'I understand,' King Roogna said, 'Again, I apologize. I would not have asked you to bring your zombies here, had I known what form the curse would take. I am sorry to see them go.'
'They are not going,' the Zombie Master said.
Dor felt gathering dread. What was the Zombie Master about to do, in his betrayal and grief? He could destroy everything, and there was no way to stop him except by killing him. Dor held his arms rigid, refusing to touch his sword.
'But nothing holds you here now,' King Roogna said.
'I did not buy Millie with my aid, I did not bargain for her hand!' the Zombie Master cried. 'I came here because I realized it would please her, and I would not wish to displease her even in death by changing that. My zombies will remain here as long as they are needed, to see Castle Roogna through this crisis and any others that arise. They are yours for eternity, if you want them.'
Dor's mouth dropped open.
'Oh, I want them!' the King agreed. 'I will set aside a fine graveyard for them, to rest in comfort between crises. I will name them the honored guardians of Castle Roogna. Yet-'
'Enough,' the Zombie Master said, and turned to Dor. But he did not speak. He gave Dor one enigmatic glance, then walked slowly out of the room.
'Then I have lost,' Murphy said. 'My curse worked, but has been overwhelmed by the Zombie Master's loyalty. I cannot overcome the zombies.' He, too, walked away.
That left Dor, Jumper, and the King. 'This is a sad victory,' Roogna said.
Dor could only agree. 'We'll stay to help you clean up the premises, Your Majesty. Then Jumper and I must return to our own land,'
They made their desolate way to the dining room, but no one cared to finish breakfast. They went to work on the cleanup chore, burying unzombied bodies outside, removing refuse from inside, putting away fallen books in the library. The main palace had not yet been built, but the library stood as it would be eight hundred years hence, apart from details of decor. One large tome had somehow strayed to the dumbwaiter; Dor held the volume for a moment, struck by a nagging emotion, then filed it on the shelf in the library.
In the afternoon they found the Zombie Master hanging from a rafter. He had committed suicide. Somehow Dor had known-or should have known-that it could come to this. The man's love had been too sudden, his loss too unfair. The Zombie Master had known Millie would die, known what he would do. This was what he had meant when he told the King they would not meet again.
Yet when they cut him down, the most amazing and macabre aspect of this disaster manifested: the Zombie Master was not precisely dead. He had somehow converted himself into a zombie.
The zombie shuffled aimlessly out of the Castle, and was seen no more. Yet Dor was sure it was suffering-and would suffer eternally, for zombies never died. What awful punishment the Zombie Master had wreaked upon himself in his bereavement!
'In a way, it is fitting,' King Roogna murmured. 'He has become one of his own.'
The lesser personnel of the Castle, whom the King had sent away for the crisis, were now returning. The maids and the cooks, the steeds and dragons. Activity resumed, yet to Dor the halls seemed empty. What a victory they had won! A victory of grief and regret and hopelessness.
Finally Dor and Jumper prepared to depart, knowing the spell that placed them here in the tapestry world would soon bring them home. They wanted to be away from Castle Roogna when it happened. 'Rule well, King Roogna,' Dor said as he shook the monarch's hand for the last time.
'I shall do my best, Magician Dor,' Roogna replied. 'I wish you every success and happiness in your own land, and I know that when your time comes to rule-'
Dor made a deprecating gesture. He had learned a lot, here-more than he cared to. He didn't want to think about being King.
'I have a present for you,' Jumper said, presenting the King with a box. 'It is the puzzle-tapestry the Zombie Master gave to me. I am not able to take it with me. I ask you to assemble it at your leisure and hang it from the wall of whatever room you deem fit. It should provide you with many hours of pleasure.'
'It shall have a place of honor, always,' the King said, accepting it.
Then Dor thought of something. 'I, too, have an important object I can't take with me. But I can recover it, after eight hundred years, if you will be so kind as to spell it into the tapestry.'
'No problem at all,' King Roogna said. Dor gave him the vial of zombie-restorative elixir. 'I shall cause it to respond to the words 'Savior of Xanth.''
'Uh, thanks,' Dor said, embarrassed.
He went up to the ramparts to bid farewell to the remaining centaurs. Cedric was not there, of course, having returned home. But Egor Ogre was present, and Dor shook his huge bony hand, cautiously.
That was it. Dor was no more adept at partings than at greetings. They walked away from the Castle, across the deserted, blasted battlefield-and into a vicious patch of saw grass at the edge. Jumper, more alert than Dor, drew him back from the swipe of the nearest saw just barely in time.
They were back in the jungle. The visible, tangible wilderness, where there was little subtlety about evil. Somehow it seemed like home.
Yet as they sloughed methodically through the forest, avoiding traps, skirting perils, and nullifying hazards in dull routine fashion, Dor found himself disturbed by more than human-related grief. He mulled it over, and finally had it.
'It is you, Jumper,' he said. 'We are about to return home. But there I am a boy, and you are a tiny spider. We'll never see each other again! And-' He felt the boyish tears emerging. 'Oh, Jumper, you're my best friend, you've been by my side through the greatest and awfulest adventure of my life, and-and-'
'I thank you for your concern,' the spider chittered. 'But we need not separate completely. My home
