Piers Anthony - Castle Roogna

"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.