"You certainly did," Dor agreed. "I'm really breathless."
"You some sort of Magician or something?"
That describes it."
"Oh." The triton swam away, affecting loss of interest
The second challenge was now before them. There was a narrow ledge of stone between the moat and the castle wall. Dor found no obvious entry to the castle. "It's always this way," Grundy said wisely. "A blank wall. Inanimate obstacle. But the worst is always inside."
"Good to know," Dor said, feeling a chill that was not entirely from his soaking clothing. He was beginning to appreciate the depth of the challenge King Trent had made for him. At each stage he was forced to question his ability and his motive: were the risk and effort worth the prize? He had never been exposed to a sustained challenge of this magnitude before, where even his talent could help him only deviously. With the counterspells against things-giving away information, he was forced to employ his magic very cleverly, as with the moat. Maybe this was the necessary course to manhood-but he would much prefer to have a safe route home. He was, after all, only a boy. He didn't have the mass and thews of a man, and certainly not the courage. Yet here he was-and he had better go forward, because the triton would hardly let him go back.
The mass and thews of a man. The notion appealed insidiously. If by some magic he could become bigger and stronger than his father, and be skilled with the sword, so that he didn't have to have an ogre backing him up-ah, then wouldn't his problems be over! No more weaseling about, using tricks to sneak by tritons, arguing with plaques
But this was foolish wishful thinking. He would never be such a man, even when full grown. "Full groan," he muttered, appreciating the morbid pun. Maybe he would have made a good zombie!
They circled the castle again. At intervals there were alcoves with plants growing in them, decorating the blank wall. But they weren't approachable plants. Stinkweeds, skunk cabbages, poison ivy-the last flipped a drop of glistening poison at him, but he avoided it. The drop struck the stone ledge and etched a smoking hole in it. Another alcove held a needle-cactus, one of the worst plant menaces of all. Dor hastened on past that one, lest the ornery vegetable elect to fire a volley of needles at him.
"You climbed a wall of glass?" Dor inquired skeptically, contemplating the blank stone. He was not a good climber, and there were no handholds, steps, or other aids in existence.
"I was a golem then-a construct of string gunk. It didn't matter if I fell; I wasn't real. I exist only to do translations. Today I could not climb that glass wall, or even this stone wall; I have too much reality to lose."
Too much reality to lose. That made sense. Dor's own reality became more attractive as he pondered the possible losing of it. Why was he wishing for a hero's body and power? He was a Magician, probable heir to the throne. Strong men were common; Magicians were rare. Why throw that away-for a zombie?
Then he thought of lovely Millie. To do something nice for her, make her grateful. Ah, foolishness! But it seemed he was also that kind of a fool. Maybe it came with growing up. Her talent of sex appeal-
Dor tapped at the stone. It was distressingly solid. No hollow panels there. He felt for crevices. The interstices between stones were too small for his fingers, and he already knew there were no ledges for climbing. "Got to be in one of those alcoves," he said.
They checked the alcoves, carefully. There was nothing. The noxious plants grew from stone planters sitting on the rampart; there was no secret entrance through their dirt.
But the niche of the needle-cactus seemed deeper. In fact it curved into darkness beyond the cactus. A passage!
Now all he had to do was figure out how to pass one of the deadliest of the medium-sized plants of Xanth. Needle-cactuses tended to shoot first and consider afterward. Even a tangle tree would probably give way to a needier, if they grew side by side. Chester the centaur, a friend of Dor's father, still had puncture scars marring his handsome rump where a needier had chastened him.
Dor poked his head cautiously around the corner. "I don't suppose you feel like letting a traveler pass?" he inquired without much hope.
A needle shot directly at his face. He jerked violently back, and it hissed on out to land in the moat There was an irate protest from the triton, who didn't like having his residence littered.
"The needier says no," Grundy translated gratuitously.
"I could have guessed." How was he going to pass this hurdle? He couldn't swim under this cactus, or reason with it, or avoid it. There was barely room to squeeze by it, in the confined alcove.
"Maybe loop it with a rope, and haul it out of the way," Grundy suggested dubiously.
"We don't have a rope," Dor pointed out. "And nothing to make one with."
"I know someone whose talent is making ropes from water," Grundy said.
"So he could pass this menace. We can't. And if we did have rope, we'd get needled the moment we hauled the cactus out into the open."
"Unless we yanked it right into the moat." Dor chuckled at the thought. Then he got serious. "Could we fashion a shield?"
"Nothing to fashion it from. Same problem as the rope. This ledge is barren. Now if cacti don't like water at all, maybe we can scoop-"
"They can live without it, but they like it fine," Dor said. "They get rained on all the time. Just so long as it doesn't flood too much. Splashing won't do any good, unless-" He paused, considering. "If we could send a lot of water flowing through there, flood out the cactus, wash the dirt from its pot, expose the roots-"
"How?"
Dor sighed. "No way, without a bucket. We just aren't set up to handle this cactus."
"Yeah. A firedrake could handle it. Those plants don't like fire: it burns off their needles. Then they can't fight until they grow new ones, and that takes time. But we don't have any fire." He shook a few drops from his body. "Sometimes I wish you had more physical magic, Dor. If you could point your finger and paralyze or stun or burn-"
"Then the Good Magician would have had other defenses for his castle, that those talents would be useless against. Magic is not enough; you have to use your brain."
"How can a brain stop a needier from needling?" Grundy demanded. "The thing isn't smart; you can't make a deal with it."
"The cactus isn't smart," Dor repeated, an idea forming. "So it might not grasp what would be obvious to us."
"Whatever you're talking about is not obvious to me, either," the golem said.
"Your talent is translation. Can you talk cactus language too?"
"Of course. But what has that to do with-"
"Suppose we told it we were dangerous to it? That we were salamanders, burning hot, about to burn it down?"
"Wouldn't work. It might be scared-but all it would do would be to fire off a volley of needles, to kill the salamander before the creature could get close."
"Hm, yes. But what about something that wasn't threatening, but was still sort of dangerous? A fireman, maybe, just passing through with flame on low."
Grundy considered. "That just might work. But if it failed-"
"Doom," Dor finished. "We'd be pincushions."
Both looked back at the moat. The triton was watching them alertly. "Pincushions either way," Grundy said. "I sure wish we were heroes, instead of golems and boys. We're not cut out for this sort of thing."