Piers Anthony - Xanth 08 - Crewel Lye

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Chapter 1. Ghost Quest

Ivy was restricted, for no reason at all, to Castle

Roogna, and of course it was overwhelmingly boring. Her

mother Irene had recently gotten quite fat in the tummy,

but kept right on eating and pretending it was wonderful

and didn't seem to have much time for Ivy any more. To

make things worse, her father King Dor had ordered a

baby brother for her. Ivy did not need or want a baby

brother. How could they have been so thoughtless as to

order something like that without consulting the one most

concerned? What good was a baby, anyway—especially

a boy?

But now the infernal thing had arrived, and Irene had

evidently celebrated by using a thinning spell, because

she was suddenly back to normal weight, but she still had

next to no time for Ivy. To heck and damation with all

cabbage leaves! Even drear Mundania, she decided, could

not be worse than this.

For a time, she played with the items sent by her pun-

pal, Rapunzel, who had very long hair and was similarly

confined to her castle. Ivy was still too young to read and

write, so they exchanged small objects, and that usually

worked well enough. But there was only so much a person

could do with puncils and hot-cross puns, and Ivy soon

tired of them.

She found herself watching the magic tapestry in her

room for hours on end and more hours sidewise; the idiot

cloth had become her amusement of last resort. Its moving

pictures showed everything that had ever happened in the

Land of Xanth. But the pictures were fuzzy, and she

wasn't much interested in history, anyway. It was so much

2 Crewel Lye

more fun in the jungle, playing with clouds and tanglers

and gourds!

As the tapestry played over a sequence several hundred

years in the past. Ivy became aware of company. One of

the castle ghosts was in the room. In fact, it was watching

the tapestry.

Ghosts did not bother Ivy, of course; in fact, it tended

to be the other way around. Ghosts avoided her because

trouble seemed to follow only half a footstep behind her,

and the haunts of Castle Roogna, like others of their kind,

were basically settled creatures. So the presence of this

one surprised Ivy, yet hardly alarmed her. She peered at

it, but the outlines were fuzzy, and she could not make

out which one it was. So she asked, "Who are you?"

"Jordan," the ghost replied faintly. It was hard for

ghosts to speak with any volume, because their volume

was mostly vapor, but they could do it when they con-

centrated.

Oh, yes. Jordan was the one who had helped Mare

Imbri save Castle Roogna from the Horseman oodles of

time ago, before she arrived on the scene. "What are you

doing?"

"Watching my history." The ghost became clearer as

she concentrated on it, shifting from amorphous cloud

shape to humped sheet shape, which was an improve-

ment.

Ivy suffered a flicker of interest. " Your history? That's

Xanth history, silly!"

"I lived in Xanth four hundred years ago," Jordan said,

becoming a vague human form.

"Was it as dull as it is now?"

"No, it was exciting!" the ghost said with greater an-

imation than before. "It was a terrific adventure—I think."

"You think?" Ivy wanted to nail this down, because if

there was anything interesting in Castle Roogna, she

wanted to find it.

"Well, 1 died from it."

Oh. "I'm about to die from boredom," Ivy asserted.

"Oh, no," Jordan protested. "You're a Sorceress. You

will grow up to be King of Xanth."

Crewel Lye 3

This was nothing new, but Ivy's interest increased.

Now Jordan was a fully formed man, partly white, partly

translucent, fairly large, young, and handsome. A white

lock of hair fell down partway over his right eye, which

was also white. Most ghosts were white; Ivy wasn't sure

why. "How did you die?"

Jordan shook his head. "I can't quite seem to remem-

ber. I've been dead a long time."

"But that's easy to remember!" Ivy exclaimed. "Dying

is a big deal, like getting born."

"Do you remember getting born?"

"Of course not. Animals get born. / was found under

a cabbage leaf. I should have kicked over the cabbage

behind me, because now they've found Dolph under it

and they're making him my baby brother." She pouted,

as the memory rankled. "If I'd been smart, I'd have

sneaked out at night and thrown all the cabbages into the

moat before Dolph arrived. It's probably all his fault I'm

grounded."

"Yes, boys are a lot of trouble," the ghost agreed.

"Almost as much trouble as girls."

"What?"

The ghost drifted away from her, realizing that he had

said something provocative and unwarranted. Everybody

knew that boys were much worse than girls. But Ivy de-

cided to forgive him his transgression, because even

ghostly company was better than none. "Tell me the ad-

venture of your life."

"Well, I don't quite remember that, either. I know it

was exciting, and that there were monsters and magicians

and swords and sorcery and beautiful women, but the

details have fogged out."

"Then how do you know your life is playing on the

tapestry now?" Ivy asked alertly.

"I recognize bits of my life when I see them played.

Fighting a dragon, kissing a woman—it begins to come

back. I know I was there."

"Fighting a dragon?" Ivy asked. "Not the Gap Dragon?"

"I think I avoided that one," Jordan said. "It's alive

today, isn't it? So I couldn't have slain it."

4 Crewel Lye

"Good." Because the Gap Dragon had become Ivy's

friend, she didn't want anything bad to have happened to

him, even four hundred years ago. The Gap was now

being patrolled by Stacey Steamer, the female of his kind.

Eventually Stanley would grow up and return to the Gap,

but that was long ago in the future and she didn't worry

about it. "Who'd you kiss?"

The ghost concentrated. "Several beautiful women, I

think, but the last was most. There was a cruel lie, and

I died. So I hate her. But I found a better woman after I

died, so maybe it's all right after all."

This was getting downright fascinating! "How can you

find a woman after you're dead?"

"A dead woman, naturally. A ghost, like me."

Ivy had always known the ghosts of Castle Roogna,

but hadn't thought to question them about their lives.

"What happened to her?"

"She's still here, of course. She's Renee."

"Oh, Renee! I hear her singing sometimes. Faint, sad

songs."

"Yes, she is often sad. But she's a wonderful person.

If I were alive again, I'd marry her."

"Silly, ghosts can't live again!" Ivy chided him.

"What about Millie?"

Millie the Ghost had been a resident of Castle Roogna

for eight centuries, until restored to life. She had married

the Zombie Master and now had twin teen-aged children,

Hiatus and Lacuna, who on occasion baby-sat for Ivy.

"That was prehistoric," Ivy said shortly. "Back when

Good Magician Humfrey was still practicing as an old

man. He helped bring her back to life. Everybody knows

that. But Magician Humfrey isn't animating ghosts any

more, and nobody else knows how. How can you live

again?"

"Well, my talent is healing," Jordan said. "So if my

bones were found and brought together, maybe—"

"Where are your bones?"

"I've forgotten, if I ever knew," the ghost confessed,

abashed.

Crewel Lye 5

So Jordan represented a mystery. Ivy was now fully

intrigued. "This cruel lie—what was it?"

Jordan spread his hands. "I don't remember that, ei-

ther. I thought if I watched it replayed on the tapestry,

maybe—"

"Why not," Ivy agreed. They focused on the tapestry.

It showed a towering wall of rock, the face of an almost

vertical cliff. Down this cliff a huge snail was crawling—

and a man clung to the snail's shell.

"Oh, yes, the snail," Jordan said. "That's me, riding

it."

Ivy had never thought of snail-riding, but of course she

had never encountered a snail big enough. "Where are

you going?"

"I don't remember, but it was somewhere I had to get

to."

"Why are you riding it, instead of walking there your-

self? That snail's pretty slow."

"I don't remember that, either. But I think I had no

choice. Maybe if we could see more detail—"

They peered closely, and the picture enhanced itself

somewhat, as things did when Ivy paid attention to them.

They made out a shadow, as of some monstrous bird, but

they could not tell where the cliff was or how extensive.

The progress of the giant snail was tediously slow; it was

evident they would have to wait for an hour to see sig-

nificant progress. That was the problem with the tapestry;

it ran scenes through at regular speed. It was possible to

reset it, but that tended to jump the picture to some quite

different scene, and the original one could be lost for days.

So it was necessary simply to let it play through at its

own rate if a person wanted to see how a particular scene

ended. This was no good for a bored child.

But Ivy's curiosity, once fairly aroused, did not accept

denial. "We must find out," she declared. "I want to know

all about that snail—and your life, and especially about

the cruel lie." She put her hands on her hips, in the manner

her mother did, to show the severity of her resolve.

"I'm sure I could remember, if the pictures were

clearer," Jordan said.

6 Crewel Lye

Ivy contemplated the tapestry. "It's gotten sort of

grubby over the centuries," she said. "And I guess my

using it to wipe off my hands before dinner doesn't help

much, either." Adults always had these pointless rules

about clean hands for eating, so Ivy knew it really wasn't

her fault, but now she wished she had wiped her hands

somewhere else. "Maybe if we can clean it off, it will

have better pictures."

They tried. Ivy fetched a bucket and water, but found

she couldn't scrub the tapestry clean. The pictures were

permanently dull, even when wet. "We need something

better to clean it," she said, frustrated.

They tested everything they could think of, but nothing

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摘要：

Chapter1.GhostQuestIvywasrestricted,fornoreasonatall,toCastleRoogna,andofcourseitwasoverwhelminglyboring.HermotherIrenehadrecentlygottenquitefatinthetummy,butkeptrightoneatingandpretendingitwaswonderfulanddidn'tseemtohavemuchtimeforIvyanymore.Tomakethingsworse,herfatherKingDorhadorderedababybrotherf...

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