Piers Anthony - Castle Roogna

He returned his attention to Dor. "You are a comparative stranger to me, Magician, yet I have faith in you, and in your friend Jumper. I am extremely short of personnel at the moment. Will you accept a position in my service?"

Dor was taken aback. "Your Majesty, I am only visiting here. Soon, very soon, I must go home."

The King smiled grimly. "I would offer you transportation, as I did before. But I am short of that, too, and the goblins have closed in about the Castle. Your only egress is toward the castle of the Zombie Master, and even that is uncertain now. I would prefer that you weather the siege here at Castle Roogna, even if you choose not to participate."

"Another siege. I was just in one!"

"This one will be worse, I assure you. We have greater resources than the Zombie Master did, but the situation is more complicated. I would rather oppose Mundanes than goblins and harpies."

The Dragon King had suggested the same thing. Worse than what they had gone through at the Zombie Master's castle? Dor still could not believe that. He had fought goblins and harpies and found them revolting but not that devastating. And the enemy forces were not actually attacking Castle Roogna; they just happened to be staging their own private war here. Still, it would be pointless to try to travel through the midst of those hordes. "Well, I have a few days yet. Might as well be of what help I can."

"Excellent! I shall put you in charge of the north ramparts. You will have to keep strong rein on the centaurs there, but they'll mind you if they respect you. They must be kept working on the wall as long as possible; every stone laid in place augments our security."

"Oh, I'm not a leader!" Dor protested. "I'm only-"

"My roadrunners kept me informed of your progress, before enemy forces closed in. It is true that you are not yet an experienced leader, but you seem to have good potential. You responded excellently during the Mundane attack on the Zombie Master's castle."

"Your spies saw that? I thought you had no knowledge of what happened there!"

The King laughed. "It is wise for a King to have greater information than he allows others to be aware of. My spies could not approach near the battle itself. But there were reports of a man answering your description making a deal with monsters, and something about green sashes, and of course the message I received from the Dragon King. I inferred that you knew what you were doing. I really do not have firsthand information, however-which is why I was eager to have your report."

But the King had pretty good secondhand information! King Roogna resembled King Trent in certain fundamental ways. Perhaps all kings had an inherent similarity. There was something about them. Perhaps it was a special aspect of maturity.

"One day you will understand, Dor," Roogna said. "It is evident that your land is grooming you for the office, and in this way I can to a certain extent repay you for your services to me. You should make a creditable king, with proper experience."

Dor doubted that, but didn't argue. He didn't follow how doing another service for King Roogna constituted Roogna's repayment to him for a prior service. If this were adult logic, he certainly fell short of it.

The groundfish poked its head out of the ground at their feet. The King reached down to take the wadded paper from its mouth. "Thank you, courier," he said. "You may return to your pond for some refreshment now." He spread out the paper, frowning. "This is from the Zombie Master himself. Your marked path is good, but they are now surrounded by goblins and cannot proceed."

"How far are they?"

"Just beyond the antenna grove."

An image of himself fighting his dearest friend came to him. What a horror! "If any goblins bother the center of that grove-"

"They are too canny for that. They are waiting for the zombies to clear the grove, before taking any action."

"Why do the goblins care about the zombies? It's the harpies they're fighting, isn't it?"

"An excellent point. The zombies should be able to march on unmolested. Unless something is wrong."

"And obviously something is wrong," Dor said. "I'm beginning to get annoyed at Magician Murphy."

"I have been wrestling with this sort of thing since our contest began. Do you suppose I normally require several efforts to adapt magic to my specific purpose? Yet it is a good exercise in discipline."

"Yes," Dor agreed. "After this, I will be much more careful about everything I do, because I know things don't have to go right just by themselves."

The King looked east, though the problem was too far away to see. "Quite likely the antenna forest is annoyed by the presence of so many troops, so has put the notion into the goblins' minds that zombies are enemies."

"But if the goblins have stayed out of that forest-"

"Their army has. But their advance scouts would naturally poke into everything, exactly as you did. If a scout brought back news of an enemy force-"

"We'll have to rescue them!" Dor cried.

"We really lack the personnel," the King said regretfully. "All we have are the centaurs, who must remain at work on the wall. That is in fact why we need the zombie help. It is uncertain that we have enough force to protect the unfinished Castle, and we dare not deplete our resources further."

"But the zombies are coming to help you! Without them you may lose anyway!"

"Yes. It is a problem whose solution I have not yet fathomed. Murphy's curse is taking hold very powerfully, blocking all my efforts."

"Well, I didn't go to all this trouble only to get the Zombie Master and Millie captured by goblins!" Dor said hotly. "I'll go out myself and bring them in."

"I would prefer that you not risk yourself," Roogna said, frowning. "It is not that I am insensitive to their fate; it is that I am sensitive to the fate of the greater number. We can help them best from Castle Roogna-if we can help them at all."

Dor started a hot retort-then remembered how Jumper had controlled his reactions in the antenna forest, and saved the situation. Logic had to prevail, not emotion! "How can we do this?"

"If it were possible to bring a squadron of harpies to that vicinity-"

"Yes!" Dor cried. "Then they'll fight the goblins, and neither side will have a chance to worry about zombies. But how can we do this? The harpies will hardly honor any request we might make."

"The problem, as I see it, is the lure. We need to attract them to the region, without sacrificing any of our own personnel."

"No problem at all!" Dor said excitedly. "Do you have a catapult?"

"I do. However, harpies will not pursue flying rocks."

"They just might-after I've spelled those rocks. Let me talk to the ammunition."

"There is a unit on the north wall. Where I had thought to place you anyway."

"What, is something going right?" Dor asked, smiling.

"This is a complexly developing situation. Murphy cannot cover every detail of every contingency. His talent, like mine, is being stretched to its utmost. We shall soon know who is ultimately the more powerful Magician."

"Yes, I guess so. And we have several Magicians on our side."

"However, a single bad foul-up could foil all our efforts. In that sense, Murphy can match any number of Magicians."

"I'd better get to that catapult. Do we have the location of the harpy forces?"

"The centaurs are conversant. They have no love for harpies or for goblins, and their senses are keen." The King turned. "I will send a message to the Zombie Master, asking him to move forward as soon as the harpies appear."

Dor hurried to the north wall. Incomplete as it was, it was still far more substantial than the walls of the Zombie Master's castle. It was hard to imagine little goblins successfully storming such a massive rampart, especially when they were actually fighting harpies. Narrow stairs led around and up through the interior of the wall, until they debouched on the level upper ramp.