'Neo-Sorceress,' King Roogna said grimly. 'We are mindful of your considerable assistance in the recent campaign. We do not relish showing you disfavor.'
'Oh, pooh!' she said. 'I only helped you because Murphy wouldn't have me, and I wanted to marry a Magician.'
'You have chosen unwisely. If you do not change the maid back, we shall have to execute you.'
She was taken aback, but remained defiant. 'Then you'll never get her changed, because talents never repeat.'
'But they do overlap,' Roogna said.
'In the course of decades or centuries! The only way you can save her is to deal on my terms.'
'What are your terms?' the King asked, his eyes narrow.
'Let Dor marry Millie. She likes him better anyway, the stupid slut. I'll take the Zombie Master.'
'Never!' the Zombie Master cried, his hands clenching.
Vadne faced him. 'Why force on her a marriage with a man she doesn't love?' she demanded.
That shook him. 'In time she would-'
'How much time? Twenty years, when she's no longer so sweet and young? Two hundred? I love you now?'
The Zombie Master looked at Dor. His face was tight with emotional pain, but his voice was steady. 'Sir, there is some truth in what she says. I was always aware that Millie-if you had-' He choked off, then forced himself to continue. 'I would prefer to see Millie married to you, than locked in some hideous transformation. If you-'
Dor realized that Millie was being offered to him again. All he had to do was take her, and she would be restored and Castle Roogna would be safe. He could by his simple acquiescence nullify the last desperate aspect of Murphy's curse.
He was tempted. But he realized that this transformation was the fate that had awaited her throughout. If he took Millie now, he could offer her?nothing. He was soon to return to his own time. Vadne evidently didn't believe that, but it was true. If he eschewed Millie, she would remain enchanted, a ghost for eight hundred years. A dread but fated destiny.
If he interfered now, he really would change history. There was no question of that, for this was personal, his immediate knowledge. He would fashion a paradox, the forbidden type of magic-and by the devious logic of the situation, Murphy would win. The curse had at last forced Dor to nullify himself by changing too much.
Yet if he turned down Vadne's terms, King Roogna would lose anyway, as the Zombie Master turned against him. Either way, Magician Murphy prevailed.
What was he, Dor, to do? Since either choice meant disaster, he might as well do what he believed to be right, however much it hurt.
'No,' Dor said, knowing he was forcing Millie to undergo the full throes of ghosthood. Eight centuries long-and what reward awaited her there? Nursemaid to a little boy! Association with a zombie! 'She goes to her betrothed-or to no one.'
'But I am her betrothed!' the Zombie Master cried. 'I love her-and because I love her, I yield her to you! I would do anything rather than permit her to suffer!'
'True love,' King Roogna said. 'It becomes you, sir.'
'I'm sorry,' Dor said. He understood now that his love for Millie was less, because he chose to let her suffer. He was knowingly inflicting terrible grief upon them all. Yet the alternative was the sacrifice of what they had all fought to save, deviously but certainly. He had no choice. 'What's right is right, and what's wrong is wrong. I-' He spread his hands, unable to formulate his thought.
The Zombie Master gazed somberly at him. 'I believe I understand.' Then, surprisingly, he offered his hand.
Dor accepted it. Suddenly he felt like a man.
'If you will not restore her,' the King said angrily to Vadne, 'you shall be passed through the hoop.'
'You're bluffing,' Vadne said. 'You won't throw away your Kingdom just to get at me.'
But the King was not bluffing. He gave her one more chance, then had the hoop brought.
'I'll change it back to its original size,' she threatened. 'Then you won't be able to use it.'
'You are very likely to go through it anyway,' the King said, and there was something in his expression that cowed her. She stepped through the hoop and was gone.
The King turned to the Zombie Master. 'It is a matter of principle,' he explained. 'I cannot allow any subject to commit such a crime with impunity. We shall ransack this Castle to locate Millie in whatever form she may be, and shall search out every avenue of magic that might restore her. Perhaps periodically we can recall Vadne from storage to see if she is ready to restore the maid. In time-'
'Time?' the Zombie Master repeated brokenly. They all knew the project could take a lifetime.
'Meanwhile, I apologize to you most abjectly for what has occurred, and will facilitate your return to your castle in whatever manner I can. I hope some year we will meet again in better circumstances.'
'No, we shall not meet again.'
Dor did not like the sound of that, but kept quiet
