"There's room for you in the house, Zora," Irene said. "Can you climb the ladder?"

The zombie hesitated. She was in bad condition, even for her kind, because of the savagery of the Furies. Decayed bone showed where her flesh had been scourged away, and her dress was so tattered it would have been indecent on any other female. "Nnosh nneedth--" she began.

"Not need shelter?" Irene asked. "Do you stay outside because you want to--or because your kind usually isn't welcome inside?"

Zora stood there, not attempting an answer. "You have helped me and my friends twice," Irene said firmly. "Maybe you saved my life--from the bonnacon and the Furies. It would be wrong for me to treat you like--" She broke off, unwilling to say like a zombie.

"You know, it's just about dark now," Xavier commented. "I can hardly see her. She looks sort of slender and shadowed. She don't seem half bad, this way. And the smell's not bad, neither. More like soil."

As compliments went, that wasn't much, but Irene realized the youth meant well; he had not had much experience with this sort of thing. Considering his background, that was not surprising.

"The scourge would have torn me apart," Grundy remarked. "Literally. There's worse things to be next to than a zombie."

Irene addressed Zora again. "So come join us inside the tree house. You'll heal better under cover. You need sleep, don't you?" That was a guess, but it had become important to Irene to make this gesture. It might be some transference from her guilt about neglecting her mother Iris--oh, the Furies had scored there!--but it was also simple grat.i.tude. Zora had saved her from the bonnacon, and Irene had allowed herself almost to forget about that; now Zora had saved her again, and this time there would be no forgetting. This zombie was no longer an unpleasant thing to be tolerated, and no necessary evil; this was a friend. Zora must indeed have been, as Xavier surmised, some woman when she lived; she was some woman now.

Zora accepted the invitation and shambled to the ladder leading up to the tree house. She tried to climb, but her body was less functional than usual because of the scourging, and her clumsy, skeletal hands slipped off the rungs. Irene winced to see the scourge wounds, knowing that her own flesh had very nearly suffered similarly. Obviously the poison of the whips was interfering with even zombie regeneration. Maybe in her healthiest state, Zora could have made it; not now.

Xavier stepped behind her, put his two large hands at Zora's somewhat sloppy waist, and lifted. Once again Irene noted how strong a man he was; though he hardly seemed to put forth any effort, the zombie rose like a feather. Xavier resembled his steed in this respect, being the finest of physical specimens. With this considerable a.s.sistance, Zora was able to scramble to the top of the ladder, fortunately within the young man's reach, and get her balance on hands and knees at the house portal. She disappeared inside, dropping some slivers of skin behind.

"I never touched one of them things before," Xavier murmured, half to himself. "Not with my hands, 'Course, she was hanging on to me, riding Xap, but I just sorta tuned her out. As if she were a bag of garbage going to the dump. But now, after she took that scourge for me--if I had been hit, I guess my flesh would be dropping off and showing my bones." He shook his head. "I never had no one do me a favor I didn't do back. But how do you give back the favor of a life when--I mean, she lost her life long before I ever knew her." He clenched his fists in a frustration Irene shared. He was a decent man, facing an insoluble ethical problem. "It's not so bad, touching her. No worse than entrails from some monster I killed. Touching stuff--it really don't mean nothing. It's how you feel about it. She sure don't weigh much."

Xavier was, in his crude but honest fashion, voicing sentiments similar to those Irene had privately entertained, to her half shame. His rea.s.sessment paralleled hers. There was no prejudice in Xanth greater than that relating to zombies, and she had shared it, though she knew better. Even Millie the Ghost, who had loved a zombie for eight hundred years, until he was at last restored to his living self as the Zombie Master--even she did not permit many zombies in their castle, although zombies had built that castle and now defended it. Castle Roogna had always been defended by zombies, yet they were not permitted inside it. n.o.body wanted to be close to a zombie.

But if zombies were not properly alive, neither were they properly dead. They did have feelings, loyalty, and courage, as Zora had so dramatically shown. Zora had done more, and had asked less in return, than anyone else on this odd excursion.

"She's a decent person," Irene said, knowing this to be an understatement so gross as to be obscene.

"Yeah. Too bad she's dead."

And there was the ultimate tragedy of it. How could anyone repay a person who was not alive? That was the wall against which each notion smashed.

Irene climbed on up and into her monkey-puzzle chamber. Xavier and Grundy got settled.

Irene lay there in the dark. There was certainly a smell from the zombie like rotted leaves or a small, dead animal left in the sun. But Xavier was right; it wasn't too bad, especially when one remembered what Zora had done.

Chapter 9: Parna.s.sus.

Zap and Chem were back by morning. Irene heard them arrive and decided not to inquire; it really wasn't her business. That was why she was so infernally curious!

Maybe it was her imagination, Irene thought, but in the light of dawn, Zora looked improved. The scourge gouges had filled in so that bone no longer showed, her flesh no longer hung in tatters, and her eyes seemed restored to the point where they were capable of normal vision. Even her dress was whole now, apparently renovating itself as part of the zombie process. Her hair was longer and fuller and less straggly, with some of its original fair color showing. It seemed that rest and shelter did mend a zombie somewhat.

This was the first case Irene knew of in which a zombie had become less, rather than more, rotten with the pa.s.sage of time. But of course she had never before interacted this closely with a zombie for several days. What had she ever really known about them? Little more than jokes: How many zombies does it take to plant a light bulb? She could no longer remember the punch line and didn't care to; she was sure she would not find it very funny now.

There was one other factor, she recalled: human consideration and caring. That was one thing that was supposed to help a zombie--and the one thing few if any zombies received. But all of them had welcomed Zora into their group after the episode of the Furies. Perhaps they had, after all, returned part of the debt they owed her.

Irene's original clothes were quite dry now, so she no longer had to wear the towels or other subst.i.tutes. That improved her outlook. She grew milkweed and eggplant for breakfast, for those who wanted it. Xap and Chem were not hungry; presumably they had eaten on the run during the night.

Chem projected her map. The scenery ahead spread out in miniature. "Here is the mountain of Parna.s.sus," she explained, indicating a large, irregular area. It was as if they were looking down on it from above; she must have questioned Xap closely about the details he perceived from the air, in order to fill out what she saw from the knoll. "It has two peaks. The one we want is here, to the south. The nine Muses live on it; the cave of the Oracle is over there, but we'll skirt around that to reach the peak where the Tree of Seeds grows. It's quite a climb, but we can handle it, if--"

Irene didn't like the smell of that hesitation. "If what?"

"If nothing interferes," Chem said reluctantly.

"What might interfere?"

"Well, Xap says there are things on the other peak of Parna.s.sus that--of course, we won't be traveling on that side of the mountain--"

"But we'd better be prepared," Irene finished. "Especially with that curse." She had told Chem about the visitation of the evening, of course, and the part Zora had played. "What affects Grundy and Zora is likely to affect the rest of us, since we're traveling as a group. So let's have the worst. What's on that other peak?"

"I'll have to give a little background," Chem said apologetically. Unlike some centaurs, she hesitated to show off her extensive cla.s.sical education.

"Spit it out, horsefoot," Grundy said. "Anything bad will probably hit me first."

"The shrine of the Oracle was originally guarded by the Python, who had a keen insight into the fallibility's of man. But the huge reptile was attacked and severely injured and driven out; it survived only because it fled to the other peak of Parna.s.sus, where the Tree of Immortality was, and ate one of its leaves. Now the Python is barred from the Oracle's cave, but it is a most sagacious reptile and would do anything to return. So it slithers about, seeking some avenue. If we were to stray into its present territory--"

"We won't," Irene said firmly. "Not with your map to guide us. What else?"

"The maenads. They are the wild women of wine. They dance ritually on the north slope, tearing apart and consuming any creature they catch. Once they served the G.o.d of fertile crops, but the old G.o.ds are gone now and the maenads serve no one except the Tree of Immortality, which keeps them alive and youthful."

"They sound like nymphs," Xavier remarked.

"They may be related, but their personalities are more like those of harpies or ogresses. They are predators, not prey, though they are naked and beautiful."

"I see," Irene said, frowning. She tended to be foolishly jealous of eternally young, beautiful, naked wild women. Once she herself had been--but she stifled that thought. "So wild women roam the slopes of Parna.s.sus. We'll stay clear of them, too." For sure!

"So here is the appropriate path," Chem concluded, pointing out a dotted line on the map. "We'll have to stay right on it to be safe. It is too bad you can't use Xap to fly directly to the Tree of Seeds. But the Simurgh allows no one to enter Parna.s.sus by air, because every so often dragons and griffins try to raid. A hippogryph vaguely resembles a griffin in flight, so Xap knows it isn't safe for him to fly there. Nothing larger than a small bird can risk it. Xap can handle just about any airborne creature he might meet, but the Simurgh is something else."

"I'm sure it is," Irene agreed, getting more curious about this notorious bird.

"We have to approach slowly, by foot, so the Simurgh has time to study us and see that we are not raiders but serious visitors."

"Parna.s.sus seems very choosy," Irene commented.

"Yes. A select and strange group of creatures abides there. We have to follow their rules, or we will get nowhere. That's why the witch Xanthippe could not go herself; the Simurgh would know her for what she is and would never let her get near the Tree of Seeds."

"It is not a mission I would have chosen myself," Irene admitted grimly. "But we must do what we must do."

They set off on the final stretch to Parna.s.sus, as delineated on Chem's map. Zora rode behind Xavier on Xap again, while Irene and Grundy remained on Chem. They trotted southeast, but with more certain impetus, for Chem had traveled this route before. Xap now stayed on the ground, and not because he was tired. Whether he wished to avoid the attention of the Simurgh even this far away, or simply to keep Chem company, Irene wasn't sure. But she suspected the latter.

Those two semi-equines must have had quite a night of it, Irene reflected. Xap spoke only in squawks, but Chem seemed to understand him perfectly now, and he understood her. Irene remained surprised that Chem should show such interest in a non-centaur, yet human beings were non-centaurs, too, and she a.s.sociated with them all the time. Was a human person any more worthy than a hippogryph person? A smart centaur certainly ought to be able to judge. But Irene suspected that Chem's dam Cherie would not entirely approve. What would the Furies have said to Chem?

In due course they came to the base of Mount Parna.s.sus. The jungle halted as if in deference to the great mountain, so the view was clear. There were indeed two peaks; on each one, half hidden in mists, was a large and spreading tree. They would avoid the Tree of Immortality on the north peak; too much mischief had already been wreaked by the water of the Fountain of Youth, which was surely related magic.

"Doesn't look like much," Grundy said.

"Let's hope you're right," Chem said. "I want to talk to the Simurgh--nothing else. And Irene wants to get those seeds."

They crossed the channel at the foot of the mountain. This was a dry creekbed filled with rounded stones. It wasn't comfortable footing for hooves, so Xap spread his wings and leaped across, risking this tiny bit of flight, while Chem picked her way carefully. Even so, the stones tended to turn under her feet, slowing her down further.

"Here, tenderfoot, I'll find you a solid path!" Grundy said impatiently. He jumped down and began shoving at stones, testing for solidity.

Something struck at the golem. Grundy jumped back. "It bit me!" he exclaimed indignantly as a small snake slithered quickly away.

"Hardly the Python," Irene said. The golem was touching his little leg, but did not seem to be crippled.

Chem stiffened, her four hooves firmly in place. "That snake looked very much like a dipsas. I hope that's a misperception."

"The cursed thing bit me!" Grundy repeated, pressing at the flesh of his leg. "I'm not a true golem any more, you know; I'm flesh now. I hurt!"

That was true. Grundy, like Millie the Ghost, had for some time been fully alive, because of very special magic. The Furies had known. Too bad, Irene thought, that no similar magic was available to restore Zora Zombie! But Good Magician Humfrey had been involved in the other case, and he was no longer available.

But she had better concentrate on the immediate problem. "What's a dipsas?" she asked Chem, who was now picking her way forward again.

"Cursed thing," the centaur mused. "Maybe not just a figure of speech."

"I don't understand," Irene said, annoyed.

"Hey, got anything to drink?" the golem asked.

"It was a dipsas!" Chem said, horrified. "I hoped I was wrong or that the snake's reputation was exaggerated. Its bite makes a person unquenchably thirsty."

"Curse," Irene repeated, catching on. "The Furies' curse of misfortune!"

"Yes," the centaur agreed. "You told me how the Furies came while Xap and I were away and how Grundy caught their curse. This bite of the dipsas does seem to fit the description. Perhaps if you had caught the curse, you would have been the one bitten--or me, if I had been there to meet the Furies. I was certainly vulnerable."

All too true! "Zora has my curse," Irene said. "She did not get bitten, so I think this one was intended specifically for Grundy."

"I'm starving of thirst!" Grundy exclaimed. "Find me a lake, somebody!"

Irene looked around. "There's a beer-barrel tree behind us." She dismounted, picked her way through the treacherous stones of the riverbed, keeping a nervous eye out for snakes, and went to the huge, swollen barrel of the tree. Now she realized why the streambed was dry--the magic snake had caused all creatures here to drink until the water was gone. Too bad that had not been obvious before!

She used her knife to punch a hole in the bark. Yellow beer spouted out. This might not be the best liquid for the golem to drink, but there was plenty of it, enough to quench the thirst of a hundred golems.

Grundy hurried up and put his little mouth to the stream of beer. He gulped the stuff down insatiably.

Irene watched with growing amazement as the golem swallowed more than his own ma.s.s in beer and kept on drinking.

The stream seemed to be flowing into a bottomless hole. His body swelled up like a watermelon, but still he drank.

Finally the barrel ran dry and the flow stopped. "More! More!" Grundy cried, though he was bursting out of his clothing. Irene had never seen a smaller, fatter man. "I'm ravenous with thirst. Hie!"

Irene glanced again at the dry stream, then at the empty tree. This thirst was truly ferocious! Mere liquid obviously wouldn't abate it. "I don't know where there's more."

"I'm drying up!" Grundy cried, popping a b.u.t.ton. "I wish I were dead!"

That was another aspect of the curse, of course. "What we need is not more liquid, but a cure," she said. "Otherwise Grundy will drink until he explodes."

Chem had made her way across the riverbed and was now safely on Mount Parna.s.sus. "As I recall, the only natural cure is a draught from a healing spring, and I don't know where--"

Xap squawked.

"He says the winespring of the maenads quenches all thirst," the centaur said. "That's fairly close."

"But that spring must be--"

"On the north slope of Parna.s.sus," Chem said grimly.

"The very place we don't want to go." Irene sighed. "Yet Grundy is dying of dehydration, or of swelling. We can't ignore that!" Indeed, the golem was chewing up the local vegetation, trying to squeeze water out of the leaves.

Irene dropped a seed and ordered it to grow. In a moment a water hyacinth sprouted, bursting with water. The golem grabbed its leaves and flowers and crammed them into his mouth. But plants couldn't hold him long. Already his swollen limbs looked shrunken, as if dehydrating. He had the worst of both conditions.

"I'd like to have Fracto the Cloud here now," Irene muttered. "Grundy would swallow him whole."

"Maybe Xap and me can take him to the winespring," Xavier offered.

"But Xap doesn't dare fly here," Chem protested, concerned for the welfare of the hippogryph.

"Yeah, but he can gallop good."

"True," Chem agreed, with one of her obscure smiles. "Perhaps we should separate, and rejoin farther up the mountain when Grundy is cured." She projected her map. "The spring should be about here," she said, making it glow in the picture. She had really learned a lot of geography from the hippogryph! "If you follow this route--" The dotted line progressed to intersect the glow. "--you can rejoin us farther up the mountain--here." The line intersected the line of their route to the southern peak.

"I really don't like breaking up our party," Irene said. "But I suppose we have little choice at the moment. We can't let Grundy die of thirst, or whatever, and Xap is best able to avoid the maenads."

So it was reluctantly decided. Zora got down from the hippogryph, and Grundy took her place. Xap galloped away, around the northern curve of the mountain.

"There go three fairly brave and foolish males," Chem murmured as Zora mounted behind Irene.

"Let's hope we fairly sensible and timid females can complete our mission," Irene said.

They moved up the slope. Parna.s.sus was not a smooth mountain; it was riddled with ridges, gullies, crevices, and caves, and the vegetation was odd. Strange seeds had sprouted, probably from the Tree of Seeds. There was a proliferation of paper trees and ink plants, and secretary-birds zipped among them in seemingly pointless activity. Irene wondered what natural place a community like this had in the larger scheme of Xanth, for things generally interrelated, but she could see nothing worthwhile. Parna.s.sus seemed pretty much wrapped up in its own concerns, which hardly related to those of the world beyond.

There was a loud and sinister hiss ahead. Chem skidded to a halt, all four hooves making grooves in the dirt. The path ran through a small gorge here, with sliding rubble on the slopes, so it was not at all convenient to change the route--but she didn't trust what was ahead. Chem unslung her bow from her shoulder and nocked an arrow; like all centaurs, she was an excellent archer. She walked slowly forward.

There, around a curve, was a monstrous serpent. Its head was half the size of Irene's body, carried at human height, and its sinuous body extended back and around another curve.

"The Python!" Irene whispered in horror. "What is it doing here?"

"I am the nemesis and the delight of females everywhere," the serpent hissed. "I made the first woman blush and feel shame for the desire I aroused in her. I will possess the last woman ever to bear a child. Bow down before me, you vulnerable creatures!"

This was more than a mere snake! Irene tried to protest, but the Python's terrible gaze transfixed her. Chem fidgeted on her hooves, caught by the same stare. There seemed to be all the sinister masculine wisdom of eternity in those huge eyes, together with all the masculine promise and threat and a desire, as insatiable as the golem's thirst, that would destroy them long before it was sated; yet neither Irene nor Chem could break the connection.

The Python slid forward sinuously, holding them with his hypnotic gaze. His pale red tongue flicked out. Soon that awful mouth would gape, showing the cruel fangs-- "Wwhaashh?" Zora asked, shedding some epiglottis, as she tended to do when expressing herself with some force. When Irene didn't answer, the zombie craned her neck to peer blankly ahead of the centaur.