At the foot of the other side of the hill was an ore: a huge fat water monster with teeth overflowing its mouth. The water flowed over and around it; no point in trying to cross the stream here!
They returned to the top of the hill. 'I'd hate to backtrack all the way and try to scout a new route,' Dor said. 'This is an excellent route for the zombies-up until this point. We've got to figure out a way across!'
'What makes it flow uphill?' the spider inquired.
'Magic, of course. Something in the ground here that makes it seem to fall, when actually it is rising.'
'I note a different texture of stone, here. Would that be it?'
'Could be. Enchanted stone. The magic can't be in the water itself, or it would be floating right up into the sky. I think.' Now Dor wondered how water did get into the sky, to make it rain. Maybe there were streams that fell upward. So much of the magic of Xanth was unexplained! 'But if we moved the stone, the river would merely change channels, and then that ore would get dry and come looking for us. The only thing madder than a wet hen is a dry ore. We need to cross the river, not move it.'
'Still, we might experiment.' Jumper poked a leg into the water, shifting stones. The water responded by rising higher, forming a little arc in air, then dropping back into its channel.
'Say-if we could make it jump high enough, we could pass right under it!' Dor exclaimed. He plunged in, helping Jumper to move the enchanted stones.
The river rose higher and higher. At last an arch formed, leaving the riverbed clear for several feet. 'If we can lift it just a little higher, so they can walk under it without ducking-' Dor said eagerly. He moved another handful of stones.
'Perhaps we should refrain from-' Jumper warned.
'Nonsense! It's working beautifully. We don't want the zombies to touch the water at all, because they would get washed out, and they're too stupid to duck properly.' Dor scooped some more.
And, abruptly, the river overturned. Instead of arcing forward, it arced backward, forming a loop in the air. It splashed to the ground at the base of the hill, then continued on up and over.
'Oh, no!' Dor cried ruefully. For of course now there was no arch. The river landed beside its original channel, then flowed back into it at the top of the hill and on as before. Instead of fashioning a bridge of water, they had doubled the course of the stream. 'We'll have to move it again.'
'No,' Jumper chittered. 'We might create further difficulties. We can cross it this way.' And he showed Dor how there was a narrow channel between the parallel slopes of the river as it spiraled through the air. The water was rising in the west and falling in the east, crossing overhead. It was in fact a variant of the original arch; now the passage across went north-south instead of east-west.
Dor had to agree. He placed a magic marker at the loop, and they went on. What a remarkable feature of the landscape they were leaving for the zombies to find!
Just as they departed, there was a surprised 'Oink!' as a seahog was carried through the loop. Dor chuckled.
The landscape beyond the river remained pleasant. It was the nicest region he had seen. He was really enjoying this trek, a complete change of pace from the violence just past, and hoped Jumper was enjoying it too. All too soon they would arrive at the Castle, completing their mission, and after that it would be time to go home. Dor really wasn't eager to return so soon. The best path curled down into the deeper valley, where the river meandered across to form a handsome lake. Dor marveled at this; in his own day this entire section between the Good Magician's castle and Castle Roogna was deep jungle. How could it have changed so extensively? But he reminded himself yet again that there was no accounting for magic.
Beside the lake was a small mountain, its base the same size as the lake. Perhaps a thousand paces in diameter, were it possible to pace either mountain or lake. Yet the lake looked deep, and the mountain tall; though the water was clear, the depths were shrouded in gloom, while snow capped the peak. So both these features of the landscape were probably magically augmented, being much larger than they seemed.
This was another type of magic Dor didn't understand. What spell kept snow from melting from the tops of the highest mountains? Since the heights were closest to the hot sun, the heat there had to be fierce, yet they acted as if it were cold. What was the purpose in such a spell? Was it the work of some long-gone Magician whose talent was turning hot to cold, permanently? No way to know, alas. Well, he might climb up there and inquire of the features of the landscape-but that would be a lot of work, and he had other things to do. Maybe after he returned to his own time
People were there, in the water and on the mountain and prancing between. Lovely nude women and delicately shaggy men. 'I think we have happened on a colony of nymphs and fauns,' Dor remarked. 'They should be harmless but unreliable. Best to leave them alone. The problem is our best route passes right between mountain and lake-where the colony is thickest.'
'Is it not feasible to march that route?' Jumper chittered.
'Well, nymphs-you know.' But of course the spider didn't know, having had no experience with humanity prior to this adventure. 'Nymphs, they-' Dor found himself unable to explain, since he was not certain himself. 'I guess we'll find out. Maybe it will be all right.'
The nymphs spied Dor and cried gleeful welcome. 'Gleeful welcome!' They spied Jumper and screamed horror. 'Horror!' They did little kick-foot dances and flung their hair about. The goat-footed fauns charged up aggressively.
'Settle down,' Dor cried. 'I am a man, and this is my friend. We mean you no harm.'
'Oh-then it's all right,' a nymph exclaimed. 'Any friend of a man is a friend of ours.' There was a shower of hand-clapping, and impromptu dances of joy that did marvelous things to the nymphly anatomy.
Good enough. 'My name is Dor. My friend is Jumper. Would you like to see him jump?'
'Oh, yes!' they cried. So Jumper made a fifteen-foot jump, amazing them. It was not nearly as far as he could go when he tried. Obviously he was being cautious, so they would not know his limitations-just in case. Dor was slowly catching on to adult thinking; it was more devious than juvenile thinking. But he was glad he had thought of the jump exhibit; that made the spider a thing of harmless pleasure, for these people.
