive and whole and firm. Extremely firm, Dor thought as he watched her move trippingly across the kitchen to the back door. Jonathan was, in contrast, a horribly animated dead man. A living corpse. How could she pay attention to him?

Beauty and the beast, he muttered savagely. Frustrated and angry, Dor stalked out of the kitchen and into the main room of the cottage. The floor was smooth, hard rind, polished until it had become reflective, and the walls were yellow-white. He banged his fist into one. Hey, stop that! the wall protested. Youll fracture me. Im only cheese, you know!

Dor knew. The house was a large, hollowed-out cottage cheese, long since hardened into rigidity. When it had grown, it had been alive; but as a house it was dead, and therefore he could talk to it. Not that it had anything worth saying.

Dor stormed on out the front door. Dont you dare slam me! it warned, but he slammed it anyway, and heard its shaken groan behind him. That door always had been more ham than cheese.