Piers Anthony - Castle Roogna

"It would be a shame to have damage done to this fine edifice, perhaps loss of human life," Murphy explained. "It is only sensible to abate the curse before the situation gets untoward."

"You mean you can call off the whole goblin-harpy battle, this whole siege, just like that?"

"Not just like that. But I can abate it, yes."

"I find that hard to believe," Dor said. "Those armies are already well on their way. They aren't just going to turn around and go home just because you-"

"The King's talent is shaping magic to his own ends. Mine is shaping circumstance to interfere with others' designs. Alternate faces of similar coins. All we have to determine is whose talent shall prevail. Destruction and bloodshed are no necessary part of it. In fact I deplore and abhor-"

"There has already been bloodshed!" Dor exclaimed angrily. "What kind of macabre game is this?"

"A game of power politics," Murphy responded, unperturbed.

"A game where my friend was tortured by Mundanes, and my life threatened, and the two of us were pitted against each other," Dor said, his anger bursting loose. "And Millie must marry the Zombie Master to-" He cut himself off, chagrined.

"So you have an interest in the maid," Vadne murmured. "And had to give her up."

"That's not the point!" But Dor knew his face was red.

"Shall we be fair?" Murphy inquired meaningfully. "Your problem with the maid is not of my making."

"No, it isn't," Dor admitted grudgingly. "I-I apologize, Magician." Adults were able to apologize with grace. "But the rest-"

"I regret these things as much as you do," Murphy said smoothly. "This contest with the Castle was intended to be a relatively harmless mode of establishing our rights. I would be happy to remove the curse and let the monsters drift as they may. All this requires is the King's acquiescence."

King Roogna was silent.

"If I may inquire," Jumper chittered, Dor's web translating for all to hear. "What would be the long-range consequence of victory by Magician Murphy?"

"A return to chaos," Vadne replied. "Monsters preying on men with impunity, men knowing no law but sword and sorcery, breakdown of communications, loss of knowledge, vulnerability to Mundane invasions, decrease of the importance of the role of the human species in Xanth."

"Is this desirable?" Jumper persisted.

"It is the natural state," Murphy said. "The fittest will survive."

"The monsters will survive!" Dor cried. "There will be seven or eight more Mundane Waves of conquest, each with awful bloodshed. The wilderness will become so dense and horrible that only spelled paths are safe for people to travel. Wiggles will ravage the land. There will be fewer true men in my day than there are in yours-" Oops. He had done it again.

"Magician, exactly where are you from?" Vadne demanded.

"Oh, you might as well know! Murphy knows."

"And did not tell," Murphy said.

"Murphy has honor, once you understand his ways," Vadne said, glancing at the Magician obliquely. "I once sued for his hand, but he preferred chaos to an organized household. So I am without a Magician to marry."

"You sought to marry above your station," Murphy told her.

Vadne showed her teeth in a strange crossbreed of snarl and smile. "By your definition, Magician!" Then she returned to Dor. "But I let my passion override me. Where did you say you were from, Magician?"

Dor suddenly understood her interest in him-and was glad he could prove himself ineligible. It would be as easy to deal with Helen Harpy as with this woman, and for similar reason. Vadne was no soft and sweet maid like Millie; she was a driven woman on the prowl for a marriage that would complete the status she craved. "I am from eight hundred years hence. So is Jumper."

"From the future!" King Roogna exclaimed. He had stayed out of the dialogue as much as possible, giving free rein to the expression of the others, but this forced his participation. "Exiled by a rival Magician?"

"No, there is no other Magician in my generation. I am on a quest. I-I think I'm going to be King, eventually, as you surmised before. The present King wants me to have experience." Obviously King Roogna had not discussed Dor's situation with anyone else, letting Dor present himself in his own way. More and more, Dor was coming to appreciate the nuances of adult discretion. It was as significant as much in what it did not do as in what it did do. "I'm only twelve years old, and-"

"Ah-you are in a borrowed body."

"Yes. It was the best way for me to visit here, using this Mundane body. Another creature animates my own body, back home, taking care of it during my absence. But I'm not sure that what I do here has any permanence, so I don't want to interfere too much."

"So you know the outcome of the Roogna-Murphy wager," the King said.

"No. I thought I did, but now I see I don't. Castle Roogna is complete in my day-but it stood deserted and forgotten for centuries. Some other King could have completed it. And there have been all those Waves I mentioned, and all the bad things, and the decline of the influence of Man in Xanth. So Murphy could have won."

"Or I could have won, and held off the onset of chaos for a few more decades," Roogna said.

"Yes. From my vantage, eight hundred years away, I just can't tell whether the chaos started in this year or fifty years from now. And there are other things that don't match, like the absence of goblins on the surface in my day, and the relative scarcity of harpies-I just don't know how they all fit in."

"Well, what will be, will be," Roogna said. "I suppose from that vantage of history, what we do here has little significance. I had hoped to set up a dynasty of order, to keep Xanth wholesome for centuries, but that does not seem fated to be. It is a foolish vanity, to believe that a man's influence can extend much beyond his own time, and I shall be well rid of it. Still, I hope to do what good I can within this century, and to leave Castle Roogna as a monument to my hope for a better Xanth." He looked around at the others, "We should make our decision according to our principles."

"Then we should fight to preserve order-for as long as it can be preserved!" Dor said. "For a decade, for a year, or for a month-whatever we can do is good."

Murphy spread his hands. "We shall in due course discover whether even a month is feasible."

"I believe the consensus is clear," King Roogna said. "We shall defend the Castle. And hope the Zombie Master gets here in time,"

They returned to their stations. Almost Immediately the trouble arrived. From the south the dusky banners of the great goblin army came, marching in a gathering tread that shook the Castle foundations. Dor stood atop the northeast corner tower and looked over the ramparts to spy it in the distance. Drums beat, horns tooted, keeping the cadence. Like a monstrous black carpet the army spread across the field beyond the Castle. Light sparkled from the points of the goblins' small weapons, and a low half-melody carried under the clamor, like muted thunder: the goblins were chanting, "One two three four, Kill two three four, One two three four, Kill two three four," on and on endlessly. There was not much imagination to it, but plenty of feeling, and the effect expanded cumulatively, hammering into the mind.

They had allies, too. Dor spied contingents of gnomes, trolls, elves, dwarves, ghouls, and gremlins, each with its own standard and chant. Slowly a gnarly tapestry formed, a patchwork of contingents, the elves in green, dwarves in brown, gnomes red, trolls black, marching, marching. There seemed to be so many creatures they could bury the Castle under the sheer mass of their bodies, stretching the grisly fabric of their formation across the ramparts. Yet of course they could not; mere numbers could not scale a vertical wall.