Millie the ghost was beautiful. Of course, she wasn't a ghost any more, so she was Millie the nurse. She was not especially bright, and she was hardly young. She was twenty-nine years old as she reckoned it, and about eight hundred and twenty-nine as others reckoned it: the oldest creature currently associated with Castle Roogna. She had been ensorceled as a maid of seventeen, eight centuries ago, when Castle Roogna was young, and restored to life at the time of Dor's birth. In the Interim she had been a ghost, and the label had never quite worn off. And why should it? By all accounts she had been a most attractive ghost.

Indeed, she had the loveliest glowing hair, flowing like poppycorn silk to the dimpled backs of her... knees. The terrain those tresses covered in passing was--was--how was it that Dor had never noticed it before? Millie had been his nurse all these years, taking care of him while his parents were busy, and they tended to be busy a great deal of the time.

Oh, he understood that well enough. He told others that the King trusted his parents Bink and Chameleon, and anyone the King trusted was bound to be very busy, because the King's missions were too important to leave to nobodies. All that was true enough. But Dor knew his folks didn't have to accept all those important missions that took them all over the Land of Xanth and beyond. They simply liked to travel, to be away from home. Right now they were far away, in Mundania, and nobody went to Mundania for pleasure. It was because of him, because of his talent.

Dor remembered years ago when he had talked to the double bed Bink and Chameleon used, and asked it what had happened overnight, just from idle curiosity, and it had said--well, it had been quite interesting, especially since Chameleon had been in her beauty stage, prettier and stupider than Millie the ghost, which was going some. But his mother had overheard some of that dialogue, and told his father, and after that Dor wasn't allowed in the bedroom any more. It wasn't that his parents didn't love him, Bink had carefully explained; it was that they felt nervous about what they called "invasion of privacy." So they tended to do their most interesting things away from the house, and Dor had learned not to pry. Not when and where anyone in authority could overhear, at any rate.

Millie took care of him; she had no privacy secrets. True, she didn't like him talking to the toilet, though it was just a pot that got emptied every day into the back garden where dung beetles magicked the stuff into sweet-smelling roses. Dor couldn't talk to roses, because they were alive. He could talk to a dead rose--but then it remembered only what had happened since it was cut, and that wasn't very much. And Millie didn't like him making fun of Jonathan. Apart from that she was quite reasonable, and he liked her. But he had never really noticed her shape before.

Millie was very like a nymph, with all sorts of feminine projections and softnesses and things, and her skin was as clear as the surface of a milkweed pod just before it got milked. She usually wore a light gauzy dress that lent her an ethereal quality strongly reminiscent of her ghosthood, yet failed to conceal excitingly gentle contours beneath. Her voice was as soft as the call of a wraith. Yet she had more wit than a nymph, and more substance than a wraith. She had--

"Oh, what the fudge am I trying to figure out?" Dor demanded aloud.

"How should I know?" the kitchen table responded irritably. It had been fashioned from gnarled acorn wood, and it had a crooked temper.

Millie turned, smiling automatically. She had been washing plates at the sink; she claimed it was easier to do them by hand than to locate the proper cleaning spell, and probably for her it was. The spell was in powder form, and it came in a box the spell-caster made up at the palace, and the powder was forever running out. Few things were more annoying than chasing all over the yard after running powder. So Millie didn't take a powder; she scrubbed the dishes herself. "Are you still hungry, Dor?"

"No," he said, embarrassed. He was hungry, but not for food. If hunger was the proper term.

There was a hesitant, somewhat sodden knock on the door. Millie glanced across at it, her hair rippling down its luxuriant length. "That will be Jonathan," she said brightly.

Jonathan the zombie. Dor scowled. It wasn't that he had anything special against zombies, but he didn't like them around the house. They tended to drop putrid chunks of themselves as they walked, and they were not pretty to look at. "Oh, what do you see in that bag of bones?" Dor demanded, hunching his body and pulling his lips in around his teeth to mimic the zombie mode.

"Why, Dor, that isn't nice! Jonathan is an old friend. I've known him for centuries." No exaggeration! The zombies had haunted the environs of Castle Roogna as long as the ghosts had. Naturally the two types of freaks had gotten to know each other.

But Millie was a woman now, alive and whole and firm. Extremely firm, Dor thought as he watched her move trippingly across the kitchen to the back door. Jonathan was, in contrast, a horribly animated dead man. A living corpse. How could she pay attention to him?

"Beauty and the beast," he muttered savagely. Frustrated and angry, Dor stalked out of the kitchen and into the main room of the cottage. The floor was smooth, hard rind, polished until it had become reflective, and the walls were yellow-white. He banged his fist into one. "Hey, stop that!" the wall protested. "You'll fracture me. I'm only cheese, you know!"

Dor knew. The house was a large, hollowed-out cottage cheese, long since hardened into rigidity. When it had grown, it had been alive; but as a house it was dead, and therefore he could talk to it. Not that it had anything worth saying.

Dor stormed on out the front door. "Don't you dare slam me!" it warned, but he slammed it anyway, and heard its shaken groan behind him. That door always had been more ham than cheese.

The day outside was gloomy. He should have known; Jonathan preferred gloomy days to come calling, because they kept his chronically rotting flesh from drying up so quickly. In fact, it was about to rain. The clouds were kneading themselves into darker convolutions, getting set to clean out their systems.

"Don't you water on me!" Dor yelled into the sky in much the tone the door had used on him. The nearest cloud chuckled evilly, with a sound like thunder.

"Dor! Wait!" a little voice called. It was Grundy the golem, actually no golem any more, not that it made much difference. He was Dor's outdoor companion, and was always alert for Dor's treks into the forest. Dor's folks had really fixed it up so he would always be supervised--by people like Millie, who had no embarrassing secrets, or like Grundy, who didn't care if they did. In fact Grundy would be downright proud to have an embarrassment.

That started Dor on another chain of thought. Actually it wasn't just Bink and Chameleon; nobody in Castle Roogna cared to associate too closely with Dor. Because all sorts of things went on that the furniture saw and heard, and Dor could talk to the furniture. For him, the walls had ears and the floors had eyes. What was wrong with people? Were they ashamed of everything they did? Only King Trent seemed completely at ease with him. But the King could hardly spend all his time entertaining a mere boy.

Grundy caught up. "This is a bad day for exploring, Dor!" he warned. "That storm means business."

Dor looked dourly up at the cloud. "Go soak your empty head!" he yelled at it. "You're no thunderhead, you're a dunderhead!"

He was answered by a spate of yellow hailstones, and had to hunch over like a zombie and shield his f ace with his arms until they passed.

"Be halfway sensible, Dor!" Grundy urged. "Don't mess with that mean storm! It'll wash us out!"

Dor reluctantly yielded to common sense. "We'll seek cover. But not at home; the zombie's there."

"I wonder what Millie sees in him," Grundy said.

"That's what I asked." The rain was commencing. They hurried to an umbrella tree, whose great thin canopy was just spreading to meet the droplets. Umbrella trees preferred dry soil, so they shielded it against rain. When the sun shone, they folded up, so as not to obstruct the rays. There were also parasol trees, which reacted oppositely, spreading for the sun and folding for the rain. When the two happened to seed together, there was a real wilderness problem.

Two larger boys, the sons of palace guards, had already taken shelter under the same tree. "Well," one cried. "If it isn't the dope who talks to chairs!"

"Go find your own tree, twerp," the other boy ordered. He had sloping shoulders and a projecting chin.

"Look, Horsejaw!" Grundy snapped. "This tree doesn't belong to you! Everyone shares umbrellas in a storm."

"Not with chair-talkers, midget."

"He's a Magician!" Grundy said indignantly. "He talks to the inanimate. No one else can do that; no one else ever could do that in the whole history of Xanth, or ever will again!"

"Let it be, Grundy," Dor murmured. The golem had a sharp tongue that could get them both into trouble. "We'll find another tree."

"See?" Horsejaw demanded triumphantly. "Little stinker don't stand up to his betters." And he laughed.

Suddenly there was a detonation of sound right behind them. Both Dor and Grundy jumped in alarm, before remembering that this was Horsejaw's talent: projecting booms. Both older boys laughed uproariously.

Dor stepped out from under the umbrella--and his foot came down on a snake. He recoiled--but immediately the snake faded into a wisp of smoke. That was the other boy's talent: the conjuration of small, harmless reptiles. The two continued to laugh with such enthusiasm that they were collapsing against the umbrella trunk.

Dor and Grundy went to another tree, prodded by another sonic boom. Dor concealed his anger. He didn't like being treated this way, but against the superior physical power of the older boys he was helpless. His father Bink was a muscular man, well able to fight when the occasion required, but Dor took after his mother more: small and slender. How he wished he were like his father!

The rain was pelting down now, soaking Dor and Grundy. "Why do you tolerate it?" Grundy demanded. "You are a Magician!"

"A Magician of communication," Dor retorted. "That doesn't count for much, among boys."

"It counts for plenty!" Grundy cried, his little legs splashing through the forming puddles. Absentmindedly Dor reached down to pick him up; the one-time golem was only a few inches tall. "You could talk to their clothes, find out all their secrets, blackmail them--"

"No!"

"You're too damned ethical, Dor," Grundy complained. "Power goes to the unscrupulous. If your father, Bink, had been properly unscrupulous, he'd have been King."

"He didn't want to be King!"

"That's beside the point. Kingship isn't a matter of want, it's a matter of talent. Only a full male Magician can be King."

"Which King Trent is. And he's a good King. My father says the Land of Xanth has really improved since Magician Trent took over. It used to be all chaos and anarchy and bad magic except for right near the villages."

"Your father sees the best in everyone. He is entirely too nice. You take after him."

Dor smiled. "Why thank you, Grundy."

"That wasn't a compliment!"

"I know it wasn't--to you."

Grundy paused. "Sometimes I get the sinister feeling you're not as naive as you seem. Who knows, maybe little normal worms of anger and jealousy gnaw in your heart, as they do in other hearts."

"They do. Today when the zombie called on Millie--" He broke off.

"Oh, you notice Millie now! You're growing up!"

Dor whirled on him--and of course, since the golem was in his hand, Grundy whirled too. "What do you mean by that?"

"Merely that men notice things about women that boys don't. Don't you know what Millie's talent is?"

"No. What is it?"

"Sex appeal."

"I thought that was something all women had."

"Something all women wish they had. Millie's is magical; any man near her gets ideas."

That didn't make sense to Dor. "My father doesn't."

"Your father stays well away from her. Did you think that was coincidence?"

Dor had thought it was his own talent that kept Bink away from home so much. It was tempting to think he was mistaken. "What about the King?"

"He has iron control. But you can bet those ideas are percolating in his brain, out of sight. Ever notice how closely the Queen watches him, when Millie's around?"

Dor had always thought it was him the Queen was watching disapprovingly, when as a child Millie had taken him to the palace. Now he was uncertain, so he didn't argue further. The golem was always full of gossipy news that adults found hilarious even when the news was suspect. Adults could be sort of stupid at times.

They came up to a pavilion in the Castle Roogna orchard. It had a drying stone set up for just such occasions as this. As they approached it, warm radiation came out, which started the pleasant drying of their clothes. Few things felt as good as a drying stone after a chill soaking! "I really appreciate your service, drier," Dor told it.

"All part of the job," the stone replied. "My cousin, the sharpening stone, really has his work cut out for him. All those knives to hone, you know. Ha ha!"

"Ha ha," Dor agreed mildly, patting it. The trouble with talking with inanimate objects was that they weren't very bright--but thought they were.

Another figure emerged from the orchard, clasping a cluster of chocolate cherries in one hand. "Oh, no!" she exclaimed, recognizing Dor. "If it isn't dodo Dor, the lifeless snooper."

"Look who's talking," Grundy retorted. "Irate Irene, palace brat."

"Princess Irene, to you," the girl snapped. "My father is King, remember?"

"Well, you'll never be King," Grundy said.

" 'Cause women can't assume the throne, golem! But if I were a man--"

"If you were a man, you still wouldn't be King, because you don't have Magician-caliber magic."

"I do too!" she flared.

"Stinkfinger?" Grundy inquired derisively.

"That's green thumb!" she yelled, furious. "I can make any plant grow. Fast. Big. Healthy."

Dor had stayed out of the argument, but fairness required his interjection. "That's creditable magic."

"Stay out of this, dodo!" she snapped. "What do you know about it?"

Dor spread his hands. How did he get into arguments he was trying to avoid? "Nothing. I can't grow a thing."

"You will when you're a man," Grundy muttered.

Irene remained angry. "So how come they call you a Magician, while I am only--"

"A spoiled brat," Grundy finished for her.

Irene burst into tears. She was a rather pretty child, with green eyes and a greenish tinge to her hair to match her talent, but her thumbs were normal flesh color. She was a girl, and a year younger than Dor, so she could cry if she wanted to. But it bothered him. He wanted to get along with her, and somehow had never been able to. "I hate you!" she screeched at him.

Genuinely baffled, Dor could only inquire: "Why?"

"Because you're going to be K-King! And if I want to be Q-Queen, I'll have to--to--"

"To marry him," Grundy said. "You really should learn to finish your own sentences."

"Ugh!" she cried, and it sounded as if she really were about to throw up. She looked wildly about, and spotted a tiny plant at the fringe of the pavilion. "Grow!" she yelled at it, pointing.

The plant, responsive to her talent, grew. It was a shadowboxer, with little boxing gloves mounted on springy tendrils. The gloves clenched and struck at the shadows formed by distant lightning. Soon the boxer was several feet high, and the gloves were the size of human fists. They struck at the vague shadows of the pavilion's interior. Dor backed away, knowing the blows had force.

Attracted by his motion, and by the sharper shadow his body made, the plant leaned toward him. The gloves were now larger than human fists, and mounted on vines as thick as human wrists. There were a dozen of them, several striking while several more recoiled for the next strike, keeping the plant as a whole in balance. Irene watched, a small gloat playing about her mouth.

"How did I get into this?" Dor asked, disgruntled. He didn't want to flee the pavilion; the storm had intensified and yellow rain was cascading off the roof. The booming of its fusillade was unnerving; there were too many hailstones mixed in, and it looked suspiciously like a suitable habitat for tornado wraiths.

"Well, I don't know for sure," the pavilion answered. "But once I overheard the Queen talking with a ghost, as they took shelter from a small shower, and she said Bink always had been an annoyance to her, and now Bink's son was an annoyance to her daughter. She said she'd do something about it, if it weren't for the King."

"But I never did anything to them!" Dor protested.

"Yes you did," Grundy said. "You were born a full Magician. They can't stand that."

Now the boxing gloves had him boxed in, backed to the very edge of the pavilion. "How do I get out of this?"

"Make a light," the pavilion said. "Shadowboxers can't stand light."

"I don't have a light!" One glove grazed his chest, but as he nudged away from it, water streamed down his back. This was a yellow rain; did it leave a yellow streak?

"Then you'd better run," the pavilion said.

"Yeah, dodo!" Irene agreed. The plant was not bothering her, since she had enchanted it. "Go bash your head into a giant hailstone. Some ice would be good for your brain."

Three more boxing gloves struck at him. Dor plunged into the rain. He was instantly soaked again, but fortunately the hailstones were small and light and somewhat mushy. Irene's mocking laughter pursued him.

Gusts of wind buffeted him savagely and lightning played about the sky. Dor knew he had no business being out in this storm, but he refused to return home. He ran into the jungle.

"Turn about!" Grundy yelled into his ear. The golem was clinging to his shoulder. "Get under cover!" It was excellent advice; lightning bolts could do a lot of harm if they struck too near. After they had lain for a few hours on the ground and cooled off so that they were not so bright, they could be gathered and used for bolting together walls and things. But a fresh one could spear right through a man.

Nevertheless, Dor kept running. The general frustration and confusion he felt inside exceeded that outside.

He was not so confused as to blunder into the obvious hazards of the wilderness. The immediate Castle Roogna environs were spelled to be safe for people and their friends, but the deep jungle could not be rendered safe short of annihilation. No spell would tame a tangle tree for long, or subdue a dragon. Instead, certain paths were protected, and the wise person remained on these paths.

A lightning bolt cracked past him and buried its point in the trunk of a massive acorn tree, the brilliant length of the bolt quivering. It was a small one, but it had three good sharp jags and could have wiped Dor out if it had hit him. The tree trunk was blistering with the heat of it.

That was too close a miss. Dor ran across to the nearest charmed path, one bearing south. No bolts would strike him here. He knew the path's ultimate destination was the Magic Dust village, governed by trolls, but he had never gone that far. This time--well, he kept running, though his breath was rasping past his teeth. At least the exertion kept him warm.

"Good thing I'm along," Grundy said in his ear. "That way there's at least one rational mind in the region."

Dor had to laugh, and his mood lightened. "Half a mind, anyway," he said. The storm was lightening too, as if in tandem with his mood. The way he interacted with the inanimate, that was entirely possible. He slowed to a walk, breathing hard, but continued south. How he wished he had a big, strong, muscular body that could run without panting or knock the gloves right off shadowboxers, instead of this rather small, slight frame. Of course, he didn't have his full growth yet, but he knew he would never be a giant.

"I remember a storm we suffered down this way, just before you were born," Grundy remarked. "Your daddy, Bink, and Chester Centaur, and Crombie the soldier in griffin guise--the King transformed him for the quest, you know--and the Good Magician--"

"Good Magician Humfrey?" Dor demanded. "You traveled with him? He never leaves his castle."

"It was your father's quest for the source of magic; naturally Humfrey came along. The old gnome was always keen on information. Good thing, too; he's the one who showed me how to become real. Good thing for him, too; he met the gorgon, and you should have seen the flip she did over him, the first man she could talk to who didn't turn to stone. Anyway, this storm was so bad it washed out some of the stars from the sky; they were floating in puddles."

"Stop, Grundy!" Dor cried, laughing. "I believe in magic, as any sensible person does, but I'm not a fool! Stars wouldn't float in water. They would fizzle out in seconds!"

"Maybe they did. I was riding a flying fish at the time, so I couldn't see them too well. But it was some storm!"

There was a shudder in the ground, not thunder. Dor halted, alarmed. "What is that?"

"Sounds like the tramp of a giant, to me," Grundy hazarded. His talent was translation, and he could interpret anything any creature said, but footfalls weren't language. "Or worse. It just might be--"

Suddenly it loomed from the gloom. "An ogre!" Dor finished, terrified. "Right on the path! How could the enchantment have failed? We're supposed to be safe on these--"

The ogre tramped on toward them, a towering hulk more than twice Dor's height and broad in proportion. Its great gap-toothed mouth cracked open horrendously. An awful growl blasted out like the breath of a hungry dragon.

"What say, li'l man--will you give me a han'?" Grundy said.

"What?" Dor asked, startled almost out of his fright.

"That's what the ogre says; I was translating."

Oh. Of course. "No! I need my hands! He can't eat them." Though he was uncertain how the ogre could be stopped from eating anything he wanted. Ogres were great bone-crunchers.

The ogre growled again. "Me not eat whelp; me seek for help," Grundy said. Then the golem did a double take. "Crunch!" he cried. "The vegetarian ogre!"

"Then why does he want to eat my hand?" Dor demanded.

The monster smiled. The expression most resembled the opening of a volcanic fissure. Gassy breath hissed out. "You little loudmouthed twerp, hardly bigger than a burp."

"That's me!" Grundy agreed, answering his own translation. "Good to see you again, Crunch! How's the little lady, she with hair like nettles and skin like mush, whose face would make a zombie blush?"

"She lovely as ever; me forsake she never," the ogre replied. Dor was beginning to be able to make out the words directly; the thing was speaking his language, but with a foul accent that nearly obliterated meaning. "We have good bash, make little Smash."

Dor was by this time reassured that the spell of the path had not failed. This ogre was harmless--well, no ogre was harmless, but at least not ravening--and therefore able to mix with men. "A little smash?"

"Smash baby ogre, 'bout like you; now he gone and we too few."

"You smashed your baby?" Dor asked horrified. Maybe there was something wrong with the path-spell after all.

"Dodo! Smash is the name of their baby," Grundy explained. "All the ogres have descriptive names."

"Then why is Smash gone?" Dor demanded nervously. "Troll wives eat their husbands, so maybe ogres eat--"

"Smash wandered away in drizzle; now we search for he fizzle."

This recent storm was a mere drizzle to the ogres? That made sense. No doubt Crunch used a lightning bolt for a toothpick. "Well help you find your baby," Dor said, grasping this positive mission with enthusiasm. Nothing like a little quest to restore spirits! Crunch's search for his little one had fizzled, so he had asked for help, and few human beings ever had such a request from an ogre! "Grundy can ask living things, because he knows all their languages, and I'll ask the dead ones. We'll run him down in no time!"

Crunch heaved a grateful sigh that almost blew Dor down. Quickly they went to the spot where the tyke had last been seen. Smash had, Crunch explained, been innocently chewing up nails, getting his daily ration of iron, then must have wandered away.

"Did the little ogre pass this way?" Dor asked a nearby rock.

"Yes--and he went toward that tree," the rock replied.

"Why don't you just have the ground tell you warm or cold?" Grundy suggested.

"The ground is not an individual entity," Dor answered. "It's just part of the whole land of Xanth. I doubt I could get its specific attention. Anyway, much of it is alive--roots, bugs, germs, magic things. They mess up communication."

"There is a ridge of stone," Grundy pointed out. "You could use it."

Good idea. "Tell me warm or cold, as I walk," Dor told it, and started to walk toward the tree. Crunch followed as softly as he was able, so that the shuddering of the land did not quite drown out the rock's voice.

"Warm--warm--cool--warm," the ridge called, steering Dor on the correct course. Dor realized suddenly that he was in fact a Magician; no one else could accomplish such a search. Irene's plant-growing magic was a strong talent, a worthy one, but it lacked the versatility of this. Her green thumb could not be turned to nonbotanic uses. A King, to rule Xanth, had to be able to exert his power effectively, as Magician Trent did. Trent could transform any enemy into a toad, and everyone in Xanth knew that. But Magician Trent was also smart; he used his talent merely to back up his brains and will. What would a girl like Irene do, if she occupied the throne? Line the paths with shadowboxing plants? Dor's talent was far more effective; he could learn all the secrets anyone had except those never voiced or shown before an inanimate object. Knowledge was the root of power. Good Magician Humfrey knew that. He--

"That's a tangler!" Grundy hissed in his ear.

Dor's attention snapped back to the surface. Good thing the golem had stayed with him, instead of questioning creatures on his own; Dor had been mindlessly reacting to the ridge's directives, and now stood directly before a medium-sized tangle tree. Which was no doubt why Grundy had remained, knowing that Dor was prone to such carelessness. If little Smash had gone there--

"I could ask it," Grundy said. "But the tree would probably lie, if it didn't just ignore me. Plants don't talk much anyway."

Crunch stepped close. "Growrrh!" he roared, poking one clublike finger at the dangling tentacles. The message needed no translation.

The tangler gave a vegetable keen of fear and whipped its tentacles away.

Dor, amazed, stepped forward. "Warm," the ridge said. Dor stepped nervously into the circle normally commanded by the tangler. "Cool," the ridge said.

So the little ogre had steered just clear of the tree and gone on. A close call--for tyke and tree! But now the trail led toward the deep cleft of a nickelpede warren. Nickelpedes would gouge disks out of the flesh of anything, even an ogre. If--but then the trail veered away.

The ridge subsided, but there were a number of individual rocks in this vicinity, and they served as well. On and on the trail went, meandering past a routine assortment of Xanth horrors: a needle-cactus, the nest of a harpy, a poison spring, a man-eating violent flower--fortunately Smash had been no man, but an ogre, so the flower had turned purple in frustration--a patch of spear-grass with its speartips glinting evilly. Plus similar threats, with which the wilderness abounded. Smash had avoided stepping into any traps, until at last the tyke had come to the lair of a flying dragon.

Dor halted, dismayed. This time there was no doubt: no one passed this close to such a lair without paying the price. Dragons were the lords of the jungle, as a class; specific monsters might prevail against specific dragons; but overall, dragons governed the wilds much as Man governed the tames.

They could hear the dragon cubs entertaining themselves with some poor prey, happily scorching each potential route of escape. Dragon cubs needed practice to get their scorching up to par. A stationary target sufficed only up to a point; after that they needed live lures, to get their reflexes and aim properly tracked.

"Smash... is there?" Dor asked, dreading the answer.

"Hot," the nearest stone agreed warmly.

Crunch grimaced, and this time not even an ogress would have mistaken his ire. He stomped up to the scene of the crime. The ground danced under the impact of his footfalls, but the dragon's lair seemed secure.