reach deeper. What would happen after this day he could not know, but he was certain he had been changed by this experience of emotion. His age of innocence, in a fundamental and positive sense, had passed.
Then a commotion began in the distance. The sound electrified them. Was it possible-?
Grundy burst in on them. “It worked!” he cried. “That seed started growing. The moment I got it in the magic aisle, it heaved right out of its shell. It must have been primed by your command, in that bit of magic with the tall hairs. I had to throw it down outside the stall-“
“It worked!” Irene cried jubilantly. “I always knew it would!”
“I told Amolde where we are, just in case,” Grundy continued excitedly. “That tangler will rip apart his stall!”
“But can he get through all the locked doors?” Irene asked, turning worried. Her moods were swinging back and forth now. “He can’t do magic himself, and there’s no one with him to-“
“I’m way ahead of you, doll,” the golem said. “I scouted all around. He can’t get through those doors, but he can get out the gate that Smash ripped off, ‘cause they haven’t fixed that yet, and there's a small channel outside the castle wall, and these cells are against the wall. Unless the outside wall is over his aisle-depth-“
“And if it is?” she prompted, as if uncertain whether to go into a scream of jubilation or of despair.
“I’m sure the wall isn’t,” Grundy said. “It’s not more than six of your paces thick, and his aisle reaches twice that far forward. But we’ll soon find out, because he’ll soon be on his way.”
The clamor continued. “I hope Amolde doesn’t get hurt,” Dor said. “King Oary took our supply of healing elixir, too.”
“Probably dumped it down a sump,” Grundy said. “Make all the sick maggots healthy.”
“Stand by the outer wall,” Irene told him. “When you can talk to it, Dor, we’ll know the centaurs here.”
“I’ll go check on his progress,” Grundy said, and scurried away again.
“That tangler should be almost full-grown now,” Irene said. “I hope Amolde has the sense to stay away from its tentacles.” Then she reconsidered. “But not so far away the lack of magic kills the tree. He’s got to keep it in the aisle until it does its job. Once he leaves, it will die.”
“Speak to me, wall,” Dor said, touching the stone. There was no response.
“What’s up?” Smash inquired from the next cell.
“Grundy took a sprouted tangler seed to Amolde,” Dor explained. “We hope the centaur’s on his way here.”
“At length, me strength,” the ogre said, comprehending.
“Hey-you rhymed!” Dor cried. “He must be here!”
“Me see,” Smash said. He punched his fist through the wall near Dor.
“You’ve got it!” Dor said. “Go rip open your door! Then you can free Irene and me!”
The ogre tramped to the front of his cell and gleefully smashed at his front door. “Ooo, that hurt!” he grunted, shaking his gauntleted fist. The door had not given way.
“His strength is gone again!” Irene said. “Something’s wrong!”
Dor cudgeled his brain. What could account for this partial recovery? “Where is the centaur now?” he asked his back wall, fearing it would not answer.
“Right outside Irene’s cell,” it replied. “Clinging to a narrow track above a chasm, terrified.”
Dor visualized the centaur’s position. “Then he can’t face directly into the castle?”
“He can only turn a little,” the wall agreed. “Any more and he’ll fall off. Soldiers are getting ready to put arrows in his tail, too.”
“So his magic aisle slants in obliquely,” Dor concluded. “It covers this wall, but not the front of our cells.”
“Anybody can see that, idiot,” the wall agreed smugly.
Dor used his sunstone to verify the edge of the aisle. The gem flashed and darkened as it passed outside the magic. The line was only a few handspans inside Dor’s wall, projecting farther into Smash’s cell.
“Hey, Smash!” Dor cried. “The magic’s only at this end. Bash out the outer wall to let Amolde in.”
“Right site,” Smash agreed. He aimed his huge, horny, gauntleted hamfist.
“Don’t hit me!” the wall cried. “I support the whole castle!” But it was too late; the fist powered through the brick and stone. “Oooo, that smarts!”
The wall turned out to be double: two sections of stone, with a filling of rubble between. Smash ripped out the loose core, then pulverized the outer barrier, gaining enthusiasm as he went. In moments bright daylight shone through the cloud of dust.
The ogre ripped out more chunks, widening the aperture. Beyond was the back of the mountain, falling awesomely away into a heavily wooded valley.
“Good to see you, brute!” Amolde’s voice came. “Clear an entrance for me before these savages attack!”
Smash leaned out. He grabbed a stone. “Duck, cluck,” he warned, and hurled his missile.
There was a thud and scream as someone was knocked off the ledge. “What did you do?” Irene cried, appalled.
Then Amolde’s front end appeared in the gap in the wall. Centaur and ogre embraced joyously. “I think he knocked off an enemy,” Dor said.
Irene sounded weak with relief. “Oh. I guess they’re friends now.”
“We need both magic and power,” Dor agreed. “Each is helpless without the other. They have come to understand that.”
“We have all come to understand a lot of things,” she agreed, smiling obscurely.
Now Amolde faced the front door, putting it within the aisle, and Smash marched up and lucked it off its moorings. Then he took hold of the front wall and tore it out of the floor. Debris crashed down from the ceiling. “Don’t bring the whole castle down on us!” Dor warned, while Irene choked on the voluminous dust.
“Me wrestle this castle,” the ogre said, unworried. He hoisted one paw to the ceiling, and the collapse abated.
There was a stray guard in the hall. The man watched the progress of the ogre a few moments in silence, then fainted.
Grundy reappeared. “Troops coming,” he reported. “We’d better move.”
They moved. Doors and gates were locked, but Smash smashed them clear like so much tissue. When they encountered a wall, he burst right through it. They emerged into an inner court, where flowers grew. “Grow! Grow! Grow!” ]Irene ordered, and the plants exploded upward and outward.
“Where is our safest retreat?” Dor asked the next wall.
“The other side of me, dolt,” it replied.
Smash opened another hole and they trooped out into a section of forest. Soon they had hidden themselves well away from the castle. They were together again and free, and it felt wonderful.
They paused, catching their breaths, assessing their situation. “Everybody all right?” Dor asked around. “No serious injuries?” There seemed to be none.
“So have you reconsidered?” Irene inquired. “You know how I abhor you.”
He looked at her. She was still wearing his jacket over her bare upper torso, her hair was tangled, and dirt smudged her face. She seemed preternaturally lovely. “Yes,” he said. “And the answer comes out the same. I still hate you.” He took her in his arms and kissed her, and she was all eager and yielding in the manner of her kind- when her kind chose to be.
“If that be hate,’ Amolde remarked, “I would be interested in witnessing their love.”
“The idiots are engaged to each other,” Grundy explained to the others. “It seems they saw the light in the darkness, or something.”
“Or something,” the centaur agreed dubiously.
“Now we have arrived,” Dor said, taking charge after reluctantly disengaging from Irene. “But we have not accomplished our mission. I believe this is the place King Trent and Queen Iris came to. I think the table told me they were here, just before I passed out from King Oary’s drug. But I might have dreamed that; the memory is very foggy. Have we any solid proof?”
“Apart from the henchman who speaks the language of Xanth?” Grundy asked.
“That’s circumstantial,” Irene said. “It only proves he had contact with the Xanth scout, not that King Trent
