Faun And Games Part 23

"Well, we'll just have to ask the Good Magician the way to Castle Roogna."

Forrest eyed the moat. "Does that mean we'll have to get through three Challenges, and pay a year's Service?"

She nodded. "I'm afraid it does. Unless we can talk him into letting us through without all that."

"Well, he didn't charge me before. I'm still not sure why."

Imbri looked thoughtful, but didn't comment.

So they addressed the Challenge of getting into the castle. There was no sign of a moat monster, but they didn't trust that. So Forrest experimented: he picked up a pebble and flipped it into the smooth water.

Enormous teeth snapped out of the water and caught the pebble before it splashed. Then the water was still again. It had happened so quickly that he wasn't sure he had actually seen it, but he concluded that swimming would not be a good idea.

"We might dissolve into floating souls, and condense again on the other side," Imbri suggested.

"I'm not sure that's in order. I think we should stay with the rules of this realm, while we are in it."

"I suppose so. I suppose dissolving into vapor might count the same as getting crunched by an ogre, and prevent us from returning to within half a year of this spot."

"That, too," he agreed. He had actually been thinking of the ethics of it, a.s.suming there were any. Physically it seemed possible; after all, she had dissolved to send the dragons their distracting dream. But it seemed unwise to tempt the limits.

He couldn't reach the drawbridge from this side, so couldn't cross that way. The moat looked way too deep to fill in, even if he had a shovel, and the bank seemed too solid to dig anyway. But if this was like the castle in Xanth, there would be a way. He simply had to find it.

He looked around. There was a brief cleared area around the moat, before the trees socked in tightly. There was room to walk. So he walked around the larger square, to see what he could see.

Imbri walked with him. "I never had to worry about moats," she said apologetically. "I just trotted across them, being insubstantial."

She looked at the nearest tree. "I don't suppose you could cut down a tree to make a bridge or raft?"

"Cut down a tree?" he asked, horrified. "A living tree? I could never do that! I am a tree protector."

"Sorry. I wasn't thinking. But maybe if there is some deadwood?"

"That would be fine. But I don't see any."

"Neither do I. But what's that over there?"

He looked. "An upside-down bush. Someone must have pulled it out.

Maybe we can help it."

They went to the bush, which was in an embarra.s.sing predicament: its roots were in the air, and its leaves halfway buried in the ground, though it was a living plant. Forrest lifted it carefully, and set it down the right way up while Imbri used her hands to sc.r.a.pe dirt in around its base.

But the moment Forrest let go, the bush flipped over, spraying dirt, and was upside down again.

They contemplated this phenomenon. "It can't live and grow that way," Forrest said. "It's a regular plant. It needs earth on its roots and sun on its leaves."

"What would make it reverse itself like that?"

"Reverse," he murmured, an idea homing in on him. Then he lifted the plant up again. "Dig down deep: there may be a piece of reverse wood there."

Imbri dug in the earth, and in a moment found it: a fair sized stick.

She set it on the ground, and the green gra.s.s turned red in its vicinity. Then she dug out a place for the bush, and Forrest set it in.

She packed the earth around it, and this time it stayed put.

"I'm sure it will be more comfortable now," Forrest said, satisfied.

"You really do have a feeling for plants," Imbri said.

"Yes. It comes from a.s.sociating so long with a tree. I don't like to see green growing things abused. That's why I'm on this quest, after all."

"Yes." She looked thoughtful again.

"We'll have to put this reverse wood where it won't do any more mischief," Forrest said. He picked up the wood. It didn't affect him, because he had no magic talent to reverse. Of course reverse wood was funny stuff; sometimes it did reverse things in unexpected ways.

Then another notion hovered around his head. "Imbri-do you suppose there could be any magic in that water?"

Magic?" she asked blankly.

"Let's find out." He tossed the stick into the water in front of the lifted drawbridge.

Then water quivered, then solidified. It wasn't frozen, just solid.

Forrest set one foot on it, then the other. The water was now like ground. Its natural liquidity had been reversed, in this section.

Imbri joined him. "You solved it!" she exclaimed. "I would never have thought of that."

"I almost didn't," he admitted. "But usually things are as they are for a reason, at least around the Good Magician's castle. I'm glad the reverse wood didn't turn the water into fire."

They reached the inner bank. But the drawbridge remained up, and its planks blocked off the main entrance. So they walked to the left, which had the green haze of To, and rounded the corner of the castle.

There was an odd procession of people garbed in black. Several of them were carrying a large long and evidently heavy box, which was closed.

"What is this?" Forrest asked, perplexed by the scene.

"I think I know," Imbri said. "It's a funeral."

"A funeral? Who died?"

"I don't know. But that looks like a coffin."

"I don't want to get mixed up in death!"

"Then this must not be the right way."

They backed off, and went into the yellow haze of From. They rounded that corner.

There was an amazing a.s.semblage of big white long-legged birds.

"Storks!" Imbri exclaimed, identifying them. "What are they doing here?"

"Same thing the funeral is doing here," Forrest suggested. "When we walked around outside the moat I didn't see either. They appeared after we crossed the moat. It's another Challenge."

"It must be a Challenge," she agreed. "But a strange one. What are we supposed to do with either a funeral or a group of storks?"

"I wonder. There must be something. Do you suppose we could question them?"

"I suppose we could try. They will cooperate to exactly the extent they are supposed to."

So they stepped around and hailed the nearest stork. "Will you talk with us?" Forrest inquired.

"Sorry, don't have time. I'm too busy watching the screen for blips."

"Blips?"

"Signals. If I miss one, the supervisor will pull my tail feathers out.

One feather for each blip I miss. That hurts."

"Well, could we help watch your screen while we talk?"

The stork considered. "It's highly irregular."

"But not forbidden," Forrest said. "We'll help, and the supervisor can pull out one of our feathers, or whatever, if we miss any."

"Very well," the stork agreed. "h.e.l.lo: I am Stanley Stork. You are?"

"Forrest Faun and Mare Imbrium."

"Imbri for short," Imbri said.

They joined him at the screen. This was a large square panel with a black background. "What's a blip?" Imbri asked.

"Three little points of light. There's one now." Stanley pointed with the tip of his wing.

Forrest saw them. Three bright specks, like stars, in a row, moving quickly across the screen from left to right. In a moment they were gone; it would have been easy to miss them. "What are they?" he asked.

"A signal. I have to record its exact azimuth and elevation, and relay the information to Central Processing." The stork used the tip of his beak to peck at several numbers on a keypad.

"There's another," Imbri said.

Stanley looked up quickly. "Oh, thanks. I would have missed that while I was recording the other." He punched in more numbers.

"What kind of signals are they?" Forrest asked, still perplexed.

"You know. Orders."

"Orders for what?"

"Babies, of course. That's the only product we carry."

At last it dawned on him. Signaling the stork! This was the recelying end of those signals.

"Do you get many signals?" Imbri asked.

"Just the right number. The problem is the infernal bogies."

"Bogies?"

"The irrelevant signals. There's one now." On the screen was a pattern of two dots. "Only one in ten is valid. The others are spurious. We have to weed them out."

"How does someone send a bogie?" Forrest asked, fearing that he knew the answer.

"By going through the motions at the wrong time, or not completing them," the stork said. "Or when they aren't qualified. Demonesses do that a lot, and nymphs. They think its funny to imitate the procedure, when they aren't on the list for deliveries."

That was what he had feared. All his celebrations with nymphs were just cluttering the stork's screen. He felt guilty.

"The valid ones are bad enough," Stanley said, catching another blip.

"If those idiots had any idea how hard we have to work to prepare a delivery, and get it exactly right. I mean, suppose we delivered an ogret to a human female? Think of the notoriety that would cause. But no, they keep signaling merrily away all night, as if it's nothing at all."

"How are babies actually made?" Forrest asked. "I mean, once a valid signal comes."

"Well, it's complicated. We-" Then the stork glanced warily at him.

"Are you cleared for restricted information?"

"I guess not."

"Then move on. I'm busy enough as it is."

Stanley seemed to have a case. "Sorry," Forrest said, somewhat lamely.

They moved on. Other storks were busy handling paperwork and sorting and wrapping babies. There was a loading dock where storks hooked their long beaks into the top loop of the slings holding the babies, and with much labor took off on their delivery routes. It was a very busy scene.

They reached the far corner of the castle, and saw the straight and narrow ledge crossing the back side. "There must be some way to get into the castle," Forrest said. "But between the funeral and the storks, I don't see it."

"I don't either," she agreed. "We really don't belong to either the beginning or the end of life; we're in the broad middle section. Should we cross to the other side and check out the funeral again?"

"I'm not sure what good that would do. If only there were something halfway between the extremes!" Then he paused. "Do you think it could be literal?"

"Literal?"

"Halfway between the two sides of the castle."