Magician seemed more human with each hour that he passed in Millie's company. 'The excitement of discovery, without threat. When I was a child, before my talent was known, I would smash blocks of stone with a hammer, then reassemble them into the original. Of course it lacked the cohesion-'
'Was that not an aspect of your talent?' Jumper chittered. 'Now you reassemble creatures, but they lack the cohesion of life.'
The Magician laughed, the first time they had heard him do that. He flung back his shaggy brown hair so that his eyebrow ridges and cheekbones stood out more prominently. 'A significant insight! Yes, I suppose creating zombies is not so very different from restoring stones. Yet it becomes a lonely pursuit, because others-'
'I understand,' Jumper chittered. 'You are a normal creature, as I am, but this world does not see it that way. I have my own world to return to, but you have only this one.'
'Would that I could go to your world,' the Magician said, lightly but with a certain longing beneath. 'To begin fresh, unprejudged. Even among spiders, I would feel more at home.'
Millie did not speak, but her demeanor softened. They worked on the puzzle. It occurred to Dor that human relations were similar to such a puzzle, meshed by the conventions of language. If only he knew where the piece that was his whole life should be fitted!
'When I was young,' the Zombie Master remarked after a bit, 'I dreamed idly of marrying and settling down in the normal fashion, raising a family. I had no thought of being-as you see me now. I had better appetite, was more fully fleshed, was hardly distinguishable from normal boys. Then one day I found a dead flying frog, and was sorry for it, and tried to will it back to life, and-'
'The first zombie!' Millie exclaimed. 'True. I watched that frog fly away with amazement, thinking I had wakened the dead. But it was less than that; I could only half-waken the dead. Except, perhaps, in special cases.' He glanced at Dor, obviously thinking of the restorative elixir. But that was more than the Zombie Master's magic; that incorporated the magic of the healing elixir too, so was a collaboration. 'From that point, my career was set. Against my preference, I achieved far greater status and isolation than any other of my time. It seemed that many others desired what I could do for them-making zombie animals to guard their homes, or fight their battles, or do their work-but none cared to associate with me on a personal level. I became disgusted; I do not like being used without respect.'
Millie's softening became something more. 'You poor man!' she exclaimed.
'You three are the first who have associated with me without revulsion,' the Zombie Master continued. 'True, you came begging favors-'
'We didn't understand!' Millie cried. 'These two are from another land, far away, and I am only an innocent maid-'
'Yes,' the Magician agreed, looking at her with muted intensity. 'Innocent, but with a talent that causes others to react.'
'Except for the three of you,' she said. 'Every other man has wanted to grab me. Dor dumped me on the floor.' She cast a dark look at him.
'Your friend restrains himself because he is not of your world and must soon depart, and cannot take you with him,' the Zombie Master said. Dor was amazed and gratified at the man's comprehension. 'He can thus make you no commitments, and is too much the gentleman to take advantage on a temporary basis.'
'But I would go with him!' she cried naively.
Jumper interjected a chitter: 'It is impossible, maid. There is magic involved.'
Her chin thrust forward in cute rebellion.
'Yet if you cared to remain here at my castle, Millie, you could have a life of status-' the Magician began, then reined himself. 'But also of isolation. That must be confessed.'
'You really have a lot of company,' Millie said. 'The zombies aren't so bad when you get to know them. They have different personalities. They?can't help it if they're not quite alive.'
'They are often better company than the living creatures,' the Zombie Master agreed. 'They do possess muted emotions and dim memories of their prior lives. It is ignorance that makes them suspect-the ignorance of the majority of normal people. All the zombies need are set jobs to do, and a comfortable grave-site to sleep in between tasks-and acceptance.'
Dor listened, noting how Millie and the Magician were coming together, forcing himself to stay out of it. His direct involvement could invalidate anything that happened-if Murphy was right. Yet it bothered him increasingly, this attempt to use the Zombie Master, who was after all a decent man.
'I don't think I'd mind living among zombies,' Millie said. 'I met a girl zombie in the garden; I think in life she must have been almost as pretty as I am.'
'Almost,' the Zombie Master agreed with a smile. 'She was slain by a pneumonia spell intended for another. But when I restored her, her family would not take her back, so she remains here. I regret that I cannot undo my magic, once it has been applied; she is doomed like the others to live half-alive forever.'
'I screamed when I met the first zombie. But now-'
'I realize your primary interest is elsewhere,' the Magician said, glancing obliquely at Dor. 'But if, accepting the fact that you cannot be with him, you would consider remaining here with me-'
'I have to help the King,' she said. 'We promised to-'
The Zombie bowed to the inevitable. 'For you, I would even indulge in politics. Ad hoc. Employ my zombies to-'
'No!' Dor cried, surprising himself. 'This is wrong!'
The Zombie Master glanced at him expressionlessly. 'You are after all asserting your interest in the lady?'
'No! I can't have her. I know that. But we stay here only because we are under siege, and the moment the siege lifts we'll go back to King Roogna. It is dishonorable to let her play upon your loneliness only to
