“Yes. Talents attach to bodies or to souls. Those that attach to souls remain with the spirit when a person dies. Even some ghosts have talents. Mine is a soul attachment.”

  “So you can be dangerous in life or death.”

  “Yes. But I would not abuse it, any more than you would abuse yours. It is a matter of princessly ethics.”

  Princely ethics too. She was his kind of woman, through and through. If only she weren’t dead!

  “Bleep,” he muttered.

  “I think I know what you’re thinking. You wish I were alive.” She inhaled beautifully for a sigh. “So do I.”

  Morose suffered a surge of emotion. “Kiss me,” he said.

  “I will if you wish. But are you ready? I remain a zombie. I will never deceive you on that or anything else.”

  He did not argue the case. He kissed her.

  She kissed him back warmly. Little hearts flew out. Some were living, some dead.

  He drew back just enough so he could talk. “You are warm!”

  “Why, so I am,” she agreed, surprised again. Then she saw the hearts. “I fear I have fallen in love with you, and that is heating me. I do remain dead physically, if not emotionally.”

  That did it. She was honest even when love was on the line. “And my love will sustain you. Marry me and be my zombie queen. It will serve my folks right for trying to force the issue. The requirement is a princess; it is not specified that she be alive.”

  Tears came to Zoila’s eyes, something that only a very fresh zombie could manage. “Oh, Morose! I do agree.”

  “We will tackle the matter of stork signals. Any two species can make crossbreeds; why not a living-dead crossbreed?”

  “Why not?” she agreed. “I shall be happy to go through the stork-signaling motions as many times as you wish.” They kissed again. She heated further.

  “It has been quiet in the hall,” he said. “It should be safe to resume our trek.”

  “Yes. Also, I believe I know where there is a couple-sized mirror, so you can take us directly to the Palace of Modicum.”

  “There will surely be a hassle, but we can prevail if we stand firm.” Then he thought of something else. “They will seek technicalities to try to disqualify you. Are you a virgin?”

  “I am, though that is increasingly difficult to maintain when I am this close to you. My only possible disqualification is my absence of life.”

  “Your life impairment,” he corrected her, smiling.

  The scene dissolved. “The issue is settled,” Apoca said. “Girl got Boy.”

  “Which is satisfying,” Ghorgeous said. “But what is our larger business here in the zhombie realm? This can’t be a random incident.”

  There was the sound of a slightly spoiled drum. The ghost flicked out, then returned. “Zombies are approaching us. It looks like the zombie king.”

  “And that may be our answer,” Batoness printed. “We have just done the zombies some good.”

  “It’s green here,” Vinia said. “No danger.”

  They held firm, Nolan rising to his feet with his hand near his sword, just in case. He lacked experience with zombies and did not completely trust them.

  The zombie troupe arrived. It was indeed the king, looking moderately fit, with his ragged courtiers. “Ghreeting, live vhisithors. Our dhragon reported,” he said.

  Apoca realized they had forgotten the zombie dragon. Of course it had returned to the one who sent him, and it seemed was smart enough to tell what he had done. “We meant no harm to your folk,” Apoca said cautiously.

  “Yhou enabled a zombie princess marriage to a live prince. Unlives matter! This will combat anti-zhombie prejudice in Xhanth.”

  “I suppose it will,” Apoca agreed cautiously. Did this prospect upset the king?

  Nolan was more direct. “What is the purpose of this visit?”

  The king nodded, shaking loose a section of skin from his forehead. “Whe whill dho yhou a rheturn favor. Here is your phlaque.” A zombie soldier laid the moldering octagon down before them. It said not here.

  “Thank you,” Nolan said. Apoca suspected that he was as relieved as she was that the Dwarf Demon was not hiding in the zombie realm.

  “Ahnd here is Rocker Robot.” The king gestured.

  An odd device with four wheels set around its pyramidal-shaped body rolled squeakily forward. It was caked with dirt and cobwebs, and its struts were rusty. It looked as if it had been buried a long time.

  They simply stared at it, unable to make much sense of it.

  “Yhou’re whelcome,” the king said, and departed with his retinue.

  They looked at one another, perplexed. It seemed they had inherited a zombie robot.

  Chapter 9

  Robot

  Nolan took stock. First things first: where were they going next? “Let’s return to the nexus and consider paths,” he said. “Um, Gent, can you see that the robot follows us?”

  Gent hesitated until Apoca cast him a glance. He took orders from her, not Nolan, regardless of who was the protagonist. Then he walked over to the machine, which stood about waist-high to him. “Thistle weigh,” he told it and started walking. The robot followed. At least it seemed to understand him. Nobody commented.

  They walked back the way they had come, trooping along the path, Nolan and Apoca first, accompanied by their bug friends, then the two batons, then Gent and the robot, then Vinia and Ghorgeous. Soon they reached the nexus and paused.

  “Um, before we choose a new path, let’s see if we can learn more about the robot,” Nolan said. “In case we decide to tackle the robot territory next. Maybe it will help.” He glanced at Vinia. “Is the green near it?”

  “Mixed,” the girl said. “Green background, meaning it means us no harm, but there are patches of fiery red, meaning danger. So we need to be careful around him.”

  They considered the mechanism more carefully. It was about a yard tall, long, and broad, each blank side triangular so that no matter which way it might fall, there was always a supportive triangle at the base. This was an all-terrain machine. The rust, cobwebs, and faded paint indicated long disuse, but it did seem functional in its fashion. It was a zombie? How could something that had never been alive be one of the walking dead?

  Nolan broke the silence before it could coagulate. “Can it communicate?”

  Ghorgeous floated close. “Let me explore.” She siphoned herself right into the machine, which seemed vaguely startled but not annoyed. Its top wheel spun in the air as if seeking to propel the body somewhere. Infusion by a ghost could have that effect.

  In a moment and a half she emerged, and the wheel stopped spinning. “A small-d demoness animated him for a time,” she reported. “He loved her, but she was frivolous and deserted him for a more advanced device. Some trace of her remains behind, just enough to leave him partly animate and longing for more. He really is a zombie machine.”

  “So that’s how a robot gets zombied,” Apoca said. “I wondered, since robots aren’t alive to begin with, so can’t be only partly alive.” That had been Nolan’s thought, which perhaps showed how close the two of them were getting.

  “That’s how,” Ghorgeous agreed. “Demons are spirits, like ghosts. They have more substance than ghosts, and more magic, so can become temporarily solid, while ghosts are mostly appearance, physically. But ghosts are souls, whereas Demons are not, so have more conscience, not that it does us much ghood.” She sighed. “I wish I had my body again. I’d be such a good girl.” She formed a flash of bare torso in a provocative pose that suggested otherwise.

  “How about the robot body?” Vinia asked. “Would that do you much good?”

  “I suppose, in a manner. But I’d really prefer a living body. One that could please a live man.”

  “If the robot is male, he might like it if you animated him.”

  Apoca chimed in. “You might also be able to make him more responsive, so we can find out exactly what he is good for.”

  The ghost considered. “I might,” she agreed. “I suppose I can stand animating a male host for a while for the good of the mission. It can hear and understand okay, but it has no voice box, so I’ll need someone to translate at first. Once we know what’s what, I’ll leave it to speak for itself in its own way.” She siphoned back into the machine.

  “I’ll do it,” Vinia said. “Translating is fun.” She put a hand on the machine’s surface, between wheels.

  In the remaining half moment left over from the ghost’s prior exploration, the zombie robot animated. It clicked.

  “That’s how it communicates,” Vinia said, picking up Ghorgeous’s message. “One click for Yes, two clicks for No, three for Maybe, four for It’s Complicated, and five for Get Out Fast!”

  “How’s that again?” Apoca asked. “That last sounds dangerous.”

  Vinia listened to the ghost. “It seems this robot was designed to be a bomb sniffer for a Mundane country at war. It smells explosives and leads soldiers to them, so they can be defussed.”

  “Defused,” Apoca said. “Bombs have fuses to set them off.”

  “Defused.” The girl was still learning spelling. “So the soldiers don’t get blown up. It even eats explosives; that’s what powers it physically. But it seems the robot got too close to a bomb, and the thing exploded and knocked out its computer brain. That’s a known risk, in that business. So it was dead, and they junked it. Then the demoness came and animated it—there’s not much magic in Mundania, but there are some Demons and ghosts hiding in the background—Ghorgeous was one—and made it roll to Xanth. She must have known a route that we don’t.”

  “Maybe via NoName Key,” Apoca said. “There’s a connection there, though the Mundane government won’t admit it.”

  Vinia looked up. “Maybe they’re afraid that all their citizens will flee to Xanth, if they knew.”

  “Of course they would,” Apoca said. “Nobody would stay in drear Mundania if they had a choice.”

  Nolan cleared his throat.

  “Back to work,” Vinia agreed. “Then the demoness tired of the novelty and deserted him, leaving him desalted.”

  “Desolate,” Apoca said.

  “The regular robots didn’t want a zombie, so he wound up in Zombie Land. But I guess the zombies didn’t want him either, because he’s a machine, so they gave him to us,” Vinia concluded, translating for Ghorgeous.

  “So at last he is ours,” Nolan said. “At least now we know his background.”

  The ghost emerged. “Rocker’s not a bad sort. He just wants to do his job. Now that he’s animated by magic rather than Mundane science, he’s lonely. He likes our company and will help us any way he can.” She made half a pause. “And there’s something else, but I couldn’t quite suss it out.”

  “Anything dangerous?” Apoca asked.

  “Maybe. It relates to explosions, but not the ordinary ones. The rest is vague.”

  That meant that Nolan had to make a decision. Ditch the zombie robot, or gamble that they could handle whatever it was. But if there were danger, it might be present regardless of Rocker. Also, he didn’t like turning away anyone or anything that felt lonely. He had on occasion felt lonely himself, until Aurora became his companion.

  “Thank you,” the ant said. “Me too.”

  Maybe there was a compromise. The ghost had come to understand the robot reasonably well, and it surely liked her company. “Suppose you stay with Rocker, Ghorgeous, and keep alert for any such danger. Maybe he will help us see it coming.”

  “Will do.” She siphoned back inside. This did give her a kind of physical body, which had to be slightly better than nothing.

  “Now, Rocker, you may come along with us and do your thing. Ghorgeous will be with you. Let her know of any danger you discover.”

  The robot clicked once. Good enough; it was operative and responsive, at least to that degree.

  “Ides deer,” Gent said. That meant “idea.”

  Apoca looked at him. “Yes?”

  He made a gesture of kissing his own hand, then touching the robot’s metal surface.

  “Kiss Rocker!” Vinia exclaimed. “That might unfry his brain.”

  Again Nolan’s glance collided with Apoca’s glance. Her kisses had power, positive and negative. Could they negate the lingering influence of the demoness, or possibly restore some of the lost function of his original brain? It seemed worth a try. What harm could it do to an already largely wasted machine?

  Apoca went to the robot and kissed him in the middle of a triangular side panel. The top wheel spun again, and a speaking grille made a squeal as of electrocution. There was a low hum. Then it clicked four times. Something complicated had happened.

  Vinia touched the panel. “Wow! Ghorgeous says its battery is recharged and its brain circuitry is humming. It’s almost better than new. But she still doesn’t know what five clicks really means.”

  “Stay the course,” Nolan said. “Maybe events will clarify it.”

  “Thank you for your suggestion, Gent,” Apoca said, and the man smiled. He lived to please her, at present.

  “Eyed ear.”

  “Another idea?” Apoca said. “Let’s have it.”

  Gent pointed to her shoulder, then to Nolan’s shoulder. He made a zipping motion across his mouth.

  “The bugs should maintain telepathic silence,” Apoca translated. “In case the robots have special sensors and can hear them. So that we maintain a hidden resource, just in case.”

  Nolan nodded. So did Vinia. Rocker clicked once.

  “We agree,” Aurora said. “We will alert you only if we spy something critical.”

  “Thank you again, Gent,” Apoca said, and the man basked in her approval. Nolan noted privately that Gent was smart, behind the mask of his curse.

  They took the Robot path. Soon they came to a colony of old-fashioned wood-burning robots. They were of several types, wheeled, tracked, and stick-legged, small, medium, and large, some with speaker grilles and others with lighted screens. Some had tools built into their limbs, while others had weapons: clubs, knives, whips, stun probes, squirt nozzles, or guns.

  Nolan glanced at Vinia. “Two questions,” he murmured. “Is this the way we should go? Is it safe?”

  “Yes and yes.” She glanced at Rocker. “But it’s greenest around him. He can help us, I think, now better than ever.”

  Nolan approached Rocker. “Come with me.”

  Together they walked up to the chief wood robot. “We are passing through your territory on a mission of our own,” Nolan said. “Is there any problem we can help you with?”

  The chief puffed a cloud of woodsmoke. “One of our newer models would like to join your party,” his speaker grille said, “to tour the other sections, before settling down to dull wood-chopping here.”

  And Rocker clicked five times.

  Uh-oh. “Let me consult with my companions,” Nolan said diplomatically.

  They retreated to where Apoca, Gent, and Vinia waited. “We just got five clicks,” Nolan said. “Vinia, is it dangerous here?”

  “No. The path is green.”

  Was Rocker malfunctioning? “Ask Ghorgeous if she knows.”

  The girl put a hand on the robot’s panel. “Wow! There’s no physical danger, as the wood-burners are friendly. But there’s a social peril. If we let one wood robot join us, a dozen more will want to, and others in the other robot zones, until we are swamped and won’t be able to complete our search for the not here plaque.”

  Apoca shook her head. “How can Rocker know this? It’s not a bomb.”

  Vinia listened some more. “It’s a social explosion. Rocker orients on any explosion, not just physical ones. A bomb is a potential material explosion. A robot fellow traveler is a potential cultural explosion. That’s something my paths can’t track.”

  Nolan whistled. “Rocker may turn out to be more useful than we thought.”

  “We’ll have to tell the chief no,” Apoca said.

  “That may be mischief of its own. Leaders don’t like to be balked.”

  Nolan lifted a hand. “I’ll tell him.”

  Apoca nodded. “And I’ll kiss him if I have to.”

  Nolan and Apoca returned to the chief. “We regret that we are unable to take any other robots along.”

  The chief puffed a villainous cloud of smoke, and his eye pads glowed red. But before he spoke, Apoca stepped forward and kissed him smack on the faceplate.

  The smoke dissipated. “As my lady decrees,” the chief wooder said.

  “Continue your business here,” Apoca said. “Spread the word.”

  “I will.”

  They moved on, the crisis defused. “I think I like Rocker,” Vinia said.

  “Ditto,” Apoca agreed.

  Nolan also liked the way he and Apoca had handled the chief. They made a good team.

  They walked on through the wood-burning sector, noting how many of the trees had been cut down. In time there would be none left, and the robots would have to move to a new locale. But that was their problem.

  The next section was for the coal-burning robots. There were more trees standing here, but there was a huge ugly pit where the buried coal had been dug out, and the air pollution was just as bad.

  A coal boss approached them. Rocker started clicking. “If you want to pass through here,” he puffed, “you will have to—”

  Apoca stepped forward and kissed him. The clicking stopped, and the coaler retreated.

  The next section was for the gasoline-powered robots. Oil wells littered the landscape, and there were huge tanks of fuel. The air was foul.

  Then they came to a refreshingly different landscape. Windmills dotted it, and the air was clean. This was the region of wind-powered robots. They wore sails on their heads, and little propellers on their hands. It was clear that their batteries were charged by the generators at the windmills and supplemented by the personal sails and propellers.