Part 5 (1/2)
The familiar look of male bafflement and resignation pa.s.sed across his face. ”Well, if you ride Chem, with Grundy along--”
It hadn't occurred to Irene to join forces more permanently with the centaur, and certainly not with the golem; but actually, that was not a bad idea, especially if it allayed Dor's hesitancy.
Irene glanced at Chem to see if she were amenable. She was. ”Of course,” Irene agreed, as if that had been the intent from the start.
”And take a zombie--”
”A zombie!”
”They know the area,” he pointed out. ”And you can send it back to the castle if you get in trouble. That is, if you should need to send a message back.” He was correcting his slip; naturally, she would not be the one to get in trouble. ”Then the Zombie Master will know where to send a.s.sistance.”
”You're not objecting to my going?” Irene asked, just to make quite sure he knew he did not.
”Dear, I know you work best in your own way. I'll return to Castle Roogna and consult with Crombie and check the a.r.s.enal. There should be something that will help, in case you don't find Ivy soon. Meanwhile, with Humfrey out of business, I had better be available at home so you'll know where to get in touch with me. There is also the matter of the forget-whorls to handle.”
This did make some sense, she had to concede. She had antic.i.p.ated more argument from him, but evidently he was learning the uselessness of that. He really would not be able to help locate Ivy from Castle Roogna, because, though Crombie the soldier's talent lay in pointing out the direction of anything, Crombie was now so old and frail that his talent was unreliable. But with Dor safely back at Castle Roogna, she would not have to worry about anything happening to him and could concentrate completely on the immediate mission. ”I'll keep going until I find Ivy,” she promised. ”It shouldn't be long. She can't have wandered far.”
”True,” Dor agreed wanly. Suddenly Irene realized what his real motive was--he was half afraid Ivy was in deeper trouble than mere separation from her family and he wanted to locate some magic means to confirm or deny this without alarming Irene herself. He had an ivy plant of his own, so knew the child was healthy--but this disappearance was already more serious than it had first seemed. With the forget-whorls moving through the area, taking out people randomly...
Dor was letting her keep her hope as long as possible. She would let him keep his. Irene kissed him in silent thanks for what he hadn't said, then remounted Chem. ”You,” she said, pointing to the nearest zombie. ”Come with us.” Anything to satisfy her husband, who was trying so hard to do what he thought was right. The zombie would be a nuisance, but maybe she would find Ivy soon, so it wouldn't matter.
The centaur started walking. Irene waved good-bye, then turned her face forward, knowing Dor would be watching her as long as she remained in sight. The designated zombie shuffled along behind.
”Hey, you plants!” Grundy called. ”Any of you see a little girl pa.s.s by this afternoon?” This was for the others' notice; actual plant language was largely inaudible and wholly incomprehensible to the human ear. The golem would repeat the message in the dialects of any plants and animals he saw.
After a pause, Grundy shook his head. ”None here,” he reported. ”But I guess we already knew that. We'd better circle around the castle until we pick up Ivy's trail. It's got to be here somewhere.”
”Let's see a map of the area,” Irene told Chem. ”We can pick the best route for circling the castle.”
Chem projected her map. It formed in the air before her, a three-dimensional representation of Castle Zombie and the region around it. But portions were fuzzy. ”What's wrong with your picture, horserump?” Grundy asked, his normal lack of diplomacy evident.
”I'm not familiar with this region,” the centaur explained, unruffled. Centaur stallions, like human males, could have bad tempers, but the fillies were femininely stable. ”I didn't have time to explore much of it before the Dragon came. I have to see it before I can map it.”
”Then what good is your talent, marebrain?” Grundy demanded.
Irene felt a tinge of ire at his insolence but kept her mouth shut; Chem could take care of herself.
”I never get lost, ragbrain,” Chem said evenly. Actually, the golem's original head had been wood, not rag, but it was a fair insult. Now, of course, Grundy was alive, with a living brain. ”Once I've been to a place, I've got it on my map. So I can always find my way back.”
The golem, realizing that insult would be met with insult, shut up and concentrated on his business. They circled Castle Zombie clockwise; three-quarters of the way around, Grundy picked up the trail. They had actually spiraled out somewhat and were now a fair distance from the castle.
”This armor-dillo plant saw her pa.s.s!” Grundy exclaimed.
He pointed east. ”That way.”
Irene controlled her thrill of joy. They hadn't completed the rescue yet.
”Odd direction to go,” Chem remarked, ”Didn't you say you saw the zombie carry her west, not east?”
”That's right!” Irene agreed, her gratification at finding the trail tempered by this surprise. ”She couldn't have wandered all the way around the castle!”
”Ask the 'dillo how Ivy arrived,” Chem told Grundy. The golem queried the plant, using a series of rustlings and creakings and pickle-crunching sounds. ”She just toddled up from the direction of the castle,” he reported. ”She didn't look as if she'd walked far.”
Irene hesitated, athwart a dilemma. She wanted to recover her lost child as soon as possible, but knew that in the Xanth wilderness it was best to take no mystery on faith. If she found out how Ivy had traveled this far, she might have an important clue to where she was going.
”We'd better check this,” she decided, hoping she wasn't wasting critical time on something irrelevant. ”Go back and trace how Ivy got here.”
”You know it's late,” Grundy reminded her. ”If she's caught out here at night--”
”I know,” Irene agreed. ”I dread that. But this may be important. There's a mystery here that may have bearing. However she got from west of the castle to east of the castle, she may do it again to get somewhere else, while we are looking in the wrong place.”
The golem shrugged his tiny shoulders. ”It's her funeral.”
Irene suppressed the urge to hurl the miniature man into the nearest tangle tree. ”Just ask the plants,” she said between her teeth.
Chem moved toward the castle. Grundy queried the vegetation along the way. ”They haven't seen her here,” he reported.
The group backtracked, checking more closely. The zombie, who had been dutifully trailing the centaur, did its best to help, peering into the bushes on either side.
Ivy's trail commenced near the armor-dillo. The plants there said she had walked from the west, but the plants to the west did not remember her.
”Something extremely peculiar here,” Chem said. ”She can't be traveling intermittently.”
Irene spotted something in a nearby field. It was a large animal. For an instant her chest tightened; then she saw it was a grazing creature, not a carnivore. ”Maybe that--whatever it is--saw Ivy,” she said.
Chem looked. ”That's a moose. A vanilla--no, a chocolate moose. Harmless.”
They went over, and Grundy questioned the moose. The animal looked up warily. ”It wants to know if we're ducks,” Grundy said with disgust. ”It doesn't like ducks who nibble.”
”Tell it to stop ducking the question,” Irene said.
After a moment, the golem reported that the moose had seen a child of the proper description, but not here; she had been some distance to the east, going the other way.
”Farther along,” Irene said. ”At least we know she was all right then. We'll go there soon; right now I want to know why her trail is intermittent here.”
They resumed the backtrack. Grundy narrowed it down to two blades of gra.s.s. The east one remembered Ivy and said she had come from the west; the west blade denied it. Soon the two were in an argument, and then in a fight. One blade slashed at the other but was parried and countered. In moments the surrounding blades chose sides and joined the fray. The field became a battlefield.
”This is getting us nowhere!” Irene protested, dancing about to avoid getting slashed on the ankles. ”One of those gay blades must be lying.”
”No, gra.s.s is inferior,” Grundy said. ”It doesn't have the wit to lie. It just stands tall and defends its turf.”
”But their stories directly contradict! They can't both be true!”
Now Chem's fine centaur mind came into play. She suffered less distraction from the blades because her hooves were invulnerable. ”They could--if a forget-whorl pa.s.sed.”
”A forget-whorl!” There was the answer, of course. It had blotted out the trail, for the plants it had affected had no memory of events preceding the pa.s.sage of the whorl. ”But that means--”
”That it could have touched Ivy, too,” Chem finished. ”I had hoped that wouldn't be the case.”
”But without memory--” The prospect was appalling, though Irene had also thought of it before. She just hadn't wanted to believe it. ”Not even to remember the dangers--”