Zombie Lover Read online

  Yes, taken as a whole, this night was well worthwhile. Breanna set her face east and began to walk.

  4

  DREAM CHASE

  The three kings followed Millie up the winding stairway. This gave them an excellent view of her posterior, reminding Bink forcibly of her talent of sex appeal. In this rejuvenated state he noticed such things, and it tended to catch him off guard. He wasn’t eighty one anymore, physically. So, to avoid the embarrassment of an untoward thought, he focused his attention elsewhere.

  He heard a faint moan. He would not have been aware of it, had he not been trying to avoid what was in front of his nose. He had not heard a moan quite like that before, and it bothered him.

  “What is that?” he asked.

  “If you don’t know, you’re a lot less man than you look,” the stair right under Millie’s rump said.

  “I heard something,” Bink said quickly. “Like a moan, to the side.”

  Millie paused. “Oh, that’s the blob. The zombies brought it in, and Jonathan tried to rescue it, but all it does is suffer.”

  “It suffers? Maybe we could give it some healing elixir.”

  “We tried that, but that doesn’t seem to be the problem. We don’t know what to do.”

  “Maybe I should look at it.” Bink’s interest was only partial, but he had to finish what he had started.

  “By all means.” Millie led the way down a side passage, to an end chamber.

  There it was, as described: a blob. It might have had the size of a man if shaped that way, but it just hunkered down into a quivering mass. There were splotchy colors on its surface. Overall it wasn’t very appealing.

  “Hello,” Bink said. “Are you sentient?”

  The thing merely groaned again. Bink wasn’t sure how it groaned, as it seemed to have no mouth. But of course the inanimate had no trouble speaking in Dor’s presence, not needing any mouth either. All things were possible, with sufficient magic.

  “It does seem to be alive,” Dor said. “But without eyes or ears or whatever.”

  “I’d be miserable too, in that state,” Dolph said.

  The matter continued to bother Bink. “If it’s not injured or unhealthy, this must be its natural state. But it obviously isn’t happy. Could it be something that’s gone wrong? That was meant to be a regular creature, but didn’t get there? Maybe if we could figure out what it is meant to be, we could help it.”

  “That would be nice,” Millie agreed. “We hate to see it suffer, but we don’t feel free to throw it out.”

  There was nothing to be done here, so they moved on. Bink tried to put the matter out of his thoughts, but it kept bobbing back into them. If there was no other way, he would go to Good Magician Humfrey himself and ask what to do about the blob. But right now he had to solve the zombie problem.

  They reached the spare room. It was nicely set up, with three beds. “Here is a jar of the sleep spell,” Millie said. “Just sniff it and sleep. It works immediately. I will close the jar. Remember: follow the footprints.”

  They lay down, each on a bed. Millie brought the jar to Dolph. He sniffed, and his head dropped on the pillow, snoring. She brought it to Dor, and in a moment he too was asleep. Then she came to Bink. “Maybe if you let the blob sniff it, the moaning would stop,” he suggested.

  She brightened. “I’ll try that!” She held forth the jar.

  He sniffed.

  Xanth was without form and void. He was zooming through that void at a horrendous rate, seeing clouds of surplus dreamstuff all around him. Then he slowed, and found himself standing in what he recognized as the Castle Roogna Tapestry Chamber. There was the splendid Tapestry, whose animated pictures showed any aspect of the history of Xanth the viewer cared to watch.

  There was also a ghost hovering beside it. The ghost saw him and spooked, fading out of sight with a soundless exclamation.

  “That’s a new one,” Dor remarked. “People spooking ghosts.” Bink looked around. Dor and Dolph stood beside him. So they were all present, in the dream.

  In a moment Princess Ida, who was Princess Ivy’s twin sister, entered the room. She paused near the door. The ghost hovered near her. “I am told that someone is visiting here in a dream,” she announced. “So I will sleep, and join you in a moment.”

  “The ghost brought her!” Dolph said.

  “The Castle Roogna ghosts are shy, but friendly,” Dor said. “As a child I used to know them better.”

  Ida sat in a chair facing the Tapestry, and leaned back, closing her eyes. In a moment her even breathing showed that she was falling asleep. Then a second version of her appeared, standing before the sleeping figure, only this one was awake. “Oh, hello, brother,” she said, spying Dolph.

  “I didn’t know you could dream!” Dolph blurted. “I mean—” Ida smiled. “We did not have the advantage of growing up together, Dolph,” she said. “Maybe that was just as well; I don’t think you would have survived two elder sisters.” She glanced around at the others. “Hello, Father Dor. Hello, Grandfather Bink.”

  “Hello,” Bink answered awkwardly. He had never quite gotten used to the notion of having twin granddaughters. That was because there had been just Ivy as a child; only when she was an adult had the twin sister the stork had misplaced finally found her way to claim her heritage, at age twenty two. Ida was a nice person, with the extremely powerful but devious talent of the Idea: whatever idea she had that originated with someone who did not know her talent, was true. Now it turned out that her cute little moon, Ptero, was a function of that talent. So Bink knew that Ida was legitimate, but still he tended to think of her as unrelated.

  “I gather you have come to visit the worlds of maybe,” Ida continued, glancing up at the little globe that circled her head, even in the dream state. It was obviously a dream moon, because the real one was visible hovering by the sleeping Ida’s head. “I must advise you that we now know of four moons, and there may be many others. They are Ptero, Pyramid, Torus, and Cone. The rules of magic differ for each one, and most of their inhabitants never existed in Xanth. You will be able to leave any of them simply by waking up, as can the Zombie Master, who passed this way before you.”

  “We are looking for him,” Bink said.

  “Ah, that explains it. You will be in no danger, but if you suffer what would be death in real life, you will lose the dream and wake up immediately, and be unable to return without going through the whole process again. So it is best to be careful. I will guide you to Ptero; after that I will wake up and go about my business, but the dream world will exist independently, because you are dreaming it. Once all three of you leave it, it will fade. If you need to go to the other worlds, you must find the Ida who resides on each. You will not need to have her sleep, because the entire derivative structure already exists in the present dream; just go on as you need to. I hope your mission is successful.”

  “Thanks, Sis,” Dolph said, kissing her on the cheek. “Have a nice day when you wake up.”

  “When this is done, I hope one of you will come to tell me what you found,” Ida said. “I can’t go to those worlds, even in my dreams, unfortunately, so I am dependent on others to learn about them. I am most curious.”

  “We’ll do that,” Bink promised.

  “Thank you. Now you must focus on Ptero, and think small. Very small. Make sure you stay together, because it is easy to get lost there. Time is geography; east is From and west is To. But you will not be affected by the time, because you are not really there. In fact you will have to form your bodies from filler material, as the natives do, in order to interact. Nothing you do there will be permanent, because this is only your dream.”

  “We understand,” Dor said. “We just need to talk with the Zombie Master.”

  “Good fortune.” Dream Ida stepped back toward her body. “Orient on Ptero.” The tiny moon swung around before her head.

  “Let’s hold hands,” Dor suggested. “So we don’t get separated.”

  The
y linked up, and focused on the moon. Bink tried to think small, and suddenly the moon was growing. It seemed to swell to the size of an apple, then to a bowling ball. Then they seemed to be floating toward it.

  He looked down. The Castle Roogna chamber was gone; they were in empty sky, dropping toward the distant planet. Their velocity increased. Suddenly the world was looming scarily close. Too close. It was no longer a ball, but a broad landscape, with mountains and fields and lakes.

  “Oops,” Dolph said.

  Then they plunged into the ground. Darkness closed around them. Their impetus had carried them down into the rock.

  “Maybe we can rise a bit,” Dor suggested.

  Bink concentrated on rising, as did the others. In a moment they burst out of the ground and sailed up into the sky.

  “We’re ghosts,” Bink said, remembering. “We need to get some substance. Some filler.”

  They were hovering in a cloud. Dolph reached out and grabbed some cloud-stuff, pressing it into his body. That seemed to work, so Bink and Dor tried the same. The more stuff they pressed in to themselves, the more solid they became, and they began to fall. But they were able to control it, so that they finally made a soft landing in a forest.

  Bink dusted himself off, and patted firm the last of the filler. He felt much like himself. Dor and Dolph seemed similar.

  “Now we need to find the Zombie Master’s footprints,” Dor said.

  They looked around, but there was no sign of glowing footprints. They had probably gone astray in the course of their inexpert landing. Even in dreams, things needed to be done approximately right.

  “I’ll change form and fly up and see if I can spy them,” Dolph said. “If my talent works here.”

  “It should,” Dor said. “We should be at least as talented in our dreams as in our reality. But don’t lose track of us.”

  Dolph became a hawk moth and flew up, combining the flight powers of the one and the sensitive antenna of the other.

  “So this is a dream,” the ground said.

  Dor glanced at Bink. “It seems my talent too is present.”

  “Sure it is,” the ground agreed. “I can tell you where those footprints are: straight north.”

  “Which way is north?”

  “Toward the blue.”

  Bink looked around. The air seemed to be bluer in one direction, and redder in the other. Cold north and warm south. All right.

  They walked north. In a moment the hawk moth descended. It landed, and Dolph reappeared. “You’re going the right way,” he said. “I saw a trail of footprints there.”

  “We are on our way,” Bink agreed.

  “I also thought I saw something following us, but I couldn’t make it out.”

  “How could anything be following us?” Dor asked a bit sharply. “We are in a dream, and on a unique world.”

  “Maybe a creature of this world,” Dor said uncertainly. “But maybe I just imagined it.”

  “We’ll keep alert,” Dor said. “Just in case.”

  That made sense. But privately Bink wondered. Dolph had his juvenile confusions, but paranoia wasn’t one of them. They didn’t know what kinds of predators this world had. So he decided to hang back a bit, so that if anything came on them from behind, he would be the first one it encountered. It wouldn’t be able to hurt him, and the effort might give warning for the others. They had been assured that they couldn’t really be hurt while in this dream, but if they got sufficiently messed up, they would be forced to wake up and lose their place here.

  Soon they found the trail: glowing footprints headed west. That meant toward the future, assuming that made sense.

  “Say,” Dolph said. “It’s green that way.” He looked back. “And yellow to the east.”

  They checked. Again Dolph’s younger nature had picked up on something the elders had missed. So they couldn’t get confused about whether they were traveling into the future or the past; the colors ahead would warn them. That struck Bink as a nice feature of this world.

  They followed the prints, which seemed to know where they were going. They led past a small village. There was a gnome working outside his house. “Hello, hello, it’s great to see you!” the gnome exclaimed in friendly fashion. “Haven’t we met before?”

  “I don’t think so,” Bink replied, as he happened to be closest. “I am Bink. Who are you?”

  “Well.”

  “What?”

  “No. Well. That’s my name. Everyone knows me.”

  “Gnome Well,” a nearby rock said helpfully.

  Another gnome emerged from the house. “And this is my neighbor Metro,” Well said. “Metro Gnome keeps track of ticks and tocks.”

  “That seems useful,” Bink agreed. He knew that ticks could be real mischief if not supervised. A friend had once eaten an emi tick by accident, and gotten really sick. Another had been bitten by a psycho-tic, and gone crazy. A third had run afoul of a spasmo tic, and convulsed. “What ticks are you watching now?”

  “A group of across ticks,” Metro answered. “They are useful for word puzzles. Do you need any?”

  “Not at the moment, thank you.”

  “So can I help you with anything?” Well inquired, in the manner of an old friend.

  “We’re just following these footprints.”

  The gnome looked. “What prints?”

  So it was true: others could not see them. “Magical prints that only we can see,” Bink explained.

  “Well, I wouldn’t recommend going that way,” Gnome said. “There’s a bad comic strip, and beyond it is only old age.”

  “We can handle it,” Bink assured him.

  “You must love punishment. I couldn’t stand it.”

  “What’s so bad about a comic strip?” Dolph asked.

  Both gnomes rolled their eyes. “You’re new here,” Metro said. “Maybe some things you just have to learn for yourselves,” Well said.

  They went on, and came to the edge of what seemed to be the comic strip. Beyond it things looked wild indeed. But the footprints went there, so they followed.

  When they stepped across, they found themselves on a path labeled PSYCHO. They followed the prints along it. It wound crazily around, seeming to go nowhere in particular. It passed a huge feline creature who seemed to have no eyes, so they thought it safe to tiptoe by. Then it yawned, and there were eyes in its mouth: eye teeth. They hurried on, before the eyes could focus on them.

  There was a sign saying BOWLING. That seemed safe. Then a bowl flew by Bink’s head. Someone was throwing bowls at them!

  They ran on, escaping the bowls. There was a cat staring at them. It scanned Bink, then Dolph, then Dor, as if it could see their innards; the process was disquieting.

  “It’s a cat scan, dummy,” a little figure with a big mouth said, and ran on.

  Next were several little dogs running in circles. “Lap dogs,” the figure said. “Doing their laps.”

  Beyond them were other dogs that just lay in the way. There were too many to step over, so Dolph bent down to lift one out of the way. “Ouch!” he exclaimed. “It’s burning hot!”

  “Hot dogs,” the running figure explained.

  There was a cacophony of barking as mud puppies formed from nearby mud, and suds puppies formed from soap bubbles. Then it stopped as a hush puppy commanded silence.

  “What gives with all these animals?” Dor demanded.

  “It was just raining cats and dogs,” the big mouth answered.

  “I think I’m beginning to appreciate why we were warned against the comic strip,” Dor muttered.

  They managed to get beyond the animals, but were not clear of the strip. Dolph saw a purse lying in the path, so he bent to pick it up—and it exploded, spattering him with dirt. “That’s a disperse, dummy,” the mouthy figure said, chucking. “So now are you going to try to play the lute?”

  Sure enough, there was a stringed musical instrument there. “Let me try it,” Bink said, and picked it up.

&nbs
p; The strings of the lute snapped free of their moorings and tried to wrap themselves around him. But he happened to be standing beside a wall of colored blocks, and the strings got tangled around the blocks instead. Suddenly the blocks moved, manifesting as a big snake composed of blocky segments. It looped away, dragging the lute.

  “Sidewinder captures disso-lute,” the figure said gleefully.

  “We’ve got to get out of here!” Dolph cried. “Let’s follow that snake.”

  They charged after the sidewinder, but it swerved back into the center of the strip. They were in danger of losing the footprints, so they stopped and looked for them.

  The prints led to the side, but that trail was blocked by a big picture of a collection of pins, labeled TING. “We’ll have to move that out of the way,” Dor said.

  “Uh-uh-uh!” the running figure said. “This is a pain-ting.”

  “Just what are you?” Bink demanded of the little creature.

  “I thought you’d never ask! I’m a running commentary. If you think I’m bad, you should meet my cousin the running gag. You can get rid of him only by telling lame jokes, so his legs stop working.”

  “So can you tell us how to get out of this comic strip?” Dolph demanded. But the commentary had already run away.

  “There’s an open space,” Dor said, peering to the side.

  They made for it. It turned out to be a square section paved with linoleum. It looked harmless.

  Then a wild-eyed woman appeared with wild roses in her hair. Her body was luscious, but there was something dangerous about her. “Hi! I’m Meriel Maenad. Do any of you want to indulge in floorplay with me?”

  “No!” Bink said quickly. He knew about the maenads; they were bloodthirsty wild women who loved to tear men apart, literally.

  “Just as well,” the running commentary remarked, reappearing. “Those who indulge on that floor get trampled by the families of their partners, who don’t much like them.”

  “How do we get out of here?” Dolph demanded, but again the commentary had run off.

  Then a large serpentine head loomed over them. “That looks like a hydra,” Dor said nervously. Sure enough, in a moment several more heads appeared.