'Now that's a distortion!' Dor cried indignantly.
'And that awful giant spider!' the translation continued. 'I lived in daily fear it would discover my flea body and-' The barbarian shuddered. 'Now at last I have fought free. But I am tired and hungry. May I stay the night?'
The woman looked him over. 'For a story like that you can stay three nights! Know any more?'
'Many more,' the barbarian said humbly.
'Nobody who can lie like that can be all bad.'
'Right,' he agreed abjectly.
She smiled. 'I am a widow. My husband was roasted by a dragon. I need a man to run the farm-a strong, patient man, not too bright, willing to settle for?' She spread her hands and half-turned, inhaling.
The barbarian noted her inhalation. It was a good one, the kind barbarians normally paid attention to. He smiled. 'Well, I'm not too patient.'
'That's close enough,' the woman said.
Dor turned away, satisfied. His erstwhile Mundane body would be as happy as he deserved to be.
Something about this scenelet reminded Dor of Cedric the centaur. How was he making out with Celeste, the naughty filly? But Dor restrained himself from peeking; it really was not his business, any more.
Something caught his eye. He focused on the corner of the tapestry. There was tiny Jumper, waving. There was another little spider beside him. 'You've found a friend!' Dor exclaimed.
'That's no friend, that's his mate,' Grundy said. 'She wants to know where he was, those five years he was gone. So when the popping-out of the elixir vial alerted him to your presence, he brought her out here to meet you.'
'Tell her it's true, all true,' Dor said. Then: 'Five years?'
'Two weeks, your time. It only seemed like two weeks to him, too. But back at his home-'
'Ah, I understand.' Dor exchanged amenities with the skeptical Mrs. Jumper, bade his friend farewell again, promised to return next day-month or so, and strode from the room feeling better.
'You move with a new assurance,' Grundy remarked. He seemed sad. 'You won't be needing me much longer.'
'Penalty of growing up,' Dor said, 'One year I'll get married, and you can bodyguard my son, exactly as you have me.'
'Gee,' the golem said, flattered.
They departed the Castle, going to Dor's cheese cottage. He felt increasing apprehension and nostalgia as he approached his home. His parents should still be away on their Mundane mission; only Millie would be there. Millie the maid, Millie the ghost, Millie the nurse. What had the Brain Coral animating his body said to her? What should he say to her now? Did she have any notion what he had been doing the past two weeks?
Dor steeled himself and went inside. He didn't knock; it was his own cottage, after all. He was just the lad Millie took care of; she did not know-must never know-that he had been the Magician who looked like a Mundane warrior, way back when.
'Say,' Grundy inquired as they passed through the familiar-unfamiliar house toward the kitchen. 'What name did you use, in the tapestry?'
'My own name, of course. My name and talent-'
Oh, no! The most certain identifiers of any person in the Land of Xanth were name and talent. He had thoughtlessly given himself away!
'Is that you, Dor?' Millie called musically from the kitchen. Too late to escape!
'Uh, yes.' No help for it but to see if she recognized him. Oh, those twelve-year-old-boy mistakes!
'Uh, just talking to a wall.' He snapped his fingers at the nearest wall. 'Say something, wall!'
'Something,' the wall said obligingly.
She came to the kitchen doorway, and she was stunningly beautiful, twelve years older than she had been so recently, but almost regal in her abrupt maturity. Now she had poise, elegance, stature. She had aged, as it were overnight, more than a decade, while Dor had lost a similar amount. A gulf had opened between them, a gulf of age and time, huge as the Gap.
He loved her yet
'Why, you haven't talked to the walls in two weeks,' Millie said. Dor knew this had to be true: the Coral had animated his body, but had lacked his special magical talent.
'Is something wrong?' Millie asked. 'Why are you staring at me?'
Dor forced his fixed eyes down. 'I-' What could he say? 'I-seem to remember you from somewhere.'
She laughed with the echo of the sweetness and innocence he had known and loved in the tapestry maid. 'From this morning, Dor, when I served you breakfast!'
But now he would not be put off. The thing he most feared was recognition; he had to face it now. 'Millie-when you were young-before you were a ghost-did you have friends?'
She laughed again, and this time he noticed the fullness and rondure of her body as it laughed with her. 'Of course I had friends!'
