Crewel Lye (32 page)

And that,“ Jordan the Ghost concluded, ”is my story, sad as it may be. I was an ignorant barbarian fool and I paid the price. Yet today I have happiness of a sort, for I have seen the dark age of Xanth end at last and I love Renee. And now I have the memory of my living history, thanks to the crewel lye you used to clarify the tapestry. I thank you, little Princess, though not all of my memories are pleasant."

Ivy considered. She had found the ghost's tale to be more of a narrative than anticipated, with some aspects that were a trifle awkward for a girl of five to comprehend. It had granted her the wish she had made on a starfish: to know the origin of the forget-spell on the Gap. A certain mystery remained about that, since that spell had been applied to the Gap long before Magician Yin-Yang lived, but still, it was an answer. Now she wondered what the big deal was about summoning the stork; wasn't it just a matter of kissing? Her parents tended to get evasive when her questions about such points became too pointed, and she had the suspicion that Jordan would be no more candid. Still, it was worth a try. “Some things have changed,” she said.

“Oh?”

“We live in modern times. Storks no longer deliver babies directly to the mothers.”

“They don't?” Jordan asked as if amused. That was an annoying trait adults had. “I must be out of touch.”

“Yes. Today the storks deposit the bundles under cabbage leaves. Probably it saves them time. If you had done that with the ogret, you wouldn't have had to worry about the ogre and ogress.”

“That must be why the storks changed it,” Jordan agreed.

“That's where my mother found dumb Dolph, my piddling baby brother.”

“That's no way to speak of him,” Jordan said.

“Well, he is piddling,” she insisted stoutly. “They have to keep a diaper on him all the time, and keep changing it. I'm sure it's more trouble than he's worth.”

“There is that,” the ghost agreed.

Now came the clincher. “I don't quite understand this business about summoning storks anyway,” Ivy said petulantly. “Exactly how is that done?”

“Um, I forget,” Jordan said awkwardly.

“Well, let's zero in on one of those scenes in the tapestry and enlarge the detail. That should refresh your memory.” Ivy was very practical about satisfying her curiosity.

“I'm sure that's not necessary,” Jordan said quickly. “It's a very dull business.”

“How do you know, if you don't remember?”

“Well, I just remember that it probably wouldn't interest you. Children don't do it, you see.” But the ghost had turned a shade or two whiter than he had been.

There was no question about it; Jordan was part of the Adult Conspiracy. There was some secret here that all grown-ups wanted to keep from all children. “Let's go back to the beginning,” Ivy said. “Where you and Elsie--”

“Ah, Elsie,” the ghost said sadly. “I'd like to know how she survived.”

“Uh, yes,” Ivy agreed, curious about that, too. So when the tapestry zeroed in on Elsie, just after Jordan had left her, she followed the woman forward instead of backward. Ivy, like Jordan, had her weaknesses; curiosity tended to overcome her common sense. What had happened to Elsie?

As it turned out, Elsie did not grieve long. A handsome farmer began paying attention to her the moment Jordan left; as time passed, without Jordan's return, her interest turned to the farmer. In due course she married him, and the stork delivered a baby, but the lights were always out when the couple set about signaling the stork, so Ivy still was unenlightened.

“That's a relief!” Jordan exclaimed.

“What?” Ivy demanded irately.

“To learn that I didn't ruin Elsie after all,” the ghost said. “Now I don't have to feel guilty any more. She was better off without me. I was just a passing fling for her, as she was for me.”

“Oh.” Now Ivy's full attention returned to Jordan. “Your magic talent--could you revive today, if your bones were put back together?”

The ghost considered. “I don't know. It's been a long time--and anyway, I don't know where my parts are buried, so they can't be put together.”

“I know where they are,” a faint voice said behind him.

Jordan turned. “Oh--Renee! I didn't know you were there!”

The female ghost took better form. Ivy could see that she must have been very pretty in her life. “I--looked for them, and the trees showed me,” Renee said.

“Why did you do that?” Jordan asked, perplexed.

“Because I love you.”

Jordan was abashed. “I never thought to look for your bones! I must not love you as much as you love me!”

“It's all right,” Renee said comfortingly. “I am not as lovable as you are, Jordan.”

Ivy pounced on the information. “Take me to Jordan's bones!” she exclaimed. “I'm going to put them together, so he can live again!”

“But it might not work,” Jordan protested.

“Nonsense!” Ivy said with the certainty only a child her age could muster. “You can do it if you try.” She turned to Renee. “Show me!”

Obediently, Renee led the way out of the castle and across the moat and into the orchard. “The head is here, under the roots of this skullery tree.” She indicated the tree, which was hung with pots and kettles and other kitchen utensils. Indeed, there did seem to be skull designs on the utensils. This location was obvious, now that attention had been called to it.

“We'll have to dig it out,” Ivy said, eyeing the firm turf beneath the tree.

The two ghosts spread their foggy hands. “We are unable to affect material things,” Jordan said. “I could not even invoke the pictures of the tapestry myself; only a living, solid creature can do that, and not all of them.”

Ivy looked at her cute little hands. She considered the trouble she would be in if she got them and her dress messed up. “I'll get help,” she decided.

“Help?” Jordan asked. “Any adult is likely to ask awkward questions.”

“Don't I know it! That's the one thing adults are really good at.” She glanced at the ghost. “Except maybe barbarians.”

“Thank you,” Jordan said wryly.

“Perhaps the little dragon--” Renee murmured.

Ivy brightened. She put two fingers into her mouth and made a piercing whistle.

There was a stir from the far side of the castle. In a moment Stanley came steaming along. He whomped up to Ivy expectantly.

Ivy pointed to the ground. “There is a skull under here. Sniff!”

Stanley sniffed. In a moment he located it. He indicated the spot with a jet of steam.

“Dig it out--carefully,” Ivy ordered.

Stanley was glad to cooperate. He steamed the ground, making it soft, then dug with his front claws. Soon he sniffed again, steamed the dirt sodden, and used his teeth to dig out the dirty skull.

“Oh, you're so good at that!” Ivy exclaimed, stretching her arms around Stanley's neck for a hug. She had perfected the technique of female flattery by watching her mother handle her father. It certainly worked on Stanley; he blushed bright green with pleasure.

Soon they steamed the skull clean and white, and Ivy carried it to the next location. Renee showed them to a shoe-tree, with boys' and men's shoes in every stage of growth. Sure enough, down under the roots, its foot nestled in a buried hiking shoe, was one of Jordan's skeletal legs. Stanley dug it out carefully and steamed it clean.

This growing mass of bones was getting complicated for Ivy to carry, so they made a cache of bones under a parasol tree, out of sight of the castle. Ivy didn't want any adult telling her no! Adults were all too prone to say no, apparently for no reason other than sinister pleasure in uttering the syllable.

The other leg was under a female shoe-tree, wearing a ragged lady-slipper; no one would have thought to look for it there! Stanley was enjoying this; he liked finding things, though he was a little miffed about not being allowed to chew up the bones once he found them. But he was willing to settle for Ivy's hugs instead. “Males have always been fools about that sort of thing,” Jordan muttered reminiscently.

The arms were beneath separate arms-trees, nestled among the old rusted swords, maces, and spears that had been dropped unharvested in bygone years. One hand still held the sword recovered from the Knight, which remained stainlessly shiny. “Odd that she should have taken the trouble to put that sword in my hand,” Jordan mused. “As if I died fighting. Why should she bother?” Jordan's own sword, of course, had been used by the evil Threnody to bury the chunks of him; there was no telling where that was now, if it hadn't rusted away entirely. It had been a good sword, but not that good.

The upper section of the torso was buried beneath a chest-nut tree. The skeletal rib cage was packed in a chest: another retrospectively obvious location. Threnody had evidently taken a lot of care in hiding each piece in a region so fitting that no one would think of it. “She must have been afraid that if any piece of me were found, someone would realize where the others were,” Jordan said, shuddering at the mute malice of the demon-spawn's mischief.

One section remained, and this was beneath a huge, thick ash tree. “She planted my posterior 'neath the grass of an ash!” the ghost lamented.

“A fat ash,” Ivy agreed, contemplating the girth of the tree.

Stanley sneezed as he sniffed out the precise location, for the fine ashes beneath the tree tickled his snoot. Then he dug down through the stratified layers of ash until he could get a tooth on the skeletal rump.

At last Jordan's entire skeleton was heaped beneath the parasol. Ivy arranged the pieces in order, so that the figure lay complete on the ground. “Now what?” she asked. “Does it just start walking, like one of the skeletons of the gourd?”

“After four hundred years, as I said, I'm not sure,” Jordan replied cautiously. “I've never been dead that long before.”

“Here, I brought some healing 'lixer,” Ivy said. She took out a bottle and sprinkled it over the bones. Still, nothing happened.

“You see, since all my flesh is gone--” Jordan began.

“Nonsense! All it takes is concentration.” And Ivy concentrated.

Ivy, though a child, was a full Sorceress, with power that rivaled that of any Magician in Xanth. When she focused it, remarkable things tended to happen, such as dragons turning tame and thyme accelerating. Now she intensified Jordan's talent of recovery, which had already been boosted by the healing elixir--which itself was intensified by her talent. Jordan had no flesh to heal; only the most enduring part of him remained. It seemed like a lost cause. Yet even four hundred years could not stand against Ivy's power. Few folk ever had occasion to perceive the full extent of the magic of a Magician or Sorceress, for usually the ramifications were subtle. This was an exception.

The effect was gratifying. The bones began to knit. The leg bone connected to the thigh bone, and the arm bone connected to the shoulder bone, and the shoulder bone connected to the neck bone. All the bones connected, and soon the skeleton was intact.

Now tendons sprouted from the bones, stringing them together in a new way. Flesh formed on the surfaces, like mildew growing, surrounding the bones and tendons, thickening, turning red. Muscles developed, and organs. The skeleton became a cadaverous body. Probably the bones were becoming hollow, for Jordan's healing talent did not generate flesh from nothing; it was taken from the existing substance. But in due course, a layer of skin formed and the starving figure lay complete, the thinnest man in Xanth.

“It has to eat,” Jordan the Ghost said. “It's too thin to support life, so it's still a dead man.”

“Then why doesn't it eat?” Ivy asked.

“Dead men don't eat. It's still too weak.”

Ivy went to a nearby breadfruit tree, plucked a loaf of bread, and took out a slice. She held this to the figure's almost lipless mouth.

“That did it!” Jordan exclaimed. He floated through the air toward the figure as if drawn by some vacuum. The figure inhaled--and the ghost was sucked into the mouth.

“Good-bye, Jordan!” Renee cried faintly, sounding sad for this parting. And of course it was a parting, for he was departing the world of ghosts.

Now the body was breathing. The mouth opened slightly, and Ivy poked in the bite of bread. The mouth closed, and the jaws slowly chewed. At first it seemed almost too much for the teeth to bite through the soft bread, but soon the motions strengthened as the nourishment entered the body.

She fed him several pieces, and then some fruits, and gradually the body became more animated. The sunken eyes opened, and one arm twitched. Finally that hand was able to lift and grasp a piece of bread and move it to the mouth. Jordan was feeding himself!

But time was passing, and Ivy had to return to the castle for supper, lest the grown-ups get suspicious. “Stanley--guard!” she ordered the little dragon, indicating the strengthening body. She plucked assorted additional fruits and dumped them down in a pile for the body to eat. Then she went into the Castle Roogna, where she got caught up in all the make-work adults foisted off on children, such as eating greens, brushing her teeth, looking at picture books, and going to bed. She couldn't get away to see to the important business. Angry, she kicked at the monster under the bed, but it was smart enough to skulk just out of reach.

First thing in the morning, she returned to the orchard. Jordan was gone--but Stanley came frisking up and led her to the former ghost. Jordan the man was now on his feet and picking fruit for himself. He was still very thin, but the healing elixir and his healing talent, as enhanced by Ivy's own talent, had restored him remarkably. He was now the shadow of his former barbarian self, tall and broad-shouldered and hank-haired and big-footed, the very outline of the model of a handsome man. He was walking from tree to tree, taking all the fruit he could reach and cramming it into his mouth, still ravenous.

Ivy clapped her hands with childish glee. “Jordan, you're really alive!” she cried. Of course he had been alive the evening before, but so thin and weak that she really didn't think of it the same way.

“Mph sre m,” he agreed through a mouthful of fruitcake from one of the garden's valuable crossbreed trees. “Vut--”