Free Esrever Doom (Xanth) by Piers Anthony Page B

having to eat and peep and all.”
    He was about to ask about “peep” but then realized that it must be another accidental vowel substitution, like “bloop” for “bleep.” “Living folk do.”
    She shuddered. “Yes.” She took a deep breath. “So now you can recoil away from me. No one wants to touch a zombie.”
    It was a sentiment he understood in a rather different context. “But you’re not a zombie now.”
    “Oh, I am, inside. A zombie in living human form.”
    That might be, but he repressed his urge to cast her abruptly loose. It would not be kind. “If I may ask, what prompted you to change state and come to see the Good Magician?”
    “Xanth is running low on zombies, and needs more.”
    The surprises just would not stop coming. “I should think Xanth would want to be rid of zombies.”
    “No, Xanth needs zombies. We do important things, like serving in bad dreams, and of course we guard Castle Roogna from harm.”
    “Castle Roogna,” he repeated. He had heard that name before.
    She took it as a question. “That’s the capital of human Xanth, where the king lives. It has to be protected, so we zombies do it. If there’s a bad threat to Castle Roogna, we will rise out of the ground and deal with it. No living army wants to fight us.”
    Kody appreciated why. “I’m sure you are effective.”
    “We are. But we don’t last forever. We wear out and fade out. So there needs to be fresh zombies to take our places. But since the Zombie Master retired there have been no new zombies made. So we are getting thin. So to speak.”
    “Now I see the problem.”
    “So we drew rotten straws, and I got the short one, and had to take the treatment to become alive for a month or so, so I can go among living folk and find a way to replenish the zombie stock. That’s why I’m here. But if anyone knows I’m really a zombie, they won’t help. That’s why it’s supposed to be secret.”
    “I will keep your secret,” he repeated gallantly.
    “Oh, thank you!” she said. Then, impulsively, she kissed him.
    And recoiled. “Oh, I didn’t mean to do that! I’m so sorry! You must be sickened.”
    He had made it a point not to flinch. Actually the kiss, sincere and fleeting as it was, had been nice. “Not at all. You’re fleshly now.”
    “Oh, that’s right. I forgot.”
    Dara returned with the refreshments. “I see you two have gotten to know each other.”
    Kody and Zori quickly disengaged. “We have been talking, yes,” Kody said.
    “More than that, I think. No matter. I brought tsoda pop fresh from Lake Tsoda Popka, and hot cross buns.”
    Kody picked up a bun. It was quite hot, and the expression on its surface was indeed cross verging on angry. Maybe it didn’t like to be eaten.
    Zosi hesitated. He realized what her problem was: she hadn’t eaten before, in the living state, and was wary of the digestive complications. “Take small, ladylike bites,” he suggested. “Chew carefully and swallow. It takes several hours for it to, um, reappear.”
    “You’re telling her how to eat?” Dara asked. “What presumption!” Obviously she did not know the girl’s origin.
    “Oh, no, he’s right,” Zosi said quickly. “I had a—a complication, and feared making a mess.”
    “A complication? In my day they called it flirtation.”
    To forestall further questions, Kody asked Dara one. “How is it the Good Magician came to marry a demoness?”
    “Oh, that goes way back over a hundred and sixty years. I was his very first wife, if not his first love.” She continued with the story, as he had hoped, and asked no further questions of them. Zosi squeezed his hand appreciatively, understanding what he had done.
    Then Wira reappeared, interrupting the romantic narrative. “It seems the scheduling was not a mistake,” she said. “The Good Magician wants to see you both at the same time. I apologize for the delay.”
    “That’s all right,” Kody and Zosi said almost together. Both of them