'Not safely, friend,' Jumper chittered.
'Let me take back the hoop,' Dor suggested to the spider. 'Then you can string your lines faster.'
Jumper agreed, and passed back the hoop.
Another harpy made a screaming dive. Dor scooped her into the hoop, and she was gone without recall or recoil. What happened to the creatures who passed through it? Harpies could fly, goblins could climb; why couldn't either get out? Was it an inferno on the other side, killing them instantly? He didn't like that.
Jumper was ahead, setting the anchor for the next swing. Dor had a private moment. He poked a finger into the center of the hoop, from the far side, watching it disappear from his side. He saw his finger in cross section, as if severed with a sharp sword: the skin, the little blood vessels, the tendons, the bone. But there was no pain; his finger felt cool, not cold; no inferno there, and no freezing weather either. He withdrew it, and found it whole, to his relief. He poked it from the near side, and got the same effect, except that this time he could not see the cross section. It seemed that either side of the ring led to wherever it led. A different world?
Jumper tugged, and Dor swung across, feeling guilty for his surreptitious experimentation. He could have lost a finger that way. Well, maybe not; he had seen the King's fingers disappear and reappear unharmed. 'Let's check and see if the goblins are clear,' Dor said. He had not played the flute for a while.
The spider scurried up the wall to peek over with two or three eyes, keeping the rest of his body low. 'They are there in masses,' he chittered. 'I believe they are pacing the harpies-who are pacing us.'
'Oh, no! Murphy strikes again! We can't get clear of the Gap, if they follow us!'
'We should be clear of the forget radius now,' Jumper chittered consolingly.
'Then so are the goblins and harpies! That's no good!' Dor heard himself getting hysterical.
'Our effort should have distracted a great number of the warring creatures,' Jumper pointed out reasonably. 'Our purpose was to distract them so that the Zombie Master could penetrate to Castle Roogna. If he succeeded, we have succeeded.'
'I suppose so,' Dor agreed, calming. 'So it doesn't really matter if the harpies and goblins don't get forget-spelled. Still, how are we ever going to get out of here? It is too late to turn off the spell.'
'Perseverance should pay. If we continue until night-' Jumper cocked his body, lifting his two front legs so as to hear better. 'What is that?'
Dor tried to fathom what direction the spider was orienting, and could not. Damn those ubiquitous eyes! 'What's what?'
Then he heard it. 'Nine hundred eighty-three, nine hundred eighty-four, close to the hundredth door; nine hundred eighty-five-'
A harpy was carrying the spell toward them-and it was about to detonate! 'Oh, Murphy!' Dor wailed. 'You really nabbed us now!'
'What's the big secret about this talking ball?' the harpy screeched.
'Nine hundred ninety-two, buckle the bag's shoe,' the spell said.
'Stop counting!' Dor yelled at the spell.
'Countdown can't be stopped once initiated,' the spell replied smugly.
'Quick,' Jumper chittered. 'I will fasten the draglines so we can return. We must escape through the magic hoop.'
'Oh, no!' Dor cried.
'It should be safe; I saw you testing it.'
'Nine hundred ninety-seven, nine hundred ninety-eight,' the spell continued inexorably. 'Now don't be late!'
Jumper scrambled through the hoop. Dor hesitated, appalled. Could they return? But if he remained here-
'One thousand!' the spell cried gleefully. 'Now at last I can say it!'
Dor dived through the hoop. The last thing he heard was 'Deto-'
He arrived in darkness. It was pleasant, neutral. His body seemed to be suspended without feeling. There was a timelessness about him, a perpetual security. All he had to do was sleep.
You are not like the others, a thought said at him.
'Of course not,' Dor thought back. Whatever he was suspended in did not permit physical talking, because there was no motion. 'I am from another time. So is my friend Jumper the spider. Who are you?'
'I am the Brain Coral, keeper of the source of magic.
'The Brain Coral! I know you! You're supposed to be animating my body!'
'When?'
'Eight hundred years from now. Don't you remember?'
'I am not in a position to know about that, being as yet a creature of my own time.
'Well, in my time you-uh, it gets complicated. But I think Jumper and I had better get out of here as soon as the forget spell dissipates.'
You detonated a forget spell?
