"Not that bad, of course," Irene said hastily. "I'm sure Ivy will talk when she gets around to it. She's only three years old, after all." But that tinge of uncertainty remained.

"Something must have happened to her," Grundy said.

"The forget-whorl!" Chem interjected before Irene could get more upset. "It must have touched the yak, and the animal forgot Ivy and wandered away."

Irene relaxed. "Yes, of course. We must backtrack, then cast about for Ivy's trail."

There was a detonation of thunder that made them all jump, then a stiff gust of wind, and the rain began. This was definitely the fragment of the King of Clouds, restored to power by the moisture of the evening and a host of satellite clouds. Now it was getting even with Irene, and she was not in a position to do anything about it. She ground her teeth in private ire--she didn't like being bested by water vapor.

"The trail will have to wait a little," Chem said. "We aren't going to be able to trace anything in the storm."

"Yeah, it'll be a real drenchpour," Grundy said enthusiastically. "I wonder who antagonized that cloud? They don't zero in like this for no reason."

With bad grace, Irene took out a seed. "Grow," she directed it, and an umbrella plant sprouted. Its broad leaves spread out in an overlapping pattern, creating a watertight shelter. Soon it grew large enough to protect the three of them.

Just in time, for this was indeed a drenchpour. Water came down in traveling sheets, doing its best to blow in sidewise. Oh, that cloud was angry! Irene had to grow a wallflower to wall it off, but they were soaked before the flower completed its growth. Rivulets washed across their feet. Chem excavated channels with her hooves to drain the water, but now the ground was so soggy that it was no pleasure to stand on. Irene grew rock-roses in lieu of chairs for herself and Grundy. But then itch-gnats swarmed in, as they did when people were vulnerable, and she had to grow a giant toad plant to snap them up. The trouble was, the toad also snapped at dangling curls of Irene's green hair and Chem's blond tail, mistaking them for flies or spiders dangling on threads. All in all, it was an uncomfortable situation.

The zombie stood just outside the shelter, having no need of it and knowing that its kind wasn't wanted inside. The sluicing rain carried bits and pieces of the creature away, but it never seemed to lose ma.s.s. That was the thing about zombies; they were forever shedding their spoiled flesh, yet always had more to shed. It was one of the less appetizing types of magic in Xanth. But Irene knew how loyally the zombies had defended Castle Roogna through many crises, freely sacrificing whatever sort of lives they had when any trouble came. They were the ultimate selfless creatures. And she remembered how a zombie justice of the peace--maybe that was "piece," because of the way he had been falling apart--had agreed to officiate when she married Dor. Zombies were good people, despite being rotten.

Still the rain came, settling in for a long siege. Obviously the storm meant to pin them down for the night. h.e.l.l had no fury like that of an angry cloud, she reflected, for h.e.l.l was full of fire, while the cloud was full of water. Irene didn't like being pinned down; the wilderness was especially dangerous at night. Maybe the king cloud hoped something bad would happen to her while she was pinned. But she couldn't go home as long as Ivy was out here alone.

Something had to be done; Irene's teeth were chattering with developing chill. That cloud had reached high in the cold sky to find icy water! She used the last remaining light of day to grow a candle plant, lighting it with a small flame-vine. That provided enough artificial light for her to grow a few staples. Most plants wouldn't grow in the dark; they required the energy of sunlight. But her talent could force the issue with a few, with the artificial light.

She managed to grow a towel plant, with fine dry towels for all, so they could dry off and abate the chill. Since Irene had to strip to use her towel, she grew a curtain plant to give her some privacy. Actually, she wasn't sensitive about being seen by Chem, as centaurs had little personal modesty; and anyway, Chem was female. She showed all the time what Irene was showing only now. But Grundy was another matter. He would make obnoxious remarks, not because he had any real interest, but because that was his nature. He would feel inadequate if he let such an occasion pa.s.s by without some observation about cheesecake or the erosion of birthday suits. And his big mouth would be active when he encountered other males subsequently. Irene knew it was foolish of her to pay any attention to such nonsense, but she did.

Once dry, she wrapped two towels about her and pinned them with pins from another pincushion plant. The towels would have to do as clothing till morning, when she could grow a sunflower to dry her regular clothing and a lady-slippers plant to replace her sodden footwear. She grew a cheese plant and a breadfruit and a chocolate plant before the last natural light faded; these would suffice for supper. It was a miserable situation, but they could endure it for one night.

Irene hoped her husband Dor wasn't worrying too much. He seemed to think she would not survive by herself; it was one of the halfway charming male notions he retained. She missed him already, there in snug Castle Roogna with the dry floor and friendly ghosts and the continuing entertainment of the magic tapestry.

But she missed Ivy more. That sweet, innocent, inexperienced child lost in this jungle! Her child! Irene touched the ivy plant she wore; only its continued health rea.s.sured her that her daughter remained well. Without that a.s.surance, Irene would have been forging through the night, regardless of the danger, desperately searching for what she might never find. She was none too sanguine as it was, but the ivy made the situation bearable.

She saw the zombie at the fringe of the flickering candlelight. It looked miserable out there. Of course zombies were always miserable-looking, with one foot pretty much in the grave. A zombie would rest literally in the grave; some of them slept for centuries, quietly decaying, and only roused themselves to throw off their blanket of dirt when summoned by some strange awareness of need for their services. Still, the sight of this one bothered her. "Are you hungry?" she asked it.

"Hhunnggh?" the thing said.

"Hungry. Eat. Food." Irene extended a piece of cheese, not knowing whether such things ever ate.

The zombie reached a gangrenous hand to accept it. Irene forced herself not to flinch away from the contact. "Ffooodh," the creature said.

"Yes, to eat." Irene ill.u.s.trated by taking a delicate bite of her own piece of cheese, though now her appet.i.te had diminished considerably.

The zombie tried it. Three teeth crumbled, and a segment of lip fell off. The firm cheese was impervious to the creature's feeble effort at mastication.

"I suppose not," Irene said, controlling the roiling of her stomach. "I really don't know much about zombies."

"None of us do," Chem agreed. "They are not like us, if that is not a ludicrous understatement."

"Easy enough to find out," Grundy said, perceiving an opportunity for mischief. "I can talk to the things as readily as to anything else, though they aren't strictly alive. It's one place where King Dor's talent overlaps mine; he can talk to them because they aren't quite alive, and I can talk to them because they aren't quite dead." He smiled with happy malice. "What intimate girlish secrets do you wish to exchange with this one?"

"Well--" Irene discovered that she really wasn't very curious about zombies. They were such appalling things! Most of the horror was the thought that someday she could find herself animated as a similar creature if she happened to die in the vicinity of Castle Zombie. Death was never fun to contemplate, and this kind of half-death was worse.

There was a low hissing roar from the damp darkness beyond the shelter. "That's a bonnacon!" Grundy exclaimed with alarm. "I'd know that noise anywhere."

"Sounds more like a dragon to me," Chem said, swishing her tail nervously.

"The bonnacon is a dragon, horserace," the golem responded. "It has the horns of a bison--that's a mythical Mundane animal--and the posterior of--well, let's just say it's worse going than coming."

"Dragons eat people!" Irene reminded them. "And I can't grow many plants in the dark. We're in trouble!"

"You'd better grow something,, because the thing has winded us," Grundy warned. "The bonnacon is too big and fast for us to escape it; we have to fight it off."

"With pieces of cheese?" Irene demanded. "We need a weapon, and I doubt my knife will--"

Chem unslung her bow. "Pinpoint its location, and I'll shoot it," she said.

"No good, ponytail," the golem said. "Your arrows would only annoy it. We've got to have a tough plant, like a boxwood or tangler."

"Not at night," Irene said. "Right now all I can grow is night bloomers."

"Then grow the night bloomers!" Grundy cried. "The monster's almost upon us!"

Irene heard the most horrendous rasp of the dragon's breath.

She was not the most timid of women, but now she was terrified. Her mind numb, she tossed down a seed, "Grow!"

"Maybe we can make a lot of noise and scare it off," Chem said.

"No good," Grundy replied. "When the bonnacon retreats, it blows out its whole quant.i.ty of digestive refuse--in simpler language, its--"

"Spare us your vernacular," Irene said. "We understand what the stuff is."

"Right into the faces of its pursuers," the golem continued with a certain enthusiasm. "The stuff not only stinks to high heaven, it's so strong it sets fire to trees."

"But if we can't escape the monster, and we don't scare it off--" the centaur said, understandably concerned.

"That's why we need Irene's fighting plants. Something that will balk the dragon without really frightening it, so it will go away peacefully. That's the key: we must discourage it without annoying it."

"Lots of luck," Irene muttered. "Look at them!" She moved the candle to illuminate what she had grown. "My night bloomers!"

There they were--several sets of delicately tinted feminine bloomer-panties, the kind worn at night or under voluminous skirts.

Grundy worked his little face in an effort not to guffaw.

"Now if we can just get them on the dragon--" he said. A smirk was obviously scrambling around in his head, trying to get out through his face.

Bloomers to prevent the dragon's voiding from splattering them! The notion was ludicrous; the people would be eaten long before the bloomers could do any such thing, and the dragon's refuse would burn out the bloomers on the way by. Yet the idea had a certain foolish appeal. A dragon in bloomers! That was almost as nonsensical as Irene's vision of a dragon on a pedestal.

Now the huge horned head of the bonnacon became dimly visible in the fringe of candlelight. There were flickering highlights on every giant tooth. Irene saw immediately that, though this dragon lacked steam or fire, it was far too formidable for them to fight. Even its eyes had metalbone lids that would probably stop Chem's arrows. They were helpless before it. Irene got ready to scream, though she detested this sort of useless feminine reaction. Sometimes there was no alternative.

The dragon nudged forward. The zombie interposed itself between the sheltered party and the monster. "Schtopf!" it cried, blowing out a piece of tongue. Speech was not easy for zombies.

The bonnacon never even hesitated. It snapped up the zombie. The huge and awful jaws crunched together. The zombie squished, and putrid juices squirted out.

The dragon paused. An expression of distaste spread slowly across its chops, in much the same manner as a like expression had spread across the face of the Gap Dragon when it crunched the stink bomb. Then the bonnacon spat the zombie's body out. "Ugh!" it groaned, understandably. There was nothing delicious about a squished zombie.

The zombie landed under the umbrella, a sorry mess. The dragon turned and tromped elsewhere, looking for better food. It did not spray out its fire--started refuse, since it was not frightened; it just departed in disgust.

"The bonnacon thinks we're all zombies!" Irene breathed.

"You do sort of look like one," Grundy informed her helpfully. "In a towel, yet."

Probably true. Irene's hair was plastered to her head and body, and the towels could be mistaken for ragged clothing.

There were so many zombies in this region near Castle Zombie that the confusion was natural. The zombie had saved them by discouraging the dragon.

But at what cost? Irene was not exactly partial to zombies, but she did appreciate the sacrifice this one had made. If it weren't for the zombie, Irene herself would have been crunched by the jaws of the monster. The creature had acted with courage and dispatch when all other hope was gone--and had paid the terrible price.

She knelt to inspect the zombie. It was in a sad state--but all zombies were in a sad state. They were the walking undead, perpetually decaying without ever quite collapsing. Usually it took complete dismemberment to put a zombie all the way out of commission. If this one were typical, it might survive. "Are you--?" she asked, balking at the words "alive" or "dead." Zombies, as Grundy had clarified, weren't exactly either.

"Hhurrtsh," the thing replied faintly.

"It's still functional!" Chem said, surprised.

"She says it hurts!" Grundy translated for the zombie.

"Of course it hurts!" Irene snapped. Her diffidence vanished, and she grabbed a spare towel and used it to mop up the pus and saliva and juice that covered the body. "She's just been crunched by--" Irene paused. "She?"

"Sure, she's your kind," the golem said. "Didn't you know?"

"No, I didn't realize," Irene said, taken aback. "She's so, uh, far gone it wasn't obvious." But now, as she wiped the torso, she saw that it was true. There were what once had been female attributes there.

"I hadn't realized either," Chem said soberly. "Naturally, there would be females of their kind as well as males. The Zombie Master can reanimate anything that once lived."

The zombie tried to sit up. "Hey, don't do that!" Irene protested. "You've just been terribly crunched by a dragon. Your--your blood spurted out! Your bones must be broken! You're lucky you're--animate!"

"Ah, you can't kill a zombie," Grundy said. "You can hack it to pieces, but the pieces will slowly draw together and rea.s.semble. Magic makes a zombie function, not biology."

"Maybe so," Irene said grimly. "But this one just saved our lives, and she's not so far gone she can't experience pain and human sensitivity. We've got to do something for her."

"I agree," Chem said. "But what can be done for a zombie?"

"Ask her, Grundy," Irene said.

"And ask her name," Chem added.

It had not occurred to Irene that a zombie would have a name. Now she chided herself for the way she had dehumanized them in her mind. Zombies were, after all, people--or had been, before dying and becoming undead.

The golem issued a series of slushy syllables and decaying particles. The zombie responded with coughs and chokes and noises that sounded like garbage being sucked down a half-clogged sewer drainhole.

"She says her name is Zora," Grundy reported in due course. "She killed herself about fifteen years ago when her true love was false. Her folks took her body to the Zombie Master, and he animated her. She's been serving him since. She would prefer to be all-the-way dead or fully alive, but neither is possible, so she just muddles along. She says it's a living. Well, that's not precisely it, but the term doesn't translate well."

Surely it didn't! What an awful thing it must be, Irene thought, to be forever half dead! "Yes, but how can we help her?" she demanded of the golem. "There must be something."

The golem interrogated Zora Zombie again. "The only thing that brings her kind closer to life is love," he reported. "Some living man must truly love her, to counteract the evil of the one who did not. Then she would be almost human, as long as his love lasted."

Chem whistled. "That is a difficult thing! n.o.body loves a zombie. Most men prefer their women young and, er, wholesome."

"Yes, I know," Irene said. "I was that way once. Then I got married." She smiled, but it wasn't entirely a joke. Marriage had brought new responsibilities--and Ivy. Marriage had been the end of her nymphly existence and the beginning of a matronly one, but she wouldn't trade it. "Well, we'll try to help Zora Zombie somehow. She certainly deserves it!"

Irene put her hand to the zombie's bony shoulders, no longer repelled by the contact, and helped her sit up. Whatever healing processes occurred in zombies were operating now, and soon Zora was back on her feet and stumbling about in her normal fashion. She moved out into the falling rain, where she seemed to be the least uncomfortable.

"If there is anything I, personally, can do--" Irene called to Zora, still feeling inadequate.

"I believe you have already done it," Chem murmured.

"Done what?"

"Extended a little human caring. That's why she mended so rapidly--and may continue to improve, if such treatment continues."

Irene was taken aback, and hardly pleased with herself. She knew she had been treating the zombie with contempt before. Could any amount of decent treatment make up for that?

Well, she would find out.

"I suppose we'd better sleep," Irene said. "We can't do anything now, and we're probably as safe here as anywhere."

The others agreed; they lay down on towels and bloomers and tried to sleep. Zora flopped on a wet rock outside the umbrella shelter. Irene was not at all comfortable, physically or mentally, but she was a realist. She would endure what she must to get her child back alive. No price was too great.

She thought she would lie awake all night, but somehow she didn't. Not quite. She thought if she did sleep, she would have bad dreams; however, it seemed the local night mare was not paying attention, and no bad dreams came.

Chapter 5: Coven-tree.

The baby Gap Dragon was only a fraction of its adult size and not much more than triple Ivy's ma.s.s. But its primary features were intact; it had six legs, a sinuous tail, a set of wings too small to enable it to fly, and a horrendous head full of teeth. Its scales were metallic, a rather pretty green with iridescent highlights, and the tip of its tail was knifelike.

The dragon eyed Ivy. It slavered. Its tongue slopped around its face, moistening its teeth and making them gleam. A jet of pure, clean, white steam issued from its throat. Big creatures were now too much for the dragon to tackle, but Ivy was little and succulent. It was ready to feast.

Ivy looked the dragon in the snout. She clapped her hands with girlish glee. "Oh, goody!" she exclaimed in delight. "A playmate!"

The dragon paused. This was not, it suspected, the proper reception accorded its kind by lone human beings of any size. Its memory of its adult life had been excised along with its age, so it could not remember any prior encounters with this life form; but its basic instincts were more important than its memory anyway. It was geared to chase down a terrified and fleeing morsel, to steam it into a tasty, half-cooked state, to crunch it into digestible chunks soaked in delicious blood, to swallow the delectable pieces, then to burp afterward and take a pleasant nap. It was also geared to flee anything larger than itself or more dangerous, such as a man with an enchanted sword. Creatures of approximately its own size and ferocity it would fight, establishing territorial prerogatives. It was vaguely aware that it had once possessed an excellent private territory, but it had no idea now where this was. That hardly mattered here, because it faced prey, not a monster similar to itself. But the Dragon lacked experience and instincts relating to friendly receptions. What was the proper response?

Ivy walked up to it fearlessly. "My very own pet dragon!" she cried. "Green, like Mommy's hair! To be my friend and companion and to guard me when I'm afraid." She reached out to pat the ugly snout. "What a lovely creature!"

The dragon was not at all rea.s.sured. In fact, it found itself athwart a dilemma. Chase, flee, or fight? None of the signals matched a pattern. No one had ever called it lovely before or patted it on the snout. So it remained stationary, taking no action. A nervous waft of steam puffed from it.