'Better yet, wait in the moat.'
The Queen did not conceal her dislike of him, but she would not dare misrepresent the position of the King. She would inform Dor when the King was free. 'Thank you, Your Highness,' Dor replied as formally as she had addressed him, and walked to the drawing room.
Actually, the drawing room did not contain any drawings, only one huge tapestry hung on the wall. This had once been a bedroom; Dor's father mentioned sleeping in it once, back before Castle Roogna was restored. In fact Dor himself had slept in it, earlier in life; he remembered being fascinated by the great tapestry. Now the bed had been replaced by a couch, but the tapestry remained as intriguing as ever.
It was embroidered with scenes from the ancient past of Castle Roogna and its environs, eight hundred years ago. In one section was the Castle, its battlements under construction by a herd of centaurs; in other sections were the deep wilderness of Xanth, the awful Gap dragon, villages protected by stockades-such defenses were no longer used-and other castles. In fact there were more castles than there were today.
The more Dor looked at it, the more he saw-for the figures in the tapestry moved when watched. Since everything was more or less in proportion, the representations of men were tiny; the tip of his little finger could cover one of them over. But every detail seemed authentic. The whole lives of these people were shown, if one cared to watch long enough. Of course, their lives proceeded at the same rate contemporary lives did, so Dor had never seen a whole life pass; he would be an old man before that happened. And of course the process had to have some reasonable cessation, because otherwise the tapestry would long since have passed beyond the Castle Roogna stage and gotten right up to the present. So there were aspects of this magic Dor had not yet fathomed; he just had to accept what he saw. Meanwhile, the tapestry figures worked and slept and fought and loved, in miniature.
Memories flooded Dor. What adventures he had seen, years ago, riveted to this moving picture. Swordsmen and dragons and fair ladies and magic of every type, going on and on! But all in baffling silence; without words, much of the action became meaningless. Why did this swordsman battle this dragon, yet leave that other dragon alone? Why did the chambermaid kiss this courtier, and not that one, though that one was handsomer? Who was responsible for this particular enchantment? And why was that centaur so angry after a liaison with his filly? There was so much of it going on at once that it was hard to fathom any overall pattern.
He had asked Millie about it, and she had gladly told him the valiant tales of her youth-for she had been young at the time of Castle Roogna's construction. But though her tales were more cohesive than those of the moving pictures of the tapestry, they were also more selective. Millie did not enjoy healthy bloodshed or deadly peril or violent love; she preferred episodes of simple joy and family accommodation. That sort of thing could get dull after a while.
Also, she never talked about herself, after she had left her native stockade. Nothing about her own life and loves, or how she became a ghost. And she wouldn't tell how she had come to know the zombie Jonathan, though this could have happened quite naturally in the course of eight centuries of lonely association in Castle Roogna. Dor wondered whether, if he should ever happen to be a ghost for eight hundred years, zombies might begin to look good to him. He doubted it. At any rate, his thirst for knowledge had been frustrated, and he had finally given it up.
Why hadn't he simply made the tapestry itself talk to him, answering his questions? Dor didn't remember, so he asked the tapestry: 'Please explain the nature of your images.'
'I cannot,' the tapestry replied. 'They are as varied and detailed as life itself, not subject to interpretation by the likes of me.' There it was: when performing its given function, the tapestry was painstakingly apt; but when speaking as a piece of rug, it lacked the mind to fathom its own images. He could learn from it whether a fly had sat on it in the past hour, but not the motive of an eight-hundred-years-gone Magician.
Now, as Dor contemplated the images, his old interest in history resurged. What a world that had been, back during the celebrated Fourth Wave of human colonization of Xanth! Then adventure had reigned supreme. Not dullness, as in the present.
A giant frog appeared. 'The King will see you now, Master Do-oo-or,' it croaked. It was of course another illusion of Queen Iris; she was forever showing off her versatility,
'Thanks, frogface,' Grundy said. He always knew when he could slip in a healthy insult without paying for it. 'Catch any good flies in that big mouth of yours recently?' The frog swelled up angrily, but could not protest lest it step-or hop-out of character. The Queen disliked compromising her illusions. 'How's your mother, the toad?' the golem continued blithely, the malice hardly showing in his tone. 'Did she ever clean up those purple warts on her-'
The frog exploded. 'Well, you didn't have to blow up at me,' Grundy reproved the vanishing smoke. 'I was only being sociable, frogbrain.'
Dor, With superhuman effort, kept his face straight. The Queen could still be watching, in the guise of a no-see-'em gnat or something. There were times when Grundy's caustic wit got him into trouble, but it was worth it.
The King's library was also upstairs, just a few doors down. That was where the King was always to be found when not otherwise occupied-and sometimes even when he was. It was not supposed to be generally known, but Dor had pried the news out of the furniture: sometimes the Queen made an image of the King in the library, at the King's behest, so he could interview some minor functionary when he was busy with more important things elsewhere. The King never did that with Dor, however.
Dor proceeded directly to the library, noting a ghost flitting across the dusky hall farther down. Millie had been one of half a dozen ghosts, and the only one to be restored to life; the others still hovered about their haunts. Dor rather liked them; they were friendly but rather shy, and were easily spooked. He was sure each had its story, but like Millie they were diffident about themselves.
He knocked at the library door. 'Come in, Dor,' the King's voice answered immediately. He always seemed to know when Dor came calling, even when the Queen was not around to inform him.
Dor entered, suddenly shy. 'I-uh-if you're not too busy-'
King Trent smiled. 'I am busy, Dor. But your business is important.'
Suddenly it hardly seemed so. The King was a solid, graying man old enough to be Dor's grandfather, yet still handsome. He wore a comfortable robe, somewhat faded and threadbare; he depended on the Queen to garb him in illusion befitting whatever occasion occurred, so needed no real clothes. At the moment he was highly relaxed and informal, and Dor knew this was intended to make Dor himself feel the same. 'I, uh, I can come back another time-'
King Trent frowned. 'And leave me to pore over the next dull treaty amendment? My eyes are tired
