Piers Anthony - Castle Roogna

Millie's softening became something more. "You poor man!" she exclaimed.

"You three are the first who have associated with me without revulsion," the Zombie Master continued. "True, you came begging favors-"

"We didn't understand!" Millie cried. "These two are from another land, far away, and I am only an innocent maid-"

"Yes," the Magician agreed, looking at her with muted intensity. "Innocent, but with a talent that causes others to react."

"Except for the three of you," she said. "Every other man has wanted to grab me. Dor dumped me on the floor." She cast a dark look at him.

"Your friend restrains himself because he is not of your world and must soon depart, and cannot take you with him," the Zombie Master said. Dor was amazed and gratified at the man's comprehension. "He can thus make you no commitments, and is too much the gentleman to take advantage on a temporary basis."

"But I would go with him!" she cried naively.

Jumper interjected a chitter: "It is impossible, maid. There is magic involved."

Her chin thrust forward in cute rebellion.

"Yet if you cared to remain here at my castle, Millie, you could have a life of status-" the Magician began, then reined himself. "But also of isolation. That must be confessed."

"You really have a lot of company," Millie said. "The zombies aren't so bad when you get to know them. They have different personalities. They…can't help it if they're not quite alive."

"They are often better company than the living creatures," the Zombie Master agreed. "They do possess muted emotions and dim memories of their prior lives. It is ignorance that makes them suspect-the ignorance of the majority of normal people. All the zombies need are set jobs to do, and a comfortable grave-site to sleep in between tasks-and acceptance."

Dor listened, noting how Millie and the Magician were coming together, forcing himself to stay out of it. His direct involvement could invalidate anything that happened-if Murphy was right. Yet it bothered him increasingly, this attempt to use the Zombie Master, who was after all a decent man.

"I don't think I'd mind living among zombies," Millie said. "I met a girl zombie in the garden; I think in life she must have been almost as pretty as I am."

"Almost," the Zombie Master agreed with a smile. "She was slain by a pneumonia spell intended for another. But when I restored her, her family would not take her back, so she remains here. I regret that I cannot undo my magic, once it has been applied; she is doomed like the others to live half-alive forever."

"I screamed when I met the first zombie. But now-"

"I realize your primary interest is elsewhere," the Magician said, glancing obliquely at Dor. "But if, accepting the fact that you cannot be with him, you would consider remaining here with me-"

"I have to help the King," she said. "We promised to-"

The Zombie bowed to the inevitable. "For you, I would even indulge in politics. Ad hoc. Employ my zombies to-"

"No!" Dor cried, surprising himself. "This is wrong!"

The Zombie Master glanced at him expressionlessly. "You are after all asserting your interest in the lady?"

"No! I can't have her. I know that. But we stay here only because we are under siege, and the moment the siege lifts we'll go back to King Roogna. It is dishonorable to let her play upon your loneliness only to gain your help for the King. The end does not justify the mean." He had heard King Trent say that, in his own time, but had not appreciated its full meaning until now. End and mean-or was it ends and means? "You have been generous to me and Jumper, because you understood our needs and respected them. How could you respect Millie if-"

For the first time, they saw Millie angry. "I wasn't trying to use him! He's a nice man! It's just that I made a promise to the King, and I can't just go off and do something else and let the whole Kingdom fall!"

Dor was chagrined. He had not really understood her innocence. "I'm sorry, Millie. I thought-"

"You think too much!" she flared.

"Yet your thought does you credit," the Zombie Master said to Dor. "And your naivete" does you credit, too," he said to Millie. "I was aware of the ramifications. I am accustomed to trading for favors. This is not an evil, when the conditions of exchange are openly negotiated. I am simply prepared to compromise, in this circumstance. If it is necessary to save the Kingdom to make the lady happy, then I am prepared to save the Kingdom. Quid pro quo. I am pleased that the damsel keeps her word to the King so stringently; I can reasonably suppose that she would similarly keep her word to you, Dor. Or to me, were she to give it."

"I haven't given it!" Millie protested. "Not to anyone! Not that way." But she seemed subtly nattered.

"The matter may be academic," Jumper chittered. "We are under siege here, and lack the means to do more than defend ourselves within this castle, with the aid of the loyal zombies. We cannot help the King anyway."

"And even if there were no siege," the Magician said, "I have suffered attrition of zombies. They are immortal, but when physically destroyed, with the pieces lost, they become useless. I could only bring a token force to the aid of the King. Not enough to overwhelm the curse on Castle Roogna."

"You could make more zombies," Dor said. "If you had more dead bodies."

"Oh, yes, without limit. But I need intact bodies, and fresh ones are best."

"Could we but overcome the Mundanes," Jumper chittered, "we could use their bodies to fashion a mighty army."

"If we had a mighty army, we could use it to vanquish the Mundanes," Dor pointed out. "Closed circle."

"I do not wish to interfere with human concerns," Jumper chittered. "But I believe I see a course through the impasse. There is some risk entailed-"

"There is risk entailed in remaining under siege," the Zombie Master said. "Present your notion; we can consider its merit jointly." He placed another piece of puzzle, uttering the mergeance spell under his breath. "It is an arrangement, a series of agreements utilizing all our efforts," Jumper chittered. "The Zombie Master and Millie must defend this castle for a time alone, while I convey Dor outside by night. I can swing him along a line to a near tree so that no one will notice. The Mundanes can not see as well as I can in darkness. Then Dor must use his talent to locate some of the real monsters of the wilderness-the dragons and such-and enlist their aid."

"Dragons will not help men!" Dor protested. "They would not be helping men," Jumper chittered. "They would be fighting men."

"But-" Then Dor caught on. "Mundanes!"

"But we are people too," Millie said. Jumper angled his head to cock eyes of three different sizes at her. He was obviously not human. "Well, still-" she faltered.

"I will be with Dor," Jumper chittered. "They will know me for a monster, and him for a Magician. Inside the castle will be another Magician and a woman, and many zombie animals. No normal human men. We will convey this promise: any monsters who die in the battle to lift the siege will be restored as zombies. But mainly, they will have the thrill of killing men with impunity. The King will not condemn them for what they do, since it is to assist him."

"It just might work!" Dor exclaimed. "Let's go!"

"Not until dark," Jumper chittered.

"And not until you've eaten," Millie added. She bounced off to the kitchen.

Jumper placed a final puzzle-piece and retired to an upstairs rafter to rest. That left Dor and the Zombie Master with the puzzle, which was coming along nicely. They had largely completed the center, with the scene of Castle Roogna, and were working toward the Zombie Master's castle. Dor was increasingly curious to know how it would turn out. Would they be able to see themselves in it, under Mundane siege? How much of reality did these magic pictures reflect?