you.”
The doxy’s face reappeared, replacing the rounder portion of her that had showed before. “You locked up Good Omen?” she asked, surprised.
“I had to, or I never would have gotten the throne,” the King said absently. “I thought he would foul up as King, but he didn’t, so there was no way to remove him legitimately.” As he talked, he hoisted his porcine torso from the bed, wrapped the quilt about it, and stalked the voice he heard. “But I didn’t kill him. I am too cautious for that. It is too hard to undo a killing, if anything goes wrong. So this can’t be his ghost.”
“Then whose ghost is it?” the doxy demanded.
“No ghost at all,” the King said. “”There's no one there.” He picked up the sword. “Just this sword I took from the Xanth Prince. I thought it was magic, but it isn’t. I tried it out, and there’s nothing remarkable about it except a fine edge.”
“That’s not true!” the sword cried. “Unhand me, varlet!”
Unnerved at last, the King hurled it out the embrasure. “The thing talks!” he cried.
“Well, that’s one way to recover my weapon,” Dor murmured.
“Try for my bag of seeds,” Irene suggested. “I can do a lot with genuine magic plants.”
Grundy had located the seeds, carelessly thrown in a corner; no doubt Oary had been disappointed when he discovered the bag did not contain treasure, though he should have been satisfied with the gold and diamonds Dor had carried. Greed knew no restraint! “You can’t get rid of me that way,” the seedbag said as Dor mentally prompted it. “My ghost will haunt you forever.”
“I tell you, I didn’t kill you!” Oary said, looking for the new voice that sounded seedy. “You’re just making that up.”
“Well, I might as well be dead,” the seedbag said. “Locked up here alone-it’s awful.”
“What do you mean, alone?” Oary demanded. “The Xanth King is in the next cell, and the sharp-tongued Xanth Queen in the third. They wanted to know what had happened to you, and wouldn’t deal with me, so now they know.”
Irene’s free hand clutched Dor’s shoulder. “Confirmation!” she whispered, thrilled.
Dor was equally gratified. The talking objects had hardly terrorized Oary, but they had evoked his confession nevertheless. Dor continued to concentrate. But you’re way out in nowhere, he thought to the bag.
“But we’re way out in nowhere,” the bag dutifully repeated. Dor was getting better at this as he went. He had never before used his talent in quite this way; it was a new aspect.
“Nowhere?” The King pounced on the bag and shook it. “You’re in the Ocna dungeon! The second biggest castle of the Kingdom! Plenty of company there! I’d be proud to be in that dungeon myself! Out, you ungrateful bag!” And he hurled it out the embrasure.
“What?” the doxy demanded. She had evidently heard only the last few words.
“Out, you ungrateful bag,” the table repeated helpfully. “That’s what he said.”
“Well, I never!” the doxy said, flushing wrathfully.
“Don’t tell me you never,” the feather quilt she had retained said. “I was right here when you-“
The doxy slapped the quilt, silencing it, then wrapped it about her and stalked out. “Help!” the quilt cried. “I’m being kidnapped by a monster?” Then it was beyond the magic aisle and said no more.
“Guards!” the King bellowed. “Search the premises! Report anything remarkable.”
There was a scream from the hall, and the sound of someone being slapped. “He said premises, not mistresses!” the doxy’s voice cried.
There was a guttural laugh. “But we do have something remarkable to report.”
“He’s seen it before!” she retorted. Her footfalls moved on away.
Guards charged into the room. Quickly they ascertained that no one except the King was in the tower. Then they spied the tip of the vine that had grown into the embrasure. They investigated it-while Dor and Irene scrambled down the wall. Grundy leaped from above them, dropping to the centaur’s back. “Take off!” he cried.
Amolde in turn launched himself from the platform, landing with heavy impact on the dark ground and galloping off. The platform was shoved violently by the back thrust of his hooves, so that the vines holding it in place were wrenched from the wall. Suddenly Irene was failing, her support gone, while Dor dangled tenuously from his vine, his grip slipping.
But Smash the Ogre was there below. He snatched Irene out of the air and whirled her around, absorbing the shock of her fall. Her skirt flew out and up-and now at last Dor saw her panties. They were green. Then Smash deposited her gently on the ground while Dor slid down as quickly as he could, weak with relief. “I’m glad you were there!” Dor gasped.
“Me glad centaur was still near,” Smash said. “He out of range now.”
Which meant that the ogre’s magic strength was gone again. Irene had fallen in those few seconds that the rear extension of the aisle remained. Now Smash's nonrhyming showed that the Mundane environment had closed in.
“Someone’s out there!” King Oary cried from the embrasure. “After him!” But the guards had no good light for the purpose, and seemed loath to pursue a magic enemy in the moonlight.
“You sword,” Smash said, pressing it into Dor’s hand. “You seeds,” he said to Irene, giving her the bag he had rescued.
“Thanks oodles, Smash,” she said. “Now let’s get away from here.”
But as they moved out, a small gate opened in the castle wan and troops poured forth bearing torches. “Oary must have caught on that it was our magic,” Dor said as they scrambled away.
Soon they caught up to the centaur, who had stopped as soon as he realized what was happening. Dor felt no different as they re-entered the magic aisle, but Smash’s panting alleviated; his strength had returned.
Quickly Dor summarized their situation. “We’re together; we have our magic things, except for Amolde’s spells, and we know King Trent, Queen Iris, and King Omen are alive in Castle Ocna. Oary’s troops are on our trail. We had better hurry on to rescue the three, before the troops catch us. But we don’t know the way.”
“Every plant and rock must know the way to Ocna,” Grundy said. “We can ask as we go along.”
The guards were spreading out and combing through the forest.
Whatever virtues King Oary lacked, he evidently compelled obedience when he really wanted it. Dor’s party had to retreat before them. But there were two problems: this section of forest was small, so that they could not remain concealed long; and they were being herded the wrong way. For it turned out that Ocna was half a day’s walk northwest of Onesti, while this forest was southeast. They were actually moving toward the village settlement, where the peasants who served the castle dwelt. That village would, in the course of centuries, expand into the town of Onesti, whose designation on the map had given them the hint where to find King Trent. They didn’t want to interfere with that!
“We’ve got to get on a path,” Irene said. “We’ll never make it to Ocna tonight traveling cross-country. But the soldiers will be patrolling the paths.”
“Maybe there’s a magic seed for this,” Grundy suggested.
“Maybe,” Irene agreed. “Another tangler would do-except I don’t have one. I do have a cherry seed-“
“The kind that grows cherry bombs? That would do it!”
“No,” Amolde said.
“What’s the matter, horsetail?” the golem demanded nastily. “You’d rather get your rump riddled with arrows than throw a few cherries at the enemy?”
“Setting aside the ethical and aesthetic considerations-which process I find objectionable-there remain practical ones,” the centaur said. “First, we don’t want a pitched battle; we do want to elude these people, if possible, leaving them here in a fruitless search while we proceed unchallenged to Ocna. If we fight them, we shall be tied down indefinitely, until their superior numbers overwhelm us.”
“There is that,” Dor agreed. Centaurs did have fine minds.
“Second, we must keep moving if we are to reach Ocna before dawn. A half-day’s march for seasoned travelers by day, familiar with the route, will be twice that for us at night. A cherry tree can’t travel; it must be rooted in soil. And since it is magic-“
“We’d have to stay with it,” Irene finished. “It’d die the moment we left. Anything magic will be no good away from the magic aisle.”
