'I'll show you,' Dor said. He picked up a large stick and heaved it at the tree. The tangler's tentacles snatched it out of the air and tore it to splinters.
'I see what you mean,' Jumper said appreciatively. 'I believe I walked on the foliage of such a tree once in my youth, but it paid me no attention. Now that I am on its scale, it is another condition. I am glad I am keeping your company, weird though your form is.'
Which was a decent compliment. Dor inspected the tangler from a safe distance. He had identified it almost too late, because it was of a different subspecies from the ones he had known. It was cruder, more like a mundane tree, with light bark on the tentacles, and it lacked the pleasant greensward and sweet perfume beneath. Tanglers had grown more sophisticated over the centuries as their prey became more wary. For a person attuned to the end product, the cruder ancestral version was hard to identify. He would have to be more careful; there was less magic in the jungle, but what there was just as dangerous to him and Jumper.
They resumed their journey. The Land of Xanth was a peninsula connected to Mundania by a narrow, mountainous isthmus at the northwest extremity. Dor's body appeared to be that of a Mundane who had recently crossed the isthmus; maybe that was why he had been easy for the goblins to trap. It took time to appreciate all the hazards of Xanth, and even a lifetime did not suffice for some people. A Mundane would have all the wrong reflexes, and perish quickly, Which perhaps was why the Mundanes invaded in Waves; there was security in great numbers.
Now they were proceeding toward the center of Xanth, Castle Roogna, in a southerly direction. How they would cross the Gap that cut Xanth in two Dor wasn't certain. In his day the northern wilderness was not as dangerous as the southern wilderness, and since there was less magic now-or rather, less-developed magic-Dor did not anticipate too much trouble this side of the Gap. But the Land of Xanth had a way of fooling people, so he remained on guard.
Castle Roogna. He wondered whether there was a tapestry on its wall, depicting-what? The events another eight hundred years past? Or the present, including himself coming toward the Castle? Intriguing thought!
Jumper paused, raising his two frontmost forelegs, which seemed to be the most sensitive to new things. Dor had noted no ears on the spider; was it possible he heard with his legs? 'Something strange,' Jumper chittered.
The spider had grown accustomed to the routine strangenesses of this land, so this must be something special. Dor looked. Before them stood a creature vaguely like a small dragon, yet obviously not a dragon. Yet with dragon affinities. It had an irregularly sinuous body, small wings that did not seem functional, claws, tail, and a lizard head, but lacked the formidable teeth and fire of a true dragon. In fact, it did not look very formidable.
'I think it will be safe to circle around it,' Dor said. There was a swampy region to the west with malodorous bubbles, and a thicket of glistening brambles to the east, so it was necessary to pass through this creature's territory. 'We're not looking for trouble, and maybe it isn't either.' Knowing Jumper could hardly understand all that discussion, he set the example by detouring right, to circle the monster at a safe distance without going too near the bubbly swamp.
But the creature extended one leg enormously, so that it stretched way out to block Dor's progress. 'You may not pass,' it rasped. 'This is my domain, my precinct, my territory. I govern.'
At least it talked! 'We do not seek any quarrel with you,' Dor said, remembering adult protocol for such things. 'If you let us pass, we will not bother you.'
'If you pass, you prevail,' the monster said. 'I am Gerrymander; I prevail by whatever devious configuration.'
Dor knew of no such creature in his own time. This must have been an evolutionary dead end. Gerrymander-who prevailed by changing its shape to block the passage of others? A strange definition of success!
'I do not wish to damage you, Gerrymander,' Dor said, placing his hand on the hilt of his sword. He feared it looked as if he were scratching his shoulder, and wished this body had a more conventional harness for the sword, but that couldn't be helped. 'But we must pass.'
Gerrymander's shape settled grotesquely. It contracted along its extremity and stood in its original form before Dor. 'You shall not. I hold this office eternally, regardless of the need or merit of others.'
The thing was meeting his challenge squarely. Dor was daunted. He was using the body of a powerful grown man, but he remained a boy at heart, and he never had been much for combat. Those goblins, the horrible way they had died-no, not that again! 'Then I'll just have to go around another way.' He backed off.
'You shall not!' Gerrymander repeated. 'No one supersedes me by fair means!' Its neck extended in a series of odd jumps until its head came to rest behind Dor. Now he was half encircled.
Sudden fear prompted him to do what determination had not. Dor drew his sword with the practiced speed of his warrior-body and pointed it directly at the creature's heart region. 'Get out of my way!'
For answer, the thing's left wing began extending with the same chunky jerks, forming a misshapen barrier around Dor's other side. 'I am surrounding you, isolating your influence,' Gerrymander said. 'You have no power, your grass roots are shriveling, your aspirations fading away. Your strength will be mine.'
And Dor did feel a sinister weakening, as if his body were being drained of some vital imperative.
Terrified by this strange threat, he reacted savagely. He struck with all his power at the thing's neck. The great sword cut cleanly through Gerrymander's substance as if it were mere cocoa from a nut, cleaving the monster in twain.
But no blood flowed. 'I don't have to be contiguous,' Gerrymander cried, its severed head forming little legs as its ears elongated. The ears were now limbs. 'I don't have to be reasonable; I have the power of accommodation. I can be any shape and any number, anytime. I am master of form and number. I cover whatever territory I need, regardless of my actual base, to hold power.'
Dor struck again, separating a section of body, but the thing did not die or yield. Dor cut it into half a dozen bloodless segments, yet they maintained their formation about him. An arm coalesced into a torso, the fingers of its hands stretching into separate arms and legs; a leg sprouted legs and a tail; the original tail grew a head. 'I convolute, I divide, I conquer!' the original head cried, as the segments closed in.
