text: Dor woke with a headache. He was lying on sour-smelling hay in a dark cell. As he moved, something skittered away. He suspected it was a rat; he understood they abounded in Mundania. Maybe that was a blessing; the magic creatures of the night could be horrible in Xanth.
  
  There was the sound of muted sobbing. Dor held his breath a moment to make certain it wasn't himself.
  
  He sat up, peering through the gloom to find some vestige of light. There was a little, which grew brighter as his eyes acclimatized; it seemed to be a candle in the distance. But there was a wall in the way; the light filtered through the cracks.
  
  He oriented on the sobbing. It was from an adjacent chamber, separated from his own by massive stone pilings and huge wood timbers. This must be the lower region of the castle, these cells hollowed out from around the foundations. There were gaps between the supports, big enough for him to pass his arm through but not his body.
  
  "Irene?" he asked.
  
  "Oh, Dor!" she answered immediately, tearfully. "I thought I was alone! What has become of us?"
  
  "We were drugged and thrown in the dungeon," he said. "King Oary must have done the same to your parents, before." He couldn't quite remember where he had gotten that notion, or how he himself had been drugged; his memory was foggy on recent details.
  
  "But why? My father came only to trade!"
  
  "I don't know. But I think King Oary is a usurper. Maybe he murdered the rightful King, and your folks found out. Oary knew he couldn't fool us long, so he practiced his treachery on us, too."
  
  "What do we do now?" she demanded hysterically. "Oh, Dor, I've never felt so horrible!"
  
  "I think it's the drug," he said. "I feel bad, too. That should wear off. If we have our magic, we may be able to get free. Do you have your bag of seeds?"
  
  She checked. "No. Only my clothing. Do you have your gold and gems?"
  
  Dor checked. "No. They must have searched us and taken everything they thought was valuable or dangerous. I don't have my sword either." But then his questing fingers found something small. "I do have the jar of salve, not that it's much good here. And my midnight sunstone; it fell into the jacket lining. Let me see—" He brought it out. "No, I guess not. This has no light."
  
  "Where are the others?"
  
  "I'll check," he said. "Floor, where are my companions?"
  
  There was no answer. "That means we have no magic. Arnolde must be in the stable." He seemed to remember something about that, foggily.
  
  "What about Smash and Grundy?"
  
  "Me here," the ogre said from the opposite cell. "Head hurt. Strength gone."
  
  Now Dor had no further doubt; the magic was gone. The ogre wasn't rhyming, and no doubt Irene's hair had lost its color. Magic had strange little bypaths and side effects, where loss was somehow more poignant than that of the major aspects. But those major ones were vital; without his magic strength, Smash could probably not break free of the dungeon.
  
  "Grundy?" Dor called inquiringly.
  
  There was no answer. Grundy, it seemed, had escaped capture. That was about the extent of their good fortune.
  
  "Me got gauntlets," Smash said.
  
  Include one more item of fortune. If the ogre should get his strength back, those gauntlets would be a big help. Probably the castle guards had not realized the gauntlets were not part of the ogre, since Smash had used them for eating. The ogreish lack of manners had paid off in this respect.
  
  Dor's head was slowly clearing. He tried the door to his cell. It was of solid Mundane wood, worn but far too tough to break. Too tough, too, for Smash, in his present condition; the ogre tried and couldn't budge his own door. Unless the centaur came within range, none of them had any significant lever for freedom.
  
  The doors seemed to be barred by some unreachable mechanism outside: Inside, the slimy stone floor was interrupted only by a disposal sump—a small but deep hole that reeked of old excrement. Obviously no one would be released for sanitary purposes either.
  
  Smash banged a fist against a wall. "Oww!" he exclaimed. "Now me miss centaur!"
  
  "He does have his uses," Dor agreed. "You know, Smash, Arnolde didn't really usurp Chet's place. Chet couldn't come with us anyway, because of his injury, and Arnolde didn't want to. We pretty much forced him into it, by revealing his magic talent."
  
  "Ungh," the ogre agreed. "Me want out of here. No like be weak."
  
  "I think we'll have to wait for whatever King Oary plans for us," Dor said trimly. "If he planned to kill us, he wouldn't have bothered to lock us in here."
  
  "Dor, I'm scared, really scared," Irene said. "I've never been a prisoner before."
  
  Dor peered out through the cracks in his door. Had the flickering candle shadow moved? The guard must be coming in to eavesdrop. Naturally King Oary would want to know their secrets—and Irene just might let out their big one before she realized. He had to warn her—without the guard catching on. They just might turn this to their advantage.
  
  He went to the wall that separated them. "It will be a good idea to plan our course of action," he said. "If they question us, tell them what they want to know. There's no point in concealing anything, since we're innocent." He managed to reach his arm through the crevice in the wall nearest her. "But we don't want them to force us into any false statements."
  
  His hand touched something soft. It was Irene. She made a stifled "Eeek!" then grasped his hand.
  
  "Let me review our situation," Dor said. "I am King during King Trent's absence." He squeezed her hand once. "You are King Trent's daughter." He squeezed again, once. "Arnolde the Centaur is also a Prince among his people." This time he squeezed twice.
  
  "What are you talking about?" she demanded. "Arnolde's not—" She broke off as he squeezed several times, hard. Then she began to catch on; she was a bright enough girl. "Not with us now," she concluded, and squeezed his hand once.
  
  "If the centaur does not return to his people on schedule, they will probably come after him with an army," Dor said, squeezing twice.
  
  "A big army," she agreed, returning the two squeezes. "With many fine archers and spear throwers, thirsty for blood, and a big catapult to loft huge stones against the castle." She was getting into it now. They had their signals set; one squeeze for truth, two for falsehood. That way they could talk privately, even if someone were eavesdropping.
  
  "I'm glad we're alone," he said, squeezing twice. "So we can talk freely."
  
  "Alone," she agreed, with the double squeeze. Yes, now she knew why he was doing this. She was a smart girl, and he liked that; nymphlike proportions did not have to indicate nymphlike stupidity.
  
  "We have no chance to break out of here ourselves," Dor said, squeezing twice. "We have no resources they don't already know about." Two.
  
  "We don't have magical powers or anything," she agreed with an emphatic double squeeze.
  
  "But maybe it would be better to let them think we have magic," Dor said, not squeezing. "That might make them treat us better."
  
  "There is that," she agreed. "If the guards thought we could zap them through the walls, they might let us out."
  
  "Maybe we should figure out something to fool them with," he said, this time squeezing once. "Something to distract them while the centaur army is massing. Like growing plants very fast. If they thought you could grow a tree and burst out the ceiling and maybe make this castle collapse—"
  
  "They would take me out of this cell and keep me away from seeds," she said. "Then maybe I could escape and set out some markers so the centaurs can find us more quickly."
  
  "Yes. But you can't just tell the Mundanes about growing things; it has to seem that they forced it out of you. And you'll need some good excuse in case they challenge you to grow something. You could say the time of the month is wrong, or—"
  
  "Or that I have to do it in a stable," she said. "That would get me out of the heavily guarded area. By the time they realize it's a fake, and that I can't grow anything, I may have escaped."
  
  "Yes." But had they set this up correctly? Would it trick the guards into taking Irene to the stable where Arnolde might be, or would they not bother? This business of deception was more difficult than he had thought.
  
  Then she signaled alarm. "What about Smash? They'll want to know how he tore off the front gate, when he can't do a thing now."
  
  Dor thought fast. "We have to hide from them the fact that the ogre is strong only when he's angry. The guard at the gate insulted Smash, so naturally he tore off the gate. But King Oary gave him a good meal, so he wasn't really angry despite getting drugged. Maybe we can trick a guard into saying something mean to Smash, or depriving him of food or water. When Smash gets hungry, he gets mean. And he has a big appetite. If they try starving him, watch out! He'll blow his top and tear this cellar apart!"
  
  "Yes," she agreed. "That's really our best hope. Ill-treatment. We don't even need to trick anybody. All we have to do is wait. By midday tomorrow Smash will be storming. We'll all escape over the dead bodies of the guards who get in the way. We may not need the centaurs at all!"
  
  Something caught Dot's eye. He squeezed Irene's hand to call her attention to it. The guard was quietly moving. No doubt a hot report was going upstairs.
  
  "You're an idiot," Irene murmured, squeezing his hand twice. "You get these fool notions to fool our captors, and they'll never work. I don't know why I even talk to you."
  
  "Because it's better than talking to the rats," he said without squeezing.
  
  "Rats!" she cried, horrified. "Where?"
  
  "I thought I saw one when I woke. Maybe I was wrong."
  
  "No, this is the kind of place they like." She squeezed his hand, not with any signal. "Oh, Dor—we've got to get out of here!"
  
  "They may take you out pretty soon, to verify that you can't grow plants."
  
  She squeezed his hand warningly. "They already know." Actually, the purpose of the fake dialogue had been to convince their captors that Dor and Irene had no magic. Then if they somehow got the chance to use magic, the guards would be caught completely by surprise. In addition, they had probably guaranteed good treatment for Smash—if their ruse had been effective.
  
  Soon a wan crack of dawn filtered in through the ceiling near what they took to be the east wall. But the angle was wrong, and Dor finally concluded that they were incarcerated against the west wall, above the cliff, with the light entering only by crude reflection; it would have been much brighter on the other side. No chance to tunnel out, even if they had the strength; what use to step off the cliff?
  
  Guards brought Smash a huge basket of bread and a barrel of water.
  
  "Food!" the ogre exclaimed happily, and crunched up entire loaves in single mouthfuls, as was his wont. Then, perceiving that neither Dor nor Irene had been served, he hurled several loaves through to them. Dor squeezed one through the crevice to Irene.
  
  The water was harder to manage. No cups had been provided, but Dor's thirst abruptly intensified, perhaps in reaction to the wine of the day before. He finally borrowed and filled one of the ogre's gauntlets and jammed that through to Irene.
  
  "Tastes like sour sweat," she complained. But she drank it, then shoved the gauntlet back. Dor drank the rest of it, agreeing with her analysis of the taste, and returned the gauntlet to Smash with due thanks. Sweat-flavored water was much better than thirst.
  
  "Give me your hand again," Irene said.
  
  Thinking she had more strategy to discuss, Dor passed his right arm through the crack, gnawing on a loaf held in his left. "That was a mean thing you did, getting me food," she murmured, squeezing twice.
  
  "Well, you know I don't like you," Dor told her, returning the double squeeze. He wasn't sure this mattered to their eavesdropper, but the reversals were easy enough to do.
  
  "I never liked you," she returned in kind. "In fact, I think I hate you."
  
  What was she saying? The double squeeze suggested reversal, the opposite of what she said. Reverse hate? "What would I want with an ugly girl like you anyway?" he demanded.
  
  There was a long pause. Dor stared through the crack, seeing a strand of her hair, and, as he had expected, it had lost its green tint. Then he realized he had forgotten to squeeze. Belatedly he did so, twice.
  
  "Ugly, huh?" She squirmed about, bringing something soft into contact with his palm. "Is that ugly?"
  
  "I'm not sure what it is," Dor said. He squeezed experimentally.
  
  "Eeek!" she yiped, and swatted his hand.
  
  "Ugly as sin," he said, trying to picture female anatomy so as to ascertain what he had pinched. It certainly had been interesting!
  
  "I'll bite your hand," she threatened, in their old game.
  
  "There are teeth there?" he inquired, surprised.
  
  For an instant she choked, whether on mirth or anger he could not quite tell. "With my mouth, I'll bite," she clarified. But only her lips touched his fingers.
  
  "You wouldn't dare."
  
  She kissed his hand twice more.
  
  "Ouch!" Dor cried.
  
  Now she bit him, lightly, twice. He wasn't sure what mood this signified.
  
  It was a new variant of an old game, perhaps no more, but it caused Dor to think about his relationship with Irene. He had known her since childhood. She had always been jealous of his status as Magician and had always taunted him and sicked her plants on him—yet always, too, had been the underlying knowledge that they were destined for each other. He had resisted that as violently as she—but as they grew older, the sexual element had begun to manifest, at first in supposedly innocent games and accidental exposures, then more deviously but seriously. When he had been twelve and she eleven, they had kissed for the first time with feeling, and the experience had shaken them both. Since then their quarreling had been tempered by the knowledge that each could give a new kind of joy to the other, potentially, when conditions were right. Irene's recent development of body had intensified that awareness, and their spats had had a voyeuristic element, such as when they had torn the clothes off each other in the moat. Now, when they could not be sure of their fate, and in the absence of anything else to do, this relationship had become much more important. For the moment, almost literally, all he had was Irene. Why should they quarrel in what might be their last hours?
  
  "Yes, I definitely hate you," Irene said, nipping delicately at the tip of one of his fingers twice, as if testing it for digestibility.
  
  "I hate you, too," Dor said, trying to squeeze but only succeeding in poking his finger into her mouth. His whole being seemed to concentrate on that hand and whatever it touched, and the caress of her lips was excruciatingly exciting.
  
  "I wish I could never see you again," she said, hugging his hand to her bosom.
  
  This was getting pretty serious! Yet he found that he felt the same. He never wanted to leave her. They weren't even squeezing now, playing the game of reversal with increasing intensity and comprehension. Was this merely a reaction to the fear of extinction? He could not be sure—but was unable to resist the current of emotion. "I wish I could . . . hurt you," he said, having trouble formulating a properly negative concept.
  
  "I'd hurt you back!" She hugged his hand more tightly.
  
  "I'd like to grab you and—" Again the problem.
  
  "And what?" she demanded, and once more he found his hand encountering strange anatomy, or something. His inability to identify it was driving him crazy! Was it limb or torso, above or below the waist—and which did he want it to be?
  
  "And squeeze you to pieces," he said, giving a good squeeze. That moat-scene had been nothing, compared with this.
  
  This time she did not make any sound of protest. "I wouldn't marry you if you were the last man alive," she whispered.
  
  She had upped the ante again! She was talking of marriage! Dor was stunned, unable to respond.
  
  She caressed his hand intimately. "Would you?" she prompted.
  
  Dor had not thought much about marriage, despite his involvement in Good Magician Humfrey's wedding. He somehow thought of marriage as the perquisite of old people, like his parents, and King Trent, and Humfrey. He, Dor, was only sixteen! Yet in Xanth the age of consent coincided with the age of desire. If a person thought he was old enough to marry, and wished to do so, and had a willing bride, he could make the alliance. Thus a marriage could be contracted at age twelve, or at age one hundred; Magician Humfrey had hardly seemed ready even at that extreme!
  
  Did he want to marry? When he thought of the next few hours, perhaps his last, he wanted to, for he had known he would have to marry before his life was out. It was a requirement of Kingship, like being a Magician. But when he thought of a lifetime in Xanth, he wasn't sure. There was a lot of time, and so much could happen in a lifetime! As Humfrey had said: there were positive and negative aspects. "I don't know," he said.
  
  "You don't know!" she flared. "Oh, I hate you!" And she bit his hand, once, and her sharp teeth cut the flesh painfully. Oh, yes, this was getting serious!
  
  Dor tried to jerk his hand away, but she clung to it. "You oaf! You ingrate!" she exclaimed. "You man!" And her face pressed against his hand, moistly.
  
  Moistly? Yes, she was crying. Perhaps there was art to it; nevertheless this unnerved Dor. If she felt that strongly, could he afford to feel less? Did he feel less?
  
  Then a tidal swell of emotion flooded him. What did it matter how much time there was, or how old he was, or where they were? He did love her.
  
  "I—would not," he said, and tweaked her slick nose twice.
  
  She continued crying into his hand, but now there was a gentler feeling to it. She was no longer angry with him; these were tears of joy.
  
  It seemed they were engaged.
  
  "Hey, Dor," a whisper came. It was from his own cell.
  
  "Grundy!" Dor whispered back. He tried to signal Irene, but she seemed to have fallen asleep against his hand.
  
  "Sorry I was so long," the golem said. "It took time to sleep off that knockout juice, and more time to find a good secret route here without running afoul of the rats. I talked to them—rat language seems to be much the same all over, so I didn't need the magic—but they're mean. I finally made myself a sword out of this big ol' hatpin, and after I struck a few they decided to cooperate." He brandished the weapon, a bent iron sliver; it did look deadly. Poked at a rat's eye, it would be devastating.
  
  "Irene and I are engaged," Dor said.
  
  The golem squinted at him to determine whether this was a joke and concluded it was not. "You are? Of all things! Why did you propose to her now?"
  
  "I didn't," Dor confessed. "She proposed to me, I think."
  
  "But you can't even touch her!"
  
  "I can touch her," Dor said, remembering.
  
  "Not where it counts."
  
  "Yes, where it counts—I think."
  
  The golem shrugged this off as fantasy. "Well, it won't make any difference, if we don't get out of here. I tried to talk to the animals and plants around here, but most of them I can't understand without magic. I don't think they know anything about King Trent and Queen Iris anyway. But I'm sure old King Oary's up to something. How can I spring you?"
  
  "Get Arnolde into range," Dor said.
  
  "That's not easy, Dor. They've got him in a stable, with a bar-lock setup like this, too heavy for me to force, and out of his reach. Crude but effective. If I could spring him, I could spring you."
  
  "But we've got to get together," Dor whispered. "We need magic, and that's the only way."
  
  "They aren't going to let him out," Grundy said. "They've got this fool notion that an army of warrior centaurs is marching here, and they don't want anyone to know there's a centaur in the castle."
  
  Irene woke. "Are you talking to me, dear?" she asked.
  
  "Dear!" Grundy chortled. "Hoo, has she lassoed you!"
  
  "Quiet!" Dor whispered fiercely. "The guard is listening." But he wondered whether that was really his concern.
  
  "Is that the golem?" Irene asked.
  
  "Want to hold hands with me, dear?" Grundy called.
  
  "Go unravel your string!" she snapped back.
  
  "Anything but that," Grundy said, smiling mischievously. "I want to stick around and watch the nuptials. How are you going to make it through the wall?"
  
  "Let me get at that big-mouthed imp!" Irene said. "I'll jam him down the sump headfirst."
  
  "How did you get the poor sucker to accept the knot?" the golem persisted. "Did you scream at him, show him some forbidden flesh, and cry big green tears?"
  
  "The sump is too good for him!" she gritted.
  
  "If you both don't be quiet, the eavesdropping guard will learn everything," Dor warned, ravaged by worry and embarrassment.
  
  Grundy looked at him. "Outside the magic ambience, they can't understand a word we say. How can they eavesdrop?"
  
  Dor was stunned. "I never thought of that!" Had his entire ruse been for nothing?
  
  "How come they fed Smash, then?" Irene demanded, forgetting her fury with the golem as she came to grips with this new question. "How come they heard about the centaur army? Seems to me you said—or did I dream that?"
  
  "I said it, and it's true," Grundy said. "You mean you started that story? I overheard it when I was visiting Arnolde; then I could understand the Mundane speech."
  
  "We started it," Dor agreed. "And we gave them the notion that Smash only has super strength when he's angry, and he gets angry when he's hungry. They brought him food very soon. So they must have understood. But how?"
  
  "I think we're about to find out," Grundy said, fading into the shadow. "Someone's coming."
  
  Irene finally let go of Dor's hand, and he drew it back through the wall. His arm was cramped from the hours in the awkward position, but Dor hardly regretted the experience. It was all right being engaged to Irene. He knew her well enough to know she would make a pretty good wife. She would quarrel a lot, but he was used to that, because that was the way his mother Chameleon was when she was in her smart phase. Actually, a smart woman who quarreled was not smart at all, but no one could tell her that. Irene, like her obnoxious mother, had a sense of the proprieties of the office. Queen Iris' mischief was never directed openly at the King. If Dor ever became King in fact as well as in name, Irene would never seek to undermine his power. That was perhaps a more important quality than her physical appearance. But he had to admit that she had acquired a most interesting body. Those touches she had used to tantalize him that Grundy had so acutely noted—they had been marvelously effective. Obviously she had been attempting to seduce him into acquiescence—and she had succeeded. As the Gorgon had intimated, Irene had him pretty well contained. What the Gorgon had not hinted was the fact that such captivity was quite comfortable to the captive, like a warm jacket on a cold day. Good Magician Humfrey was undoubtedly a happy man right now, despite his protestations. In fact, a man's objections to marriage were rather like Irene's objections to people looking at her legs—more show than substance.
  
  Dor's attention was jerked back to the immediate situation by the arrival of the Mundanes. There were three guards, one carrying a crude iron bar. They stopped before Irene's cell and used the bar to pry up the wedged plank that barred it. Without that tool, evidently, the door could not be opened.
  
  One of the guards went in and grabbed Irene. She did not resist; she knew as well as Dor did that this was the expected questioning. She would try to answer in such a way that they would take her to the stable where Arnolde was confined, if only to prove she was lying. Then she could pry up the bar on the centaur's stall, or start some devastating plant growing—
  
  Except that she had no seeds. "Grundy!" he whispered. "Find Irene's seeds! She'll need them."
  
  "I'll try." The golem scrambled through a crevice and was gone.
  
  Now King Oary entered the dungeon. "Rn xnt'qd sgd Jhmf'r cztfgsdq," he said. "Vgzs hr xntq lzfhb?"
  
  "I don't understand you," Irene said.
  
  "His Highness King Oary asks what is your magic," one of the guards said. His speech was heavily accented, but he was intelligible.
  
  "You know Xanth speech?" she asked, surprised. "How can that be?"
  
  "You have no need to know," the guard said. "Just answer the question, wench."
  
  So one of the Mundanes here spoke the language of Xanth! Dor's mind started clicking over. This explained the eavesdropping—but how could the man have learned it, however poorly? He had to have been in contact with people from Xanth.
  
  "Go soak your snoot in the sump," Irene retorted.
  
  Dor winced. She might be playing her role too boldly!
  
  "The King will use force," the man warned. "Better answer, slut."
  
  Irene looked daunted, as perhaps she was, but those insulting references to her supposed status made her angry. "You answer first, toady," she said, compromising.
  
  The guard decided negotiation was the best course. "I met a spy from your country, tart. I am quick with languages; he taught me. Then he went back to Xanth."
  
  "To report to my father, King Trent!" Irene exclaimed. "You promised him a trade agreement, didn't you, rogue, if he would come himself to negotiate it?"
  
  "It is your turn to answer, hussy," the man said.
  
  "Oh, all right, wretch. My magic is growing plants. I can make anything grow from seed to tree in moments."
  
  Dor, peering out, could not see the man's face clearly, but was sure there was a knowing expression on it. The eavesdropper thought he knew better, but didn't want to betray his own secret snooping, so had to translate for the King. "Rgd fzud sgd khd," he said.
  
  "H vzms sgd sqtsg!" Oary snapped.
  
  "His Majesty suspects you are deceiving us," the guard said. "What is your real magic?"
  
  "What does ol' fatso care? I'm not doing any magic now."
  
  "You had magic when you came, trollop. The ogre used unnatural strength to destroy our front gate, and you all spoke our language. Now the ogre is weak and you speak your own language. What happened to the magic?"
  
  The language! Dor cursed himself for overlooking that detail. Of course that had given away their secret! King Trent would have used an interpreter—probably this same man—and the ability of Dor's party to converse directly would have alerted cunning King Oary immediately. He had known they had operative magic and now wanted to discover the mechanism of it.
  
  "Well, if you bring me some seeds, thug, maybe I can find out," Irene said. "I'm sure I can grow plants, if I just find the right place."
  
  Bless her! She was still trying to get to the stable, where she really could perform.
  
  But the Mundanes thought they knew better, "If the King says you lie, you lie, strumpet," the guard said. "Again I ask: what is your real magic? Can you speak in tongues, and cause others to do the same?"
  
  "Of course not, villain!" she said. "Otherwise we wouldn't need you to translate to His Lowness King Puddingbelly here, would we? Plants are all I can enchant."
  
  "Rgd vhkk mns sdkk," the guard said to the King.
  
  "Vd rgzkk lzjd ghl sdkk," the King responded. "Snqstqd gdq hm eqnms ne ghl."
  
  The other two guards grabbed Irene's arms and hauled her a few steps down the hall until they were directly in front of Dor's cell. "Prince Dor," the translator called. "You will answer our questions or see what we shall do."
  
  Dor was silent, uncertain what to do.
  
  "Qho nee gdq bknsgdr," the King ordered.
  
  The two guards wrestled Irene's jacket and silver-lined fur off her body, while she struggled and cursed them roundly. Then the translator put his hand on her neckline and brutally ripped downward. The blouse tore down the front, exposing her fine bosom. Irene, shocked at this sudden physical violence, heaved with her arms, but the two men held her securely.
  
  "Vdkk, knnj zs sgzs!" the King exclaimed admiringly. "H sgntfgs nmkx gdq kdfr vdqd fnnc!"
  
  Dor could not understand a word of the language, but he grasped the essence readily enough. King, translator, and both guards were all gawking at Irene's revealed body. So was Dor. He had thought Irene did not match the Gorgon in general architecture, but Irene had filled out somewhat since he had last looked. He had had the chance to see during the quarrel in the moat, but there had been other distractions then. During the journey south to Centaur Isle, Irene had kept herself fairly private, and perhaps her excellent legs had led his attention away from her other attributes. Now he saw that she was no longer reaching for bodily maturity, she had achieved it.
  
  At the same time, he was furious with the King and his henchmen for exposing Irene in this involuntary manner. He determined not to tell them anything.
  
  "Gd khjdr gdq, xnt snkc ld," the King said. "H bzm rdd vgx! Sgqdzsdm gdq zmc gd'kk szkj."
  
  The King was plotting something dastardly! Dor hardly dared imagine what he might do to Irene. He couldn't stand to have her hurt!
  
  The translator stood in front of Irene and formed a fist. He drew back his arm, aiming at her belly.
  
  "Stop!" Dor cried. "I'll tell—"
  
  "Shut up!" Irene snapped at him. One of her knees jerked up, catching the translator in the groin. The man doubled over, and the surprised guards allowed Irene to tear herself free, leaving shreds of cloth in their hands. Bare-breasted as any nymph, she ran a few steps, stooped to pick up the door-opening bar, and whirled to apply it to Dor's door.
  
  "Run!" Dor cried. "Don't waste time on me!"
  
  But it was already too late. Both guards had drawn their flat swords and were closing on Irene. She turned, raising the bar defensively, determined to fight.
  
  "No!" Dor screamed, his voice breaking. "They'll kill you!"
  
  But now there was a new distraction. Smash, snoozing before, had become aware of the situation. He rattled his door angrily. "Kill!" he bellowed.
  
  Both guards and the King blanched. They believed the ogre's fantastic strength stemmed from his anger. If they hurt Irene while Smash watched—
  
  The translator was beginning to recover from his injury; it probably had been a glancing blow. "Gdqc gdq hmsn gdq bdkk," he gasped to the other two guards. Then, to Irene: "Girl—go quickly to your cell and they won't hurt you."
  
  Irene, realizing that she could not hope to escape the two swordsmen and knowing that the bluff of Smash's strength should not be called, edged toward her cell. The two guards followed cautiously. Smash watched, still angry, but with the sense not to protest as long as the guards were holding off. Then Irene stepped into her cell, the guards slammed the door shut and barred it, and the crisis was over.
  
  "You should have run out of the dungeon!" Dor said with angry relief.
  
  "I couldn't leave you," she replied. "Where would I find another like you?" Dor wasn't certain quite how to take that; was it a compliment or a deprecation?
  
  King Oary himself seemed shaken. "Sgzs fhqk'r mns nmkx adztshetk, rgd gzr ehfgshmf rohqhs," he said. "Cnm's gtqs gdq; H ltrs ehmc z trd enq gdq." He turned about and marched out of the dungeon, followed by his henchmen. The translator, though still uncomfortable, had to remain where he thought he was just out of sight, to eavesdrop some more. The dungeon settled back into its normal gloom.
  
  They were plotting something worse, Dor knew, but at least Irene had escaped unhurt, and the secret of their magic had been preserved, at least in part. The Mundanes knew the prisoners had magic, but still had not fathomed its mechanism. It was a temporary respite, but much better than nothing.
  
  "I think we'd better get out of here soon," Irene said as the Mundanes departed. "Give me your hand."
  
  What was she contemplating this time? Dor passed his hand through the crevice.
  
  She took it in her own and kissed it. That was nice enough, though he found himself obscurely disappointed. She had lost her jacket and blouse—
  
  She took his wrist in her hand and had him spread his fingers. Then she put something into his hand. Dor almost exclaimed with surprise, for it was hard and cold and heavy.
  
  It was the iron bar.
  
  Of course! In their confusion, the guards had forgotten that Irene retained the bar she had picked up. Now Dor had this useful tool or weapon. Maybe he could lever open his door from the inside.
  
  But a guard was in the hall, probably the translator, though there could have been a change. Dor didn't dare try the door now; he would have to wait. In fact, he could not risk prying at any other part of the cell, for the noise would alert the guard and call attention to his possession of the bar. So, for now, they had to wait—and there were things he wanted to tell Irene.
  
  "You were awfully brave," he said. "You faced up to those thugs—"
  
  "I was scared almost speechless," she confessed. That was surely an overstatement; she had traded gibes with the translator quite neatly. "But I knew they'd hurt you if—"
  
  "Hurt me! It was you they—"
  
  "Well, I worry about you, Dor. You wouldn't be able to manage without me."
  
  She was teasing him—maybe. "I like your new outfit," he said. "But maybe you'd better take my jacket."
  
  "Maybe so," she agreed. "It's cool here."
  
  Dor removed his centaur jacket and squeezed it through the crevice. She donned it, and was quite fetching in it, though it tended to fall open in front. Or perhaps that was why he found it so fetching. At least the jacket would protect her from the cold and from the attack of instruments like swords or spears, because it was designed to resist penetration. And it wouldn't hurt to have her body concealed from the lecherous eyes of the King and his henchmen; Dor's jealousy of such things remained in force.
  
  Grundy reappeared. "I got a seed," he said. "The bag's in the King's chamber, along with the magic sword. I knew it was safe to sneak in there, because the King was down here. But I couldn't carry the whole bag. Couldn't find the magic compass at all; they must have thrown that away. So I picked out what looked like a good seed."
  
  "Give it here," Irene said eagerly. "Yes—this is a tangler. If I could start it and drop it in the hall—"
  
  "But you can't," Dor said. "Not without—" He caught himself, for the eavesdropper was surely eavesdropping.
  
  "I have an idea," Dor said. "Suppose we brought a part of you-know-who here—would it have a little magic, enough to start one seed?"
  
  Irene considered. "A piece of hoof, maybe. I don't know. It's worth a try."
  
  "I'm on my way," Grundy said.
  
  "I always thought girls were supposed to be timid and sweet and to scream helplessly at the mere sight of trouble," Dor said. "But you—those guards—"
  
  "You saw too much of Millie the Ghost. Real girls aren't like that, except when they want to be."
  
  "You certainly aren't! But I never thought you'd risk your life like that."
  
  "Are you disappointed?"
  
  Dor considered. "No. You're a lot more girl—more woman than I thought. I guess I do need you. If I didn't love you before, I do now. And not because of your looks though when it comes to that—"
  
  "Really?" she asked, sounding like an excited child.
  
  "Well, I could be overreacting because of our imprisonment."
  
  "I liked it better unqualified," she said.
  
  "Oh, sure. Uh, I think you're beautiful. But—"
  
  "Then we'd better check again after we get out of this, to see if we feel the same. No sense being hasty."
  
  Dor was shaken. "You have doubts?"
  
  "Well, I might meet a handsomer man—"
  
  "Uh, yes," Dor said unhappily.
  
  She laughed. "I'm teasing you. Girls are smarter about appearances than boys are. We go for quality rather than packaging. I have no doubt at all. I love you, Dor. I never intended to marry anyone else. But I refuse to take advantage of you when you're unsettled. Maybe when you get older you'll change your mind."
  
  "You're younger than I am!"
  
  "Girls mature faster. Hadn't you noticed?"
  
  Now Dor laughed. "Just today, I noticed!"
  
  She kissed his hand again. "Well, it's all yours, when."
  
  When. Dor considered the ramification of that, and felt warm all over. She had a body, true—but what pleased him most was the loyalty implied. She would be with him, she would support him, whatever happened. Dor realized he needed that support; he really would foul up on his own. Irene was strong, when not jarred by an acute crisis; she had nerve he lacked. Her personality complemented his, shoring up his weakness. She was the one who had gotten them going on this rescue mission; her determination to rescue her father had never relented. With her at his side, he could indeed be King.
  
  His reflections were interrupted by the return of the golem. "I got three hairs from his tail," he whispered. "He's very vain about his tail, like all his breed; it's his best feature. Maybe they'll be enough."
  
  Did some magic adhere to portions of the centaur that were removed from his body? Dor brought out his midnight sunstone gem and held it close to the hairs. Almost, he thought, he saw a gleam of light, deep within the crystal. But maybe that was a reflection from the wan illumination of the cell.
  
  "Take them in to Irene," Dor said, hardly allowing himself to hope.
  
  Grundy did so. Irene set the seed down on the tail hairs and leaned close. "Grow," she breathed.
  
  They were disappointed. The seed seemed to try, to swell expectantly, but could not grow. There was not enough magic.
  
  "Maybe if I took it back to Arnolde," Grundy said.
  
  Irene was silent, and Dor realized she was stifling her tears. She had really hoped her magic would work.
  
  "Yes, try that," Dor told the golem. "Maybe the seed has been started. Maybe it just needs more magic now."
  
  Grundy took the seed and the tail hairs and departed again. Dor reached through the crevice to pat Irene on the shoulder. "It was worth the try," he said.
  
  She clutched his hand. "I need you, Dor. When I collapse, you just keep on going."
  
  There was that complementary aspect again. She would soon recover her determination and nerve, but in the interim she needed to be steadied.
  
  They remained that way for what seemed like a long time, and despite the despair they both felt, Dor would not have traded it. Somehow this privation enhanced their personal liaison, making their love burn more fiercely and reach deeper. What would happen after this day he could not know, but he was certain he had been changed by this experience of emotion. His age of innocence, in a fundamental and positive sense, had passed.
  
  Then a commotion began in the distance. The sound electrified them. Was it possible—?
  
  Grundy burst in on them. "It worked!" he cried. "That seed started growing. The moment I got it in the magic aisle, it heaved right out of its shell. It must have been primed by your command, in that bit of magic with the tail hairs. I had to throw it down outside the stall—"
  
  "It worked!" Irene cried jubilantly. "I always knew it would!"
  
  "I told Arnolde where we are, just in case," Grundy continued excitedly. "That tangler will zip apart his stall!"
  
  "But can he get through all the locked doors?" Irene asked, turning worried. Her moods were swinging back and forth now. "He can't do magic himself, and there's no one with him to—"
  
  "I'm way ahead of you, doll," the golem said. "I scouted all around. He can't get through those doors, but he can get out the main gate that Smash ripped off, 'cause they haven't fixed that yet, and there's a small channel outside the castle wall, and these cells are against the wall. Unless the outside wall is over his aisle-depth—"
  
  "And if it is?" she prompted, as if uncertain whether to go into a scream of jubilation or of despair.
  
  "I'm sure the wall isn't," Grundy said. "It's not more than six of your paces thick, and his aisle reaches twice that far forward. But we'll soon find out, because he'll soon be on his way."
  
  The clamor continued. "I hope Arnolde doesn't get hurt," Dor said. "King Oary took our supply of healing elixir, too."
  
  "Probably dumped it down a sump," Grundy said. "Make all the sick maggots healthy."
  
  "Stand by the outer wall," Irene told him. "When you can talk to it, Dor, we'll know the centaur's here."
  
  "I'll go check on his progress," Grundy said, and scurried away again.
  
  "That tangler should be almost full-grown now," Irene said. "I hope Arnolde has the sense to stay away from its tentacles." Then she reconsidered. "But not so far away the lack of magic kills the tree. He's got to keep it in the aisle until it does its job. Once he leaves, it will die."
  
  "Speak to me, wall," Dor said, touching the stone. There was no response.
  
  "What's up?" Smash inquired from the next cell.
  
  "Grundy took a sprouted tangler seed to Arnolde," Dor explained. "We hope the centaur's on his way here."
  
  "At length, me strength," the ogre said, comprehending.
  
  "Hey—you rhymed!" Dor cried. "He must be here!"
  
  "Me see," Smash said. He punched his fist through the wall near Dor.
  
  "You've got it!" Dor said. "Go rip open your door! Then you can free Irene and me!"
  
  The ogre tramped to the front of his cell and gleefully smashed at his front door. "Ooo, that hurt!" he grunted, shaking his gauntleted fist. The door had not given way.
  
  "His strength is gone again!" Irene said. "Something's wrong!"
  
  Dor cudgeled his brain. What could account for this partial recovery? "Where is the centaur now?" he asked his back wall, fearing it would not answer.
  
  "Right outside Irene's cell," it replied. "Clinging to a narrow track above a chasm, terrified."
  
  Dor visualized the centaur's position. "Then he can't face directly into the castle?"
  
  "He can only turn a little," the wall agreed. "Any more and he'll fall off. Soldiers are getting ready to put arrows in his tail, too."
  
  "So his magic aisle slants in obliquely," Dor concluded. "It covers this wall, but not the front of our cells."
  
  "Anybody can see that, idiot," the wall agreed smugly.
  
  Dor used his sunstone to verify the edge of the aisle. The gem flashed and darkened as it passed outside the magic. The line was only a few handspans inside Dor's wall, projecting farther into Smash's cell.
  
  "Hey, Smash!" Dor cried. "The magic's only at this end. Bash out the outer wall to let Arnolde in."
  
  "Right site," Smash agreed. He aimed his huge, horny, gauntleted hamfist.
  
  "Don't hit me!" the wall cried. "I support the whole castle!" But it was too late; the fist powered through the brick and stone. "Oooo, that smarts!"
  
  The wall turned out to be double: two sections of stone, with a filling of rubble between. Smash zipped out the loose core, then pulverized the outer barrier, gaining enthusiasm as he went. In moments bright daylight shone through the cloud of dust.
  
  The ogre ripped out more chunks, widening the aperture. Beyond was the back of the mountain, falling awesomely away into a heavily wooded valley.
  
  "Good to see you, brute!" Arnolde's voice came. "Clear an entrance for me before these savages attack!"
  
  Smash leaned out. He grabbed a stone. "Duck, cluck," he warned, and hurled his missile.
  
  There was a thud and scream as someone was knocked off the ledge. "What did you do?" Irene cried, appalled.
  
  Then Arnolde's front end appeared in the gap in the wall. Centaur and ogre embraced joyously. "I think he knocked off an enemy," Dor said.
  
  Irene sounded weak with relief. "Oh. I guess they're friends now."
  
  "We need both magic and power," Dor agreed. "Each is helpless without the other. They have come to understand that."
  
  "We have all come to understand a lot of things," she agreed, smiling obscurely.
  
  Now Arnolde faced the front door, putting it within the aisle, and Smash marched up and kicked it off its moorings. Then he took hold of the front wall and tore it out of the floor. Debris crashed down from the ceiling. "Don't bring the whole castle down on us!" Dor warned, while Irene choked on the voluminous dust.
  
  "Me wrastle this castle," the ogre said, unworried. He hoisted one paw to the ceiling, and the collapse abated.
  
  There was a stray guard in the hall. The man watched the progress of the ogre a few moments in silence, then fainted.
  
  Grundy reappeared. "Troops coming," he reported. "We'd better move."
  
  They moved. Doors and gates were locked, but Smash smashed them clear like so much tissue. When they encountered a wall, he burst right through it. They emerged into an inner court, where flowers grew. "Grow! Grow! Grow!" Irene ordered, and the plants exploded upward and outward.
  
  "Where is our safest retreat?" Dor asked the next wall.
  
  "The other side of me, dolt," it replied.
  
  Smash opened another hole and they trooped out into a section of forest. Soon they had hidden themselves well away from the castle. They were together again and free, and it felt wonderful.
  
  They paused, catching their breaths, assessing their situation. "Everybody all right?" Dor asked around. "No serious injuries?" There seemed to be none.
  
  "So have you reconsidered?" Irene inquired. "You know how I abhor you."
  
  He looked at her. She was still wearing his jacket over her bare upper torso, her hair was tangled, and dirt smudged her face. She seemed preternaturally lovely. "Yes," he said. "And the answer comes out the same. I still hate you." He took her in his arms and kissed her, and she was all eager and yielding in the manner of her kind—when her kind chose to be.
  
  "If that be hate," Arnolde remarked, "I would be interested in witnessing their love."
  
  "The idiots are engaged to each other," Grundy explained to the others. "It seems they saw the light in the darkness, or something."
  
  "Or something," the centaur agreed dubiously.