And he used the paddle to push off into the scum of the moat. He was deliberately clumsy, though in truth he was not well experienced with canoes and would have been awkward anyway. The water slurped and sucked as the paddle dipped into the ooze.
Now there was a stirring as the zombie sea monster moved. The slime parted and the huge, mottled, decaying head lifted clear of the viscous surface. Globules of slush dangled and dripped, plopping sickly into the water. The huge, sloppy mouth peeled open, revealing scores of loose brownish teeth set in a jaw almost stripped of flesh.
“Hi, friend!” Dor called windily. “Can you direct me to my Master?” As he spoke he slipped forth a moist clod of dirt, so that it looked as if his lip were falling off.
The monster hesitated. Its grotesque head swung close to inspect Dor.
Its left eyeball came loose, dangling by a gleaming string.
“Sooo?” the zombie inquired, its breath redolent of spoiled Limburger.
Dor waved his arms, losing some more earth. One choice clod struck the monster on the nose with a dank squish. He was sorry he hadn’t been able to find anything really putrid, like a maggoty rat corpse, but that was the luck of the game. “Whe-eere?” he demanded, every bit as stupid as a zombie. The big advantage to playing stupid was that it didn’t take much intelligence. He knocked at his right ear and let fall another clod, as if a piece of his brain had been dislodged.
At last the serpent caught on. “Theeere,” it breathed, spraying out several loose fragments of teeth and bone with the effort. Its snout seemed to be afflicted with advanced gangrene, and the remaining teeth were crumbling around their canes.
“Thaaanks,” Dor replied, dropping another clod into the water.
He took up the paddle again and scraped on toward the castle.
“Hope I don’t fall apart before I get there.”
He had won the first round. The sea serpent was in poor condition, as most zombies were, but could have capsized the boat and drowned Dor in slime without difficulty. Had its brain been a better grade of pudding, it might have done just that. But zombies did not attack their own kind; that was too messy. Even the completeness of Dor’s own body, conspicuously healthy under the tatters and dirt, did not count too much against him; fresh zombies were complete. It took time for most of the flesh to fall off.
He docked at the inner edge of the moat, where the castle wall emerged at its steep angle. Now Dor splashed a hole in the slime and cleared a section of halfway clean water he could wash in. His zombie ploy was over; he didn’t want to enter the castle in this condition.
The rents in his robe could not be repaired, but at least he would look human.
He got out of the canoe, but found it hard to stand on the sloping wall. The surface was not brick or stone, as he had supposed, but glass-solid, translucent, seamless, cold hard glass. A mountain of glass.
Glass. Now he grasped the nature of the second challenge. The slope became steeper near the top, until the wall was almost vertical.
How could he scale that?
Dor tried. He placed each foot carefully and found that he could stand and walk, slowly. He had to remain straight upright, for the moment he leaned into the mountain, as was his natural inclination, his feet began to skid. He could quickly get dumped into the awful moat if he let his feet slide out from under him. Fortunately, there was no wind; he could stand erect and step slowly up.
He noticed, however, a small cloud in the sky. As he watched, it seemed to extend rapidly. oops-that surely meant rain, which would wash him out. That was surely no coincidence; probably the touch of his foot on the glass had summoned the storm. He had to hike to the top of the mountain before the cloud arrived. Well, the distance was not far. With care and good foot-friction, he could probably make it.
Then something came galloping around the mountain. It had four legs, a tail, and a funny horned head. But its chief oddity It was heading right for Dor, those horns lowered. The creature was no taller than he, and the horns were small and blunt, but the body was far more massive. Dor had to jump to get out of its way and lost his footing and slid down to the brink of the water before stopping, his nose barely clear of the slime.
He stabilized himself while the zombie sea serpent watched with a certain aloof amusement. Dor wiped a dangle of goo from his nose.
“What was that?”
“The Sidehill Hoofer,” the glass responded.
“Something funny about that creature. The legs-“
“Oh, sure,” the glass said. “The two left legs are shorter than the two rights. That’s so she can charge around the mountain in comfort. It’s natural selection; lots of the better mountains have them.”
Shorter left legs-so the Hoofer could stay level while running on a slope. It did make a certain kind of sense. “How come I never heard of this creature before?” Dor demanded.
“Probably because your education has been neglected.”
“I was tutored by a centaur!” Dor said defensively.
“The centaur surely told you of the Sidehill Hoofer,” the glass agreed. “But did you listen? Education is only as good as the mind of the student.”
“What are you implying?” Dor demanded.
“I rather thought you were too dense to grasp the implication,” the glass said with smug condescension.
“You’re a mountain of glass!” Dor said irately. “How bright can you be?”
“Thought you’d never ask. I’m the brightest thing on the horizon.”
And a beam of sunlight slanted down, avoiding the looming cloud, causing the mountain to glow brilliantly.
Dor had walked into that one! With the lifetime experience he had had, he still fell into the trap of arguing with the inanimate. He changed the subject. “Is the Hoofer dangerous?”
“Not if you have the wit to stay out of her way.”
“I’ve got to climb to the top of this slope.”
“Extraordinary fortune,” the glass said brightly.
“What’s that?”
The glass sighed. “I keep forgetting that animate creatures cannot match my brilliance. Recognizing your handicap, I shall translate: Lots of luck.”
“Oh, thank you,” Dor said sarcastically.
“That’s irony,” the glass said.
“Irony-not glassy?”
“Spare me your feeble efforts at repartee. If you do not get moving before that cloud arrives, you will be washed right into the sea.”
“That’s an exaggeration,” Dor grumped, starting back up the slope.
“That is hyperbole.” The glass began humming a tinkly little tune.
Dor made better progress than before. He was getting the hang of it. He had to put his feet down flat and softly and will himself not to skid. But the Sidehill Hoofer came charging around the cone again, spooking him with a loud “Moooo!” and Dor slid down the slope again. He was no more partial to this bovine than he had been to Irene’s sea cow.
The cloud was definitely closer, and playful little gusts of wind emanated from it. “Oh, get lost!” Dor told it.
“Fat chance!” it blew back, ruining his hair with an aggravating intimacy.
Dor went up the slope a third time, by dint of incautious effort getting beyond the slight gouge in the mountain worn by the Hoofer’s pounding hooves. The glass hummed louder and finally broke into song: “She’ll be coming ‘round the mountain when she comes.”
Sure enough, the Sidehill Hoofer came galumphing around again, spied Dor, and corrected course slightly to charge straight at him.
Her uneven legs pounded evenly on the incline, so that her two short horns were dead-level as they bore on him. Blunt those horns might be, but they were formidable enough in this situation.
Oh, no! It was no accident that brought this creature around so inconveniently; she was trying to prevent him
